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Title: It Never Can Happen Again
Author: William De Morgan
Release Date: July 8, 2014 [eBook #46228]
Language: English
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IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN
* * * * * *
BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN
JOSEPH VANCE
An intensely human and humorous novel of life near London in the '50s.
$1.75.
"If the reader likes both 'David Copperfield' and 'Peter Ibbetson' he
can find the two books in this one."--_The Independent._
"The first great English novel that has appeared in the 20th
Century."--_New York Times Review._
ALICE-FOR-SHORT
The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends and family.
$1.75.
"If any writer of the present era is read half a century hence,
a quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De
Morgan."--_Boston Transcript._
"It is the Victorian age itself that speaks in these rich,
interesting, overcrowded books.... Will be remembered as Dickens's
novels are remembered."--_Springfield Republican._
SOMEHOW GOOD
A lovable, humorous romance of modern England. $1.75.
"A higher quality of enjoyment than is derivable from the work of any
other novelist now living and active in either England or America.
Absolutely masterly."--_Dial._
"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the
range of fiction."--_Nation._
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
* * * * * *
IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN
by
WILLIAM DE MORGAN
Author of "Joseph Vance," "Alice-for-Short"
and "Somehow Good"
[Illustration]
New York
Henry Holt and Company
1909
Copyright, 1909.
By
Henry Holt and Company
Published November, 1909
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
OF LIZARANN COUPLAND, HER FATHER AND HER FAMILY. OF HIS
PREVIOUS STORY, AND LIZARANN'S BIRTH 1
CHAPTER II
OF JIM'S MATCH-SELLING, AND HOW HE CAME TO TAKE TO IT. HOW
HE WALKED HOME WITH LIZARANN 11
CHAPTER III
OF ROYD HALL, AND ITS LITERARY GUEST WHO HAD AN IMPOSSIBLE
WIFE 24
CHAPTER IV
OF MISS ARKROYD AND HER AVIARY. HOW MR. CHALLIS WALKED IN
THE GARDEN WITH HER. OF MR. TRIPTOLEMUS WRAXALL. AND
OF HOW MR. CHALLIS WROTE TO HIS WIFE 37
CHAPTER V
OF A RAINY DAY AT ROYD. HOW A MOTOR-CAR CAME TO GRIEF. HOW
MISS ARKROYD'S MOTHER WENT TO THANES CASTLE AND SHE HERSELF
DIDN'T 46
CHAPTER VI
OF THE GRAUBOSCHIAN PHILOSOPHY. HOW JUDITH ARKROYD WALKED
WITH MR. CHALLIS TO THE RECTORY. HOW HE SAID NOTHING
ABOUT HIS WIFE BEING HIS DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. HOW HE
WAS OUT OF HIS ELEMENT AT THE RECTORY. SALADIN AND HIS
CAT. HIS HEDGEHOG 57
CHAPTER VII
OF OTHER GUESTS AND THEIR TALK. OF A SOFA-HAVEN AND HOW MISS
ARKROYD PERCEIVED THAT MR. CHALLIS COULD WRITE A TRAGEDY.
BEAUTY A MATTER OF OPINION 76
CHAPTER VIII
OF HOW NO ACCIDENT HAD REALLY HAPPENED TO THE MOTOR-CAR.
OF A COMBAT BETWEEN TWO SISTERS, CHIEFLY ABOUT THOSE
OF PEOPLE'S DECEASED WIVES. OF FLIRTATIONS WITH MARRIED
MEN. HOW CHALLIS WROTE A LONG AMUSING LETTER TO
MARIANNE 89
CHAPTER IX
HOW MARIANNE SHOWED THAT LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND,
MRS. ELDRIDGE. WHERE WAS THAT SOFA? OF COUNTRY AND
TOWN HOUSES. JEALOUSY 101
CHAPTER X
CHALLIS'S _adieu_ TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A
COLD WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE.
MISS ARKROYD'S MESSAGE DELIVERED 120
CHAPTER XI
VATTED RUM CORNER, AND CHESTNUTS. A YOUNG TURK. HOW
LIZARANN TOLD MOTHER GROVES OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.
OF AN AMBULANCE, AND WHAT WAS IN IT. HOW LIZARANN
WENT HOME WITHOUT DADDY 135
CHAPTER XII
HOW UNCLE BOB HAD THE HORRORS. HOW LIZARANN ATE COLD
CHESTNUTS IN BED. DELIRIUM TREMENS. HOW JIM COULD
SEE AT NIGHT, AND WAS UNDER THE BED. POLICE! 148
CHAPTER XIII
HOW THE RECTOR OF ROYD TOOK A WRONG TURNING, AND PICKED
UP LIZARANN IN THE SNOW. MR. STEPTOE'S KNIFE, AND HOW
LIZARANN MADE HIM LEAVE HOLD OF IT. HOW AUNT STINGY
WAS HANDY IN CASE OF ANYTHING, AND UNCLE BOB WENT TO
SLEEP ON A SECOND-HAND SOFA 163
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE END OF THE BLIZZARD, AND OF SIMON MAGUS. HOW MR.
TAYLOR FOUND A DOCTOR. OF A CHASE THROUGH THE SNOW, AND
A CANAL LOCK. WHAT WAS FOUND IN IT. BUT SIMON WAS
INVISIBLE 175
CHAPTER XV
HOW LIZARANN WAS TAKEN TO MISS FOSSETT'S, BUT HAD A STITCH
IN HER SIDE, AND WASN'T TO GO TO DADDY TO-DAY. HOW THE
RECTOR WENT TO JIM IN THE HOSPITAL, AND JIM WAS DISAPPOINTED
ABOUT HIM 187
CHAPTER XVI
BREAKFAST IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. STRAINED RELATIONS OF TWO
SISTERS. A BATTLE INTERRUPTED. SAMARIA A GOOD-NATURED
PLACE. WHO WAS TO PAY? 202
CHAPTER XVII
LADY ARKROYD'S VISIT TO JIM. GOODY TALK. JIM AND HIS MAKER.
HOW MR. TAYLOR VISITED ANOTHER CASE. A DEATH-BED CONFESSION 213
CHAPTER XVIII
THAT NASTY LITTLE STETHOSCOPE! A RETROSPECT ABOUT THE
RECTOR AND MISS FOSSETT. A TRANSACTION IN KISSES. AUNT
STINGY'S WEEDS, AND WHAT A GOOD COOK SHE WAS 225
CHAPTER XIX
HOW AUNT STINGY BECAME MARIANNE'S COOK. A MOST OFFENSIVE
BIBLE CLASS. MR. CHALLIS'S JUDITH. ESTRILD AND THE
OSTROGOTHS. THE ACROPOLIS CLUB 236
CHAPTER XX
MRS. ELDRIDGE IN FULL BLOW. THE IMPROPER STUDY OF MANKIND.
NOTHING REALLY WRONG! AN IDENTIFICATION WITH A VENGEANCE.
HOW CHALLIS CAME HOME LATE 248
CHAPTER XXI
HOW JIM RETURNED HOME, ALL BUT ONE LEG, AND LIZARANN CALLED
ON HIM. HAD THE DEVIL GOT UNCLE BOB? HOW BRIDGETTICKS
HAD HEARD OF A SCHEME FOR LIZARANN'S BENEFIT 263
CHAPTER XXII
THE EXACT STORY OF CHALLIS'S FIRST WIFE'S FIRST MARRIAGE.
HOW HE AND MARIANNE MISSED THEIR EXPLANATION. CHARLOTTE
THE DETECTIVE. CHALLIS'S SECOND COURTSHIP, IN A NUTSHELL 276
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW CHALLIS CALLED ON MISS ARKROYD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE.
A SPRAINED ANKLE. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE. KING
SOLOMON AND HIS DJINN BOTTLE 284
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW MARIANNE WENT TO TULSE HILL. OF BOB'S PHONOGRAPH,
AND HOW HE POSTED A LETTER TO JUDITH. OF MARIANNE'S
RETURN, AND MORE MISUNDERSTANDINGS. BUT IT WOULD BE
ALL RIGHT IN THE MORNING 297
CHAPTER XXV
OF AN UNCALLED FAMILY ROW, AND HOW BOB'S BREAKFAST WAS
POSTPONED. OF A LETTER FROM JUDITH THAT MADE MATTERS WORSE 315
CHAPTER XXVI
AT ROYD AGAIN. THE BREAD OF IDLENESS. A GOOD PLAIN COOK.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PRIEST AND A PROFANE AUTHOR. THE
RECTORY AND ITS GUEST, LIZARANN. HOW THE CARRIAGE DIDN'T
STOP 323
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW JUDITH'S STAGE MANIA HAD COOLED. TROUT BEND, AND A
TICKLISH INTERVIEW. HALF-A-MILE OFF TEA. A DISCUSSION
ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 337
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BRITISH HOUSEKEEPER. HOW MRS. ELDRIDGE CAME INSTEAD
OF TO-MORROW. HER ADVICE. TELEGRAPH GIRLS. A FRENCH
WOMAN'S IDEAS. HOW THE CAT GOT NO SLEEP. HOW MARIANNE
POSTED A CIVIL SORT OF LETTER IN THE PILLAR-BOX, AND
WAS SORRY 353
CHAPTER XXIX
HOW CHALLIS MET LIZARANN IN SOCIETY. OF A LECTURE THE
RECTOR READ CHALLIS, AND ITS EFFECT ON HIS IMAGE OF
MARIANNE. HOW HE HADN'T BEEN TO ASHCROFT. IT WAS AN
UNSATISFACTORY LETTER THAT! 368
CHAPTER XXX
HOW CHALLIS HAD A NEW NEIGHBOUR AT DINNER AND METAPHYSICS
AFTER. HOW HE WAS GUILTY OF EAVESDROPPING, AND MET
MISS ARKROYD AFTER IN A LITTLE GARDEN CALLED TOPHET.
A FOOL'S PASSION. WHAT ABOUT BOB? 382
CHAPTER XXXI
CONCERNING A ROSEBUD, AND MARIANNE'S TORTOISESHELL KNIFE.
CHALLIS'S PRESENCE OF MIND. THE FOOL ON FIRE. DEFINITION
WANTED OF DEFINITION. CHALLIS'S SUDDEN CALL BACK
TO TOWN. HOW SIBYL HAD SEEN IT ALL 394
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW LIZARANN AND JOAN PLAYED TRUANT. OF A RIDE IN A
MOTOR, AND ITS BAD EFFECTS. HOW LIZARANN CONVALESCED,
AND JUDITH WALKED HOME FROM CHURCH WITH THE RECTOR.
HOW MARIANNE HAD BOLTED WITH THE TWO CHILDREN 412
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHALLIS'S INSIPID RETURN HOME. WHAT HAD IT ALL BEEN, THIS
DREAM? OLD LINKS WITH BYGONES. HOW CONFESS, AND
TO WHAT? OF A FIRE GOD GAVE FOR OTHER ENDS 425
CHAPTER XXXIV
A BAD RAILWAY ACCIDENT. AND, AFTER ALL, MARIANNE WAS AT
HOME. CHALLIS'S REPORT OF ROYD. BUT, NO!--MARIANNE
WOULDN'T HAVE JUDITH SLURRED OVER 434
CHAPTER XXXV
OF MUTUAL MISTRUST. HANDSOME JUDITH! BUT MARIANNE HAD
NO WISH TO PRY INTO HER AFFAIRS. HOW MATTERS WERE
COMFORTABLER. PLEASE BURN THAT POSTSCRIPT! CHALLIS'S
EXPLANATION. HOW IT FAILED, AND HE WENT FOR A WALK 444
CHAPTER XXXVI
HOW CHALLIS AND HIS WIFE PARTED. A DINNER AT THE CLUB,
AND HIS RETURN FROM IT. WHAT HAS BECOME OF YOUR MISTRESS?
A LETTER FROM MARIANNE CRAIK. DAMN CHARLOTTE
ELDRIDGE! 456
CHAPTER XXXVII
HOW CHALLIS COULDN'T BELIEVE MARIANNE WAS IN EARNEST.
HOW HE SOUGHT HER AND FAILED. THE EYES OF HOLY WRIT.
THE DISGRACEFUL TRUTH. DEAR MISS ARKROYD! WHY FIGHT
AGAINST INFLICTED LIBERTY? GLENVAIRLOCH TO LET 465
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE EMPTY HERMITAGE. A COMPROMISE ABOUT BOB. HOW MRS.
STEPTOE HAD NOTHING TO CONCEAL. HOW CINTILLA CAUGHT
MR. CHALLIS. CALYPSO'S RUG ISLAND. GOOD-BYE! PROMISE
NOT TO COME TO BIARRITZ! THE SKEIN WOUND 481
CHAPTER XXXIX
OF THE NEWS MR. ELPHINSTONE TOLD MRS. PROTHEROE. HOW
CHALLIS HAD FOLLOWED JUDITH TO MENTONE. YOUNG MRS.
CRAIK AND HER DEAD DICKY-BIRD. HOW CHALLIS BECAME
A KNIGHT 497
CHAPTER XL
HOW MISS FOSSETT WENT TO ROYD. ON SUSPENSION OF OPINION.
ANXIETY ABOUT LIZARANN. A VISIT TO JIM, AND A RETROSPECT.
HOW MISS FOSSETT MADE A NICE MESS OF IT 513
CHAPTER XLI
HOW JIM FOUND A MISSION IN LIFE, AND LIZARANN MOVED TO
MRS. FORKS'S COTTAGE. OF A FINE AUTUMN, AND HOW ALL
WAS RIGHT TILL SOMETHING WENT WRONG. OF A SEASIDE
SCHEME, AND ITS EFFECTS ON JIM 523
CHAPTER XLII
HOW A NAUGHTY LITTLE GIRL CAME OUT IN THE COLD AND TALKED
TO HER DADDY. AND HOW WINTER MADE HER WORSE. OF A
TALK BETWEEN THE RECTOR AND MISS FOSSETT, AND A SUGGESTION
SHE MADE TO HIM 534
CHAPTER XLIII
CHALLIS'S VISIT TO THE RECTORY. A VISIT TO JIM AT THE WELL.
HOW LIZARANN WAS AT THE SEASIDE. ST. AUGUSTIN'S SUMMER. HOW
THEY MET SALADIN. HOW CHALLIS TOLD ALL 543
CHAPTER XLIV
THE RECTOR'S OPINION, AND WHY IT CARRIED NO WEIGHT. OF THE
EFFICACY OF PRAYER, AND WHY CHALLIS DOUBTED IT. YET THE
RECTOR TOLERATED HIS IMPIETY 552
CHAPTER XLV
HOW CHALLIS AND JUDITH MET AGAIN AT TROUT BEND, AND TALKED
IT OVER. HOW SHE CRIED OFF, FEELING SECURE. AND OF THE
ARRANGEMENT THEY MADE. OF A CENTENARIAN WHO GOT HALF-A-SOVEREIGN 563
CHAPTER XLVI
HOW LIZARANN SAW THE SEA, AND A CHINESE LADY WROTE A BAD
ACCOUNT OF HER TO HER FRIENDS. HOW IT NEVER REACHED
JIM, AND MISS FOSSETT WAS WIRED FOR. HOW THE RECTOR
HAD TO GO TO CHIPPING CHESTER 574
CHAPTER XLVII
OF THE APPROACH OF LIZARANN'S RETURN, AND HOW JIM'S HOPES
WERE FED BY OLD DAVID. HOW JIM DID NOT CURSE A MOTOR-CAR.
HOW LIZARANN DIED OF TUBERCULOSIS 585
CHAPTER XLVIII
HOW JIM ADDED STORIES TO HIS AIR-CASTLE, AND SMOKED HIS LAST
PIPE. HOW HE KNEW CHALLIS'S VOICE AGAIN. WHO HAD TO
BE AT THE PARK GATE BY NINE. HOW JIM HEARD THE MOTOR
COMING BACK, AND LIZARANN'S VOICE. HOW ATHELSTAN TAYLOR
ARRIVED WITHOUT HER. OF JIM'S DEATH, AND HERS 599
CHAPTER XLIX
JUDITH'S VAGARIES. HOW SHE BROUGHT SIR ALFRED CHALLIS,
INSENSIBLE, TO ROYD HALL IN A MOTOR. A MESSAGE PER
MR. BROWNRIGG TO THE RECTOR. HOW TO PROBE THE MYSTERY.
JUDITH'S RESERVE. PUBLIC IMPATIENCE. THE CHAUFFEUR'S
TESTIMONY 614
CHAPTER L
OF MARIANNE AT BROADSTAIRS, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
"DREADNOUGHT." AND HOW SHE READ OF HER HUSBAND'S
ACCIDENT ON ITS ARMOUR-PLATES, AND AT ONCE STARTED
FOR ROYD. BUT SUPPOSE THEY CALLED HER "LADY CHALLIS"! 628
CHAPTER LI
HOW CHALLIS CAME TO, AND SPOKE. BUT HE ASKED FOR MARIANNE,
AND DIDN'T KNOW JUDITH FROM ADAM. HOW THE LATTER
PROMISED TO TELL HER FATHER. THE WORLD'S GUESSES,
MEANWHILE. HOW THE DUCHESS SAID WHAT THE POINT WAS,
AND CHALLIS RELAPSED 643
CHAPTER LII
OF JUDITH'S STATE OF MIND, AND HOW SHE TOLD HER FATHER.
BUT DID NOT IMPRESS HIM AS HE WOULD HAVE WISHED. WHO
KNOWS WHAT JUDITH WAS? OF A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR TO THE
HALL. HOW NO ONE RECOGNIZED MARIANNE. IS MY HUSBAND
DYING? A SCENE ON THE BIG STAIRCASE, AND HOW TWO TOFFS
WERE FAR FROM ODIOUS. HOW THE NURSE RECOGNIZED ATHELSTAN
TAYLOR. HOW JUDITH SAID GOOD-BYE TO CHALLIS. HOW
IT CAME OUT WHO MR. KEITH HORNE'S FRIEND WAS 652
CHAPTER LIII
A POSTSCRIPT. MR. AND MRS. ATHELSTAN TAYLOR. MR. AND
MRS. BROWNRIGG. ODDS AND ENDS OF SEQUELS. THE DREAM
VANISHES, READABLE BITS AND ALL! 674
THE AUTHOR TO HIS READERS ONLY 688
IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN
CHAPTER I
OF LIZARANN COUPLAND, HER FATHER AND HER FAMILY. OF HIS PREVIOUS
STORY, AND LIZARANN'S BIRTH
Lizarann Coupland did not know what her father's employment was; but
she knew that, every morning, she saw him to the corner of Bladen
Street, put his left hand on the palin's of number three, and left him
to shift for himself. She was on honour not to watch him down Bladen
Street, and she had a keen sense of honour. She also knew by experience
that when her aunt, Mrs. Steptoe, said she would learn her a lesson she
wouldn't easy forget, Mrs. Steptoe was not referring to teacher-book
instruction like at school. And this lesson, Lizarann understood, would
be imparted by her aunt with some blunt instrument, perhaps a slipper,
in case she failed to observe her promise. She was not to go spyin' and
starin' after Father no farther than where it was wrote up "Old Vatted
Rum, fivepence-halfpenny" at the Green Man and Still. It was a compact,
and Lizarann observed it--always running away as fast as possible to
get out of reach of temptation as soon as ever her father's fingers
closed on the knob of a particular low paling. It was a paling good to
turn upside down over, which affirmed the territorial rights of the
Green Man over a certain six-foot foreshore of pavement liable else to
be claimed by the Crown, or the Authority.
Lizarann's father, James Coupland, was stone-blind, and the reason she
was sent with him every morning was because he had to cross Cazenove
Street, and Dartley Street, and Trott Street, before you come to
pavement all the way, and it wasn't safe. As soon as you got to the
Green Man, why there you were! Only like touchin' the wall, and your
stick on the right, and on you kep' direck. But as to what Lizarann's
father did, at some place on this side of the next bad crossing,
his six-year-old daughter never could guess. All she knew was that
she was useful, and assisted towards some public object, not easily
understood by a little girl, when she piloted her father to and from
his starting-point of continuous pavement, as a ship through shoals and
cross-currents, to the mouth of a canal. But the metaphor of Lizarann's
flight when she left the ship to its captain is not an easy one. If
only metaphors would not be so lobsided!
That her father was a supplicant for public charity was a surmise that
never crossed Lizarann's mind. An idea can be got of how she thought
of him by any young lady who knows, for instance, that her father is
in the Custom-House, but who has never seen the Custom-House, and has
no idea what he does there; or even by one who, having for parent a
sexton, and being kept in ignorance of his functions, conceives of him
as the Archbishop of Canterbury; or more easily--to take yet another
parallel--by one situated like Lizarann's little friend Bridgetticks,
down a turnin' out of Trott Street, whose grandfather was in an
almshouse; but who was inflated past all bearing by his livery or
uniform when the old chap was out for his holiday, and Bridget was
allowed to walk with him all along Trott Street and round the Park.
There was no abidin' of her, struttin' about!
"My grandfather's richer than your father," said Bridgetticks, after
one such occasion, "and he's got his heyesight, too."
"Fathers are better than grandfathers," said Lizarann. "Fathers goes
down Bladen Street holdin' on to nuffin', and ain't they rich, neither?
My father he fetches home nine shillings in coarpers. Aunt Stingy,
she let Uncle Steptoe get at it, and he laid some of it out in gin."
The name of this aunt, as Lizarann pronounced it, seemed to ascribe a
waspish character to its owner rather than a parsimonious one.
"You lyin' little thing, how you ever can!" exclaimed Bridgetticks.
This was because the daring sum of nine shillings took her aback.
But on consideration another line of tactics seemed more effective.
"Nine shillin's ain't nothin'," she said. "My grandfather, he's got an
allowance regular, _he_ has."
Lizarann paused before replying. She was confronted with an unforeseen
thing, foreign to human experience. What _was_ an allowance? On the
whole, it would be better to keep clear of it. She changed the _venue_
of the discussion. "He's dressed up, he is," she said. But she spoke
with diffidence, too, and her friend felt conciliated.
"Dressed up's a falsehood," she said, but without asperity. "If
you'd 'a said cloze like the Lord Mayor's Show, now! But little
infant-school pippings like you don't know nothink." Lizarann felt put
upon her mettle.
"My father," she said, "he's got a board with wrote upon. Hangs it
round his neck, he does. Like on Harthurses carts and the milk."
"You never see it on his neck, not yet you can't read. You can't read
the words on Arthurses cart." But Lizarann could read one--the middle
one--and did it, a syllable at a time: "Prov-i-ded." It was correct,
and a triumph for the decipherer. But she was doomed to humiliation.
Bridgetticks was a great reader, like Buckle, and could read what was
wrote on milk-carts all through.
"Any little biby could read _that_! You can't read 'fammy-lies,' nor
yet 'dyly.' It's no use your tryin'." But Lizarann felt unhappy, and
yearned for Culture, and tried very hard to read "families" and "daily"
on each side of "provided," while Bridgetticks gave attention to a
doll's camp on the doorstep. But "families" is very hard to read--you
know it is!--and Lizarann quite forgot to put back a beautiful piece of
stick-liquorice in her mouth during her efforts to master it.
Anybody would have thought, to look along Tallack Street, where this
colloquy took place, that the announcement on Arthurses cart "Families
provided daily" was followed out literally by Arthurs, and that that
Trust or Syndicate was driving a brisk trade in the families it
provided daily. To-day was a holiday at the Board school, and the whole
street teemed with prams. And in every pram was one biby, or more,
assimilating Arthurses milk. But they themselves had not been provided
by Arthurs; merely the milk.
The prams were nearly the only vehicles in Tallack Street, which ran
straight acrost from the railway-arch to the 'Igh Road, parallel-like,
as you might say, to Trott Street. Even Arthurses cart wasn't a real
cart, only drove by hand. A nearer approach to an ideal was the coal,
which came behind a horse, and sold itself for a shillin' a hundred,
more or less, accordin' as the season. The scales, they'd weigh down
to twenty-eight pound, if you didn't want to have capital lying idle;
but then it was a sight easier to be cheated at that, and you could
always bring two coal-scuttles, and if one of 'em _was_ wore through,
why, a stout bit of brown paper, coverin' in the hole, and there you
were! Because the dropping of fragments of coal on the pavement was not
only wasteful, but giv' them boys something to aim with. Ammunition was
scarce, owing to the way the road was kep'; similar, them boys took
every opportunity.
There were two other vehicles that were known to Tallack Street.
One came every day with a drum, and sold vegetables. The proprietor
had made himself hoarse, many years since, with shouting about the
freshness of his stock between the outbreaks on the drum, and, as life
advanced and his lung-power declined, the drum-performances encroached
on the oratory. This suited a large majority of the inhabitants,
conveying a sense of Life--was, in fact, thought almost equal to the
Play--by those who had been to it--and was so appreciated by Lizarann
and Bridgetticks that they would petition to be allowed to stand in
contact with the drum to feel the noise inside of 'em like.
The other vehicle was, however, the climax of the Joy of Living in
Tallack Street, only it demanded a 'apenny a time, and you had to
save up. But if you could afford it, it was rapture. How describe it?
Well, it was drawed by a donkey, and went round and round and round.
You yourself, and your friends, sat on truncated chairs at the end of
radial spokes rotating horizontally on a hub, which played melancholy
tunes, and you could tell what they were by looking, because there
was the ticket of it, every time a new tune come. But the execution
supplied no clue, or very little, to its identity.
Tallack Street, as you will have inferred, was a cul-de-sac, and
therefore very popular as a playground with the children of the
neighbourhood. It ended in a dead wall, formerly enclosing an extinct
factory, which had survived the coming of the railway, by which it
had been acquired, and for some reason spared; about which factory,
or, rather, its remains, an understanding had been current for about
a generation that it could be took on lease from the Company and
adapted as workshops. The board was almost illegible, except one word
"inquire," of no value apart from its sequel, which anyone who could
read would have told you at once was a name and address; but as to what
name and what address, it would have taken a scollard to tell that.
* * * * *
There came occasionally to Tallack Street a lady, who appeared to
Lizarann to make her way into her Aunt Steptoe's home on insufficient
pretexts. She certainly was not the sort of lady to get her shoes
mended by a working cobbler in a suburban slum, and Lizarann made no
pretence of understanding her. She saw very little of any of her aunt's
visitors, because she was always sent, or bundled, out the moment they
appeared, and only allowed in the house again after their departure.
She was interested and pleased, therefore, when this lady, who was
dressed quite beautiful, developed as a friend of Teacher, the familiar
spirit of the Dale Road Schools, where this little girl was learning
to sew quite beautiful. She was still more interested when she became
aware that the conversation between these two ladies related to her own
family. Teacher and the lady talked out quite loud close to her--as if
she didn't matter, bless you!
"All the streets are not as bad as Tallack Street," said the lady. "And
all the houses in Tallack Street are not so bad as that house at the
end. People named Townroe, I think--awful people!"
"Do you mean Steptoe?"
"Oh yes--Steptoe. I've tried to talk to the woman, and it's perfectly
useless. You can't do anything when the man's in the way. And as for
him--well, you know, Adeline, when these people don't attend either
church or chapel, it's simply hopeless. There's nothing to begin upon."
"The man drinks. Of course!"
"Of course! He seemed sober, though, the only time I saw him, but very
sulky. Oh dear!--he _was_ trying."
"What did he say?"
"He wouldn't say anything--wouldn't answer! And he said to his wife:
'You say a _something_ word'--you understand, Adeline?--'you say a
something word, and see if I don't smack your eye. You try it!' My
daughter talked for an hour, and then he said: 'If you think you'll
sedooce me into committing of myself, you'll find you're mistook. So
I should think better of it, if I was you. Yours werry truly, Robert
Steptoe.' Just as if he was writing a letter." Both ladies laughed,
and Lizarann pricked her finger badly, and it redded all over the
'emstitch. But she couldn't understand the laugh. She was not fond of
her aunt's husband; you can't love pock-marks unless they have some
counterpoise in beauty of disposition. But she had a certain spirit of
partisanship about her belongings, too!
"I suppose the children go to some school--Board School or something,"
said Teacher.
"They haven't children, thank Heaven! these people," said the outside
lady. "But there's a little girl--somehow--with a father. They said she
came here--at least, I suppose the 'school-house up the road' meant
here."
"Then she must be here now. What was her name? Did you make out?"
"Eliza Ann something--Doubleday, I think, as near as I can recollect.
No, it wasn't Doubleday. What could it have been?..." And this lady
tapped one hand with the other, to keep on showing how hard she was
thinking.
"Was it Eliza Ann Coupland? Come here, Lizarann, and tell the lady if
it was you."
Lizarann approached by instalments, in awe. She had received false
impressions from the conversation--one that her uncle could write a
letter, and this lady knew it. A second that her aunt's children--if
any--would have been all over little sand-pits that would catch and
hold the grime awful, like their father, and that therefore we ought to
be thankful. A third that she was a "little girl somehow," and she had
never been told that she was one somehow, only that she was a little
girl.
"Are you the little girl?" said the lady.
"I don't know, miss," said Lizarann. She thought the lady seemed
impatient. And whom did she mean by "they" when she said, "Oh
dear!--how trying they are!"?
"Ought I to tell her to say 'My lady,' or not?" said Teacher.
"Oh, bother!" said the lady. "What does your father do, my dear? You're
a nice little thing, only your mouth's too big."
Timid murmurs came from the catechumen. "What's that you say? Father
goes out to work? What does father go out to work at?"
"That's impossible!" said Teacher. "Her father's blind, and she leads
him about."
"I hope you're not telling stories, child, like the rest, because I
like you all except your mouth. Come close here, so that I can hear
you, and tell me what your father does. Only don't splutter or gabble!"
Whereupon Lizarann gave her version of her father's professional
employment. She knew she was to say, if pressed on the point, that
her father was "an asker," and she said it, standing first on one
leg and then on the other uneasily. She had a mixture of misgiving
and confidence that the statement would be sufficient; just as you
or I might have felt in stating, for instance, that our father was
an apparitor, or a stevedore, or a turnover-at-press. But she had
absolutely no idea of the meaning of her phrases.
"What on earth does the child mean? Say it again, small person!" Thus
the lady.
"A asker!" The child had the name perfectly clear, and added
"Yass!"--to drive it home--with eyes of assurance standing wide open.
Both ladies made her repeat it, and asked her what she meant by it;
but she evidently did not know. They pondered and speculated, till on
a sudden a light broke. "Is it possible she means a _beggar_?" said
Miss Fossett. Then the two of them spoke in an undertone, and Lizarann
felt that her family affairs were being discussed over her head, but by
creatures too great for her to take exception to, or even to interpret.
Presently the lady addressed her again:
"What does he ask for, little stuffy? Yes, you may come as close as
that. What does he ask for, child?"
Thereat Lizarann, in support of her family credit, said: "He took all
of nine shillings in coarpers once on a time." She couldn't compete
with the lady in birth and position, but she had a proper pride in her
race, for all that.
The lady and Miss Fossett looked at one another, and the latter said:
"It's quite possible. They do sometimes." And Lizarann felt flattered
and that she had done her duty. And that when she told her father,
he would certainly give her a peppermint-drop. She had a sense of an
improved position as she went back to her sewing. But the two ladies
went on talking about her under their breath, and she fancied they were
resuming some incidents of the previous Saturday at Tallack Street.
Teacher seemed to have heard something of them, and she now connected
them with her pupil. As the lady ripened towards departure she became
more audible.
"It only shows the truth of what I'm always saying to Sir Murgatroyd.
How can you _expect_ them to be any better when they have such wretched
homes? Give them air and light and sanitation and things, and then talk
goody to them if you like.... Oh dear!--I must rush. I've promised to
go with Sibyl and those Inglis girls to Hurlingham this afternoon."
Then the lady had a recrudescence of her perception that Lizarann was
funny, for she turned round, going away, to say to Miss Fossett: "Oh
dear, how funny they are! Fancy an Asker!" and, as it were, fell a
little into Miss Fossett's bosom to find sympathy, afterwards kissing
her, and saying, "But how good you are!" rather gushily, and making
off. She did say, however, to Lizarann: "Good-bye, little person!
Consider I've kissed you. I would, only it's such a sticky day."
Much of this conversation would have been quite unintelligible to the
child, even if she had heard the whole of it. Her mind was not prepared
to receive it, as, not having had much time to reflect since her birth,
she had not noticed that her domestic life had anything exceptional
about it. Extension of her social circle had not, so far, convinced her
that there was anything unusual in their rows and quarrels; in fact,
she was gently creeping on to a belief that Steptoes--their inclusive
name--was the rule, and the balance of the Universe the exception. But
her unconsciousness of the actual was liable to inroads from without,
and that day at school roused the curiosity of an inquiring mind.
Lizarann asked herself for the first time whether the conditions of
her home-life were really normal, and nothing better was to be looked
forward to in the future. No doubt Tallack Street would have sided with
the lady in the views she expressed of any one house in it, though each
house would have laid claim to an exceptional character for itself.
But in the case of Steptoe's its unanimity would have been impressive;
for Lizarann's Uncle Steptoe he'd be in liquor as often as not, and
frequently aim a stool or suchlike at his wife's head--besides language
you could hear the length of the street.
It does not follow that he had no provocation. Mrs. Steptoe was a
fine study of the effect of exasperating circumstances on a somewhat
uncertain temper, and Lizarann conceived of the result as a typical
aunt. She had married, some twelve years since, from motives difficult
of analysis, a cobbler who drank, towards whom she had always professed
indifference. She seemed to have based a low opinion of all mankind on
an assumption that they were none on 'em much better than her husband,
and most of 'em were a tidy sight worse. If so, the tidiness of the
sight might have disappointed orderly, old-fashioned folk. Not that Bob
Steptoe was a bad sort when he was sober. Only that was so seldom.
Now, on the Saturday evening in question, this uncle by marriage of
Lizarann, having previously taken too much beer, took too much whisky,
and became quarrelsome. "A man ain't always answerable, look at it
how you may!" said Tallack Street. Let us hope Mr. Steptoe was not,
as on this occasion he loosened three of his wife's front teeth and
indented the bridge of her nose. His blind brother-in-law, returning
at this moment, personally conducted by his small daughter, was unable
to see, but guessed that Steptoe was under restraint by neighbours,
and from mixed sounds of pain and rage and inarticulate spluttering
that his wife had been the victim of his violence. Poor Jim, mad with
anger, besought the restraining party only to let him get hold of his
brother-in-law, and he would give him what would recall him to his
memory on future occasions. Feeling the desirableness of this, they
complied; and Mr. Steptoe, when, after a painful experience of the
superior strength of Jim, he got his head out of Chancery, felt ill,
and was conducted to bed by his wife. Of whom Lizarann afterwards
reported that when she heard Uncle Bob get louder, Aunt Stingy, she
said, "You do, and I'll call Jim back again," and then Uncle Bob he
shut up.
This little girl's father had been in the Merchant Service and had
lost his eyesight through an explosion of petroleum in the harbour
at Cape Town. Current belief held that it was his own fault, saying
that Jim Coupland hadn't any call to drop a lighted match into a
hole in an oil-cask that was standing in the January sun; still less
was it necessary that he should look after it through the hole, and
receive the full blast of the inevitable explosion in his face. He
admitted these facts, but maintained that a hundred oil-casks might
have exploded in his face, and no harm done, if he had not, a few days
before, seen the Flying Dutchman. This belief could not be shaken by
argument, not even by the fact that the other men on his watch, all of
whom had seen the Phantom Ship, had retained their eyesight intact.
Didn't old Sam Nuttall--and nobody could pretend he hadn't been forty
years in the Navy--say the very first thing of all, when he told him
he'd seen the Dutchman: "Look you here, my son," he said, "you've got
to look sharp and get yourself hanged or shot or drownded, if you
want to die with eyes in your head"? And warn't he right? Anyhow, the
coincidence of the accident a few days later had created a firm faith
in the mind of Jim Coupland, and very few had the heart to try to shake
it.
Whatever the cause, Jim Coupland came back eyeless from that voyage,
and found his wife lately delivered of a female infant that did well,
and became Lizarann. But her mother did ill, presumably, and the doctor
that attended her did certainly, if the verdict of Tallack Street was
warranted. She had no call to die, said Tallack Street. Perhaps its
many matrons did not allow enough for the hideous shock of poor eyeless
Jim's reappearance. She _did_ die, and poor Jim, the happy bridegroom
of a year ago, was left a widower at eight-and-twenty, hopelessly
blind, with a baby he could never see.
Oh the tragedies Life's records have to show, that remain unpublished,
and must do so!--all but a chance one or two, such as this one just
outlined.
Lizarann was named after the ship her father made his last voyage in,
or almost after it. The ship was the _Anne Eliza_, and the parson got
the name wrong. Jim said it wasn't any odds, that he could reckon; and
Mrs. Steptoe, his sister, said, on the contrary, it ran easier, took
that way. So Lizarann she became, and Lizarann she remained. And the
tale how father lost his eyesight through seeing the Flying Dutchman
was the ever-present Romance of her youth, and would constantly
creep into her conversation, even when the subject-matter thereof was
already interesting--as, for instance, when she was discussing with
Bridgetticks an expected, or perhaps we should say proposed, addition
to the family of Lizarann's doll, which had been fixed for the ensuing
Sunday. There could be no doubt--as there is usually in the case of
human parents--about the exact hour of arrival, as the Baby was ready
dressed for the event her intended mother was looking forward to, in
hypothetical retirement, on the house-doorstep. She and her friend were
comparing notes on previous events of a like nature.
"Oh, you story!" said Lizarann, but not offensively--it was only
current chat. "My father _says_ I understand. He says I understand
ship's victuals and port and starboard." Grasp of these involved
proficiency in other departments of thought, so the implication seemed
to run. But Bridget wouldn't have it so.
"Ya'ar little silly!" she said, standing on the parapidge, and hanging
to the riling, so as to project backwards into the little forecourt;
you couldn't, speakin' accurately, call it a garden, but it had the
feelin' about it, too. "Ya'ar little silly Simplicity Sairah in a
track! Ship's victuals ain't nothing to understand, nor yet port and
starboard! Wait till you can understand fly-wheels and substraction
engines! _They'll_ make you sit up and talk!" This little girl's father
was an engineer in charge of a steam-roller.
Bridget would have said the exact reverse if the two excursions
into the relative fields of knowledge had been exchanged between
them. Lizarann respected her friend too much to conceive of her as a
time-server, and her mind cast about to fortify her position on other
lines.
"My father he says I can understand the Flying Dutchman, and he seen
her. Yass! Afore ever he lost his heyesight!"
"He's lyin', then. Dutchmen ain't women. I seen a picter-Dutchman in
trowsers." Lizarann cogitated gravely on this before she answered. "A
ship's a her," she then said. "All ships is hers." She then added, but
not as a saddening fact, merely as a thing true and noticeable, "He
never seen me, father didn't."
CHAPTER II
OF JIM'S MATCH-SELLING, AND HOW HE CAME TO TAKE TO IT. HOW HE WALKED
HOME WITH LIZARANN
Can anyone among us whose life is full of action, with Hope in his
heart and Achievement on his horizon; whose pillow whispers at night
afterthoughts of a fruitful day, and on the day that follows can,
without affectation, reproach the head that lies too long on it with
having lost something precious that cannot be regained--can such a one
conceive the meaning of blind or crippled life, that left Hope dead by
the roadside long ago, and dares not look ahead to see the barren land;
whose pillow speaks no word about the past, but only welcome hints
about oblivion, and a question with the daylight--why rise? Why rise,
indeed, and maybe miss a dream of a bygone day? Better lie still, and
thank God for the dream-world!
"I wonder what that poor devil feels like," said one first-class
traveller outside the railway-station to another, who, like himself,
gave the impression that he had plenty of luggage somewhere else,
which was being well looked after by a servant whose wages were too
high. Both were young men, well under twenty-five at a guess; and
though one was fair and the other was dark, and they were not the same
height, and their features were not alike, still the predominant force
of their class-identity was so strong that individuality was lost in
it, and most folk, seeing them _en passant_ would have spoken of them
thenceforth as "those two young swells," and dismissed them with an
impression that either might be at any time substituted for the other
without any great violence to contemporary history. They appeared to
be sauntering to the train, and the poor devil was Jim Coupland, at
his usual post by the long blank wall he used to feel his way down,
after leaving Lizarann at the corner she might not pass. The wonderer
had bought matches of Jim that he didn't want--for Jim was obliged
to make a show of selling matches, to be within the law--and had
returned change for sixpence, honourably offered by Jim. "I can't see
you, master," said the blind man, "and I never shall, not if the sky
falls, but I thank ye kindly. And I'll tell my little lass on ye, home
to-night." It was the only recompense Jim had to offer, and he offered
it.
"_I_ should kill myself straight off," said the other traveller. His
speech was quite as consequent on his friend's as most current speech
is on its antecedent; you listen closely when you hear talk, and see
if this is not the case! "Stop a bit! Don't make me split this cigar.
I haven't got another, and nothing fit to smoke is procurable in this
neighbourhood ... there!--that's right, now.... The little chocket
wouldn't snickle out. Let's see! What topic were we giving our powerful
brains to? Oh, ah!--the blind beggar. You recollect the fellah?"
"Never saw him before, that I know of."
"Perhaps you haven't. I have. But you remember the two little girls?"
"Which two?"
"That morning we went to inquire about the railroad arch. Of course,
you remember." His friend assented. "Well!--that little girl is this
chap's kid. She'll come in the evening to take him home. I've seen 'em
about together, many a time."
"I remember two little girls, where we went down that street my mother
and sister slum in. Tallack Street. Which was the kid? The bony one
with the nostril ajar, and the front teeth, that called you a cure?"
"No--the little plummy modest one, with both eyes stood open, and
something to suck. Large dark eyes." No really nice young man, such as
we like, can ever mention a girl's eyes, even a young child's, without
a shade of tenderness.
"What a sensitive youth you are, Scipio!" His friend sees through him.
"The other was a little Jezebel."
"Came out of Termagant's egg, I should say. Isn't there a bird called a
Termagant? There ought to be."
"I quite agree, but I doubt it. Well--to return to the point--you say
you would kill yourself, straight off. How do you know that? You think
you would now, but you wouldn't when it came to the scratch. This man
doesn't want to kill himself."
"Because of the little girl. He'd kill himself fast enough if he had
nothing to live for."
"My dear Scipio, that is sheer _petitio principii_. A man's having no
wish at all to live takes his wish to die for granted. Unless he has
an unnatural taste for mere equilibrium for its own sake. But the real
point is that if you were this chap, you would have exactly the same
inducements to live that he has--the little girl, for instance."
"Be calm, William! Allow me to point out that you are begging the
question yourself. The hypothetical form--'If you were this chap'--if
interpreted to imply an exchange of identity in all particulars, takes
for granted that what this chap does now I should do then. Clearly,
I shouldn't kill myself, or shouldn't have done so up to date, as he
hasn't. But the meaning of my remark is obvious to any mind not warped
and distorted by casuistry. I refer more particularly to your own. Its
meaning is that if I had two scabs instead of eyes, and was reduced to
flattering the vanity of my fellow-countrymen in order to stimulate
their liberality, I should by preference select Euthanasia." And he
lighted his cigar, which had been waiting.
"I wish that little girl was here now, to call you a 'cure' again,
Scipio. She did you a lot of good."
* * * * *
Jim Coupland heard as far as "I should kill myself straight off," which
he certainly was not meant to do by the speakers. But neither of them
were on their guard against the quickened hearing of the blind, and
neither of them heard that Jim answered, though each had an impression
the blind man was talking to himself. As for Jim, _his_ impression was
that his words reached. But then he had no means of knowing how far
off the young men were, and that, as against the shrewdness of his own
hearing, they were little better than deaf at that distance. What he
said was:
"I was minded to, young Master, at the first go off. But the wish was
on me strong for the voice of my wife, and the lips of her. And when I
lost her--ye understand--it was the cry of the baby new-born that held
me. I'd be shamed to think upon it now, young Master. The day's bound
to go by, and I mean to bide it out."
"Who are you lecterin' to? Polly--pretty Polly!" Thus an unfeeling
fiend of a boy, who hears poor Jim talking to the empty air. But Jim,
if he hears, does not heed him. His mind is far away, thinking of the
dreadful day of his return to his wife and her week-old baby, and his
coming to know that his mishap, announced by letter the day before, had
been kept from her, and was still to tell. Of the ill-judged attempt
to keep it from her yet a while, and let him be beside her in the
half-dark. And the fatal sudden light of a fire that blazed out, and
her cry of terror: "Oh, Jim, man, what have you done to your eyes?"...
Then of yet one more forlorn hope--the ill-wrought, ill-sustained
pretext that this was but a passing cloud, a mere drawback of the hour,
a thing that time would remedy--so ill-sustained that even in the few
short days before her death Jim's wife had come to know that his eyes,
stone-blind beyond a doubt, would never laugh into her face again,
would never rest with hers upon the little face she longed to show
him was so like his own. And then the end, and a grave in the parish
burial-ground he could not see.
Then of a dream of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and of a child's
cry that reached him and called him back, even as he longed of his
own free choice and will to plunge into its utter darkness. Then of a
growth of ease--a sort of working ease to get through life with--and a
term of reading, day by day, hour by hour, each tiniest change in the
inflection of the baby's cry, until one day Lizarann, to whom it had
occurred to glance round at the Universe she had been pitchforked into,
burst into a not very well executed laugh at its expense, and made poor
Jim for the first time fully conscious that he had a daughter.
It would be hard to tell all the struggles he went through before he
could reconcile himself to a new position in life, mendicancy under
pretence of match-selling. He did it at last, urged by grim necessity
and Mrs. Steptoe. Perhaps we should say _stung_ by the latter rather
than _urged_, for her attitude was that, eyes or no eyes, if her
brother wasn't going to do a hand's turn for himself, he might pack
up his traps and go, brat and all! Who was he that he was to eat his
sister out of house and home? And all because he was too proud to
beg, forsooth! Wasn't he begging already, and wasn't she alms-giving?
Yes!--only it was to be all underhanded! Nothing fair or above-board!
Why should he be ashamed to ask the public for what he wasn't ashamed
to take from two toiling relatives, the weaker of whom had suffered
so much already from the disgusting drinking habits of the other? Jim
gave way, and found excuses for his sister--he always did--in these
same disgusting habits. Perhaps he was right. Anyhow, he gave way. And
an old mate of his faked him up the inscription afore-mentioned, and
supplied the picture of the Flying Dutchman from his narrative of the
incident. And well Jim remembered how the cord he hung it from his neck
by got frayed and broke, and brought back to his mind another cord his
hand once grasped, as he swayed to and fro at the weather ear-ring of a
topsail; and his wondering--would the frayed strands of the sheet hold
under the great strain of his back-draw, or snap and fall with him into
the black gulf that was hungering for him below? He could hear again
the music of the gale that sang in the shrouds, feel again the downward
plunge of the hull into the trough of the sea, and breathe again the
air that bore its flying foam. Then he thought to himself, would not
a plunge into that black gulf, then and there, have been, after all,
the best thing for him? And answered his own thought without noting a
strangeness in its wording: "What!--and never seen my little lass!"
But the happy fancy that Jim did not beg, but only asked, took hold
of the imagination. Of course he would not beg--he would scorn to do
so--he, the strong seaman, who had lived a life of danger half of those
whose footsteps passed him daily would have flinched to think of! Why
should he hesitate to ask of them what he would have given so freely to
any one of them himself--to any one of them left in the dark? So when
Lizarann said to him one day, apropos of the fact that people's fathers
were their aunt's brothers, "Bridgettickses brother's a 'Orsekeeper.
Are you a 'Orsekeeper?" He replied that he wasn't, exactly. But he was
an Asker, to _be_ sure! And the child, catching a sort of resemblance
between the words, remembered it. And, referring to her Aunt Steptoe,
got it confirmed. It served as a barrier for a time against an insight
into the facts.
When poor Jim's speech was so brave of how the day was bound to go
by and he would bide it out, was his whole heart in his utterance?
Was there no reserve--no suppressed execration of that mysterious
unsolicited Cause that had stinted him down to darkness after a
short half-time of light? At that moment he was conscious of none--a
moment when he felt the world about him--heard the voices of his
fellow-men--felt on his face, without shrinking, the full stress of
the mid-day sun, whose rays he should never see again. But how about
the darkness of the night, that he had learned to know only by the
loneliness and the silence? In its solitude was it not now and again
almost his resolve to die, and not await another day? Almost, yes!--but
never quite. Always a decision to hear just once again the voice of his
little lass in the morning. If it were only this once, and he should
fail in strength to bear that other day; still, let it be, for now!
Just once again!
But the longest nights led each to its dawn, and poor Jim knew of each
dawn by hearsay, and started off early, on all days weather forbade not
too grossly, hold of Lizarann's 'and, and takin' good care not to crost
only when other parties done the same, actual-like, so you might place
reliance, and not get under the 'orses' 'oofs; and throughout each day
that followed Jim treasured the anticipation of its end, and looked
forward to the coming of his little lass to take him home. He would
sit and think of what her small hand would feel like in his when the
welcome hour should come for his departure; and each day as that hour
came, and he found his way back to Vatted Rum Corner to wait for her,
came also a short spell of tense anxiety lest he should not hear her
voice this time. And then the relief, when he caught the signal he had
taught her, through the noise of the traffic and the railway-whistles
near at hand.
"Ye shouldn't sing out _Poy_lot, little lass," said he, when she
turned up at the end of that day--the day of the two young men and
the sixpence. "Ye should say Pie-lott. Else ye might be anyone else's
little lass, not Father Jim's."
"I _ain't_," said Lizarann resolutely. "I'm Father Jim's. Pi-lot!" She
threw her soul into a reproduction of her father's articulation.
"Nor yet you've no need to lose your front teeth over it. Easy does it
in the end. Now again! Pi-lot!" Whereupon Lizarann repeated the word
with self-restraint, and received approval. "Not for to tear up the
paving-stones, lassie," added her father, explanatorily.
"What was that young varmint a-saying?" he asked, as they started to
return home. He was referring to words overheard--winged words that had
passed between his daughter and a boy. It was the same boy that had
called him Pretty Poll, who had followed him to the street-corner; and
had then gone on to greet Lizarann with the report that her Daddy was
waiting to give her "what-for," for being late--which she wasn't.
Probably he was the worst boy in existence--at least, Lizarann thought
he was. She was too young to appreciate his only virtue, a total
absence of hypocrisy.
"Saying as it was _your_ eyes as was out, and it didn't hurt _him_."
Jim seemed mightily amused.
"What did you say to him over that, little lass?" said he.
"Didn't say nuffint!" And, indeed, Lizarann had not seen her way to
quarrelling with two such obvious truths.
"What else was he a-saying? He said a bit more than that. I could hear
him giving it mouth."
"Sayin' he'd four nuts he hadn't ate, and me to guess which 'and they
was in beyont his back for a 'apenny." Lizarann then explained the
proposed deal at some length.
"He's a nice young sportin' charackter! Thimble-rigging isn't in it.
Why, lassie, if you _had_ guessed right, he'd just have swopped 'em
across, and took your ha'penny. He wants attendin' to with a rope's
end, he does--wants his trousers spilin'. His mother she sells the
fried eels and winkles, next door against the little shop where I"--Jim
hesitated a minute--"where I get my shaving-soap." For Jim remembered
in time that his connection with this shop was not to come to his
child's ears. His board was to be kept in the background.
Lizarann wanted badly to frame a question about this boy. Were all boys
nefarious whose mothers sold fried eels and winkles? And if so, had
this one acquired a low moral tone by contact with fried fish, or had
his parent's humble walk in life resulted from his depravity? Lizarann
gave up the idea of asking this question. It was too complex. But she
could get information about the barber's shop. She approached the
subject indirectly.
"Bridgetticks she can read what's wrote up on shaving-shops."
"What can she read on 'em, little lass?"
"She can read Easy Shaving Twopence. And Hegg-Shampoo Fourpence. And
Fresh Water Every Customer. Round in the winder in Cazenove Street."
"Brayvo, Bridgetticks! But my little lass she's going to read ever
so well as Bridgetticks--ah! and a fat lot better. And larn manners
belike, as well!"
"Bridgetticks said she'd learn Simpson's boy manners. Down the yard
where there's a dog killed his sister's cat." Lizarann spoke evidently
with some idea of joining the class. But her father had other views.
"Bridgetticks indeed! She couldn't teach manners to a biled owl, to
speak of. She better give her time to studying of 'em herself. Whatever
was the name she called the gentleman, lass? Tell us again."
"The long gentleman?"
"Ah!"
"She didn't call him nuffint."
"Well, then--the short gentleman."
"A Cure."
"Well!--that wasn't manners, lassie. She had ought to have called him
Sir--or his name, for that matter, if she'd come by it. Couldn't she
say his name with Mister? In course she could, only she didn't know it."
Lizarann stopped and stood nodding on the pavement. "Bridgetticks, she
knowed his name--the short one," she said. "Because the tall gentleman,
he called it him." Then the two went on again, Jim having reclaimed the
hand he had let go for a moment to confirm a strange quick perception
of the child's emphatic nods by touching her head.
"What was the name of the short one the tall gentleman called him by?"
he asked. This was not merely to make conversation. Jim had fancied
he caught a familiar sound in the name one of his young swells of the
morning had applied to the other. He had not heard their reference to
Tallack Street. Had he done so, he would at once have identified them
as the subjects of a narrative of Lizarann's some days since. She now
offered an imperfect version of the name, and Jim at once caught the
connection. He _had_ heard the name Scipio--used by the young man when
he gave him his sixpence for a box of Vesuvians.
"Sippy-oh--was that it?" said he. "Well, that's a queer start too. I've
seen your two gentlemen, little lass, only this morning. One of 'em, he
planked down a tanner for one box. Not Sippy-oh--t'other young master.
What were the two of 'em doing again down in Tallack Street?"
Lizarann braced herself for her narrative by drawing a long breath
and standing with her eyes very wide open, then plunged _in medias
res_ with an oppressive sense of responsibility for historical truth,
but without punctuation. She pooled all her stops, however, and by
throwing in a handful at long intervals gave her lungs an opportunity
of expanding.
"They was two gentleman in one hansom and I seen 'em through the open
winder and Aunt Stingy she shet the winder and Bridgetticks she come
lookin' in at the winder and Aunt Stingy she says I'll flat your nose
for you she says an impident little hussy and she goes out for to catch
hold on her and Bridgetticks she sings out Old Mother Cobblerswax and
hooks it off...." All the consolidated overdue stops came in here.
Jim put in a word to steady the narrative, derived from its earlier
recital: "And then you got round behind your aunt, and the gentlemen
were talking to the cab-driver, hey, lassie?"
Lizarann nodded at her father exactly as if he could have seen her.
However, the way she said "yass" did all the work of her nod, as well
as its own, and she continued with a new lease of breath: "The driver
he says 'Don't see no spremises' he says, and the gentlemen they says
'Don't see no spremises' they says, and then--'Ho here's a little girl'
they says all at wunst...."
"And that was my little lass, warn't it, lassie? And she showed 'em
where the board was up. That was the way of it, I lay. And whereabout
was Bridgetticks the whilst?" Lizarann was becoming more reposeful in
style, and was working round to a proper distribution of stops.
"Bridgetticks," she replied, "was in behind the palin's at 'Acker's,
and was for biting Aunt Stingy if she laid 'ands. And Jimmy 'Acker's
granny she come out, and 'Leave the child alone' she says. But the
two gentleman come down out of the hansom scab and said there was no
spremises, but I was a nice little girl and should have a trep'ny bit.
Yass!"
"And then your aunt she looked round after you, I'll go bail. Wasn't
_she_ in it, little lass?"
"Then Aunt Stingy she giv' over, 'cos of Jimmy 'Acker's granny, and
come to see. And the tall gentleman, he needn't trouble her, he says,
and she kep' a little way off. And I kep' the threp'ny bit in my mouf,
I did."
"So she mightn't get it?" Lizarann nodded. "And where was Bridgetticks?"
"Over acrost, feelin' up like, 'cos of Aunt Stingy."
An image passes through Jim's mind of a powerful rodent working
stealthily round, clear of its enemy, to join the colloquy, and perhaps
secure another threepence. His image of Bridgetticks is not a pleasing
one. He doesn't believe in her sex or her girlhood--classes her with
the fiendish boy at the fish-shop, and rather wishes he could let her
loose on him to run him down, as one slips a dog from a leash. She
would do it.
"And how came she to cut in? It was my little lassie's cake."
But Lizarann felt hurt on her friend's account. "She giv' me two
apples," she said, and left the point, as one sure to be understood.
Then she continued: "The gentlemen wanted for to know our names, and
Bridgetticks said not if took down. So the gentleman put the pencil
away and she says Bridgetticks and I says Lizarann Toopland."
"Right you were! And then what did the gentleman say?"
"Not to shout both at once."
"Which did ye like best, little lass--which gentleman?" But the child
is uncertain on this point. Being pressed, she admits a _tendresse_ for
the one called Scipio; but it appears that Bridgetticks has condemned
him on account of his jaw, pointing to a certain sententiousness
of style, which has already been in evidence in this story. Her
discrimination of him as a Cure, too, will show those who are
familiar with the use of this term that she placed a low value on his
reflections.
Her father, having certainly spoken with these two gentlemen, felt some
curiosity about what they could want in Tallack Street. His having
spoken with them himself had, of course, given them an interest for him
he had not felt before. But inquiry of a child not seven years old has
to be conducted cautiously. If too hard pushed, she will invent. "What
did ye make out they came for, lassie?" he asked.
"Spremises," was the reply, given with confidence. But this seemed
ill-grounded when she added, "What does spremises mean, daddy?"
"Houses with bills in the winder, lass. Sure! But didn't they never say
where they come from, nor what they wanted?"
"Bridgetticks she knew."
"Where did she say they came from?"
"Smallporks Hospital." Jim wondered how on earth Lizarann's friend had
struck on this vein of invention, but he only expressed the mildest
doubt of its accuracy lest he should upset his informant. As it was, he
disturbed her slightly. "She ain't tellin' no lies," she added.
"P'raps it warn't so bad as all that come to, lassie. P'raps it was
only Guy's or 'Tholomoo's?" But the little person was not prepared to
accept any composition that threw doubt on Bridgetticks. She might have
questioned her statements personally, even to the extent of calling her
a story. But she felt bound to defend her, even against her father. So
she nailed her colours, so to speak, to the Smallpox Hospital. That was
to be the very hospital, and no other, that these two gentlemen were
connected with. She gave illustrations of untruthfulness, as shown by
contemporaries.
"Jimmy 'Acker he's a liar. And Uncle Steptoe he's a liar. Aunt Stingy
says so. Bridgetticks she ain't. She speaks the troof, she does. Yass!
She _says_ so." Very open eyes and a nod.
"In coorse she does, and in coorse she knows." Then poor Jim wondered
to himself what this young person was like that his little lass had
such faith in. He continued: "What's she like to look at, by way of
describing of her now?"
Lizarann had never described anybody, so far. That is to say, not
consciously. She might have done it without knowing it was description.
But she knew quite well what her father meant, and braced herself up to
authorship.
"She's very 'ard, all over," she said, as a first item. "And she's
awful strong. She is--yass! And she don't stick out nowhere neither."
A form the reverse of _svelte_ is impressed upon her hearer's inner
vision. But she repents of the last item, and adds, "Only her nose!"
"What's her colour of hair--black colour?--yaller colour?"
"T'int no colour at all, Daddy."
"Just plain hair-colour--is that it?"
"Yass! Pline hair-colour."
"What's her eyes?" But this is too difficult. Lizarann gives it up.
To say plain eye-colour would be poor and unoriginal. However,
particulars could be given of Bridgettickses eyes, apart from questions
of their colour.
"She can squint, she can. Yass--acrost!"
"She don't want to it--not she!"
"Don't she want to it, Daddy?" A timid expression of doubt this. "I
said--I said--to Bridgetticks...."
"Hurry up, little lass! What was it ye said?"
"I said--to Bridgetticks--I said the boys said she couldn't be off of
it, they did. That's what the boys said."
"And she said _they_ was liars, I'll go bail. Hay, little lass?"
"She said they was liars. Yass!" And then the difficulties of
negotiating the passage across Cazenove Street, where they had by this
time arrived, stopped the conversation.
When the couple were safely landed on the opposite pavement, talk
went on again. Jim's image of Bridgetticks had not been improved by
Lizarann's description. And an incident of her narrative had caused him
to picture to himself a terrifying vision of her.
"She must have looked a queer un, lassie, flattening her nose against
the winder-pane."
"Aunt Stingy said she'd welt her down fine if she could once catch
holt."
"Your aunt don't seem to have thought her a beauty. Not with her nose
against the glass! What did you think yourself, lassie?"
"I didn't seen her." Her head shook a long continuous negative.
"How do ye make that out, lass?"
"We ply at bein' oarposite sides of the winder-pine. Her outside--me
in!"
"Well, then--o' course you _saw_ her, lassie. You've got eyes in your
head."
"I was a-flotting of my own nose against the glast, inside, too clost
to see. Right oarposite--yass!" And then explained, at some expense
of words, that this gyme, or game, was played by two little girls,
or little boys, or a sample of each, jamming their noses one against
the other as it were with the cold, unpleasant glass between. The
gratification of doing this, whatever it was, might be enhanced and
intensified by a similar treatment of their tongue-tips. This last
variation caused Lizarann to end up with: "Outside tistés of rine.
Inside tistés of cleanin' windows."
"I don't see no kissin' to be got out of that," said Jim. But the
inventors of this game had evidently never anticipated its adoption by
grown-up persons, and did not advise it. _Their_ low natures could
not enter into it. It was, however, made clear why Bridgetticks was
invisible during an innings--if the term is permissible.
* * * * *
But oh, to think of it! Poor Jim had never seen his little lass, whose
chatter had supplied him with a vivid image--albeit, perhaps, a false
one--of her friend of ten years old. Her voice and touch were all he
had to live for; but the only image of her he could get was from a
grudging admission of his sister's that she might grow to be like her
mother in time, but she would never have her looks. These looks were
only admitted by Mrs. Steptoe for strategic purposes--videlicet, the
cheapening of her brother's one possession and emphasizing of his
losses. She may have had no defined intention of giving him pain, but
the attitude of thought implied formed part of a scheme of Jeremiads
her life was devoted to fostering and maturing. The looks of Lizarann's
mother were the only pivot on which discussion of the child's own could
turn naturally and easily. The embittered and unsympathetic disposition
of her aunt made communication about them on other lines difficult or
impossible to poor Jim.
But he treasured in his heart the idea that one day he would meet
with some congenial soul whom he could take into his confidence, and
petition for a description of what his little lass was really like.
Unless, indeed, when she grew older, she was able to tell him what her
image in a mirror resembled better than she had done when once or twice
he had tried that way of eliciting information. For on those occasions
Lizarann had at first shown symptoms of becoming what her aunt called a
little giggling, affected chit, and had only been able to report that
she looked "like Loyzarann in the glast," and then had grown uneasy,
betrayed a tendency towards panic, and hid her face on her father when
he became earnest, and begged her for his sake to tell him what she
really looked like. She couldn't understand it at all, and may have had
misgivings that she was being entrapped into some sort of ritual of a
Masonic nature. So Jim had to wait for enlightenment from herself, and
looked forward to the day when she should become more old and serious.
Meanwhile what would he not have given for one little glimmer to help
his imperfect image of what his little lass was like, now--now that her
childhood was there?
But the darkness was upon him for all time. And the world that once
was his to see had vanished--vanished with the last image his eyes had
known; the quay at Cape Town in the blazing sun, the Dutch-built houses
on the hot hill-side, and Table Mountain dark against the sky; and
all the wide sea, a blaze of white beneath the blue, whose strongest
glare might never reach his cancelled sight again. And there--so Jim
believed, on the strength of a legend his informant may have invented
on the spot--when the winds were at their worst round the Cape of
Storms, might still be seen the source of all his evil, the Phantom
Ship that had blasted his eyesight and made him what he had become. So
fixed was this article of Jim's faith that it is not exaggeration to
say that he drew comfort from the unending doom of her shadowy crew.
Come what might to him, he always had this consolation, that as long
as the sea should last, there was no hope of rest for the soul of the
Flying Dutchman. It was something, if it wasn't much; and he told and
retold the tale to his little lass, who was grieved on his behalf; but
had somewhere, in the unrevengeful background of her mind, a chance
thought of pity now and again for the unhappy seaman who was the cause
of his misfortune.
CHAPTER III
OF ROYD HALL, AND ITS LITERARY GUEST WHO HAD AN IMPOSSIBLE WIFE
The lady who had shown an interest in Lizarann at the Dale Road Schools
was the wife of Sir Murgatroyd Arkroyd, of Royal in Rankshire and Drum
in Banffshire, and even more places. The young man who had bought
Jim's matches and returned his change was their eldest son, William
Rufus Arkroyd. His friend, whom he called Scipio, who was his college
chum at Cambridge a year or so since, and had remained his inseparable
companion, was on this particular day starting with him to pay an
autumn visit to his paternal mansion, Royd Hall, about seven miles from
Grime, where the new Translucent Cast Steel Foundries are.
The two young men got a carriage to themselves, and played picquet all
the way to Furnivals, the little station where you get out for Royd
and Thanes Castle, and the omnibus meets you. Because you are the sort
probably that omnibuses meet. And it may be considered to have met
William Rufus and Scipio on this occasion, but only platonically; for
they rode to the house in a dog-cart that awaited them. However, the
omnibus had the consolation of being ridden in by Mr. Arkroyd's man
Schott, who came on in it with such luggage as would not go under a
seat amenable only to card-cases or the like.
The model groom, Bullett, who had driven the trap to the station, had
just time to establish himself on the back-seat, when the model mare
was off at a spin, and an agricultural population, whose convictions
and diet changed very little since the days of William the Norman, were
abasing themselves in a humiliating manner unworthy of the age we live
in--uncovering male heads and bobbing female skirts--at the doors of
cottages whose hygienic arrangements were a disgrace to a Christian
country and a reflection on civilization. So said the _Grime Sentinel_,
in an editorial; and, as it spoke as though the editor had tried all
these arrangements and found them wanting, no doubt it was right.
"Now, what have you and my affectionate brother been talking about
all the way here?" Thus Judith, the sister of the one she is not
addressing.
Scipio replies at leisure. He is evidently accustomed to being
patronized by this handsome and self-possessed young lady, who is two
years his senior, and speaks as to a junior. But, though she patronizes
him, she waits until he chooses to answer.
"Your affectionate brother and myself, Miss Arkroyd, are so accustomed
to each other's society, after a long residence in college together,
that it is only on rare and special occasions that we exchange
any remarks at all. We agreed some time since that the edge of
conversation--that, I believe, was the expression--was taken off when
each of the parties to it is always definitely certain what the other
is going to say."
"Nonsense!--ridiculous boy! Do you expect me to believe that you two
rode all that way and never spoke?"
Scipio reconsiders, and takes exception to his own speech, with the
air of a person drawing on a reserve of veracity, a higher candour:
"Perhaps I have overstated the case. We played picquet all the way from
Euston. Picquet, as you are aware, involves an occasional interchange
of monosyllables...."
"I know. One for his heels and two for his nob. Go on."
"Excuse me. Allow me to correct a misapprehension. The expressions you
have quoted belong to another game--cribbage."
"Does it matter? Do go on with what you were saying ... 'involves an
occasional interchange of monosyllables'...." The young lady is a
little impatient, and taps.
"Which can scarcely be regarded as conversation." He completes the
sentence with deliberation. He seems to take a pleasure in doing so,
simply because of her impatience. "But with the exception of allusions
to the game, I can recall no remark or observation whatever, wise or
otherwise."
Whereupon the young lady, seeming to give him up as hopeless, calls
to her brother in an adjoining room: "Will!" and he replies: "What?
Anything wanted?"
"Yes!--come and make Lord Felixthorpe reasonable." From which it is
clear that Scipio is a lord, or has a right to be called one. He is
somebody's son, supposably.
This conversation is taking place in the drawing-room at Royd, where
the two young men arrived just in time to delay dinner half-an-hour,
that they might have time to dress. At Royd, undue hurry about
anything was unknown, and Mr. Schott had arranged young Mr. Arkroyd's
shirt-studs in his shirt, black silk stockings, coat, waistcoat, and
trousers in a most beautiful pattern on his bed almost before his
apologies to his mother were over for giving the wrong time of his
train. He ought to have arrived an hour sooner, and Bullett and the
dog-cart--or, rather, its mare--had been kicking their heels all
that time at Furnival Station, enjoying the great luxury of enforced
idleness, with a grievance against its cause. However, it was all right
by now, and everyone who had not eaten too many macaroons at tea had
dined extremely well.
"Smoke a cigarette," said William Rufus to his sister, as he settled
down on the split fauteuil. "Never mind Sibyl!" She disclaimed Sibyl's
influence, and lighted the cigarette he gave her at his own. He
continued: "_I_ can't make Scip reasonable. Nobody can."
"He says you and he never exchanged a word, and that you played
cribbage in the train all the way without speaking."
"It was picquet. I don't know cribbage."
"Oh dear!--how trying you boys are! As if that mattered! The _point_
is, did you speak, or didn't you?"
Whereupon each of the young men looked at the other, and said: "Did we
speak, or didn't we?"
"I can wait," said the young lady; and waited with a passiveness that
had all the force of activity.
"I understand"--thus Scipio, more deliberately than ever--"that
technical remarks relating to the game are excluded by hypothesis."
"Yes!" from the catechist.
"Stop a bit, Scip. We did speak. We spoke about the blind beggar."
"I knew you were talking nonsense. You talked all the way. But who was
the blind beggar?"
"A friend of Scip's--at least, a father of one of his young ladies."
Miss Arkroyd looked amused more than curious. "You haven't told us of
this one," said she. "Or have you?"
"I have had nothing official to communicate, so far. Possibly a mere
passing _tendresse_. I have only known the young lady a very short
time. I will promise further information as soon as there is anything
to communicate."
Miss Arkroyd continued to look at the speaker as though to find out
his real meaning, half in doubt, half taking him _au sérieux_. But her
brother struck in, saying: "Nothing interesting, Judith. This one's too
young, and might be unsuitable from other points of view--eh, Scip?"
"The family connection," Scipio answers reflectively, "may have
drawbacks. Nevertheless, I find, when I indulge in the position,
hypothetically, of a son-in-law, that I do not shrink from the image
of the relation I have created. It has a sort of sense about it of the
starboard watch, and keeping a good look-out on foc'sles, and knowing
how to splice cables. By-the-by, Will, this is an accomplishment that
might prove useful in my family--splicing cables, I mean. I am certain
that we can't, at present, any of us. Even my half-brother, though
his grandfather--on his mother's side--is an Admiral, cannot splice a
cable...."
"Never mind the cables! Go on about the blind beggar."
Her brother, as one who knows his friend's disposition to wander,
supplies consecutive narrative: "The blind beggar's that sailor at
the railway. Most likely you've seen him.... No?"--replying to a
disclaiming headshake.--"Well!--take him for granted. The child's his
child."
"What child?"
"You've seen her yourself, I think; or the same thing--the _madre_ has.
_You_ remember?--in that Tallack Street place, on the Remunerative
Artisans' Domicile Company's estate. You told us of it yourself, you
know."
"I know Tallack Street perfectly well. It's the place where there was
land for a factory that I thought would do for the New Idea. Have you
seen it?"
"Why, of course! Scip and I went over next day. Well--it's that little
girl." But Judith has slummed so many little girls in Tallack Street,
all alike, that she can't recall any special one. She remembers
the front teeth of one very plainly. Her brother also remembers
Bridgetticks--not a young lady easily forgotten, clearly. But he has
forgotten her name.
"Yes, I know her. So does Scip. She called him a Cure. But not that
one--a younger child. I rather think our mother knows something about
her." He leans his head well back towards his mother in the next
room--sees its ceiling, perhaps, as he blows his cigarette-smoke
straight upwards--and calls to her, "Madre!" The Italian word may be
some mere family habit, without reason. A perceptive guest in the next
room makes a mental note of it as a useful point in his next novel. For
he is a literary celebrity. Lady Arkroyd answers: "Yes, dear, what?"
She looks quite round the high back of the chair she sits in, and
speaks fairly towards her son. He continues to throw his voice back
over his head to her:
"What was the name of the queer kid that said her father was 'an
Asker'? You told us about her, you know.... At the school place, down
by Tallack Street...."
"I know. Her father's blind, and she leads him about. Be quiet, and
don't ask, and perhaps I shall remember the name." Lady Arkroyd shuts
her eyes over the job and waits on Memory. It may take time. Her son
decides that he can listen just as well with his head down, and becomes
normal. Presently his mother reports: "I think it was Steptoe--no!--not
Steptoe. Eliza Ann Copeland, Adeline Fossett's schoolroom." If you look
back to where Lizarann made this lady's acquaintance, you will see that
there was underlying method in the seeming-disjointed action of her
memory.
Her son replies, "Yes--that child"; and adds, "All right--that'll do,"
meaning that he has now got all the information wanted for the moment.
So the perceptive guest infers, and listens with interest for the use
he is going to make of it. But he loses the thread of the conversation;
for, just as he is going to speak, the sister says to Scipio, "What did
you say 'er' for?"--meaning, why did you begin and stop?
"The expression," his lordship replies with intense deliberation,
"was an involuntary prefix to a statement I was preparing to make
concerning the patronymic of the little girl who----" He stops dead on
the pronoun, without finishing the sentence; then continues: "I need go
no farther, especially as I foresee a fresh confirmation forming on the
lips of my dear friend William Rufus of the view taken of my personal
character by the other little-girl-who. But perhaps the name of the
first little-girl-who may be taken as decided on. In that case I need
not adduce my evidence."
"Do shut up, Scip," is the comment of William Rufus. "The other little
girl spoke the truth. You _are_ a Cure--not the least doubt of it."
"What _is_ a Cure?" says Judith. "I don't know. But please don't shut
up; never mind Will! What was it you were going to say?"
"Merely this:--When your intractable brother and myself visited Tallack
Street, having previously interviewed Mr. Illingworth, the courteous
secretary of the Remunerative...."
"_Do_ get along, Scip!" from Mr. Arkroyd.
"My dear Will, I assure you that your impatience only defeats its own
object. If you will balance the time gained by skipping passages in my
statement--which may in the end prove essential to the context--against
the time lost in administering verbal stimulus to the speaker, you will
find--if I am not mistaken--that the latter exceeds the former."
"All right, old chap! I give up. Go ahead!"
"I shall have to go and talk to the new visitors. You had better get
on." These speeches come simultaneously from his two hearers; the last
speaker with her fine eyes fixed on a wrist-watch, little larger than
the iris of either. Scipio accelerates with docility.
"After getting the particulars of the land and buildings from
Illingworth, we drove round by Tallack Street to look at the site. We
always make a point of seeing everything. Illingworth was not justified
in saying that a small shed on the land, in the last stages of
disintegration, could be utilized for a motor-garage ... but never mind
that! We are at present concerned with the name of the little-girl-who.
The plummy little dark-eyed one, Will--not that shrill little fiend.
Well!--when we arrived at Tallack Street, and could see nothing the
least resembling a suitable site for a factory--or, indeed, anything
else--your accomplished brother, Miss Arkroyd, who cannot get in or
out of a hansom without breaking his knee-caps, urged upon me the
propriety of descending and inquiring at the Robin Hood. The Robin Hood
was congenial to me--the sort of pub I always frequent when I have
a choice. It had a picture of Robin dressed like a member of what I
always suppose to be a benefit-club, which extends to me, when I sit at
windows, a long pole with a collection-box, suggesting an inversion of
the way we fed bears in our youth...." His hearers become restive.
"This is irrelevant," says the brother. And the sister looked again at
her wrist.
"I am aware of it. I will not detain Miss Arkroyd long at the Robin
Hood. I will merely note the fact that it had a water-trough for
horses, and a space in front--it is in the main road, just as you
reach Tallack Street--and that it is a House of Call for Plasterers. I
mention this in case...."
"In case any of us should plaster unexpectedly? Do you feel that you
wish to plaster, Will?"
"I might. Sibyl probably will, sooner or later. Go on, Scip.... Yes, we
interrupted you--admitted!... Now go on."
"In the private bar of the Robin Hood--for it boasts a public and
private bar, though it stops short of making parade of a saloon bar--I
encountered a cobbler drinking a tumblerful of spirits. He was becoming
a cobblerful of tumblerfuls...."
"I'm sure I know that man," Judith says, in brackets. "It was the one
that said he was 'mine very truly, Robert Steptoe.' Never mind!--go
on...."
"But he was not too drunk to tell me that if I kept my eyes open I
should see a blooming board at the end of the street. There wasn't any
too much reading on it now, the boys having aimed at it successfully
ever since he came to Rose Cottage--'ouse on the right--but he took it
a board was always a board, reading or no. I could see for myself, by
looking. It warn't trespassers; he knew that.... Do not be impatient. I
am coming to the gist of my communication.... Shortly after leaving the
bar of the Robin Hood, I heard some boys singing a monotonous chant. A
name was frequently repeated in it; it sounded like:
'Lizarann Coupland's
Father begs for 'apence
Just round the corner
Down by the gasworks....'
And so on over and over again. I inquired of one small boy _whose_
father it was that begged for halfpence, but he turned the
conversation, and suggested that I should give him a farden kike.
However, another one repeated the name gratis; and though he was too
young to be quite intelligible I was satisfied that the name was Eliza
Ann Copeland or Coupland."
"Why couldn't you tell us that straight off, Lord Felixthorpe?" says
Judith. To which the narrator replies with a sweet smile, "My inherent
prolixity, no doubt." She says absently to the wrist-watch, "No doubt!"
and then, looking up at the speaker, illogically asks, "What was the
rest of the story? Go on."
Her brother protests: "Come, Judith, be reasonable! You're just like
the people that author-chap has been telling us about downstairs ...
people who complain that his books are too long, and then ask for more.
He says he's badgered for sequels, and untold gold wouldn't induce him
to bring an old character into a new book."
"He's perfectly right. Anyhow, I am sure he always finishes a story
when he begins it. I want the rest of what happened. Only I want this
one cut short--not too prosy, please! Did you give that little boy the
farthing cake?"
"I gave him a halfpenny. He ignored my application for change, and
walked away hand-in-hand with his friend towards a shop. I accompanied
the cab on foot to the end of Tallack Street, where we found the
blooming board, and decided on its illegible character. But there was
no doubt the piece of land was the one Illingworth had shown us on
the map. The fictitious motor-garage was a place that could only have
been a source of danger to rash intruders. We exclaimed together that
there _were_ no premises, and the cabman endorsed our opinion. At this
juncture an exacerbated female rushed from a doorway to intercept and
chastise, if possible, a little girl about ten years old, who had been
peering at her through a window on the ground-floor. This little girl
slipped through an impassable orifice and got away, shouting derision,
but pursued by the woman...."
"Who was more than half afraid of her." Thus Mr. Arkroyd
parenthetically.
"I agree with you. However, she left her door open, and the
little girl, whom I think we may consider to be identified as
Eliza Ann Coupland, came out timidly, and sucked a corner of her
neck-handkerchief in our immediate neighbourhood. She seemed to regard
the clash between the other little girl and her mother as normal, and
appeared to court conversation with us...."
"It's not her mother. It's her aunt. _I_ know the people." The
interruption is Judith's. "But go on."
"Her aunt. Our conversation with her was handicapped by her shyness;
also by her objection to removing the handkerchief from her mouth. But
she appeared to be attracted to us by a kind of fascination, showing
itself in a fixed gaze in a direction contrary to the pull of the
handkerchief. Her aunt's injunction to her to put it out of her mouth
and answer the gentleman led the gentleman to prevail on the aunt to
withdraw. We then understood her to refer us to a friend, Bridget
Hicks, for local information...."
"Exactly. And Bridget Hicks called you a Cure."
"That is so. With what justice I am not in a position to say, without a
more exact acquaintance with the meaning of the term. Bridget Hicks was
the little girl who had fled before the wrath of the aunt. She joined
her friend on witnessing the discomfiture of that lady by the tactics
of your accomplished brother, who, I think, impressed her as Royalty."
"Very well, then!--it comes to this." It is Judith who is reporting
progress. "The last time you spoke in the train was about a blind
beggar whose little girl walks him about, and lives in that abominable
slum papa has allowed to be built on the Cazenove estate, where I sent
you because there was a board with something about vacant premises
suitable for a factory on it. Why couldn't you say so at once?"
"May I be pardoned for suggesting," Scipio replies with a reinforcement
of his sententious manner, which had lapsed slightly, "that, had I done
so, a lengthy cross-examination would have been necessary to put my
hearers in possession of details I have been able to supply."
His friend seems to think there is something in this. "Just consider,
Judith," he says. "If Scip had cut himself down, as you suggest,
you would have known nothing about Eliza Ann's neck-handkerchief. I
consider that it speaks volumes."
"Scip, as you call him, could have thrown it in."
And Miss Arkroyd, who is more tall, impressive, and handsome than her
mother, collects herself, which spreads over a great deal of fauteuil,
to join the party in the other room. Her brother and his friend follow
her.
The house-party in the room adjoining--that is, the large drawing-room
with the Tintoret; perhaps you have been at Royd, and know it?--had
been making a good deal of noise, considering the connection. One
mustn't laugh too loud, if it's to be high-tension sweetness and light.
This thought passed through the mind of Mr. Alfred Challis, better
known to the world as "Titus Scroop," the great Author, who was one
of the party; it was to him we referred as the perceptive guest. But
he could not blame himself for causing any of the too-loud laughs;
because, whenever he thought of a good thing, instead of speaking it
out as he used to do when he was an Accountant, he kept it to himself
and made a mental note of it for copy. But when he was clear in his
mind, that a thing was not good enough for copy, he revealed it; and
then the company laughed gently and obligingly, because he was a great
Author. He felt sorry usually.
Mrs. Challis wasn't there. Mr. Challis used to visit at distinguished
houses alone. But there was nothing against her. Discussion of
whether she couldn't be asked this time always admitted that. But it
invariably ended in a decision that Mrs. Challis was an Impossible
Person--although Mrs. Candour had made every inquiry, and there was
nothing whatever against her. "Still," said Lady Arkroyd to the Duchess
of Rankshire, "even if there had been!..." And her Grace, predisposed
to forgiveness of antecedents by native good-nature and a flawless
record, saw regretfully that even then the lady would have been
welcome, if only she had been Possible. Not being so, and being also,
report said, huffy, she had never come to pass in polite society. Her
husband believed he believed she was just as happy at home because a
working hypothesis of life was _de rigueur_. She had certainly been
almost rude to Lady Arkroyd on the occasion of a conciliatory visit;
misunderstanding may have helped, but one thing is certain--she either
was not asked to Royd this time or refused the invitation.
As to other folks, there were several. Only it was not easy to say
which was which; it often isn't when there are several. They have
to be left alone to assume identities, and a certain percentage
succeeds. The balance dies away. And then one of them afterwards
writes a daring story, or ventilates a startling theory, or commits an
interesting murder. And there he was, all that time, at the Simpkins's
garden-party and you never knew! Were _you_ also--you yourself--a
nonentity some of the others were thinking of as a Person-at-a-Party,
_et præterea nihil_? And is one of them now thinking to _him_self--dear
him!--was that little, snuffy, unobtrusive chap really the author of
this remarkable work, which appeals to the better side of my nature,
and has scarcely a dull passage from beginning to end? Meaning, of
course--_you_! And just to think!--he lost his chance, and may never
get another. How sorry you feel for him!
These reflections are really in the story, because they were passing
through the mind of Mr. Challis while a lady who had been asked to
sing Carpathian Ballads was making up her mind which she would sing.
In these philosophizings of his--especially the last one--may be
detected the disagreeable sneering tone you never would have suspected
him of. You would have thought him an easy-going chap--no more. It was
there, though, and it affected his mind more or less all through the
Carpathian Ballads. Whenever he was thrown on his own resources for a
few minutes, the disagreeable sneering tone was apt to be audible to
himself in his communings with his innermost soul. On this occasion,
his innermost soul, being left alone with him for a short time, took
occasion to decide that his host was a pompous old Ass. All these heavy
landed proprietors were pompous Asses, more or less. The Woman--thus
it referred to the lady of the house--was more interesting, of course.
Women were. But she was a worldling, and a Philistine at heart, for
all this pretence of worshipping Art and Letters and Song. As for the
son, he gave himself airs; but it, the soul, wouldn't say anything
against him because his cigars were undeniable. And the soul shared
its owner's--if, indeed, he could call his soul his own!--appreciation
of good 'baccy. The young Lord, it decided, was not a bad sample
of his depraved class--would find his level in Parliament and be
Under-Secretary of something, sometime. But he would have to learn to
shout louder and speak faster. As for the two young women, the soul's
owner had really only just distinguished one from the other. As for the
music, the singer couldn't sing ballads, whatever else she could sing.
_She_ was nothing much to look at; but the eldest daughter had a fine
throat and shoulders. Only nowadays you never could tell how much was
real. As for the others, he hadn't made them out yet. Lady Arkroyd had
been civil to him at dinner, certainly. But then she had invited him.
He had a vague sense that he was regarded as her property, and that the
others all shirked responsibility on his account, and that he was, in
fact, to them an outsider. Anyway, it was bad form of the son and his
friend and the pair of shoulders, to go away and talk in the back room,
and take no notice of--well!--of himself, for instance. At which point
his innermost soul turned traitor--rounded on him, and accused him of
allowing his disagreeable sneering tone to get the better of him--of
giving way to ill-temper, in fact.
Perhaps these presents will be read by someone who has had a similar
experience as a newcomer in a great house. He or she may also have
found out that there is honey as well as wormwood, frankincense as well
as assafoetida, to be met with in such a position, even as did Mr.
Alfred Challis, the eminent novelist.
For, the Carpathian ballads coming to an end, that gentleman found
himself suddenly being apprized, by the owner of the shoulders, that
she had been longing for a word--with so eminent a writer--all the
evening. And there was a question she was dying to ask him. Only they
would have plenty of time to talk about that to-morrow. When was his
next book coming out?... not till the spring?... oh dear! And what was
the title?... "Titus Scroop" always had such interesting titles....
What? Not decided on? The fine eyes that went with the shoulders
seemed surprised at this. "No doubt," said the Author, "the novel is
as anxious as anyone to know what its title is going to be." This
wasn't worth keeping for copy. The lady laughed the laugh that concedes
that a joke has been made or meant, not the laugh of irresistible
appreciation. What did that matter? Mr. Challis's ill-humour was being
charmed away. Probably some student of human nature has noticed that it
is not very material that the flattery of a good-looking woman should
be sincere, provided mankind gets enough of it. Mr. Challis suspected
that he was being soothed, and "Titus Scroop" spoken of in inverted
commas, as compensation for having been left to choose between the
company of other males and no company at all. But still, he _was_ being
soothed. No more words about it! Mr. Challis acquitted the shoulders,
and even the mass of rich black hair, of any assistance from Art; and
when the party broke up for the night, went to his couch contented.
Having, as it were, obsessed this gentleman, in order to get a clear
view of this autumn's house-party at Royd, we may as well make further
use of him and peep over his shoulder as he writes his first letter to
his impossible wife in the cretonne bedroom at the end of the passage
where the German Baroness saw the ghost--you know that story, of
course? Oh dear, what a lot of candles one does light to write letters
by in other people's houses when one hasn't got to pay for them!
This is what Mr. Challis is writing now: "... I like the talky chap
better than the son and heir. He's a lord. They neither of them take
to me because I'm not 'Varsity. I came down in the train with them,
only not the same carriage. I rode third, of course; there were no
seconds." The writer felt that it was very clever of the thirds to be
thirds at all when there were no seconds, but decided not to write
it--as too subtle for the intellect of his impossible she--and wrote
on: "I saw them playing cards in a smoking-carriage, and recognized the
son and heir by his portrait. It isn't a bit like him. There's a fat
pink politician here, with little eyes, who talks thirty-two to the
dozen. His name is Ramsey Tomes. He pinned my host as he was coming
from the dinner-table, and detained him ever so long. We heard the
rumble of his rounded periods afar"--will she understand that? thought
the writer--"long after everyone else had followed the womankind to the
drawing-room. However, they came up in time for the music, and I heard
Mr. Tomes assuring Sir Murgatroyd that his respect for that Bart was so
intense that he would reconsider the whole of his political opinions
forthwith, but without the slightest expectation of changing one jot
or one tittle of them." Here the writer abstained, consideratively,
with his pen delayed over the inkstand, from inditing that he had
never met with a "tittle" out of the company of its invariable jot.
That would be too deep for this wife of his. He brought the pen slowly
into the arena again. "Sir Murgatroyd repeated the same sentiment in
several different words. As for all the other people, I must tell about
them gradually, or leave them till I come home. The younger daughter,
Sibyl--that's how to spell her name--not Sybil, remember--strikes me as
a little waspish. Judith, the other, is a tall, handsome woman, with a
figure expensive to dress but a little _prepotente_." He let this word
stand, having written it, though he felt sure that the impossible one's
Italian would not cover it. He did not mind leaving her to choose a
meaning for it; it franked him of any responsibility. Then he thought
he had written enough, and ended up: "You need not be uneasy about my
neuralgia. I feel better already and shall have a hot bath first thing
in the morning.--Your loving mate, A. C." But he added an amends for an
omission--"Kiss the kids from me."
Then he betrayed further uneasiness of conscience by saying to himself:
"After all, she's much better at home with the babies. She would never
get on among these people." Whether it occurred to the good gentleman
that he had it in his power to alter the position of the pieces on
the board we do not know. If it did, the idea soon vanished behind a
speculation whether the next guest after him would have a new acreage
of clean sheet and pillow all to himself; and if not, what a lot of
washing went for nothing! He almost wished he was a chimney-sweep, to
make it valid.
CHAPTER IV
OF MISS ARKROYD AND HER AVIARY. HOW MR. CHALLIS WALKED IN THE GARDEN
WITH HER. OF MR. TRIPTOLEMUS WRAXALL. AND OF HOW MR. CHALLIS WROTE TO
HIS WIFE
It is bewildering to reflect on the number of avenues open to Society
by which to approach its own final perfection. And disappointing, too,
when a start has been made along some promising one, to come so soon to
a parting of the ways, with never a signpost--not so much as a stray
uncrucified Messiah for a guide--as the night falls over the land. For
even so, each last new Theory of Perfectibility, each panacea for the
endemics that afflict us, seems to pass from the glory of its dawn to
the chill hours of its doubt; and its Apostles fall away and change
their minds, and its subscribers discontinue their subscriptions,
and it becomes out of date. And those who have not lain low, like
Br'er Fox, but have committed themselves past all recall to its
infallibility, are sorry because they cannot remind us that they said
so all along, only they were never paid the slightest attention to.
It is possible that some such perceptions passed through Mr. Challis's
reflective mind in the course of next day at Royd. He began to find
out that he was in a sort of hornet's nest of Reformers, every one of
them anxious to point out avenues of salvation for Society. For Sir
Murgatroyd, who was the soul of liberality towards every doctrine,
political, religious, or social, that he had no prejudice against,
liked nothing better than to crowd his house full of reforming
theorists. Was he not himself one, and the author of a pamphlet called
"The Higher Socialism: An Essay towards a Better Understanding of
the Feudal System"? He therefore welcomed with splendid hospitality
every advocate of every doctrine that was undoubtedly new, only
two conditions being complied with. One was that if it was a New
Morality it should be possible to enter into its details without
shocking--suppose we say--a hardened reader of Laurence Sterne;
and the other that it should not countenance, palliate, advocate,
encourage, support, or lend adhesion to his especial _bête noire_,
the Americanization of our Institutions. On this particular occasion
a fine bag of neo-archs--how apologize for such a word?--had been
secured by him during his summer holiday; and when Mr. Challis made his
appearance at the breakfast-table next morning, he was buttonholed away
from its beautiful clean damask by a brace of Thinkers, each anxious to
communicate his Thoughts, and, if possible, entangle the sympathies of
a powerful pen "Titus Scroop" was known to possess.
It _is_ annoying to be interrupted when you are making up your mind
what you'll have; and then you take poached eggs when you want filleted
plaice, or _vice-versa_. Mr. Challis showed intrepidity, saying to a
disciple of the learned German reformer Graubosch: "I make a point
of never listening to anything worth hearing at breakfast." It was
a clever repulse; but committed him to capitulation to Graubosch
later. He succeeded, but with a like reservation, in escaping from an
advocate of a really formidable system of Assurance which would have
widespread effects on Society, by saying--as though the first few words
of its exponent had gone home to him--"You and I must talk that out
over a game of billiards." The fact is this gentleman had not been
sufficiently congratulated about his last book, so far, by the ladies
of the family; and he felt a strong bias towards being flattered by
Miss Arkroyd particularly, although in his letter to his wife he had
spoken with coldness--ostentatious, and he knew it--of this young
lady's fascinations. So he was already scheming in his heart to get
her in a corner by herself, where she would be able to express her
wonder at his insight into things no one else--except she and he,
presumably--knew anything about. He was perceptibly conscious that
the short interview between himself and this very good-looking young
lady, the evening before, had lacked reference to his insight, and that
recognition in that quarter would be pleasant.
It is a little difficult to saunter away from Thinkers who are
convinced that you will be interested in their Thoughts, especially
if you have given any of them the right to begin, "Referring to what
we were saying yesterday, etc."; or, "I have been thinking over that
apparent contradiction, etc." But it can be done, with tact. Mr.
Challis had not a perfectly clear record of avoidance of Philosophy:
his buttonholers of the morning could have pleaded justifications. So
he felt diplomatic as he got into another coat because the sun was
quite hot in the garden, and then came down the other stairs, where
he was sure to meet nobody, and so through the kitchen-gardens to
the Inigo Jones orangery that was now an aviary. That was where Miss
Arkroyd had said she was going--not to him, but to someone else in
his hearing. So clearly so that it was almost as good as if he hadn't
heard, but had approached her by accident, when he came upon her out of
a side-avenue of clipped hedges. By that time he was sauntering quite
naturally, with a cigar in his mouth, just begun. This was as it should
be.
"Have you seen my green parroquets?" said the lady.
"I haven't noticed any. Are they loose in the garden?" As though they
would have been! But Mr. Challis wasn't in earnest.
"Not that I know of! Did you see any?" She had taken him quite
seriously, and he had to explain.
"It was my ill-judged facetiousness," said he. "I meant I had been
nowhere except in the garden."
"Oh, I see! You quite frightened me. They are such nice little people.
Come in and look at them." But Mr. Challis felt that he would have
to practise a certain discretion in his accustomed modes of speech,
one of which was a perverse gravity over an obvious absurdity. But
he had long given up expecting insight into this from Marianne, the
impossible wife. Why should he, then, from this young woman, to whom
he and his ways were quite a novelty? Besides, we had to consider the
individualities of that strange creature, the human Toff. Mr. Challis
reflected that absurd tropes and inversions, without a smile, are the
breath of life to cab and bus men. Perhaps William the Norman never put
his royal tongue in his cheek: it may have been contrary to the Feudal
System.
The little parroquets didn't wait for their proprietor and this new
gentleman to come into their palace. The moment they heard them they
came with a wild rush into an outside cage. But, being out, they
took no notice of their disturbers--none whatever! They conversed
about them, clewed side by side on a long perch, with a stunning and
unhesitating volubility that made the brain reel; a shrill, intolerable
prestissimo of demisemiquavers on one note that pierced the drum of the
ear like a rain of small steel shot. They had come to so exactly the
same conclusion, so it seemed, as they all repeated it at once, first
to right, then to left--had so precisely the same opinion about their
visitors, that it was hardly necessary to dwell upon it so long, Mr.
Challis thought.
"Are they sweet, or are they not?" was what his companion said.
Challis admitted the sweetness--or possible sweetness--of their
dispositions. But he took exception to their voices. He would have
preferred these to be more like Cordelia's. The nice little people kept
up such a fire of comment, although Miss Arkroyd was now supplying them
with cherries, that Challis could hardly hear what she was saying. But
he gathered that it was eulogy of the way in which he had referred to
the voice of Cordelia and King Lear's description of it, in one of his
novels. Only it seemed to him that she was putting the saddle on the
wrong horse--ascribing the passage to the wrong book, for she mentioned
the "Spendthrift's Legacy," the first work that introduced him to his
public. As is frequently the case, this book continued to be the one he
was most connected with by non-readers of his works, for all that many
more recent ones had had a much larger circulation.
"Are you sure it isn't in 'The Epidermis'?" he asked.
"What isn't?"
"'Gentle and low, an excellent thing in women'--or parrots--what you
referred to just now...."
"What's 'The Epidermis'? Who's it by? I mean--I've seen it. But I
didn't know it was yours." Whereat Mr. Challis felt crushed. Fancy
anybody not knowing whom "The Epidermis" was by! If it had only been
not having read it yet, _that_ could have been softened by confession
of intense yearning to do so, unfairly frustrated by anæmic Circulating
Libraries. But not to know whom it was by!
"Name of my last book. Fidgetts and Thrills. Six Shillings net." Mr.
Challis affected a light joking tone. But he was mortified. However,
Miss Arkroyd was under obligation to invent something of a palliative
nature, and in the effort Cordelia's voice lapsed.
"Oh yes-s-s-s!" said she, dwelling on the "s" to express a mind
momentarily bewildered, but awaiting a light that was sure to come,
if she made the hiss long enough, and then cutting sharply in with an
interruption to it. "I was thinking of another book. _Quite_ another!"
And then closed the subject for good, but as one that might have been
pursued had she been thinking of a book that was rather another, but
not quite.
You see, the fact was that this young woman had read _none_ of this
author's works, though it seemed she yearned to do so. She had had no
time for reading, and the book had always got sent back to Mudie's
before she had read it, and so on. Well!--we can all sympathize, can't
we? But, then, she shouldn't have pretended she had, because that was
fibs. At most she had read a quotation from one of his stories--she
couldn't say which--in a review.
Mr. Challis suspected all this, and was too much a man of the world
to commit the blunder of proving that a lady had told fibs, however
insignificant. He was rather glad the little green birds kept in such
good voice, for though they usually dropped their cherries and wanted
another, they never dropped their subject. They helped the position,
and Challis felt he ought to help, too. His vanity was a little
wounded; but, then, how jolly comfortable that bed was, and what a
lovely cold douche that was after a real hot bath and what a choice
cigar this was, just recently supplied by this lady's brother! No!--he
would be generous, and help.
"How charmingly your sister draws! I was looking at her landscapes last
night."
"She's Prong's favourite pupil."
"She's very clever?"
"Oh yes!--she can do anything she turns her hands to. We differ on many
points. But it's impossible to deny her cleverness. Poor Sibyl!--I
suppose she can't help it."
"Can't help what?"
"Well!--rubbing me up the wrong way. But we all do that." Challis began
to feel that he was in the bosom of the Family. He might ask questions
freely, and did so as soon as the quiet of a retired walk in the garden
allowed freedom of speech. The parroquets dropped the subject abruptly
as soon as they found themselves alone.
"What's the Great Idea? I heard Lady Arkroyd talking of it to Lord
Felixthorpe. It was her idea, wasn't it?"
"Do you mean Mamma's?" Judith asked. Mr. Challis had not, and hesitated
a moment. Should he say, "Miss Sibyl's"? Surely no! Sunday citizens
would say that. Very well, then! Should it be "Sibyl's" or "Your
sister's"? He almost wished the young females of this landed family
were _ladyships_: it comes so much handier for outsiders. He risked the
point, and said, "Sibyl's," but softened the offence by adding, "Your
sister's, I mean." If the fine eyelids were offended, they concealed
it remarkably well. So much so that Mr. Challis said to himself that
no doubt the Normans Christian-named more than the Saxons. Or, were
those eyelids lenient towards his personal self? He was a married man,
certainly; only, then!--a married man may feel flattered, look you! But
this is not our affair at present. How about the Great Idea?
"Sibyl's idea, of course." The speaker accepted the Christian name; she
could have said "My sister's" stiffly. "It's a perfectly mad one. A
sort of new Factory, or perhaps I ought to say Institution. Everything
is to be made there, only nobody is to be allowed to work there who is
qualified to do anything else."
"Anything else than what?"
"Why--don't you understand? Arts and crafts. Enamels and lace and
tapestry and hammered brass and copper. Not manufactures--mediæval
things...."
"Oh, ah!--I know."
"All that sort of thing. Well!--the Great Idea is to take either some
premises of the proper sort, or a piece of land and build a Factory,
with studios for herself and Lady Betty Inglis; she must be in it to
make Sir Spender Inglis, who's enormously rich, find half the capital.
I've done _my_ best ... to prevent it. But it's no use my saying
anything. Will keeps her up to it."
"Your brother?"
"Yes. You see, he's been looking into the question of building, and is
certain he could build at half the usual cost. So he wants to try his
hand on the Factory."
"Poor Sir Spender!"
"That's what I say. And poor Papa! However, that's not Will's only
reason. He wants to build some workshops for himself to carry out
experiments in wireless high-tension currents and aerostation. _I_
don't understand these things."
"Your brother seems a universal genius, too?"
"Yes. But then, he took a very high degree at Cambridge. He always has
that excuse. Sibyl has no degree, and ought to know better."
"What exactly is going to be done at the Factory? And are all the hands
to be ladies? Or how?"
"Very much 'how?' I should say. The idea is, to employ no one who
can do anything else anywhere else. People with one hand or one eye.
Colour-blind guards who can't get places on railways. Deaf and dumb
people that can read the Scriptures aloud automatically and never be
any the wiser, don't you know?"
"Was that what your brother was talking about to your sister"--in this
exact context "Sibyl" would hardly have worked in--"last night? About a
blind chap he told her of. She thought he might be taught to model."
"Did they talk about him? I didn't hear them. A blind beggar-man in
a street where I slum--sells matches, or pretends to. They won't get
_him_ to work for ten shillings a week."
"Why not?"
"Because he's earning ten shillings a day, probably, and putting by
money. They do. Isn't that somebody calling me?... Yes.... I'm coming."
And then the young lady, with a parting benediction to her hearer for
the amusing talk they had had, vanished in response to some summons
which she had distinguished as intended for herself.
He for his part thought it necessary to propose to himself, and to
carry unanimously, a vote of confidence in the great advantage to
the brain it was to get away from one's surroundings now and again,
and get a complete change. He had the hypocrisy to add that the said
surroundings stood to derive benefit also, in ways not precisely
specified. He felt stimulated and braced, confirmed in the image he
treasured of his own identity. His interview with Miss Arkroyd had been
like having the hair of his soul brushed by machinery, and called for
classification. It was necessary to protest against a remark something
somewhere had made, that his own home need not suffer by contrast. He
indignantly repudiated the necessity for discussing the matter, as he
threw away a cigar he had taken some time to smoke.
Still, he did not feel so sure on the point as not to be glad to
be finally pinioned by a gentleman with a theory, whom he had
provisionally escaped from at breakfast, an hour before. This was
Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall, the Apostle of Universal Security, whose
belief that policies and premiums were remedies for all this world's
evils had taken possession of him while discharging the duties of
visiting inspector to a Fire Insurance Office. In the intervals of
his inspections, the object of which was to detect risks of fire in
order that no policies should be issued where any such risks existed,
he had evolved from his inner consciousness a number of systems, all
practicable in the highest degree--almost self-acting, in fact. At
least, they were none of them foolish, like the Rejected Proposal
Insurance (Matrimony), which we believe fell through in consequence
of the dishonest connivance of the parties, renewed proposals being
frequently accepted within twenty-four hours of the payment of the
sum assured. It was even reported that young ladies had advanced the
first year's premium in some cases, in return for a commission of
seventy-five per cent. at settlement; and that the Office was dissuaded
with difficulty by its solicitors from commencing proceedings for
conspiracy. An absurd scheme!
The scheme Mr. Wraxall was anxious to lay before Mr. Challis was at
least (said its inventor) worthy of serious consideration. It was a
simple System of Assurance in which unborn legitimate male children
would, by payment of a premium, secure to themselves the full
advantages of a University education. Of course, he did not rely on
their personal application--that was to be done on their behalf by
their proposed parents--but it was not only ladies and gentlemen who
had substantial guarantees for the appearance of these undergraduates,
but _any lady and gentleman whatever_ were to be at liberty to take
out Policies of Assurance, the premiums getting less and less in
proportion as the improbability of the couple ever having lawful issue
became greater and greater. The modest sum of fifty pounds was to
cover a claim for the possible son of an engaged couple (as bashfully
alluded to in marriage settlements); while a full hundred was required
for an infant of unknown sex awaiting advertisement in the birth
column of the _Times_. On the other hand, where there was very little
chance of the courtship having a successful issue (as in the case of
extreme youth of the parties) the premium went down contemptuously to
a sovereign. Children in arms betrothed by their parents were to enjoy
all the advantages of the institution for two shillings and sixpence.
But the lowest figure on the list, nine decimal point ought-six pence,
was the sum for which any married gentleman could secure its benefits
for the not necessarily impossible son, born in lawful wedlock of
himself and _any_ lady, also married elsewhere, provided that the
couple were of different nationalities and each resident at home. It
was thought necessary, said Mr. Wraxall, to bar cases of murder by the
policy-holder, of whichever sex.
"I can't see the necessity," said Challis. "The Office could not refuse
to carry out the bargain because of suspicion of murder; and in case of
conviction the chance of a family goes down to almost _nil_, because of
the hanging. See?"
"Quite so, as a rule. But cases might occur of conviction and hanging
deferred for months, even years. It might even happen that an insured
son had become a _bénéficiare_ to the extent of a complete University
education before either of his parents was arrested for murder. Such
an event would have to be provided against, or due allowance made in
fixing the amount of the premium. But without going so far as that, we
should meet with instances of murderers under this arrangement getting
married while out on bail. A posthumous son could not be fairly branded
as illegitimate because his father was hanged and his mother sentenced
to penal servitude before his birth. Holy Matrimony is all that
legitimacy demands."
"Couldn't you raise the premium, so as to cover all possible cases?
Distaste for murder, on its merits, would tend to keep the number low.
Make it eighteenpence."
"Pardon me, Mr. Challis, you do not understand Human Nature. The
passing from pence to shillings marks a crucial point of its
susceptibilities. For one man who will go over a shilling to provide
against a defined contingency you will meet with a million who will
invest pence on some chance they almost deny the existence of, simply
because, if it _did_ come to pass, the benefit would be so out of all
proportion to the sum risked to obtain it. If an investment of one
halfpenny could be shown to connect itself with a possible gain of
ten million pounds, the whole population of the world would plunge to
that extent. There can be no reasonable doubt that, however improbable
it may seem to any married man that he should marry the widow of a
particular foreigner, quite unknown, still, the advantage of having
their son's education provided at a cost of nine point-ought-six pence
would be an irresistible argument in favour of its outlay. Nothing
short of mathematical certainty that no such son was possible would...."
"I understand perfectly. That is my own view. _I_ draw the line at a
shilling. To go beyond it opens up a world of immoral extravagance...."
The speaker felt in danger of yawning, and, to avoid it and break loose
from his persecutor, had to fall back on the time-honoured expedient of
inventing a neglected duty elsewhere. He drew his watch suddenly from
its pocket with the _verve_ of an angler landing a fish, and exclaimed
with sudden deep conviction: "I really must run!"
And Mr. Alfred Challis ran, and found that letters for the Post had
to be ready at eleven forty-five. He had come away from home with the
best intentions of writing a line every day to his wife, and, indeed,
had meant to write long humorous letters with satirical descriptions of
the British Toff at Home, all the points of which would make good copy
after, as it was only Marianne. It wasn't like repeating a published
article. But this time it would have to be a line, or at most a sheet
of note-paper; and it was accordingly.
When one has arrived at the time of life when one weighs beforehand
each sentence one writes, even to an intimate friend--instead of
dashing recklessly on, as in one's glorious youth--how glad one
sometimes is to be put under compulsion about the contents of a letter!
Challis wouldn't acknowledge his obligation to the coercion of the
Postal limit--not he! But he felt it all the same. For he couldn't have
filled out his letter with Universal Security. Marianne wouldn't have
understood a word of it. It wasn't her line. And as for his long talk
with Judith Arkroyd ... well, now!--why on earth couldn't he just write
that he had had one, and that she had told him a lot about the family,
and he would write a long letter about it next time, but really this
was only a line to catch the Post. Why not, indeed? Yes, of course,
that was the proper thing to write. He wrote it, and denied the pause,
to his own satisfaction. But he was grateful to the Post for being so
coercive and superseding and cancelling all considerations of--of what?
He denied that there was anything to cancel, and directed the letter.
CHAPTER V
OF A RAINY DAY AT ROYD. HOW A MOTOR-CAR CAME TO GRIEF. HOW MISS
ARKROYD'S MOTHER WENT TO THANES CASTLE AND SHE HERSELF DIDN'T
A little bit of duty done always seems at its best when it has taken
the form of a written letter. Because when the time comes for posting,
whatever the letter may contain--whether it be a lame apology for
breaking an engagement or a promise to send a cheque without fail next
week--the penny stamp and the direction are just the same as if it had
been to reproach Angela for not appearing yesterday at church-parade
in Hyde Park, or had enclosed a final discharge of your tailor's
account. So Mr. Challis's rather perfunctory line to catch the Post,
boldly stamped and directed, quite set his mind at ease about his home
obligations as soon as ever it was licked and stuck to, past recall.
In fact, so relieved was his conscience, after he had handed this
letter to Elphinstone the butler to see that it went to the Post for
him, that he felt quite at liberty to enjoy some more soul-brush the
next time the chance came. All the more from a conviction of the
importance of its contents conveyed by the professional manner of Mr.
Elphinstone's reception of it--a manner that said, "_This_ really
important letter _shall_ go, whatever other don't!" If this enjoyment
of the soul-brush became too oppressive to his conscience, he could
square accounts by an extra sheet or so of letter-paper.
Anyhow, he could now live for the present. He was rather disgusted to
find that, whatever he decided on to enjoy next, it would have to be in
the house, unless he was prepared to get wet out of doors. For, taking
a mean advantage of him while he was writing his short letter, it had
come on to rain.
In a country-house, when it comes on to rain after a fine early
morning, despair settles on the household, which wanders about moaning,
and looking for someone to come and have a game at billiards; or
lamenting the cruel fate which has beguiled it into putting its things
on, and now it supposes that it had better go and take them off again
and settle down to something, because it's going to pour; or asking
what was the name of that capital game we played every day at Fen
Grange, for instance, when it rained for three weeks on end, and nobody
was the least bored. It is in sad hours such as this that you seek for
a chess-opponent and find none, except a class of player that knows the
moves, whom you fly from candidly; and then, if fortunate, you may meet
with one of another class, who has forgotten the openings. Secure him,
but don't let him set you an interesting problem and run away.
"I've never played, but I should like to learn. Only I really don't
know where the men are. Nobody plays here, you see, and they get lost
or hidden in cupboards." Thus Judith in the second hour of a steady
downpour to Mr. Challis's inquiry, for he was always ready for a game
at chess, without being keen about it.
"You are not getting on with your book, anyhow!" said he. "Can't I
hunt about for the chessmen till I find them?" The book was one he had
recommended at the first coming of the rain, and it was when it was
closed in despair that Challis asked his question.
"I think we must ask Elphinstone. Would you ring?" Challis rang, and
a sub. who appeared was instructed to consult Mr. Elphinstone. Judith
continued: "No!--I hate sinners who are touched by the _Dies Iræ_ in
a cathedral and repent; especially when they've got too old to do any
real mischief. I would sooner they went to the Devil honestly...."
And so the chat ran on, Challis cordially concurring, and not hinting
at any joy whatever over the sinner that repenteth, until the young
man Samuel came back with chessmen. There was another set, of ivory,
it appeared, but Mr. Elphinstone had desired Samuel to say that a
prawn was defective, and one of the bishops was out of his socket, and
couldn't be got to screw in. Samuel had been put to it to charge his
memory with this obscure message; he was confident about the prawn,
but had misgiving about the bishop--feared it was disrespectful to the
Church perhaps; but went away relieved when nothing explosive came of
it. His situation was safe.
Many of us know that teaching chess is no sinecure. The _alumnus_
who refuses to accept the rules as they stand; who wants to know why
the pawns may not move backwards; why the pieces may not jump over,
like in draughts; why the queen should have such absurd latitude; who
thinks all the black pieces should remain on the black squares, and
_per contra_--how well we know him! And the difficulty a peculiar class
of intellect has in mastering the knight's move, condemning it on its
merits, as too much like squinting, or italics! And another yet,
which, on being shown how to make a particular move, makes it, and says
contentiously: "Well!--I don't see anything so very clever in that."
Miss Arkroyd did not quite do any of these things, but she was nearly
as bad. She remembered the moves, in the abstract, but forgot which of
the pieces made them; and this answered as well as forgetting the moves
for all purposes of confusion. With so beautiful a hand it couldn't
matter how much she fingered the pieces. And Mr. Challis seemed very
contented. The instruction was a farce, but it served its turn, and
a sort of appearance of a game developed while the rain outside came
steadily down, and checkmated everyone in the house. Desultory chat,
in which the question, "Whose move is it?" frequently occurred, helped
Challis to a further insight into family conditions and local history.
_En revanche_ the young lady added to her impressions of Challis's own
domestic circumstances and his literary career, and found that an image
was forming in her mind of Mrs. Challis. It wasn't a beautiful image,
but it was worthy. It was that of a good soul. But not a good sort of
body--nothing so bad as that! She felt glad, for Challis's sake. A good
soul and the best of wives; that kind of thing! You couldn't expect
education of very finished achievement in those sort of people, in the
class she came from. For Miss Arkroyd had got somehow a perfectly clear
impression of a class undefinable, but homogeneous and recognizable
by symptoms. A class that didn't dress for dinner, a class that liked
potatoes in their skins as a palliative to cold moist roast mutton
_d' obbligo_; and did not condemn, but merely looked coldly on, at
_menu_'s and finger-glasses. A class whose males smoked pipes and whose
females refused cigarettes; which, though its young learned French at
school, condemned France as the most salient foreign incident on an
incorrigibly foreign Continent, and a perfect moral plague-spot of
unfaithful wives and husbands.
But however good a soul this man's wife was, Judith caught herself
being sorry for him. Yesterday evening, when she went good-naturedly
to him, as to her mother's latest discovery, just to say a few words
and prevent his getting left out in the cold, he had seemed to her only
moderately interesting, and far from handsome. Now she began with a
discriminating eye to see that, though he was far from handsome, he was
just as far from ugly. Still, she perceived that it did credit to her
discriminating eye to find this out. She hadn't noticed it so much when
he turned up unexpectedly in the garden in the morning--unexpectedly,
because she was really unconscious of having said in his hearing
that she was going across the lawn to feed her birds. But now, in a
lucky half-light in the red drawing-room, with his eyes dropped on
the chess-board, his forehead and eye-framing had a look about them
that was certainly interesting, if not a good substitute for beauty.
Judith would have preferred the beauty, certainly; but she could look
contentedly at the good soul's property, and go on wondering what _she_
was like, while he considered knotty points connected with the game.
"You've put your king in check, Miss Arkroyd. You mustn't do that."
He looked up suddenly and caught her eyes. Her _rapport_ with the
game saved him from his vanity by good luck. "I see you thought you
had caught me," was his interpretation of her gaze. It was in token
of a supposed triumph, so he thought. Whatever it was, it became
disconcerted.
"Oh!--mustn't I do that? I think it oughtn't to count, when one does it
oneself. Don't you?" Challis said to himself that this woman was rather
a goose. Why he felt a little disappointed at her being rather a goose
he could not have said off-hand. He apologized for the stupidity of the
laws of games generally; said they were clearly wrong all round. But it
would make such a lot of fuss to alter them now that he doubted if it
was worth it.
"You're not in earnest, Mr. Challis?" So the lady spoke, and Challis
said to himself that Marianne would never have found that out. "Sharp,
by comparison!" was his comment to himself; and then aloud: "But I
can't have you bored, Miss Arkroyd. You don't care about this." To
which Judith replied: "It's not exciting, so far;" and both laughed.
The discovery that each had been thinking the same thing was full of
conductivities. It improved their footing.
"It can't be, you know, when you come to think of it," said he,
pushing his chair expressively three inches back--an expression of
renunciation--with a slight boredom-admitting stretch. "Chess requires
apprenticeship before it can be enjoyed, like smoking."
"I see. And this game has made me sick, like a boy's first cigar. Why
didn't you tell me?"
"One must begin some time.... Well! I don't know either. Must one?..."
"There was nothing else to do."
"We might have gone into the billiard-room and heard politics. I heard
them going on through the door a little while ago. Mr. ... what's his
name?--the politician...."
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes?"
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes. I gathered that he was giving details of his great
scheme of Reciprocal Interdependent Taxation of Imports--what he
touched upon at dinner last night...."
"Don't let me disturb the chess!" says a passer through the room. It
is Lady Arkroyd with an armful of some form of embroidery which no
one is on any account to assist her in carrying to the drawing-room
beyond. But what she means is, "Don't arrest my progress. Mind your
own business." Challis makes a convulsive suggestion of willingness to
assist the Universe, but doesn't mean anything at all by it; and her
ladyship floats away, leaving him normal. But his plunge, overdone from
dramatic motives, has knocked the board over. The Fates seem to league
together to throw cold water on this ill-starred game. Judith conveys
the fact by a shrug, but adds a smile, that it may be understood there
is no _amertume_ in the situation. Further, she says she can hear Tea.
A sense that Life's problem is solved for the moment mixes with a
consciousness of hairbrush-time come again, and Mr. Challis disperses
to reassemble presently and enjoy it.
How it is pouring, to be sure! And how grateful one feels to
it--abstraction though it be--for doing it in earnest, and making an
end of all doubts whether we may not get out for a turn later. Nobody
is going to do that to-day.
Challis encounters young Lord Felixthorpe on the stairs, coming from
the billiard-room. He is always amiable and well-mannered, this young
nobleman, and manages to make everyone think he has their good opinion
of him at heart. But he often seems to be seeking their sympathy with
his derision of someone else. Or of himself, for that matter--so
Challis goes on thinking, for all this is what passes in _his_ mind;
the story does not vouch for its truth. During their slow ascent of the
great staircase together, he is more than half-convinced that the young
toff really cares about his views on motoring.
"I am quite aware," says his lordship, pausing at a corner, as though
one might go upstairs at any slowness, even with the young man Samuel
and a colleague agglomerating gilded porcelain within hearing as
tea-factors. "I am quite aware, my dear Mr. Challis, that the motor-car
is at present an object of execration to the public. But I sympathize
so keenly that I feel bound to spend as much time as possible in the
only place in which I am not tempted to forget myself and use bad
language against motorists. I refer to the motor-car itself. Believe
me that the only thing that can reconcile a well-constituted mind to
any practice essentially damnable is the practice itself. I shall look
forward to your accompanying me in my Panhard, after a profusion of
curses perfectly reasonably directed against it--in which you will have
my sincerest sympathy."
"When do you expect the detestable contrivance--I make no disguises,
you see--to arrive? I shall be here for a week, if my hosts continue to
tolerate me."
"It ought to be here now. From the fact that it is _not_ here now, I am
led to infer that something has happened. In this cautious expression
you will kindly observe that it includes the possibility that my
chauffeur, Louis Bossier, has got drunk on the road, and has stopped
the night at an inn to become sober."
"Or he may have been poisoned by petroleum."
"Yes, or his head may have been cut off by a police-wire, stretched
across the road in the dark. But in that case I fancy we should have
heard."
* * * * *
When Challis descended the stairs, he paused to look out at the great
window with the quarried grisaille and armorial bearings in each light,
and saw through a quarry temporarily repaired with common window-glass
a clear view of the approach to the house, dutifully draining off the
deluge that continued to fall steadily--steadily--on the gravel road
the great beech avenue took such care of, standing on each side of
it all the way to just this side of the Lodge. How well he knew what
that soaked gravel would have to say to the pedestrian who ventured
out--what it _was_ saying to that unhappy man in some sort of oilskin
costume who was coming slowly, jadedly along, above his under-squelch
and below an umbrella that can have done him very little good. Mr.
Challis saw at a glance that he was not indigenous to the soil; a
second glance determined that he was a Frenchman; a third that he
was a chauffeur. Certainly Louis Rossier--who else? He smiled as a
non-motorist smiles when a motor comes to grief. When he reached the
drawing-room, Mr. Ramsey Tomes was already applying for a second cup.
That gentleman was thirsty, no doubt. He had talked for two hours. Not
that he meant to stop--far from it!
Challis had no one to talk to for the moment, so he listened to Mr.
Tomes, who went on again as soon as he had made sure there were two
lumps.
"I start from an aspect of the question that must compel the most
incredulous to admit that at least the matrix is ripe for solution."
As the orator paused a moment, everyone felt bound to fructify a
little, and said, "I see, you propose to ..." or, "I see your idea ..."
or merely got as far as "I see you ..." and remained stranded. All
except the disciple of Graubosch, who muttered knowingly, "The
Brandenbierenschreiligrath System. Graubosch's Appendix B deals with
it." He and Mr. Wraxall exchanged astute nods; the latter to oblige,
because he really knew nothing about it. But Mr. Tomes wasn't going to
leave anything vague. Not he!--a man with a fixed glare, and loaded to
the muzzle with exhaustive elucidation!
Challis did not wait for the next instalment. He cast about for an
anchorage, and had not found a satisfactory one when Lord Felixthorpe,
who had not appeared at the beginning of Tea, came into the room with
something to communicate written on his countenance.
"What's gone amiss, Scip?" said his friend, William Rufus.
"That idiot Rossier...."
"I told you he was a fool. What's he done now?"
"Left the machine in a ditch, and walked home through the mud....
Oh no, he hasn't hurt himself. I wish he had--in moderation." The
public becomes interested, and explanation spreads over the room. A
lady's voice says, afar, that its owner supposes now we shall lose our
excursion, and that place will be gone, and it would have been the very
thing. Challis doesn't understand this, and asks Judith the meaning. He
is in her neighbourhood somehow--seems to have sacrificed hearing more
about the accident. She supposes Sibyl meant the place for the Great
Idea. But they couldn't have gone to-morrow unless the weather mended,
anyhow.
People chatter so in a room full; you soon lose threads of
conversation. Challis knew little more about either the accident or
the Great Idea when he went away to dress for dinner an hour later.
He was only aware that Mr. Tomes was still at work on the Reciprocal
Interdependent Taxation of Imports, and that Miss Arkroyd was going to
play Halma with him if he came up soon enough after dinner.
* * * * *
In his letter to Marianne, written after he went up to his room rather
early--people are very apt to think it's getting on for bedtime after
rain-beleaguered days in country-houses--Mr. Challis merely mentioned
two games at Halma, and adduced the exciting character of that game
as a reason why very little was said. His letter implied that he was
being bored, which was untrue. However, the words "in the house all
day" would do that without an antidote. And we couldn't expect him to
mention the soul-brush, especially as he disallowed its existence. He
said a good deal of what he did know of the motor-car mishap, which was
natural, for--so he said--he had inferred, from the excitement on the
subject, that this car, when it appeared, would be the first ever seen
by most of the inhabitants of the district.
This machine was the latest extravagance of young Lord Felixthorpe,
who had spent a thousand pounds upon it; and its arrival from the
agent at Grime, who was to welcome it--or rather its components--to
England, and to qualify it for the enjoyment of its riders, and the
execrations of its victims, was looked forward to with feverish anxiety
by both. But he could not give such details as were supplied next day,
after a fuller sifting of Louis Rossier's report, which was not very
intelligible at first. These had to wait for a postscript, which told
how the chauffeur, who did not understand three words of English, had
proved as sensitive to misdirection as the compass is to the magnetic
current. He went the wrong way instinctively several times, and was
headed back, or finger-pointed back, just as often. In the end he made
an unfortunate choice between two roads, although warned by a long
shouted instruction from a turnipfield--which ignored his nationality
robustly--that the cross-over bridge, when he come to Sto'an's mill,
nigh the running wa'ater, wasn't to be troosted to carry lo'ads; and
the shouter would be rather shoy of it, in yower place. But you might
take e'er a one of they two ways, at your liking. Being none the wiser,
Louis Rossier chose the more tempting one; and when he came to the
cross-over bridge, which spanned a ditch, could not, of course, tell
the meaning of the Local Authority's posted caution to the effect that
nothing over two tons was to use it; with the result that it gave way
in the middle. It was too small a bridge to let any vehicle larger than
a goat-chaise through and almost too small a ditch to accommodate one,
but the motor was trapped and detained in its sunk centre.
"You'll have to get to t' Hall on Sha'anks's mear, yoong ma-an," said a
native, who was not really taking pains to hide his joy at the mishap.
Louis got to the Hall, but didn't know he had ridden Shanks's mare.
However, for a first accident with a new Panhard, it wasn't so bad!
Only one tyre ruined; its comrade was mendable. In the end the gorgeous
scarlet vehicle was got to the house by horses, and was recovering
its spirits and snorting, with the new spare tyre on, by the time the
company at the Hall had eaten too much lunch, and were arranging how
they would spend their afternoon. Challis had despatched his letter of
the previous night, and was enjoying himself. A gloriously fine day,
following an isolated local depression of the barometer, had removed
the local depressions the latter had occasioned to everyone else,
and Miss Arkroyd had ended a second interview over the parroquets by
promising to take him to see the Roman and British camps on the other
side of the village.
* * * * *
The first really professional excursion of the new motor was to be
dedicated to the Great Idea. For the Great Idea, however vaguely it was
formulated, was clear about one thing. Premises would be _de rigueur_.
It was therefore incumbent on its promoters to inspect premises, both
in town and country. At present the latter was the more popular,
because the weather was superb, and the notion of incorporating with
the Factory a Village Community, and perhaps a Garden City, both in the
evening with a flawless Autumn sky, was too tempting to be neglected.
So, this afternoon, William Rufus and Sibyl and Lord Felixthorpe--in
spite of an impression he gave that he was treating the Great Idea with
derision--were to run over to Whealhope Paulswell, about thirty miles
off, in the motor, to give that treasure a baptismal run and inspect
an extinct factory, which had been empty a quarter of a century. They
would be back by dinner-time.
Sir Murgatroyd, of whom we have seen nothing, as he has been
continually talking about the ruin of English Trade with Mr. Ramsey
Tomes, was going to take that gentleman to see some manure. People can
look at some manure, and talk about nefarious Germany, both at once.
There is reason to suppose that these two gentlemen talked of very
little but the ruin of English Trade during the whole of this visit
to Royd. And wherever any member of the household was employed--we
are recording the impressions of Mr. Alfred Challis--he or she could
always hear, in the remote distance, what was only too clearly Mr.
Tomes taking this opportunity to state, once for all; or Sir Murgatroyd
feeling bound, alike as a Statesman and an Englishman, to protest
against. A steady, continuous rumble, on these lines, accompanied the
not particularly busy hum of men, women, and chits, that made up the
round of life at Royd. The chits, by-the-by, of which there were two or
three, naturally involved a corresponding number of young men, each to
each; or each in the pocket of each, as you choose. None of them seemed
the least ashamed of never having a word to throw at anyone outside
the pocket, except its owner, and the rest of Europe seemed by common
consent to take no notice of them. And all the while each one, and the
contents of its pocket, was, like enough--so thought Mr. Challis--the
centre of an incubation of memories that were to last a lifetime. "As
they bake, so they will brew," philosophized Mr. Challis to himself,
and clouded over a little as he remembered that he, too, was in the
twenties once. Four of them played lawn-tennis that afternoon, and the
others got somehow lost sight of. No matter!
Lady Arkroyd had the carriage, and drove over to Thanes Castle, to see
the Duchess of Rankshire before the Royalties came. But she wasn't at
all sure she wouldn't have done something else if she had known that
Judith was going to cry off at the last minute. She relied a good deal
on her eldest daughter as a factor in social intercourse. But she
didn't confess it.
"What on earth is the girl going to do with herself? How can you be so
tiresome, Ju? Now do just get ready and come. There's no hurry. I can
wait."
"Now, Madre dear, you really ought to know by this time how bored I
always am with the sort of people they get at the Castle. And I've got
letters to write. I must answer Lady Kitty about the orchids."
"Nonsense, girl! You can't be all the afternoon over _that_."
"I shall go out later. In an hour or so. I dare say I shall take
Mr.--what's his name?--Harris--round the village and show him the Roman
Camp. He'll know what castrametation means, and things...."
"Mr. 'Titus Scroop'? My dear!--he's as happy as he can be talking to
that idiot Brownrigg about Metaphysics and nonsense. Do let him alone!"
"Well!--I dare say I shall. Or otherwise, as may be. But I won't come
to Thanes. Love to the Duchess."
Judith was a stronger character than her mother, and won. As the latter
was driven off, she said to herself, for no apparent reason "Mr. Titus
Scroop."
Lady Arkroyd was in the habit of asking every celebrity she came across
to her home, because she worshipped genius. But she took the genius for
granted if she saw any author, artist, or musician's name often enough
in print. Was she sometimes rash? Well--yes--sometimes! Perhaps a doubt
about "Titus Scroop's" genius was the reason she said his name. But if
so, why did it lead to a resolve in her mind to ask Mrs. Candour--_the_
Mrs. Candour of the moment, whom she was sure to meet at Thanes--more
about Mrs. "Titus Scroop"? She kept thinking of it, off and on, all the
way to the park gates with the dragon-sentinels on piers on each side
presenting arms.
And all the while Challis was being bored by that idiot Brownrigg, and
wishing anyone would come and rescue him. He resented the idea that he
had any special rescuer in view. But no one had said he had. However,
Miss Arkroyd had certainly spoken about a walk to the Roman Camp; so
naturally he would cast her for the part, don't you see?
CHAPTER VI
OF THE GRAUBOSCHIAN PHILOSOPHY. HOW JUDITH ARKROYD WALKED WITH MR.
CHALLIS TO THE RECTORY. HOW HE SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS WIFE BEING HIS
DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. HOW HE WAS OUT OF HIS ELEMENT AT THE RECTORY.
SALADIN AND HIS CAT. HIS HEDGEHOG
The gentleman spoken of so disrespectfully by his hostess was Mr.
Adolphus Brownrigg, who was an enthusiastic disciple of the great
German philosopher Graubosch, whose scheme embodied a complete
Reorganization of Society on an entirely new basis. But whereas all
previous reorganizers of Society had started on the fallacious and
mischievous line of breaking up existing institutions and replacing
them by others of their own devising, this reformer proposed to utilize
them all as portions of his new System. Thus the reigning Sovereign
would fall easily into his place of Chairman of a great Central
Committee of Management, retaining the Crown as a distinguishing
badge of his office; the existing machinery of Parliamentary election
would answer equally well for the Members of the Central Committee;
the Bench would supply us with a most satisfactory staff for what he
termed Courts of Discriminative Decision, and so on, and so on. Even
the very Policemen's Uniforms would be available for the new staff of
Order-Keepers and Crime-Preventors that formed part of his System. Nay,
the Coinage itself would come in useful as Exchangeable Tokens in his
new Method of Sale and Purchase Accommodation.
"What attitude does Professor Graubosch adopt towards the Religions of
the world?" asked Challis, as he and the advocate of this new Reform
walked about the garden, discussing it.
"Graubosch," replied the latter, "is, broadly speaking, in favour of
their complete abolition. Nor do I myself think any continuation of
them would be found necessary in view of his new System of Metaphysical
Checks. No one recognizes more fully than Graubosch the necessity for
Moral Restraint derived from a Consciousness of the Unseen, whether
acting as a stimulus in connection with an exalted and unselfish
anxiety for personal rewards throughout Eternity, or as a deterrent
resulting from the anticipation of unpleasantness hereafter,
especially of continuous oxidation with evolution of caloric. But the
new System provides for both."
"As for instance?..."
"For instance, in respect of the Idea of a Deity.... But perhaps, Mr.
Challis, your own views on this subject are ... a ... well defined? I
should be sorry to ... to...."
"To give offence? Pray don't feel any scruples on my account."
"Well, I will continue. In respect of this Idea of a Deity, it is
true that Graubosch abolishes God, as such. But his System claims to
provide a substitute; and this substitute is, to my thinking, superior
in many respects for working purposes to the Idea it displaces. The
first Metaphysical Check he formulates is the Invariable Necessary
Antecedent. The acceptance of this as an inevitable condition of
thought is an essential of the System of Graubosch."
"How does it act as a check?"
"It is rather long to follow out; but, put as briefly as I can, it is
somewhat thus: Graubosch admits the possibility of an infinite number
of successions of Antecedents, as we have an infinite number of results
or sequents. But the effect on the Metaphysician of contemplating such
a condition of the Universe is fatal to reasoning, and may easily
produce suspension of the faculties. Philosophy stipulates for a _modus
vivendi_; and as a working necessity for argument, if for no other
reason, Graubosch refers the whole of the Universe to _one_ Invariable
Necessary Antecedent; which he accepts, for reasons which appear to me
satisfactory, as obviously superior to any one unit of its results or
sequences. We have no right, he says, to assume that _any_ result or
consequence is not achievable by such an Antecedent."
"I concur, on the whole. Does Graubosch ascribe intelligence, in our
sense of the word, to this Antecedent?"
"Certainly not. Intelligence is merely a sequence or consequence of
some minute fraction ... of ... of its power."
"Why did you hesitate?"
"From a feeling that Power itself may only be a finite humanism, so to
speak--an Entity on all fours with Intelligence. But the Metaphysician
has to leave himself a few words, to speak with. Now the idea of
_greater_ and _less_ is axiomatic, and it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that _our_ Intelligence is a lesser thing than its working
substitute in the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent."
"I quite understand. To create Intelligence, its Creator when creating
himself must go one better--break his own anticipated record. What are
Graubosch's views about Good and Evil? They both are factors in our
existing System, especially the latter."
"He ignores both, as antiquated and unnecessary. In his System, the
fruitless discussions about which is which--where one ends and the
other begins, and so on--disappear entirely."
"That sounds good. Vice and Virtue could shake hands over it--a
Coalition Ministry, don't you know?"
"Pardon me!--the exact reverse. Party Government would be intensified.
But I ought to describe what Graubosch terms the _Plus_ and _Minus_
of his System, in its Moral or Ethical aspects. The first expression
recognizes in what has been hitherto absurdly called 'Good' merely
the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent leaking out, so to speak,
and becoming perceptible to our Senses. The second, in what has been
equally absurdly called 'Evil,' its diminution or repression."
Challis yawned. He was getting bored. "Does not that," he said, "assume
the existence of some counter-power, able to diminish and repress?"
"Graubosch avoids doing so. And therein lies the beauty of his System.
His _Minus_ is simply negation of his _Plus_. An exact parallel is
supplied by the phenomena of light and darkness. To ascribe to darkness
powers of extinguishing light is scientifically absurd."
"I see." Challis spoke in a winding-up tone. His bore perceived it, and
dexterously pinioned him.
"Pardon me one moment more," he said, "We are at a point where
the beauty of the System becomes most manifest. I refer to its
elasticity--its power of utilizing, provisionally at any rate, existing
Institutions pending its maturer development. Graubosch does not doubt
the efficacy at some future date of the Metaphysical Check on our
propensities supplied by the _Plus_ and _Minus_ of his System. But he
proposes for the present--at least, until believers in a Personal God
from early youth have had time to die out--to postpone the _Plus_ which
is to take his place. Also--and this is important in connection with
the operation of Metaphysical Checks--he is favourable to the retention
of a Personal Devil until the Masses have acquired an insight into
Metaphysics...."
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Mr. Challis. "I have letters to
write, and they say the Post goes at twelve...."
"But I hope I have impressed you favourably. We must bear in mind...."
"Most favourably, my dear sir. And it seems to me that if we only let
things alone vigorously enough, we may regard Professor Graubosch's
great Reform as already in operation...." Mr. Challis paused on behalf
of a newcomer, to whom he resumed: "Not at all, Miss Arkroyd ... not
the least! I assure you Mr. Brownrigg and I have talked the subject
dry.... No!--I really am speaking the truth." This with absolute
fervour.
"Because I do so hate interrupting," said Judith, who had been waiting
to speak. "And I saw you were so interested. But I can say what I
have to say and go--and then you can finish." Mr. Challis looked
dejected, and Judith continued: "I only wanted to say that I shall be
walking down to the village presently, and could show you the Roman
and British camps and the prehistoric monolith." Mr. Challis looked
elated. "Only _presently_, when you have really had your talk out.
I shall be on the terrace." Mr. Challis was just on the point of
arresting Miss Arkroyd's departure by another violent profession of
intense completion of the subject in hand, when prudence murmured in
his ear that his bore mustn't be allowed to come too. Now a pretence
that he was yearning for three words more, and would then meet the lady
on the terrace, just served to place Mr. Brownrigg in the position
of a fixture. It localized him. Otherwise he might have moved with
the train of events, unshaken off. Even as it was, a very vigorous "I
really mustn't keep Miss Arkroyd waiting any longer" was wanted to
effect the extraction--for it was quite like tooth-drawing. But the
force of handling--as the art-critics phrase it--was so strong that Mr.
Brownrigg couldn't say, "Why shouldn't I come too, I should like to
know?" He _would_ have, nevertheless. But he had to give the point up,
and went to look for Mr. Wraxall.
* * * * *
Judith was waiting on the terrace looking handsome. She was wrestling
with an intractable glove-button, and her hand that was operative was
embarrassed by her sunshade having been taken into its confidence.
Mr. Challis could hold the sunshade, clearly. A very simple thing!
And when the glove-button socketed into its metallic nidus, and was
satisfactory, how obvious for the young lady to take that sunshade back
again, with a profusion of thanks as for a great service done! But did
the little incident leave the two performers exactly where it found
them? Sometimes things of this sort don't. Things of what sort, do you
ask? Well!--you see, we are watching Mr. Alfred Challis's mind, and
can, for the present, only answer--the sort that made that gentleman
conscious that the twenties and he had parted company many years ago.
Perhaps, however, it's only one of those nonsensical ideas Sibyl gets
(now, if you please, we are peering into the lady's mind) when she
tells her sister that flirtations with married men are detestable.
However, this time Sibyl couldn't have a word to say--a literary
man with an attenuated beard, and hair that seems to have thought
of curling once, and then thought better of it, and gone a little
gray hesitatingly! And a weak mouth! And a lay-down collar! And such
clothes! No!--this time Sibyl could find no excuse. If this man wasn't
safe, you might as well have no male friends or even acquaintances at
all, and live in a harem.
Besides, there was something very interesting about his eyes and
forehead, which were his good points. Oh yes!--his hands were not bad.
They looked sensitive, and showed the bones. Judith's mind made swift
excursion down a side-alley. What was the impossible Mrs. Challis like
to live with, she wondered? Did he adore her, or how? Perhaps she
wasn't really a "good soul" at all, but adorable--in reason.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Challis. I always get into such a mess with
buttons. I hope you are not afraid of dogs, because Saladin must come
with us. He never gets any exercise unless I take him out." A huge
Danish boarhound, conscious that he was spoken of, looked up and
appeared to sanction the use of his name. He had smelt Mr. Challis, and
found some excuse for him, presumably, in some nicety of bouquet human
nostrils know not of.
"Saladin's welcome," said he. "But I'm like Br'er Rabbit--a mighty puny
man myself, and I may very easily git trompled...." For Saladin was
appalling.
"What's that out of?"
"Uncle Remus."
"I suppose I ought to read Uncle Remus?"
"Yes; but don't if you don't like."
"Not if I ought to?"
"The ought is not a high moral ought. You ought to read Uncle Remus if
you want something amusing to read."
"I haven't much time for reading, and I want to read 'The Epidermis.'
Everyone tells me I shall enjoy it."
"Perhaps everyone knows. I don't feel so much confidence myself. Read
Uncle Remus first, anyhow. If you do that, I'll ask you to accept a
copy of t'other one, from the Author."
"I've just written off for a copy to the publisher."
"Oh!--have you?--I would tell him to transfer the order to my
account--only that takes all the edge off the proceeding."
"When did Uncle Remus come out first?"
"Oh--a long time ago! It's odd to think how long. I'm over forty. I was
almost a boy."
"Perhaps that's why you liked it so much? Fancy your being fourteen
years older than me!"
"Perhaps." The last half of Miss Arkroyd's remark had to go without
answer. It was too parenthetical to call for one.
Experience teaches us that there is no meshwork of circumstance into
which flatter conversation may weave itself than the combination of a
married man, a young woman, and a walk out on a fine afternoon, of set
purpose. At least, that was the text of a literary reflection of Mr.
Challis at this juncture. He put it away in a mental storehouse for his
next book. Its truth or falsehood is immaterial at present.
Judith made no mental note of what _her_ experience taught; but she
knew she couldn't stand being bored and she felt it coming. She had
made up her mind to have an amusing walk with this popular favourite.
And Sibyl might say what she liked, but she wouldn't be balked!
A sense of intended impertinence may have heightened her colour
slightly, as she stopped and turned the fine eyes full on to her
companion. He stopped, too, looking round.
"Mr. Challis, I want you to tell me something.... No!--don't promise
till you know what it is...."
"I am sure, Miss Arkroyd, you will ask me nothing I should hesitate to
tell you...."
"Don't be too confident ... it's very impertinent!"
"All right--go on! I'll forgive you."
"Is 'Ziz' in the 'Spendthrift's Legacy' Mrs. Challis?"
"My wife? Marianne?" Mr. Challis was conscious of being reminded of
his wife. A fine _nuance_ of ashamedness--it could hardly be called
shame--affected his mind, surely? Else why note the perfectly obvious
fact that if he and Marianne were never to forget each other for
a single instant, life would be insupportable to both. Perhaps he
can hardly be said to have noted it, though; suppose we say that he
declined to note it, consciously, because of its absurd irrelevance.
"Yes!--Marianne." Judith's eyes, with no concession in them of any
shade of impertinence in the use of Mrs. Challis's Christian name,
waited for the answer, as she still stood, not stirring. Was she saying
to herself that this was tit-for-tat; a _riposte_ for his "Sibyl" of
their talk in the morning? Saladin, not used to this sort of thing,
waited also, reproachfully. Challis, rather accepting "Marianne" as a
sanction of his "Sibyl," was again conscious that his soul was being
brushed by machinery--not an intrusive brush though; an easy one he
could ignore. His answer was not difficult.
"Not a particle of resemblance between them! Ziz was a"--he stopped
himself just in time--"a ... a ... almost a sort of professional
beauty." The one word "professional" made all the difference--saved the
position.
Now, Judith had a habit of despising dangerous ground in social
intercourse; it was part of what Mr. Challis had called her
_prepotente_ disposition. She would always put her horse at a quickset
hedge if any image crossed her mind of the finger of Discretion, the
monitress; especially if it looked like Sibyl's. While Mr. Challis
was breathing freely about his dexterous escape, she made up her mind
to know all about this impossible person who wasn't a professional
beauty. As to how she should get at this knowledge, that was another
matter. All she could see her way to at the moment was--not to be in
a hurry and spoil her chances. But she was very much mistaken if she
couldn't do with this man, whom she thought of as nerves and brains and
very little else, what she had done before now with stronger men than
he--viz., twist him round her little finger.
"Ah!--I'm so glad," said she. And then, as though to clothe her pause
in walking with the semblance of a moment of mental tension, she
resumed movement forward. Saladin emphasized her action by a single
tremendous bark, and did the same. A startled waterfowl decided that
his position was untenable, and condemned the neighbourhood, going off
in a bee-line with a rush. Two horses out at grass galloped round their
field, and stood at gaze, with open nostrils. Of which events Saladin,
their source and origin, took no notice, but moved on, smelling the
planet gently and thoughtfully.
"Why are you glad?" asked Challis. "You didn't like Ziz, I suppose?"
A note of pique in his voice. The young lady's confidence about the
finger-twisting grew.
"I _admired_ her," she said with marked emphasis. "She fascinated me
down to the ground. But ... if you ask me ... you mustn't mind my
saying, you know...."
"I can't tell you how I enjoy hearing what you really think. No
compliments, please!"
"Well ... if I can express myself! I should say your heroine's was
rather a ... rather a ... _shrill_ personality. I don't mean unlovable
exactly, but ... well!... I can't think of any other way of putting it."
"She was meant to be excitable. Neurotic, as the slang goes nowadays.
Marianne is neither. I hope you liked the reconciliation scene by the
open grave, and the way they appeal, as it were, to the coffin for
forgiveness. Some of the reviews thought it strained."
"Strained!--oh no! It seemed to me in some ways one of the most
touching things I ever read. And her explanation to Septimus that she
had divorced him on principle in order that he should marry Julia, and
both get a chance of recovering their position in society.... But do
tell me--only it's hardly fair to ask--did you mean that _she_ put the
arsenic in Julia's coffee, or the negress?"
"I leave that an open question for the reader to speculate about. But
you may rest assured of one thing, Miss Arkroyd--the young person in my
novel is about as unlike my dear wife as she can be." He had determined
to pay some little tribute to his dear wife as soon as the chance came,
that she should lie less upon his conscience. Here it was. "Marianne is
the exact opposite--a pussycat upon the hearthrug--a ... kettle singing
on the hob, you might almost say. She's not exactly what's called a
clever woman, certainly...."
"But she is none the worse for that! How I do hate clever women!" All
the same, Judith thought to herself: "Why couldn't he leave her in
peace, on the hearthrug or the hob?" His last reservation had spoiled
his little tribute, and indeed, he felt it himself. Bother!
Setting it right would make it worse. In spite of a fervent murmur from
the young lady, that she felt she knew exactly what Mrs. Challis was
like, and that they would be sure to understand each other, and what a
pity it was Mrs. Challis had not been able to come, he felt he would
do best to _brusquer_ the conversation. He couldn't well say "Marianne
isn't here because your mother never invited her--only told her she
might come." So, feeling that if he could detach the conversation
from Marianne personally he did not very much care by what means the
end was effected, he made a fragmentary remark to the effect that
he _had_ had an original in his mind for the neurotic heroine, but
quite a different person from his wife--utterly unlike her. "Unlike
in appearance--individuality--everything! Is that the market-cross?"
No, it wasn't the market-cross; it was the pump. So Mr. Challis's
conclusion did very little towards its object.
Judith halted as before, after establishing the pump. She knew she
was going to be impertinent again; and drawled a word or two to that
effect, to get on a safe footing. "But do forgive me," she said, "if
I ask who the lady was. You needn't tell me, you know." And then, as
Challis wavered between disclosure and concealment, put in a word to
clinch matters: "Treat me as a friend. We can always quarrel, you
know!" The soul-brush seemed to go a little quicker.
This author was a man who fancied he understood womankind--and probably
his was a fair average of knowledge in a department where so much
ignorance exists. But there was one sort of woman he could _not_
understand--the woman with a stronger nature than his own. He had only
mixed with his equals, so far. He could be quite unaware that he was
being influenced--could still persuade himself, as a tribute to his
manhood, that he was acting from a politic motive. He could make an
astute note that his insight into humanity--"Human Nature ... behooves
that I know it"--showed him that he could place confidence in this
lady. It had nothing to do with her eyes or her outline. It was his
Insight.
"I don't mind telling you." A slight hitch before the last word showed
that the speaker had just avoided italics. He paused a moment, to be
quite sure he didn't mind, then continued: "The original of 'Ziz' was
my first wife. So far as there _was_ an original. But exaggerated out
of all--out of all individuality."
"I never knew that you had been married before." The wording of
this--"never" during the last forty-eight hours!--was ahead of their
intimacy, but her hearer accepted it. It chimed in with that luxury of
the soul-brush, always at work. He would not on any account have had
it exchanged for, "They did not tell me you had been married twice."
Nevertheless, he was unaware that he was being influenced, and went on
towards expansive confidence, unsuspicious of himself.
"I married about fourteen years ago, and lost my wife within a
twelvemonth. My son is a big boy now, at Rugby; he was born just before
his mother died. He always thinks and speaks of Marianne as his mother.
She has always been a mother to him, in fact. Her own children--we have
two little girls--do not realize his half-brothership. We have never
tried to make them do so."
"How right!" from Judith. Confidence was improving. She was giving
sanction to family arrangements.
"Yes, I think it has been best. Their difference of age suggests
nothing to them."
"I suppose they know?"
"Yes--academically, one might say. But knowledge of that is as nothing
against the force of a child's acceptance of its _status quo_. When
I married Marianne, the boy--he's Bob--was still too young to pay much
attention to the fact that she brought him away from his granny's
to live at my house. The only difference that impresses him between
himself and his sisters is that _he_ can remember so much more clearly
than they do the house where my first wife and I used to live. It is
the house described in 'The Spendthrift's Legacy.' I shall always
believe it was that title that made it so fetching. You see, you can't
guess whether the Spendthrift inherited the legacy or bequeathed it. It
gets on your brain, and then you ask for it at Mudie's...."
Judith interrupted. "Of course, the Spendthrift _left_ the Legacy. But
why was he a Spendthrift, one wants to know.... Yes, I see. It was a
lucky title. But did you always write?"
"Not until the firm of accountants I was with wound up the affairs of
Eatwell and Lushington, the big publishers. I was sent to check and
overhaul the stock. An almost unsold novel attracted my attention--an
edition of two thousand--fifteen hundred in sheets. Its issue had
been arrested by the discovery that the author--who had just died of
appendicitis, by-the-bye--had taken another man's title."
"I suppose you can be prosecuted for taking another man's title?"
"H'm--no! At least, there is no copyright in a title. It wasn't that.
It was for the book's own sake. Publishers don't like other people's
titles for their books. I was able to offer a suggestion which made it
possible to use the sheets. The bound copies were made paper-pulp of
again, I believe."
"I can't see much encouragement to authorship in that, Mr. Challis."
"None at all. But Mr. Saxby, who is virtually Eatwell and
Lushington--one's dead, and the other has become a missionary in
Marocco--saw reason to believe I should succeed as a writer, owing to
the new first chapter I wrote for this book to accommodate the new
title. He made me write a novel for the firm, and I succeeded."
"But I don't understand. Wasn't the old title printed anywhere on the
old sheets?"
"Printed everywhere! The novel was called 'Amaris,' and there were no
headlines. The page-tops were just Amaris, Amaris, Amaris all through."
"What is 'Amaris'? And how on earth did you manage?..."
"Stop a bit, or I shall want Gargantua's mouth. 'Amaris' was a name
the author concocted, like Mrs. Kenwig's 'Morleena.' He wanted to
be quite sure his heroine's name had never been used for a novel
before, so that he could make it the title. But it _had_, with a Latin
subtitle, in which _dulcibus_ and _amaris_ were put in contrast...."
"Never mind the Latin," said Judith. "What did it mean?"
"It amounted to the question, 'Is Life most full of bitter things or
sweet?' and the title answered the question. It might have been called
'Dulcibus' for any light it threw on the problem. But it wouldn't have
sold. Nothing sells without a snarl or a howl or a pig-sty in it."
"But I'm so curious to know how you got over the difficulty."
"Simple enough! We turned it into 'Tamarisk.'... How? Why, of course,
by printing a 'T' at the beginning and a 'K' at the end. It cost
something to run the sheets carefully through again, but not so much as
burning them."
"What was there about 'Tamarisk' in the book?"
"Not a word till I rewrote the first dozen pages. I had to read that
blessed book through till I nearly knew it by heart, in order to work
out the idea. But it seemed all right when it was done. I was rather
proud of it."
"I dare say it was tremendously clever. But how _was_ it done? That's
what I want to know."
"I made the name of the girl 'Tamarisk' instead of 'Amaris,' and then
her baby brother can't pronounce it--calls her Amaris; and the family
catch the pronunciation, and she adopts the name outright. It was
difficult to do, because the conditions implied were those of the bosom
of an affectionate family, and the sequel might have clashed...."
"Because...?"
"Well, you see, the girl becomes a Vampire, and sucks the little
brother's blood. But I succeeded. In fact, I think the very
difficulties of the situation produced a certain pathos."
"I see," said Judith, with a gush of intense perception. "I see that
would be so.... Yes, that _is_ the market-cross, this time."
* * * * *
Is the gap above large enough to include an inspection of a
market-cross, a pump, a camp, and a village church? Perhaps,
considering how little was left of the last--though, of course, some
of the walls had ancient invisible cores. But hardly for tea at the
Rectory, which had to be fresh-made; rather like the church, though
in the case of the latter a few of the old leaves were preserved from
the first brew, so to speak. Poor old leaves!--poor conscious objects
of active conservation, each paroxysm of which left a little less of
the flavour of the _moyen âge_ behind it--a shadow less of excuse for
another subscription list on their behalf, or another paper in the
Journal of the local Society of Antiquaries. They were being handed
down to posterity with such solicitude that whatever of bloom the axe
and hammer of Puritanism had left behind seemed like to come off on the
gloves of Ecclesiastical Archæology.
Is it necessary to say that the foregoing is only a peep into the
ill-regulated mind of Mr. Alfred Challis at about the time that the
fresh-made tea at the Rectory had begun to reanimate it? But, of
course, Mr. Challis never said a word to this effect to his host, and
that reverend gentleman naturally didn't want to talk about local
matters. He was sick of his interesting surroundings, and wanted to
hear about the new motor-car and wireless telegraphy and aerostation
and coloured photography, and all sorts of things that were up-to-date
three years ago, and for that matter are still, to a certain extent.
About which and other things the literary gentleman was silent and
absent-minded, in spite of the tea. Had he been bound to account to
himself for this, he would have found it very difficult to do so. Not
being bound, he allowed his mind to recognize the fact that he never
did talk much to Parsons--you could never be sure you wouldn't give
offence!--and to feel that reserve, short of incivility of course, was
plausible at least.
For he was one of those unpractical persons who, never having been
thrashed into a Creed in childhood, and being liberally ready to
doubt any Creed of his own concoction, associated Religions, broadly
speaking, with the opening or closing of shops on Sunday, the
suppression of bands in the parks, and the singing of the same tune
over and over again in unison at street-corners. When he came by
chance on the sound of a harmonium making an unintelligible droning,
he conceived of it as Christianity going on in a corner, fraught
with a quaint old-world feeling to the passer-by, but scarcely to be
encouraged by enlightenment. He had cultivated Ritual so far as to
be ready, on emergency, to take off his hat and look intently into
it, watching anxiously the while for subsidence of religious symptoms
without. At old-fashioned houses, where Prayers might be expected to
occur at any moment, he used to become in a sense demoralised, and
felt lost when he found himself out of reach of a chair or convenient
_prie-Dieu_ of some sort. His only really heart-felt expression of
gratitude to his own or anyone else's Maker was the "Thank God that's
over!" that he didn't say aloud at the end. Messiahs of all ranks,
from the highest to the lowest, he regarded as mere bones of contention
along interminable sectaries, all ready to fang each other, but kept in
check by Scotland Yard. Qualified practitioners of Religion, whether
Priest or Presbyter, he looked on as mere survivals of a past age
perishing slowly of Civilization. He was not prepared to take the
responsibility of hurrying their extinction, and, indeed, was ready
to make concession on minor points, complying in literature with the
public conviction that the pronoun standing for the name of the Maker
of the Stellar Universe, and possibly others, really ought to be
printed with a capital letter. We are merely putting him on record--not
hinting at any opinion how far he was right or wrong.
Why do we call Mr. Alfred Challis _unpractical_? it may be asked.
Simply because, while he avoided or ignored all experts in Applied
Religion, he himself was unprepared with any substitute for it. And
this was so even in the case of his own children. He had, however,
given _carte blanche_, by implication of supineness, to the partner of
his joys, sorrows, and admixtures of the two. He knew perfectly well
that if he could have cancelled the little restored church at Royd, and
the Parsonage and all its belongings, and left Royd free from what he
counted superstition, of a sort, he would have held his hand--simply
because he could not for the life of him have suggested any alternative
that would not have worked round to the same thing in the end. He was
convinced at heart, even while he made mental notes about Clerical
Humbugs who pretended to believe what they knew German criticism had
exploded long ago--for Mr. Challis had read whatever fostered his
predispositions, just like yourself and the present writer--that if
this athletic-looking, upright gentleman and his serious sister--for
it seemed he was a widower--were to be suddenly removed from Royd,
as well as any religious outscourings of a Dissenting nature hanging
about--if all these were cleared away and the village left in charge
of the human heart and intellect _ed id genus omne_, the human stomach
_et istud genus omne_ would get their way in double-quick time, and a
perfect Saturnalia would come about of Bacchus and Priapus, of Cabiric
deformities lurking round the corner for a chance, and Beer. At any
rate, he was enough convinced of this to be rather grateful to the
Clerical Humbugs for pretending, pending enlightenment. He felt it was
benevolent in him to be mean at the cost of his own conscience, and to
hold his tongue and leave them undenounced, in the interest of Humanity.
This chronicle has no opinions--note that! The foregoing is only a
peep into the mind of a literary man who was never at a University.
Had he been at one, many college-chums in Orders would have checked
his condemnations. The man one has read with, swum with, cricketed
with--_cannot_ be a Hypocrite. Absurd!
Our snapshots of Mr. Alfred Challis's mind have taken long to record,
but they serve their turn in this place better, perhaps, than the few
trifling incidents of the visit at the Rectory. Consider that the
lady and gentleman are on their way back to the Hall, in a golden
sunset-light which makes the former resplendent, and does no harm to
the appearance of the latter. Judith weighs him more carefully than she
has done yet, and the result may be more favourable in such a glow.
Quite passable!--is her verdict. And she knows how _she_ looks, bless
you, reasoning by analogy! For all her previous verdicts about her
companion's looks--so far as they were favourable--have run on lines of
intellectual rather than physical beauty.
The reason she looked at him carefully at that moment of starting from
the Parsonage may have been because of an impression she had that he
had cut a poor figure as against that of the Parson. It had so chanced
that Saladin, who had behaved well in the house--accepting small sweet
biscuits with reserves as to first approval of them--had, on coming
away through the garden, just as they reached the gate, become aware
of cats, as an abstraction. Mr. Challis's hold on his collar he hardly
took any notice of; and it was fortunate that the Rev. Athelstan Taylor
(that was his name) got hold on the other side just in time to prevent
Saladin starting for a concrete cat over the flower-beds. "You had,
perhaps, best let me have both sides, Mr. Challis," said he. Then had
followed a magnificent contest between the Rev. Athelstan and the
boarhound. If the former could have been unfrocked, it would have been
a Greek bas-relief. It ended in a draw, as the concrete cat vanished.
"I couldn't have held you much longer, old chap," said the Rector
unassumingly to Saladin, during apologies and explanations, dogwise.
These continued for some time after they had left the Rectory, and
Judith was really glad Saladin's chain was on, with no one to help
stronger than her literary friend, if a cat occurred. Rabbits had
palled on Saladin, owing to their absurd and unfair practice of running
underground.
"He's a fine fellow, your Parson, Miss Arkroyd," said Challis. He
acknowledged it readily; athletics were not his line.
"The Reverend Athelstan? (Yes, my darling precious pet, you did quite
right, and it was an odious cat!) Oh yes--he was a great athlete in
his old Oxford days; was in the 'Varsity eight. (Yes, dear love!--you
shall lick when we get home. Now walk quiet, and let people talk.)
Yes--he's painfully strong." There was something in this of implied
justification for people who were not.
"I'm afraid I'm painfully weak--by comparison. My sedentary employments
don't develop the muscles." But, after all, reading prayers and singing
of anthems does not, either. This was _in foro conscientiæ_--not spoken
aloud.
"Oh, everybody can't Sandow. _I_ think that sort of thing rather
tiresome, carried too far. However, we are very good friends, the
Reverend and I. I like a man that has the courage of his opinions.
He's quite in a minority here about the Woman question--or I suppose I
should say questions. But I meant the Franchise business particularly.
He and the Bishop are at daggers drawn about it. I haven't heard him
say much about the other. I fancy, though, he's at heart in favour of
it--more than myself, perhaps. I mean the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill."
"Are not you...?" Mr. Challis had a hesitation on him, not like his
usual way of speech. That was an amused way usually, a confident one
almost always. This was neither.
"I must confess ..." said Judith hesitatingly--"I must confess to
having very little sympathy with men who want to marry their deceased
wives' sisters. It's a question of taste, according to me--nothing to
do with the high moralities." The implied sneer against all moral law
was no discomfort to her hearer. On the contrary, spoken as it was by
a good-looking young lady in a sunset light, it seemed to him alike
picturesque and liberal. But he changed the conversation suddenly, as
though something in it had disagreed with him.
"What a capital photographer the great Athelstan seems to be!" He said
it with a definite air of "Let us talk of something else." She glanced
round at him, decided with some surprise that she had shocked him, but
answered without showing it. She was quite a woman of the world, was
Judith.
"He's a splendid photographer. You know he took all those photos for
'Ten Years of Slum Growth'--my cousin's book?" Mr. Challis pretended he
knew this book; but he didn't. "I made him come and photograph my own
special slum population in Tallack Street. But Lady Elizabeth wouldn't
have them in the book. She said Tallack Street could hardly rank as a
slum, in her sense of the word."
"Was it too swell?"
"She said so. Well!--you shall see the photographs, and judge for
yourself."
But the conversation had fallen flat. A chill had come. Even the
discovery that the moon had risen when we were not looking did nothing
to remove it. We were not young enough, probably, or not old enough,
for lunar influences. Indifference to Phoebe begins with maturity, and
even outlasts it. So thought Mr. Challis, when rather mechanically
called on to admire the silver disc, shot with gold, just getting clear
of a purple gloom that was the hallowed smoke of unholy Grime--hallowed
by the sun's last word to twilight, its heir-at-law and sole executor.
For all that, Mr. Challis made notes in this connection for literary
purposes, while Judith thought to herself that this would never do.
She must make an effort, or the skein she was going to twist round her
finger would float away and be lost.
"I know I shocked you just now," said she.
"Shocked me?--when?"
"Just before we got to the photography...."
"I have quite forgotten. What were we saying?" This was not true; he
remembered perfectly.
"How kind of you to pretend to forget! Forgive my disbelieving you."
Challis was open to a recrudescence of veracity. Perhaps it _was_
a fib this time--he made the admission. But as he made it, he was
again conscious of the soul-brush at work. Had he perceived the
skein-analogy, he might have recognized its first clip round the
finger. "We were talking of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, I think,"
said he. "But why you think you shocked me I can't imagine."
"Never mind!--if you don't recollect. But Sibyl would have lectured me.
She always says I ridicule Moral Law. Perhaps I do, in a certain sense.
But Sibyl is the soul of propriety."
"I can't see where ridicule of Moral Law comes in, so far. What you
_said_ was--well!--amounted to a condemnation of the _taste_ of men who
wish to marry their wives' sisters. Perhaps I misunderstood?" Challis's
manner had a flavour of personal interest; the amused tone had gone,
and the last words ended on a pause for an answer, with an intention
in them of hearing it and going on. The skein would run on easily from
now, said the winder. But not too quick at first.
"Oh no!--quite right," she said. "I meant that. For instance--I
shouldn't mention this, only I see you guessed it. You are so quick at
guessing things...."
"I'm not. What do you suppose I have guessed?"
"Why--about the Reverend Athelstan, of course, and Elizabeth
Caldecott...."
"Elizabeth who?"
"Well--you _saw_ her, just now!"
"I thought she was his sister?"
"Oh, no!--sister-in-law."
"What were you saying about them--just now? You began 'For instance,'
and pulled up...."
"I was going to say theirs was a case in point. If Mr. Taylor wanted
to marry Miss Caldecott, I should consider it simply a lapse from good
taste on his part. I shouldn't fret over the moralities. He and Bishop
Barham would have to fight that out between them.... Oh dear!--what
_has_ Saladin got? I'm afraid it's a hedgehog. _Do_ you think you could
keep hold of him, just for a few seconds, while I throw it out of his
reach?" This was achieved with difficulty; all the greater from a
misconception of the position by Saladin, who thought it was all done
for his sake, as a relaxation. The hedgehog was thrown over a long high
wall, and Saladin ran along it each way, leaping up at intervals.
"He gets so irritated with hedgehogs, and I don't wonder, poor darling!
I hope he hasn't strained your hand?" Mr. Challis couldn't say very
much about that. Nothing to speak of! "Let's go on. He'll get tired of
that, and I don't hear the bull anywhere--it's all right. What was I
saying?" It is perturbing to the non-bucolic mind to hear a necessary
and inevitable bull taken as a matter of course.
"You were speaking of Mr. Taylor and Miss Caldecott. Is he supposed to
want to marry her?"
"I really couldn't say. Men are so odd. Of course, if she were less
angular...." The young lady blew a whistle for Saladin. The intentness
with which both watched for the dog to appear from the quarter he
was last seen in enabled him to play off a little joke at their
expense. For when Challis turned his head, after much watching and
whistling, there was that confounded beast, pretending all the while
to wait, after a brief circuit of a mile or so out of sight. He made a
pretence of not being able to understand motives, combined with great
forbearance in not asking for an explanation of them.
The skein-winding had been a little spoiled, but Judith got it again
in order before arriving at the Hall, and it would wait for its
opportunity. Her mere acceptance of silence in the twilight of the
great avenue, as though conversation-making was not called for under
the circumstances, had its force. It might have been spoiled by a
quicker pace, to finish the walk up; but, if anything, there was a
disposition to loiter and to hate the idea of being indoors on such a
heavenly evening.
"Your wife's name was...?" Surely the subject franked a dropped voice,
in harmony with the beauty of the said evening--a touch of tenderness
for _its_ sake entirely. None but a coarse nature would shout against
the musical hushing of the wind in the beeches. Let there be no false
note in the chord.
Challis accepted this tenderness as a tribute to the departed. He
answered, "Kate--Kate Verrall." He need have said no more, but it
filled out a sympathetic funeral tone, in keeping with the hour, to
add: "She died within two years of our first meeting."
Miss Arkroyd's regret at having raked up a painful memory was so great
that she all but laid her hand on her companion's sleeve. "Oh no," she
said, still more tenderly, "I did not mean that. I meant Marianne's
maiden name." It would have been artificial, and stodgy, too, to call
her "your present wife." Better the frankness of a sympathetic nature,
and Marianne.
"Craik," was the unqualified answer. Challis wished that his first
wife's mother, when she married again, had chosen someone with a
more rhythmic name, not to interfere with the general feeling of the
foreground and middle distance. For, you see, she then provided this
maiden name for the second Mrs. Alfred Challis, whose mother she
was also. Mr. Challis had married his deceased wife's half-sister,
and would stand condemned--presumably, at least, in the eyes of his
companion--for bad taste certainly, possibly worse. He repeated the
name, rather crisply, in correction of Judith's first understanding
of it as "Blake," but never a word said he, there and then, about
Marianne's half-sistership with the original of "Ziz." Was he bound to
say anything?
He departed to his room, to dress for dinner, with a disjointed,
incomplete feeling that he was rather glad that a mere _au revoir_ had
involved no handshake. Could he have trusted himself not to emphasize
its pressure unduly? Faugh!--where was the sense of such an imbecile
speculation, or the need for it? He was angry with himself for the
thought--angry at the way he had enjoyed his walk with "that girl." He
brushed her off his mind discourteously as "that girl." Why, he had
only known her a couple of days! He even found that an impulse of his
wanted him to say, "Damn all these people! What are they to me, or I
to them, that they should come into my life, and make hay of a working
contentment I have never dreamed of questioning?" But he refused to
say it, merely noting what its syntax would have been if he had done
so. _En revanche_, he made up his mind to write a jolly long letter to
Marianne to-night.
The other party--though, indeed, it is hard to say to what--retired
to her room to dress, not very sorry to hear that Sibyl was not home
yet. She had quite made up her mind that if her sister talked any
nonsense about flirtations with married men, she would speak sharply
to her--give her a piece of her mind. But she hated rows. So if
the motor-car broke down--and it was pretty sure to--she shouldn't
be sorry. In a day or two she was going up to London, and would go
straight and call on Mrs. Challis, the Impossible one, and that would
put the friendship with her husband on a footing. She would wear that
white chiffon and the pearls again this evening, though; she had looked
so well in them last night.
She herself was conscious of no inconsistency in the half-formed
thoughts that passed through her mind as she stood before a mirror
waiting for her maid to find the white chiffon instead of the
black satin; which Sharratt, the said maid, who had found no male
in the company to allot to her mistress, had placed in readiness
on speculation. These thoughts can be told, but with a liberal
discount. She was not the kind of woman--so they ran--that made
mischief in families. That was the fascinating, tender, serpentine,
insinuating kind--Becky Sharp, in fact. Intellectual friendship was
her _rôle_--influence over men of genius and that sort of thing. Was
Challis, as a man of genius, worth practising on? She thought he might
be; as a lay figure, at any rate, if not for a specific purpose which
crossed her mind at the moment. But it was to be stirred aspirations,
roused sympathies. He was not the man to be worked on by Vulgar
Beauty. All the same, Miss Judith knew what she was going to look like
in this mirror when fully draped, when the majestic swoop of skirts
should quench the abruptness of the mere petticoat. Till that came,
she could fondle her fine arms and say to herself, "I'm not Becky
Sharp, certainly! But to think of the mischief I could do if I put my
mind to it!" And then modesty prompted a postscript, "Or any fairly
good-looking woman, for that matter."
This story has no insight into motives; it only deals with actions--at
least when motives are hard to get at. It is not its concern at present
that Judith Arkroyd, splendid in her beauty when she chooses to make
the most of it, may have much to learn about her own character--much
that she does not suspect herself of. If _she_ does not, why should
_we_?
CHAPTER VII
OF OTHER GUESTS AND THEIR TALK. OF A SOFA-HAVEN AND HOW MISS ARKROYD
PERCEIVED THAT MR. CHALLIS COULD WRITE A TRAGEDY. BEAUTY A MATTER OF
OPINION
The party that assembled that evening to dinner at Royd was smaller
than usual, owing to the absence of the motorists, who had not
returned. Some of the chits, too--who were never counted; they were
always "those girls" or "those young people"--had vanished also, taking
with them an exactly equal number of male parallel cases; for they were
flirting fair--there was to be no cheating! Thus it came about that the
ladies' procession to the drawing-room did not make up to half-a-dozen,
and the men they left behind to smoke only just did so. But then, it
was easier to talk, because there was less noise.
Scarcely had the last inch of the last lady, regarded as a total
with all components included, disappeared through the door, when Mr.
Challis's two friends of the morning made a simultaneous rush for a
chair on either side of him. He succumbed, having no alternative,
but resolved to pay absolutely no attention to anything they said.
He would throw his whole soul into the enjoyment of the cigar he
foresaw. There it was--in a box of ivory and _madreperla_ which Sibyl
had somehow countenanced into existence, without doing anything to it
herself--being brought along in a tray, abetted by cigarettes. But
he would light it when he had drunk his coffee, thank you! The fact
was, Mr. Challis was acquiring presence of mind, and did not spoil his
opportunities now as he used to do formerly when the world of toffs was
new.
Mr. Brownrigg the Grauboschite would not detain Mr. Challis more than
one moment from Mr. Wraxall, the Universal Insurer; no more, in fact,
than was necessary for him to emphasize a consideration he had alluded
to in the morning. But he might take this opportunity of pointing out
one or two inevitable inferences from that consideration which might
not have occurred to his hearer.
He was better than his word, for he pointed out half-a-dozen at least.
He then went on to say that it was only fair on his part to admit the
plausibility of three or four exceptions that he was well aware had
been taken to those inferences. But he was prepared to demonstrate the
fallacy of each of these on many different grounds, the least of which
would be fatal to the pretensions of his opponents' arguments in more
than one particular.
If he had stopped there, Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall would have gone in and
scored; and, indeed, double-wicket would have been quite possible if
Mr. Brownrigg would have played according to rule. But he wouldn't. Mr.
Wraxall struggled to get a hit and a run, but scarcely succeeded.
As, with the exception of Challis and one or two others who listened
and looked superior, everyone at the table became a contributor of
a vigorous analysis, an irrefutable demonstration, an exhaustive
enumeration, a thoughtful review, an indignant protest or a brief
summary of essential facts, or was laying stress upon an important
point that might easily be lost sight of, there was a great deal of
noise. Challis nearly succeeded, by a powerful effort, in abstracting
his mind from it and enjoying his cigar. He was able to believe
that he only resorted to a speculation as to what was going on in
the drawing-room as an assistance against all this chatter. That
speculation had certainly nothing to do with any particular young lady
whatever.
But a drowsy semi-abstraction was only achievable when the components
of the Chaos were so numerous as to neutralize each other, becoming a
sustained inarticulate roar. The moment a single speaker, or even two,
became audible in an oasis of silence, Challis's attention was caught
by his words, and divided fairly between them and what was left of
the reveries they intruded on. Such an oasis was reached, as far as
Challis's immediate neighbours were concerned, about half-way through
his cigar, just as regret began to set in that he had smoked so much of
it.
Now it happened that Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who was quite unexhausted,
though he had talked all day, and who was seated on the other side
of the table, had at that moment just sketched the extinction of the
British Empire in consequence of its ill-advised persistence in all
the _dementiæ_ of all the States that _Deus_ ever _voluit perdere_.
He had used up his Latin quotations, including the one we have taken
a liberty with, and had finished with a beautiful picture of the New
Zealander, our old friend, gazing across the site of vanished London
from Jack Straw's Castle, and murmuring to himself, "Perierunt etiam
ruinæ." Happy in his peroration, the orator sat sustaining a fat right
foot on a fat left knee with a fat left hand. His fat right thumb and
forefinger held a permanent glass of port; they seemed to be waiting
for it to evaporate. His attitude was unfavourable to his figure, as
it laid too much stress on a corporate capacity which might have been
described as pendant. But the _ensemble_ was majestic, as he fixed his
small but piercing eye on the cornice of the room opposite, grasping
the eyeglass that accompanied it with what almost seemed a materialized
allusion to his own powerful grasp of political issues. So sitting, his
appearance was that of a Mind, giving attentive consideration to most
things.
"The disciple of Socrates," said he, with a decision and suddenness
that compelled respectful attention, "turns with satisfaction from the
contemplation of a spectacle that might well arrest the orgies of an
Epicurus, or soften the cynicism of a Diogenes, to the fields in which
Speculation, untrammelled by official responsibility, deposits--if I
may be permitted the simile--the eggs from which will emerge (like
Minerva from the brain of Jove) the fully-fledged Politician of the
future."
Here an expression of discontent from a young Lieutenant, whose chit
was in the drawing-room awaiting his release, distracted Challis's
attention for the moment. A word of sympathy elicited from this youth
that he had a private grievance against Mr. Tomes. "_You_ wouldn't
like it any more than I do, if he had trod on _your_ pup. Poor little
beggar's only a month old!" He brooded over this injury in silence, and
the orator again became audible. He seemed to have been digressing.
"I will pursue this aspect of the case no further, but will return to
the subject in hand. It is not, I hope, necessary for me to say, at
this table, that I am not one of that group of indiscriminate Thinkers
who are prepared to welcome the germination of the Political Idea in
the crude brain of every Sciolist. The outcome of such a surrounding
is but too apt to out-Herod Herod. The _medio tutissimus ibis_, the
_procellas cautus horrescis_ that we may suppose to have guided Cæsar's
wife, should also serve as a beacon to those whose ambition it is to
deserve the gratitude of posterity." Challis was enjoying the cigar too
much to ask--"Why Cæsar's wife?"
Mr. Tomes's assumption of his right to the rostrum was so forcible as
scarcely to allow of usurpation while he was visibly bolting an _ad
interim_ glass of port with a view to going on again. Mr. Brownrigg
chafed, and Mr. Wraxall stood himself over in despair. The young
Lieutenant murmured a prayer to any Providence that would shape the
end of Mr. Tomes's speech, and help him on to it. There seemed no
hope. So he thought of the chit's teeth and chin in self-defence. Mr.
Tomes swallowed his glass of port with a clear conscience about its
non-evaporation--had he not given it every opportunity?--and resumed:
"I must not, however, allow myself to be led away...." But he had
to pause a few seconds, to remember something to have been led away
by. Feeling uncertain, he repeated: "I must not allow myself to
be led away by a side-topic, however fascinating. The maturity of
Political Thought claims our attention. Whether we contemplate the
vast areas of controversy laid bare to the scalpel of the Political
Analyst in connection with the aspirations of the Socialist pure
and simple, the Anarchist pure and simple, or the Nihilist pure and
simple, or differentiate by a closer scrutiny the theories of the
Socialist-Anarchist, the Socialist-Nihilist, or the Nihilist-Anarchist,
we are driven irresistibly to the same conclusion--that Omniscience is
still in its infancy. There is one element which all schemes for the
Readjustment of the Universe have in common--namely, that each differs
on some vital point from the whole of its neighbours. Do not let us
be discouraged by this. Let us rather be content to infer from it the
dangers that await those who advocate rash departures from the existing
order of things, and to recognize, in the discrepancies attendant on
the consolidations of Political Opinion in the thousand and one groups
into which it crystallizes, the indisputable fact that the Index-finger
of the Political Horizon is the maintenance of the _status quo_. I
trust I make myself clearly understood."
Mr. Tomes did not mean to stop for some time yet, but breath was
necessary to him, as to others, and he had got blown over those
groups that crystallized. He knew that his last words would make all
his hearers speak at once, and they did. In the Chaos of their joint
remark was concealed a statement apiece that Mr. Tomes had most lucidly
expounded the one great object of each one's several scheme, and that
the existing order of things would remain thereby much more truly the
same--would have a much more heart-felt identity than any mere banal
and Philistine letting-alone could confer upon it. The choral character
of the performance made the warning check of Mr. Tomes's outspread hand
plausible.
"Pardon me one moment," said he, with recovered breath. "The point I
wish to lay stress upon is this: While the compass of the Political
Mariner points incontestably to the dangers of quitting a safe
anchorage, the Voice of Enlightenment enjoins that all new schemes
of a subversive nature should be looked at on their merits, and
rejected on their merits. This is what I understand by an Enlightened
Conservatism. Rejection without examination is the programme of the
Mere Bigot. I am sure Sir Murgatroyd will appreciate my meaning."
Sir Murgatroyd, thus appealed to, seized his opportunity, and
dexterously annexed the rostrum. He contrived to embark on a trip
through the pamphlet he had written, which claimed for William the
Conqueror the position of the earliest pioneer of Socialism.
Just as he was within a measurable distance of his demonstration that
the Feudal System contained in itself solutions of all difficulties
such as the present age meets by propounding a huge variety of remedies
and calling them all Socialism, noises of arrival interrupted him, and
were followed by an incursion of the motorists, very tired and greedy,
after a delay due to civilization, which prescribes soap and water
before meals, and a curb on one's impatience till the said meals can
be laid on the table. The absence of snorts without occasioned remark,
and compelled a grudging disclosure that the last time the motor broke
down nothing could bring it to the scratch again; and it had been
left behind ten miles off, the party having come home on a mean hired
vehicle. Their faith that this breakdown was abnormal and exceptional,
and a typical example of the sort of thing that never occurs again, was
touching and beautiful.
Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall was glad of the interruption. He had not
asserted himself, and felt that he was a mistake, in that society. His
forms of thought were more studious and reflective--sounder altogether!
One feels this when one has not asserted oneself, and bounced.
Mr. Brownrigg was sorry. He had made up his mind to point out
something, but had not quite made up his mind what it was to be; merely
that it would redound to the credit of Graubosch. Why should not he
point out, and venture to call your attention to, like other people?
However, the others were the losers.
Mr. Challis and the young Lieutenant were both very glad, but with a
difference. The former thought fit, for some reason, to represent to
his conscience that his gladness was due to a release from intolerable
boredom, and certainly had nothing to do with any young woman in the
drawing-room. The latter made no bones about it, but simply ran, the
moment the excuse came. Even so would the little beggar Mr. Tomes trod
on have gone for a saucer of milk.
* * * * *
Challis passed the young soldier on the landing, he having found his
chit on the bottom stair of the next flight, devoting herself to the
little beggar, who had not been welcomed in the drawing-room, owing
to human prejudices. The chit had been so bored in the absence of her
counterchit, as the Lieutenant might be called, that she had found it
necessary to send for Cerberus. That was the little beggar's baptismal
name. Challis passed on into the drawing-room, breathing a prayer that
all would be well. What his foreboding was we do not know.
He thought it necessary to deny his own accusation against himself
that he had been pleased at the Lieutenant running on in front of him
to join the ladies first, that he might thereby seem even-minded on
the question of his own anxiety to do so. He denied it, and to satisfy
himself of the strength of his position, walked in indifferently. He
emphasized his denial by spending no more than a remark or two on Lady
Arkroyd, who, he thought, showed a lack of her usual cordiality, as
though she had read a disparaging review. He inquired a little whether
she found the ride to Thanes pleasant, and so on; and then went at once
to the other end of her daughter's sofa--not a very long one. Indeed
he could hardly do otherwise, as Judith certainly transferred her fine
eyes from him to its vacant corner-cushion. He was a little nettled at
finding he wanted an excuse for his alacrity.
We have read in some novel that the reason women are so fond of
unprincipled men is that they know the latter can and will enjoy their
society thoroughly, and never vex their souls with any questions as to
what that society may mean or lead to for either of them. They, the
women, will do the drawing the line, and that sort of thing. Why be
prigs? Now Challis was scarcely a prig, and he was certainly not an
unprincipled man. If he had been the one, he would have thought much
more talk necessary with the mother before monopolizing the daughter;
if the other, his choice of a satisfaction would have been as candid
as his young soldier's had been--as the little beggar's always was.
Whether the authoress of this novel was talking wisely or not, who
shall say? Broadly speaking, profligates are better company than prigs.
_Coeteris paribus_, mind you!
This is all by the way; will very likely be deleted before this
present writing goes to press. Miss Arkroyd was certainly not under
any necessity to speculate on the matter. _She_ knew perfectly well
that Mr. Challis, married man or no, was going to anchor at the far
end of her sofa as soon as he had got through that silly pretence of
chatting with her mother. And she had retired from a colloquy with this
same mother--whose influence was not strong over her, and with whom
something had disagreed, she thought--with that end in view. Sibyl
wasn't here, with her nonsense, and she should do as she liked. Nay,
more!--she would at once say something to show her independence of
Sibyl's nonsense.
"We thought you were never coming up." She decided to make it _we_,
not _I_, on the whole. Challis's vanity suspected the substitution,
recognizing in it a maiden-of-the-world's prudence, and applauded it.
But a recollection of what a letter he was going to write to Marianne
prompted a protest. He couldn't afford to enjoy his position too much,
without loss of self-respect. How important one's self-respect is!
"We were having some very interesting talk about Politics. Your brother
and sister and Lord Felixthorpe came back and interrupted it." There
was great detachment in this, but it was overdone; too much like
"pointing out" to a polypus that his tentacles were slipping.
Ought her response, thought Judith, to show pique at her quarry's
independence--at his contentment to be away from her society? Much
too soon!--was her verdict, passed, but not formulated. It would be
just like a girl in her first season. And she had not known this man
much above forty-eight hours. She was not going to behave like that
child in the passage, whose pretty sing-song voice chimed with her
young soldier's outside when Challis opened the door to come in just
now. Judith felt certain what she was saying was "I was so saw-ry for
you having to talk Pawlitics when you might have been up here with me
and this dahling pup." Her imagination committed itself to the words,
musical drawl and all; but negatived this sort of thing in her own case.
"I should like to have been there to hear it," she said. "What were
they talking about? The usual thing, I suppose?"
Challis felt she was an honourable polypus, in whose tentacles he could
trust himself. "I can't say," said he. "I'm too recent to know what is
or isn't usual. You'll hear the supplement immediately. There they are,
coming upstairs!"
The lady remained silent, listening handsomely. The thought in
Challis's mind--to the effect that she was the antipodes of Marianne,
in looks--was so irrelevant and inappropriate that he gave it notice
to quit, incontinently. But he could not serve the notice without
admitting possession. He could, though, as a _per contra_, do a little
mechanical forecasting of his letter to Marianne. Yes--his course was
clear; he would tell his wife how absurdly unlike her in all respects
this queenly young woman was; might even go the length of wondering how
the partner of _her_ joys and sorrows would be able to live with so
much dignity always taking place in his neighbourhood. Would that be
like reminding Marianne of her homeliness, though? Oh no!--_he_ would
take care of that. Still, if Marianne had been just one shade less
homely, it would have been easier. Never mind!
The voices on the stairs gathered audibility. Oh yes!--there was papa
and the Feudal System. Judith could hear that, plain enough. How sick
she was of William the Conqueror! And Mr. Tomes, of course, just as
usual! But we mustn't speak too loud, or Mrs. Tomes would hear. What a
fool that woman was! But Mr. Challis didn't know her. He must do so,
in the interests of his next book. All which, in a voice dropped to
confidence-point, tended to engage Mr. Challis's cogs--the simile is an
engineering one--in Miss Arkroyd's wheel.
What was that Mr. Tomes was saying? Something or other was to be
relegated to the Limbo of departed something-elses. If only those young
people wouldn't make such a noise with the puppy, we should hear! Why
were things always relegated to Limbos, and why was nothing ever sent
to Limbos except by relegation? The question was Challis's. But he was
talking at random, for reasons. So was Judith, perhaps, when she said
absently: "I have noticed that, too." She was listening carefully to
hear if her sister and her co-motorists were following. "I suppose they
all came in famished," she added.
"Didn't you see them when they came in?"
"I heard them."
"Didn't they sound famished?"
"Not especially. I didn't pay much attention. As long as no bones are
broken.... They won't be coming up for some time yet." There was in her
voice a very clear implication of relief. The inference was that we,
in this sofa-haven, should not be disturbed. Its correctness was soon
manifest. No two oratorically-disposed gentlemen, well wound up, ever
disturb a chat in a corner, further than mere shouting goes. And Sir
Murgatroyd and the sitting member for Grime were wound up to a high
pitch of agreement about what constituted an Enlightened Conservatism,
and each was anxious to supply the next link in the chain of Syllogism,
and get the credit of it. So they shouted against each other all the
way upstairs, and only lulled very slightly when they reached the
drawing-room.
Mr. Brownrigg and Mr. Wraxall, on the other hand, were _aux grands
éprises_ on a vital question--never mind what; nobody knew or
cared!--which underlay the whole of their argument. Mr. Wraxall
had been unable to permit an inference of Mr. Brownrigg's to pass
unchallenged, and Mr. Brownrigg had impugned the data on which Mr.
Wraxall's objections were founded. Mr. Wraxall had replied that
something or other had been clearly laid down as a safe principle by
Baker, and Mr. Brownrigg had pointed out that the fallacy of Baker's
assumptions had been exhaustively dealt with by Smith. Mr. Wraxall had
counter-pointed out that Smith's penetrating insight into everything
else had led him into error in this one particular; and had laid
stress upon the fact that Hopkins, the weight of whose opinion it was
impossible to deny, had endorsed the opinions of Baker. Mr. Brownrigg
had then become patronizing, and went so far as to warn Mr. Wraxall
not to be led away by the plausibility of Hopkins. Who then, being
a weak controversialist, had rashly appealed to Mr. Ramsey Tomes to
countenance the authority of Hopkins. But that gentleman only gave a
weighty shake to a judicial head, claiming at once profound thought
in the past, and forecasting just censure to come. He feared that the
insidious ratiocinations of Hopkins were a rock we all split upon in
the forest of youth, and an _ignis fatuus_ to mislead the mariner in
the ocean of dialectical difficulty that chequered our steps in later
life.
The controversy, of which the foregoing is a condensation, had passed
the quarrelsome point when the disputants arrived in the drawing-room,
shutting out the melodious trill of the chit, the squeaks of the
little beggar, and the lieutenant's bass voice, saying, "He and the
kitten were having a high old time with my boots early this morning."
The argument was in the mutual-amends stage, and Mr. Brownrigg
was enlarging on the enthralling and irresistible fascination of
Hopkins's style, while Mr. Wraxall was equally eloquent on the almost
Nicholsonian vigour and expansiveness of Smith's. They were then
separated, and presently the insurer was audible afar, enlarging to
Lady Arkroyd on a scheme for insuring against damage at the Wash, in
which she was much interested; while the Grauboschite was mentioning
some further details of that great man's system to Mrs. Ramsey Tomes.
Who, however, only said: "I think my husband would like to hear
that," or "Have you mentioned that to Mr. Tomes?" but gave no sign of
receiving, or of ever having in her life received, an idea on her own
account. The Baronet and the M.P. simply went on, like the water coming
in when the ball-cock has stuck, and nobody will be at work till Monday.
All this is only to impress on the story the quiet of that sofa-haven,
and to justify Judith for feeling practically out of reach of
interruption if she should be inclined to carry on the skein-twisting
a little prematurely--that is, without waiting for a visiting
acquaintance with the probably plebeian wife, to put her friendship
with the husband on an ascertained footing. Now Judith was not without
a well-defined motive for the skein-twisting, as was hinted at the end
of our last chapter. We rather think that if she had not been she would
have suspected something abnormal in Challis's matrimonies from his
manner when he said "Craik." Women are as sharp as all that--oh dear,
yes!
After a little discursive chat to make sure that no floating
interruption would desert the other group-units and bear down on their
haven, Judith was seized with a sudden intense apprehension that Mr.
Challis could write a tragedy. She can have had very slight grounds
for this conclusion; she had almost no knowledge of that author's
work, as we have seen. But she relied on his vanity to make him take
an easy-going view of any claims she had to pronounce him Shakespeare.
Pleasing verdicts soothe the cavils of incredulous modesty, and suggest
unsuspected data in the bush. But he was bound to make some sort of
protest. It would never do to say he rather thought he could.
"What makes you think that?" he said.
"I can't say. It has nothing to do with anything I have read of yours.
I think it is something in yourself makes me think so." It was as
well to head off any discussion of what she had read; and an ounce of
personality is worth a ton of mere evasion. The fine eyes examined Mr.
Challis's intelligent brow carefully to see what it was in himself that
made their owner think so. His own watched them as though expecting
their conclusion would be registered shortly.
"I have written a couple of comedies," said he, to help. "But no
tragedy, so far." And from thence a certain reality crept into the
conversation, which up to that moment had been rather words for words'
sake, or, perhaps it should be said, for their speaker's sake. For
so much talk that sets up to be interchange of ideas is uttered to
convince the speakers they are conversing, and to make them plausible
to themselves and each other.
"You _have_ written for the stage, then. That is what I meant. Have you
had anything performed yet? Forgive my not knowing."
"There is nothing to know that you could have known. One of the
comedies, 'Aminta Torrington,' is to come out after Christmas. The
other, 'Widow's Island,' is on the shelf. Nobody appreciates it."
"Do you see a great deal of theatrical people?" Now, Challis had wanted
the eyes to be interested about his plays--to abet the speaker in a
curiosity she ought to have felt. But no matter: that would wait.
"I see a great many. What makes you ask in such an interested way?"
"Because I want to know. I have a reason. I'll tell you sometime."
Whereat the mercury in the thermometer of this lady and gentleman's
intimacy went up a degree distinctly. So much was implied in the word
"sometime." Not very easy to summarize, certainly--but _there_, all the
same! It ratified anticipation of future intercommunications, on the
surface of it. Also, it hinted at confidences to come. But let us be
just to Judith here. She never meant it as another wind of the skein.
She was honestly unconscious this time, thinking frankly of an interest
of her own. She continued: "Tell me a good deal about them. Why doesn't
one know more of them?"
"I didn't know one didn't. That's nonsense, or sounds very like it.
But we know what we mean. I'll state it clearly, to save trouble. The
question is, 'Why do swell young women that are presented at Court,
and go to balls in the season, and sit in carriages at Ascot, and see
polo-matches at Hurlingham, and get married at St. George's, Hanover
Square' ... is that right so far?..."
"That will do very well, at any rate." Judith said this without a
laugh, where there might have been one. "Go on, Mr. Challis."
"Why does this sort of young woman not meet more actresses and actors
in the society she lives in? Well, I can tell you the answer--at least,
I can tell you my opinion, if you ask it."
"Yes, I do. What is it?"
"They are always at the play, the actors and actresses, either on the
stage or in the boxes. Or the pit. Or the gallery. I can't answer for
the whole profession. But that's my experience."
"I have always been told they were so disreputable. Are they?"
"My dear Miss Arkroyd, what a very old-fashioned idea!" Challis laughed
outright. "No!--they are just like everybody else as to manners and
morals, and that sort of thing. They are not monks and nuns, certainly.
But such a many folk are not that."
Judith looked at him doubtfully. Was not that rather the way men
sometimes talk, throwing dust in the eyes that want to distinguish
right from wrong? Monks and nuns, as we all know, are people that want
to deprive you and me of cakes and ale. But what is meant by cakes
and ale? She would push a test question home. If Mr. Challis had a
grown-up daughter, she asked, would he let her go on the stage, if she
wished it very much, and had a turn for it? Of course he would, was his
answer, without hesitation. Why should he not? This seemed to decide
Judith on an extension of confidence.
"I will tell you why I am asking. I know a girl ... well! I should say
_woman_ ... who wants to go on the stage. But it seems impossible. What
her capabilities would be I cannot say. But it seems hard that she
should be unable to give them a trial."
"Why cannot she?"
"Her family oppose it; or rather, she knows they would oppose it if the
proposal took form. At present she only knows that they treat the idea
with derision--as something hardly worth ridicule."
"But why?--if she has it at heart."
"Respectability. Position. Balls in the season. Carriages at Ascot. St.
George's, Hanover Square. Family, in short!"
"Tell me more about this friend. _Why_ does she suppose she has
qualifications? She must have had _some_ experience to convince her?"
Judith stopped to consider a few seconds. "Yes, I can tell you that,"
she said. "She played in the 'Antigone' a couple of years ago. You
know my brother and his friends played it in London, and got the
female parts played by women. Of course, at Cambridge it was the boys
themselves."
"Did you think her performance good?"
Judith sticks a little over her answer, but it comes. "Not perfectly
satisfactory--not to me, at least. But everyone else spoke so well of
it that I may have been mistaken."
"Yet you would encourage her to make a very hazardous experiment, and
to incur the displeasure of her family, on the strength of no more than
what you now tell me. Do allow me to say that your friend ought to have
more experience...."
"She ought to keep out of the water till she can swim," Judith struck
in. "I know the sort of thing. What people always say! But can you
wonder that she thinks it hard that she isn't allowed to go in at the
shallow end of a swimming-bath; and all because of the merest Mrs.
Grundy?"
"Not quite the merest Mrs. Grundy. Moderately mere, suppose we say! The
actress who fails is in a sorry plight...."
"She _wouldn't_ fail." Judith interrupted again, a little impatiently.
"At least--I mean--she wouldn't fail altogether. But, of course, she
would take her chance of that. Why should she not try, if she chooses
to run the risk?"
Challis was watching her image in a mirror as she said this, and
thought he saw a blush-rose tinge creeping over the cheek. Surely she
was taking this friend's case very much to heart. An idea crossed his
mind, and he schemed a test of its truth--a question he would ask.
"Is she beautiful? That would help matters."
The eyes in the mirror turned, and Challis had to withdraw his own
suddenly. You know how one feels _caught_, when a reflection in a glass
suddenly transfixes one? It is like conviction of treachery--quite
unlike the direct transaction analogous to it. But he need not have
been so conscious; as he saw, when a furtive glance back showed him
that the reflection was not looking at _him_, but at Miss Arkroyd, at
her corner of the sofa.
"Beauty is so much a matter of opinion," said she. "No doubt she
herself is convinced her allowance of it is enough for working
purposes." She stopped a moment, listening to sounds approaching--the
motor-party audible on the stairs. Then, as she began to get up from
the sofa, she said quickly, "If you think you can be of any use
to her--with introductions and so on--I will tell you who she is.
Sometime; not now. There they are!" The interview was at an end,
and Challis prepared to merge in a world he was sure would be less
interesting. However, he felt some curiosity to hear the tale of the
motor disaster.
CHAPTER VIII
OF HOW NO ACCIDENT HAD REALLY HAPPENED TO THE MOTOR-CAR. OF A COMBAT
BETWEEN TWO SISTERS, CHIEFLY ABOUT THOSE OF PEOPLE'S DECEASED WIVES.
OF FLIRTATIONS WITH MARRIED MEN. HOW CHALLIS WROTE A LONG AMUSING
LETTER TO MARIANNE
The chit and her young officer felt unequal to remaining outside,
against the tidal wave of the returned motorists. Occasional suspension
is necessary to the greediest flirtation, to give it a flavour of
stolenness; else it loses its character, and palls. This is our surmise
as to why these young people allowed themselves to be swept into the
drawing-room by the current. Cerberus seemed to have been withdrawn. It
is not necessary to the story to know whether the little beggar had or
had not disappointed his backers. No questions were asked.
The way in which the motor-party ignored their accident was more like
the concerted vigour of artillerymen in charge of a gun than any mere
philosophical submission to the will of Fate. Practically the machine's
twenty-horse-power had brought them in triumph to the door exactly at
the time appointed. A trivial excursion into non-fulfilment of its
destiny was not the poor motor's fault, nor its inventor's, nor its
maker's, nor its _chauffeur's_. It was all due to a little bit of
original sin in the heart of a hexagon nut, which, having heard that
the only key that it could be got at with was mislaid, immediately
went slack. It resisted the importunities of a screw-hammer, and
demanded a box-key. Like some minute organism of humanity--a spiteful
_medulla oblongata_, say!--endowed with powers of striking work, it had
paralyzed the whole structure. But, unlike the _medulla oblongata_, it
could be set right in five minutes as soon as we had a proper box-key.
Therefore it was as clear as noonday that the mishap, as an incident in
the History of Motoring, hadn't happened at all. It was by-play--didn't
count!
The expedition had been a great success. Its object had been attained;
like that of the scout who locates the enemy, but leaves his horse
behind. When you have seen premises that are the very thing, what
does it matter how you get home? For the purposes of the Great Idea,
these premises were the very thing. Three large waterwheels, one
overshot, ninety-four-horse-power in all, and the most glorious
oak- and beechwoods coming down to the waterside. And the most
interesting fourteenth-century pound William Rufus had ever seen. He
and his friend Scipio were fascinated with the place, and enthusiastic
about the Great Idea. But while apt to feel pique at any doubt thrown
on the wisdom of the scheme, the latter was not prepared to forego the
luxury of making fun of it himself.
"No historical associations," said he, with perfect deliberation of
manner, "could supply a more healthy stimulus to the production of
what I believe are called Art Objects. The church, a most interesting
example of several styles, has been judiciously restored in one--I
forget which--and the castle, some portions of which are previous to
something very early--I forget what----"
"Suppose you shut up, Scip," said his friend. "You're never in earnest
about anything. No--it really is the most delightful place I've ever
seen. You wouldn't look so scornful if you could see it, Ju. And as for
its suitability, I don't see how there can be any question about that."
His sister Sibyl's practical mind--her manner laid claim to one--went
straight on to details. "The only thing," she said, "that I didn't see
a place for was the ivorycarvers' shop."
"Couldn't one of those places in the roof be converted?" her brother
asked.
"Too hot in the summer," said Sibyl decisively. "I can see the
weaving-sheds, and the jewellery-shops, and the bookbinder's
department, and the printing-house, and the woodblock-cutter's little
shop round by the stairs, and the ceramic works--(only we really must
be sure that chimney-shaft will be any good)--and the bronze-casters,
and the printed fabrics, and the type-writing _de luxe_ for private
circulation." She checked off each department on her fingers, imagining
clearly--so Mr. Challis, who was watching her, thought--the place in
which it was to be located. Then she came to her exception--"But where
on earth these tiresome ivorycarvers are to be put I can't imagine!"
Her brother, with perfect gravity, accepted the difficulty as one to be
wrestled with. "I don't see why they need be downstairs at all," said
he. "Why not put them in--well!--if not in the roof, why not in that
room beyond the Art-needlework schools?"
"We can't conveniently have boys and young men passing and repassing."
Sibyl was giving it serious thought; no doubt of that! She added with
conviction: "We shall have to build in the end; so we may as well look
the matter in the face."
"What do you want with ivorycarvers?" Thus Judith, with a near approach
to a yawn. It never came off, owing to good breeding; but Mr. Challis
noted to himself that it would have been statuesque had it done so.
Marianne's yawn was not statuesque. He could recall cases in point....
What had that to do with the matter, by-the-bye? Challis brushed it
away by joining in a murmur of half-protest against Judith's question.
The world was listening interested to the evolution of the Great Idea.
Politics had slacked down--to give it a turn. And the world perceived,
in a doubt thrown on the necessity for ivory carving, a dangerous phase
of criticism that might undermine the whole scheme.
Sibyl said, with decisive resignation, "Oh dear!--how exactly like
you that is, Ju!" And her brother, "That's Judith all over." Then
both asked a mixed question, equivalent to--If not ivorycarvers, why
not anything? Why not no jewelery?--no art needlework?--no hammered
metal or wood carving? The world's murmur of half-protest--so Challis
thought--had really less to do with the demerits of the cavil it
condemned than with the obviousness of the answer to it. A mob is apt
to mistake its self-gratulation at having perceived something for
agreement with the thing it has perceived. Folk sing below par in
unison, and no one cares much which way he votes in a _plebiscite_.
This is what Mr. Challis thought, not a remark of the text. He resolved
to put it in his next book.
"I am in a minority." Judith dropped her fine eyelids with a hint in
the action of formal surrender, as one strikes a banner. "Even Mr.
Challis has deserted me!" Challis said, "Not altogether. I'm a trimmer
playing fast and loose. A sort of plaid, like Sam Weller." But he had
not understood his _monde_. It was one that knew nothing about Sam
Weller.
The rest of the company--all but the chit and counterchit--showed
a disposition to talk to each other of conditions necessary to be
observed in the sudden inauguration of complex undertakings, these
conditions touching points familiar to the speaker, but not within the
experience of others. Each would call Mr. Arkroyd's attention to a
danger ahead, or an advantage to be attained by well-advised foresight,
as early as possible to-morrow, so that Opportunity might be taken by
the forelock.
Mr. Ramsey Tomes enjoined caution before all things. He spoke as
one having a monopoly of prudent instincts, to the exclusion of a
rash planetful of fellow-creatures, or as the voice of one crying
"Beware!" in the wilderness of pitfalls Don't-care neglected, with
such fatal consequences. He suggested, like the father of him who slew
the Jabberwock, that he who only took sufficient heed was certain of
success--need not make any positive efforts--could go on rather better
without them. One would have thought he meant--Mr. Challis _did_
think--that any commentator so cautious as never to open a volume was
well half-way to a triumph of exegesis, and that Columbus would have
discovered America all the quicker if he had stopped at home. The
story, Mr. Tomes concluded, of the failure of the plethora of rash
enterprises that were our inheritance from an otherwise glorious Past
would fill a volume. Mr. Challis thought to himself that this was
unworthy of its author--rather an anticlimax. But Mr. Tomes was sleepy.
In fact, it was getting late, and a sense of impending adjournment was
vitiating the discussion: a little pitted speck in the garnered fruits
of its intelligence was growing, and a period of sleepy incapacity
was in sight. Winding-up remarks became frequent, such as "We shall
have to think all that over," or "We must settle this, that, and the
other first, before anything practical can be done," or "One thing's
certain, at any rate"--this last being the prelude to several different
conclusions. In the end the view that we might sleep upon it was
welcomed as an epigrammatic truth, and acted on. The company broke up,
finding their bedroom-candles in the passage.
And as the chit and the counterchit tore themselves apart till morning,
the latter said to the former, "What was all the fun? Did you make
out?" To which the chit replied simply, "I wawesn't listening," in a
long sweet drawl. And to that young officer's ears--will you believe
it?--these words seemed the embodiment of divine wisdom, and he
remained intoxicated!
* * * * *
Miss Sibyl Arkroyd, although she had just professed herself utterly
worn out with her hard afternoon's work, was not too tired to say to
her sister, over the lighting of a bedroom-candle in the passage, "Come
into my room; I've something to say to you."
Judith, majestically undisturbed at anything a younger sister can
possibly have to say, is in no hurry to comply with this request or
mandate. Rather, she is inclined to make a parade of deliberation,
exchanging understandings with Mr. Challis over the heads of the group
of males with whom he is retiring to the smoking-room, to end the day
with a cigar. Secret reciprocities seem to have set in, thinks Sibyl,
pausing on the landing above, out of sight. And these are too subtle
for the vernacular guests, and outclass the counterchits altogether.
Though, as each of these last is dwelling contentedly on his recent
chit, that doesn't come into court.
But Sibyl is wary, and gets away in time to her room. She just hears
her sister's farewell speech to the author: "Do consider your readers a
little, Mr. Challis, and don't ruin your brain with too many cigars,"
and his answer: "It all depends on the quality of the baccy;" followed
by a testimonial from William Rufus about the brand of the one Challis
has just chosen; and then she ends a majestic ascent of the broad
stairway, with the portraits of departed Arkroyds looking down from its
wainscoted walls, by disappearing into her sister's room.
"What's the something, Sibyl?"
"You'll be angry if I tell you."
"I may." Judith keeps her candle in her hand. Is it worth putting it
down, if dissension in the wind is pointing to a short interview? "But
how can I tell till I know? Why did you want me?"
"Well--I'll tell you. But you mustn't fly into a rage. That man Mr.
Scoop--or Harris, or whatever his name is--married his Deceased Wife's
Sister!"
"Is that any concern of mine?"
"You wouldn't speak in that way if it weren't."
"In what way?"
"The way you spoke." What may seem inexplicable here is due to the
inability of mere words to do justice to the intensity of Judith's
unconcern. There was no need for an indifference such as a humming-top
asleep shows to the history of its own time.
"I don't mind waiting till you are reasonable, Sib dear." This little
bit of Prussian tactics improved Judith's position. She put her
candlestick on a piece of real Chippendale, to express anchorage, but
remained standing. She had been looking very handsome in the white
chiffon all the evening, and thought so. Her subconscious judgment
confirmed this, as a mirror on a wardrobe door swung her reflection
before her for a moment. Sibyl had opened it. Judith looked at her
wrist-watch as she stood, but meant, subconsciously, to look up again
when the counterswing brought the image back. All which occurred, and
then Sibyl sat against the bed-end, having disposed of the wardrobe,
and said:
"You know you have been in Mr. Harris's company all day, Judith. And
I suppose it's going to be the usual thing. But there's no sense in
your calling me unreasonable simply because I want you to know what the
position is."
"What _is_ the position?"
"Just what I've told you. Mr. Harris ... well--Challis then ... is not
really a married man. He married--at least, made believe to marry--his
Deceased Wife's Sister."
"Then, now you've told me what the position is, I know. And I may go to
bed."
"Don't be irritating, Judith." It is provoking, you know, when your
enemy makes a successful rally after a seeming repulse. Judith's last
tactical move was masterly. Her success soothed her to moderation.
"I don't want to be irritating, Sib. And I don't think you have any
right to talk of being irritating after what you said just now. '_The_
usual thing!' What usual thing?"
"You know what I mean, and it doesn't matter."
"I don't think it matters the least. But what do you know about Mr.
Challis? I mean, what do you know that I don't?"
"Only what I told you."
"But how do you know? Really, Sibyl, I shall go if there are to be any
more mysteries."
"Well, don't be impatient, and I'll tell you." And thereon Sibyl,
seated on the end of the bed, gave the substance of a short chat with
her mother when she came in from the excursion. That lady must have
been mighty interested, Judith thought, to talk about Mr. Challis's
affairs, which could not possibly concern any of them. She said as
much, resentfully, to her sister.
"Well," said Sibyl, "I only tell you what she said to me. She drove
Mrs. Barham home from Thanes, and they talked about it all the way. The
Bishop had it on perfectly good authority. I think it was the editor
of some well-known paper who had heard it from a gentleman who had
interviewed Mr. Challis for him. You know how they do?" Oh yes!--Judith
knew. "Well, this gentleman had it from Mr. Challis himself, who had
begged him very earnestly to say nothing about it. So, of course,
nothing appeared in the article."
"What a delicate-minded editor!"
"I think it was very nice of him. Why not? But you always sneer, Ju.
Anyhow, that's what the _madre_ said to me. And we agreed that the
sooner you knew the better...."
"And why?"
"Oh, well, because, of course.... However, we can't discuss that now
at this time of night. I only know what Mrs. Barham said the Bishop
said...."
"What did His Holiness say?"
"Judith, if you sneer I won't talk to you.... Well, the Bishop said
that if he had his way, he would refuse Holy Communion to all people's
Deceased Wife's Sisters ... there!--you know what I mean perfectly
well, Judith."
Judith had started a protest, but gave up the point. "I know what you
mean. But why doesn't he?"
"Mrs. Barham said he did not feel sure of the support of Public
Opinion. But for all that this gentleman was living in Sin, technically
if not actually, or actually as well as technically, or ... well!--I
forget which ... with this woman." Sibyl paused; the pause was a
tribute to the force of the curl of her sister's lip. She ended: "Come,
Ju, you can't call her a _lady_, you know!"
"Did the Bishop say gentleman?"
"No. By-the-bye, I think the Bishop _did_ say man. But, of course, he
would speak scripturally. Besides, all gentlemen are men too, but all
women are not ladies."
The curl died very slowly on Judith's lip, if at all. "Poor Mr.
Challis!" said she. "He doesn't know what he's losing--at least, what
he _would_ lose if it wasn't for Bishop Barham's respect for the World.
Fancy having the Holy Communion refused one--by Bishop Barham!..."
"Judith! If you're going to blaspheme!..."
"I'm not, dear. I'm going to say good-night. And to-morrow I'll tell
Mr. Challis of his parlous plight."
"Oh, Ju, you never will!"
"Wait and see! Good-night, dear." The "dear" was rather perfunctory.
And it was not to correct it to tenderness that Judith turned back in
the doorway and reclosed it from within. "I want to know what you meant
by 'the usual thing,'" she said, and waited.
"I thought you said you didn't think it mattered."
"I don't think it does. But I want to know what you meant by it, just
the same."
The return into the room to ask the question added to its weight
somehow. Sibyl might have answered more forcibly and less pertly had
it been asked during conversation. "I should have thought, after the
Honourable Stephen, that that went without saying."
"'After the Honourable Stephen'!... Sibyl!" There is growing resentment
in the handsome woman's voice of protest, and a slight flinching in her
sister's manner recognizes it. She speaks uncomfortably.
"Well, what would you have me say? You know quite well, Ju, that the
_madre_ thinks so too. What is the use of pretending?"
Judith's colour is heightened as she closes the door to prevent someone
hearing in the passage--her maid perhaps or her sister's. "_I_ see no
use in pretending, Sib. If you and mamma are going to say spiteful
and malicious things, you had better speak them out.... Yes, it _is_
spiteful and malicious to try to make out that there was anything
between me and Stephen Lyell; it is simply wicked to use the word
flirtation.... No--I know you have not actually used it--but it's the
same thing. It was that woman entirely! And you know it!"
"I should have felt as she did. Besides, Lady Di Lyell's no fool.
Look how you had him to yourself all day long ... oh yes!--I know
what you are going to say. Perhaps there wasn't. But some people can
get on perfectly well without _any_ love-making. I think that way's
the worst; it's insidious and hypocritical. Yes, Judith!--if you
_are_ going to flirt with a married man, I would sooner you did it
above-board." Notice Sibyl's elisions, and how easily understood they
seemed to be. Sisters' intercourse is based on concurrent consciousness
of the actual; sometimes admitted, sometimes concealed. These two had
harboured theirs from the nursery, usually finding speech for them. In
the present case they had never spoken quite openly, though each knew
the other knew of her knowledge, and pointed allusions to flirtations
with married men had been perfectly well understood.
Judith has been keeping back a great deal of anger--she has
self-control in plenty--to affect a certain patronage of a younger
sister; albeit she has only a couple of years more to her half of the
fifty they share between them. "Sib dear!" she says. "You are entirely
absurd--quite childish. If her jealous ladyship wasn't secure against
me and poor good, honourable Stephen, where is married bliss to find
security? Unless men and women are never to be friends at all."
"Nobody objects to it that I know of. Only not one at a time. You know
the difference that makes as well as I do--as well as everyone does."
Probably Judith did, and that was why she said nothing--or, at least,
in what she did say made no reply to the last assertion, but went back
to the general question. She put her hand on the door-handle to suggest
peroration and spoke collectedly and coldly.
"You are quite wrong, Sibyl, when you use the word 'flirtation' about
me and Stephen Lyell. Cordial acquaintance is quite enough--even
friendship is a little overstrained. Not but that we are very good
friends, and should always keep so, only for that fool of a woman!
But I shall always think somebody made mischief." She turned the
door-handle to indicate the penultimate character of what was coming,
but did not open the door. "And as for this Mr. Alfred Challis or
'Titus Scroop'--who is a person, by-the-bye, with whom any sort of
flirtation would be _simply impossible_--he's just a clever playwriter
without the slightest pretence to be considered a ... no!--I wasn't
going to say gentleman; let me finish ... accustomed to the ways of
Society." Sibyl didn't feel convinced, but kept her counsel. "And I
have my own reasons for wishing to cultivate his acquaintance."
Now, surely, at this late hour of the night, and after so active a day,
and with these two young ladies' respective maids wondering _sotto
voce_ on the landing outside what on earth it's all about--surely that
door-handle might have turned in earnest! But we all know the fire that
seems put out with a spark still chuckling in its core at the nice
blaze it means to be one day. Perhaps if Sibyl had said "I ss--see"
with less of suggestion that some human frailty undefined had been
sighted by her shrewdness, and had commanded her sympathy; and perhaps
(even more) if she had abstained from saying to herself, "I thought it
was that," in a voice that was evidently intended to be heard, yet to
seem inaudible--perhaps the fire would not have broken out again. As
it was, the door-handle had a relapse, and its manipulator said rather
sharply: "Thought it was what?"
"The Stage," was the reply. "Oh yes, Ju!--I know all about it; so
you needn't look like a Tragedy Queen. Pray disgrace your family!
Good-night, dear."
"Sibyl, you are a thoroughly selfish woman ... did you say _why_?
Why--because you are indulging all your own fancies--just flinging
away hundreds on all sorts of useless fads, and all the while opposing
me in a reasonable wish--for it _is_ reasonable to wish to give it
a trial--because of a miserable, old-fashioned prejudice against a
profession which at least is as respectable as hammering little copper
pots and making little bits of fussy enamelled jewellery. I can't
tell you how _sick_ I get of hearing of it all...." Anger at mere
impertinence does not involve a flush, like resentment against a charge
of misdemeanour on a point of delicacy. But one can go white with
anger, and Judith's change of colour may be due to it, as she says what
she evidently means to be her last word. Sibyl tries to deprive it of a
last word's advantage.
"If you are going to take that tone, Ju," she replies, "I think we
had better talk no more about it. And how little copper pots can
have anything fast or disreputable about them I don't know. But pray
disgrace your family, if you can get anyone to help you--Mr. Scoop,
or Challis, or anyone." Then this young lady did not play fair, for
she said or as good as said that if her sister was as tired and sleepy
as she herself was, she wouldn't stand there talking, but would go to
bed. But even this was not so bad as adding: "And what all this has to
do with Mr. Scoop's Deceased Wife's Sister I can't imagine!" The dry
tone in which Judith said, "Nor I, dear!" may have conveyed her views
about her sister's powers of Logic, without more enlargement--at least,
she indulged in none and went away to her own bedroom rather despising
herself for feeling exasperated, but knowing that she was so by the
satisfaction she got from an increased indifference to what her family
thought about the theatrical profession. Her stage-mania was getting
the bit in its teeth. But she could find it in her heart to laugh
at Sibyl for trying to support her own fads on the moral repute of
little copper pots. Why, so far as that went, the little pots might be
anchorites in deserts for any power they had of blemishing it.
As for "Mr. Scroop's Deceased Wife's Sister," _that_, she knew, was
nonsense, because he had told her the name of his first wife. Or,
stop a minute!--might she not have been a half-sister? Judith guessed
shrewdly. But then--it occurred to her presently--would that count? She
thought of this after she was in bed, and was half inclined to get up,
and look up the point in her prayer-book.
* * * * *
The suspicion that had crossed Challis's mind in the drawing-room
was confirmed by the way his companion had glanced at herself in the
mirror, before answering his question about the beauty of her friend
the stage-aspirant, more than by the wording of her answer. After
all, the fact that a good-looking woman had refused an unqualified
testimonial to the beauty of an alleged friend was very negative
evidence indeed that she was all the while speaking of herself. But
the glance at her reflection seemed natural enough to him under the
circumstances, though he was ready to admit that, much as he had
written about them, he did _not_ understand women. His conclusion
from it was supported by something not altogether natural in the tone
of the answer; the substance of it might be no more than provisional
modesty, to cover future confession. Had she answered that her friend
had a Juno-like figure, a splendid Greek brow and nose, rich coils of
dark hair, a stately column of a throat, and ample justification for
evening dress whenever warranted by authority--could she have looked
him in the face later and claimed the identity? Challis dwelt upon the
inventory more than was needed, and decided that the semi-evasion had
been skilful, and had shown that its author was superior to frivolous
vanities. There was glamour about this: men persist in ascribing high
qualities to beautiful women, and only concede them grudgingly to
dowdies as a set-off to their unhappy plainness.
Anyhow, even if he was mistaken, his mistake would give him a sound
ground for writing as much as he was inclined to write about this young
lady to Marianne; and he felt, without exactly knowing why, inclined
to write rather liberally about her. Perhaps, if he had had a mind for
self-vivisection, he would have found that he shrank from acknowledging
the reason he had hitherto flinched from writing about her to his
wife; which was, briefly, that he was just too far _entiché_ to feel
at ease in telling her how much in love he had fallen with one of the
daughters, and how awfully jolly she was, and how awfully jealous
she, Marianne, would be if she was there to see. _You_ know--male
reader over head and ears in wedlock!--that that is what _you_ would
have written, and despatched with an authenticating photograph if one
was attainable. And you would have asked for the last photo of your
correspondent in return--the one with baby pulling her hair; not that
beastly one yearning, with the lips slightly parted--to give as a swop
to your new love; because six copies were to come from Elliott and
Fry's, and we could have as many more as we wanted. But Mr. Alfred
Challis was not so detached as all this; and, without absolutely
suspecting it, he was not sorry to be supplied with a well-defined
_locus scribendi_, where all analysis and justification would merge
and be forgotten. He felt, with such a licence of free pen, much more
ready to go to work with his long letter to Marianne about that long
walk to the Rectory to-day. See what a lot he could find to tell about
that Parson who wanted (or didn't) to marry his Deceased Wife's Sister!
Partly on the question itself--one, of course, of the greatest interest
to both--and partly, if not more, because he had just remembered that
surely the name of the Parson who took on the duties for Charlotte
Eldridge's reverend cousin out Clapham way was Athelstan Something; and
hadn't he, the said cousin, been known to come away to this part of the
world to take his friend's duties in the country and get change of air?
Of course! And then, too, there was the incident of the sofa in the
evening. Yes!--he would make the peep into the mirror amusing.
They were new candles all through again this evening--really! ... the
extravagance in these great houses! What would Marianne say if she saw
it? But so much the better! Candles that have never been blown out
give a much better light than restarted ones--who can say why? Challis
settled down soon to his long letter, and wrote well into the night.
The four candles he had enlisted had burned down to mere housekeeper's
perquisites--substitute-justifiers--by the time he had signed himself
Marianne's loving Tite; and after a good stretch in acknowledgment
of an hour's bent back, had lighted an isolated sample with an
extinguisher-parasite, so as to blow all four out together, and keep
them neck and neck.
After he was in bed he said to himself that he must make sure that
letter went by the first post, or it would only reach Marianne such a
short time before the writer. It was very stupid of him, that it was,
to have allowed so many days to pass before writing a proper account
of "these people" to his wife. She had only had such very perfunctory
letters before. He classed it as a stupidity. However, it might end
by his overstaying the week he was asked for by more than an extra
day already bespoken, and then this long letter would seem in better
keeping. That would make it all right.
CHAPTER IX
HOW MARIANNE SHOWED THAT LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND, MRS. ELDRIDGE.
WHERE WAS THAT SOFA? OF COUNTRY AND TOWN HOUSES. JEALOUSY
Marianne Challis had never become quite reconciled to her new life
at the Hermitage at Wimbledon, obvious as was the improvement on her
old home in Great Coram Street. What she would have liked would have
been that Titus--for she had adopted the Christian name of his _nom de
plume_, not without pride--should become a brilliant and successful
author, that a plentiful income should take the place of the modest
salary of a subordinate--important, but still a subordinate--in a City
accountant's; but that, nevertheless, their old life should go on as it
had done since their marriage nine years ago.
She made little concessions and reservations. They would have had
a bath put up in the little room next the nursery, on the second
floor, with a regular hot-water service from the kitchen. The old
kitchen-range might have been got rid of at the same time, and a new
one put in its place, with a proper oven, and then it wouldn't have
been one long grumble-grumble-grumble from Elizabeth Barclay all day
long. They could have had the roof seen to, and the window-frames seen
to, and the drains seen to, and all the substantial repairs attended
to; and they could have made the landlord do it as soon as they were
in a position to threaten him with legal proceedings if he didn't.
But really, when you have no means but a limited salary, and a boy's
schooling to pay for!----so Mrs. Challis said to Mrs. Eldridge, a
friend in her confidence, and as _she_ didn't finish the sentence, we
need not. And then the drawing-room could have been made quite pretty,
with the same patterned paper, of course, and as near as we could get
the carpet. Only it was second-hand when poor Kate bought it fourteen
years ago, and the man from Shoolbred's said the pattern was out of
date. And as for the beds and the blinds and curtains, it would have
been just as easy to have them all new at Coram Street as at Wimbledon.
And really Titus could have done perfectly well with the top back
attic, out of the noise, to do his writing in. It could have been made
quite nice, and would have looked ever so much bigger with bookcases
round.
However, it couldn't be helped now. Titus had condemned the top back
attic, and made a fuss about the walls sloping in. Of course, she only
meant bookcases on the straight-up walls. But men were like that, and
you might talk to them till Doomsday. Mrs. Challis left something
defective here also, and we are again under no obligation to complete
the sentence for her.
Of course Titus had a much nicer room now--at least, a much larger one.
What he wanted such a big room for Marianne couldn't imagine. Just
look at the way he wrote that first book, "The Spendthrift's Legacy."
In pocket-books and on omnibuses! Just everywhere! However, it pleased
him, and when he was pleased he was satisfied. As long as he didn't
complain! And yet once more Mrs. Eldridge had to nod an implied easy
interpretation with closed lips. She--a wife herself--could understand.
Very likely the might-have-been, in Marianne Challis's mind, of a
glorified Great Coram Street, with the successful author turning out
immortal works in a glorified top back attic, was only an allotropic
form of a condemnation of things that had come to pass at the new home
at Wimbledon. Very likely, too, it was unconscious on her part. She may
never have noticed that the imaginary new chapters of the closed volume
of the old home contained no reference to the new friends her husband's
great success had brought about him, to the new Club he belonged to,
and met celebrities at, to the dinner invitations that frankly left her
out, and--almost more irritating--those that followed a perfunctory
card-shedding visit that shouted aloud, "Because we can't ask him
and leave _you_ out, good author's wife!" The imaginary visitors her
fancy saw in the renovated might-have-been drawing-room were John
and Charlotte Eldridge, and the Smithsons and Miss Macculloch--not
grandma; for Marianne's desire for her mother's presence did not go
to the length of cancelling her bronchitis in order to bring her out
on imaginary Saturday evenings. And those visionary social gatherings
never held a dream of young authoresses, with a strange power of
appealing to our hidden sympathies, and dresses that must have cost
God knows what. But she never noticed the omission. Nor that of the
theatrical people, nor the press people; nor the swells--male and
female--who came to sit at the feet of Genius, and be civil to its
wife, who, though she may have been slow about _some_ things, could see
through all _that_, and really never went out, thank you!
But a few days' change was just what her husband wanted. That was
what she had said to Lady Arkroyd of Royd Hall, in Rankshire, a case
in point, whom her husband had met at Sir Spender's, as he called
him, and had encouraged to call on Mrs. Challis at Wimbledon. Now,
at Great Coram Street, or the glorified fetch of it, no such person
appeared; though, indeed, a few inexplicable fetches were supplied by
fancy of people who were in earnest when they wanted her to come too.
Neither Lady Arkroyd nor Lady Betty Inglis, who accompanied her, had
gone beyond civility point--only men never saw anything, you knew they
didn't!
Charlotte Eldridge (in this case) knew perfectly, dear!--and backed
up Marianne in refusing to go to Royd. Alfred Challis said it was the
merest temper; but was he sorry she didn't go?--Marianne wondered. She
rather preferred not going, to say the truth, but she would have liked
Titus to be really sorry. And even though she had known just as well
that he was only pretending he wanted her to come too, she would have
liked him to pretend a little better. If he had done this, she would
really have enjoyed his absence a great deal more, and it would have
helped her to believe she didn't enjoy it. She honestly wanted to.
Because she was one of those housekeepers who reconcile good
housekeeping with what they call a little peace and quiet. These
ends are contributed to by the temporary abeyance of the household.
Scarcely by its permanent absence--that would alter the character of
the position altogether. This position was that an unendurable stress
of responsibility was borne by the house's mistress in her position,
so to speak, of ship's master. The navigation rested entirely on her
shoulders, and the Captain meddled. Captains seldom did anything
else, and there _was_ no peace and quiet until they were at their
office in the City, or locked up in their cabin as might be. In that
cabin, as in Challis's case, they pursued some private end which had
no relation to the stern realities of Life. It might chance, as was
admitted in theory, to have something to do with the settlement of
weekly accounts--a remote connection of a vague ideal kind. But the
keeping of the log, the regulation of the chronometers, the comparison
of charts--well, really, it was impossible to attend to them for the
fidget, till the Captain was safely entombed in his cabin and out of
the way! And Charlotte Eldridge knew all that as well as Marianne did.
_She_ could understand, if anyone could. As for schoolboys, everybody
knew what a boy in a house was; hence, broadly speaking, the sooner he
was back at school the better. When home for the holidays, there was
_no_ peace; and it was just as well to look the fact in the face and
not be deceived by any false prophets.
However, there was something to be said for the prophets in that
Jerusalem at Wimbledon when the nominal head of the household was on
a visit in the country, and that dreadful boy was playing cricket
and wouldn't be back till late. This September afternoon there was a
little peace and quiet at last, and Charlotte Eldridge and Mrs. Challis
could chat--at least, till the husband of the former called in on his
way from the station to walk home with her across the common. Let the
record of their talk be taken anywhere, at random. Take the images of
them, also at random, from any one of a thousand semi-detached villas
in the suburbs of London, and, if you choose ladies of thirty odd, true
centres of the English middle-class, you will have all the description
you will want for the present.
"They're not girls. At least, _I_ don't call them girls," said Mrs.
Challis, shutting the pot-lid on the tea. Then she blew the spirit out,
because it wasn't wanted any more.
"Twenty-six and twenty-four," said the other lady. Not an opinion of
her own, but a placarding of authorized figures for consideration. They
remained in view, neither sanctioned nor censured. Marianne left the
point.
"Why aren't they married, is what I look at."
"Looks, perhaps. Or short tempers. Either tells. Does Mr. Challis
mention their figures? Because figures go a long way." Mrs. Eldridge
seems to speak as an authority. Marianne nods agreement as a general
rule. But presently takes exception:
"There would be money," she says. "And that makes a difference.
Besides, his letter lays a good deal of stress on one of their figures.
I'm never surprised at figures when it's those sort of persons, in
girls. They have to." The implication seemed to be that the she-toff,
figureless, got suppressed--cancelled somehow.
"He says looks _too_, doesn't he?"
"One of them, certainly. But you can't tell, from men. And it's one
thing one time, another another." Here a pause, following a question
from Mrs. Eldridge, "Have you stirred it?" and an irrelevant answer, "I
don't want it to get too strong," from Mrs. Challis. Then tea. During
which the subject is picked up and dropped at intervals, an eye being
kept on it throughout. It is like a mouse a cat is warden of.
"I suppose the good-looking one is the one he sees most of. They do."
Mrs. Eldridge is enigmatical.
Her friend is almost equally so. "I suppose it's better always to take
no notice of it," she says.
"Always better." Decisively, as from an authority.
"The other one carves something, or does art needlework. When grandma
was a girl they did painting on velvet--poonah, it was called. Or took
likenesses. But then they wore ringlets."
"I know. And their waists were goodness knows where. But they did ruins
in water-colours."
"In sepia. Ma has some in a portfolio. Ready for your other cup?" The
answer is substantially in the affirmative.
"Don't put the sugar in this time. They're such big lumps....
Thanks!... Yes, that was before it was Art Things, and Liberty's. They
were just regarded as accomplishments where there were daughters.
Then, if they became old maids, they kept it up. Because they had such
families." This did not mean that the old maids of three generations
back created scandals, but that our grandmothers' domestic cares stood
in the way of their career as poonah-painters and so forth.
Mrs. Challis cut the cake. Some always wait till this stage of tea to
do this. But there are many schools. Then she said: "Titus says it's
photography has put an end to all that sort of thing. I shouldn't
wonder."
"Nor I." But Mrs. Eldridge adds that she doesn't care about Art Objects
for their own sake, though they do for presents. She then picks up the
dropped mouse she has had an eye on. "Which is the one that slums?" she
asks.
"Oh--both! So does their lady-mother." There is a trace of bitterness
in this expression. "But only by the way. I don't suppose they stick to
anything."
"What does the good-looking one do?" No immediate answer coming, the
speaker throws a light, "Perhaps she's a vegetarian, or antivivisects?"
"No, it's neither of those. But I've no business to tell. Titus said
not, in the postscript."
"He wouldn't mind me."
"I don't know, dear. Perhaps it was you he meant. However, you must
promise not to tell, if I get the letter."
"My dear!--as if I should tell! You know I never say a word!"
Marianne felt she had done her duty by this letter as she left the room
to get it. For had she not honourably resolved not to show it, and even
gone the length of locking it into a drawer to prove her resolution?
And didn't her getting up from her tea show what an honourable intent
she had been acting under? Oh yes, she had done her duty. Besides, what
did it matter?
"Here's his letter. I don't expect he'll be home till Thursday.... No,
I suppose I mustn't show you the whole. I'll read the bits."
"You hadn't had your tea." Mrs. Eldridge felt quite secure of the
mouse, as she knew her husband wouldn't come before 6.30, and the
train was always behind. She felt so secure that she interjected a
remark on another subject--dress. She saw Marianne had on her plaid,
and admitted her wisdom; it had gone so much colder. How those stuffs
did last out! It really looked as good as new. Then she recommended
those little oblong things with jam in the middle, which she had tried
and her hostess hadn't; the latter, though, had bought them at the new
confectioner's.
Marianne put the letter safe out of the way of spills and slops, and
finished her tea. During which the mouse may be said to have remained
on the floor, watched. Then she picked up the letter, and after
glancing through a page not germane to the matter, identified that
which was. "Here it is," she said, and went on reading:--"'You will
be amused at what I think I have found out about Judith, the handsome
eldest one I told you of. She is stage-struck--wants to go on the
boards! She has not said it directly to me, but I feel pretty certain
that a "friend" she tells me of, who has these aspirations, is no other
than _herself_. However, I may be mistaken. This is what I judge from:
We were sitting on a sofa'...." The reader paused, looking on into the
text.
Mrs. Eldridge struck in: "Where was the sofa? Does he say where the
sofa was?"
"My dear Charlotte!" Marianne expostulated, "_can_ it matter? Besides,
he _says_---- However, I'll go straight on if you're going to fancy
I'm leaving anything out." And then continued, reading fair: "...
'on a sofa in the drawing-room after dinner. When she had told me
about this friend, having asked me first if I knew lots of actors and
actresses, I asked what sort of looking girl the friend was. _I saw her
look in a glass on the wall before she answered._ And then she said
something rather evasive about beauty being a matter of opinion, and
that there was probably enough in this case for working purposes. She
had disparaged her friend's performance, as it struck me, out of all
proportion to her apparent anxiety to advocate her cause, and a sort
of confidence that she would succeed. I put this down to protest of
personal modesty, as well as the look in the glass.'"
Marianne paused, saying, "I see that," and Mrs. Eldridge said also:
"I see _that_." Whereupon the former said, unreasonably: "What _don't_
you see?" and her friend replied: "Nothing. Go on." Which Marianne did,
after a very slight hesitation, as of doubt.
"'I annex a plan of the position showing the angle at which the mirror
was placed, the relative positions of myself and the lady, and our
respective images in the glass. So I could see plainly by looking
at her reflection that she took a good long look at herself before
answering my question.'"
"Is there another cup left, dear?" said Mrs. Eldridge. "Never mind if
you haven't...."
"It won't be good," said the tea-maker feelingly. But the applicant
said never mind, that would do! She liked it strong. But might she look
at the plan? She would promise not to read. There was nothing there she
needn't read, said her friend. Nevertheless, she folded back the script
behind the rough bird's-eye view, with dotted lines of sight to show
how things had worked.
"Well!" said Marianne, as she handed the cup of tea--which didn't look
bad.
"I don't believe the sofa was half as long as that."
"Charlotte--you're ridiculous!"
"Well, I _don't_! Now go on reading.... 'She took a good long look
at herself....'" Mrs. Eldridge considered whether she should reveal
the thought in her mind that Mr. Challis must also have taken a good
long look to know. No!--she would not! Whatever she was, she was not
a mischief-maker; and to prove this to her own satisfaction, she
not infrequently abstained from saying something about a lady and
gentleman. She often found an opportunity of doing this, as she never
thought on any subject not spiced with both. Satisfaction to conscience
through this abstention would be sure to result in free handling soon
after. Also, the abstention was easy to her this time, because she
believed--rightly or wrongly--that Marianne knew she was making it.
Perhaps rightly, but no outward sign to that effect came. Marianne
glanced forward in the letter, and went on reading: "'This young woman,
I fancy, is savagely jealous of the younger sister posing as an active
promoter of all sorts of upnesses-to-date....' I wish," said the reader
parenthetically, "that Titus wouldn't use such unusual expressions.
I dare say they are very clever, but I don't profess to understand
... what?... Oh, of course, I see what he _means_, but it's a kind
of thing I shall never understand.... No, my dear Charlotte!--it's
no use talking and trying to persuade me. 'Upnesses-to-date'--just
fancy!" Now Titus had been in two minds whether to allow this phrase
to remain, but had decided to do so, as better on the whole than
to provoke speculation over an obliterated text. _He_ might have
speculated himself over such an erasure.
"I don't think it implies anything," said Mrs. Eldridge, meaning of
course, anything about a lady and gentleman. "I fancy he is only
referring to Art Movements and Liberty silks and things. Go on." And
Marianne read:
"'All sorts of upnesses-to-date, doing things her grandmothers would
have thought _infra dig_....' What does that mean?"
"Lord, Marianne!--_that_ doesn't mean anything. Do go on. Only what
they would be too swell to do! That's all." Marianne continued:
"'_Infra dig._, while she herself is not allowed to try her luck and
face the music. She has the courage for it, evidently. Old Norman
blood! By-the-bye, I've been damning William the Conqueror up and down
ever since I came. For the old cock is besotted about him. Says he was
the first Socialist, and never talks of anything else!'... It's not
interesting, this!" She stopped.
"No--that's not interesting. I want to hear more about the girl's
looks. Couldn't you find what he says about her figure? You said he
laid stress on it."
"In his other letter. Tall and striking. Dignified kind of girl."
"I should hardly call that laying stress on her _figure_, as such."
Mrs. Challis reflects upon this rather paradoxical view of her
friend's. She is not as clear as she might be often over her husband's
elisions and hyperboles, and does not feel sure she reported him
rightly. "Perhaps," she says, "I should not have said 'laid stress
on.'" Her friend says oh no!--"laid stress on" was all right. But there
was some indeterminateness in what he was said to have laid stress
on. However, Mrs. Eldridge excuses further elucidation. "Sure there's
nothing more about that girl?" she asks.
"Yes, there's some more somewhere. Oh--here!... 'As to the lovely
Judith, of course, she might prove a duffer behind the footlights. But
then, again, she mightn't. She's the very thing for Aminta Torrington
in "Mistaken Delicacy."' That's the name his new play's to be called. I
liked 'Atalanta in Paddington' better myself."
"Not nearly such a good title. No! If 'Mistaken Delicacy' hasn't been
had a dozen times before, there couldn't be a better title. Of course,
he wants her to play in it. What else is there?"
"'Very thing for Aminta Torrington....' Oh yes!--it's here ... 'and I
shall try to get her to see Prester John about it' ... that's what they
call Mr.--what's his name?--the manager at the Megatherium, don't you
know?... 'about it, and see if we couldn't drill her up to performance
point. She couldn't be a total ...' something crossed out...."
"Let me look ... oh no--that's nothing! Only _fiasco_. It's the same
as failure." Mrs. Eldridge retained the letter and went on reading,
unopposed. The erasure had clearly been an almost insultingly merciful
one, to meet a defective knowledge half-way. She went on reading,
scrapwise, half inaudibly at times; sometimes saying "hm-hm-hm," to
stand for omissions.... "'Couldn't be a total failure, because it
isn't every day ... thing happens ... sort of Court-beauty ... good
family ... make a set-off against inexperience ...' hm-hm! ... 'elocution
very good, as far as I can judge....' I don't see any more about her."
Mrs. Eldridge read a good deal more of the letter to make sure of the
point, although Marianne reached out her hand to take it back. The
latter lady was looking rather nettled. She knew that _fiasco_ meant
_fizzle_ perfectly well, and it was ridiculous of Titus to treat her
like a schoolgirl.
Those who know the sort of person this young mater-familias in a plain
dress was, must know also what she meant by the phrase "a proper
pride." It is easy for superior persons--toffs of birth, toffs of
Science, Letters, Art--to decide that this phenomenon is a ridiculous
egotism in anything so middle, so Victorian, so redolent of Leech or
Cruikshank as Marianne Challis; to pronounce it an outcome of a simple
incapacity to realize her own insignificance. Gracious mercy!--suppose
we were all suddenly to "realize" our own insignificance!... But
really the subject is not one that will bear thinking of. Dismiss your
insignificance with a caution! And pray for a cloudy sky, that the
stars may not remind you of it.
When Charlotte Eldridge had read all down the next page of the letter,
she surrendered it to the hand that was waiting for it. But, even then,
not without a glance down the following one as she let it go. Her
friend apologized for taking it away.
"I shouldn't mind your reading it all, dear," she said. "But as I
promised...!"
"Quite right, dear!" And both these ladies felt they had made a
sacrifice to Duty. The letter wasn't to be shown, and a great deal of
it had _not_ been shown. What more could the most exacting ask? How
many ideals are as nearly attained in this imperfect world?
"However, there's nothing in what you haven't seen that could have
interested you in the very least." Having made out a good case for
Conscience, why weaken it? But probably Mrs. Challis is unaware that
she does so. "No!--there's not a word more about the girl." This is in
answer to a question that could hardly remain unanswered merely because
nobody had asked it. The negative chilled the conversation. _Why_ was
there not a word more about the girl?
A disturbance upstairs caused Mrs. Challis to get up and leave the
room. It was those children. Oh dear, what little plagues they were!
Presently she came back, explanatory. She believed it was really that
odious girl Martha's fault. She would have to get rid of her. But Titus
always sided with the girl, and that made it so difficult.... What was
it this time?... Oh, the child wanted the iron. Martha was ironing, and
of course paying no attention, and Emmie had burnt herself. No--not
badly; but a nasty burn! Marianne's style does not favour definition.
The two ladies sit on into the twilight--early, from a southeast
wind bringing the town-fog westward--and are less talkative. The
slow-combustion grate's first snail-like manifestations this year--for
the weather has been mild till to-day--begin to glimmer in a half-dusk
favourable to their detection. The children will be down directly to
say good-night. One can't talk till they are done with and out of the
way. Presently they come, but are not allowed to rush to the cake at
once. They shall have some directly. The casualty, Emmie, who yelled,
exhibits an arm between four and five years old with a scar on it. She
consents to goldbeater's skin on condition that she licks the place
herself. But what did that matter when there was cake? All children
have but one relation to cake. They _want_ it, and when that piece is
done, they want another the same size, or larger. These two were quite
one with their kind on this point, but they took the first piece behind
a sofa to devour it; even as a Royal Bengal Tiger at the Zoological
carries away a horror a vegetarian would die of into his bedroom, lest
you should get it and eat it first. But they came out for more; which
the tiger never does, because he knows it isn't any use, and prefers to
pretend he doesn't care to ask favours and be refused.
"I shall give them a couple of grains of Dover's powder apiece," said
their mother. "They've had nothing for a month." This good lady held
with the practice of a dose now and again, independent of symptoms. "If
it were not for me, they would be left altogether without medicine.
It's a thing their father always opposes me about." The words "Dover's
powder" were said a little too soon to be unheard by the persons
concerned, and the consequence was that Emmie, the younger one, bit
Martha, the nurse, going upstairs. However, this incident, with the
ructions that arose from it, was closed in time; and a little more
peace and quiet followed in its wake.
"I wonder at your husband and that Martha girl. Look at her teeth!"
"My dear Charlotte, Titus quite likes Martha, compared to Harmood,
whose teeth are really good, considering that she only takes sixteen
pounds." Harmood was the house-and-parlourmaid--a special antipathy of
the great author's.
"Well!--I wonder at it, is all I can say. They go so much by teeth.
Besides, look at the way she hooks her dress. The whole thing! You may
depend on it that Mr. Challis is only doing it for a blind, because
Harmood's pretty...."
"Doing what for a blind?"
"Oh, my dear child, what a silly you are! You know perfectly well what
I mean. That sort of thing. He wants you to think he hasn't any eyes,
and makes believe to prefer the ugly one. Lots of husbands go on like
that--only simpletons never see anything."
"I can't see that it makes any difference to me, either way."
"Very well, dear! Look at it your own way. Only don't blame me and say
I didn't tell you!"
Marianne wanted to say something sharp to her friend, but could not,
owing to lack of constructive power in emergencies. However, as that
lady closed with a snap, even as a moral physician who had written
a prescription and done her duty, there was time to consider an
extempore--an _ex multo tempore_, one might say.
"I wish you would say exactly what you mean, Charlotte."
"What about? About the servants?"
"No. About Titus."
"My dear Marianne, it isn't any use talking about it. A woman in your
position has to expect it...."
"Yes! But expect what?"
"If you won't interrupt me, I'll tell you. Of course, you know I
know perfectly well your husband is to be trusted, and all that sort
of thing. He has too much genuine regard for you. But I always have
thought, and always shall think, that men can't help themselves...."
"What for? I mean, why do you go on raking up? Can't you leave alone?"
"That's just what I was going to say, dear! Especially in this case.
Because there's really no need, if you come to think of it. I'll tell
you, dear, exactly what I should _recommend_ you to do--what _I_ should
do if I were in your place. I should either say _absolutely nothing_,
or if I said anything at all, just make it chaff--talk about his new
flame--say you will evidently have to get somebody else, don't you see?
As if it was entirely out of the question! Or perhaps that would be
dangerous, and it wouldn't do to have him thinking you suspected him of
fancying you weren't in earnest. No!--on the whole, I recommend saying
_absolutely nothing_."
Marianne's brain refuses to receive complications beyond a certain
point. She picks up the last intelligible phrase. "As if _what_ was
entirely out of the question?"
But Mrs. Eldridge is on her guard against making mischief. "You mustn't
run away with the idea that I said there _was_ anything," is the form
her caution takes. And then, in response to an angry flush on her
friend's face, "I'm sure there isn't the slightest reason for you to
be uneasy. I have far too much faith in your husband to suppose such a
thing possible for one moment.... No, indeed, dear!--even if she gets
him to get her into this play of his--and then, of course, they would
go on seeing each other--I shouldn't feel the smallest uneasiness.
Because look at her social position!"
"What _has_ her social position got to do with it?"
Mrs. Eldridge elevates her eyebrows, and perhaps her shoulders,
slightly, as though asking space what next? But she brings both down to
the level of her friend's knowledge of the world before answering: "I
should have said _everything_. A woman in her position doesn't commit
herself in any way with a man in your husband's, however distinguished
he may be. Read any divorce case of that sort of people, and see
if they don't have co-respondents of condition. Of course, I'm not
speaking of disgraceful cases, where the woman isn't received after.
But ordinary divorce cases in Fashionable Life."
"I can't see what you're talking about, Charlotte."
"Then I can't help it, dear. But I should have thought it was pretty
plain, for all that!"
Marianne laughs, a little uneasily. "Do you mean to say, Charlotte,
that because Titus goes away for a week to a country-house...?"
"Go on, dear." But Marianne is not constitutionally a
sentence-finisher. She begins again:
"Why isn't Titus to speak to a lady without a preach about it?"
"My dear child, nobody's preaching. If you were to listen to me,
instead of becoming impatient...."
"I'm not impatient! But you know it's irritating, and you can't deny
it."
"Very well, dear, I don't then. But let me finish what I was saying.
If you had listened to me, you would have seen my meaning. I was
all the time exonerating your husband from the suspicion of even
the slightest flirtation with this showy girl. I was trying to make
your mind easy about them, and to say that even if they _are_ rather
thrown together--as of course they must be, because one knows what
country-houses are...."
"Now, Charlotte, that _is_ nonsense! Why are country-houses any
different from town-houses? What stuff!" Marianne sees a light on
the horizon. She knows about country-houses, because she was a girl
in the country once. But much of her friend's analyses and insights
had been so much unqualified Sordello to her, and had left her brain
spinning. She can and will hold fast that which is good, and stick to
the country-houses. And clearly, if she can prove that country and
town houses are on all fours for the purposes of Charlotte's world--a
world where a sort of dowdy Eros dodders respectably about, all the
Greek fire knocked out of him--then a stopper will be put on these
suggestions of infidelities. She does not see all the connecting-links,
but would like to unhorse her opponent somehow.
That lady is also ready to let the issue turn provisionally on town and
country-house life. But this is for a reason of her own. She pursues
the subject: "It's _not_ stuff, dear. There's all the difference in
the world. In country-houses people split up into couples, and there's
no check. Chaperones on long walks, of course!--only they can't go so
quick, and get left behind. In town, no such thing. And there's really
no such thing as staying with, in town, either. Practically! Of course,
now and again friends from the country to stay a few days. But it isn't
the same thing, going to the Royal Academy and the New Gallery. The
Zoological Gardens is a good deal more like, only scarcely anybody
goes. Wasn't that John's knock?"
It was, apparently, and was followed by John's pocket-handkerchief--at
least, that was how a very loud noise was inexactly classified.
Whatever its proper name was, it caused its promoter's wife to fear
his cold was worse. He must have his feet in mustard and hot water.
But his attitude was, when he had replaced the contingent remainder
of the noise--a real pocket-handkerchief--in his pocket, that his cold
was nearly well, and no human power should induce him to submit to
treatment of any sort; but mustard and hot water least of all. He would
go and have a Turkish Bath, and kill himself. Not that _he_ anticipated
a fatal result; his wife forecast that for him. It transpired shortly
that he habitually set himself in opposition to all her wishes, and
went his own way. But in so doing he encountered frequent disasters,
his rescues from which were always achieved by her, single-handed, with
constant addition to a long score of debt, unpaid by him, on account of
which he never so much as said, thank you!
Mr. Eldridge was a person who defied description, in a certain sense;
but only because description calls for materials, and he supplied
none, or nearly none. He might have been the Average Man himself, for
any salient point that he presented. An observant person, called on
to recollect what he was like, would probably have remembered that
he shaved, all but a little whisker, and given up the rest of him to
oblivion.
His conversation, after the Turkish Bath had passed away, was an
inquiry if his wife was ready; and, after he had been told not to fuss,
but to sit down and make himself agreeable, a statement that it was a
good deal colder than yesterday. So it afforded a natural opportunity
to his good lady of giving him a chance to enrich it by comment on the
subject in hand at the time of his arrival. She did not wish to drop
it, having, in fact--as hinted above--a purpose in dwelling on it.
"We're talking about country-houses," said she.
"What houses?" said he; and then, without waiting for an answer:
"Oh--country-houses! Where?"
"Don't pretend to be stupid, John. Nowhere, of course! No particular
houses--country-houses in general. And town-houses."
"Oh, I see! What about 'em? How's the children?"
"Never mind them! Listen to me." Marianne interjected that perhaps
they hadn't gone to bed, and she could ring for Martha to see. But
she didn't do it, and no one urged it. So the children lapsed, and
Mrs. Eldridge proceeded: "Pay attention to what I'm saying, John,
and put that glass down. You'll break it." He did as he was bid.
"We--_are_--_talking_--_about_--the differences between country-houses
and town-houses." To which Mr. Eldridge replied, "Oh, ah!--yes, to be
sure! Well!--you'd have to see 'em both," causing his wife to despair
visibly of male intelligence, with endurance, before starting afresh
with an appearance of willingness to make things easy for a slow
apprehension: "We were talking about the difference of the way one
lives, in town and in the country. Nothing to _do_ with premises."
She then went on to put a hypothetical case, to enable her husband to
grasp the full range of the recent conversation. Supposing that he
had been a young man enamoured of a damsel whose sentiments towards
himself were a matter of conjecture--suppose, in fact, he were "paying
attention"; that was how the lady put it--would he prefer to press
his suit in a town-house or a country-house? She made the question a
leading one by suggesting divine solitudes congenial to the development
of tender passions, and a climate favourable to the inspection of
sunsets and moonrises. So tempting was the prospect to the mind of
her hearer that he made a grimace expressive of greedy delight, and
gave a low whistle. "'Ooky!" said he, dropping an aspirate humorously.
"Country-houses--rather!"
"_Any_ man would say so at once, Marianne." Which Mrs. Eldridge
contrives to articulate in a way that implies, Heaven knows how, that
their discussion has had application to some particular case--no mere
abstract review of the subject. For the apprehension of her husband is
reached, with the effect that he says, with an expression of roused
interest: "I say, Lotty, tell up. Who's the party? Who's at it now?"
But he does not press for information, because his wife checks him
skilfully with, "Hush, John!--never mind now! I'll tell you after." His
comment, "Some gal, I suppose," suggests some lucid vision into life
and character beyond its drain on the resources of language.
Marianne Challis would have entered joyously enough with her friend
into the building up of a situation involving only a neighbour's
husband or wife, but she would fain have put a brake on the car of
Gossip in her own husband's case. The worst of it was that every word
she had said so far, with that intention, had only brought about an
increase of speed. And now she was conscious that if she put in any
protest of her faith in her husband's stability, matters would be made
ten times worse. The horses would get the bit in their teeth. At least,
his name had not been mentioned, nor the company he was in, before this
stupid John Eldridge. All this, or the protoplasm of it, hung about
her mind as she began saying, "If you mean ..." and stopped. But she
had, even with those three words, put her head in the lion's mouth past
recall. Her friend interrupted.
"I don't mean to say a _single_--_word_--_more_, dear, to you or to
anyone. So don't be uneasy. But you see what John thinks." The speaker,
as she rose to her feet with these words, as one gathering up for
departure, showed as a young woman in black, of a lissome, yet angular
type; taller than her friend, and with more claim, from personal
experience of her own figure, to sit in judgment on other women's. But
her complexion is not as good as Marianne's--a rather sallow one, not
free from a sense of freckles. However, that may only be the firelight.
John, merely conscious that something male and female was under
discussion, had put on what he conceived to be the proper look for the
father of a family equal to all moral emergencies. His face would have
served just as well for that of a person doing subtraction with a sense
of responsibility. This ambiguity of outward rendering of the phases
of his mind, of course, gave corresponding latitude to his wife's
interpretation of it.
Marianne had a growing misgiving that she was becoming skilfully
entangled in the meshwork of an undeserved embarrassment, and
floundered in desperation. "I don't the least understand what you
_mean_, Charlotte," she said. "What _does_ he think? What _about_?" On
this he asserted himself.
"No, I say, you know! Don't bring _me_ in--don't bring _me_ in! _I_
know nothing, you know--nothing at all, you know! Mum's the word, you
know--always keep out of this sort of thing!" He enforced his words by
pursing up his mouth and shaking his head continuously, in a kind of
paroxysm of caution. He also turned somewhat purple, and his eyes grew
smaller. These combinations put the finishing-touch on the strength of
his wife's position. She threw up a new and final entrenchment, and, as
it were, closed the subject officially.
"You do--quite--right, John," said she, "to keep out of it. That's all
you've got to do." She then assumed quite suddenly a large-hearted
tone of liberality. "And, after all," she said, "what does it all
come to? Just nothing whatever! I'm sure, dear Marianne, you need not
allow yourself to feel the _least_ uneasiness--not for a moment! With
a husband like yours! Only think! You'll see it will be all right,
dear--just recollect what I say! Now we must go. I'll go and get my
cloak--it's upstairs. No!--don't _you_ come...." But Marianne goes, for
all that.
Mr. Eldridge, left to himself, whistled a monotonous tune over and over
again, and flicked a glove that was on with another that was off. He
threw his eyes opener by fits and starts, as if he were trying on a new
pair of lids. Then he produced the vanished pocket-handkerchief, and
held it by two corners before him, spread out, as though he admired
the pattern. Then, as though he decided suddenly that it was not Saint
Veronica's, he availed himself of it as a resource of civilization,
and returned it resolutely to his pocket. We are not responsible for
this gentleman's actions, and can only record, without explanation,
that he then said quite distinctly, "Pum, pum, pum!" and slapped his
hands heavily together. He added: "Time's gettin' on"--a remark equally
true of all periods. Then he listened to the voices of the two ladies
returning down the stairs.
"Oh no!--you needn't be the _least_ afraid about John. He's discretion
itself in a thing of this sort. And you'll see it will be just as I
say. When your dear husband comes back it will all be _exactly_ the
same, and...." Here her voice dropped, and John listened hard, but
missed a great deal.... "So now, dear, you will promise to be quite
happy about it, and not let yourself fret. Won't you?"
"But, Charlotte dear, it's all about _nothing_...."
"That's the right view to take, dear. That's just exactly what it
_is_--all about nothing! Now let's try and be happy, and not think
about it. John!--where are you? Do come and let's be off! I hope it
isn't raining."
"Pavement was dry enough when _I_ came in," was Mr. Eldridge's
testimony. To corroborate it he went out in the front garden and gazed
upwards, open-mouthed. "Oh no--_it's_ not raining, fast enough," said
he. Which seemed to imply that perhaps something else was.
* * * * *
Marianne went back into her parlour and rang the bell for Elizabeth
Barclay to come and take away the tea-things, because Harmood was out
for her holiday. She looked and felt flushed and irritated, but could
not have said whether it was with Charlotte Eldridge, with herself,
or with this showy girl at Royd. With all her stupidity--and she had
plenty--she was not wanting in loyalty to her husband; although it may
be a good deal of this loyalty was only a form "proper pride"--that
is to say, _amour propre_--took. How one wonders that commonplace,
uninteresting people should have any _amour propre_--should love those
insipid selves of theirs at all! But they have it--the dullest of them.
As she sat there in the growing dusk, watching the slow-combustion
stove economizing its coal, and making attempts to consume its own
smoke, her soul was doing battle on its own behalf against the
insidious siren Jealousy, who came and came and came again each time
she thrust her contemptuously away. Had she, perhaps, despised her
a little too roundly when her first whispers were audible? Had she
treated them too much as an absurdity when her husband's first great
success had been followed by a sudden uplifting of him into a world she
resented--resented because the only part she could play in it had been
a very minor one? Had she taken it too easily for granted that no harm
would come if he went his way and she hers--she, who didn't mean to be
patronized, whoever else did! Might it not have been really wiser to
brace herself up to the bearing of one or two slights and humiliations,
to laugh them off and acknowledge that a homely, uneducated woman of
her sort must needs fall contentedly into a back rank, rather than
to refuse indignantly to march with the army at all? _She_ was not
going to be tolerated, and made allowances for, not she!--that was
her attitude. That Arkroyd woman would have been just civil to her
in time, no doubt; but how about all the affronts and indignities
she would have had to put up with during apprenticeship? No--it was
best as it was: Titus to go his way and she hers! Besides, her being
constantly hatching him would do no good, if there _were_--that is to
say, if there _had been_--any truth in this nonsense of Charlotte's.
But, really, it was all so idiotic. As if she couldn't trust Titus for
five minutes away from her apron-strings! Of course, Titus was to be
trusted!... Was he?
She got up and walked about the room in the flickering firelight,
conscious of her heart-beats, and half-inclined to cry, if she could
have chosen. But her eyes felt dry over it, as a matter of fact. She
caught herself beginning to feel angry with Titus, convicted herself
of it, and reprimanded the culprit severely. Idiot that she was, to
be affected by mere unfounded gabble! For she was far from believing,
all the while, that Charlotte had any faith in her own insinuations.
She fully recognized that her friend's pleasure in dwelling on the
constructive relations of Paul and Virginia, Paolo and Francesca, Adam
and Eve, for that matter--anywhom male and female, anywhere--was only
human sympathy, leavened with hysteria. Had she not helped her, _lubens
et ex animo_, when the improper study of mankind seemed good to their
hours of leisure? The study, that is, of man and womankind in braces,
selected by the student? But when the model suggested for study was her
own husband, in leash with a strange young lady, whom she had not seen,
she felt the position of a philosophical analyst uncongenial.
Why could she not be angry with Charlotte? That might have seemed the
most natural safety-valve. Marianne had never read "Othello"--or much
to speak of else--but she had seen it at the play. So she may easily
have recalled Iago's cautions against the green-eyed monster that doth
make the meat it feeds on, and compared it with the way her friend
had somehow contrived to appear a warning voice, crying beware! to a
suspicious soul adrift in a wilderness of its own unreason. She was not
so very unlike the Moor in her ready acceptance of the character _her_
Iago had claimed for herself. Of course, Charlotte was a fool, and
fanciful; but, equally of course, she was no mischief-maker. Why, see
what a perfect faith she had in Titus's integrity! Marianne was angry
with herself for allowing a doubt of it, without having the shrewdness
to see that she never would have felt one if it had not been for
Charlotte. In fact, left to herself in the growing darkness, to brood
over her own scarcely fledged suspicion, she could not for the life of
her have said what on earth began it all. She forgot all details of her
conversation with Charlotte, and only knew that something in it had
made her feel very uncomfortable.
Really, one is sometimes inclined to believe that imps of darkness
hang about, to run and help whenever they see a little bit of mischief
brewing.
CHAPTER X
CHALLIS'S _adieu_ TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A COLD
WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE. MISS ARKROYD'S
MESSAGE DELIVERED
Marianne's loving Tite did not come back at the time he had
appointed--not by many days. He postponed doing so in order to go
back on the same day as Mr. Brownrigg, whose society he had begun to
find rather amusing. Their departure together was again postponed in
order that they might travel up in company with William Rufus and Lord
Felixthorpe, with whom both had come to be on the best of terms, after
each had denounced either to the other, in the strictest confidence, as
purse-proud, rank-proud, toffish, and standoffish. They had collated
their respective observations of the ingrained vices of Aristocracy,
and found that they agreed. But, then, after they had unpacked their
hearts with unprejudiced and candid criticism, they had suddenly _volte
face_'d, and discerned that there was always a Something you could not
define about people of this sort. They had both noticed this singular
fact, and each was supplied by it with an insight into the unusual
powers of penetration of the other. It was a curious coincidence that
both had acquired a consciousness of this Something by comparing the
courteous demeanour and graceful hospitality of their host with what
they found it impossible to describe as anything but the Plebeian
Vulgarity of the sitting Conservative member for the borough. Mr.
Ramsey Tomes caught it hot. Then look at the indescribable grace of
Lady Arkroyd, and contrast it with the dowdy _personnel_ and awkward
manners of the political gentleman's wife. Why!--_there_ was a woman,
her ladyship to wit, who could be as rude as she pleased to anyone, and
the indefinable Something came in and carried it off!
Was it the indefinable Something, or a very easily definable
Nothing-of-the-Sort, that brought about a still further delay in
Alfred Challis's return home? Probably the latter, in the form of the
gradual cordiality that comes to folk living in the same house under
auspicious circumstances, and goes on growing till quarrelling time. It
was of less importance when once he had overstayed his return-ticket;
and the final outcome of two or three postponements, each to await a
reinforcement to the homeward-bound Londoners, was that the bulk of the
Royd house-party caught the two o'clock train ten days behind the date
of Mr. Challis's promised return to his domestic hearth, and arrived at
Euston in a drizzling mist, which knew that summer had gone, and had
the atmosphere all to itself.
The porter that carried his portmanteau and his game--a hare and
partridges, with which was associated a promise of pheasants next
month--to a four-wheeler, might have noticed that the literary-looking
gentleman and the good-looking young lady in blue said good-bye a great
deal--in fact, until a carriage called out to know whether the latter
was coming or not. But this porter's name was Onions, and he had no
soul, except one that was wrapped up in remuneration. So he accepted
fourpence and saw nothing.
But he might have. And also he might have heard the following
conversation between the good-looking--or best-looking--young lady
and the gentleman, after the latter had made sure that his selected
four-wheeler was prepared to go as far as Wimbledon.
"Now, Mr. Challis, I know you're not to be trusted to give my message
to your wife...."
"Yes, I am. She's to write you a line to say when she'll be at home."
"Stupid man! Now you know quite well it was nothing as bold as that.
No, dear Mr. Challis, tell her I don't want to make a formal 'call.' I
want to know her--as well as I know you. And I never shall unless we
see each other quietly, when there's no one else there. Oh dear!--if
only people I want to know would give me a cup of tea and say 'not at
home' to everyone else!"
"I should myself! But I quite understand. I'll wrap up the message to
Marianne exactly to that effect. She shall write and fix a day. And I'm
not to be there--that's it, isn't it?"
"That's it. Good man! And you understand that I'm entirely in earnest
about Aminta Torrington--(all right! Nobody can hear. They're all in
the carriage)--and you're to speak to Mr. Magnus at the Megatherium
about it."
"Oh yes! I'm going to speak. Honour bright!"
"Very well, then! Now good-bye, Mr. Challis."
"Good-bye. I _have_ had a pleasant time." But Mr. Onions heard none of
this, as, while he was disposing of the portmanteau, his attention was
engaged by conversation with the cabman.
"Where's Wimbledon, Honey?" the latter had said, as he took the box
from him. He seemed over-ripe, did this cabman. He could not fall off
the box, though, for he had bound himself to it by tarpaulins of an
inflexible nature. "Honey" was not Irish: it was short for "Onions."
"What's the use of askin' me, when you know yourself? Mean to say you
don't?"
"I was born there, my son. I've lived there ever since. Likewise, I'm
going to hend my days there, exceptin' I should 'appen to live for
ever. I was just a-puttin' the question to see if _you_ knew."
"Couldn't say to harf an inch where it is. But it's a place _you_ get a
pint at, every wisit."
"Right you are, my son!... All right, governor--just off, as soon as
these cloths are tucked in. You never mentioned any 'urry, or I'd have
seen to it!"
And then Royd and its luxurious life have finally vanished, and
everyday life has come back, as the cab growls through its rather long
ride. Challis was paying the penalty of coming home by a different
route, and now almost wished he hadn't made up his mind to cab the
whole way. But you know what it is when you have a large portmanteau
that won't go on a hansom.
If it had not been for the hare and partridges, he could have managed
to consider the whole thing a dream. This would have been an advantage;
for no one stickles at finding waking life dull after a fascinating
sleep-experience. Do not we all rather love to rub it into our waking
surroundings how sweet that place was in the dream, how bright those
skies and seas were, how lovable that--well, usually--person of the
opposite sex was? Are you, if you are a lady, prepared to deny this
last item? Not that this concerns the story, for there they were--the
hare and partridges. And the memories they brought back clashed
with the long perspectives of street-lamps in the drizzle, and the
reflections of them; and the male umbrellas and female umbrellas
bobbing endlessly past below them, or waiting for a bus that somebody
may get out of, just there; and the busses that stopped to shed their
passengers and fill up again with Heaven-favoured fresh ones--while
they, the umbrellas, waited--and made the hearts of those no umbrella
could keep dry sick with Hope deferred. This hare and partridges,
fur-soft and feather-soft, though cold to the touch, were full of
suggestions of the life that had been switched off finally just now at
Euston Station. But then, of course--Challis ought to have recollected
this, and he felt it--they were equally full of suggestion of where
they were going to be devoured. Was he not going home to Marianne,
and the children, and his snug little writing-room looking out on the
Common across the garden, where he was on no account to be disturbed?
The very word "home" had a magic in it, and so forth: consult
Literature, _passim_!...
No, really, it was too absurd to allow his nasty cynical tone to creep
into his thoughts--here in Hyde Park; for that was the Marble Arch, and
the cab was making a good record--when in less than an hour he would be
back among his Lares and Penates. As he got nearer home he found that
the fire of pleasurable anticipation he had lighted began to crackle
and burn up of its own accord, without further effort on his part.
How he wished he could invent a word for that confounded hypothetical
wickedness--treachery or what not--that nervous imaginatives impute to
themselves, knowing its unreality all the while!
He had never allowed himself to believe for one moment that Royd owed
any of its charm for him to anything but ... well!--a sort of general
summary of the charms of a big wealthy country-house full of pleasant
people with balances at their Bankers'. So he expressly vetoed the idea
that in the dream he was now waking from, as he neared the Hermitage
and Marianne, there was any one individual that played a predominant
part. He vetoed it in obedience to that groundless guilt of conscience
he was going to find a name for. But for that he would have let it
alone.
He would have to find that name, to brand the intolerable nuisance;
to denounce it by it, when it appeared. Then he might look it in
the face unflinchingly, when it told him to snub his memory for
remembering so vividly the sunset-glow on his companion's face, that
day they walked back from the Rectory. What a luxury it would be
to give this phenomenon its proper place! As, for instance, Mental
Astigmatism--something of that sort! The more syllables the better!
Let him see!--didn't _aischune_ in Greek mean disgrace, or guilt? How
would _pseudoeschynomorphism_ serve the turn? Long enough, anyhow, to
convince a Grand Jury....
Well, it was this--no need to say the long name every time; at least,
until the Jury should be empanelled!--that was galling the kibe of
his mind at every chance thought of Judith Arkroyd that came into it.
Why, in Heaven's name, should he not dwell with pleasure on her eyes,
which were public property; on her lips, which he did not propose to
interfere with; on the touch of her hand at parting, which, by-the-bye,
had gone the round of the male units as the party broke up? He was not
going to appropriate a larger share than Felixthorpe, for instance,
whom he thought a very nice chap; or Brownrigg, for that matter!
Or ... but no!--one must draw a line somewhere. Let Mr. Ramsey Tomes
keep his fat hand to himself! At which point Pseudetcetera--(that would
do for the present)--said aloud: "Come, Alfred Challis, what business
have you with the word _desecration_ in your mind in connection with
this part of the business?" He rebuked the phenomenon, giving it its
name in full.
He was no match for it, though; and it ended by scoring. "Should I be
here at all," it said, "if Marianne were...?" He brushed the question
aside, but his heart knew the end of it. Marianne wasn't....
However, it was all Pseudetcetera, anyhow! Judith Arkroyd was
cultivating him from a purely selfish motive--this rather bitterly; and
as for Marianne, was he not really glad to be back again, and wouldn't
it be a pleasure to ... to present her with the hare and partridges,
and facilitate the housekeeping?
As to Miss Arkroyd's proposal to call, he did not know how it would be
received. Perhaps he would have to tell Marianne that she really must
be a sensible woman, and a Woman of the World.
Anyhow--and he drifted into a self-interested channel with some sense
of relief--it would never do to have what might be a golden prospect
for his play thwarted. He had only imperfect means, so far, of guessing
what Judith would sound like behind the footlights; but as to what
she would _look_ like, that was a thing there could be _no_ misgiving
about.... Why!--the horse was walking. Actually, Putney Hill! What a
much better lot of four-wheelers had come on the streets lately! In a
quarter of an hour he would be at home; and really very glad--honour
bright!--to be back with Marianne.
* * * * *
When any lady or gentleman comes back from an absence, in a cab with
luggage on it--however passionate may have been her or his longing
for a corresponding him or her who may have been (or might have been)
watching at the door for its arrival, or however much the two of them
may feel disposed to
"Stand tranced in long embraces
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth"--
they usually find, in practice, that it is necessary to stand matters
over, because of the cab. This does not, of course, apply to where
a man-servant is kept, who can pay fares dogmatically, and conduct
himself like the Pope in Council. But where the yearnings of both
parties have to be suppressed all through a discussion of the fare
and a repulse of the unemployed, whose services have been anticipated
by your own mercenaries ... well!--do what you will in the way of
cordiality afterwards, it _is_ chilling, and you can't deny it. We know
we are putting this in a very homely way, but this is a very homely
subject.
If that over-ripe cabman had shown a different spirit, and accepted the
shilling or so too much that Challis offered him, and gone his way in
silence, who knows what course events would have taken in the Challis
household? But he not only said, "_My_ fare's nine shillings!" but
came down from his box as one comes down from a box when one's mind
is thoroughly made up, and one ain't going to stand any more of one's
ex-fare's trifling. He also unbuttoned a series of coats, and produced
from his inner core a pocket-book, supposed to contain documentary
evidence of some sort. It was eight mile o' ground, and three on 'em
outside the radius. Challis was irritated at the low valuation put on
his understanding by this cabman, and disputed a point he would have
given way on had an appeal been made to the goodness of his heart
to shut his eyes to obvious truth in the interest of extortion. He
was also obsessed by a woe-begone creature who had run all the way
from Putney Bridge to assist with the one portmanteau, but had been
headed off by Martha and Elizabeth Barclay. Who, thus intercepted, had
substituted a moral claim on account of the distance no one had asked
him to cover for a legal claim for carrying a portmanteau into a house,
and making the latter smell of his wardrobe till properly aired and the
mats shook next day. The consequence of which was that, when the cabman
had reconstituted himself on his box, under protest, and departed,
Challis, eager to make up for the postponement of his greeting by a
good husbandly _accolade_, found himself met by, "As soon as you've
done with the man!" and, turning, perceived an injured being touching
a soaked cap, and awaiting recognition or execration in a spirit of
meekness, but quite determined not to go away without a settlement.
"Run all the way from Putney, have you? What the devil did you do it
for? Nobody asked you." Here a gratuity, of coppers.
"Won't you make it up a shillin', Captain? It _is_ 'ard, when a
man's been out all day looking for a chance, and walked all over
Battersea and Chelsea and round Brixton--ask anybody if I ain't!--and
nobody to 'elp me to a job or say the word for me.... Thank ye
kindly, Captain!"--here more coppers; this mode of address proving
irresistible--"only if it was made up to a shillin' I could get my
tools out of pawn, being a carpenter by trade...."
Challis pushed the door to in the man's face with something like an
oath. Then at last he got a moment's leisure for his overdue kiss,
which he paid liberally, as he said: "Well, it _is_ jolly to be
back, at any rate! How are the kids?" For, whatever the malady he
had made the awkward name for had been, he wasn't going to show any
consciousness of it.
"The children you mean? There's nothing the matter with them that I
know of. Now make haste; because it's a small leg. If I'd thought you
were going to be so late it could have been rump-steak."
Challis looked at his watch. "H'm!" said he. Which meant that
seven-forty was not so enormously late, and really more elastic
arrangements might have been contrived. "I shouldn't have time for a
warm bath, should I?"
"I must tell Elizabeth Barclay, then. I dare say she can keep the meat
back. Only say!"
"Oh, it don't matter, if there's any difficulty...."
"My dear!--why should there be any difficulty! You've only got to
_say_.... Well!--am I to tell Elizabeth Barclay, or am I not?"
Challis decided, and said. That is, he did not formulate special
instructions, his words being merely, "Half-past, then. I'll be sure
not to be later," and went straight away to get a bath. It is the
greatest of luxuries, as we all know, after a journey, and Challis
had made up his mind to have one the moment he detected a flavour of
roasting, because that implied plenty of hot water in the bath-room.
Those who measure events only by the bounce they manifest--by their
rapidity, or unexpectedness, or by the clamour that accompanies
them--will wonder why any narrator of a story should think such flat
incident worth recording. But observe!--it was the very flatness of
this conversation that gave it its importance, coming as it did on the
top of the exhilaration of Mr. Challis's visit, and his parting with
that large and lively company of friends less than two hours ago. It
has its place--this flatness has--in the lives of these two folk we
write of, and really accelerates the story, although it is certainly
slow in itself.
How very much Challis would have preferred it if his wife had said,
"I won't kiss you if you swear," and had then done it _quandmême_!
His mind--a fictionmonger's--reconstructed his reception with things
more palatable for Marianne to say, this one among them. Another
thing he would have liked, quite inexplicably, was, "Well!--how's the
fascinating Judith?" Possibly this was because he would have welcomed
help from without to convince him he was indifferent about the young
woman. The answer he imagined for himself, which would have been
pleasant for him to give, was, "She's coming to see you next week,
Polly Anne. So get your best bib and tucker ready!" But there had been
none of this, nor the laughter--purely imaginary--that he garnished it
with. Only the flatness as recorded.
"Perhaps it was all that confounded cabman," said Challis to himself
and a bath-towel like a _toga_, after a very respectable warm bath--not
equal to that at Royd, though--and a cold douche. He had to hurry up to
keep his word at half-past eight. But he kept it.
"Well!" said he, as he joined his wife in the drawing-room, where she
was awaiting the announcement of dinner, Challis conceived.
"Well what?" She touched the nearest bell-handle. "They'll know it's
for dinner," she said, and the remark seemed relative. "Why well?"
"Well everything! Tell me all about the kids, about who's called,
about where you've been, about everything. Come, Polly Anne, I think
you might unbutton a little and be jolly when a chap's been away three
weeks. How are John and Charlotte Eldridge?"
"Yes!--I think you might have asked about them. John has been at
death's door. There's dinner!..." Challis made a sympathetic noise
about Mr. Eldridge, but postponed inquiry. Nothing made it easy until
he found himself a lonely soup-consumer; because, you see, Marianne
wasn't hungry.
"What has it been?" Too concise, perhaps. But really death's door, with
John on the step, had been the last thing mentioned.
"What has what been?"
"What you told me. What's been the matter with John?"
"Peritonitis. But he's going on well now. Dr. Kitt says he'll have to
live very carefully for some time.... I know what you mean, but it's
very unfeeling to laugh. Besides, I don't believe he eats more than
other people." Challis felt indefensible. Just fancy!--there he was,
eating gravy soup all by himself!
"I wasn't laughing, old girl," said he. "Poor Jack Eldridge!
Peritonitis is no joke. I'll go round to-morrow."
"It won't be any use. He won't be able to see you. Yes--you can take
the soup, Harmood. Mr. Challis isn't going to have any more...."
A mere rough sample of the conversation. It was not unlike others of
the same sort on like occasions. But was Challis wrong in imagining
that, this time, it was a little accentuated! Was it only his
imagination, gathering suggestions from the atmosphere that his home
had been that of self-denying endurance during his absence, and that
his own selfish indulgences elsewhere were being actively forgiven for
his sake? What had he done to deserve forgiveness? If he had known that
he was incurring it, would he have committed the offence at all?
Also he did feel that Marianne hadn't played fair. What could have
been more genial than her send-off, three weeks ago?--more apparently
genuine than her refusal to accompany her husband to Royd on the ground
of a real dislike for Society? To be sure, a throb of conscience
reminded him of a certain breath of relief--almost--that he drew at the
decisiveness of this refusal. Had Marianne been sharp enough to see it?
His instinct told him that a woman might have a sharp department in
her mind on points of this sort, and yet make a poor show in logic and
mental philosophy.
The sense that he was a naughty boy that had been eating three-cornered
jam-tarts, and giving no one else any, hung about him, and made
him unlike himself. If only that abominable cabman had not spoiled
the part he had sketched out for himself on his first arrival, one
of exaggerated self-denunciation for his beastly selfishness, and
tragi-comical commiseration for Marianne as Penelope or Andromeda!
It would then have come so much easier to deliver that message from
Judith Arkroyd. And now! Just look at _now_! Now, when he actually
found himself fallen so low as to half-ask if he might smoke in the
drawing-room! Not quite, of course; that would have been too absurd!
But he said something or other, or Marianne would not have replied as
she did.
"As if I ever minded! How can you be so ridiculous!" This was good and
lubricative. But she spoilt it by adding that there was the little
ash-pan. Nevertheless, by the time the incense from her husband's
cigar, and an atmosphere of consolatory coffee, were bringing back the
flavour of a thousand and one post-prandial hours of peace in days gone
by, the malignant influence of that cabman began to lose its force,
and there was concession in the way she added: "I suppose you weren't
allowed to smoke in the drawing-room at Boyd's--Royd's--whatever it
was?"
"Royd. Cigarettes--yes! Hardly cigars. At least, nobody did it. The
young women smoked cigarettes."
"Those sort of people do it now. At least, Charlotte Eldridge says so.
_I_ don't know."
"Wish you'd smoke, Polly Anne! Have a cigarette now."
"Oh no!--I've tried often enough to know I don't like it. You must go
away to some of your Grosvenor Squares if you're not happy smoking by
yourself."
Things were pleasanter. Why couldn't Challis let it alone, instead
of at once discerning an opportunity of delivering Judith's message?
To say, as he did, "No--I've had enough of the Grosvenor Squares for
some time to come," wasn't unblemished truth, but it was an excusable
stepping-stone under the circumstances, with poor dear slow Polly
Anne waiting for consolation. The mistake was in what followed. Our
own belief is he would have done much better to make a forget of that
message until his life was running again in a married channel. He began
badly for one thing. You should never say "By-the-bye!" in order to
introduce the thing uppermost in your mind.
"By-the-bye, Polly Anne, it won't do to forget that the young female
Grosvenor Square wants to call on you." To this Marianne made no
answer, and her husband had to add: "Miss Arkroyd--Judith!"
It became difficult not to answer. Marianne fidgeted. "I suppose she'll
have to come," she said.
"Well!--I suppose so." There was a shade of asperity in this. But what
followed softened it. "You know, really, Polly Anne darling, you'll
have to put up with the fascinating Judith a little, for the sake of
the play. Besides, she sent you such a very nice message."
"Very kind of her!" However, Mrs. Challis has quite her share of
human inquisitiveness, and if she wants to hear the message after her
sardonic speech, she must make concession. "What _was_ the very nice
message?" she asks grudgingly.
Perhaps Challis's powers of fiction made him able to imagine exactly
how he would have behaved if Judith Arkroyd had been merely a showy,
smart-set sort of a girl--or merely an intelligent young woman, without
a figure to speak of--or, still more merely, one of those excruciating
well-informed persons of importance phrenologically, but with no figure
at all. On this occasion he felt he knew exactly what his conduct would
have been had he undertaken an embassage from the merest of these
three--the last. And he modelled his conduct accordingly.
"Don't be miffy with the poor woman, Polly Anne," said he. He had
thought of "poor girl," but decided on something bonier, with hair
brushed on to the shape of the head, and a black dress. This refers, of
course, to the provisional lay-figure he elected to give his message
from.
"The poor woman!" Marianne repeated, looking rather suspicious over
it. But the image of the lay-figure in his mind, telepathically
communicated, produced a certain softening, so he thought. He moved
from the bent wood rocking-chair he was smoking in to the sofa beside
his wife.
"I'll tell you exactly her message word for word," he said. He did so,
as from the lay-figure. And, indeed, he almost wished that fiction had
been a reality, as far as this message went. He could have sketched out
the proposed visit so much more easily, in his inmost mind; which was,
to say truth, incredulous about its turning out satisfactory to either
lady, their respective personalities being as supplied.
"I suppose she'll have to come," said Marianne drearily. "Why can't she
come when other people are here?"
"Because she wants to see _you_, my dear. She doesn't want to see the
other people."
"Why need I be in it at all? Can't you introduce her to Mr. Magnus, and
let them settle it between them?" For in his last letter Challis had
enlarged on the Aminta Torrington scheme, and his wife was quite _au
fait_ of the position so far.
He hummed and hawed, and flushed slightly. The removal of a column of
ash from his cigar seemed to absorb him for a moment. "I don't think
you quite see all the ins and outs of the situation, Polly Anne. Don't
you understand?..."
"Understand what?"
"Well--I'm sure Miss Arkroyd really wishes to know you. You see, I've
talked so much about you." This was not really a _true_ truth, for
conversation about Marianne had always been at Judith's instigation.
"But there are other considerations, apart from that...."
"What considerations?"
"Well, you know, we _do_ live in a world! Don't we now, Polly Anne?"
"I thought it was something of that sort. Charlotte Eldridge said it
would be."
"What did Charlotte Eldridge say? I wish she'd keep her tongue to
herself...."
"But you're getting angry before you know what she _did_ say."
"No, I'm not! I mean I'm not getting angry at all. Why should I get
angry? Come, old girl, be reasonable! What did Charlotte Eldridge
say?" Nevertheless, it is clear that Mr. Challis is keeping his
temper--keeping it admirably, perhaps, but still, keeping it! His
wife's answer shows painfully how well she is keeping hers.
"Charlotte Eldridge said I should be wanted the moment I told her about
Aminta Torrington.... No!--it's no use pretending, Tite!... Besides,
I'm _not_ hurt. Why should I be? Only I don't see why there need be a
make-believe friendship between me and this young lady--and me to have
to put on my black silk, and a new Madeira cake--and to give Harmood
directions to say not at home! Charlotte Eldridge and I have talked it
all over...."
"Oh!--you've talked it all over?" Challis either is, or pretends to be,
inclined to laugh.
"Yes, we have. And you know how sensible Charlotte is about things of
this sort.... No, Titus, you can try to make what I say ridiculous, and
I dare say you'll succeed, but you know what a good friend Charlotte
has been to me from the beginning...." Marianne pulls up short suddenly
in the middle of her speech, with a suggestion in it of a tear corked
in at its source. She gets the cork well in, and ends with: "I won't
say any more about it. You shall arrange it just as you like your
own way"--but this with the amenability of a traction-engine making
concession to its handle.
Challis, who had felt it rather hard that a tearfulness derived from
tender memories of Mrs. Eldridge's loyalty in past years should
slop over into his department, became awake to the fact that brisk
strategy would be needed to prevent that cork coming out. "Come, I
say now, Polly Anne!" said he with jovial remonstrance. "Fancy you
and me falling out about a Grosvenor Square young lady!" He burst
out laughing, roundly. "We _have_ shot up in the world. My word!" He
got his arm round an unresponsive invertebrate waist, in spite of a
collision with a hook, which rather took the edge off his caress. Why
cannot ladies have some sort of little smooth tie, just at that point,
in case? It was a very slight blot on the scutcheon, however, and,
indeed, would have counted for nothing with Challis had not Marianne
offered him her mole to kiss instead of her lips. For she had a mole--a
small one, certainly--just on the cheek-bone. Now a liberal, unreserved
warmth in this act of the drama would have been invaluable. It would
have helped Challis to snap his fingers at whatever it was that was
taunting him with having effected for politic purposes a half-derision
of Judith as a Grosvenor Squarian--and that, too, after the cordial
message to his wife!
However, it was quite impossible to pretend--it would not be fair to
say admit--that they were quarrelling, after that. In fact, it was so
established an assumption that their old confidence was again on its
old footing, that Challis felt it would be ungenerous to Marianne to
change the subject for safety's sake. Besides, he wanted an answer to a
question.
"You didn't tell me what it was Charlotte _did_ say, Polly Anne....
I dare say she was all right, you know." The use of her Christian
name alone was a concession--showed good-will. Speech is full of such
niceties.
Marianne got up and broke a coal on the fire. She couldn't think of two
things at once, naturally. This made a pause before answering, and a
pretence of having omitted an answer because of the slightness of its
subject was plausible.
"Oh--Charlotte? It really was the merest talk by the way. She only said
it would keep people from talking nonsense."
"What would?"
"If the Grosvenor Square young lady and I were bosom friends. She was
joking, you know."
"I see what she meant," said Challis; and seemed to, reflectively. But
really he was crossing Mrs. Eldridge out of one or two passages in
his good books where her name still occurred. Confound her! Couldn't
she leave it to _him_ to instruct Marianne--who was much too slow to
find out anything for herself--on this point? However, it was best
to confirm her, on the whole. He continued: "Of course, if it were
thought that you and she were at daggers drawn, spiteful people would
say things. They always do if they get a chance. But what I look at is
that she _is_ Aminta Torrington. It's quite miraculous. You never saw
anything so happy." He quite forgot that lay-figure.
Marianne waived discussion of the dramatic aspect of the question. She
knew nothing about these things--was an outsider. But she seemed to
register concession on the main point. She supposed the young woman
must come, and she could tell Charlotte and Maria Macculloch and Lewis
Smithson to be sure not to call that day, and then Harmood could say
"not at home." Better make it Thursday, and get it over.
"Didn't Charlotte say anything else?" This was chiefly conciliation on
Challis's part. He did not wish to seem in a hurry to get away from
Mrs. Eldridge, or to resent her discussion of his affairs.
"Oh--she _talked_, of course! You mean when I saw her yesterday? Only
she was still so anxious about John."
"He'll be all right, won't he? Did you say peritonitis? Are you sure?
Because peritonitis is the dooce's own delight."
"The doctor says there is no occasion for the slightest uneasiness."
Whereupon Challis settled in his own mind that John Eldridge would
be spared to his wife and relatives, for the present at any rate.
Peritonitis inside a week, and no need for uneasiness at the end of
it! He allowed the medical report to lapse, and referred again to what
Charlotte had said. It certainly seemed, to judge by Marianne's reply,
"I thought she was quite mistaken, you know," that Charlotte _had_
"talked, of course," although she _was_ so uneasy about John.
"What about?" But he didn't want to seem to catechize, so he discovered
that his cigar--which he was quite half through--didn't draw well, and
lit another. Then he was able to say, "Let's see!--what were we talking
about? What Charlotte said." He resumed his place beside his wife, too
manifestly to receive the answer for her to withhold it.
"It was only general conversation, about what Miss Arkroyd's
family--with all their ideas--would think of her going on the stage."
"My dear! I must say I do wish you hadn't mentioned Miss Arkroyd to her
at all. I hope you made her understand she must be quiet about it?"
"Oh, _she_ won't mention it--except perhaps to John." Challis looked
alarmed. However, John couldn't talk much at present, even if
peritonitis only meant obstruction. "Besides, I didn't really tell
her anything. It was an accident. I showed her something else in your
letter a week ago, and by the merest chance she read it by mistake. It
wasn't her fault."
"Nor yours. I see! But what did she read?"
"Only where you said you would have to talk to the old boy about his
daughter's stage-mania ... nothing that could possibly do any harm."
Now, Challis's conscience had been uneasy about the part he was going
to play in helping Judith towards a secret arrangement which was sure
to outrage the feelings of her family. So, when he said "Oh!" to this,
he had to jump abruptly on to make it seem a casual, ordinary "Oh!" He
succeeded pretty well. "What was Charlotte's idea?" said he.
"The same idea, of course. As long as Sir Thingummy knew all about it,
no one could possibly blame _you_."
"I don't know that it's really my concern. I don't know that it's any
of our...." A pause here is due to his duty to syntax.... "I mean
to say--that it is the business of any one of us. Miss Arkroyd is no
chicken. In fact, I'm not sure that her age won't stand in her way--for
training, I mean. However, of course I shall take care that her family
knows all about it." Challis's voice sounded well in his own ears, and
he was convinced that no fault could be found with his behaviour so
far. As to anyone saying he should not have made the promise about Mr.
Magnus of the Megatherium while he was a trusted guest at Royd, that
was sheer nonsense. He felt quite nettled with Marianne for saying,
"Oh, haven't you done it?" But he wasn't going to prolong discussion
about it.
He felt nettled, too, with himself for feeling, when Marianne left him
to read, before going to bed, the letters that had come for him--with
a charge to him not to make a noise when he came up--nettled for
feeling that he had got through the evening well, which was absurd;
and that to do so he had assumed a certain roughness in reference to
Judith, to accentuate his equable indifference to her personally,
which was absurder. What was it all about?--was the question he asked
himself. And then another that arose from it naturally, What was _what_
all about? The distraction afforded by a handful of miscellaneous
correspondence gave him an excuse for ignoring the latter question,
which, indeed, seemed to him the more unanswerable of the two.
One thing, however, he was glad of having achieved. Marianne would
write that letter, he felt sure. Only he would just keep his eye on her
to see that she did it. He would not have to write to Judith, "Please
don't come and see my wife!" in any form, transparent or otherwise.
For anything the story shows at this point, Alfred Challis and Marianne
might have tided over any little difficulties arising out of the visit
to Royd, if they had only been judiciously let alone. It was those
blessed Peacemakers!
CHAPTER XI
VATTED RUM CORNER, AND CHESTNUTS. A YOUNG TURK. HOW LIZARANN TOLD
MOTHER GROVES OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. OF AN AMBULANCE, AND WHAT WAS
IN IT. HOW LIZARANN WENT HOME WITHOUT DADDY
Lizarann Coupland used to wonder how ever Daddy could go out in the
cold and stop all day. It was noble of him to do so in the public
service--that was how Lizarann thought of it. For she believed the
insinuations embodied in song by "the boys" in Tallack Street to be
malicious falsehoods, and as for "the boy" whose aunt sold fried eels
and winkles next door to the shop where her father purchased his
shaving-soap, she only hoped that a good basting her own aunt wished to
give to the whole clanjamfray of 'em--meaning boys generally--might be
concentrated on the unsheltered person of this particular boy. She had
improved her acquaintance with him, and had come to the conclusion that
for presumption and self-conceit, for ill manners and very doubtful
good feeling, that boy was without a parallel.
During the whole of this acquaintance it had never occurred to Lizarann
to ask this boy's name. And but yesterday she had committed the
tactical error of surrendering her own christened name in exchange
for peppermint drops. The moment of the present writing is a deadly
afternoon in January, gettin' on for four, but that dark you'll have to
light the gas in the end, and may just as well do it at once. The place
is the one spoken of in an earlier chapter as Vatted Rum Corner, and
that boy is a settin' on the rilin' eatin' of four 'ot chestnuts off
of Mrs. Groves's bikin' trye, for a 'ape'ny, and to be allowed to warm
your fingers at the grite. He had had to make room for other customers.
Lizarann came up cold, and envied the feast. The boy was a
self-indulgent boy, or seemed so. For he only said, "These four's for
me, bought and paid for, square. You git some for yourself, orf of
Mother Groves. Two for a farden's _your_ figger, Aloyzer." And then he
sketched a clog-dance on the hard-trodden snow of the pavement, with a
mouth quite full of chestnuts.
Lizarann felt the heartlessness of his attitude. Yesterday he had
cajoled her into an admission that her name was Lizarann by offering
peppermint drops. _Now_ he had nothing to gain by an offer of
chestnuts, and kept them all himself! She happened to be in funds, and
could have purchased four for a 'ape'ny, and in that case would as like
as not have given that boy one, as an exemplar towards generosity. But
at the moment a higher interest claimed her attention. He knew her
name, and she didn't know his. An iniquity, clearly! How could she
remedy it?
Now Lizarann had contrived, childwise, a curious idea about her name.
It may have originated in a chant she herself had joined in frequently,
merely for the sake of the music:
"Oh fie--fie for shame!
Everybody knows your name."
But it certainly had acquired its full force from an expression made
use of by her Aunt Stingy, who had spoken of a young person as having
"lost her good name." What the young person was called by her friends,
afterwards, was a problem Lizarann had given a good deal of thought
to. And she was now unable to dissociate the young person's position
altogether from her own. If her name had not been lost as a necessary
implement of social intercourse with the world at large, it at least
had been surrendered with no _per contra_, in the case of an immoral
and worthless member of it. But she felt that, could she become
possessed of _his_ name, as a set-off, the balance of righteousness
would be adjusted. And she was much more anxious about this than about
the chestnuts.
"What's your nime?" said she, after self-commune which suggested no
less trenchant way of approaching the subject.
The boy paused in the clog-dance. "Moses," said he. And then went on as
before.
"Nuffint elst no more than Moses?"
"That's tellin's." The boy said this absently, and did some more steps.
Then he simulated a graceful subsidence of the dance, ending in an
attitude that seemed to acknowledge the applause of a delighted throng.
But a commercial possibility had presented itself. "What'll you stand,"
said he, "for to be told my name, and no lies?" This seemed mercenary;
but then, had not Lizarann herself surrendered hers for a deal? Why
condemn him?
No!--Lizarann lived in a glass house, and wouldn't throw stones. But
she would make conditions. "Real nime all froo," she said. "Moses is
lyin' stories!" For, you see, this was a crafty boy, and might consider
the concession of a true surname alone would discharge his obligations
under the contract.
"Then on'y Moses," said he; and began an encore--presumably, as it was
the same dance. But he was not too preoccupied by it to take off the
shell of his fourth chestnut, and when he had done so he smelt it, with
disappointment. For it was mouldy. An idea struck him, and he acted on
it.
"Marcy me, no!" said Mother Groves of the chestnuts when requested by
him to 'and over a good un, fair and no cheating. "The riskis lies with
the buyers. Where 'ud I be, in half the time, at that rate?"
"Then I'll 'ave the law of yer. Just see if I don't." He danced again,
and this time his dance seemed to express confidence in his solicitor.
But presently he stopped, and offered a composition: "You lookee here,
Missis Groves," he said. "I'll 'and you back the mouldy one, onbit-into
and closin' over the busted shell, acrost a clean new un, and I'll take
another highp'orth off you, and pay square. If that ain't fair, nothin'
ain't! But you got to look sharp, or the chance'll be gone."
Mother Groves rejected the chance. "It ain't consideration enough to go
again' the rules on, and me to take my 'ands out in the perishing cold.
Make it a penn'orth and pick yourself, all exceptin' the three top."
"Hin't got no penny! Feel in my porket and see. It's open to yer to
feel. There hin't no horbstickle. Here's a highp'ny and the bloomin'
nut, shell and all. Mike your mind up!"
But Mrs. Groves's mind _was_ made up, apparently. The boy then
suggested that his motives had been the prosperity of trade,
throughout; he was, in fact, or said he was, full up till dinner-time.
So he must have been dining late, recently.
At this point Lizarann made a proposal. She, too, had a halfpenny, and
was ready to pool this halfpenny with the boy's, and give him sole
enjoyment of the extra chestnut, but only on one condition. He must
tell his name, and no lies.
Mrs. Groves brought her hands out in the perishing cold--pathetic old
hands, a young girl's once--and made two even groups of four nuts
each. Then, leave being giv', the boy chose the compensation nut; only
he took his time like a young 'Eathen as he was. Then Mrs. Groves,
as assessor and umpire, required his name as a preliminary to final
liquidation.
"'Orkins. Frederick. Frederick 'Orkins. Could have told yer it wasn't
Moses any day of the week! 'And over!" And thereon he and Lizarann each
had four bloomin' nuts, so 'ot you couldn't 'ardly 'andle 'em.
"I shall keep mine for my daddy, and keep 'em 'ot too," said Lizarann.
She placed them nearest her heart, and felt that it was good to do so.
They was a'most too 'ot, in the manner of speaking; but then a small
undergarment protected her, when discreetly scroozled up fluffy.
"You best 'ide 'em well up," said Frederick Hawkins. "Here's a coarper
comin' along. Don't you let 'em make no show, or he'll get his 'and on
'em."
But he only said this to perplex and annoy, and create unnecessary
panic; and Lizarann knew that, every bit as well as we do. So she
merely said: "Jimmy 'Acker can foight _you_," and enjoyed the warmth
fearlessly. Her daddy's stick was not audible yet, coming along by the
wall. He was late to-day. Lizarann's orders were to wait at the corner
till she heard it, and then call "Pilot," that he might know she was
waiting for him, and be happy. For he always had pangs of doubt that
he might not meet her this time. Think of that little thing--for he
knew how small she was still, by the feel, though there was no one
to tell him what she was like to look at--think of her coming along
that crowded street alone, to meet her daddy! She for her part had no
misgivings about _his_ coming. "Never you fear for me, lassie," he had
said. And _he_ knew, Law bless you!
"I'll Jimmy 'Acker _'im_!" said Frederick Hawkins boastfully. "I could
'tend on two like 'im at wunst. How old do you make him?" Which showed
the vaingloriousness of his character, for clearly he knew nothing
about Jimmy Hacker.
Lizarann couldn't commit herself to the age of the latter. But she
could to his bulk and prowess. "He's thicker than you," she said, and
added, with recollection of a combatant defeated by Jimmy Hacker: "He
can foight a boy twelve next birthday."
"Then he ain't any so much to count on. I don't go by ages. Weights
is what I go by. Any number o' stun I can foight, up to eight stun
seven. You tell 'im to keep indoors, or I'll fetch him somethin' for to
rek'lect me by. You see!"
But Mother Groves interposed to rebuke and check this inflated and
defiant spirit. "Don't you pay no attention to that boy, my dear," said
she to Lizarann. "He's that full of lip there's no placin' no reliance
on a word he says. If I was his mother I should know just where he
wanted a good canin'. Ah!--and he'd get it too, night or mornin'. A
young cock-sparrer _I_ call him, and if he don't come by a bad end
it'll be a moral. Ah!--wait till I find out where your mother lives,
and see." Mrs. Groves worked rising indignation into her speech, after
the manner of her class. Even so the Choctaw or Cherokee stimulates
himself to battle-point. But Frederick Hawkins remained unmoved.
He knew the old woman couldn't ketch holt upon him. He became most
offensive, assuming a nasal drone with an approach to a chant.
"I got a widdered mother. She keeps a fish-shop. And I ain't a-goin',
neither, for to tell you where." He threw a reminiscence of his
previous dance into this.
Now Lizarann knew perfectly well that the fish-shop was next door to
where her daddy bought his shaving-soap. But she wasn't going to tell.
No nice little boy or girl ever tells. The particulars kept back on
principle may relate to young cock-sparrows on whom no reliance can be
placed, or to mere heathens--as in the present instance--but as for
acquaintin' their parents, guardians, or other responsible grown-up
persons, what they done, or anything likely to lead to conviction--who
ever heard of such a thing? Even the London servant class retains this
one trace of an honourable usage. It won't tell.
Mother Groves merely referred to the ease of discovering fish-shops;
especially when localized, as this one practically was, by the constant
presence round her corner of a heathen residing there. She then gave
all her attention to the conservation of vital heat; and it was needed,
for her poor old clothes were thin on her poor old body. It wasn't
'ardly a reg'lar bad day, not to call it so, but it was a frost that
was going to give a lift to the plumbin' trade, and do a rare lot of
good that way. For the only good that can come now to this world is
evidently through the destruction of something it has worked at the
making of in years past, in order that people who have little may have
to pay people who have less to do a bit of repairs to it, so that it
won't want no lookin' to again, not yet awhile.
Can we wonder?--we who have read, for instance, of the revived
prosperity of ship-building, shown by the putting down on the stocks
of several new ... destroyers? But never mind this!--pardon it and get
back to the story and the degrees of frost at Vatted Rum Corner.
It wasn't so bad then, not when once you was out in it; it had been
a tidy sight worse two days ago, afore it froze so hard underfoot;
why--the busses couldn't keep goin', and a 'orse fell down so soon as
ever you got him on his feet! And as for cabs, they wouldn't set foot
outside of the yard, because where was the use? You couldn't stiddy
yourself on your feet, not unless there was cenders on the track, or
thored with boiling water.
Lizarann bore it bravely, in spite of chilblains and a blue complexion.
Frederick Hawkins was blue; but either his heathenism or some other
attribute enabled him to bear the cold defiantly. "It ain't freezin'
here," said he, denying the obvious. "Hicey cold it was Bart'sey Park
Sunday. The hice makes it cold 'acos of the skatin'." And Lizarann
accepted this view of cause and effect. She might have disputed it had
she not been beginning to feel uneasy about her daddy.
"Why, child, don't ye go along to'ards meetin' him? He'll be comin',
I lay." Thus Mother Groves. And the boy added: "Why don't yer 'ook
it along down to the Rilewye, to see for yourself? You 'ook it! 'Ook
it orf! I'm tellin' of yer." But Lizarann only stood on her two feet
alternately, and hugged the dying heat of the chestnuts. They wouldn't
be no good for daddy. Alas!
"I was tolded not to do it," said she. "Yass!"
Mrs. Groves approved. "Quite right, my dear, not to disobey your
parents. But your daddy he'll come, you'll see."
But Frederick Hawkins had another code of morals. "I'd disobey my
parents if I had any to speak on. If I'd a dozen on 'em, I'd disobey
the bilin'." Mrs. Groves pointed out that by doing this Frederick would
be brought into collision with his Creator, and dwelt on the impolicy
of such an action. But he continued obdurate.
"I'd disobey the kit on 'em. You'd see, if you kep' your eye open."
Then, addressing Lizarann, he added: "You give me a chestnut, and
_I'll_ disobey your parents for yer. You jist try! See if I don't!"
Then, when Lizarann timidly produced the chestnut, in great doubt of
whether her action was justifiable, he added: "See if I ain't back
again afore yer know where y' are," and, after a slight preliminary
quick-step or double-shuffle, fled away into the growing dusk.
"You keep your sperrits up, child," said Mother Groves. And, as is
usual when one hears that one's spirits want keeping up, Lizarann's
went down. But she felt the old lady's goodwill, and went and stood
close up to her, taking care to choose the side away from the
roasting-box, lest she should seem simply seeking warmth. However,
she was soon invited round to the other side. The warmth made her
communicative.
"My daddy he's been to sea," she said. "Only in real ships, and come
home again. The Flying Dutchman she _never_ come home." This did not
explain itself to Mrs. Groves. She drew a false inference.
"She went to the bottom, I lay. And all aboard of her belike. Lord be
good to us!"
Lizarann shook her head. "Not the Dutchman. She's afloat, every
spar on her,"--she religiously gave Jim's exact words, with a sense
of saying a lesson--"and to stop afloat till the Lord comes to judge
sinners from repentance." She got a little confused here, but it
sounded good, and her hearer was impressed.
"Now only 'ark at that!" said she. "I'd 'a said you was a God-fearin'
child. And you may never need doubt but it's all true, my dear!" Mrs.
Groves, perhaps, was prepared to ascribe truth to any narrative that
had a religious phrase or two in it; still, she was probably impressed
with the little person's manner, for she referred to Frederick Hawkins,
in contrast. "Now, that young Turk, he's no respect, and won't come to
no good end, I lay."
But Lizarann didn't want the conversation coaxed away from the Flying
Dutchman. "Daddy _seen_ her, himself," she said fervently; and then,
resuming the lesson-manner: "Every stitch o' sail on her set in a
three-quarter gale freshenin' from the south. And the look-out forward,
he seen her too. And Job Collins, he seen her. And Marmaduke Flyn, he
seen her. And Peter Cortright, he seen her." All these were essential
items of the often-told tale.
Mother Groves's hearing was none of the best; so when she condemned
the time-honoured legend as outlandish and French, it may be she had
really supposed that some of the expressions were in a foreign tongue,
any variety of which she would naturally consider French, failing
instruction to the contrary. But Lizarann's reference to the Lord,
to sinners, and to repentance, was strong enough in itself to keep
suspicions of Voltaire and Tom Paine in abeyance. Mrs. Groves therefore
allowed the story to continue, and felt fortified against the heresies
abounding on the Continent by the approved religious bias of the
narrator.
"Peter Cortright and Marmaduke Flyn they was both on the mainyard
reefin', alongside o' my daddy, and Job Collins he was aft by the
binnacle. Then Peter Cortright he sings out to my daddy to look; and
my daddy he looked and seen her, carryin' all sail afore the wind. And
then, no more time than what you says budget in, she was agone away,
out o' sight." A pause came here, for dramatic impressiveness. Then
followed, for reinforcement of testimony: "But Job Collins, he seen
her, too, plain!"
Mrs. Groves only said, "My sakes, now!--to think of that." But rather
as a courtesy to the narrator. She would no doubt have followed her
meaning better if thawed indoors before a nice warm fire. She certainly
could not, or did not, admit to her mind a comparison that surely hung
on the outskirts of the tale--a parallel between that moment on the
great sea, and _now_! To think of it all! Of the three reefers out on
the yard, struggling with the mighty wind; of the rising seas whose
crested foam it blew to spray; of its voice as it whistled through
the drenched cordage, and made a whisper of the sailor's shout to his
mate, that spoke of the ship he saw out yonder--the ship that, whatever
she really was, was to become the Flying Dutchman in the memories of
all the three! And then to think of what that child--that almost baby
girl--told about her as she nestled, welcome enough, to the side of
the old soul that had spent her last decade selling, in the London
Streets, the chestnuts that had ripened in the southern sun, above the
slopes the vines grew on. To think of the sordid and darkened lives,
closed round in the intolerable hive of their own contriving, so
stunted and suborned to a spurious contentment as never to long for an
escape; so strange to the meaning of the word "rejoicing" as to find
a version of it in the filth-house at the corner; whose swing-door,
to say the truth, the little maid looks rather enviously at as it
opens and closes, letting out the vapid bawlings from the human fools
within into the silence of the streets, and suggesting jolly bad ale
and new to the cold and empty passer-by! To think of the millions near
at hand, all sunless beneath the great black pall that has for weeks
past shrouded their visible world, but has left them unchoked as yet
and confident, and even a little boastful--Heaven knows why!--of some
strange indefinite advantages carbon and sulphur confer on those who
can breathe them and live.
No two items of the parallels could be more unlike, surely, than
the reefers out on the yard in the great sea wind, and such chance
wayfarers as are to be seen now--few enough, for all who can keep
indoors prefer to do so--making the best of their slippery way home,
let us hope, to the native joint and vegetables and rice-pudding.
Certainly--so one would have said--none more unlike than those of this
approaching crowd, close on the heels of three policemen in charge of a
wheeled ambulance, hand-driven, working slowly along the least slippery
part of the road. And most unlike of all, surely, the human burden,
sot or reprobate perhaps, that the closed curtain of the ambulance
hides from us. But he would have been wrong who said so. For it was Jim
himself that was inside that ambulance, and he ought by rights to have
come along that road on his feet.
"You lie still, my good feller. The doctor he'll see to you." The
policeman who says this to the interior of the ambulance says it as one
to whom any form of poll-parrotting--that is to say, human speech--is
distasteful. He slaps his gloves for warmth, as he walks beside the
ambulance. He is a reserve man, who has come out in charge of it. But a
moment after he listens again; there may be exceptions, after all, to a
rule of universal glum silence! What is this ambulance case saying?
"It ain't for myself, master. It's for my little lass. She comes for to
fetch me home to the Green Man ... house at the corner ... very nigh
to us now, as I take it...." Jim's voice is bad, and he is speaking
against pain, gallantly. A subordinate constable says, "That's so,
too!" and this confirmation reinforces Jim, who goes on, recognizing
the voice: "Your mate, he knows her. You'll tell her, master. I'll
trust ye for a good man ... there's only a little bit of harm done ...
say I've had worse happen many a time afore...." But Jim is at the end
of his tether. His voice goes faint. His instruction was clear, though.
"See for the child, Clancy," says the first officer. "And tell 'em
at the bar to send out a small brandy." Clancy goes on ahead. He is
a person incapable of feeling surprise, so when he meets a potboy
approaching with a glass of brandy, he makes no useless inquiries, but
merely points backward towards the approaching ambulance.
The potboy carries the brandy on, and the officer gets it down Jim's
throat somehow. "Very smart of you, Thomas," says he, inventing a
name for the potboy, a complete stranger to him. "Nothin' like being
beforehand!"
But Thomas disclaims any credit for himself. His action was, he
affirms, due to instructions transmitted to him by a young customer.
His report is: "He cuts in and he says, says he, p'leece accident, he
says. Pickford's waggon gone over a bloke, he says. You cut along out
with a nip o' brandy for a stimilant, he says. That's what the orficer
says, he says. And off he goes!" As the brandy is consumed, it clearly
will be a good contribution to taciturnity to say nothing about it.
Moreover, the potboy, miscalled Thomas, conveys that his governor, at
the Man, is not a blooming screw; and that the brandy ain't worth going
to law about. The officer suggests, however, that a second nip would
not be unwelcome to himself, and would bring the total up to the point
of being chargeable to the Force.
There is time for all this, as a case of this sort must be carried
gently, apart from the fact that the slippery road makes caution
necessary. And by the time the ambulance reaches the corner Lizarann
is sticking to loyally, mindful to the last of her promise never to go
beyond where it was wrote up "Old Vatted Rum," her first tendency to
break into panic-stricken sobs, on hearing that her daddy has had an
accident, is already well under control; the policeman Clancy, whom
she knows by sight, and has even spoken with, and who therefore is
trustworthy, having told her that her daddy will soon come round, and
never be a penny the worse.
"Now _you're_ going to be a good little girl, ain't you, and not make
a shine?" Thus the policeman, on vernacular lines, supposed to be
soothing to the excitable. And Mother Groves, partly in deference to
a uniform, adds: "You do like the gentleman tells you, my dear, and
go along where he says!" This suggests to Clancy, who had at first
intended to limit himself to negative injunctions, to say: "Yes, you
run along home, little miss, and tell 'em your daddy's being took
proper care of."
But the terrified scrap, blue with the cold, half-choked with the
hysterical gasps she is fighting against so bravely, as bidden, sees a
deadlier possibility still before her in her arrival at home without
her daddy. It was the dread of having to tell, more than the fear of
being accounted the responsible culprit, that kept her glued to the
spot. She was docility itself towards constituted authorities of all
sorts, but now her feet simply would not move. Oh, what a huge relief
it was when the other policeman, him along of the hospital-barrer,
said: "Ketch that kid, some of you, and bring her along this way! Can't
wait here all day!" He slammed his hands one across the other very
hard, not only to procure circulation, but to express promptitude.
The kid didn't want any bringing. She was across the road and beside
the ambulance before the instruction to catch her could be obeyed.
"You'll do your daddy more harm than good, that way!" said the
hand-slapper, stopping short. Lizarann's first instinct, to scramble
up the hospital-barrer--to get at her daddy on any terms--had to be
combated on his behalf. "Peck the child up, and 'old her acrost the
edge," suggests the potboy from "The Man." The constable remarks, "Some
o' the public'll be feeling dry by now, and nobody to serve 'em! You
best carry that empty glass back, Thomas." But he accepts Thomas's
suggestion, and Lizarann is grateful to the strong hands that pick
her up to kiss her daddy's face. Was it really his?--she thinks to
herself, as they put her down again out of her father's sight, below
the couch-rim of the ambulance. She can't speak; he can.
"Ye never cried 'Pi-_lot_' little lass." How hard he tried to make
his voice cheerful, and how well he succeeded, too!--mere mass of
breathless pain that he was. The least word a man can speak over whom a
waggon has passed, crushing both legs, will show the constitution of a
giant behind it, even if it is followed perforce by a groan; and Jim
suppressed even that. Were not those his little lass's lips that had
just touched his cheek? She, poor child, could only say "Daddy!" or mix
it with a sob. Which of the two Jim heard, who can say? But just at
that moment the nip of brandy began to tell, and Jim was able to make
a great effort. "Never you fret, little lass," he said. "The ship's
doctor, he'll make a square job of my leg. You run away home and say
I'm took proper care of." What Lizarann's daddy said was to be done was
the thing to do, past doubt, and nothing else could be right. Lizarann
started straight for home.
Poor Jim!--he knew what he was and where he was well enough. But he
couldn't find his words right. So he talked of the ship's doctor,
knowing all the while that the surgeon of the Z division was going to
attend to his leg. As to the extent of his hurt and how it came about,
he knew almost as little as the story does, so far. All he was sure
of was that he lost his bearings after leaving his precious board at
the barber's shop, was shouted at to stand clear, didn't stand clear,
and was overwhelmed by what he should have stood clear of, and knocked
silly. Beyond that, the little that had reached him, since he recovered
consciousness, related so much to the prophetic certainty of its
speakers that what had happened had been sure to happen, and they could
have foreseen it any day, that it made him little the wiser. And what
the crash had left of his faculties was too actively employed about his
child to feel curious about the details of the accident.
* * * * *
Lizarann's first information about it, as she completed the legend
of the Flying Dutchman to Mother Groves, was from the boy Hawkins,
who came running to report the disaster, just as she was standing
cross-examination on her first deposition. Instead of coming straight,
he just in at one door of the ale 'us, and out at the other, like you
might have said, only half a minute between! He then come crassin'
over--this was Mrs. Groves's experience--and queer he looked, causing
Lizarann to ask, "Ain't my daddy there?" in alarm. To which his
reply was alarming and ambiguous: "Oh ah!--he's _there_ all right
enough--wot there is of him." He did not improve this by beginning, in
a throat-clearing, gasping way, like a boy whose speech has lost its
orientation, "I say, Missis...." Whereat Lizarann, in growing terror,
broke into hysterical sobs, and would have started in her despair
along the forbidden way, if the sad procession with the ambulance had
not appeared, and chilled her to the marrow. She could hear the boy,
greatly relieved by the appearance of direct evidence of what had
happened, saying that there was nothing to make a hollerin' about; it
was only a haccident, and wot could you expect, a day like this? His
anxiety to minimize the evil did credit to a human heart that seemed,
in spite of appearances to the contrary, to underlie his Asiatic
nature. He was even attempting further exhortation towards fortitude
when the policeman came up, and he vanished.
In a very few minutes all were gone but Mother Groves and the chestnut
stove, in the yellow gloom of the growing fog, waiting for the grandson
of the former to come and see to the gettin' of 'em both home. As the
old woman looked back on the event, it presented itself to her as an
accident, and the accident had been took to the Hospital. That was all.
On'y, that poor little thing! But Mrs. Groves soon forgot her, and was
back on a great problem of her life--would the stove last out her time,
with a bit of patching now and again? It had been that patched already,
and was near falling to pieces. And when her grandson come, late, she'd
a'most forgotten the accident. There now, she declared if she hadn't!
* * * * *
Lizarann pattered on as hard as she could go, so many steps to a sob,
until she got to Dartley Street, and then she heard, behind her, the
boy Frederick Hawkins, out of breath. "You ain't any call for to
watercart, young un," said he. His manner was superior and offensive,
but Lizarann felt that benevolent intention combined in it with
masculine dignity. Still, protest was called for.
"I hin't a-cryin'!" she said. "On'y my d-daddy--he's t-took to the
Hospital!" It was too dreadful, put into words, and Lizarann broke down
over it.
"Who do yer call the worse by that? _He_ ain't, not he!" This boy
means well. His better nature is roused, but he has no mode of speech
that is not truculent or threatening. He softens a little, though,
as he becomes communicative: "Why, I had two uncles and a aunt, flat
they was, under a street-roller! And they just off with 'em to the
Horspital, and, my eyes and witals!--you should a' seen 'em no better
than a fortnit after! Singin' they wos!"
Lizarann disbelieved this story, but not because of the main incident.
It was the singing that stuck in the gizzard of her credulity. Uncles
and aunts never sang. They might be raised from the dead; may not
Lazarus have had a niece? But _singing_!--no! She merely summarized her
views, not arguing the point: "They never sang nuffint."
A proud spirit brooks no contradiction. "Ain't I tellin' of yer?" said
the Turk indignantly. He adduced corroborative evidence. "Why!--warn't
a boy-makes-his-livin'-by-daily-journals-I-knows's father's corpse
h'isted up out of a shore and took to the Horspital stone-dead with
the un'olesome atmosphere and fetched to? And dined off of nourishin'
food the same evening, and rezoomed work on the Monday?" Meeting no
expression of doubt of this case, he adduced another, more calmly.
"Likewise Tom Scott, as 'arf killed Parker for five pounds a side, he
picked up six of his teeth he'd knocked out, he did; and he run after
him to the Horspital, he did; and they stuck 'em in again for Mr.
Parker, they did, as good as new. They can do most _anythin'_." So it
appeared. And the cases gained greatly in credibility by the Turk's
obviously true recitation of maturer ideas than his own in the language
of seniors. It was like Lizarann's own tale of the Flying Dutchman;
and she felt it so, and found solace accordingly. She hoped the Turk
would go all the way with her, to give moral support, and repeat his
experience. You see, this Turk was, to her vision, big, authoritative,
and mature. He did not present himself to her as an impident young
sprat, in want of local smacking. Which no doubt would have been Mrs.
Steptoe's view of him had he come all the way. But he forsook Lizarann
at the top of Tallack Street, leaving her grateful to him, all the
more for his narration of how he heard the blooming copper say a nip
o' brandy wouldn't be amiss as a stimilant, and he told 'em at the
Green Man. He added that he expected to be proarsecuted for telling
of 'em--recalling a little the saying of the third Napoleon, that the
Human Race always crucifies its Messiahs.
So there stands Lizarann trembling on the doorstep, after jumping up to
the knocker to strike it back and leave it to execute a single knock by
itself, and watching the great white flakes of snow that are beginning
to fall at their leisure--no hurry--plenty of time yet for three inches
deep of them and their mates before the milk comes in the morning!
CHAPTER XII
HOW UNCLE BOB HAD THE HORRORS. HOW LIZARANN ATE COLD CHESTNUTS IN
BED. DELIRIUM TREMENS. HOW JIM COULD SEE AT NIGHT, AND WAS UNDER THE
BED. POLICE!
Lizarann could not shut her eyes to the difference between Aunt Stingy,
as she anticipated her on the doorstep, and the Police Force, according
to her last impression of it. Her aunt's was not a bosom she could fly
to for solace in her trouble--well! no more was that of the Force,
if you insist on literalness up to the hilt; but metaphorically she
would far sooner have had recourse to the latter than the former. She
did not, however, expect penalties this time if she could get in her
explanation; but she had doubts whether the shortness of her aunt's
temper would allow of its development at sufficient length to be
understood.
She tried to think of some quick thing to say that would at once reveal
her daddy's mishap and the cause of her return without him. But she
should have done it before that sepulchral single knock had shown
the executive power of the knocker, and brought out by contrast the
footless, hoofless, wheelless silence of Tallack Street. Now that its
summons to open had been delivered, the poor little shivering author
of it could think of nothing at all. She might have done so, though,
as far as time went, for she had to repeat her knock after a pause
her terror made to seem short; while to her eagerness for any human
voice--even Uncle Bob's--it seemed awfully long. But, as it turned out,
the best she could have thought of would have been of little use.
The second knock brought about a shuffling in the house that fluctuated
a moment, threatened to subside as it had begun, then seemed to decide
on action, and approached the door--but heavily, being palpably Uncle
Bob, whose mission seemed to be considered complete by the household
when he had stood the door on the jar, and left it, without waiting to
see who had knocked. Of course, it could only have been Jim and the
child. So it looked as if Mr. Steptoe had decided that his duty was
discharged by removing obstacles to their entry, and leaving them to
close the door their own way. He'd stood the candle down and just left
it to gutter in the passage, when Lizarann got inside of the house.
There was something gone wrong there, too, evidently.
As her uncle was in the habit of using the adjectives popular in
his class rather freely, Lizarann was not surprised when, supposing
himself to be addressing her father, and asking him to "shet to that
door and keep the cold out of the house," he prefixed one open to many
objections to each of his three substantives. But she was surprised
at the tone of his voice, which chattered in gusts, as though control
over it went and came, and at the way he was crouching over the fire.
He had spoken to her father as Jim, and evidently was taking him for
granted--had grasped no facts.
"Please, where's Aunt Stingy?" The child could think of no better thing
to say. Something was altogether too wrong with her uncle. She could
see he was shaking. All things were all wrong clearly, and the world a
nightmare!
"In her bed, mayhap!--shamming ill, I take it." Then he raised his
voice, but never looked round: "Jim!--why can't you shut up that
da-da-damned d-d-door and come inside?" He had a fair convulsion over
those words, more like the chattering fit that sometimes comes before a
bad attack of sea-sickness than the effects of ordinary cold. Many may
not know this sort.
"Father ain't here," was all Lizarann could say.
"Then shet to the damned door till he comes." He could say this and
never look round, or notice the sob-broken voice, all a-strain with its
terrors, of the little speaker. If he had only cursed her for crying,
it would have sounded sane by comparison. Lizarann wished herself back
in the street, with the Turk. And how happy those few minutes seemed
now, when she did not know about daddy, and was telling Mother Groves
about the Flying Dutchman!
She could only stand speechless and utterly terrified at the oddity
of her uncle's manner--she well knew his ordinary one, of being in
the liquor he was never out of--and was just on the point of mere mad
screaming or starting to run God knows where, when the voice of Aunt
Stingy came from her bedroom above, also with alarm in it. "Jim, can't
you hear, you fool? Leave him to himself, I tell you. He's had the
horrors." Aunt Stingy seemed to imply that the horrors, whatever they
were, would subside of themselves.
Ill has a fixed point in the minds of young children--a simple maximum
it reaches and never goes beyond. Lucky for them that it is so! For a
step further would kill. Lizarann's mind could be dragged no farther
along the road of terrors that leads maturer lives to self-slaughter
or the madhouse. Or it may be some pitying angel wrapped her small soul
in a merciful stupefaction, that it might live. For when her aunt's
voice came again, peevish and impatient, but without sense of any very
abnormal conditions, she was able to answer, "Yass, Aunt Stingy," but
not very audibly.
"Why can't you answer when I speak? I tell you, let him bide. He's
best to himself, and he's had all what liquor there was.... Can't you
answer?... Fetchin' me down!..."
The child understood her aunt's context, for all its elisions. To
propitiate, she ran upstairs. A descent in wrath, portended by an
exaggerated foot-tramp, was averted by her words: "D-daddy ain't come
b-back--he ain't!"
"Why couldn't you speak?--little hussy! _You're_ a child to have in a
house. When's he coming?"
"He _ain't coming_! Yass--he _ain't_! He's took to the doctor on a
barrer. Yass--he _is_!" And Lizarann, whose small hands, cold and blue,
are all tremor and visible unrest from panic, would like to run, but
dares not. She has worded her awful message, though. That is something,
however much Aunt Stingy may doubt its truth.
"Who's to know you ain't lying? Who's to know he ain't in at the
Robin Hood? Now, if you're story-tellin'...!" A bony warning finger
should have been enough without any further details of the penalties
of falsehood. A reference to a flagellum that had once been inherent
in a discarded pair of the speaker's stays--an incredible wooden
lathe--ought to have been quite superfluous. But Mrs. Steptoe had had
great trials, to excuse her short temper.
However, nothing can alter the facts; and Lizarann can only repeat
her statement. Daddy had been took away on the p'leece barrer, with
curtings; and his leg was hurt. But the doctor was at the Horspital.
This was felt, and offered, as a palliative. Surely it deserved better
recognition than, "And why couldn't the child tell me all this before?
Keeping me standin' here!" very wrathfully fired off at poor Lizarann.
She _had_ told it, and at the earliest possible moment. What could she
do more?
Aunt Stingy's reception of the story, which was less _émotionné_ than
Lizarann had expected, had its good side. Perhaps the presumptuous
boy's description of the powers of Hospitals was not all fanciful, and
her aunt's wider experience knew that in a short time daddy would be
back home again; not only well and sound, but even better and sounder.
Lizarann extracted consolation from her aunt's half callous hearing of
her news, without closely analyzing it. Probably Mrs. Steptoe would
have been more sympathetic if her own cup of bitterness, like her
small niece's, had not been full to the brim already. But sympathy
would have intensified Lizarann's solicitude about her father; the fact
that the news could be apathetically received by anyone, even Aunt
Stingy, fortified her. It may even be that she was braced by her own
keen feeling of the injustice her aunt did her in apparently ascribing
her father's disaster to her, when really she was only the innocent
and most unwilling bearer of the news of it. That, however, was Mrs.
Steptoe's attitude. "There's a many'd 'a said you didn't deserve no
supper," said she, and claimed a weak good-nature as a quality of her
own. She hustled Lizarann into her father's bedroom, with needless
collateral pushes in wrong directions, and the admonition, "Don't let
me catch you in the parlour, or you'll know of it. Starin' round!" Her
truculence, no doubt, had something of a safety-valve character, and
she may have thought that the youth of its object would remain ignorant
of its full stress, while she herself had the whole advantage of the
relief it gave. But really the child understood more than she ascribed
to her, and felt its injustice, tempered by the broad consideration
that it was only Aunt Stingy.
Mere ferocity towards children is bad enough, but it is hardest to bear
when it is illogical. Aunt Stingy was inconsecutive in her grounds
of indictment against Lizarann, and this added to the sting of her
injustice. No child would have been readier than she to see to her own
supper, and hot up half a bloater on the bit of fire that had looked
so cheerful in the front room--though she couldn't above half see it
for Uncle Bob gettin' in the way--or to stoast a slice of bread afore
the bars with a fair allowance of butter on; or to do what she dared
not ask her aunt to do, and lie the four chestnuts, which she still
treasured mechanically inside her frock, on the top bar where it was
flat, to get the heat back in 'em a bit, before cracking off the shell.
So it was inconsistent and absurd in her aunt, after telling her to
keep where she was or she would let her know, to return presently
with all the supper she would get to-night, comin' in so late, and to
add: "_I_ wasn't waited on when I was a little girl. Standin' round,
expectin' your elders to fetch and carry!" quite ignoring the fact that
she herself had paralyzed her niece's activity by instructions not to
go outside of that room until she was told to it. And equally so when,
without any evidence that the child was going to say a word, she added:
"Now, don't you answer me, for that I can_not_ abide; but just you eat
your supper and go to bed, or we shall have _you_ ill next." Of course,
it was only when Jim was out of the way that Mrs. Steptoe allowed the
shortness of her temper to get the better of her so completely, and on
this occasion everything was against elasticity.
Things were all so nightmare-like that nothing could well make
them worse, or Lizarann might have been additionally terrified and
oppressed when her aunt, before consigning her supper finally to her
for consumption, looked it all over closely and said, more to herself
than the public: "_I_ don't see any things a-crawling." As it was,
in the Valley of Shadows Life was passing through to-night, Lizarann
merely said: "There ain't nuffint on the stoast," and began her supper
off it sadly. Her daddy's great effort to speak against his pain, and
his reassuring words about the doctor, had made that cheerless evening
meal a possibility to his little lass. Full knowledge, and a year or so
more of life, would have meant inability to eat. But Lizarann was very
young, and, moreover, could not credit a possibility of mistake to her
daddy. Had he not spoken confidently of the "ship's doctor" making a
square job of his leg? She had certainly a slight misgiving that this
pointed to his leg assuming a different shape after the operation. All
sorts of contingencies hung about Hospitals. You never could tell what
grown people wouldn't be at next. But whatever the outcome was, daddy
would be _there_. And this black cloud would roll away.
Aunt Stingy retired, and left Lizarann to herself and her supper with
a final imputation of rebelliousness and disobedience that was quite
groundless--so its object thought. "_You_ do like I tell you, and go
straight to bed when you've e't your supper. Burnin' the candle-ends
for nothing!" She then did violence to the understanding, by adding:
"The light won't last you out, except you look sharp; and then
you'll be in the dark." If a rigid economy was compulsory, how could
extravagance be possible? But menace without method was Aunt Stingy's
attitude to-night.
Lizarann, left alone, looked all round the tray and under the milk-jug,
but could see nothing crawling. She was not so much concerned with the
avoiding such things as articles of diet as a County Family would have
been, or even the Upper Middle Class; her object was to throw light on
her aunt's soliloquy, which she had not ventured to ask the meaning
of. Getting no light, she ate the scrop o' bloater, and the stoast and
butter, and drank the milk, and did very well, for her aunt was not
christened Stingy from any tendency to cut down rations unduly. Only
she would have done better still, had she been able to sob less, and
if the resources of a pocket-handkerchief ten inches square had not
required supplementing by sleeves, which can only be crudely engineered
against tear-drops, or their reincarnations. But she got through her
supper before ever the candle set alight to the paper, and flared.
Then she got to bed before the flare became convulsive; not to be left
in the dark with--who knows?--a nightgowned sleeve inside out and no
finding where. Because we all feel that spectres are not to be trusted,
unless you have something on. Indeed, timid persons are not happy till
the whole thickness of the bedclothes is between them and possibly
convincing phenomena.
The candle died hard. But Lizarann knew that the longer it took, the
less it would taint the atmosphere after its last convulsion, and left
it to smoke in peace. So she watched it from her bed that stood in
what was little more than a cupboard off the room her father slept in,
and cried to think that his was empty. She watched, and wondered which
would come first, the last flicker, or her last mouthful of chestnut.
For she ate those chestnuts cold, and shoved the shells well under the
bolster so Aunt Stingy shouldn't see. She was a very human little girl,
was Lizarann, for all she was so devoted to her daddy.
The candle outlived the last chestnut. Then consideration had to be
given to the problem how to get to sleep afore the nasty smell come
along the ceiling and down. Once asleep, you can ignore smells, even
when sut. Sut is the worst, but candlegutter has a nasty flaviour with
it. So Lizarann did wisely to go to sleep vigorously.
She was succeeding, and beginning to dream a nice dream, though she
wasn't getting warm yet, when her aunt made a tempersome re-entry
on the scene. Lizarann woke with a start, and, remembering all the
dreadful reality, broke out crying--she couldn't help it! Shaken by one
arm, and told to wake up and have done with that petering noise, she
recovered self-possession, except for a lagging sob at intervals, and
sat up. Directed, inconsecutively, to lie down and go to sleep again,
and no more nonsense, she was preparing to comply when her aunt gave a
first beginning of a screech and stopped it short.
"Whatever is it?... O Lard!..."
"It's a ch-chestnut sell. I eated it." Confession proved good policy in
this case, averting inquiry which would have revealed the hidden store
under the bolster.
"O Lard, what a turn it gave me!... he's made me as bad as himself...."
The woman had a frantic look about her; her husband's horrors evidently
had a sort of infection for her; though of course the child had little
insight into this. "You bad child, you! You little good-for-nothing
slut, lyin' in bed eating chestnuts, and your father in the Hospital!"
This wounded Lizarann to the quick, and righteous indignation overcame
both grief and fear. "I _ain't_," she shouted, and for the moment quite
forgot that she _was_, or at least _had been_, the moment before.
"Don't you tell me that, you ontruthful child, and your leavings
staring you in the face! Now just you tell no more stories, but say
where they've took your father, and what he's done to himself."
This retrospective use of a conviction for untruth--and a morally
unjust one--to suggest a course of antecedent misrepresentation on her
part, seemed to Lizarann quite the worst piece of mendacity within her
experience. But it got the conversation still further away from that
nutshell deposit; and that was good, so far. "Father _said_ he'd be
took proper care on, and I w-wasn't to c-cry, and I shan't!"
"_Can't_ you tell me where they've took your father _to_, instead of
vexin' me? Is he gone to the Station, or the Hospital?"
"The Spoleece, they carried him off to the Sospital. Yass!" Then,
sitting up in bed, a small monument of woe, for the moment tearless,
Lizarann considered whether she had grounds for deciding which
Hospital. She knew of three, the Smallporks, Guys's, and Bartholomew's,
but she was very uncertain about the two last. She decided on denying
the Smallporks, if asked. However, her aunt accepted _the_ Hospital as
sufficient. Let it go at that!
"What did your daddy say he'd done to his leg? Now, no makin' up! Say
the truth, like he told you." This would have been a signal to many
children to strain hard to invent the truth out of their own heads.
Goaded by stupid, unsympathetic people, they do this in self-defence.
But Lizarann was honourable and clear-headed.
"He only saided his leg--didn't say nuffint about it. Only the sip's
doctor would make a square job of it. Yass!"
"And what good's your schoolin' done you? Couldn't you have the sense
to ask and find? What ever do you suppose God gave you your tongue
for?--to set with your mouth wide open? Little plagues can talk
fast enough when they ain't wanted to it!" She then suggested, most
unfairly, that Lizarann was detaining her by holding out false hopes of
information. "_I_ should like to know how long you expect me to stand
here askin' questions. This time o' night! And me wanted to look after
your uncle! _Get_ down into your bed and ha' done with it! _I_ can't
waste _my_ time talkin' to you." After which she departed and locked
the door; Lizarann could not imagine why. But there was something
very queer with Uncle Bob, who had been audible all the time in fitful
outbreaks, conveying a sense of his adjective applied as a stigma to
many things, and as a refreshing emphasis to parts of speech.
Lizarann's last impression--a hazy one, before deep sleep came, and
total oblivion--was that her aunt went out from the house, leaving the
street door on the jar, and that then she heard the voice of their
neighbour Mrs. Hacker, saying, "He'll be all right by morning."
Now this little maiden attached only two ideas to this husband of her
aunt: one, that he was a painful concomitant of all their lives, who
had to be put up with, and where was the use of complainin'?--the other
that he was the victim of a liver-disorder known as "the boil." His
absorption of gin was part of himself; a practice as much identified
with him as any inherent quality or fixed condition; perhaps the
celibacy of a priesthood presents a sort of parallel case. So all new
and strange developments in Uncle Bob were credited to this disorder,
and when Mrs. Hacker from over the way said the patient would be all
right by morning, the only suggestion to Lizarann's drowsy mind was
that there was a bottle of doctor's stuff never been took, and that it
had just come in handy. For--but perhaps you know this?--the masses,
_par excellence_, account all drugs good for all diseases, if took
reg'lar. The classes, prone to affectation, get prescriptions made up
each time.
So the child was soon sound asleep and happy.
* * * * *
But the cobbler's disorder was the first beginning of the end of a
long devotion to gin, and, to speak scientifically--always do so when
you can!--he was in a very advanced condition of Alcoholism. But he
was very unlike the priest, who, in the most advanced conditions of
celibacy, passes his life--poor fellow!--in secret longing for the
remedy. For Mr. Steptoe hugged his Alcoholism, caressed it, and fed it
constantly with new supplies of raw gin. His affection for the cause of
his disease was self-supporting, and he longed for small goes of it as
keenly as the priest longs for the proper antidotes of his--for Home
and Love.
When Aunt Stingy took such pains to lock her niece into the bedroom she
might just as well have locked her husband into the front parlour. But
she was deceived by appearances. For it was just--only just--untrue
that he had had all the liquor there was. There was a short half-glass
in the bottom of an unnoticed bottle, put by to be took back, and a
penny on it. On this Steptoe greedily pounced, during his wife's first
interview with the child in the next room. It produced that momentary
flash that is so misleading in these cases, when actual improvement
seems to follow a new stimulus. Often the trembling hand and idiot
brain resume skill and coherency, for the moment, only to fall still
lower at the next reaction. The woman felt secure in her husband's
assurance that he was a blooming sight better, and that he couldn't
tell what the described Hell had been the described matter with him. He
promised to come to bed as soon as the fire giv' out; and she left him,
free from the horrors for the time being, standing with his back agin'
the mantelshelf, collecting the last heat with a view to sitting on
it--the heat, not the mantleshelf--while he finished through his pipe.
She ought not to have done it. Or she ought to have took the key out
of the outside of the bedroom door, or hid it anywheres handy--where
_he_ would never have looked for it, Law bless you! Instead, she went
to bed herself, and probably fell asleep as soon as a sense of her
husband moving, downstairs, seemed to warrant a belief that he was
going to keep his word. She slept sound, and it may have been two hours
past midnight when she was waked by a movement below, and found that
her husband had never come to bed; was still smoking, probably. But
this was not her first thought as, having lighted her candle, she sat
up in bed, noting the sounds that followed. Her spoken reflection was:
"If that's Lizarann prancing about, I'll let her know to-morrow." Then
she remembered the key, and couldn't understand the position. And then
took advantage of a silence to decide that it wasn't anything. When an
"anything" may involve our having to get out of bed in the cold, we are
apt to decide on its non-existence. She blew out the candle and lay
down again.
* * * * *
This is not a medical work, and it is no part of its business to
locate exactly the case of Robert Steptoe in medical records. The
discrimination of the symptoms of _delirium tremens_ proper, and their
points of difference from those of ordinary delirium--nervous or
feverish--are matters of great interest, especially in their relation
to treatment, but they belong elsewhere. Our function is limited
to recording the symptoms of the case as they have been brought to
our knowledge; and we must hope that our medical readers will allow
a certain latitude to the description of the only instance of the
malady that has come within its writer's experience. Some of it is
necessarily conjectural, but nothing would be gained by a laborious
effort to separate these portions from the certainties. For instance,
the patient's hours in the room alone, after his wife left him, must
be matter of surmise. But surmise to the following effect appears well
grounded.
So long as the effect continued of the small dose of stimulant he had
discovered, he remained sane and free from immediate delusion, and
had no other intentions than to smoke through his pipe and follow his
wife to bed, as promised. But after he had finished it, and knocked
the ashes out--they were found on the hob, and the pipe stuck in the
looking-glass frame, when the ground was gone over afterwards--his
attention was arrested by something crawling over the table. He had
seen one before (as appears by our narrative), in fact, he had seen
several, causing a sympathetic horror in Aunt Stingy. He tried to
destroy this one, but nothing came of the attempt. Putting a volume
on it and crushing it down only caused it to come through the book
and crawl over it. He tried this frequently, wondering at the result,
but not specially alarmed--more amused perhaps in a kind of vacuous
way--until he saw another, and then another. The place was all over
them, and he called them names--some very inappropriate--and qualified
them all with his favourite adjective. In themselves they really did
not matter. But most unfortunately the fact that they were all going
in the same direction showed him that they were emanations from a man
of the name of Preedy, a leather-seller, of whom he used to purchase
ready-closed uppers and cuttings. It was shrewd of him, he thought, to
identify Preedy as their original source by the steady way in which
they all kept going in one direction. And still shrewder to infer that
it was all part of a scheme to oust him from the sort of little kennel
or box in which he carried on his trade in a street half a mile off. It
was left locked at night; but, seen by the light of these vermin, and a
buzzing noise that accompanied them, what was to prevent Preedy getting
possession of it and bribing the police on duty to support him in his
usurpation? He sat down for a minute or two longer to think this out.
The room was always well lighted, because the street gas-lamp, just
outside, always showed through the clear space above the shutter.
Reflection did not even suggest that it might be a mistake about Mr.
Preedy. If it had, his condition would not have been delirious. On
the contrary, it all became clearer to him than ever. If it were not
true, how came he to have read half-an-hour since full particulars of
it under the heading "Late Entries" in the sporting journal that was
still lying on the table? He could find it again in a minute, only it
was so dark. He had a match and lit it, to read by; but his hand shook
so--always along of that (described) Preedy--that he couldn't master
the (described) small type. And his wife had got the candle away. Just
like her!--she done it a-purpose. But he knew there was a candle in
Jim's bedroom, next door.
The noise he made fumbling at the door, which was of course locked,
waked Lizarann, who, having fallen asleep on the fact that her aunt
had locked her in, knew that fact and no other as her senses returned.
She called drowsily, "You locked the key that side," conceiving the
disturber to be her aunt. Contrary to what might have been expected,
her uncle understood clearly, and opened the door. But the reason he
felt no surprise at the key having been turned outside was one of the
indescribables of delirium. It was, somehow, because Lizarann answered
instead of Jim. Of course--so it seemed to him--if Jim had answered, it
would have been inside. You think that too strange? Try delirium, and
see!
His wife had had nothing to gain by telling him of Jim's accident, and
his faculties had not been at observation-point. Or, perhaps, he might
be said to have forgotten that he had never known that Jim didn't come
in to supper. Anyway, he accepted Jim as having gone to bed, and made a
sort of apology for disturbing him.
"Ashkpardon mashcandlestick," said he, in two husky words, consisting
of matter thrown loosely together, and added, as a single thought that
might help, "Looshfermash." He had no idea about time--thought his wife
had left him a few minutes since.
Lizarann was not frightened. She did not understand that Uncle Bob
imagined her daddy was in his bed as usual; and there was nothing
unusual in his coming to look for a lucifer-match. She called out
to him without moving: "On the mankleshelf, Uncle Bob." But she was
only half awake. She dimly heard him feeling about the room for the
candlestick, and muttering to himself. Sporadic examples of his
favourite adjective made outcrops in his monologue, becoming more and
more frequent as he failed to discover the object of his search. Still,
Lizarann thought herself at liberty to remain half-asleep, if she chose.
Not being sure how far she had done so--she might, indeed, have been
wholly asleep without knowing it--she could not have said how long this
continued. She was roused in the end by the delirious man suddenly
exclaiming, in a voice of terror that filled her, too, with terror:
"My Goard, then, he _has_ only one!" He then broke out in incoherent
fear: "You keep him off of me, master--you keep him off. Or I tell yer,
I'll brind him--I _will_!" At which Lizarann's heart stopped. Not from
anything in the words, which were of the sort that she would have told
Bridgetticks were "only Uncle Bob." Uncle Bob occurred too frequently
in daily life for her to fret much about his language. The cold shiver
had run down her back, this time, because she knew there was no one in
the room with him. But, may she not have known falsely? Surely there
was someone else there, that he was speaking to. Listen!
"Good job you come in, master! You're a good chap, you are. You're
Bonyparty, I take it, in the picter-book. You larn him to keep
his distance, and I'm your friend. Won't you take nothing? Just a
drain?..." He wandered on, with a thickness of speech that, if spelt
ever so successfully, would only encumber the text.
Uncle Bob had gone mad, clearly, and would get himself took to the
Asylum, where Bridgetticks's Aunt Tabither was. Bridget was very proud
of this aunt. And though there might, as in her case, be advantages in
the end, the present had to be faced. And poor Lizarann was the only
soul that knew anything about it, and was stiff with terror in bed, in
the dark, with a speechless tongue, but a calm interior spot somewhere,
that was wondering when she would begin to cry out in her agony of
fear, yet knew that daddy wasn't there to cry to.
In a few moments she was aware that the breath of the delirious man
was catching again, as in terror, and his voice followed: "He ain't
gone--he ain't gone! Don't you pay no attention to 'em, master! I can
see his eye under the bed, spinning round like a wheel. If there'd a
been two of 'em now...." Then in a sudden extremity of terror his voice
was worse than if it had been a scream; he forced it from his lungs
in a strained whisper. "My Goard!--he's a-coming. He's a-coming on.
He'll get me afore he's done, he will.... Leave hold of me! Leave hold,
you...." We have to stop short.
Lizarann's impression was that he then struck out to protect himself
against his imaginary aggressor. He certainly fell, and was stunned.
The child grasped this, and the fact that he was now harmless for the
moment. But she was so dumbstricken that it was perhaps the whole of
three or four minutes before she could find her voice, and then only
for inarticulate hysterical screams.
The fall of Steptoe on the floor was the sound that waked his wife in
the room above. The silence that followed was almost long enough to
convince her of the safety of going to sleep again. But Lizarann's
cries of heartfelt terror and entire panic came to stop that. The woman
jumped up and lit her candle, whose wick had smouldered to the grease
the last time it was blown out; it had to be coaxed, and a libation
of melted paraffin had to be poured off it before it would flare up
steady-like, so you could carry it and not spill. It taxed Mrs.
Steptoe's nerves to negotiate all this, with that tryin' child making
that noise downstairs. But it was either that or go down in the dark.
We borrow her own phraseology. Besides, Lizarann had had nightmare and
woke everybody, that time Jim gave Bob such a remindin', three months
ago. So her aunt made her light secure before going below.
Her expectation was to find her husband in a stupid drunken sleep in
the front parlour, and the door of the back room closed as she had left
it. She saw the open door and quickened her pace.
"What's that child been after outside of the room? _I'll_ soon
know about that...." She soon knew all that could be known at the
moment--that her husband, whom she nearly tumbled over, was insensible
on the ground--or half-insensible, muttering--and that Lizarann was
vociferous with terror in bed, and quite incapable, so far, of telling
anything. Her first instinct was faultfinding, as against the child
for screaming. "_Stop_ your noise or I'll make you.... Lizarann!...
do you _hear_?... _Will_ you stop?" And then in a voice of vengeful
resolution: "_I'll_ be in after you directly." Whereupon Lizarann
choked her screams back and waited.
Her aunt was examining Uncle Bob for bruises, so she thought; and
he appeared to be resenting the inquiry. Suddenly he recovered his
articulation in a wonderful way, and became quite unreasonably angry.
"You'll keep your hands off me, or I'll smack your chops for you." He
gathered himself up and got on his legs, but swayed a little as he
stood. "What's that you're a-sayin'? Why the (described) Hell can't
you speak up? _Your_ tongue's fast enough when nobody's asked you for
it. Look you here, Pry-scilla Coupland, I ain't going to be minced
about no more, for nobody." Lizarann knew from his calling his wife by
her maiden name that her uncle's state was a dangerous one. He did it
whenever he became savage with drink. What followed was no improvement.
"Ah!--you may go and tell Jim if you like. He's in it, like the rest
on 'em. I know all about their planning and scheming. I'll make my
affidavit afore a lawyer. First thing to-morrow morning, and make an
end of it all. I _will_!" His manner had such serious conviction in it
that the child thought him sane for a moment. It was something grown-up
that she didn't know about. Her aunt's reply, with an uneasy half-laugh
in it, was an attempt to soothe and conciliate. "Whatever are you
fancyin', Robert?" she said nervously. "Who's planning or scheming?
Just you come up to bed, and be done with your talk-talk-talk.
Affidavits and lawyers! Where shall we be next?"
"Don't you think to take me in!" His reply was in manner perfectly
sane and coherent--that of a shrewd man of business, who sees through
a clever imposture, being himself cleverer still. "Don't you think
to take me in! I wasn't born last Sunday mornin'. Now look 'ee here,
Pry-scilla Coupland! Shall I tell yer something I know? Shall I tell
yer a little thing I know? A little--little thing?" This was said as a
question of superhuman slyness, as he pointed an intuitive finger to
emphasize it and waited. Then, quite suddenly, he became ferocious.
"What the Hell, do you think I don't _know_? Do _you_ think _I_ don't
know that it's _you_ that's in behind it all? Ah!--you and Jim. One as
like as t'other. It's a bloody conspiracy, I tell yer. And I'll make
yer pay for it. I'll make yer pay." Still, Lizarann was impressed that
he was speaking of something real, as there is nothing _per se_ insane
in an idea of a conspiracy, however groundless.
But when he next spoke, she saw that he was really mad. For her aunt,
perceiving that her attempt at a soothing tone had only made matters
worse, tried a little intimidation. "You wouldn't kerry on like that,
Robert, exceptin' you knew Jim wasn't here. But he's a-coming, and I
tell it you, for you to know. So just you bear it in mind--there!"
"Jim's over there. I seen him." He pointed to the bed.
"Talking silly, you are! His bed's empty, anyhow! But he's
a-coming--that I tell you, plain. Now you come along upstairs."
"Aha!--right you are, Mrs. Hess." This was the initial of Steptoe. He
went on with a sly triumphant wrinkling of his face, that mixed oddly
with the tremor of eye and lip that is part of this disease. "No, he
ain't in that bed. But I can tell yer where he is--he's under it!
That's where Jim is. I seen his eye, plain to see!..."
"Jim's eye, ye silly! Come to bed, and sleep your drink off. Ye born
fool! Jim's eye!"
"Ah!--Jim's eye. The one he opens at night. He's under-'anded and
sly--sees a rare lot more than he'll put a name to! Why, I seen it, God
damn you!"--with a sudden revival of ferocity--"I _seen_ it, I tell
you, there under that there bed."
Then Lizarann knew that he was mad. Of course, she knew nothing of
_delirium tremens_, but she knew quite well the state often described
as "mad drunk," and that her uncle when so affected always became
violent; although since that occurrence three months since, fear of Jim
had been a wholesome check. Oh, if Daddy were only here!--so thought
Lizarann, as she stood in the doorway with her teeth chattering, and
literally sick with terror.
"I tell you I _seen_ it, and I'll tell you some more. Only just you
stand still. I'm a going for to cut it out, by Goard! Only you wait
till I get my * * * knife.... It's round the * * * corner against the
window...." These were the last articulate words Lizarann heard, as
her aunt followed their speaker into the front room. Then the voices
of both in confusion--his raving, hers concealing apprehension badly
under an attempt at command. This for a while; then a rapid crescendo
of terror ending in a shriek, and an appeal to Heaven-knows-who to get
the Police. And Lizarann--not seven yet!--had to make up her mind what
to do.
CHAPTER XIII
HOW THE RECTOR OF ROYD TOOK A WRONG TURNING, AND PICKED UP LIZARANN
IN THE SNOW. MR. STEPTOE'S KNIFE, AND HOW LIZARANN MADE HIM LEAVE
HOLD OF IT. HOW AUNTIE STINGY WAS HANDY IN CASE OF ANYTHING, AND
UNCLE BOB WENT TO SLEEP ON A SECOND-HAND SOFA
When the Rev. Augustus Fossett, the brother of Lizarann's
schoolmistress, and incumbent of St. Vulgate's Church, Clapham Rise,
got hæmoptysis, his friends tried to persuade him to throw up his
appointment and go away to Australia or South Africa. His brother
Jack wanted him to chuck the Church, and take to some healthy
employment--the young man's expressions, not ours--and took the
opportunity to generalize overmuch, on the subject of the causes of
death among the Clergy. He said that something he referred to merely as
"it" was "all very fine, but two-thirds of them died of consumption."
He was devoted to his brother, and wanted badly to get Gus clear of
that filthy slum, with its horrible rows of little houses that had two
or three families in them before the mortar was dry. But Gus refused to
comply with his family's wishes. "I know Jack thinks," said he, "that
if he could only get me into a lawyer's wig, or a sailor's trousers,
I shouldn't have an apex to my right lung, practically. And moist
sibilant _râles_ would be things unheard of." He added that he wasn't
married, and never meant to be; that the neighbourhood was healthy,
if it was a little damp; and that all he wanted was change of air now
and again. Taylor would come and take his duties for a week or so, and
he would go to Royd, and Bessie Caldecott would nurse him up, at the
Rectory.
For the Rector of Royd, whose acquaintance the story has already made,
was, in his relation to the Rev. Gus, the other half of one of those
friendships that, according to Tennyson, have mastered time. So every
now and again, as occasion arose, the Rev. Athelstan's broad chest and
shoulders loomed large in the pulpit of St. Vulgate's, and his voice
sounded altogether too big for the architectural treatment of the east
window.
About six weeks before the story-time of last chapter, the reverend
gentleman had said to his sister-in-law: "Bess, I can't have Gus kill
himself this winter. He'll do it in the end, but let's keep him here as
long as we can. I'll go and see to his parishioners in January, and he
must come here. You mustn't let him work hard, and give him no end of
cream and new-laid new-laid eggs. I can get Tom Cowper to do his work
in February, and then I'll come back and take him for walks. Ah dear!"
The Rector's anxiety about his friend got to the surface, through his
tone of serene confidence, which was factitious.
"What are we to do about Phoebe and Joan?" said Miss Caldecott.
"Isn't it very likely all nonsense about infection?"
"I don't know." Then both looked perplexed; and that, as we all know,
doesn't do any good.
"There's plenty of places for them to go to ..." said the Rector; but
didn't say where.
"But they'll be so heart-broken," said Miss Caldecott, "if they are
away when their uncle's here." For Mr. Fossett had always held rank as
a "putative" uncle to Phoebe and Joan, with natural confusion in their
minds as a result.
"We must think it out somehow," said the Rector. "Their _potatoe_
uncle! Ah dear!"
It must have been thought out somehow, without danger of infection
to Phoebe and Joan; for January saw Augustus shepherding the flock
of Athelstan, and Athelstan heavily afflicted with the population of
a suburban slum. "At least," said he to himself, in the small hours
of the morning, as he plodded back to his temporary residence from a
death-bed side, through a thick snowstorm--"at least in the country we
are still Shakespearian. These Londoners get more unintelligible every
year." For a youth whom he had heard communing with another had first
said, "I'll have your hat, Maria," which seemed to have no meaning; and
then when the other said, "What price 'Igh 'Olborn, Joe?" had merely
replied, "So long," and trotted away whistling.
They were the last defilers of the English language, though, that he
heard speech of for the best part of a two-mile walk. For all that
had a bed to go to had done so an hour or more since, and left the
white world to the snowflakes and the police-force--the latter sadly
outnumbered by the former, and fairly driven to whatever shelters
official obligation allowed. For the flakes, which at midnight had been
large and rather benevolent than otherwise, with a disposition to lie
down quietly and not fuss, had become small and vicious and revengeful,
and were rushing point-blank along the streets seeking for the eyes
of passers-by and finding none. The gas-lamps, which had at first
enjoyed melting them as they came down, were giving up the attempt
in despair, and had each its incubus of thickening snow to darken it.
The Rev. Athelstan found it pleasant and stimulating--it reminded him
of the Alps, years ago--and he had only met three vehicles, all told,
in the whole of his walk, so far. One was a belated coster's cart,
drift-blocked; whose donkey, its owner, and a policeman were trying
to help it out of its difficulties. He lent a hand, and the rest of
his physical resources, most effectually, and earned benedictions and
a certificate that he was the right sort. Both the policeman and the
costermonger spoke as though several sorts had been tried, and been
found wanting. The former, as he wished him good-night, remarked that
it was a blizzard this time, and no mistake, as though serious mistakes
had been made in the classification of previous examples submitted.
A sense of pass-exams. hung in the air. The Rev. Athelstan said
good-night, and tramped or waded off through the snow, acknowledging
to himself that he didn't know why a blizzard was a blizzard. Now his
impression had been that this one was a bad snowstorm. However, a
policeman would know, of course.
"American, I suppose," said he to himself, "and well up to date! Now
I wonder...." He stopped opposite a wayside inn standing back from
the road; a record of the days of an old suburban highway, with a
drinking-trough for horses and a troughlet for dogs, and a swinging
sign, half obscured by snowblotch that might fall off, or not. But
it would in a minute, if waited for, for its framing creaked in the
wind. "I wonder where I am?" he continued. "I've seen this pothouse
before. I've photographed it, if it's the same. It was the Robin
Hood." A snow-slip occurred at this moment, and left the outlaw's
face and a portion of the merry greenwood visible. Oh dear yes!--the
Robin Hood. No mistake about that, anyhow! The pause ended in complete
enlightenment. "Then I know where I am. There's the new Cazenove
slum on the left. Now I've got to take care not to go down the wrong
turning. One's a _cul de sac_; ends in a fence. But I fancy mine's the
next--yes!--mine's the next. Addy Fossett's school's just a bit farther
on. Lady Arkroyd said it wasn't a slum! A slum made up of whited
sepulchres--well! suppose we say machine-pointed brick sepulchres, and
let 'em go at that." The difficulty of walking through the snow, and
the silence, both seemed to favour soliloquy. He plodded on, driving
aside the dry white snowdrift with his feet, and cogitating.
How deadly dark and silent it is down this side-street! Only one
gas-lamp alight that one can see, some way on. And the silence!
One might be murdered here so quietly, with so little inconvenience
to one's murderer. And the cold! "Thank God it is me and not Gus,"
says the man in the snow through whose mind these thoughts pass. "He
wouldn't be kept at home, even by a blizzard. Really--if I hadn't a
good pair of eyes.... Hullo! what's that?" He quickens his pace towards
something he has seen or heard.
An instant after, and the silence has vanished. Piercing shrieks
are on the night--a child's shrieks--shrieks of frenzied and
intolerable panic, there, where nothing can be distinguished yet....
Yes!--_there_--coming this way through the snow--this side of the dim
lamp-gleam the snowdrift all but hides ... but oh, so small! How can a
thing so small give such a cry?
How can it struggle so, either, as it is caught and picked up by a
pair of strong arms, and wrapped in the bosom of a big overcoat?
"Anything"--said the Rev. Athelstan, when he told the tale
after--"anything to get the poor little barefooted, nightgowned scrap
up off the snow, and out of the cold! The _pluck_ of the midget! I
never saw such a baby. Not seven yet--just think of it!" For he often
told of this adventure of his afterwards. But let us tell it now.
"Oh, pleathe--pleathe--let me down!" It is such a heart-harrowing cry
for liberty that its hearer almost believes himself cruel to shut his
ears to it. But--the cold! "Oh, _pleathe_ let me go to c-call for the
Spoleece to c-come to ... Uncle Bob...."
"_I'm_ the Police, dear child, this time. You show me where Uncle Bob
is, won't you? Hush-sh!... there, dear, now! ... that way, is he?
That's a good brave little girl.... In at this door, is it? _That's_
right! _Now_ I'll put you down." And then Uncle Bob's niece is on the
ground, pulling with all her small force at the skirt of the big coat
that has sheltered her. She doesn't believe the gentleman's statement
that he is the Police; or only with some important reservations. But he
is on the side of the right, she is sure, and is vast and powerful. It
is no use her pulling, if he does not mean to come after all. But all
is well, for he has only paused to get off the big coat the snow falls
in lumps from as he leaves it behind him on the floor, and is pulled
along the dark narrow passage towards some mysterious male voice out
of all keeping with its surroundings--a voice with something of a Hyde
Park orator's rant in it--pulled by the little nightgowned morsel that
seems, now that the end is gained, and help has come, to be quite dumb
with terror.
Along the narrow passage and through the door on the left. The room
is lighted by a candle at its last gasp on a side-table, and the gleam
through the window, above the closed shutters, of the street-lamp
outside. There is light enough to see all that is going on in that
room, and it is a sight to give pause to the readiest help, and unnerve
the most willing hand. For any succour, in the very bringing of it, may
in this case undo itself.
Against the wall, in the corner next the window, is the ashy face of
a terror-stricken woman, kneeling with hands outstretched to avert
violence threatened by a man who is waving some weapon before her
eyes, while he talks incoherently. It is his voice that sounded like a
popular orator's, making telling points. What seemed a meaning when the
words were unheard vanishes as they become audible.
"You keep still afore I pin you to the wall. You * * * well know that
what I swear to by Goard's the * * * truth. Climb up and see--all I say
is, climb up and see! The * * * noospaper's on my side, and d'you think
they don't * * * know.... Ah!--would you?--steady--steady! I'll put a
strap on either side of you to keep you steady. You and Jim thought you
were going to have it your own blooming way. And where d'you think he's
gone?... He--he--he!" He laughed a sniggering laugh. "Jim, he's gone
along the railings. Now, don't you go sayin' I haven't told you, or
I'll just rip you up afore the clock strikes. I can have your liver out
just as soon as not. I can give a reference, by Goard! Just you ask my
wife--she can get a * * * reference." And then the Rev. Mr. Taylor saw
that what he held in his hand was a pointed cobbler's knife, a deadly
instrument.
The little girl, clinging to him in convulsive terror, made
sufficiently prompt action almost impossible. He felt that if he could
have caught the man's eye, he might have been able to control him. But
as it was, any movement on his part might have meant a stab in the
woman's heart. He could see she had on only a thin sort of flannel
wrapper over a night-dress, and he understood that the man, in his
delirium, conceived her to be some enemy, not his wife certainly. What
she was of course he did not know. The lips of his mind formed the
simple word "drink"--the evil principle whose name accounts for half
the ills flesh would have been so glad never to come to the enjoyment
of, but must perforce inherit.
He dared not spring upon the man to pinion him, with that hideous
knife so near the woman's life-blood. But a change was to come--one
caused by the woman herself. She could barely gasp, so paralyzed was
articulate speech; but the few words she said, "Catch hold upon him
behind, master!" were heard and understood by the man, who instantly
swung round to be ready for some unknown opponent. The Rev. Athelstan
felt greatly relieved. The position was simplified: he was now face to
face with a delirious maniac with a knife--a knife that seemed made for
murder--that was all!
"Thank God it isn't Gus, but me!" said a passing thought as he caught
the madman's eye, just too late to unsettle, as he might have done--so
he fancied--the delivery of a thrust backed by the whole strength of
the arm that sent it. It was well for him--so straight did the blow
come--that the clerical hat he pulled off to stop it had a wide hard
brim and a round hard crown, good for a point to slip on. The boss of
a Japanese targe could not have balked it more cleverly. Had it struck
the centre straight, it would have pierced through to the hand that
held it. As it was, it went aslant, striking twice on the shining silk
nap, but quite harmlessly.
"Give me the knife, my man. I can show you how to use it better than
that." His voice could not have been more collected if he had been
reading the Commination Service, without meaning it, in the little old
peaceful church at Royd. The delirious man, whose conception of his
own position was probably that of a victim somehow at bay, surrounded
by conspirators, was for a moment convinced that he would better it by
compliance, and was indeed actually surrendering the knife, when the
woman's hysterical voice broke in, and undid everything.
"Yes--you give the gentleman up the knife, Robert! You give it him to
keep for you now you ain't yourself, for to take good care of and giv'
back. He'll do the best by you! _You_ may trust the gentleman ... etc.,
etc." The Rev. Athelstan's mind said: "Deuce take the woman!--can't she
hold her tongue?" but of course he said nothing so secular aloud.
The lunatic--for he was little else--had all but given up the knife,
but of course now changed his mind. "_You're_ answerin' for him,
I see!" he exclaimed, with so sane a voice it was hard to think
him delirious. "I can see round some of yer better than you think.
Yes--Muster Preedy! Ah!... would you ... would you?..." This with an
expression of intense cunning, with the knife held behind him; and
a dangerous tendency to edge back towards the woman, all the while
watching the Rev. Athelstan with a sly, ugly half-grin.
As he got nearer to the woman, she became unable to control
herself--little wonder, perhaps!--and broke out hysterically: "Oh, God
ha' mercy!--stop him! stop him!--Oh, Lard!--oh, Christ!..." and so
on. It was time to act, and Athelstan Taylor knew it. Delay might be
fatal. Guided by some instinct he could not explain, he shouted with
sudden decision: "They're here, you fool! Can't you hear them?" and
then, seizing on the pause in which the maniac's attention--caught also
for the moment, perhaps, by railway sounds without--wandered to this
mysterious "they," sprang upon him, and by great good luck pinioned
his knife-hand as both rolled together on the carpetless floor. "Thank
heaven it's me, not Gus!" thought he again, as he and his antagonist
pitched heavily on the ground. He could feel the great strength there
was still in the miserable victim of the fiend Alcohol. Often patients
with this disorder will need three or four men to hold them--indeed,
sometimes develope abnormal muscular strength, even while its tremors
are running riot through their whole system.
But Mr. Steptoe's strength would have been abnormally developed indeed
to enable him to contend against the successful competitor in a hundred
athletic contests in the old 'Varsity days. A few sharp struggles,
and he lay powerless, his adversary kneeling over him, grasping his
two wrists, while he cursed and muttered below, before the railway
sounds, connected apparently with the stopping of an almost endless
luggage-train, had subsided into mere clinks that seemed to soothe it
to stillness. But the knife was still in his right hand.
"Now where's that little maid?" Our little Lizarann had never run away,
as some children might have done, but had held on bravely through
the whole of the terrifying scene, full of admiration for this new
Policeman--she almost thought he was really one; and when she heard
him ask for her, she found voice to reply, not very articulately. She
was there, please!--blue with the cold and her teeth chattering. Aunt
Stingy was g-goed away. So much the better, the new Policeman seemed to
think. He continued: "Very well, my child!--now you can be useful....
No, don't call your aunty. We'll do without her; she's no use. You do
just as I tell you--just exactly!" Lizarann nodded her alacrity to obey
orders. "Me?--yass!" is her brief undertaking.
The gentleman looked round at her, still grasping the wrists of his
captive, who muttered on wildly, lost in a forest of execrations
without meaning. He seemed satisfied that the child could be trusted,
and determined at any rate to try a desperate expedient to get that
horrible knife out of the maniac's clutch. The only other course would
be to call or send for help. Send whom? This baby out in the snow
again? Heaven forbid! As for the woman, _she_ was no use. He could
hear her hysterics in the next room. No!--if the child only dared do
exactly as he told her, he would soon have that knife safe out of the
way.
"Look here, my dear, where's the box of matches--the lucifer matches?
Now don't you be frightened, but do as I tell you. You light a match!"
Lizarann obeyed dutifully, though her hand shook. "Now, you know, if
you blow that match out, there'll be a red spark, won't there?...
Very well then, or _yass_, if you prefer it. Now I want you just to
touch your father's hand with it ... oh, he's your uncle, is he?...
well!--now you'll have to light another.... Now you touch his hand with
it--don't you be frightened."
Lizarann followed her instructions without question. Whatever the
gentleman said was right. _Her_ duty was obedience. But she broke
out in spasmodic terror at the result of what she had supposed to be
some curious experiment; not to be understood by her, but certainly
beneficial.
And Athelstan Taylor needed all his strength to retain the hand that
was scorched, as his prisoner--or rather patient--gave a great plunge
and a yell, as the fire touched him. But he kept his grip, though it
was his left hand against the delirious man's right; and the knife,
relinquished in the uncontrollable start, was left lying on the floor
as he dragged him across the room away from it. He could breathe freer
now that the knife was out of the way.
He inferred afterwards that the whole thing had happened very quickly;
for the railway-occurrence without seemed to explain itself as a convoy
of empty trucks shunting on a siding to allow an express to shriek
past--an express that cared nothing for blizzards, and came with a
vengeance, just as he gave his last instructions to Lizarann, waiting a
moment for that little person's terror to subside.
"That's a good little girl. Now pick up that knife and take it away.
And then ... well!--and then ... shut the door after you and go to
bed, for God's sake, and get warm.... What? ... no!--never mind Aunt
What's-her-name?... don't say anything to her--only go to bed too. What
did you say her name was? Aunt Stingy?" It didn't seem probable, but
the little maiden evidently felt surprised at its being thought the
reverse. She confirmed it with gravity, and was departing, small and
bitterly cold, but intensely responsible, when the new Policeman called
her back.
"Look here, poppet!--you stand the street-door wide open, and then you
go to bed. Now shut the door."
Lizarann obeyed religiously, and crept away silently to bed. Only, as
she passed through her daddy's room with its empty pillow, life became
too hard for her to bear. But tears came to help, big ones in plenty;
and Lizarann's bed was kind. It absorbed, received, engulfed, all but
cancelled the small mass of affliction that cowered into it and stopped
its ears and did its best to cease. In two minutes after leaving
the New Policeman, Lizarann was little more than a stifled sob, at
intervals, in the dark; in five, at most, had cried herself to sleep.
* * * * *
Mrs. Steptoe, after giving way--quite excusably, to our
thinking--upstairs for ten minutes or so, began to be aware that her
self-control was returning. But being hysterical as well as human,
she utilized it to go on moaning and gasping intentionally, some time
after she had ceased to be able to do it involuntarily. Curiosity
about who had given such a sudden and effectual succour then began to
get the better of mere terror, and she perceived she ought to make
an effort. So she went cautiously downstairs and listened, outside
the door, to the voices in the front room; her husband's, now seeming
less definitely insane, more weak and drivelling; and that of the
stranger, whom she found it easiest to take for granted, although
unexplained. Very severe shock makes the mind travel on the line of
least resistance. No!--she wouldn't knock at the door just yet to ask
if her services were wanted. That would do presently, especially as
she expected stupor would soon follow her husband's outbreak, and if
she showed herself now he might have a return. So after listening a
few moments, sufficiently to satisfy herself that the stranger's voice
showed a complete mastery of the position, Aunt Stingy retired into the
bedroom adjoining, to be handy in case of anything--so she described
her action afterwards--and then, having made sure that her niece was in
bed in the little room and sound asleep, lay down on Jim's vacant bed
for just a half-minute and closed her eyes. And would you have believed
it?--or rather, it should be said, would Mrs. Hacker, to whom she told
it, have believed it?--she was that dead wore out that only listening
for two minutes to the voices going on steady, as you might say, set
her off half unconscious-like, and in an unguarded moment sleep took
her by surprise. Just the letting of her eyes close to had made _all_
the difference! Kep' open, no such a thing! In this case they were not
kept open, and there was such a thing. It took the form of profound
sleep.
But before leaving the passage--the one known by the rather grandiose
name of The Hall--Aunt Stingy first removed her rescuer's overcoat,
that still lay on the ground, and hung it on a neighbouring hook. A
more intelligent person would have seen that its owner might want it,
for warmth, in a fireless room. She must needs then decide that the
street door had no business to be on the jar, and it was just that
child's carelessness leaving it open; and closed it, noiselessly.
This was fatal to a calculation of Athelstan Taylor's, for he had
told Lizarann to leave the door open in the full confidence that the
policeman on the beat would notice it; and that he would by this means
be brought into communication with the outer world, without having to
leave his dangerous charge alone in the house with that plucky baby and
that weak woman!
No doubt a policeman did come down the _cul de sac_ street, but even a
policeman's step is inaudible on three inches of very dry snow. It is
otherwise when the snow is partly thawed, especially if a second frost
comes. Mr. Taylor concluded, believing that the street-door was "on the
jar," that the policeman's bull's-eye would at once detect it, and that
his guard was sure to be relieved; but the hours went by and nothing
came. It is more likely, though, that the policeman passed at a moment
of noise from the railway, for goods-trains occurred at intervals
through the night.
More than once he was all but resolved to leave the man's side and
summon the woman, or go himself for medical help, whatever the risk
might be. But he did not know what other knives might be within reach,
and he was one of those people who always decide on the righter of two
courses, however little may be the difference between them. Not the
smallest risk should be run through fault of his of harm to come to
that plucky infant--well!--or to the woman, for that matter. But he was
obliged to admit that he felt less keen on that point.
So, though he relaxed his hold on the man as his paroxysms of violence
died down--for they were intermittent--he never allowed him to go quite
free, and scarcely took his eyes from him to inventory the scanty
contents of the ill-furnished room he sat in. For he contrived to shift
the position in a moment of the patient's quiescence, some half an hour
after he found himself alone with him; half-dragging, half-lifting him
on to an untempting and unrestful sofa, whose innate horse-hair was
courting investigation through slits and holes that had evaded the
watchfulness of ineffectual buttons, guardians of its reticence in days
gone by. One of those articles of furniture of which we know at once
that the understraps have given, and will have to be seen to some day.
An analogous chair was within reach; and the New Policeman, not in love
with his job, but strong in his determination to see it out, made up
his mind to pass the rest of the night on it, if necessary, watching
the fluctuations of his patient's delirium. Oh, how thankful he felt
that all this had befallen him, not Gus! What a pleasure to think of
his consumptive friend in the best room at the Rectory; sound asleep,
said Hope, uncontradicted.
An hour or more passed. The violence of the patient had become more and
more fitful, and seemed at length to be giving place to mere stupor.
A little longer, and he would sleep. But suppose his heart failed and
he died in his sleep. Mr. Taylor had had an uncle who drank, and who
died of collapse after just such an attack of _delirium tremens_.
Yes--but how long after? Then, on the other hand, there was no evidence
to show how long this man's attack had been going on. Nor was the
Rev. Athelstan quite clear that the case was uncomplicated; the brain
might be unsound at the best of times. He tried to remember all he had
seen or heard of the disorder. His impression certainly had been that
insomnia was a characteristic symptom, and invariable. Now this man
seemed to be sinking into a state of coma. He would keep watch over
him, at least until he seemed quite unconscious, and then he would try
to get help from without. He might be able to rouse a neighbour, and
so communicate with the police and send for medical assistance. What
he was most anxious to do was to get the man safe out of the way, at
the workhouse-infirmary or the police-station, and to feel sure that
he could leave the house safely with that child in it. He would come
back next day as soon as he was at liberty, to find out more about her.
It was fortunate that to-day was Tuesday, not Saturday--or rather he
should have said, Wednesday, not Sunday. But one always thinks, when
one has been up all night, that it is still yesterday!
Yes!--the breath of the man was coming more regularly, and his pulse
felt slower and steadier. In a moment it would be safe to leave him and
look for help. He withdrew his hand from the wrist it held and touched
the sleeper's forehead. It was scarcely so hot as he had expected it to
be. But it seemed insensitive to his touch, as there was no perceptible
shrinking from it. The patient could be safely left for a moment.
He rose to his feet and stretched himself, glad of the respite. In the
account of the affair that he wrote later to his substitute at Royd, he
lays claim to having had no feeling at this moment but a wish for clean
warm water to wash the touch of the drunkard's wrists off. He watched
the motionless figure on the couch for a few moments, and the breathing
satisfied him. He could be spared; for as short a time as need be,
though.
He opened the door quietly and went out. But he returned to lock it;
removing the key from within, but leaving it in the lock. Then he
opened the street door and looked out. The little one had evidently
misunderstood his instruction to leave it open--well! she really
was almost a baby. However, that was enough to account for the
non-appearance of any policeman. No police-officer ever leaves a "stood
open" door uninvestigated in the small hours of the morning.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE END OF THE BLIZZARD, AND OF SIMON MAGUS. HOW MR. TAYLOR FOUND
A DOCTOR. OF A CHASE THROUGH THE SNOW, AND A CANAL-LOCK. WHAT WAS
FOUND IN IT. BUT SIMON WAS INVISIBLE
How sweet and white and silent was the huge shroud of snow that lay
so carefully on road and roof alike; unbroken, in this untrodden
stillness, by so much as the memory of a rut inherited from yesterday's
traffic; unmelted, even on the chimney-stacks, by the expiring efforts
of yesterday's fires! How satisfied the stars that began to twinkle
through the clearing veil of the snowdrift dying down, that the work
of hiding London from them had been done thoroughly and well, and that
they might shine on something clean at last! For the blizzard had gone
to an appointment elsewhere, and the few flakes of belated snow that
were afloat had given up all thought of blinding human eyes, and only
seemed to pause in their selection of a resting-place. They had an
_embarras de choix_.
As the sole spectator of the stillness stood looking out into the
night, and thinking Wordsworth to himself, he saw the fixed red eye
of a Cyclops railway-signal through the clear air; snow-scoured, and
innocent, so far, of smoke. All that mighty heart was lying still--yes!
But that engine, idling on the line and wide awake, felt free to wander
to and fro, with clanks, and finally to execute an _arpeggio_ of
truncated snorts downwards, and give a sudden yell, and depart behind
a steam-blast from beneath its apron. Then Mr. Taylor saw distinctly,
at the end of his wrong turning, the fence that stultified it as a
thoroughfare.
A wall of snow was against the lower half of the door, and the whole
row of houses it made one of was nearly masked by the drift-pile
heaped against it; and the snow that had caught and held against every
roughness on the upright wall lay thick on every ledge and slope, and
filled in every cavity. A sense of compromise was abroad in the air--an
anticipated suggestion of a thaw; not yet, you know, but in time!
Athelstan Taylor, as a neighbour's clock struck five in a hurry, knew
so well what the shovels meant to sound like in the morning while all
was still dry; and what the falls of snow would be like from uncleared
roofs later on, when much would be slush.
There was not a soul in sight in the _cul de sac_ street, which had
so obviously been the wrong turning. There was consolation in that,
though, for the Rev. Athelstan, for if it had been Gus and not he, Gus
would have known his ground better, and passed on. But then!--what
might not have happened to that poor little kid, asleep in there?
However, it was necessary now to think what was to be done. Not a
soul in sight, and hardly a sound to be heard; the very murmur of the
city's traffic, that never quite dies, barely audible! Every house
more than ever like its neighbour, in its cloak of snow. Which door
should he choose, to knock at? One opposite looked the most promising,
he thought. But he would put on his greatcoat before crossing through
the cold night air. Where was that coat, by the way? So--back into the
house to get it!
He struck a wax vesta to make the dark passage visible, and soon
saw where the woman had hung it on a peg near the stairway. Should
he, after all, go upstairs and rouse her?--Well, no, on the whole!
Because he thought the woman bad for the patient, and better out of
the way on that account. It did not occur to him that she was in the
adjacent room, and the exploration above contributed as an obstacle to
his decision. He felt readier for a colloquy with a roused next-door
neighbour, than for shaking a stupefied sleeper to wakefulness--one,
too, whom he had very poor reliance on. Besides, his own clearest
scheme was to get some safe person to take charge of the patient, while
he himself went for a doctor. If he did this, the doctor would come. If
he sent, perhaps no! How could he tell?
But after this slight delay, just as well to look in at the sleeper
once more before leaving him! The Rev. Athelstan, feeling very much
like the New Policeman, opened the door cautiously. Just as well, for
his charge was no longer where he had left him. He could see him in the
half-light, blundering against the window-shutter, apparently without
purpose, and talking to himself.
"Everything's took away, by Goard! Now if I could just lay 'ands on
that there * * * knife, I could slit 'em all up. All the biling; and
that'd make me even with 'em! Who's makin' any offer to stop me?" He
muttered on, and there seemed no object in interrupting him. Very
likely he would lie down and doze off again. A few minutes' patience,
anyhow!
Suddenly he stopped and turned. And then perceiving Athelstan Taylor
as he stood by the half-open door watching him intently, he addressed
him exactly as though he were one of a succession of applicants or
customers, whom he had satisfied so far.
"Now who might you be, master? 'And over your job! I'll be answerable
to see to it by to-morrow forenoon." He seemed for the moment quite
composed and businesslike, then suddenly changed to shrewd suspicion.
"Unless you're--unless you're--unless you're.... No!--would you? That's
not playing fair, by Goard! Come--you're a gentleman!--give a beggar
his fair chance...." For a sort of wily approach, as though to somehow
circumvent an object of suspicion, had been promptly intercepted, and
he found himself firmly held as before. Then an intolerable horror
seemed to seize on him quite suddenly. "God's mercy--keep him off--keep
him off! I'll never let on about him to no one. I promise. Only give
me a blooming Testament. I'll swear!" He asked several times for a
Testament, variously described, rather to the amusement than otherwise
of his hearer, whose sense of language discriminated between words with
meanings and expletives without. The drunkard's manner seemed to him
to throw doubt on the validity of any affidavit made on an unstained
volume.
But there was no amusement--nothing but a shudder--to be got out of the
intense conviction of his delirium that there was some horror--some
spectre or nightmare, God knows what!--in ambush behind the man who
held him. Those who have nursed any ordinary fever-patient through the
hours of low vitality in the night, know how hard it is to struggle
against a sort of belief in the reality of his delusions--against the
sympathetic dread, at least, that all but does duty for a real belief.
In _delirium tremens_ this conviction is overwhelming, and the Rev.
Athelstan almost felt it would be an easement, just once, to glance
round behind him, and make sure there was no one else in the room. And
this, although the drunkard's description seemed to apply to a conjurer
(with the usual drawback) who had escaped from his coffin, but might be
got back if we was sharp. His conviction of the reality of this person
was too fervid to be ridiculous, or anything but unearthly; even when
he added, as confirmatory, that he was a Hebrew conjuror, as well as a
sanguinary one. Simon Magus, perhaps?--thought the Rev. Athelstan. And
when he told his friend Gus Fossett of this after, he pretended it had
made him laugh.
The sound of a child crying, surely? Yes--the voice of the little
girl, in an agony of grief or fear, in the next room! He flung the
madman from him, and passed out of the room, locking him in. "I heard
him," said he, afterwards, "begging me to keep Simon Magus off, but
I couldn't stop to see to it." He went into the back room, where
Lizarann, roused by memory of her miseries from the lighter sleep of
morning, was shedding bitter tears because Daddy was not there, but
in the Hospital. Who does not know how the consciousness of affliction
awaiting us will drag us awake, however much we may strive to remain
in dreamland? Lizarann was glad of the gentleman, though, whatever he
was. And it was all the easier for her to give a short abstract of
her tragedy of the night before, that her aunt had gone upstairs to
dress, as a preliminary to action in connection with the front parlour,
whatever it was that was going on there. For whether anyone was there
with her husband--the gentleman of the night before, or a policeman,
or doctor perhaps--she had yet to learn. And she was horribly cold. A
favourable disposition towards lighting a bit of fire in the kitchen
was all the more marked on this account.
The very small person sobbing in a very dirty nightgown in the middle
of the back room could not--so Athelstan Taylor decided--go on
indefinitely unwarmed on such a morning as this. He rejoiced to feel
that there was still plenty of vital heat in her rudiment of a carcass,
as he wrapped it in the first thing that came to hand, a stray relic of
a blanket of days gone by. He picked the little bundle, so compacted,
up on his knee, and helped the subsidence of its sobs with a word or
two of consolation. While doing so, he could hear what difficulties his
case next door was getting into with Simon Magus.
"Berbecause derdaddy's in the Sussospital and hurted his leg," said
Lizarann, as far as our spelling will carry us, in reply to inquiry.
"That's a good little woman! Now she'll tell me all about it. How did
Daddy hurt his leg?"
Lizarann settled down to her narrative. Here was human sympathy, at
last, for her real trouble. For all the dreadful scene of last night
was only Uncle Bob; and of course that sort of thing was always
happening, more or less, with uncles. Not daddies, look you!--that was
quite another pair of shoes.
"There was free spoleecemen," said she, beginning like a true artist
with the strong, conspicuous points of her narrative, "took Daddy along
like carrying a Guy, only the spoleeceman he pictited me up and held me
inside of the skirting for Daddy for to kiss me. And Daddy, he says why
didn't I call out like he told me 'Pi-lot!' so he could hear?..."
"But was Daddy being carried on a chair?" The reference to a Guy had
complicated matters.
"Not a chair to set upon. A hospital-barrer. With skirtings. Yass!
But I hadn't called out Pi-lot, so Daddy could hear...." Lizarann's
conscience torments her on this point, which is one her hearer cares
very little about. He wants to find out what hurt Daddy's leg, and the
extent of the damage. He waits a moment to listen; thinks he hears
a silence in the next room, as though Simon Magus had vanished and
left his victim in peace. Something like knocking about of furniture
follows. But the drunkard is safe locked in. He can do no great harm
for a few minutes anyhow.
"Was it an accident, or did he tumble down of himself?" he asks. He
knows the child will understand. A mere fall on a slippery pavement
would hardly rank as an accident with her. An accident, unclassified
otherwise, almost implies a vehicle, among this class of Londoners.
"Yass!--an accident. The boy said so." A self-explanatory boy, the
speaker seems to think. The hearer accepts him as explained. But what
was the accident, and how much was Daddy hurt? Didn't the boy tell?
Gradually all that Lizarann has to communicate is elicited, and Mr.
Taylor takes a cheerful view of the outlook.
"Then Daddy's gone to the Hospital? They'll set Daddy on his legs
again. What does Daddy do for his living?"
"He's a Asker. Askin', he does. Yass!" Lizarann's large dark eyes, and
her gravity, added force to this. "Every dye, by the Rilewye Stytion,
where I goes to fotch 'im."
Athelstan Taylor gave a low whistle. "Oho!--_that's_ where we are, is
it?" He at once recognised the little girl whose fame had reached him
from the great house at Royd, with which he was of course in frequent
communication. "You're Lizarann Coupland, then; Lady Arkroyd's friend?"
"Yass!" said Lizarann, nodding. Not that she was sure of it. But she
knew there was a Lidy, come to see Teacher at School, she did; and she
couldn't have been certain, off-hand, that this wasn't the Lidy's nime,
in the face of the gentleman's statement. So she assented. She felt
rather proud. Her daddy was well spoken of among the _élite_ evidently.
She continued: "And the boy said, he did, they could mike Daddy's leg
well any day of the week at the Sospital, because they done his Aunt
and Uncle. And a gentleman was a corpse they done, out of a shore. And
Mr. Parker's teef they done, as good as new! So they was all _singin'_!
Yass--they _was_!" This came in instalments; our report is shortened,
for convenience.
Athelstan Taylor said afterwards to his friend: "I was getting so
sleepy by that time, that I didn't above half enjoy the little maid's
hopeful chatter about her Daddy, which of course I confirmed. I had
to commit it to memory to laugh at it afterwards." Indeed, his great
strength and endurance had been sorely taxed by the trying nature of
his long vigil; mere sitting up all night he would have made light of.
* * * * *
When Aunt Stingy appeared a few minutes after, having been employed
in lighting the kitchen fire as projected, she found Lizarann still
on Mr. Taylor's knee, kept warm in the extemporized wrap, and filling
in the blanks in her narrative, in reply to his cross-questionings.
With a curious lack of tact and insight, Mrs. Steptoe immediately
denounced her niece's presumption, suggesting that the child had taken
the gentleman by storm, as it were; and alleging that little g'yells
ought to know better how to behave than that. The gentleman cut this
ill-judged attempt to creep up his sleeve very short indeed.
"Now listen to me, if you please, Mrs. ... what's your name? ...
oh--Steptoe. Mrs. Steptoe. I am going at once to get the nearest doctor
to see your husband. And I think the best thing you can do will be to
leave him quiet in the front room till I come back. He won't take any
harm. And I hope when I come back I shall find the little girl dressed,
with a nice warm fire to warm herself at. I suppose you can't get
any breakfast for her yet awhile?... Well!--do what you can in that
direction. Yesterday's milk is better than no milk." And with a very
decisive refusal to take a cup of tea at any future time, on any terms,
he buttoned his coat tight round him, and left the room. Lizarann heard
the street door open and close, and then she was left friendless and
alone with a formidable aunt. That good woman stepped out after the
street door closed, and listened a moment at that of the front room,
but finding all silent did not open it. She saw it had been locked, as
the key had been inside overnight. Evidently her visitor had locked it.
She returned and afflicted Lizarann by a destructive co-operation in
the gettin' of her frock on, a form of help that twitched its victim
to and fro under the pretext of promoting her stability; that resented
her offered assistance and denounced it as henderin'; that left her
penalized by a sense of wrong hooks in wrong eyes, buttons adrift from
their holes, and holes aghast at the intrusion of strange buttons. But
Lizarann was used to this, and discerned in it the shortness of her
aunt's temper. Her Daddy he'd always said poor Aunty she couldn't help
her nater, and we must bottle up according. Lizarann beheld her aunt
through a halo of Jim's patience and forgiveness.
* * * * *
Athelstan Taylor soon found the doctor in Cazenove Street, who came
readily in answer to his summons. It wouldn't do to lose sight of the
case, he said. The man, who was quite well known to him as a typical
case of Alcoholism, to the police as an habitual drunkard, and to the
neighbourhood as always the worse for liquor, might very easily die
of collapse if he wasn't carefully nourished when the reaction came.
He would be much safer in a Hospital. Often in cases of this sort,
life or death would turn on an injection of morphine on the spot.
Heart-failure might be very rapid. He spoke as though Mr. Steptoe's
decease would be a real calamity. Mr. Taylor, tramping beside him
through the snow, tried to shape a thought that hung in his mind.
How if he himself, who preached a Resurrection or Hereafter that as
like as not this scientific gentleman did not believe in--how if he
was less keen to preserve this depraved life, as a chance to clean
it up a bit for a wholesomer departure later on, than the doctor in
his professional enthusiasm, his sportsmanlike eagerness to win in a
game of Therapeutics against Death? He felt a little ashamed of having
thought more than once that the miserable victim of vice would be
"best out of the way." Out of the way!... where? And then, how did he
know that this consensus of all mortals to try and save even the most
worthless lives may not be an unconscious tribute to the underlying
sense of immortality throughout mankind? Would an honest belief in
extinction fight to preserve a life that is a pain to itself and a
curse to its neighbours? So thinking, he turned with his companion into
Tallack Street. "Last house on the right, isn't it?" said the doctor.
What was that policeman doing in front of the last house on the right?
Looking about on the snow as though in search for something, and then
stooping forward over the low railing to examine the window-fastenings.
It was all secure there when Athelstan Taylor came away. He quickened
his pace, and the doctor did so too.
"Anything wrong, officer?" Both ask the question at once.
"Couldn't say, Sir. Be so good as not to tread on these footmarks. I
want 'em kept till my relief comes. He'll be here in a few minutes....
No--the window's not been tampered with, so far as I see. That's where
it's so queer."
All three stand silent a moment. Then both gentlemen exclaim at once
that they see. The queerness is clear enough to both. The footsteps on
the snow all point away from the window, and a glance shows that there
is no corresponding track of an approach to it.
None of the three seem to think the mystery soluble, for the moment,
and mere speculation is useless. The policeman supplies an additional
fact, but does not claim importance for it. The hasp of the window is
visibly unclosed through the glass. But--so the officer testifies--they
don't shut 'em to, as often as not.
"You can open it from outside," says the parson-gentleman to the
policeman. "All right! I was coming to the house. I know the people."
"All right, officer!" says the doctor-gentleman. "You know me. Dr.
Ferris, Cazenove Street." And thus encouraged the constable easily
throws up the window from without. A touch on the shutters, and they
open inwards. They reveal an empty room, and the track of the footsteps
away from the window is at once explained--fully to the two who knew
that a delirious man was the only tenant of the room, and clearly
enough for purpose of action to the third, who only sees that some
person, to whom the exclamation of both at once, "He has escaped!"
applied, has been able to close the window behind him to disguise his
flight, and may by now be far away at the end of a long trail they
all start to follow, running through the snow as best they may. It is
difficult to run, as the drifted snow is nearly knee-deep sometimes.
But here and there the wind has kept the ground clear, blowing it like
dry dust.
The track goes straight to the closing fence at the street end, at a
point the youthful marauders of Tallack Street have chosen for inroads
into the railway territory beyond. It is passable, for those who can
climb a little, and whose clothes do not mind nail-rip or paint-stain.
As the three follow one another over this obstacle, Athelstan Taylor
and the doctor send back a shouted word or two of reassurance to
whoever it is that has opened the house-door and come out with a cry
of alarm--woman or child or both. They do not stop to see which, but
get on as fast as possible. The track ends for a few yards where
the railway arch has made a gap in the snow, but it is soon found
on the other side, and then is easy to follow over a desolation of
land ripe for building--ripe for the creation of ground-rents--ripe
with the deadly ripeness we all know so well, of the land that the
hay will never smell sweet upon again, the land that even now awaits
interminable streets of dwellings no man or woman of the days to come
shall ever think of as a home in childhood. Easy to follow as it
lies clear in the thick snow it has had all to itself, and will have
till the road is reached that leads to the Refuse Destroyer, with
its two hundred feet of chimney-shaft, from which a black cloud is
pouring--presumably of refuse that has refused to be destroyed; or
has reappeared after destruction in an astral body, or suppose we say
disastral--and the canal, and the Breweries, and the Chemical Bottle
Stout Works, and the Artificial Food Works the Sewage Appropriation
Company, Limited, are building down Snape's Lane this side of the
canal-basin.
The track goes straight to the road, but on reaching it swerves aside,
baffled by a hedge, or the memory of what was once a hedge, whose
function has been reinforced by barbed wire; probably the last expiring
effort of a pastoral age to induce sheep to remain on the land and
be tempted by the dirty grass. The swerved footsteps follow on to an
opening two sad stumps face one another in, and think, perhaps, at
times of the days when they were a stile, and real villagers stepped
over them, and distant London was unknown. Then the track is lost for a
space in a maze of other tracks of men on their way to brew, to bottle
stout chemically, to appropriate sewage, that artificial food may be
stocked, in tins, for a race with powers of digestion up to date. Then
is found again, and followed on to a canal-bank with Platonic locks
that sleep sometimes from day's end to day's end, bargeless, and dream
of a past when railways were unknown, and they were full of purpose,
and the world was young. And then is lost again, at a bridge.
Stragglers are gathering round, anxious to satisfy curiosity about
the nature of the search; also anxious to impart information about
its object, whether possessed of any or not. Willingness to further
the public interest, without any qualifications of data to go upon,
is often a serious hindrance to the end in view. In this case several
casuals, who have _not_ seen a man in his shirt-sleeves, without ne'er
a hat on, go by, are so anxious to mould the particulars of something
else they _have_ seen into a plausible substitute for information
about the said man, that the necessity for hearing enough of their
evidence to reject it becomes an obstacle trying to the patience of the
searchers. It seems injudicious to snub a volunteer informant who see
a party go along the road in the opposite direction rather better than
an hour ago, with a sack over his head and shoulders, who "might have
been a dorg-fancier, to look at, in the manner of describing him," and
to tell him to shut up if he can't go any nearer than that; not only
because this drastic treatment may discourage other informants who
have really something to tell, but because, being put on his mettle,
he proceeds to adjust his evidence to the facts, so far as he can
ascertain them. He removes the sack from the head of his recollection,
makes it walk the other way at any acceptable time; won't undertake,
now you ask so partic'lar, that it hadn't shirt-sleeves, and surrenders
the dog-fancier in favour of any vocation you are inclined to put a
leading question about. In like manner, a party sim'lar to you describe
come straight--according to other proffered testimony--acrost yarnder
open ground to this very self-same spot, and so forrard over the bridge
to'ards the Princess Charlotte down the lane, and went in at the bar.
But the photographic likeness of this person to any description you
choose to give of the man sought for fails to establish the identity of
the two, as he was seen on the previous day, maybe about dinner-time.
Compromise is impossible; the informant stands committed to yesterday,
past recall.
But the track on the snow is lost--that is the one fact clear. Give
it up and go back?--is that the only course open to us? Not when the
chase ends so close to a canal-lock. True, the footsteps do not go to
the edge, but only because a wind-swept skirting of brick pavement is
clear of snow. The last one is none so far off the stone curb, above
the water. Look down into the empty lock, and think!
The parson and the doctor represent intelligent speculation; the
policeman, official reserve ready to listen to information and compare
it with his pre-omniscience; the gathering crowd of early workmen, the
uselessness of defective reasoning powers brought to bear on insoluble
problems.
After a moment the parson speaks to the doctor: "The ice is broken over
there--just where the water is running in."
"Are you sure?" asks the doctor. "Isn't it only the wash of the water
melting it off? But your eyesight is better than mine, I expect."
"No, there's a broken edge. The water-wash would scoop and leave a
curve."
"What do _you_ think?" the doctor asks the policeman, who replies
briefly: "Gentleman's right, perhaps. Worth trying, anyhow!...
Now then, some of you, idling round, I want that bit of ice broke
up--against the lower gate. Look alive now!... Yes!--a couple of planks
and a short ladder and a yard or so of scaffold-cord. Get 'em anywhere
round! I'm answerable. Never you mind what anyone says--just you take
'em!" And the leading casuals, probably labourers on the building job
down the lane, are off at a trot to requisition planks and cords. But
not without establishing a slight collateral grievance, in the manner
of their kind: "You've only got to _name_ what you want, and we'll
_get_ it fast enough. Who's to know what you're askin' for, exceptin'
you speak?"
Athelstan Taylor's surmise of course was that Uncle Bob had ended his
run by falling into the lock at the upper end, where the ice was thin;
and, breaking through it, had passed below the thicker ice, where he
remained--probably jammed against the lower gate, which was closed. He
noticed that this conjecture was at once accepted, but that no living
soul of all those present referred to it in words. Silence is kept
about it, but for a word between himself and the doctor, even till
after the planks and cords and ladder have come, and the planks are
laid athwart the sounder ice at the lower gate. One man can stand on
them safely without fear of its giving--perhaps two. But one can break
the ice with a pick fast enough, as soon as he can get at it. Hand him
down a shovel to clear the snow a bit!
The parson is feeling sick at heart with his long night's vigil, and
as though he could hardly face the dreadful end. He shrinks back, not
to see more than he need. Then from the depths of the lock comes the
crackling sound of the ice that breaks beneath the pick. Then the
tension of the growing excitement as those on the brink watch for a
result they feel confident of.
"Nothing there?"... "Nothing that side."... "Now you keep steady
across with your peck--right you are!--across the middle ... don't go
to sleep!... yes, now right up in the corner.... Something there?"...
"Ah!--easy a minute till I catch holt ... have that cord ready.... Got
him?"
* * * * *
"You are quite certain nothing can be done?"
"Absolutely certain. He was ready for heart-failure, without being an
hour under the ice."
"Will you tell the poor woman, from me, that I had no choice but to go?
And that poor baby...."
"Is there a baby?"
"Well--little girl of six then! Say I'll come at three to take her to
see her father at the Hospital. You're sure it's the same case?"
"Not the least doubt. A blind sailor beggar--there couldn't be two. You
know the wards at St. Brides.... Never mind--you'll find out.... What
is it, my good woman?"
It is a woman with a tale to tell. Briefly, that she looked out of
her bedroom window about an hour and a half since, and saw what must
have been the unhappy inebriate running across the field, looking
back, time and again, as if he see some party follering of him. Then
he come to the lock, and stood close over the edge--back to, as you
might say. So standing, he went wild, on the sudden, and threw up his
arms, and there!--he was over in the lock, afore you could reckin
him up like--clear over! Both her hearers are indignant, or perhaps
incredulous about the truth of the story. For if she really saw this,
why in Heaven's name did she give no alarm?--the man's life might have
been saved! She expresses contrition as for an error of judgment, but
no great remorse. She told her master--meaning her husband--who said
it was a queer start. But it was that early! The exact bearing of this
fact on the matter was far from clear.
"She'll have to tell her tale before the coroner, anyhow," said the
doctor, as he showed his companion a short-cut into his road home.
"Well!--now keep straight on--you'll be in the main road in five
minutes. I hope you'll get a good breakfast and a good sleep before you
marry those two sinners. Good-bye! Remember, straight on!"
For the Rev. Athelstan had told this gentleman of the binding
engagement that he had to keep that morning as _locum tenens_ at St.
Vulgate's. He had with difficulty persuaded a navvy to remedy an
omission in his duties towards the mother of his family, whom he had
never led to the Altar of Hymen; and the said navvy had consented to do
so this morning, and was rather entering into the fun of the thing. But
if the parson were to fail in his appointment, was it certain that the
delinquent would be brought to the scratch a second time?
However, he had still time for breakfast and rest before this
appointment was due. So he walked briskly on through the thick snow,
sad at heart, but wonderfully little the worse physically for his
terrible experience. And as he walked he shuddered as he thought of the
unhappy case of Alcoholism, flying over the spotless, virgin snow from
God knows what, to his death. "I suppose Simon Magus had got out, after
all, and was sharp on his heels," said the Rev. Athelstan, and then
added: "At any rate, I'm glad it was me, not Gus!"
CHAPTER XV
HOW LIZARANN WAS TAKEN TO MISS FOSSETT'S, BUT HAD A STITCH IN HER
SIDE, AND WASN'T TO GO TO DADDY TO-DAY. HOW THE RECTOR WENT TO JIM IN
THE HOSPITAL, AND JIM WAS DISAPPOINTED ABOUT HIM
If Lizarann had had no grounds for looking forward to a reappearance
of the curious New Policeman who had rescued her, she would have been
more on the alert about the events of the previous night that concerned
Uncle Bob. But she had no doubt her rescuer would come back. And this
anticipation, as well as the hopeful tone in which he had spoken of
Daddy's prospects at the Hospital, set her mind quite at rest about
everything but the thing which presented itself to her merely as
exaggerated domesticity. It was Uncle Bob, only rather more so.
Seen from her point of view, the events that had preceded Uncle Bob
were that Daddy had been in collision with a Pickford's Van, and had
suffered, but not murderously, from the accident; that he had not been
able to walk, because of his leg; and that he had been carried away
by well-disposed officials to an institution that promoted soundness
of wind and limb, and had even been known to make its _bénéficiaires_
musical. A child's mind knows no proportion; and the last item, which
was really a gratuitous invention of the boy whose name was not Moses,
gained credence with Lizarann slowly, and ended by throwing every other
particular into the shade. Further, she knew that Uncle Bob, considered
as an infliction, had been worse--for he was to her merely an endemic
disease that increased or diminished, like gout--and that he had run
out in the snow. Nothing abnormal in that; besides, the police, new
and old, had run after him, to say nothing of the doctor-gentleman
from the house with "Surgery" wrote up big, where you could get a
supply of medicine if you said where you come from, and took back an
exhausted bottle with a surprisingly high number on it, considering
its pretensions. And these events having passed muster as normal, what
followed was only natural.
Her aunt had shown at first dispositions to join the chase, but had
desisted in consequence of remonstrance from neighbours, who had begun
to be aware that history had been in the making during the night at
Steptoe's; he, though chronic the previous evening, having become acute
in the small hours of the morning. Mrs. Hicks and Mrs. Hacker, and
others, having trooped round the vortex of excitement, had counselled
Aunt Stingy to remain where she would be of some use, and not go
canterin' over the buildin' land with no object, in the manner of
speaking. Wasn't three plenty?
Jimmy 'Acker, told off to follow the trail in the snow and bring back
word if he see 'em coming, had come back uneasy and evasive, had
told contradictory stories about what he see, and had confirmed the
public belief in the untrustworthiness of boys. Questioned, during
ostracism, by his sister and Lizarann, his replies had been mysterious,
and his refusal to make them less so unintelligible. The expression,
"Just you wait and see if what I told you ain't k'rect," laid claim
to having said something, sometime; and no effort of his hearers'
memory confirmed his having done so. Other emissaries departed to get
information, and did not come back.
This state of uncertainty had been ended by the reappearance of the
policeman and the doctor, who climbed back over the fence followed by
straggling units from among those who had witnessed the scene at the
lock. Everyone can read something written about Death on the faces of
those who have just seen him.
"Now which of you women was this man's wife?" That was what Lizarann
had heard the policeman--the old sort; she looked in vain for her
glorious friend--say to wifehood within hearing. Whereupon Aunt Stingy
became on a sudden hysterical, and was helped, gasping and crying, into
the house. Lizarann wanted to go too, moved by pity for she knew not
what--for something folk were speaking under their breath about to one
another, not to her; nodding about, pointing about, to something past
or present, beyond the railway-arch; drawing morals about and referring
to their own foresight about. Then she had heard the voice of the
doctor-gentleman:
"Which of you youngsters is his little girl?... Hadn't got a little
girl, hadn't he?... Oh ah!--of course he hadn't.... I should
say--which is the little girl whose dad's hurt his leg and gone to the
Hospital?... Ah, to be sure!--Lizarann. Now, Lizarann, suppose you get
your bonnet and wrop yourself up as warm as you can and come along o'
me to Teacher at the School, just till Mr. Taylor comes to go to see
Daddy with you. The big gentleman?... just him, and nobody else. Come
along!" Which Lizarann did, with alacrity. Daddy was in view again.
Then had come a very pleasant phase of what had really seemed more a
dream than a reality, all along, to Lizarann. She had found herself
being fed and washed and dressed and generally succoured by Miss
Fossett, otherwise Teacher, at her private residence next door to the
School, after the departure of the doctor-gentleman who left her there.
She couldn't for the life of her make out whether it was good news or
bad news he had been telling Teacher under his breath. All she knew
was that she was somehow appointed to go to Daddy in the Hospital,
and that nothing else mattered. Even had she known the tragedy of the
morning, it would only have been the fact of Death that would have
appalled her--not the loss of the man who died. Practically, the grave
was already closing over the remains of Uncle Bob, or the chief part
of them. Decision on that point scarcely rests with ignorance though;
who shall say that even Alcoholism can efface a soul? Nips won't,
however frequently took; a germ always remains. At least, that is our
experience, or an inference from it.
It is always pleasant to feel at liberty to over-indulge a child,
and Miss Fossett, a good-natured woman that might have married--that
describes her--interpreted something the doctor had told her about
Daddy as a licence to do so in this case. So Lizarann enjoyed herself
thoroughly--may almost be said to have been pampered--in the interval
between the doctor's departure and the arrival of the Rev. Athelstan.
When the latter came, as promised, Miss Fossett had said something to
him with concern, under her breath, and he had replied in a strain as
of reassurance, to judge from his tone: "Never you mind the doctor,
Addie. Like enough he was mistaken. Besides, he said he thought they
might save it." Which, half-heard by Lizarann, only left an impression
on her mind of the hospital staff on its knees hunting in the gutter
for poor Jim's takings in coppers, spilt from his pocket last night
when he met with this accident. Also at the moment Lizarann was doing
some arithmetic by herself, _hors de concours_, and honestly believed
she was conferring a real kindness on Teacher by adding up rows of
figures for her. She would have done them quicker, only she had to stop
to lick and rub out each carried cipher after writing in the next one.
Also, when she got the values wrong in an eight, which is difficult,
she had to rub it out and do it all over again.
"Lizarann says two and two make four, but fifteen and twelve don't make
twenty-seven." Lizarann thought Teacher said this rather maliciously.
But she was prompt in self-justification.
"Not of theirselves. Not till you do them in a sum. Like this...." And
she did it.
"Quite right, Lizarann! Of course they don't. But two and two will
make four if you leave 'em alone ever so. Isn't that it?" Thus the
gentleman--a sympathetic soul!
"Yass!" And the little woman felt that justice had been done. But she
didn't know why maturity should laugh, as it did.
"They may save it, of course," Miss Fossett continued. "I don't see
what's to be gained by taking the child to the Hospital, myself. Only
make her miserable! It won't be half as bad if it's a wooden leg and
he's up and well, as seeing him in a hospital ward. Besides, Dr. Ferris
said he couldn't be certain they'd let you see him."
"I fancy they would. I know a man there who would manage it, regular
hours or no!"
"I don't mean that. I mean it might not be safe for the man himself.
Just think!--suppose they have had to amputate both." Of course
Lizarann heard none of this. They were in the next room, having left
her engaged in arithmetic.
"Yes--he may be betwixt life and death. After all, we know nothing.
When did Dr. Ferris say he would be at the Hospital? Is that the child
coughing?"
"Is that you coughing, Lizarann?" Teacher raised her voice to ask, and
Lizarann replied that she had "a stiss" in her side whenever she licked
the slite. She licked it to try, and the experiment was crowned with
success. She then tried to readjust something out of gear inside her
by short coughs and wriggles. This did not seem so successful. Teacher
lowered her voice again: "Mucous membrane," said she, "or muscular."
"Very likely. She's had a deal of exposure though, snow and all. Let's
keep our eyes on her." But Lizarann didn't cough again, that time.
Nevertheless Miss Fossett seemed not quite easy in her mind about
that cough, and when Mr. Taylor remarked that he ought to be thinking
about starting, if we were to get to the Hospital by four o'clock, she
said--only she pretended it was quite a sudden idea of hers--that if
she spoke the truth she would really be much happier to have the child
not go out of doors in all this terrible cold and slush. For it was a
thaw, and an enthusiastic one; and, you see, Miss Fossett had come by
her knowledge of mucous membranes and so forth in a sad curriculum of
two courses; one of nursing a sister through phthisis to death; and
the other, which was incomplete, of doing the like at intervals for a
brother, with only a poor hope that it would end otherwise. So she knew
all about it.
"I really should feel easier, Yorick," she repeated. And Lizarann
looked up from the slate to see who else was in the room, that Teacher
could be speaking to. But seeing no one, and being a sharp little girl,
she perceived that it was her friend the gentleman that was addressed.
Only, of course, she couldn't guess that it was a sort of nickname,
given, years ago, to her brother's schoolfellow by her friend the lady.
"_I_ should, a good deal. It's not the right sort of day at all for
little girls with coughs. How shall we console her?"
"_You_ must."
"I suppose I shall have to, Addie. I always have to do all the dirty
work." This metaphor distracted Lizarann's attention from two uneven
numbers, one of which had to be took off the other and wouldn't come
out right. Did the New Police scrub underneath the beds, clear the
flues of sut, scour out the sink, and so on? Impossible! He went on:
"Look here, Lizarann! You're a good little girl, aren't you?"
"Yass!"
"And you're not going to cry--that's about it, isn't it?"
"Ye-e-e--yass!" She is not quite so confident about this, but will
conciliate public opinion to the best of her ability.
"Well, Lizarann, the doctor says we mustn't see Daddy till--till a
day or two." The small face clouds over pitifully. The disappointment
is bitter. But Lizarann won't cry--well!--not _yet_, anyhow. Yorick
continues: "I shall go to the Sospital to hear about Daddy, and come
back and tell. But you mustn't go yet, because it would hurt Daddy." He
conceals his consciousness of the background of tears to the child's
Spartan resolution.
"You'll see it will come, though," says Miss Fossett, saying good-bye
at the street-door. "She'll have a good cry about it when you're
gone.... But oh dear!--what a lot of stories you have told that child,
Yorick."
"Of course I did. You put it on me, Addie, and then you sneak out! _I_
call it mean. But oh dear!--what a lot of stories one does have to tell
children!"
"You never tell them stories about anything you think serious. I know
you don't."
"Yes, I do. I tell them as matter of knowledge what I know to be only
matter of belief. They wouldn't believe it if I didn't say I knew it."
"But _you_ believe it?"
"I do. But I don't know it. Good-bye, Addie! I shall keep my promise
about the Hospital, though, and bring the news back. Cosset over the
little woman and console her." Which Teacher really did to the best of
her ability, but the fact is that though Lizarann was brave, she was
inconsolable. And--what was bitterest of all--she felt that faith had
been broken with her; which, coming home too late to Miss Fossett, made
her think that it might have been better to tell a child of Lizarann's
character the real reason why she wasn't to go to Daddy. It was a
doubtful point, though. Besides, it was far from certain, after all,
that she could have seen Daddy if she _had_ been taken to the Hospital.
It would have been the worst result of all to fail in that, and have
all the exposure for nothing.
So the Rev. Athelstan--or Yorick--certainly thought, as he started
to walk to St. Brides, meaning to avail himself of a townward-bound
hansom if one should overtake him before he got to the tram. Omnibuses
were all full, apparently, inside and out; and the opportunity of
enjoying a rapid thaw was open to those who had for three weeks been
praying for one. Streets overwhelmed with insufferable slush, and what
was beautiful clean snow only a few hours since turned to torrents of
an inkiness defying explanation. Roads that made even the sufferer
by the slides we so enjoyed the making of in the early morning wish
that he, too, was on our side, and could benefit by them, and knock
double-knocks on them and never tumble. And see them now, turned to
mere ill-mixed morass--floating pea-soup ankle-deep! Scavengers'
carts that seemed to spill more than they removed, and persons of low
ideals of energy losing sight of the objects for whose attainment
they had been entrusted with brooms and rakes, and contented to do
nothing particular with them, in rows. Malignant persons on roof-tops
discharging wicked accumulations on unsuspecting heads, and shouting
out "Be-low!" at the moment of impact. Butchers' carts coming as
close to you as possible, to splash mud in your mouth and inside your
collar, and reaching the horizon long before you become articulate to
curse them. And then that saddest of all depressing sights, the skater
who has been warned off the ice that won't be dangerous for another
hour at least, and is going home swinging his skates and doubting the
benevolence of his Maker.
So onward, through abating suburb and increasing town, to the zone
of the Effectual. Of impatient carts that won't wait for the snow to
thaw, but snap it up and carry it away without offering to account for
their conduct; of mowing-machines fitted with Brobdingnag revolving
hair-brushes that will have to be washed now to be put to their proper
use again, after sweeping up all that equivocal mess parallel with the
kerbstone; of turncocks looking happy from human appreciation in great
force, and alone able to cope with obstructions or relaxations in the
bowels of the earth whose nature we outsiders can only dimly guess at.
So travelling onward, on foot and by tram, the Rev. Athelstan arrived
at his destination, and slipping the fare he had provided for the cab
he had discarded into the contribution-box at the gate, entered St.
Brides Hospital.
"I didn't know you were in these parts, Taylor," said his friend, the
House Surgeon. "Haven't seen you for a century.... Yes!--I know I am
right. It's two years next Lady Day. How's the family? How's Miss
Caldecott?... all right, are they? That's well. Now let's have a look
at you. Turn round to the light...."
"I'm all right."
"Didn't say you weren't. Let's have a look! Turn well round and show
yourself ... h'm!"
"Well!--what's the matter?"
"I thought as much! You've been dissipating, my man. _Your_ sort of
dissipation! What was it this time? You've been up all night, my good
sir! It's no use your trying to deceive me."
"'I will not deceive you, my sweet!'" Mr. Taylor quoted Mrs. Gamp,
and was understood. "I chanced upon a bad case of _delirium tremens_
threatening its lawful wife with a knife, and I stayed to see it out.
Poor fellow!"
"H'm--why poor fellow?"
"Because I locked him up and went for the doctor round the corner.
He said he knew you. Man of the name of Ferris. Good sort of little
chap...."
"I know him. Saw him yesterday--came to see a patient here. Well!--what
did he say to your man?"
"He never saw him alive. While I was away the poor fellow escaped
out of the room, ran a mile and a half through the snow, and pitched
himself into a canal-lock.... Oh yes!--he was fished out dead from
under the ice...."
"Rather a good job, I should think.... However, perhaps I oughtn't to
say that...."
"Glad to hear you say so, Crumpton! It sounds hopeful."
"I didn't mean that way. I meant he might have been an interesting
case. Anyhow, there's an end of _him_!"
"I wish I could think that. But suppose I tell you what brings me here
now: we can quarrel about the human soul after. I want to hear about a
man that was brought in yesterday night, a blind sailor-beggar that was
run over. Have you seen him?"
"Rather! I helped to get his leg off, just above the knee. A very good
case--a very good case!"
"What does that mean!--a very good case?"
"Means that if the limb hadn't been taken off on the nail, septic
poisoning might have set in--yes!--already!--By the merest chance
Brantock was here when he was brought in--he's our visiting
surgeon, you know--and he operated immediately.... Save it? Not a
chance--arteries all torn--circulation stopped--nothing for it but
the knife! The other leg we may save. He has a splendid constitution.
Couldn't have kept him so long under chloroform else."
"The other leg?"
"Compound comminuted fracture of tibia and fibula, with extensive
laceration of soft parts. Much extravasation. But vitality retained. Oh
yes!--we may save that one. It's in plaster of Paris. He was removed
into the surgical ward an hour ago. Do you want to see him?--he can't
talk, I fancy, and he'd better not try. He's had a good deal of opium
to allay pain, you see."
"_May_ I see him? I should like to say I have to his little girl.
Poor child! The _delirium tremens_ case was her uncle, and she has no
mother. She's the poor chap's only child."
The House Surgeon put a book he had been looking into as he talked,
inside a desk and locked it; wrote with extreme rapidity on half a
sheet of note-paper as people write on the stage; handed it to a chubby
nurse who seemed to have been indulging optimism while waiting for it;
remarked to her, "That's three hundred and forty-nine. I'll see about
the other presently;" and said to the Rev. Athelstan, briefly, "Come
along!"
* * * * *
Poor Jim was worse now, as far as his own feelings went, than when he
spoke to Lizarann off of the hospital-barrer. _Then_ he was, in his own
eyes, a chap that had been knocked over and come by some damage to his
legs, which a week in hospital would set right. Pain enough!--ah, to
be sure!--and what might you expect? Not for to lie up in cotton-wool
all the days of your life. As a Spartan, and as against pain, with the
normal courage of his healthy hours upon him, Jim was matchless. Add
to that, that when he said those few words to his little lass, all
the pain was as nothing in itself, measured against the need that she
should not know it.
It was that nasty suffocating stuff that knocked all the heart out of
a man, getting at his innards and stopping his clock. For when the
time came to shift Jim from the couch he was first laid on to the
operating-table, and to place him under chloroform as a preliminary,
he was conscious enough of much that was going on--had drawn his own
inferences from the rapid undertone of consultation ending in a raised
voice: "Perfectly useless to try for the left. May save the right!" In
that instant he gave no thought to his own share in the matter; all
he could think of was the coming of the knowledge to his child that
her Daddy was legless as well as eyeless. Three things made up his
universe--his little lass, a crushed and spoiled thing on a couch, and
that mysterious thing, Jim's Self, independent of both, but mad with
anxiety for the former--until the chloroform came and made all three
things Nothing.
However, Jim never knew he was Nothing, because he had no sooner
swallowed the nasty stuff into his lungs than he was feeling very bad,
and sick-like, on a bed he had never been moved to at all, to his very
certain knowledge. And he was able to guess, although he could not
move his limbs to test it, that he was in the form in which he was to
fossilize. Then, as the slow rally of a splendid constitution against
the shock began, there grew with it an intense longing to know what
manner of figure he was going to cut when reinstated. Would it be one
wooden leg or two wooden legs? Would he be able to walk at all? Would
he, in short, be in trim to persuade his little lass that he was on the
whole rather better off than before his accident? He really thought
of nothing else when awake. But he chiefly slept, rousing himself for
dexterous doses of nourishment at short intervals. And when he slept,
he dreamed, as folk dream whose pain opium has half quenched.
He would have done very well in his dreams if he could only have had
them to himself, and been free from an awful _something_ that ran
through them all. Whereof the only certainty was that it was always the
same, and a curse. Preferably, as to form, it was cubic and immovable,
but of hideous weight. But then, it was by no means certain that it
was not a continuous sound, a sustained hoot of appalling power and
persistency that struck terror to the heart, and jarred the brain. Or
was it a wild beast, that kept the ship's crew from going ashore? Or
an evil fire Jim was hard at work to crawl away from, but could not,
seeing that it could follow him on wheels? Or, hardest to describe of
all--when he woke from his dream to recognize a fact he had recognized
fifty times uselessly, that it was merely his pain and nothing
else--was it a strange concerted action of malignant battalions,
always coming nearer, never in sight? It made him sick to know that it
was each and all of the others, just the same. Now if he could only
have enjoyed his dreams--for, look you, he could see in his dreams,
plain--he wouldn't have minded the pain, if he could only have kept it
square and intelligible. It was just the confusion that made him so hot
and dry, so unable to get properly _rangé_.
For instance, there was a dream of eight years back with Dolly in it.
Dolly was Lizarann's mother, and the reason Lizarann was not called
Dolly was that Aunt Stingy had always thought it such a _selly_ name,
and it had appeared to Jim that it couldn't much matter what anything
so small was called. Its size was all he knew of it, and a milky
flavour, and some squeaks. And Jim was in the dark, and Dolly in her
grave, and nothing mattered.
Jim was in the dark now, with a vengeance; but he could dream Dolly out
of her grave, and did it, in this dream. It was a dream of the day he
met her, when he came off his first voyage, a mere boy, and a perfect
stranger to her. There was the bar he and his mates off the _Pera_ had
trooped into for refreshment, just paid off and feeling good, with
money in their pockets. There were the square bottles with names on
the glass, and the round ones all over labels, and the pump-handles
in a row that Dolly's red-faced cousin Jane, the barmaid, was in the
confidence of, but which everyone else would have pulled wrong. There,
too, was the girl that came in behind the bar and berthed up alongside
the red-faced cousin, just as Murtagh O'Rourke called back to him
through the swing-door, "We're lavin' ye behind, James, me boy," and
vanished. And the girl was Dolly--Dolly herself. Jim didn't know in his
dream that he had married Dolly since, and that she was dead--not he!
It was all new and young again, and in a moment he would hear Dolly say
what she did then, when after some chat--during which the eyes of each
saw the other solely, Dolly's flinchingly, Jim's greedily--the red face
was called away and left them. Yes!--he knew what she would say, "You
never daren't come across to me," and that he in defiance of all Law
and Order would be over that bar like a shot, and then would be driven
forth by the righteous rage of the returning barmaid, with the remains
of a kiss on his lips, the spoil of war in this audacious enterprise.
And all the sequel of the story--how Dolly ran after him to say he
might come back, under reserves; and the lightning speed of their
unsophisticated courtship, under none--all this he knew in the dream
beforehand, but did not wonder why he knew it--took it as a matter of
course.
It never came off, though, for the dream never got as far as the kiss,
to Jim's bitter disappointment. Jane, the cousin, instead of clearing
out and leaving the introduction to nature, swelled and became redder
still and very hot, and ended inexplicably by becoming the pain that
had passed through so many vicissitudes. Whereupon Jim was awake in
the dark, somewhere. And a man's voice, one good to hear, was saying,
"I'll sit down by him and wait till he wakes, nurse. I promised little
Lizarann I would see him."
"That's my little lass!" said Jim faintly. And the nurse said, "I
thought I heard him speak." Then Jim felt that a big man came and sat
beside him, who asked him what he had said. So he repeated, "The name
of my little lass at home, master," and then had said all he could,
and went off again in a drowze, and was far away in a new dream in two
seconds. In perhaps five he woke again with a start and said: "Have ye
been here long, master?" But his mind must have travelled quick from
the dream he was in, and his place in it. For he had to come back to
bed No. 146 at St. Brides Hospital from Singapore--from the hold of a
ship a Malay sailor had hidden himself in, after running amuck through
the decks, wounding right and left. And Jim and Ananias Driscoll, the
second mate, were the only men who would dare to ferret him out in
the dark, with a horn lantern and loaded revolvers, to use in earnest
if need was. And, mind you!--the fugitive might have put fire to the
ship, as lief as not, except they caught him. Now the bilge in this
ship, or something broke out of a cask in the hold, had a powerful bad
smell with it, that had a mortal strange effect on your legs. And when
Jim said so to Driscoll, a voice came that was not Driscoll's, and Jim
became aware that he was somehow in a trap, and woke just in time to
escape it. But the smell of that bilge was the pain of Jim's foot; for
the foot was there still, for all it had been cut off and carried away
in a pail. And the voice that had seemed Driscoll's, which was quite an
unnatural one for a sailor with earrings, and a crucifix tattooed on
his chest, was identified half-way by Jim's waking sense, and Singapore
had melted.
"Scarcely a minute," said the man who sat beside him, completing
Driscoll's speech. Which seemed incredible to Jim, after that affair
at Singapore. But he let it pass, the more so that at that moment the
nurse brought him something in a cup, which made him feel better.
"You was so good as to mention, master...."
"Your little girl? Yes--I saw her, an hour since.... Look!--I'll put
my ear down, close. Needn't try to raise your voice!" For Jim had
something he wanted to say badly.
"You'll not be mentioning any matters to my little lass, sir," said he
slowly. And then, as though he felt his words were a little obscure:
"You might chance to be saying something regarding of the matter of my
fut. Ye see, master, a young child don't take these-like things as
easy as we do, and my little lass's heart will be just abroke about her
Daddy's fut. I'd take it very kind of ye if ye'd make any sart of a bit
of contrivance like, only for a short spell o' deception, just till I
get the heart in me to make a game of it all. It's the chloroform done
it. A fair casuality don't knock all the heart out of a man...."
"Your little girl will have to know about it in the end."
"Ah!--in the end--yes! But then ... a wooden leg! See the difference!
Why, I can most hear the lass laughing at it." Jim paused a few seconds
to enjoy Lizarann's imagined hilarity, then added: "Ye'll keep it snug
about my fut, master? A stump's a stump, ye know."
"She shan't be told any particulars yet, Coupland. Don't try yourself
talking too much." For Jim's long speech has made his breath come
short, and his last words are almost inaudible. He submits to
listening. "The doctor has told me all about the accident. You'll
have to have a wooden leg. Let me tell you about Lizarann." The way
the speaker, whoever he is, accents the child's name, makes a family
friend of him at once. Jim, with a vague picture in his mind of a sort
of guardsman with quiet manners, moves his own big right hand, hot and
weak now, as it lies on the coverlid. It is taken by another as big and
the image of the guardsman is confirmed. Its voice suits the hand, and
continues: "We thought it best for her not to come--Miss Fossett and I
did. You know Miss Fossett, at the National School."
"Sure!" Jim's intonation acknowledges Miss Fossett, with approval in
it. Athelstan Taylor had made up his mind how much it would be safe to
tell of last night's work, so he continued:
"Your little maid and I made friends early this morning. I was passing
by your house, and she came running out. Her uncle had been drinking,
and his behaviour had frightened her.... What's that?" He stoops down
again to hear, and Jim tries for clearer speech:
"The Devil he'll take Bob Steptoe one of these odd-come-shortlies, or
I'm a liar. Only I wish he'd...."
"Wish he'd what?"
"Be alive about it--look a bit smarter! What was his game this time,
master?"
"He was drunk and violent, and I had to control him. He's quiet now.
I'll tell you more, Coupland, when you are stronger."
"Very right, sir!"
"I'll tell you now about Lizarann. I carried her off to Miss
Fossett's--with her aunt's consent, of course. The poor little woman
had had a bad time, you see. She wanted consolation badly after your
accident, and not being able to come to you. And her aunt's a good
woman, but...."
"She ain't that sort of good woman ... t'other sort!"
"Well, perhaps! Anyhow, I made her wrap Lizarann up, and trotted her
off to the School. Miss Fossett's got her there now, and she's in good
hands...."
"You mustn't spin it out too long, Taylor." Thus the Doctor's voice, as
his footsteps stop by the bed-end. He comes to the other side of the
bed, and lays his finger on the near pulse. "Magnificent constitution!
Everything in his favour! Splendid case--pity to spoil it! Give you
seven minutes more by the clock. Look in to say good-bye as you go." He
is gone, and Jim is conscious of the slight rustle of a nurse, on the
watch to pounce, hard by.
"I must tell you what I came for, Coupland. Of course I wanted to find
how you were, and take back word to Lizarann." Mr. Taylor has to speak
quickly. "But I wanted to ask something of you."
"Give it a name, master!"
"I wanted to ask your consent to our keeping her--I should say to Miss
Fossett keeping her--at the School till you are about again. She shall
be well cared for. I know I am asking you to trust...." He stopped;
Jim's lips were moving.
"You're the School-lady's brother, belike?"
"Not quite, but that sort of thing! Her brother and I were at College
together. He is doing my work in the country, and I am doing his at St.
Vulgate's at Clapham."
"That parson-gentleman--he'd be her brother. Him I heard cough?" For
the brother and sister, interested in Lizarann, had visited Tallack
Street, and interviewed Jim.
"Him you heard cough. That's it!"
"But _he_ can't do no work, poor chap!--not work in the country."
"My work in the country is the same as his in London. Only not so hard.
And the country air does his cough good."
"Oh, master!--ye never mean to say _you're_ a parson!" Jim's voice
rises with the poignancy of his disappointment. To him, every cleric is
the Rev. Wilkinson Wilkins, the spiritual adviser of Aunt Stingy.
"I'm not a very bad one, Coupland. At least, I hope not." There is
humility in the speaker's tone, and recognition of the aggressive
and objectionable character of Cures of Souls, but a germ of a
good-humoured laugh buried in it. The seven minutes are near their end,
and the nurse, considered as a rustle, is increasing. She means action
in a moment.
"I'll be your bail for that, master." But Jim cannot quite conceal
his disappointment. He had formed such a high ideal of his visitor.
Still, he can and does show his faith in him by spending the rest
of his available speech-strength on a few words of gratitude to
Lizarann's protectors, and assenting without conditions to the proposed
arrangement. But when will he be "about again"? The nurse throws eight
weeks, somehow, into her expression, without speech, and the forgiven
parson interprets for the blind man's hearing.
"Quite a month, Coupland. But I will bring your little girl to see you
the moment the doctors will allow me. Now, good-bye!"
Alas, poor Yorick! He had been so enjoying his company--company that
had neither respect for his cloth, nor contempt for his cloth, nor
indifference to his cloth; that, in fact, knew nothing about his
cloth--and rejoicing in Jim's free speech, that would have been cramped
here and crimped there had the speaker known he was addressing a
parson-gentleman. It was like stepping back into the old days before
he took clerk's orders; days when he was still uninsulated, still one
with his kind. And yet there was never a man with a more earnest belief
in his inherited mission to fight the Devil in any of the half-score
of Churches that look askant at one another, and waste good powder and
shot over the creeds their congregations shout in unison, knowing all
the while that one or more of the chorus may be--must be--uttering
a lie. Athelstan Taylor had donned the cloth he wore simply because
it was the uniform of his territorial regiment in the army that, as
he conceived, was being for ever enrolled in the service of Ormuzd
against Ahrimanes. In his enthusiasm to fight beneath the banner of
his division of the army, the Cross, he had ridden roughshod over a
hundred scruples on petty details; and the consequence was that his
most earnest admirers were often fain to shake their heads over his
lawless expressions of opinion on sacred subjects, and to lament that
Taylor, with so many fine points in his character, should be on vital
points of Doctrine so painfully unsound. It was an open secret on the
part of both Augustus Fossett and his sister that they prayed for
Athelstan; the former with a belief as real as he was capable of that
the wanderer would be guided; the latter with a practical misgiving
that a very large number of thoughtful persons had _not_ been guided,
or so many samples would not be to be found outside the Communions of
the English--and Roman--Churches. For too many of her brother's idols
had "gone over" for it to be possible to pool the latter in the sum
total of orthodox, heterodox, and cacodox dissidents. Of which last, in
connection with this brother's and sister's petitions to the Almighty
to guide Athelstan into their way of thinking, the one they preferred
to call Socinianism was the most poisonous and insidious. A creed
baited with mere veracities, to get a bite from the unwary!
As for Athelstan, every time he came to take his friend's burden off
his shoulders in London he felt more clearly than before how apt he was
to lose sight of even Ormuzd and Ahriman in a blind struggle against
the brutalism and debauchery, and filth and disease, of a London
outskirt well up to its date. Encouraged at first by the tidiness of
the last-built bee-lines of bricks and mortar, he had half hoped a
compromise was being found between purchasing a sense of Christianity
for the rich at the cost of indefinite multiplication of the poor, and
passing sentence of death on those unable to enjoy living on nothing,
or to give anything in exchange for something. But as soon as he began
to get behind the scenes his poorer parishioners were enacting, he saw
and heard every day things that had dashed his hope; and by the time of
the story had quite come to the conclusion that the small population
whose souls he was supposed to be looking after were as vicious as
the Court of Charles the Second, and so idle as to affirm the right
of male mankind to sixteen hours out of twenty-four to eat, drink,
sleep, and do nothing in--slight exceptions to the last, to nobody's
credit, being allowed for. Of course it was an exaggerated feeling on
Athelstan's part; one thing was that he could not reconcile himself to
the ubiquitous _foetor_ of the beer in which, speaking broadly, his
flock--who didn't acknowledge him as their shepherd at all--lived and
moved and had their being. Under exasperation, he thought of them in
that way ... and forgave them!
Miss Fossett interrupted a reverie to this effect, by saying to him, as
he arrived, after striding five miles in an hour through the slush and
drizzle: "I've had to put that child to bed."
"Hullo!--nothing bad, I hope?" What a damper! And he had looked forward
so to the small anxious face, and the consolation he was going to give
it. All his clients were not so nice as Lizarann.
"Dr. Ferris said he wasn't sure if it was pleurisy. It might be
pneumonia."
"Doctor's been, then?"
"Oh yes!--I sent for him. She's been poulticed ever since."
"Hope it's all a fuss about nothing."
"I hope so. Here's a visitor, Lizarann. Now don't you jump up!"
CHAPTER XVI
BREAKFAST IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. STRAINED RELATIONS OF TWO SISTERS. A
BATTLE INTERRUPTED. SAMARIA A GOOD-NATURED PLACE. WHO WAS TO PAY?
In a town-house of the Arkroyd order, a certain dramatic interest
attaches to the morning meal that is not shared by any later one.
Nobody knows who will come down to breakfast, except perhaps some
confidential lady's-maid; and _she_ won't tell, as often as not. So
that the knights-harbingers of fresh toast and tea and coffee can
always enjoy a little sport in the way of wagers as to who will take
which, and which of the young ladies will be up--or down, which is the
same thing--before ten. The pleasurable excitement which those who play
cards feel, before they pick their packs up and know the worst, is akin
to theirs, only less. Because the cards may be snapped up the moment
it isn't a misdeal; while the tension is prolonged for the watcher who
speculates beside a well-laid table as to whether the methylated will
last out under the urn till one of the ladies appears to make tea, or
will sputter and fizz and have to be taken out and refilled, and very
likely the wick too short all the time!
Lunch is different. People make a point of lunch, or else declare off,
and don't come home at all. Those who do not comply with this rule are
Foolish Virgins--and serve them right! Our own experience, an extended
one, points to the impossibility of being too late for breakfast. There
may be a case--but!...
Anyhow, the same human interest does not attach to the question of who
is, or isn't, coming to lunch. And as for tea, nobody cares a brass
farthing; because you can get tea somewhere else. On the other hand,
dinner is a serious matter, and you must make your mind up; and either
come, or not.
This tedious excursion into the ethics of Breakfast is all owing to
everybody coming down so late at 101, Grosvenor Square, on the morning
after the last chapter. The story is, as it were, kept waiting, and may
as well indulge in a few reflections. Samuel, the young man who brought
the chessboard at Royd, had to wait, and seemed able to do so without
change of countenance. He very likely reflected, for all that.
It may have struck Samuel, when Miss Arkroyd made her appearance first
of those expected by him, that when this young lady said, "Oh, nobody!"
on entering, she did not seem sorry, and picked up her share of the
morning's post from her plate to read nearer the fire quite resignedly.
It was getting colder again, and folk were pledging themselves not to
wonder if the wind were to go round to the north.
Judith looked at the outside of her mother's and sister's letters.
Sibyl's interested her most; and she looked them all through carefully,
numerous though they were. Why does one look at the directions on other
people's letters? So Judith thought to herself, as she got disgusted
with the monotony of the text on Sibyl's, and her inability to suggest
any emendations. She was very honourable, for she read nothing but a
signature or two on the numerous postcards. She was, in fact, only
acting under the impulse which prompts the least inquisitive of us all,
when we have undertaken to post a letter for a friend, to read the
address upon it carefully before we insert it into the inexorable box,
and feel inside to see that it hasn't stuck. Judith did not answer the
question she asked herself; yet her reading of the same address again
and again called more for explanation than that of the letter-poster;
for the latter may be put on his oath in the end, if a letter fails to
reach.
There were so many to "Miss Sybil Arkroyd" that she had become confused
over the spelling of the name by the time its owner's footstep was
heard on the stairs. However, she wasn't going to pretend she hadn't
been reading them. "There's one for you from Betty Inglis," she
said incidentally; and picking up her own letters from the table,
took them with her to read by the fire. It was a morning to make
the hardiest give in to the temptation of a hundred-weight of best
Wallsend, blazing. Judith enjoyed it; so much so that a sense of a
russet Liberty serge, baking, crept into the atmosphere as she sought
in vain for an inlet into an envelope cruelly gummed to its uttermost
corner. When will envelope-makers have compassion for their customers'
correspondents?
"You're scorching, Ju. Or you will be directly." So spoke Sibyl,
reading a letter attentively, and speaking through her absorption as
to a world without. "Who was that?... No--don't make the tea yet,
Elphinstone. Coffee for me. You're coffee, I suppose, Ju?..."
"Yes, coffee. Who was what?"
"Who was that in your cab last night?... Well, you made noise enough!
Of course I could hear! I'm not deaf." The letter is read by now, being
short, and Sibyl has come out into the world to hear the answer to her
question.
But Judith is deep in half-a-quire of illegibility, after an episode of
a fork-point, and some impatience. "It's an old dress," she says, and
then ignores Sibyl altogether for a term, in favour of the letter. Her
eyebrows had moved in connection with the cab-inquiry, up to the point
of detection by a sharp younger sister. "I had no cab, dear," she says
at last. "I came in Mr. Challis's cab." This is quite a long time after.
"Has Mr. Challis a cab?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Sib."
Sibyl knows, but has become absorbed in a second letter. So she leaves
her tongue, as her representative, to say fragmentarily, "Hansom-cab
off the rank," and then retires altogether into the letter for a
moment. However, she comes out presently to say, "The question is, was
it Mr. Challis? I suppose it was, though, or it couldn't have been Mr.
Challis's cab ... oh no!--I'm not finding fault. It's all perfectly
right as far as I'm concerned."
The respectable domestics have been in momentary abeyance, and the
conversation has been more suggestive than it would have been in their
presence. The reappearance of Mr. Elphinstone, with the gist of two
breakfasts, causes an automatic adjournment of the subject. The day's
appointments make up the talk, during his presence.
But so late was the quorum of the total breakfast--in fact, it was
doubtful whether two of the constituent cujusses would appear at
all--that Sibyl got ample opportunity for resuming the conversation
exactly where it left off, at least a quarter-of-an-hour having elapsed.
"It's all perfectly right as far as I'm concerned," she repeated. "As
long as Marianne doesn't mind!" The Christian name may have been an
intentional impertinence.
"There is nothing for Marianne to mind, Sibyl."
Sibyl changes her ground unscrupulously. "It doesn't matter to me as
long as _I'm_ not his wife. But a hansom-cab is a hansom-cab, and you
know it as well as I do."
"I know it, dear." Judith speaks serenely. The attack is too puerile to
call for resentment. "They try one's nerves and destroy one's skirts,
getting in and out."
Sibyl's style has not been worthy of her Square, or Mr. Elphinstone.
There was too much of the lowlier air of Seven Dials in the suggestion
that a hansom-cab would promote an irregular flirtation to do more
than provoke a smile. Charlotte Eldridge, even, would have condemned it
as the bald scoff of inexperience.
But there was more maturity and force in Sibyl's next speech. "I want
to know, are you going to tell the _madre_ about it or not?" Judith
flushed angrily as she answered her with: "I have told you, Sibyl, that
as soon as there is something to tell, I will tell it at once to anyone
it concerns. Mamma certainly!"
"How far has it gone?--that's what I want to find out."
"How far has what gone?"
"You needn't look so furious, Ju. Do let's talk quietly. You know
perfectly well what I mean. This talk about a trial-performance." The
imputation that Judith looked furious was a sporting venture. No doubt
she felt furious, thought Sibyl; and how was she to know she didn't
show it?
"I told you days ago there was no talk of a trial-performance."
Sibyl restrained herself visibly--too visibly for the prospects of
peace. After some thirty seconds of self-command, she reworded her
question mechanically. "The talk about something that was not to be
a trial-performance." The forms of the court were complied with,
without admission of previous lack of clearness. This was shown in a
_parti pris_ of facial immobility. A licked lip, a scratched nose, an
eye-blink, would have marred its dramatic force.
"You needn't look so stony over it, Sib. There's no mystery of any
sort, and I can tell you about it in three words. Alfred Challis is
anxious ... what?"
"Nothing--go on!"
"Mr. Challis is anxious that I should get up enough of Aminta
Torrington's part to give Mr. Magnus an idea.... No!--Sibyl. Mr. Magnus
is _not_ vulgar, and _I_ think him picturesque. He smokes too many very
large cigars perhaps, and they don't improve his complexion. But what
objection there can possibly be to diamond shirt-studs...."
Sibyl interrupted. "You may just as well tell it all out, Ju. What do
you mean by 'enough'?"
"What do I mean by enough? Do be intelligible, Dandelion dear!" Judith
is patronizing.
"I wish you wouldn't call me by that hatefully foolish name. Yes--what
do you mean by 'enough'? Does it mean that what Mr. Magnus has heard
of what you can do _isn't_ enough? That doesn't mean that he's heard
nothing. And you know he hasn't."
Sibyl is really no match for her sister in the long run, and perhaps
this is a sample of it--of a run long enough for her to get ruffled in.
Judith's forbearance becomes exemplary. "Listen while tell I you," she
says, imputing impatience, "what Mr. Magnus _has_ heard; and then you
can talk about it."
"Very well, go on!" snappishly.
"The suggestion came from Mr. Magnus. Alfred Challis ...
certainly!--it's his name. Don't be absurd.... Alfred Challis may have
talked to him--no doubt has--of my fitness for the part. And yesterday
between the acts he asked us into his room, and made us read one of the
scenes. Of course I was Aminta, and Alfred Challis was Moorsom. It was
where they meet for the first time at the oculist's at Vienna, in the
waiting-room...."
"Is that the kissing scene?"
"The kissing scene! Sibyl!--I'm sorry you read that manuscript...."
"You shouldn't have left it lying about."
"It was in my bedroom, child.... Well!--it certainly wasn't what you
choose to call the kissing scene ... but it doesn't matter. I don't
believe I should ever be able to make you understand how purely
_professional_ it all was. Mr. Magnus sat on the arm of a chair
smoking, with his thumbs in his waistcoat, and said that sort of
thing wouldn't go down with the public." Judith omitted Mr. Magnus's
reason, which was that it wasn't half "schick" enough, thick enough;
for it wasn't clear which he said, as his tongue interfered with his
articulation.
Sibyl listened, chafing. When no more seemed to be coming, she elected
to treat the communication as a confession forced from reluctant lips.
"You see I was right, after all," she said. "And it _was_ Mr. Challis
in the cab." The discontinuity of semi-accusation was bewildering,
and refutation hung fire for a moment. She ran on, giving her sister
no chance. "I really must say, Judith, that I do not understand
you at all. But you must go your own way. Do you suppose--can you
suppose--that _any_ member of your family would approve of what is
going on, if they knew it?"
At this point the fact that Judith is really much the cooler of the two
tells. "I don't know whom you mean, Sib," she says temperately, "by
_they_. No member of my family is plural, that I know of ... well!--it
isn't grammar, according to me. However, if you mean the _madre_, we
shall very soon see; that is, if the thing doesn't turn out a flash in
the pan. I shall tell her all about it at the proper time...."
"Meanwhile, hold my tongue, you mean? I'm not at all sure, Judith, that
any other sister in my place wouldn't at once tell her mother all she
knew about such goings on...."
"What are the goings on? I know of no goings on."
"I do. This visit to the back slums of a theatre, alone; I mean
unaccompanied by any other lady. The impropriety--yes! impropriety--of
the whole thing...."
"Please don't make a scene, with Elphinstone every half-minute, and
mamma just coming down. I never said we were alone. If you had asked
me, I should have told you that Mrs. Eldridge was with us."
"Who's Mrs. Eldridge?"
"A very nice person, a friend of Marianne Challis. Her husband's in the
Post Office. Madame Louise could dress her to look almost pretty, if
her complexion were better. And _propriety_--oh dear!--the very pink!
She rather bored me, in fact, because she wouldn't let it alone."
"And was this Mrs. Ostrich--or whatever her name is--satisfied?"
"Perfectly. She has known Alfred Challis since before his first wife
died, and has the most absolute confidence in him."
"I don't fancy your Mrs. Ostrich. Where was Mr. Challis's wife all this
time?... well!--this deceased wife's sister, anyhow."
"Sibyl! I won't talk to you. Marianne Challis was where we left her, in
the stage-box. I don't suppose she left it, but I didn't ask her."
"And then did she and Mrs. Ostrich go home separately?"
"Eldridge. Marianne Challis and she went away together. They were not
going home; Wimbledon's too far, where they are. I really don't know
where they are staying."
"I'm not curious. But you and Mr. Challis drove home lovingly in a
hansom, after acting lovers in a play! There!--you needn't fly out...."
Was it any wonder that Judith then lost her temper? For she had not
flown out. The insinuation that she would do so was based on Sibyl's
knowledge that she would have been perfectly justified in doing so. But
now, she did lose her temper, subject to that disguise of self-command
which tells for more than any outburst.
"You are taking too much on yourself, Sibyl. Mamma knows. At least,
she knows Alfred Challis and his wife. They have dined here, and we
agreed--mamma and I--to know nothing about the deceased wife's sister
business. It may even be false from beginning to end.... _Ask_ her, did
you say? I should never dream of doing so.... And as for your other
disgraceful--yes! disgraceful--speech just now...."
"Well--it's true! You _had_ been, and you know you had."
"Had been what?"
"Acting Moorhouse and Aminta Dorrington."
"That's not the way you put it. But I don't care about that. It's only
your silliness and inexperience makes you say these things...."
"What is it you do care about, then?"
"I won't submit to be catechized, Sibyl. But I'll tell you. I do care
about what the _madre_ thinks--and papa. And I shall tell _her_.... I
wonder who that can be?"
The "that" in question was a knock at the front door, one that
expressed confidence that it was at the right house, and even that it
would find someone at home--well-founded confidence in both cases.
For the Miss Arkroyds, listening for the identity of the abnormal
visitor--at ten o'clock in the morning!--only wait for a barely
perceptible instalment of voice and footstep to exclaim jointly: "The
Rector ... just fancy--what can he want?... In here, Elphinstone!" And
it may be neither is sorry for the interruption. How very frequently
a visitor is the resolution of a family discord! Judith, pale with
suppressed anger, recovers her colour. Sibyl's flush of excitement dies.
It is the Rector of Royd, no doubt of that! And something equivalent to
a breeze of fresh air, or the tide in an estuary, or the new crackle
of a clean pine-wood fire--but not exactly any one of the three--comes
into the room with him and his laugh. He has an effect that is
usual with him. The under-housemaid, who has passed him on to Mr.
Elphinstone, hopes she won't have done dusting when he comes out. Mr.
Elphinstone is seriously hurt at his having breakfasted three hours ago
and now refusing food, which would have promoted their intercourse; and
the young ladies are not sorry, on inquiry, to hear that her ladyship
is not coming down, but will have her breakfast upstairs, because
thereby they will have the Rev. Athelstan all to themselves longer.
However, they chorus sorrow which they don't feel about their mother;
and affect an equally hypocritical satisfaction at a probable
appearance of their father, which they don't believe in.
"You'll see papa will come in presently and say he never heard the
bell." Thus Judith, who shows her pack by adding: "Now do let's talk
and be comfortable till he comes." All right--_nem. con.!_
"I think you the most profligate and dissipated family in London and
Westminster.... Come nearer the fire? Not if I know it. Both you girls
are scorching.... Well now! What was it last night?"
"They went to 'Ibsen.'" Judith summarizes, abruptly. Sibyl says: "And
you went to the Megatherium," rather as a counter-accusation than a
contribution of fact. The visitor looks quickly from the one to the
other. Whatever he notes, he passes it by.
"I've been to 'Ibsen,'" he says, "and know all about it. The people
commit suicide. What was the other play?"
"A stupid thing. I really hardly made out what it was about. But the
author's a friend of the people I went with. You remember Mr. Challis,
Mr. Taylor? I brought him to tea at the Rectory."
"Of course. I thought him such a shy customer. But I met him after
that. We had quite a chat."
"Oh yes--I remember he talked about it to me. I'm afraid you found him
a great heathen."
"Absolutely." Mr. Taylor laughs cheerfully over Alfred Challis's
heathenism. "But a very good Christian for all that. I shouldn't say so
to the Bishop, though. He never came to church, and I wasn't sorry...."
"Do take care, Mr. Taylor. We shall tell the Bishop."
"... Not on his account, you know--on my own. He would have convicted
me of plagiarism. I took all his ideas for my sermon."
This was incidental chat, leading to nothing. Then followed inquiry,
overdue, about the Rector's establishment, especially his _locum
tenens_ at Royd, the reporting of whom brought disquiet to his face.
His hearers knew he was making the best of it; he was not a good
actor. This led naturally to conversation about his own temporary
_locus tenendus_ in his friend's behalf, and so to the miserable
tragedy of the drunkard's death in the canal-lock. Now it was well
over four months since either young lady had done any slumming in
the Tallack Street quarter: indeed, their visits there soon lost the
charm of novelty, so neither recollected its inhabitants off-hand.
The description failed to identify, until Mr. Taylor mentioned the
unhappy Uncle Bob by name, first heard by him at the inquest. Then a
recollection struck Judith.
"That must have been the man that said he was 'mine truly, Robert
Steptoe,'" said she. "How very shocking!" The horror of the story
of course increased tenfold the moment a _nexus_ was established.
Reminiscence, at work in Sibyl's mind, caused her to strike in upon Mr.
Taylor's continuation of his narrative; on which he arrested it to hear
what she was going to say. She said: "Never mind, go on!" till pressed
to take her turn first; then said: "Wasn't that the blind beggar and
the little girl--the same family, I mean?"
"Exactly. I was just coming to them." And then the Rev. Athelstan
proceeded with a full account of poor Jim's sad plight in the Hospital,
and of how the little girl had been a great source of anxiety to
Addie Fossett. He contrived to assign the whole of the activities on
Lizarann's behalf to that lady; having, indeed, a most happy impersonal
faculty of narration, which detailed the facts without his own
connection with them.
"They are really the reason of my coming here this morning," said he in
conclusion. "I dare say you have both been wondering what it was all
about. However, it's that. This poor fellow, Jim Coupland, oughtn't to
be allowed to sell matches in the streets. And although he makes a good
deal by what is really begging in disguise...."
"He makes three times what he would at any trade." Sibyl speaks
positively; she always knows things.
"But he's putting it all by for the child." The clergyman justifies
Jim, promptly.
"Please go on with what you were saying, Mr. Taylor!" Judith speaks.
"'Although he makes a good deal by what is really begging in
disguise'...."
"He might be dissuaded from it even if the loss of his foot--poor
fellow!--should make it more lucrative."
"I don't see how." This is Sibyl, naturally. The Rector makes a mental
note that she is always in opposition. Her sister says nothing, and he
resumes:
"You remember the story of the _asker_?" Sibyl remembers it with
a snap, and "Of course!--go on!" Judith, more slowly, thinks she
remembers, and then--oh yes!--she remembers now. The speaker continues:
"You know the child isn't seven, and doesn't the least realize about
her father. She has been indoctrinated from babyhood with a false
idea of some employment he has; he's as professional to her as the
turncock or lamplighter. But he--poor chap!--is most anxious she
should never know the truth. Yesterday he consented to not seeing the
child for another six weeks--although he's longing for her, day and
night--because he wants to spare her the knowledge of his stump. He's
convinced that a wooden leg will be a great joke between them, and is
devising shifts by which it may be concealed from his 'little lass,' as
he calls her, that it is ever taken off. And yesterday, after swearing
me, as it were, into the conspiracy for the child's deception, he
ended up with an earnest request that I would never 'let on' about his
being a 'cadging varmint.' I pointed out to him the utter uselessness
of the attempt, and that it must fail in the end, and that the longer
the knowledge is put off, the more painful it will be when it comes.
I suspect he would give it up, to spare her. But he would have to be
provided for, somehow."
"Have to be!" Sibyl's tone suggests impatient protest against Jim's
case being made a claim on Society. The whole duty of a Christian
includes a liberal amount of slumming; but it must be distinctly
understood to be Christianity, not bald equity. Athelstan Taylor didn't
feel analytical on the subject. He knew he would have "had to" cross
the road between Jerusalem and Jericho if he had happened to come up
before the Samaritan, or else that he would have been miserable all
night about the man that had fallen among thieves and come to grief. He
was like that at school, you see. Such an awfully good-natured chap!
Probably Samaria was an awfully good-natured place. Anyhow, he didn't
see his way to discussing the point this morning. He made a concession:
"Well--suppose we say it would be a pleasure to do it! You would feel
it so if you knew the child. Really that infant's pluck when that poor
madman was flourishing that horrible knife about...."
"But you didn't tell us about that." Both ladies speak. Indeed, Mr.
Taylor had slurred over a great deal of his adventure, merely saying he
was passing the house and had given what assistance he could, with very
little detail till he got to Uncle Bob's escape.
"I never saw such a courageous child in my life. Addie Fossett's
got her at the Schoolhouse now. She got a bad chill that night, and
we've been very uneasy about her. Perhaps we are both of us given to
fidgeting about coughs and temperatures and things. However!" This
isolated word expresses, as briefly as possible, dismissal of the
subject as material for depression, with retention of it as stimulus to
action.
Judith is only languidly interested. "What do you think of doing, Mr.
Taylor?" she says absently. Her mind is on the playhouse, yesterday.
"I'm not very clear about details, but if Jim will be tractable, and do
as he's told, there ought to be some arrangement possible. He admits
that he has some money in the savings-bank, and the Carriers' Co. that
ran over him ... yes!--I've seen the manager ... are inclined to be
liberal in the matter of compensation; and then there's...." Here a
hesitation comes in.
"There's papa, of course." Both ladies agree about their parent, as a
sort of _fons et origo nummorum_. Mr. Taylor had better talk to him
about it. Mr. Elphinstone, after thirty-five years in the family,
has no scruple about showing that he overhears conversation, and
subinforms Miss Arkroyd that Sir Murgatroyd is imminent. Pending
the baronet, the conversation is general, then drifts towards the
Great Idea. Sibyl becomes gracious--points with pride to a mountain
of letters on the subject that she will have to answer before she
goes out. Mr. Elphinstone has restricted them to a clear spot on the
breakfast-table, without presuming to fold or envelope. Miss Arkroyd
detracts from their glory. Most of them are from artists who want
to make designs for the cripples to execute, or from cripples who
can do nothing at present, but would take three-and-sixpence a week
during apprenticeship. Sibyl is indignant. The letters are the _exact
contrary_ of what Judith alleges. It is easy to sneer, but read what
Mr. Brewdover says. There's his letter! But Judith says she isn't
prepared to take up her parable on the subject--doesn't know enough
about the matter. No doubt it's all right! She withdraws an incipient
yawn, and Sibyl says something _sotto voce_, possibly that Judith might
just as well have held her tongue.
Athelstan Taylor, writing of this interview to his friend Gus later,
said: "I was glad at this point that the Bart. came in, apologetic--as
I didn't fancy having to make peace between those two girls. Why need
well-brought-up young women to be so quarrelsome--without the excuse
of Alcoholism? They are rather a disappointment--those two--they used
to be so nice as kids. I must say the old boy is my favourite of the
family still--he was quite exemplary about this poor sailor chap--said,
if _I_ was convinced, that was enough for him, and I had only to say
how much would be wanted. Her ladyship was very good too--do her
justice!--promised to come and see poor Jim at the Hospital; and I
think will keep her promise." He added a postscript next day: "Lady
Arkroyd's visit came off this morning, and passed off without ructions.
I was rather nervous, because her ladyship thinks it her duty to get up
a sort of theologico-ethico-moral-goody steam _because I'm there_--and
poor Jim is such a terrible and appalling example of theoretical
irreligion that I was on tenterhooks."
CHAPTER XVII
LADY ARKROYD'S VISIT TO JIM. GOODY TALK. JIM AND HIS MAKER. HOW MR.
TAYLOR VISITED ANOTHER CASE. A DEATH-BED CONFESSION
The reference to Jim's irreligious attitude, in the Rector's letter,
makes it almost incumbent on the story to give some particulars of Lady
Arkroyd's visit to the Hospital.
Athelstan Taylor, of course, came to his appointment to the minute.
He always preferred to do the waiting himself if he could spare the
time, and he usually found something to avert tedium. On this occasion,
seeing no sign, when he arrived at St. Brides, of the Arkroyd pair of
bays, or the dark chestnuts with starred foreheads--both well known to
him--he made short excursions into the neighbourhood, hoping each time
to just catch Lady Arkroyd on her arrival when he returned.
He made three such excursions, amounting in all to half an hour. The
first and longest was made so by his lighting on a fight between two
small boys, which he felt bound to interrupt. But not at the very
earliest; it was such a good fight, and the two pugilists and their
friends were enjoying it so. So he spun out his approach as much as
possible, and then pounced with, "Why aren't you two at school, hey?"
They looked at each other, and at him, as their friends did also, but
could not agree on a reason. Then they said, "Let's go down the lyne,"
and fled, carrying jackets, to begin again as soon as possible. Pursuit
down the lane did not seem to come into practical politics.
The second excursion was shorter, and he was sorry he could not spare
time for more conversation with a purveyor of tortoises, who was
offering them to the public from a truck. Why should the trade in
tortoises flourish in South London? Why tortoises at all? He could not
stop to learn; and when he found that her ladyship was still in arrear,
he started back to find the tortoise-monger, but failed to do so. On
his return this time, he thought it best to step into the Hospital
and get a few words with his friend the House Surgeon, to whom he had
sent a card overnight. It was all right, said that gentleman, about
the dressers. They had nearly done by now, and Jim's case had been
made a point of--was quite ready for visitors; nothing doing now till
the visiting surgeon came--in an hour and a half about. Mr. Taylor,
reassured, went out again to meet her ladyship, and presently saw the
carriage coming down the street. In a very short time he was telling
Jim he had brought a lady to see him.
"It's mighty kind of you, master. And it's mighty kind o' the lady. I'm
not so fit to see company as I might be." He did not mean he could not
see; for he always forgot his blindness. He referred entirely to his
uncourtly _entourage_.
"We mustn't trouble about that," said her ladyship, and really didn't
mean to be condescending. "I shall sit here, Mr. Taylor. Where will you
come?" _Here_ being the chair beside the bed. Mr. Taylor wouldn't sit
down; indeed, it was easier to stand, as long as Jim kept his hand,
which he did not seem inclined to let go.
"Tell this lady about your accident, Jim."
"Oh, do, please! I should so like to hear." This was true, and opened
up an avenue of respite to a feeling of her ladyship's that she ought
to say something good, if it was only about how we should bow to the
will of an All-wise Providence. She had got that ready in the carriage
coming through Old Bond Street, and had felt quite sure she should
think of something better presently, and hadn't succeeded. So she was
glad of a pause, to think in. Besides, it was interesting.
"There's none so much to tell about it, lady; you might put it all
inside of a minute, in the manner o' speaking. Ye see, I never see
this van coming along--never took note, I should say!--more by token I
was listening like to hear the voice of my little lass call 'Pilot'--a
kind of divarsion we make out between us, me and the lassie ... you'll
understand?..."
"I quite understand. Your little lass is the child I have seen at Miss
Fossett's Schoolroom. Little Eliza Ann."
"Belike you have, lady. She's Lizarann, sure! Well, this here van come
along in the dark, and there was I mazed like, by reason of not finding
the granite curb. It come with a nasty rush, and I had no way on me to
steer clear, set apart the want of sea-room. But I'm a bit uncertain
how it come about, there's the truth of it!" Jim paused, and felt for
an expression, probably one akin to loss of presence of mind; then
ended with, "In a quick turn about o' things, you don't easy come by
the time to get your considerin' cap on. But it was no fault of any
man, as I see it."
Lady Arkroyd saw an opportunity. "It was the will of Providence," she
said. There could be no harm in that, although her clerical friend
had cautioned her that Jim's mind was not an easy one to deal with on
religious lines. But Jews, Turks, Heretics, and Infidels innumerable
could have subscribed to this, surely. Jim only said, with the most
perfect simplicity: "I wouldn't wish to fix the blame, with any
confidence. It was just a chance, as I see it." Her ladyship did not
catch the exact tenor of the remark, and did not see the amused,
benevolent smile on the face of the big man who still stood looking
down on Jim, holding his hand as he would have held a child's.
The fact was that, on one of the two or three occasions when the Rev.
Athelstan had referred--but quite colloquially, and without any idea
of taking a mean advantage of Jim's helplessness--to the Almighty as
the responsible agent in the matter, Jim had taken up the theological
position that if God hadn't "cut in," he--Jim--might have been still
the strong seaman on the great free sea, might have actually _seen_
his little lass! Dolly must have died, of course--"my wife, seven
year agone, master," said Jim. "Because a many on us may die, any
time"--but that was another matter. At least, why need both his eyes
go? "Ah, master!" said he, when it was settled that if God had done
one job, he'd done the other, "why couldn't he leave me just no more
than a quarter-allowance of one of them--just for to see my wife and
the little lass together, what time there was for it?" Perhaps it was
part of the Rector of Royd's unsoundness that he almost lost sight of
Jim's anthropomorphism--the naïveté of his presentment of his Maker
as a meddlesome old plague--in the heartbroken voice that could still
speak about the eyes that could no longer see, about the child his
touch and hearing alone could tell him of. Part of that unsoundness,
too, maybe, that he resolved thenceforward to make no attempt to change
Jim's views, except by hypnotic suggestions, or their equivalent! No
crop could grow on land so foully manured! Better to leave it to the
wild-flowers for a season.
He certainly thought he saw an improvement of Jim's feelings towards
this strange deity of his conception, in this readiness to exonerate
him, or it, and to lay the blame on the metaphysico-religious
scapegoat, Chance. It was manifested in the tone of his voice,
one of willingness to spare even an author of mischief--maybe a
well-intentioned blunderer--and to find an insensitive back to
flagellate in his place.
"The merest chance, I am sure!" Lady Arkroyd welcomed the scapegoat,
and the Rev. Athelstan looked more amused than ever, under the skin.
The lady never suspected herself of any absurdity. "But Sir Murgatroyd
says the matter ought to be gone into, and proper inquiries made."
The Baronet had done so, certainly; but may be said to have been left
speaking, like M.P.'s when a reporter packs off an instalment of
shorthand _in mediis rebus_. "Of course, if there was any doubt about
the driver of the van being sober at the time...."
Jim showed anxiety on the carman's behalf. "He mightn't be any the
worse driver for that, lady," he said. "It was the sart o' night a pint
or so don't go far on, to keep the life in a man."
"Jim won't grudge him that much, on such a night, Lady Arkroyd. But Sir
Murgatroyd's quite right, of course! However, as a matter of fact, the
whole thing has been thoroughly sifted, and it seems certain drink had
nothing to do with it, this time."
"Not likely, master! Didn't the pore feller make a shift to get over
here a'ter work hours--took a night-turn all the way from Camden Road
goods station--so they told me--just for to hear the end of the story?
And the follerin' night? So they _said_, and I'm tellin' ye all I know.
In coorse, I never seen him, myself!"
"No--of course you could not." Lady Arkroyd's pity for Jim's blindness,
which _his_ speech ignored, is mistaken by him for regret at the
stringency of visiting regulations. The feeling of compassion in
her voice seems to him only man's natural resentment against rules,
interpreted by womanly sensibility.
"I'll see him one o' these days, lady," Jim says consolatorily.
Of course, he means in the days of the wooden leg to come, if not
sooner. Her ladyship, still conscious of the desirability of a
religious atmosphere, has some vague impression that Mr. Taylor has
been guaranteeing Jim eyesight on a cloud, through the whole of an
exasperating Sunday lasting for ever; and she makes up her mind Jim
could be read to out of the Bible with advantage, and of course
there were any number of people ready to do this sort of thing. She
will inquire about that. But Jim had really wanted to change the
conversation to a subject nearer his heart.
"My little lass, lady!" he said. "You seen the lass once, round to the
Schoolhouse. Happen you might see her again?"
"If I see Miss Fossett, Coupland, I shall certainly ask her to point
out your little girl. She may not be there, you know."
"That's so, lady. But supposin'! Any guess thing you might speak about,
ye know. So I was just thinkin', if you was to be so very kind as to
bear in mind...."
"Yes. Indeed I will, Coupland. Is there something you wish I should
say?"
"Well, lady, yes! And be very thankful to ye! Would ye be so very kind
as just say to her ... from her Daddy, ye know ... nothing at all
about any sort of an ill-convenience come of this here accident. Just
make it easy, like ... for she's but young, ye'll understand...."
"Jim means ... I know, Jim"--for Jim seemed about to interrupt the Rev.
Athelstan--"he means he wants Lizarann to think the accident a slight
one."
"Right you are, master!" Jim is much relieved, and his interpreter
continues: "So he wants her to know as little as possible till he can
walk about and make the least of it."
"Oh yes! I quite understand that. I'll be very careful and discreet."
"Not for to let on, anyways, about her Daddy being a fut the less!"
Jim's relief is enormous at the completeness of the understanding.
The conversation ran on, on such general lines as the diet of hospital
life--highly approved of--the sanguineness of the head-surgeon that
Jim would make a record in recovery, and the peculiarly small amount
of inconvenience endured (if the truth were known) by the wearers of
wooden legs. Jim was very cheerful about this. "Bob Steptoe, he'll lose
a good half o' my custom," said he, immensely amused.
At this moment an interruption occurred. A nurse who had passed through
the room a few minutes before rather hurriedly was returning, with
a slightly perplexed manner on her, as of one who had not found a
thing sought for. At the same moment another, who seemed a superior
functionary, came in from the opposite door, and they met and spoke
together in an undertone. Both looked round towards Jim's bed.
"I can ask him, anyhow!" said the senior nurse, and approached
Athelstan Taylor. She spoke to him rapidly under her breath, but of
what she said neither Jim nor the lady heard anything. When she had
finished, he said, "Of course, certainly!" and then, turning to Lady
Arkroyd, explained that a man who was dying in another part of the
Hospital had asked to see a clergyman, and that an unusual conjunction
of circumstances had made it difficult to comply with his request,
which was urgent. He might die any moment, the nurse had said, and
Mr. * * * was ill--he being, presumably, the usual resource in such
cases. Mr. Taylor was sure Lady Arkroyd would excuse him. But it would
be better for him to say good-bye provisionally, as no one could tell
how long he might be detained. Her ladyship would no doubt stay and
talk with Jim a little longer.
Lady Arkroyd was not sorry to do so. She had not quite come up to
her own standard of self-justification; having, indeed, a well-marked
conviction of her capability of doing anything she turned her hands
to, and certainly not least of affording consolation and help to
the distressed. Without cataloguing the instances, she had an inner
conviction of the existence of a class of persons who were sick, and
she visited them. She was a good-natured woman enough, and really
took sufficient pleasure in doing good on purpose, to make playing at
Providence a luxury, or at least to prevent its ever becoming a bore.
No wonder that on this occasion she felt a little damped, with nothing
further to her score so far than an undertaking on her part to hold her
tongue and be discreet, under specified circumstances.
"The master's coming back--the gentleman?" says Jim, as the door closes
on Mr. Taylor and the nurse.
"Oh yes!--he'll come back to see you before he goes." Jim has to be
satisfied with this. "You must try to keep quiet and be patient,
Coupland, and then the healing will go on quicker...."
"It ain't hardly impatience, lady." Jim pauses to think what it is.
"Not so much as the want of a good stretch. I'd be all right if they'd
take this here plaister off o' my right leg. It's a mighty thick
plaister, anyhow." Jim's slight movement is terribly expressive of
the irksomeness of his lot. The nurse in charge notes the fact, and
contrives such alleviation as may be--an alteration in the angle of the
couch, an adjustment of a pillow, a dose of some refreshing stimulant
that seems not unwelcome. "He's not the trouble many are," says she.
Jim seems a favourite.
Lady Arkroyd, left to herself, casts about for something to say which
shall neither be aggressively religious nor too cowardly a concession
to Jim's heathenism, of which Mr. Taylor has spoken freely to her.
After a few more words about collateral matter, especially about the
Hospital's veto on smoking--a bitter privation--she thinks she sees her
way.
"It is very hard, Coupland, and one can't help saying so. Only, of
course, it doesn't do to call the Wisdom of Providence in question...."
"What might that be, missis--lady, I should say?" Now the fact is,
Jim was not inquiring about the Wisdom of Providence--of which he had
heard before from Mr. Wilkins--but about the meaning of "calling in
question." The lady thought otherwise, mistakenly.
"I only meant," she said, feeling very unsafe, "that we know--at least,
_we_ believe--that events are Divinely ordered for the best."
"Ye know better than I do about that, lady," said Jim. And then Lady
Arkroyd thought he was an Agnostic. He had really only paid tribute
to her superior education. But it seemed to set him a-thinking, too!
For he added, after a pause: "If they'd a' been ordered for the worst,
maybe I might have had my barker-pipe." The word "Divinely" had not
carried his mind outside the Hospital regulations. Poor Jim had not the
remotest conception that he had shocked his lady visitor.
Nevertheless, she was shocked, and felt the case called for an effort.
But her own religious convictions--only she had been quite properly
educated, mind you!--were few and vapid. Her proprietorship of a
Prayer-Book, with a mark in the right place, nearly covered the whole
ground. However, there was always the Rev. Athelstan; she could make
him responsible, by indirect engineering, for any amount of belief,
whatever her own unprofessional laxity might be. So she assumed a
definitely religious air, and ignored Jim's unfortunate remark about
the pipe.
"I feel so sure, Coupland, that Mr. Taylor has told you, and will tell
you more, about Where to look, in tribulation for...."
"Sakes alive, Lady! _Me_ look!..." Jim, who had interrupted, stopped
suddenly, confused and perturbed at something. Her ladyship,
interpreting this as some protest of Agnosticism, now felt her
insufficiency to deal with the case, and only wished to transfer the
conversation elsewhere. She felt she had done her duty, in what she
would not have hesitated to mention in Society as "goody talk," when
she executed that superb _entrechat_, so to speak, of the big initial
W of "Where." She had done her duty, and had not succeeded. She would
be quite justified now in relaxing from the exalted serenity, tempered
with due humility, of a spiritual instructress, and referring to the
minor consolations of this earth. She ignored Jim's exclamation, and
continued speaking as though her last sentence had been completed.
"Besides, in a very little while you will be able to have Eliza Ann
back again, and really you'll be able to move about quite easily."
Jim laughed out--a big hearty laugh of contempt for any mere personal
mishap of his own. "I'll have the less weight to carry, sure!" he said.
And then her ladyship looked at her watch, and asked the nurse whether
that clock was right; who promptly replied that that clock was, if
anything, slow. Seeing the good effect of which, she went on to say
that it was slower still. However, this was not needed, for the visitor
was only feeling about for departure, which, in view of the possible
indefinite postponement of Mr. Taylor's return, was given up with
insincere professions of regret on the part of both, and Lady Arkroyd
took her leave, consolable, but with a noble sense of duty done.
"The master _be_ coming back, though, missis...?" Jim asks anxiously of
the nurse.
"Oh, yes, he's bound to come back, and you may make your mind easy."
* * * * *
When Athelstan Taylor and the nurse left the ward, they passed through
the avenue of beds in the adjoining ward without speaking, and into a
lobby beyond. Then the nurse stopped and spoke. "This is a bad ward
that we are going to. Perhaps I ought to have told you?"
"You are going there yourself?"
"It is my duty to go."
"And mine." They said no more, but no more was necessary. It was a
little way further that they had to go, through wards and passages; but
the circumstances did not seem to favour chat. Arriving at the door of
the ward, Mr. Taylor turned and said: "This is a man, is it not--this
patient--I think you said?"
"A man. The case developed in the hospital. He was brought in as sudden
paralysis. He has been here a month or more."
"Do they keep cases of this sort so long?"
"Not always. They kept this one. He had an epileptic seizure which was
followed by torpor. Dr. ---- thinks now that the disease has affected
the valves of the heart. He might die suddenly, at any moment. When I
told him so to-day, he asked to see the Chaplain, Mr. ----. He and all
his family have mumps."
A young doctor was in the ward, who said, "Is this the gentleman?" and
after "Yes" from the nurse, continued: "You mustn't be alarmed at our
precautions. We only take them in order to be on the safe side." The
precautions which, it seemed, St. Bride insisted on for all who should
enter a contagion-ward were a close overall of some germ-proof canvas
or linen, and thin, invulnerable rubber gloves. Mr. Taylor, as he drew
them on, shuddered to think how many a time, conceivably, they might
have been some wearer's only safeguard against a blasted life, and the
inheritance of a dire poison by generations yet unborn.
When he was safely attired in them, the young surgeon, as he conducted
him through the ward, said in reply to a question: "Oh no!--not the
slightest _danger_ from the breath. You may be quite happy about that.
Let Sister Martha put a little eau-de-Cologne on your handkerchief.
This is your man."
This! This semi-mummy that is little else than bandages! This thing,
at least, only manifested to us, otherwise, as an exposed mouth; or
what was a mouth and is an orifice, to be identified by two carious,
projecting teeth; or as the nailless fingers of an enclosed hand,
escaping from its wraps. This, it seems, is the Rev. Athelstan Taylor's
man, by whom he takes a chair the nurse brings him, as he thinks to
himself: "My man, thank God, not Gus's!" For his invalid friend might
easily have been here in his place, and could _he_--poor delicate
fellow!--have borne the awful flavour of this place, breaking through
all antiseptic spray and palliation of ozone, and making him, himself,
as physically sick as he is sick at heart? "Not Gus's man, thank God!
At least, a great overgrown giant like myself!" So he thought as he
tried to catch the words of the wretched remnant on the bed beside
him. They were audible only by him, as he stooped resolutely, brushing
all caution aside, and placed his ear close to the dreadful mouth.
It needed an effort, even with Sister Martha's benediction on his
handkerchief.
"What is my name, and who am I?" He repeats the whispered words as he
hears them. "I am Athelstan Taylor, a priest in holy orders.... Yes--a
clergyman of the Church of England ... yes!--I understand what you say.
You have something on your conscience which you wish to tell. Try and
tell me."
The nurse evidently thinks the man is dying, and may die without
receiving the Sacrament, which she has supposed his principal object.
She makes a suggestion to that effect. But Mr. Taylor thinks otherwise.
"Presently!" he says. "Let him tell his story first." The nurse
retires, and the tale goes on.
It was a hard tale to catch the threads of. But its hearer was able
to master the main points. The narrator had married, sixteen years
before, a very young and inexperienced girl, unknown to her parents,
who seemed to have remained in ignorance throughout. Even when he
deserted her, a very short time after marriage, she kept her secret
from everyone but a young clerk, a friend of his own, with whom, as
a natural consequence, the poor girl, apparently afraid to divulge
the facts to her family, became very _liée_. His story was obscure at
this point, the only clear thing being that, in order to shake her off
and remain free to contract another marriage, he had written a mock
confession to this young man; alleging, on grounds which the dying
man's condition prevented his explaining in full, that the wedding had
been really a fraud, and his statement that it was so seemed to have
been held sufficient by the girl. The friend, either convinced of its
truth or in love with the girl himself, had accepted it, or seemed to
accept it, as indisputable. Was it to be wondered at that, when she
returned to her home after an absence of some months, with nothing to
show that this concealed marriage had taken place, she had accepted
this young man as her lover, and married him with the full consent of
her parents? The narrator had clearly foreseen this, and looked to it
as a practical release from an encumbrance. His own subsequent career
had been one of profligacy and crime, some of his sins being, to all
appearance, far worse than this one, as such things are estimated;
one achievement having, in fact, procured him a long term of penal
servitude. How strange it seemed that now, with the hand of Death upon
him, he should feel the lighter offence an exceptional weight upon
his conscience! Yet so it was! And his hearer thought he could detect
the relief the confession had given him in the changed whisper that
followed the completion of his story. Mr. Taylor was glad that the
atrocity that sent him to Portland Island was not specially referred to
in the culprit's final inquiry--could he hope for forgiveness?
"I told the unhappy creature," wrote Athelstan to Gus, in the letter
he wrote that evening, "that his chances of forgiveness must depend on
the truth or falsehood of his own contrition, and I am afraid I had the
cruelty to say it with some severity. You know my severe manner. But,
then, it was true. I'm afraid, Gus dear, that I have hardly your faith
in the efficacy of my holy office, taken by itself. But these things
are awful to face. I had hardly time to fulfil my function as a priest
when the poor wretch breathed his last."
It was at that last moment that the need of the rubber gloves became
manifest. Just at the end, the dreadful nailless hand, moving painfully
about, and fraught with some sudden strength, had caught the healthy
one that lay near it on the coverlid, and drew it up to touch it with
the things that had once been lips. The young doctor seemed relieved
when he had himself seen the priest in holy orders well drenched in
water with strange suspicions of sanitation in it, after a heart-felt
lather of carbolic soap.
* * * * *
When the Rev. Athelstan came back to Jim's bedside, his face no longer
wore its cheerful aspect of an hour ago. In that short time his sad
experience--surely something more than a mere death-bed, such as his
daily routine of life brought him to the sight of so often!--had
changed it, and made him almost like another man.
"I'm martal glad ye've come, master," said Jim. And, at the sound of
a voice with a memory in it of the chant the windlass echoes when the
anchor leaves its bed in the sand, and the last shore-boat waves
God-speed to the ship set free, his hearer seemed to shake off some
of the gloom that oppressed him. "I'm martal glad to see ye back," he
repeats, "by token of the good lady."
Athelstan takes the hand that seeks his. "Why the good lady, Jim?" he
says.
"Why, master, the good lady she says to me, she says, did I know where
to look for soomat or other? Lard knows what! And I says to her, '_Me_
look!' I says, because I was thinking belike this drawback on my
eyesight might have slipped out of memory...."
"Not very likely, Jim! But if it did, Lady Arkroyd's recollected it by
now."
"Ye think so, master? But put it she hasn't! I'd be sorry she should
come to the knowledge late in the day. These here ladies, master,
they ain't a rough sart, like we"--this did not mean his hearer, only
himself and his congeners--"and she might easy get tender-hearted what
with thinkin' over. And _I'd_ never be the worse, bless you!"
"_I_ see what you mean, Jim." The light dawns; the speaker had been
till then in the dark. He has a laugh ready for it, as he adds: "You
thought the lady would be unhappy when she found she'd been talking to
a blind man about his eyesight? Wasn't that it?" That was it, clearly.
But Jim discerns a justification for his idea, when he learns that his
blindness had been fully talked over.
"There's just what I said, in that, ye see!" says he. "The lady
wouldn't be talking, not to hurt my feelings! Jim Coupland's feelings
now!... where are we at that?" They seem to be a rare good joke to Jim.
But there is material for regret in the background. "'Tain't a matter
to cry one's eyes out over," says he, "but a bit of a pity, too!..."
"What is, Jim?"
"If I'd kept a lookout ahead, I could have steered the good lady clear
of any fret about me and my eyesight. And if we'd only 'a known,
I might 'a told her the starry o' the Flying Dutchman--just for
entertainment like! A yarn's a yarn, master!"
* * * * *
Athelstan Taylor was puzzled on his way home by the curious selection
of a restless conscience as aliment for disquiet. But thinking back
on his own past, he found that _his_ disquiets had not been about his
mistakes that had most harmed others. Could he not remember his own
prolonged remorse, at five years old, when an overtwist brought off
the wooden leg of a minute doll, and he had the meanness to put the
limb in place, and leave it, sound to all seeming, for its owner to
discover its calamity? And how he _never told_! Even now, he wished he
had confessed. It was no use now! The sister that doll had belonged to
had been dead thirty years, and this tale he had just heard was, so he
gathered, well within the last twenty.
He was wondering that evening, after writing to Gus, whether his
friend, whose place he was so glad to occupy, would not have raised
some technical difficulty about the Administration of the Sacrament in
rubber gloves, when a note came from his friend the House Surgeon. Had
the man he had talked with given his name? It appeared that the name
entered in the list of patients was an alias. Probably he had several
aliases. But he had a right to be buried and registered under his last
one. A line by return would do. The letter made very light of the
matter--said the deceased couldn't have had any property!
Athelstan Taylor's reply was that the name given, as far as he could
hear it, was Edward Kay Thorne. He walked out and posted it himself,
as the servants had gone to bed. He posted at the same time his letter
to his friend Gus, to which he had added a long postscript about the
events of the day. "You need not think," it ended, "that I have broken
the 'seal of the confessional' in telling this man's story. He said I
was at liberty to do as I liked." He felt rather glad to have a sharer
in such a confidence. Then he went back to his comfortable library, put
coals on the fire, and sat up till one in the morning reading.
CHAPTER XVIII
THAT NASTY LITTLE STETHOSCOPE! A RETROSPECT ABOUT THE RECTOR AND MISS
FOSSETT. A TRANSACTION IN KISSES. AUNT STINGY'S WEEDS, AND WHAT A
GOOD COOK SHE WAS
The dead drunkard's funeral expenses had been made conditional on his
widow postponing her visit to the Hospital. No doubt the stress laid
by Miss Fossett and her brother's friend on Jim's unfitness to receive
visitors, was owing to their desire to justify this. It is fair to
say that the woman spent the money honourably on its assigned object.
She belonged to a class that expresses its emotions in the presence
of Death by the celebration of obsequies, just as much as Kings and
Princes--perhaps even more, considering its limitations. The classes
that keep funeral ecstasies in check are to be found half-way on the
human ladder, somewhere.
The object of using the power thus gained was not so much to conceal
the story of the drunkard's death--for it was soon clear that Jim
would not be injuriously affected by hearing of that--as to keep from
him that Lizarann was the worse for her exposure in the snow on that
terrible night. It appeared to Miss Fossett and the Rev. Athelstan--or
Yorick, as she always called him and thought of him--that a certain
amount of playing double was justified by the circumstances. It might
have been a very serious throwback to Jim to know that his little lass
was being kept away from him by anything but his own wish to be "on
his pins again" next time he saw her; and he held on so stoically to
his resolution not to see her till then that it seemed a very diluted
mendaciousness to say no more of Lizarann's health than that she
had caught a slight cold, and would be much better cared for at the
schoolhouse than at her aunt's--unless, indeed, Jim especially wished
Mrs. Steptoe to have her back. Jim didn't.
"She's such a nice little girl in herself, Yorick," said Miss Fossett a
fortnight after Lady Arkroyd's visit to the Hospital, "that one wishes
it could be managed." She was referring to a suggestion her ladyship
had made.
"Does one, altogether?" was Yorick's reply. "What was it she
said?--'Get her away from her terrible surroundings, and give her
a chance of doing well.' Our Baronetess is a good-hearted woman in
reality--with a little flummery--only she's apt to be taken in by
sounding phrases. This one would either mean taking the little person
away from her Daddy, or else getting _him_ away from _his_ terrible
surroundings. Who's to do it, Addie? You would shirk the task just as
much as I, if you knew Jim."
"But couldn't he be got away, too?"
"Well!--of course, I was thinking of that as impracticable at the
moment."
"But is it?"
"Why--no! It's only a question of money. Jim would be ductile enough, I
see that. I suppose I should be right in getting Sir Murgatroyd's money
used that way?"
"Certainly. He has twenty thousand a year. What does it matter?
One-pound-five a week is fifty-two pounds for the pound, and thirteen
pounds for the five shillings--one-fourth part. Sixty-five pounds! Oh,
Yorick, what _can_ it matter?"
"I don't know," says Yorick. He is one of those rare people who don't
think misappropriation of funds grows less and less immoral in the
inverse ratio of the one borne to them by the source of their supply.
"Well!--I _do_," says Miss Fossett. "Sir Murgatroyd can perfectly well
afford it."
There was time to discuss the matter, and Yorick and Miss Fossett
did so at intervals during the weeks that followed. Discussion of
any project favours its materialization, which often comes about
more because it is kept alive than in consequence of any agreement
on details among its promoters. The idea that "something would have
to be done" about Lizarann and her Daddy took root both in Grosvenor
Square and the neighbourhood of Tallack Street, and only waited for
Jim's wooden leg, to become a reality. It was taken for granted that
Lizarann's cough, which was really hardly anything now, would be quite
gone by then, and that her pulse would be normal. Six whole weeks!
Meanwhile Lizarann herself was not prepared to admit there was
anything the matter with her. She secretly regarded the whole thing
as a conspiracy to keep her away from her Daddy--a conspiracy somehow
fostered and encouraged by Dr. Ferris's stethoscope; but not one to
be denounced and rebelled against, because of the obviously good
intentions of Teacher, the gentleman, and the doctor-gentleman. It
wasn't _their_ fault! They were misled by that audacious little lying
pipe, which was no use either to play upon or look through, and yet
had the effrontery to pretend you could listen with it. Absurd!
Other forms of medical investigation she regarded as games, and
resolved that when she and her Daddy were back at Aunt Stingy's,
she was going to ply them gymes with Bridgetticks. She would listen
to Bridgetticks's chest with a hoopstick many a day when the spring
came, and weather permitted doorsteps. And _vice versa_; fair play,
of course! And she would get her down flat, and put one hand on lots
of different places on her chest, and thud it unfairly hard with the
other, and say, "Does that hurt you?" and make her draw long breaths.
She accepted diagnosis as human and lovable in benefactors, but still a
weakness, and a sure road to misapprehension in chest cases.
If it had not been for cod-liver oil, and restraints, and mustard
poultices that printed her small chest red, she would have regarded
the whole thing as a lark, especially in view of the banquets that
accompanied it. And was she not assured that Daddy was having the
same, only heaps more? The oil was the worst trial. It pretended to
be tasteless certainly, but that was mere pharmaceutical hypocrisy;
the bottles knew better, whatever the labels might say. Her first
hearing of the name of this nasty _elixir vitæ_ produced a curious
confusion in her mind, the revelation of which shocked Miss Fossett,
taxed Yorick's command of his countenance, and made the doctor chuckle
at intervals all the way home. For she recalled an occasion on which
the Rev. Wilkinson Wilkins had denounced "ungodly livers." Herein lay
great possibilities of misapprehension, and Lizarann was not slow to
infer that cod-liver oil was divine, as opposed to some still worse
abomination on draught in the opposite camp--devil-liver oil, perhaps!
The foregoing shows to what an extent Teacher had turned her residence
next door to the School into a hospital for the accommodation of this
case. The good-natured lady was always liable to get involved in the
fortunes of any of her young students, and though the present one had
no claim on her that a hundred others might not have had, she was no
doubt a lovable child, and her courage under trial had fairly engaged
the affections of the Rev. Athelstan. Now Yorick had always been an
idol of Adeline Fossett's from the day when he was first introduced
to her, a girl his junior in years, but older than he for all that,
as an Eton friend to whom her favourite brother probably owed his
life. She had been much in his confidence in the years that followed;
had been his great friend and adviser all through his Oxford days;
had sympathized with him in all his youthful love-affairs. Why it was
invariably taken for granted that he and she were always to beat up
different covers for a lifelong mate it would have been difficult
to say. But so it was, and so it continued, quite to the seeming
satisfaction of both. She remained his confidante during all the
hesitations and perplexities of his courtship of Sophia Caldecott,
while only giving a qualified approval to his choice; and when he
departed, beaming, with that young lady on a wedding-tour, she honestly
believed that her own burst of tears as soon as she found herself,
after the day's excitement, alone with her sense that the world had got
empty and chill, was due to the fact that Yorick had married, as she
viewed the matter, the wrong sister--Sophia instead of Elizabeth, her
great friend. Sophia was the pretty one, of course! But men were blind!
Adeline's life was so interwoven with that of a brother who, she
believed, would certainly never marry that she looked on herself as
not entered for the race of life at all. The idea held her with such
force that she could build castles in the air for a bosom friend
without a suspicion of a wish for self-election to their suzerainship.
Sophia--once fourteen, and nothing--changed into a woman and captured
the best castle for herself. Is it certain that Elizabeth's entry into
that castle would have left Adeline's world so much less empty and
chill? Who can say? All there is room to tell here is that Sophia's
death came in a few years; and that Adeline's contemplation of
Elizabeth's instalment as Queen Regent, without rights of coronation,
was productive of involutions of thought and feeling that would have
baffled Robert Browning. She was glad to believe she believed her
secret grief that Yorick and Elizabeth could never be man and wife
genuine. Perhaps it was.
Very likely the readiness of Miss Fossett to harbour and cherish
Lizarann does not want such an elaborate explanation. Lizarann, as the
story has shown, was far from being an unattractive scrap in herself,
although the mouth _was_ too large for beauty--no doubt of it! She was
especially so in these well-washed days when Miss Fossett went after
her own very early breakfast to wake her in the morning; or, if awake,
to prevent her trying to get up before Dr. Ferris came.
"Maten't I go to see Daddy to-day, Teacher?" she said--always the first
question--one such morning about a month after her appropriation by
Miss Fossett.
"_Maten't_ you--funny child! _Mayn't you_'s what you mean. No, dear,
you mayn't--not yet! No till Dr. Ferris says yes. You must be a good
little girl and have patience." For Miss Fossett knew children too well
to weep with them invariably in their troubles. Here was one that
would bear a bracing treatment. Its effect this time was that a sob
never came to maturity--was resolutely swallowed--and that the career
of a couple of tears was nipped in the bud by a nightgown-sleeve. A
sniff made a protest in their favour, but cut a poor figure. Courage
had the best of it.
"Mustn't I only send a kiss to Daddy, Teacher?" Lizarann says this very
ruefully.
"Teacer!" Miss Fossett mimics her pronunciation. "Of course you may,
dear, as many as you like! You give them to me, and _I'll_ see that
Daddy gets them." This is very rash, as Lizarann springs like a tiger,
and discharges a volley that would have kept a game of kiss-in-the-ring
going for a fortnight. An evil, you will say, easily endurable by a
childless woman, with perhaps a hungry heart! Agreed. But embarrassing
complications followed. As soon as Lizarann, who was evidently going to
be much better to-day, had disposed of a very respectable breakfast for
an invalid, and was brought into good form to receive the doctor--she
was very nice when she smelt of soap, was Lizarann--her mind harked
back on the kissing transaction.
"Who shall you give the skisses to, to tike to Daddy?"
"Never you mind! Daddy shall get them, and that's enough for any little
girl at this time in the morning. Now lie still and be good. There's
Dr. Ferris's knock."
Lizarann complied. But curiosity rankled. Would Miss Fossett entrust
those kisses to Dr. Ferris to give to Daddy? That was the substance of
the question that came in perfect good faith from the pillow Lizarann
was lying still and being good on. And this with Dr. Ferris audible
below!
"Most certainly _not_! I don't know him well enough." This was very
decisive; and Lizarann's impersonal mind discerned in it a mistrust of
the goods reaching their destination. Dr. Ferris might give them to
someone else. Another carrier must be found.
"But you do the gentleman?"
"Yes, of course! I could give them to the gentleman. But we'll do
better than that, Lizarann. I'll give them back to you, and you'll give
them to the gentleman." An arrangement that pleases Lizarann, whose
allegation that there was siskteen, makes the refund a long job. It
lasts till the doctor knocks at the room door.
"Who were you talking to, Doctor?" Lizarann's tickle is still on the
speaker's face, as she smooths matters--hair and such-like.
"It's the aunt, Widow Steptoe...."
"Do take care, Doctor!"
"Oh--I forgot! It's all right, I think, though ... she wants a
testimonial, to say she can cook. She can't, of course! How's the
patient?"
"Look and see! I suppose I must see Mrs. Steptoe. She wants to talk,
you know. I could just as easily write to this Mrs. What's-her-name ...
oh yes; I know who it's for ... as have a long talkee-talkee. If she
keeps me, come in as you go, to tell me."
* * * * *
There is a twofold advantage in the loss of a husband who is a curse to
your existence--who is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with
all the disadvantages of a community of goods, such as was endured by
Zohak the tyrant, who shared his with two serpents that had grown out
of him, and partook of him at intervals. One gain is, that your husband
is now no more--as the vernacular puts it when not claiming various
forms of hereafters for the departed; the other, that we may now mourn
his loss and ascribe beauties of character to him without fear of his
coming to life to give them practical disclaimers. We can do it with
crape, and if we can't afford a pair of black kids, Lisle thread lasts
a long time, if wore careful; indeed, Mrs. Hacker, whose testimony we
are quoting, was able to dwell on the cheapness of job-lots in the
article of mourning, and the advantages we enjoy from sales--advantages
unknown to Zohak in his day; only perhaps his snakes outlived him. If
they did, there can have been no false note in the pathos with which
they spoke of him as "now no more."
Mrs. Steptoe, having been so liberally assisted towards funeral
expenses, had been able to enjoy herself thoroughly over the millinery
department. Even Bridgetticks had been impressed by the respectability
of her appearance. Tallack Street felt it, and joined in tributes
to the moral qualities of Mr. Steptoe. It did not shut its eyes to
his failing, but rather utilized it to the advantage of his memory,
sketching an exalted character that he would certainly have possessed
if it had not been undermined by his unfortunate propensity. Each male
inhabitant of Tallack Street could conscientiously call upon all his
neighbours to bear witness to the many times he had dwelt on what a
good, honest, generous, trustworthy nature underlay this unfortunate
proclivity to drinking spirits continually, during waking hours,
whenever he had a trup'ny bit left, or could get credit, or stood
treat to. All agreed to regard it as a sort of involuntary habit,
like blinking; or at worst a flaw in culture--like eating peas, or
the butter, with the blade of your knife. "The man he was, be'ind it
all!"--that was what Tallack Street looked at. The Philosopher might,
if Time permitted, have exclaimed: "_De non apparentibus et non
existentibus eadem est ratio!_" Tallack Street would have replied,
forcibly as we think, that it warn't messin' about with any blooming
reasonings--only turning of it over like.
But we doubt if Tallack Street would have recognized Uncle Bob's
virtues so readily if his widow's grief had been less effectively shown.
Her mourning gownd was that respectable to look at you couldn't 'ardly
tell her for Mrs. Steptoe, goin' along the street, or in at the
butcher's. Whereat Tallack Street shook its heads, and accepted the
past as a lesson for the future, its older ones saying to its younger
ones: "Pore Bob! What did I tell you, N. or M., concernin' of small
goes of gin took at all hours and no sort o' system!" The tone of
melancholy forgiving retrospect being entirely a reaction produced by
the correct attire of the widow.
The same influence made Miss Fossett believe, for the moment, that
Mrs. Steptoe _could_ cook, for all Dr. Ferris said. She wrote a
testimonial for her which suggested that behind the good plain-cooking
accomplishment, as scheduled, were unexplored possibilities this
candidate for a place would not lay claim to, from modesty. But for the
applicant's decent gown and gloves and new umbrella, she would have
thought nothing of her account of her cooking powers, as shown many
years since in the early days of her marriage, in certain apartments
at Ramsgate, where her husband then worked, before they came to
London. She had then cooked a dinner for ten persons, with _entrées_
and sweets. Miss Fossett hesitated, metaphorically, to swallow this
dinner--tried to persuade Mrs. Steptoe to reduce it to eight. That good
woman, however, on taxing her memory, rather showed a disposition to
increase it to twelve. On which Miss Fossett surrendered at discretion.
"Of course you'll soon get your hand back again, Mrs. Steptoe; and I
hope you'll get this place." At this point the character was written,
with a full certificate of the circumstances. It seemed worded to
convey that a female _cordon bleu_, who had been seeing better days,
had been forced by ill-hap to resume her old _rôle_ of life. Completing
it, Miss Fossett again spoke: "Where did you say you were in service,
Mrs. Steptoe? Ramsgate?"
"Not exactly in service, miss."
"What, then?"
"In apartments to let." Mrs. Steptoe seemed a little uncertain; like
a respectable person telling fibs, and in a difficulty. Then she saw
her way, and went on, relieved. "I was requested to it, as a faviour.
Owing to landlady indisposed--having known her from early childhood."
She was proud of this expression evidently. "By the name of Cantrip. I
was left in charge, and give every satisfaction. Thirty-two, Sea View
Terrace, on the clift."
"And the lodgers had ten people at dinner!" Miss Fossett was surprised,
and showed it. The image her mind formed of thirty-two, Sea View
Terrace, did not jump with a dinner of ten persons, with _entrées_
and sweets. But was it reasonable in not doing so? Mrs. Steptoe must
have appreciated the difficulty, for she threw in, "Did you know the
house, miss?" and the question was skilful. Miss Fossett admitted that
she did not. "But I certainly thought it seemed a large party for a
lodging-house," said she, feeling apologetic. She did not wish to be
unjust, even to a lodging-house.
Mrs. Steptoe was all amazement that the extensive accommodation of
Sea View Terrace should be unknown anywhere in Europe. Her desire to
express it seemed to expand beyond dictionaries. Her sakes--why, a
many more could have sat down! She then went on to substantiate her
statement, giving the names of the guests: "There was Mr. and Mrs.
Hallock and family was five, staying in the apartments. And Mrs.
Bridgman and her daughter was seven. And Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, and Mr.
Hollings--no!--Harris, a young gentleman from town. Countin' up to
ten!" Mrs. Steptoe was triumphant. Such detail would verify anything.
"Well!--anyhow, there's the letter, Mrs. Steptoe, and I hope you'll get
the place and do well." Miss Fossett was convinced the good woman had
been lying, more or less; and so she had, but the only portion of her
statement that affects this story was true enough. She had relieved
her conscience about the fib that she had cooked this dinner by giving
the actual names of those who had eaten it as nearly as she remembered
them. Can we not sympathize with her? Are we not human?
She took the letter with abasement and deep gratitude, neither
altogether unconnected with a religious fog, unexplained, hanging about
the memory of her lamented husband. She inquired after her brother--was
looking forward to seeing him on Friday, the next visiting-day at the
Hospital--understood he had asked for her to come, with a distinct
implication that his nature was a neglectful one, and that she was
neglected.
"He has asked for you several times," said Miss Fosset. "But Mr. Taylor
thought--so did I--that it would be best for him to know nothing of
your husband's death till he was stronger. He puts it down to the
Hospital regulations--thinks you have not been admitted. Mr. Taylor
will tell him all about it before you see him."
"As you and the gentleman think best, miss! And the little girl, you
was a-sayin', is better?"
"The little girl is a great deal better. Wait a minute, and I'll ask
Dr. Ferris if he thinks you could see her."
Mrs. Steptoe, who was quite able to keep her anxiety to see her niece
in due subordination, dwelt upon her unwillingness to encroach on Miss
Fossett's time. Who, accounting these professions honest--which they
weren't--went away and met the doctor coming down. He had been a long
time over his patient, she remarked. "This patient," said he, "is good
company. Glad to say she's going on capitally. Temperature all but
normal."
"That aunt-woman's here still." Miss Fossett drops her voice to say
this. "Could I take her up to see her safely, do you think?"
"Can you be sure she won't talk about her conf ... about her husband, I
mean?"
"Ye-es! I think so, if she promises. I don't _know_."
"It can't do any great harm, in any case. The child is thinking of
nothing but Daddy. Five past nine--oh dear! I'm off ... oh yes!--you
may try it." And off goes the doctor.
As to Lizarann's interview with her aunt that followed, a few words
will be enough. For no story can record everything everywhere closely;
it must take and reject. It was, on the part of Aunt Stingy, an
unpresumptuous interview, fraught with meek reminders to little girls
of what was due on their part towards their benefactors; as also with
suggestions of the depravities inherent in all their species. An
interview mysteriously saturated with a sense of religious precepts
refrained from, but conferring a sense of moral superiority in one who
could, had she chosen, have become a well-spring and fountain-head of
little-girl-crushing platitudes. On Lizarann's part, an interview with
a background of indictments against herself undisclosed connected,
no doubt, somehow with her demeanour on the terrible occasion when
she saw her aunt and uncle last. She dared not ask what she had done,
preferring to refer her blood-guiltiness--of which, as a general rule,
she entertained no doubt--in this case to the lucifer-match negotiation
which had induced Uncle Bob to leave hold. That seemed more likely
than that she had left the street-door stood on the jar. Of course,
she might have been convicted of concealed chestnuts; or even, by some
necromancy, Aunt Stingy might have divined how near she had felt to
passing the forbidden Vatted Rum Corner limit. But the lucifer-match
theory seemed the most probable--not to be broached, however, without
the gentleman himself there to protect her. Teacher was good--angelic,
indeed--but she was uninformed. And who could say that the evil
plausibilities of a subtle human aunt might not persuade her to turn
against her _protégée_, and rend her? However, the question was not
raised, and Lizarann felt grateful when the said aunt departed, after a
horny farewell peck.
But as soon as she had departed, Lizarann became suddenly talkative.
"Is Aunt Stingy's new gownd pide for?" said she.
"Inquisitive little monkey!" said Teacher. "Perhaps it is; perhaps it
isn't."
"What did it costited?" asked Lizarann. But she was really uninterested
about the purchase. She was keeping the question before the House in
the hope that the debate would throw a light on a collateral point.
"Mrs. Hacker's married daughter Sarah was a widow," said she, to give
the conversation a lift. "She wore her cloze out, _she_ did."
But why had widowhood come suddenly on the tapis? Evidently sharp ears
had heard the doctor's indiscreet speech. Miss Fossett grasped the
position. Lizarann would have to know some time. Why not now?
"Poor Aunt Stingy!" She spoke with her eye on Lizarann, on the watch
for a guess on the child's part that would assist disclosure. She saw
in the large puzzled orbs that met hers, and the small hands pulling
nervously at the sheet, that the idea she wanted was either dawning or
fructifying. She continued: "Aunt Stingy will have to be a widow now,
Lizarann."
The idea had taken hold, and another young mind that up to that moment
had looked on Death as a visitor to other families, not hers, had got
to face the black terror--just as terrible a mystery, just as cold
a cloud, when that which dies is what none would wish should live,
as when all worth living for seems lost with it. Even the opportune
removal of an Uncle Bob turns the whole world into an antechamber
of the great Unknown, and veils the sun in heaven. Nobody had died,
in Lizarann's immediate circle, so far, and as for outsiders that
was their look out! Uncle Bob wasn't wanted certainly, rather the
reverse; but none the less the two large eyes that were fixed on Miss
Fossett's informing face filled slowly with tears, and their small
owner's hands came out towards her, feeling for something to cry on.
Yes!--Uncle Bob was dead, and would never mend any more boots; thus,
substantially, the testimony of Teacher, confirming and amplifying the
deluge that followed. It was some time before mere awe of Death allowed
Lizarann to refer to the fact that Daddy would never enjoy Uncle Bob's
society again; there may have been ambiguity here--was it all unmixed
disadvantage?--and still longer, quite late in the day, in fact, before
her reflections reminded her that Mrs. Hacker's married daughter
Sarah, having wore her cloze out, took up with Mr. Brophy, her present
husband. A reminiscence evidently recording the exact language of older
persons than herself.
* * * * *
"What did you say was the name of that gentleman you met at Royd,
Yorick?--the amusing one?..."
"Brownrigg?"
"No--the other."
"Challis."
"The same name as the author?"
"He _is_ the author. Titus Scroop is his _nom-de-plume_. Why do you
ask?"
"Because it must be his wife I wrote Mrs. Steptoe's character for last
week. Mrs. Alfred Challis, The Hermitage, Wimbledon."
"Oh yes--that would be. How did you know of her?"
"That Mrs. Eldridge--she's a sort of cousin, you know--wrote to see if
I knew of a cook."
"But you knew nothing about Mrs. Steptoe's cooking."
"No--but she can try."
"I don't call that conscientious."
"Oh, my dear Yorick? Isn't that just like you now? If everyone was such
a dragon, no one would ever do a good-natured action."
"_Was_ it good-natured--to Mrs. Challis?"
"It may turn out so. Mrs. Steptoe may be a real treasure."
The above is short and explains itself. The time of it may have been
three days after the previous story time.
CHAPTER XIX
HOW AUNT STINGY BECAME MARIANNE'S COOK. A MOST OFFENSIVE BIBLE CLASS.
MR. CHALLIS'S JUDITH. ESTRILD AND THE OSTROGOTHS. THE ACROPOLIS CLUB
It was certainly our friend Marianne at the Hermitage, Wimbledon, to
whom Mrs. Steptoe, now a free-lance, was going to apply for a cook's
place. It was rather an audacious piece of effrontery; so also are
two-thirds of the applications the Registry sends you on, and charges
you five shillings for. Mrs. Steptoe was a very poor cook indeed; but,
then, it was so long since she done any cooking reg'lar that it was
easy for her to forget how poor it had been.
The coincidence was not a miraculous one, and it will not appear so
if you will image to yourself Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge coming down
very late one morning and opening letters. Further, imagine that the
contents of one takes her aback, binds her attention, and excites a
sort of torpid curiosity in Mr. John Eldridge, who is just off to catch
his train; but the nine thirty-eight will do if he misses it. Then that
the lady throws the letter down, and says: "Well, I declare! Elizabeth
Barclay, of all people in the world!"
Don't try to imagine Mr. Eldridge, nor his hat, nor its band, nor the
woollen comforter he buttons his coat over. It isn't worth the effort.
But take the story's word for it that he said "Elizabeth Barclay?" six
times, and ended with, "What's she been had up for?"
"John, you're a fool! She's Marianne's cook, and she wants me to find
her another. Of course!"
"But what's her game? What's Marianne's cook's little game? What's she
been a-takin' shares in? Where's she been selling her dripping to?
Tell away, Lotty!--spit it out!" But he does not forward matters, for
he again says "Elizabeth Barclay" several times, and finishes up with
"Well!"
"When you've done." A pause. "She's going to marry a corn-factor."
Mr. Eldridge closes one eye. "Females do," he says; and then adds,
quite inexplicably: "I shouldn't wonder if he was in the Brixton Road."
"It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't. The question is, where am I
to go to find a really good plain cook for Marianne?"
"Ah!--that's the question."
"Well, but you might help, instead of looking like a gaby."
"Why not ask that party?"
"What party?"
"Over Clapham way. Some connection. Where you got Ellen Sayce." Mrs.
Eldridge looks her despair, for was not Ellen Sayce a girl who wept
on the stairs instead of doing them down, and had to return to her
parents? Nevertheless the attempt was worth a postcard, which was
written as Mr. Eldridge--whose peritonitis had gone--trotted away
down a snow-swept footway slapping his gloves, and saying "Elizabeth
Barclay" at intervals. But she omitted the date, as she decided not to
post it then and there, but to exhaust her other resources first. Ellen
Sayce was a poor result.
The consequence of this was that for a month or thereabouts Mr.
Eldridge was never without a topic of conversation, frequently
calling attention to the unborn postcard in a recess on his wife's
_escritoire_. "I say, Lotty, when's Miss Fossijaw's letter a-going?"
being his form of query, connecting the matter in hand with
phosphorus-poisoning, humorously but not intelligently.
However, when Mrs. Eldridge's other presentments ran dry, the postcard
was despatched, and reached Adeline Fossett just the moment after Mrs.
Steptoe had been submitting her cookworthiness, and lodging her claims
for favourable consideration. Whereupon Miss Fossett despatched a
summons to her to come next day for a written character (which would do
in this case), and the events we know of followed. There was nothing
remarkable in the coincidence whatever.
But there was something very remarkable--so Mrs. Challis had
thought--about Elizabeth Barclay's unaccountable desire to marry a
corn-factor, after being in the family fourteen years! For the Challis
family had monopolized Mrs. Barclay during the whole of that time,
and it was natural it should be indignant at her desertion. In fact,
Marianne had hardly been able to believe her ears when one day the good
woman, who had been very _distraite_ over the ordering of dinner, took
advantage of its conclusion to say, through huskiness and hesitation,
that she had been thinking it well over, and had decided on it, in
spite of her attachment to the family and heartfelt desire to cause it
no inconvenience. Being pressed to say what she had decided on--which
she had not so far mentioned--she had turned the colour of a tomato,
and with a determined rush had said: "I have decided, ma'am, to change
my condition," and had then revealed the corn-factor with such a
tremendous accent on his first syllable that an impression followed
it in the mind of Bob Challis, the boy, home for the holidays, that
factors of many other goods had been under consideration, and that Mr.
Soul had been the fortunate candidate. For his name was actually Seth
Soul.
This, of course, was at the Christmas following Challis _père's_
visit to Royd. But Mrs. Barclay had kept her condition unchanged for
the time being, to oblige Miss Marianne, which was how she as often
as not spoke of Mrs. Challis. That lady had really exerted herself
to find a substitute, any plausible application having been referred
for settlement to the corn-factor's _fiancée_. That very honest
woman had denounced and rejected every candidate for the place so
far. She applied the same formula to all: "It don't speak much for
her"--that there was such a flaw in her register, or such a defect in
her demeanour. It didn't speak much for one that she had just taken a
twelvemonth's leisure at a relative's; or for another that she smelt
of spirits at that time in the morning; or for another that she nearly
came tumblin' down the kitchen flight, and couldn't walk straight. It
certainly didn't. But it spoke volumes for Mrs. Barclay's integrity
that she rejected them all, when, by accepting one, she might have
flown straight to the corn-factor and nested under his wing, the minute
her things were got.
The acceptance of our friend Aunt Stingy was the result of desperation,
as we have hinted, on Mrs. Challis's part. However, to do her justice,
she tried to shift the responsibility off her own shoulders.
"I should not have dared to send her packing after what you said
this morning, Titus," said she; scarcely, perhaps, quite fairly. But
Titus replied good-humouredly--for think how well that chapter had
started!--"Never mind, Polly Anne! I'll be responsible. She'll turn out
all right enough, I dare say."
And thus it had come about that Mrs. Steptoe found herself, within
six weeks of her husband's death, in a situation where, although its
standard of cooking was no better than that of most English houses of
the same type, she was hard put to it to keep up the pretence of any
knowledge at all. A very slight early experience had to go a long way,
and detection and conviction would have ensued if Marianne Challis had
profited by her dozen of years of housekeeping. But Elizabeth Barclay
had been a treasure; and treasures--that is to say, persons who don't
drink, can roast and boil, and know three sorts of soup--make it
quite unnecessary for any English mistress to give any thought to the
subject. The new cook, too, was entrenched in a strong position. Who
shall say that any chance person who does not know how to pull and
grill now was incompetent to pull and grill ten or fifteen years ago?
Or that it is impossible that she passed a culinary youth in contact
with mayonnaise sauce, truffles, or Gorgonzola cheese, and yet should
in that period have forgotten the very names of them? The problem Aunt
Stingy had to solve was how to acquire knowledge without admitting
ignorance. And the attitude she took up in the pursuit of this object
was that of a higher cult graciously stooping to accommodate itself
to insular prejudice or mere bucolic barbarism. She elicited a great
deal of information by dwelling on skilful achievements hard to believe
in, but practised for all that in the Augustan age of her experience,
for the tables of an almost Parisian circle of connoisseurs. There was
danger in the method, but her intrepidity was more than Murat-like.
As, for instance, when, apropos of omelettes, she said that "we"--that
is, the cooks attached to that circle--always made them without eggs.
On learning that omelettes contained nothing but eggs, she exclaimed
with the greatest presence of mind, "Oh yes!--what we used to call
egg-pancakes."
"I'm afraid you'll have to give this woman the sack, Polly Anne. She
can't cook worth a cent." Thus Mr. Challis, sampling something one day
at lunch, perhaps an omelette without eggs.
"Oh, _do_ have a little patience, Titus!"
"Well--of course we must give her a fair trial. I didn't mean
immediately."
"Anyone would have thought you did. And it only upsets me, and does
no good at all. Do leave it alone till Elizabeth Barclay has shown
her one or two of her receipts. She's very willing to learn, and
goes to chapel." For Marianne was disposed to be lazy about this as
about other things, and was inclined to temporize. If Mrs. Steptoe
could be educated, why not retain Mrs. Steptoe? "Even if you dined
out every night for a time--you know you _can_; look at all those
invitations!--it would be better than having to go through it all
again. Oh dear!"
But Challis was not anxious either to dine out every night, or to
quarrel over the dinners at home. He was really well pleased with
himself and his surroundings, when he could feel that he had passed a
comfortable domestic evening free from self-questionings and collisions
with--well!--that disorder he made the awkward compound word for. But
he never got off without scars. When he thought he had succeeded, after
a very well-executed quiet evening with his wife, in saying to himself:
"Jam me juvaverit
Viros relinquere
Doctaeque conjugis
Sinu quiescere,"
really almost with earnestness!--all the wind was taken out of his
sails by a perfectly uncalled-for reflection on Marianne's education.
He was angry after with himself for making it. Besides, no one in his
senses could ascribe any abnormal culture to.... Never you mind!--what
on earth had _she_ to do with it?
The fact is that, at this date of the story, some two or three weeks
after we last heard his voice in that cab that drew up in Grosvenor
Square, Challis was keeping watch and ward over his love of his own
home and the mother of his two children. His other world--especially
the brilliant and fascinating one that centred in the Megatherium
Theatre and the preparation of his new play--was both courted and
kept at bay by him. He could make no strong stand against its
temptations; but he could resent them, and did so. And whenever his
conscience--however he nicknamed it--had been especially intrusive,
he could always rebuke it by a little more home life than usual, by a
more patient toleration of some home discomfort. He did not see that
the very fact of his doing penance, as it were, for his enjoyment of
that outer world of enchantment, was really opening a postern-gate to
admit the enemy his culverins were pounding from the battlements. When
he paid himself out for that delightful supper with the Megatheriums
in the small hours of the morning by showing forbearance over Mrs.
Steptoe's fatuous attempts at cookery, he was no more conscious that he
was really pleading guilty on the main issue than was Judith Arkroyd,
when she declined an invitation to join it, conscious that she was only
hedging against her dallyings with perfect truth and honour towards
her family in keeping back the lengths she had gone in rehearsals
of the part of Aminta Torrington. Mrs. Steptoe's greasy cookery and
a dull pompous dinner at the Duke's each did duty as a salve to
conscience without the unwilling sharers in either detecting their own
self-deception. But it was good for Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who took Miss
Arkroyd in to the banquet and bored her by his appreciation more than
by his talk; which Judith mimicked extremely well, to Mr. Challis's
great delight, when she met him next day at the theatre. And it was
good for Mrs. Steptoe, who between Challis's penances and Marianne's
indisposition for another excursion into disengaged-cook land, seemed
likely to attain the low standard of excellence we have mentioned as
satisfactory to the British housekeeper.
Marianne gave her husband no help. Of course, she was not bound to.
_We_ know! No woman is under any legal obligation to assist her husband
against himself, if his affections--promised at the altar, don't you
see?--become weak-kneed and uncertain. He may have to love uphill, but
he must take his chance of that. Still, she need not skid his wheels or
put stones in his path. But did Marianne do so?
In our opinion she did. Mere words, told in a story, go for little; a
shade of accent makes them much or nothing. How, we ask you, did Bob
Challis, Rugby-sharpened, know that his mater, whenever she made an
allusion to churches or chapels, was having a fling at his Governor?
How did Bob know that his Governor was making no answer in italics, as
one might say, when he turned to him and said: "Got your new skates,
human schoolboy? Let's have a look! Now, why is it no new strap ever
has a hole in the right place?" And made conversation, transparently.
Bob did know, somehow; and had he been present to hear his mother say
that Mrs. Steptoe went to Chapel, he would have quite understood her
inflection of voice to convey an addendum, "which _you_ don't; or, at
least, Church, and you wouldn't say the responses if you did."
If Mrs. Challis would only have left that point alone, it would have
made a world of difference in her relation with her husband. Why would
she not? He had left her free to secure salvation, not only to her own
children, but to her nephew or stepson, whichever you like to call Bob.
And he had made no conditions except that he himself should be allowed
the luxury of perdition on his own terms. "You let me go to the Devil
my own way, Polly Anne," he had said, "and you shall have poor Kate's
boy, and tell him any gammon you like." Perhaps the reason why he
said--just now in the story--"_Docta conjux_, indeed!" may have been
some memory of how, when Bob blacked another boy's eye for calling the
Founder of Christianity a Jew, Marianne had defended his action, and
condemned the other boy for impiety and heathenism. "And you know I'm
right, Titus," said the lady triumphantly.
Of course, it is impossible to say that a really honest fulfilment of
the religious bargain would have diverted the current of events into
another channel. All the story points to is that if Challis could
have reposed on the bosom of his "docta conjux" with less fear of
its bristling suddenly--like the image of the Virgin with which the
Inquisition convinced the most sceptical--with suggestions of precept
or reproof, even as the blessed image shot out spikes, then there would
have been one needless apple of discord the less. And if Marianne
had carried out her half of the compact, Titus would certainly have
been more scrupulous in saying, before the boy, things of a racy
nature on subjects of reverence in the eyes of all Christendom and
many thoughtful persons outside it. It wasn't fair to Marianne, who
had no sense of humour at all, to develope an old line of critical
analysis of the Scriptures for the benefit of Bob; to consider that
young man, in fact, as a Bible Class, anxious to discover and record
the first mentions of all the trades, all the professions, all the
popular complaints delicacy allows to be canvassed in public, all the
sports and all the winners, in a volume his mother regarded as sacred.
What did it matter how indistinct an idea she had of what she meant
by the word _sacred_, or anything else? She might at least have been
spared one especial atrocity--the first mention of pugilism. To do him
justice, however, Challis was not himself guilty of this triumph of
successful research, which we need not record here. It came home from
school with Bob next Easter holidays, and Bob teemed and twinkled with
it until at last he got the chance of delivering it into his father's
ear as he sat astride of his knee, with all the license of a boy just
released from the classics.
"You young scaramouch! Where do you expect to go to? Don't you go and
tell your mother that!" For Challis, in the presence of this youth,
kept up a certain parade of potential reverence, available in extreme
cases. He could countenance the first mention of Cannibalism--"The
woman tempted me, and I did eat." But this one ran near the confines of
the unpermissible--overpast them.
"Shuttleworth and Graves Minor's going to tell their sisters. Because
they'll be in such an awful rage!"
"A very low motive. Perhaps you'll be good enough to regulate your
conduct on better models than Shuttleworth and Graves Minor."
"Their father's a Bishop. At least, Graves Minor's is. He only allows
him a shilling a month pocket-money. He's gone to his aunts Jane and
Mary's for the holidays because they're infectious...."
"Which--the holidays or the aunts? Pay attention to your antecedents,
young man!"
"Neither. They're infectious at home; they've got scarlet fever. He's
awfully glad, because his Aunt Jane lives in a haunted house, and he
can get out on the leads. I say, pater!"
"What, offspring?"
"When's that lady coming that gave me my skates at Christmas, and the
'Lives of the Buccaneers'?"
"I don't know. I can't say. Some day." Challis has become reserved
suddenly. "Give me the little Japanese ash-pan, and find yourself a
chair. A strong one, I should recommend." For Bob is at that pleasant
growing age that has relapses into babyhood, if not checked by a hint
now and then. He accepts the hint this time, but declines the chair,
preferring to lean over the back of his father's, and pull his hair.
"The mater hates her. I don't." Now, if this had been said immediately,
it would have seemed much slighter conversation, easy to pass by.
Coming after a good pause of hairpulling, it implied a confidence in
the speaker's mind that his hearer's had been dwelling, during that
pause, on the person he didn't hate and his mother did.
"It's no concern of any young monkey's who his mother hates or doesn't
hate."
"Well!--it's true. And I say it's a beastly shame. After all, it wasn't
_her_ fault that it thawed."
"You unblushing young egotist! Is the whole world to be nothing but
skates--skates--skates? _Whose_ fault wasn't it? Your mother's?"
"No fear! The mater wanted me to chuck it up, and not skate at all.
Rather!" This youth's language depends for expression on a tone of
overstrained contempt for experience outside his own. But the desert of
his egotism has oases. He reaches one now, and says in quite a natural
voice: "I say, pap!"
"Go on, human creature!"
"Shall I tell you what me and Cat...."
"What _who_?" This is accompanied by a pantomimic threat of
extermination.
"Well! Cat and I, then ... what we call her, when we're alone?"
"By all means. Only look alive! Because your father's cigar is waning,
and copy is behindhand. Go it!"
"_We_ call her Judy. Cat and I do. Short for Judith."
"You'll make your little sister as bad as yourself, and she's too
sharp by half already. How do you know her name's Judith? It might be
Sarah--or Euterpe."
"But it ain't. It's Judith."
"Ah!--but how do you know? That's the point."
"Because we listened. And we knew the mater meant _her_."
Perhaps if Master Bob had seen his father's face, it would have checked
his outflow of virgin candour. But he was behind him, and saw nothing.
Challis was balancing a nice question in his mind. Ought he not to
check this revelation? Was it not like eavesdropping to listen to it?
He decided that he might, as Marianne would surely never say before
the children anything she would not wish him to hear. But he wanted to
know, too. Still, he was conscious enough of his wish to know, to find
it necessary to impute his reluctance to be influenced by it to that
mental vice he had invented a name for.
"How did you know your mother meant her? How did you know she didn't
mean the new cook?"
"No fear! _Her_ name's Priscilla. Besides, the mater calls her Steptoe.
Besides, Aunt Lotty did it, too."
"Did what? What did Aunt Lotty do?"
"Called her Judith. Cat heard her, same as me."
"Probably you ought to say 'same as I,' young man. But it may be an
open question." Challis paused, half-minded to request his promising
son and heir to keep his confidences in reserve. But the evil genius
of himself or Marianne stepped in, and caused Catharine, the little
girl, who was still under seven, to sing with her mouth shut as she
hung over the bannisters in the passage outside. Master Bob immediately
left off pulling his father's hair and rushed to the door, shouting
loud enough for the Universe to hear, "Didn't she, Cat?" and ended a
perfectly orthodox interview for the collection of evidence by lugging
the witness in, nearly upside down, to testify.
"Put your sister down, you young ruffian--do you hear?" And Challis
adds under his breath: "Much good your school's doing you!" But the
young persons explain simultaneously, "That's how we do," not without
pride in an ancient usage.
Now, this little provincialism, or scrap of folklore, had its share
in moulding events. For consider!--if a Sabine woman, after Rubens,
had been put down right-end-up, anxious to make a statement, who could
have refused to listen to her? Challis, who would not have objected
to hearing no more of what Aunt Lotty said, felt bound to take the
readjusted maiden on his knee--she wasn't Sabine, and he could--and
get at the upshot of her disjointed testimony. Master Bob, following
ascertained usage, dictated or suggested her evidence; and nipped
anticipated statement in the bud, at his convenience. Between the two
of them, however, it was clear-enough what sort of talk had gone on
between their mother and Aunt Lotty.
"After all," said the vexed man to himself, after packing off his young
informants to presumable mischief elsewhere--"after all, what can it
matter if Marianne _did_ say in a moment of irritation that I might go
away to ..." he paused on the next two words, and finished without
them abruptly "... altogether if I liked?" Then he tormented himself a
little about his own shrinking from uttering the words "my Judith," and
ended by saying them in a cowardly way, under his breath, to show his
independence.
He was sitting in his library at the time, opposite to a half-written
sheet of foolscap. It was copy, waiting for more copy, which came not.
Challis denied his self-accusation that this was owing to the way that
fool of a woman's words had upset him--meaning Charlotte Eldridge;
he absolved his wife. Had he not often to wait for an idea, to get a
start with? Let him see, where was he? Oh yes!--where Estrild tears
off her jewels and flings them at the Ostrogoths. Judith Arkroyd would
be simply magnificent there! For this was the great tragedy he had
promised Judith he would try his hand on expressly for her. How that
incomparable arm and hand would tell, with Estrild's blood visible on
it, torn by the bracelet her vehemence had plucked off!...
Very likely it was all a blunder of the kid's, and Charlotte Eldridge
had never said any such thing. Was it likely she would say, "Of course,
Titus calls her Judith, when they're alone"? Still, the deposition
did sound like that, and that was a damnable mischief-making woman,
mind you! Challis was conscious, as he said this to himself, of an
image of Charlotte Eldridge, rather a graceful one, turning an impish
glance over her shoulder to see the effect of some apple of discord,
just thrown. There was a skittishness about this image, a skirt-sweep,
that was true to life. So was the becoming hat the odious woman always
wore indoors whenever she could, with that meaning feather in it.
How Challis hated her as he thought to himself that they all meant,
somehow, her studentship in the University in which that dowdy Eros,
whom we mentioned before, was Dean of the Faculty of Discord-breeding
between a lady and gentleman, about a gentleman or lady. But they were
the constituents of a Stylish Female, according to John Eldridge, her
husband, the victim of peritonitis.
"Come _in_!" No wonder Mr. Challis said it a little impatiently, when a
knock came at his study-door, because he had just got his idea, and was
at last effectively at work again upon the Ostrogoths. The impatience
caused Marianne, who had knocked, to say that another time would do
as well. But to her husband's sensitive hearing the tone, distant and
severe, in which she said it spoke volumes. And the Tables of Contents
of those volumes related to gulfs placed between married couples
resident in Wimbledon by fashionable beauties with a turn for the
stage. It was a large order for a mere tone of voice, but it was quite
filled out, as the commercial phrase it. Challis could not possibly
allow Marianne to depart, closing the door with aggressive gentleness.
It would have been checking the items of the large order. "Come back!"
he shouted. "What _is_ it? How _can_ you be absurd, Polly Anne? Come
in!"
Polly Anne came in, but every step of her entry was fraught with
instant withdrawal. "I won't keep you a minute, because of Steptoe and
the dinner," she said, jumbling her context horribly. "Only I must know
if you're going out or not."
Challis really tried to be jolly and good-natured over it. "Oh no! it's
all right," said he. "I'm at home to-night."
"You had better make sure." She spoke rather like an iceberg--a
forbearing one, but still an iceberg. "Look at your cards on the
chimney-piece."
Now, the fact was that the lady knew the position, having gone over
the ground the evening before in her husband's absence. "The pink
card!" said she. And thus guided, Challis found himself brought to
book--convicted of inconsiderate forgetfulness alike of his friend and
his household. "I wish you would be more careful," said the iceberg.
"But I really did think the Acropolis was to-morrow, the twenty-third."
"To-day is the twenty-third." One more degree of frost on the iceberg.
"I thought to-day was Wednesday." A feeble effort to extenuate.
"To-day is Thursday. You see on the card. It doesn't matter. I can
easily arrange with Steptoe.... Oh no!--you can't throw them over at
the last moment. Quite absurd!"
"Well!--I'm awfully sorry."
"It makes no difference at all. Now, I won't disturb you any more." And
the iceberg retired.
But if Challis had given way to his first impulse, had run after his
wife, kissed her, said good-humouredly, "Don't be miffy, Polly Anne!--I
shall be at home to-morrow. And you know the Acropolites _did_ ask you
too"--had he done this, all might have gone better. But his impulse was
weakened by the thought--or the knowledge--that his wife knew perfectly
well when she entered the room that he had this engagement, and must
already have made all her household arrangements with reference to it.
He resented her insincerity, and though he rose from his chair and
went towards the door, his resentment had the best of it half-way,
and he bit his lip and returned, looking vexed. Now, why couldn't she
have said honestly to him at breakfast, "Recollect, to-night's the
Acropolis dinner"? He was in such a state of sensitive irritation that,
just as he was getting into stroke again, he had a new upset--caught a
crab, as it were--because Estrild reminded him of Eldridge, and brought
the whole vexation back in full force!
CHAPTER XX
MRS. ELDRIDGE IN FULL BLOW. THE IMPROPER STUDY OF MANKIND. NOTHING
REALLY WRONG! AN IDENTIFICATION WITH A VENGEANCE. HOW CHALLIS CAME
HOME LATE
Be good enough to note that none of the characters in this story are
picturesque or heroic--only chance samples of folk such as you may
see pass your window now, this moment, if you will only lay your book
down and look out. They are passing--passing all day long--each with a
story. And some little thing you see, a meeting, a parting, a quickened
step, a hesitation and return, may make the next hour the turning-point
of an existence. For it is of such little things the great ones are
made; and this is a tale made up of trifles--trifles touching human
souls that, for aught we know to the contrary, may last for ever.
* * * * *
It is the share Marianne had in a thousand little things like the
triviality with which our last chapter ended that makes us say that
she gave her husband no help against himself. Many a time a word of
concession from her, in answer to any of his unspoken appeals for
help--for the plain truth is, he made many such appeals--might have led
to a rushed embrace of reconciliation, and a flood of not altogether
uncontrite tears from her, and even some from him; for though one may
pity him, he cannot be held absolutely blameless. The fact is, Alfred
Challis had loved this Marianne even better than ever he did her
sister, Bob's mother--loved her, that is, as men love what is called
_beauté de diable_, and a kind of rough, good-natured manner. Besides,
see how good she was with the boy!
If there had been no core of jealous reserve born of overstrained
self-respect inside this rosy-seeming apple--if the girl would have
obligingly matured without change--she would always have remained Polly
Anne, as of old. But the core was there, and there Challis was to find
it, after a pleasant year or so of experience of the outside of the
fruit--the best part. Hence she came to be Marianne rather than Polly
Anne to him, oftener and oftener; Mrs. Challis rather than Marianne to
friends; and "your mother" rather than "mamma" to the children.
She was not the woman for the position in which she found herself.
There was really only one chance of steady sailing for the domestic
ship, and that was that she should go everywhere with her husband,
brave the snubs of the scornful toff, laugh at her own inferiorities,
and, above all, rejoice publicly at every new success of her husband.
Inwardly she may have done the last; all the other conditions she
failed in. The one chance was not caught at, and this man found himself
alternately in the brilliant world of Imperial London, made much of,
looked up to as an authority and quoted, refusing from sheer plenitude
welcomes to one rich house after another--all these on the one hand,
and on the other--suppose we put it briefly--Mrs. Steptoe.
If Marianne had only had a friend who would have pointed out the
exaggerated nature of her impressions about the motley crew we owe so
much to Sir Bernard Burke for telling the likes of us about! A friend,
even, who would have said to her, "Don't give way to jealous pride,
stupid; but go and observe the ways of the human toff, and come home
and tell me, _ici bas_. I'll do your hair for you." But there was none
such!--only Charlotte Eldridge!
Mrs. Eldridge certainly got some satisfaction out of the concern; it
would have been a sad pity if no one had got any. It was all in the way
of her own specialty, the proper--or improper--study of her kind. It
may as well be admitted that the conversation the children overheard
part of had run thus:
"I don't think, dear, that my feeling uneasy whenever John is out of
my sight ought to count. John is a fool. Besides, girls that apply
for situations are very mixed, whether telegraph or sorters. The most
dangerous class of girl may apply. The safeguard in his case is that
there is so little reserve in his nature. When his admiration is
excited he always makes grimaces about them, and then I know who, at
once. If taxed with them he always whistles popular airs and shuts one
eye. 'Pop goes the Weasel' or 'Tarara-boomdeay.' But I try to believe
he knows where to draw the line. This case is different."
"I don't see the difference."
"The girls are different. This Miss Sibyl What's-her-name...."
"The one Titus admires so much is Judith. Sibyl's the Art Coiffure one,
that wanted to do my hair like a picture of Titian's...."
"Titian's mistress, I suppose. They did, then. Well!--I meant
Judith. Don't you see how entirely different the cases are? Judith's
position!--the publicity, dear!--the whole thing!..."
"No!--I see no difference."
"My dear!--what nonsense! Do you mean to say ... why, only look how he
'Miss Arkroyds' and 'Miss Sibyls' them! One judges from little things."
"When we're here, Titus does. But when they're alone...?"
"Well, of course! When they're alone, Mr. Challis _may_ call her
Judith. I don't say he _does_, but suppose he does, what does it all
amount to?... Now _don't_ be unreasonable, Marianne dear!"
"I am _not_ unreasonable, Charlotte.... Nonsense! I'm _not_ crying
about it. I wouldn't be such a fool. But all I can say is, if Titus
wants to go away to his Judith, let him go? _I_ don't want to keep him,
against his will.... What are those children at, in there?" At which
point the conversation may stop.
Incidentally, it helps us to see that Sibyl had lent herself to an
effort, which seemed to her--as to us--a politic one, to induce Mrs.
Alfred Challis to be a little more coming and tractable. She quite
appreciated that friendship between her sister and Challis, if Marianne
was included in it, would be a very different thing from the same
thing, conditioned otherwise. And when she called at the Hermitage with
her sister, she was strongly impressed that scandal, if any arose,
would be the more dangerous unless Marianne could be induced to change
her attitude, which suggested that of a civil tigress, with a grievance
against the jungle.
* * * * *
"You needn't make a fuss about me," said Mrs. Challis to her husband,
just departing for the Acropolis Club. He always went through an
apologetic phase, partly real, every time he deserted the domestic
hearth. This time his remorse was superficial; for surely Marianne
might just as well have accompanied him to this entertainment. You know
the Acropolis Club, no doubt?--a cock-and-hen club of the purest water,
with about the proportion of hens one sees in farmyards. He would have
preferred her coming. However, he wasn't to make a fuss about her; that
was settled. It was fine, she said; and Charlotte had said she would
come in if it was fine. Challis became aware that Charlotte must have
said she would come in, sometime before he himself had been reminded
of his engagement to go out. His remorse vanished all the quicker, and
he was beginning to enjoy his clean shirt-front--a phrase his mind put
by for his next story on any light social subject--before his hansom
landed him at Wimbledon Station. The Acropolis, you remember, is
barely ten minutes cab from Waterloo, so this way did perfectly.
* * * * *
"John finds it do better," said Mrs. Eldridge, arriving in due course.
"Only when he wants a walk he goes by East Putney, because the
District saves him at the other end. Eight o'clock dinner, I suppose.
Besides, they won't be punctual. They never are, nowadays." This was
said to show how thoroughly _au fait_ the speaker was of the ways of
fashionable life. It was mere talk by the way, unspiced by direct
reference to any Eros, respectable or otherwise.
"I know nothing about them," said Marianne damningly--that is, so far
as a suggestion that she was none the worse thereby could condemn.
Another, that it was best to know little of the class referred to, was
latent. It rankled though, all the more that Mrs. Eldridge's expressive
silence recognized its existence better than words. A garrulous
person's silence may have all the force of a pause in a symphony. When
the _bâton_ of Mrs. Eldridge's conductor, Mischief, allowed the music
to steal gently in again, it came on tiptoe, with subtle finished
skill; a pianissimo flute-phrase in the stillness, harbinger perhaps of
a volume of sound.
"Couldn't you--Marianne dear--couldn't you...?"
"Couldn't I what?" It may be unfair to use the adjective grumpy to
describe this question. When a lady beds her chin in both hands, with
her elbows on her knees, and gazes at a slow-combustion stove doing its
best, while she speaks, her words may have an altogether false effect.
"Ah--well! Perhaps I oughtn't to say.... Never mind, dear! Let's talk
of something else. How's Mrs. Steptoe getting on with her soups?" A
brisk rally of the orchestra--a rousing thrill on the drum. But too
artificial!
"Elizabeth Barclay's been here to-day, to show her about
blotting-paper. Greasy, and then Titus grumbles. But what did you mean
to say?"
The conductor hushes the orchestra--gives gentle permission again to
the flute. "No, dear, I oughtn't to say. Because I know how you feel
about it, exactly. But what I thought of saying was...."
"Yes. Do go on, Charlotte!"
"Couldn't you have made up your mind to go--just this once? Because you
_were_ asked, this time."
"I shouldn't have enjoyed myself."
"Of course not, dear! Neither should I. But you know what I think.
It all turns on a question of prudence. _Anything_ is better than an
_esclandre_." The other instruments come in again, and the conductor is
warming to his work.
"I don't see why we want anything French in it. There's nothing of that
sort, so far as I know."
"Of course not, with the people!" Given, that is, this character cast,
Parisian laxities have no chance. But distinctions must be made.
"Nobody's the least likely to _do_, but people will _say_, exactly the
same as if they did do." Better expressed by Hamlet, in the plague he
offered poor Ophelia as a dowry! Who shall escape calumny?
Marianne mutters something her friend takes to be, "I don't care
what people say." The orchestra--pursuing our strained musical
metaphor--sees a _crescendo_ phrase ahead, and the conductor interprets
it as _accelerando_.
"That's where you're so wrong, dear--do forgive me for saying it! But
you _are_ wrong. Pure and honest natures like yours always make that
mistake. Of course you know, and I know--we all know--that to speak
of anything really wrong in the same breath with your husband would
be absurd, and even this fashionable girl for that matter. I mean,
you know, really wrong." A nod-supported whisper--the music goes to
_pianissimo_ quite suddenly; consider the sharp ears of Mrs. Steptoe,
and Harmood, in the kitchen! But enough of that. _Our_ text calls for
no secrecies; brush them aside, and resume without pedals, but _con
espressione_. "But everyone is not like you, dear! So many people take
pleasure in putting--well! the most horrid constructions on the most
_inno_cent.... What?" For Mrs. Charlotte had stopped to gloat so long
over the first syllable of _innocent_--she did not enjoy the "horrid
constructions" half so much--that she had not heard what Marianne said.
Who, on request, repeated it:
"I didn't say I didn't care what people said ... oh well!--I've
forgotten what I did say now, and it doesn't matter. Anyhow, I consider
I've done _my_ duty, and now I simply won't _go_ to any of their
dinners, come what may, Acropolis Club or no! So there!" This is a
stronger ground than a plea of simple non-enjoyment as a cause of
abstention, and Charlotte makes no protest. Her mind, too, is attracted
by another point. She speaks dreamily to express that it is feeling its
way, as through a mist, to illumination.
"What was it ... oh, don't you know? Lewis Smithson heard it ...
oh dear!--what _was_ the name of the club now? One of these mixed
clubs ... oh no!--of course, I know what the story itself was--you
needn't tell me that!... I mean what was the name of the club?" But
Marianne cannot help, and conversation can't stop for it. At any rate,
it wasn't the Acropolis. Which Mrs. Eldridge repeats more than once
confirmatorily, to make the Acropolis safe before resuming the general
question. She dismisses the legend itself--what it was does not matter
here--as quite unworthy of credence. "I believe Lewis Smithson made it
himself," she says. "Anyhow, it's nonsense. For my part, I should say
they were much more likely to be stiff and straight up, for fear of its
getting about. Besides, who was it you said was coming to this party?
Lord and Lady Who?"
"Some name like Albatross."
"Ross Tarbet. Why, my dear, they're _the pink_! Corstrechan Castle in
Banffshire. Oh no!--it's all right enough as far as that goes. But
still I _do_ think, if you ask me, it would have been just as well if
you hadn't refused."
"Why? I do wish you would speak plainly, Charlotte, and not go round
and round."
Mrs. Eldridge won't commit herself to a statement without passing
through a period of reflection. It is consistent with the contemplation
of the shadow of her free hand, held beyond it, on the screen she is
interposing between her face and the fire. Its silhouette of outspread
fingers seems to satisfy her, and not to interfere with the thoughts
that her drooped eyelids and fixed look are grave about. After quite
enough cogitation, she says abruptly: "I wasn't thinking of _at_ the
dinner. Nor the rest of the evening. But seeing home comes in. However,
if you think of it, she would be with the Ross Tarbets, and they would
drive her home. Let's see! The club's in Jermyn Street. Her family are
in Grosvenor Square. I fancy the Ross Tarbets are in Park Lane. It's
all in the way."
Such talk ought to have had a soothing, reassuring influence. Miss
Arkroyd under the wing of a live Countess, safe of an escort to the
paternal mansion, what more could be asked? Nevertheless, there is an
hysterical sound--to Mrs. Eldridge's experienced ear--in the laugh with
which Marianne says: "What silly nonsense! As if it made any difference
to me if Titus saw the girl home in twenty cabs!"
"Because you have such confidence in Titus, my dear. And that is right!
I wouldn't trust John myself. But he's different."
If Marianne had been in the least a humorist, the image of Mr.
Eldridge, in danger from an aristocratic enchantress, seeking to
unsettle his devotion to the stylish female he could now call his
own, would have drawn from her a more genuine laugh than her last. But
she was in no mood for laughing, and the greatest booby in Christendom
might have passed muster with her as a parallel to her husband. We are
not prepared to say he had not done so in the present case.
Marianne got up uneasily from the low chair she sat on before the
fire; took another, but did not keep it long; rose again, and walked
restlessly about the room. Unlike her!--so thought her companion,
glancing up at her keenly, but furtively. Mrs. Eldridge had no definite
plan of mischief; she only wanted the luxury of caressing her favourite
subject. She felt a little alarmed, and rather wished the disquieted
one would sit down again. But Marianne showed no tendency to do so.
On the contrary, she said suddenly: "I forgot to tell Martha those
underthings must not go to the wash. That woman always shrinks them,"
and left the room. Mrs. Eldridge heard her bedroom door close above,
but no sound of colloquy with Martha. Then her attention was taken off
by a tap at the door, whose executant she gave leave to come in.
It was Mrs. Steptoe, meek and creditable as an evening-cook; to wit,
one that has done her washing-up. A sense of chapel hangs upon her,
and the cough she gives as preface to speech seems conscious of its
indebtedness to a pause in some sort of devotional service undefined.
Her widowhood and the distinction of her sudden loss have given Aunt
Stingy a chastened identity. But though in the ascendant, she will not
obtrude herself. Mrs. Challis--servants seem lately to have left off
saying _missis_ and _master_--not being to the fore, she will retire
and remain in abeyance, exceptin' rang for. It was only to remind about
ordering Huntley and Palmer, Mr. Challis being that particular. But
Mrs. Challis would be back directly, said Mrs. Eldridge. Aunt Stingy,
nothing loth, would remain to chat.
Interrogated, Lizarann's aunt is finding the place comfortable. The
ketching chemley draws a little imperfect, certainly; but the boiler
full up, if hot over-night, lastis on the next day, and any quantity.
A great convenience! It is noticeable about Mrs. Steptoe's speech that
it does not improve when she tries to talk up to her company. When she
spoke to her equals in Tallack Street, without desire to impress, she
was provincial and unpolished, but seldom Cockney. Now, her attempts to
be classical and win respect from Mrs. Eldridge are failures.
"What sort of a place was Mrs. Fossett's!"
"_Miss!_--excusin' my makin' bold to correct. But not in a place there.
Only as a reference."
"Where was your last place, then?" But Mrs. Steptoe explained, with
many reserves and sidelights, that she had never been truly in service;
having led, broadly speaking, a regal life, until she married beneath
her, but, nevertheless, into a respectable trade connection. The
suggestion that her husband's brain had been affected rounded off a
tale that hinted at ancestry and a pursuing evil destiny--the race
of Laius! "But you used to cook, wherever you were, once," said Mrs.
Eldridge, wedded to practical issues.
"Oh, there, now!--cook, indeed! Why, I was sayin', only today, to Miss
Harmood, 'If you could have seen the table they kep' at Sea View, soups
and jellies and made-up dishes and the whole attention left to me, in
the manner of speakin'.' Owing, ma'am, you see, to uncertain health,
my aunt's sister--in charge of the establishment--suffering with a
complication, and terminated fatally eleven years this Easter Day.
Coming back to me, naturally, with the season." A retrospective sigh,
over life's changes, came well in here.
"Was it a sort of private hotel, or boarding-house?" Mrs. Eldridge
thought she saw light.
Mrs. Steptoe conveyed general assent, without close definition. "But
very select!" she added. And Mrs. Eldridge said, "Of course," entirely
without reason.
Aunt Stingy felt encouraged, and made up her mind to resume in full
all particulars of the banquet we have heard about. After all, she
is not the only person that ever dwelt overmuch on scanty incidents
of slight importance in themselves; but oases, for all that, in the
arid stretches of an eventless life. Besides--as her tale showed after
Mrs. Eldridge had heard all about the splendid cooking accommodation
of this establishment at Ramsgate, and full particulars almost of
every dish on the table--there was revealed a curious sequel to this
seaside dissipation, which no doubt would have been communicated to
Mrs. Challis, if that lady had been as inquisitive as her friend. For
Mrs. Charlotte hearing of an occasion--fifteen years ago!--when six or
eight persons of either sex had dined together, forthwith smelt rats,
and made for their places of concealment with the alacrity of a Dandie
Dinmont.
"You seem to remember them all very well, Mrs. Steptoe."
"Along of what followed, no doubt, ma'am." The speaker appeared to
become suddenly reserved, but awaiting catechism for all that.
Mrs. Eldridge's shrewd intelligence reached the issue promptly.
"Perhaps you promised not to tell it. Don't tell me!" This would have
disappointed Aunt Stingy, if she had believed it genuine. But she
didn't, and confirmation of her disbelief came. "Only really, it's
so long ago! It's almost ridiculous." The catechumen still awaited
pressure. "But do just as you feel, Mrs. Steptoe. Of course, it's no
affair of mine."
Aunt Stingy laughed slightingly, to remove the matter from among grave
responsibilities. "Ho, as for that," she said, "I was never under any
promise--only Mr. and Mrs. Hallock wished no reference made. Only,
as you was sayin', such a many years after.... Is that Mrs. Challis
coming?" But it wasn't.
"She's speaking to Martha upstairs. She won't come yet." Mrs. Eldridge
betrays her curiosity--is very transparent. So urged, Aunt Stingy
gives, not at all obscurely, a narrative some ten minutes long, which,
for all purposes of this story, may be condensed as follows:--
The Mr. and Mrs. Hallock who figure in it had, for some not very
evident reasons, felt justified in abetting the marriage of their
nursery-governess with a man supposed to be of good means and
antecedents, with the full knowledge that this marriage was concealed
from her family, and was to remain so for a term. The dinner that was
Aunt Stingy's culinary triumph was a festivity to welcome this happy
couple on their return from a short honeymoon. The young gentleman
named as Harris among the guests was a friend of the bridegroom. So
far, nothing very criminal. But there was a sequel. The Hallocks,
returning next season to the same apartments, where it seemed they
spent every summer, frequently referred to the affair, but always with
surprise that no news had reached them of the wedded couple, and this
in spite of inquiries by letter. "Ungrateful girl!" was their verdict.
One morning towards the end of their stay they were dumbfounded by an
advertisement of a wedding, in the _Telegraph_. The bride actually bore
the name of their ex-governess--her maiden name, that is--while the
bridegroom's was, to their nearest recollection, that of the friend who
had been introduced to them as Mr. Harris the year before. That was the
substance of Mrs. Steptoe's story.
"They were that surprised," she said, "you might have knocked either
of 'em down with an electric shock. 'My word,' says Mr. Hallock, 'to
think of that!' he says. 'Then Horne must be dead, and that girl
married to his friend already! And not so much as a letter!'... Oh
yes! Mr. Hallock, he was resentful like, but Mrs. Hallock, she leans
across to him, and she says: 'My dear, it's a coincidence! Kate never
would--never! I _knew_ the girl,' she says. So she talked him down,
and they put it at a coincidence, and let it go."
"But did you hear no more?"
"_They_ heard--not me! Or only remarks fell by chance. There come a
letter next day, and they was a-talking and she a-crying over it.
Little scraps they let drop, loud enough to reach. 'Ho, the miscreant!'
and 'The licensual scoundrel!' And then Mrs. Hallock she says:
'Whatever could possess us, Edwin, not to make more certain about the
ceremony?' Then they see me, and dropped to a whisper. Only saying to
me after, not to repeat anything I'd heard, which I made the promise,
as requested."
"There's Mrs. Challis coming. I wish you could have been more sure
of the names, because it's interesting. Couldn't you think them up a
little?"
Mrs. Steptoe cogitated. Hallock, of course, she said. Because she
knew _them_ a long time. But the other names hardly, to be any surer.
Except it was the young lady's single name. Because that she see in the
newspaper, when she come to look at the advertisement. Then she must
have seen the bridegroom's name, said her interrogator. It seemed not;
the glance was a hurried one. But she was sure about the girl's. It was
Catherine Verrall.
This story has only had occasion once to refer to the name of Challis's
first wife, Marianne's half-sister. And though Mrs. Eldridge had often
talked with her friend about this half-sister, dead five or six years
before the families became acquainted, it was always about "Kate"--no
other name--or "my sister" when Marianne was the speaker. It is quite
an open question whether she would at once have felt the name familiar,
if it had not been for Bob's full name. Her knowledge that it was
Robert Verrall Challis was perhaps what made her say, "What?--what's
that?--did you say Verrall?" with stimulated interest. Mrs. Steptoe
repeated "Catherine Verrall" quite distinctly, just as her mistress,
returning, opened the door. Mrs. Eldridge hoped, without having had
time to make up her mind why, that Marianne had not heard the name. For
a few moments she thought she had not. The whole thing happened very
rapidly.
Mrs. Steptoe delivered her reminder about Huntley and Palmer's Oatmeal
Biscuits, to be ordered with the stores. Mrs. Challis had not forgotten
them. One or two other small matters were referred to, and then Mrs.
Steptoe said good-night with due humility, and departed. She was
instructed not to sit up for Master Bob, who had gone to a neighbour's
to assist in acting charades. Marianne would let him in. She did not
resume her seat by the fire, but lay down on the sofa, away from it.
She had a flushed, turbulent look, and a smell of eau-de-Cologne,
backed by ruffled hair over the forehead, conveyed the idea that she
had been putting it on her face, to cool it. Mrs. Eldridge felt uneasy.
Had she gone too far?
"Was it all right about the flannels?" she asked.
"I think so. I don't know. I didn't see Martha. I felt sick, and lay
down.... Oh yes!--I'm all right now."
"No, you're not, dear! You look very flushed. Shan't I get something? A
little brandy-and-water?"
"Oh heavens, no!--make me sick! Like on the steamer--the very idea
makes me ill! There's nothing the matter."
Mrs. Eldridge wasn't convinced. Should she open the window to let a
little air in? She was one of those plaguing people that _will_ remedy,
whether you like it or no. Mrs. Challis repulsed her open-window
movement with some asperity; reduced her to fiddling with her screen
with a fixed gaze of solicitude, fraught with ultimatums about medical
advice, failing prompt improvement in the patient.
Marianne remained still on the sofa, with her eyes closed for a few
minutes. Then she said suddenly, rather as one who turns to an offered
relief: "What were you and Steptoe saying about my sister when I came
in?"
Her hearer started; grasped the coincidence of name fully for the first
time probably. "Your sister, Marianne.... Why, how?" And then, with a
complete perplexity: "How could that be?"
"My sister was Catherine Verrall--my sister Kate, that died. Why were
you talking about her?"
"It must have been another Catherine Verral--_must_ have been."
"_Who_ must have been?"
"This girl. Stop, and I'll tell you!... But, really, the
coincidence!" And, indeed, Mrs. Charlotte seems almost knocked silly
by it, as the pugilists say. Marianne is roused and interested
at her perplexity--sits up on the sofa fanning herself with her
pocket-handkerchief--seems half inclined to laugh.
"What's it all _about_, Charlotte?" she says, and then adds--a little
passing tribute to the memory abruptly revived--"Poor Kate!"
"Oh, my dear, of course it's nothing to do with poor Kate. Just an odd
coincidence of a girl Mrs. Steptoe knew at Ramsgate, I think--years
ago!"
"Kate was at Ramsgate, though, when I was a child. She taught music
to some people's children. What _was_ their name now?" But the name
would not come back, on any terms. Marianne gave it up. Her friend felt
actually glad, for the puzzle was too incisive to be pleasant.
"Very likely she was at Ramsgate. Why not? But she hadn't been twice a
widow when she married your Titus, at any rate. Come, Marianne!"
"Certainly not! She wasn't nineteen, for one thing. Was this
coincidence-lady a widow?"
"Perhaps I had better tell you the story?"
"Much better, I should say." On which Mrs. Eldridge repeats Mrs.
Steptoe's tale, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the
substance, but with a tendency--very common in narratives we pass on
to others, but ourselves have no part in--to substitute descriptions
or epithets for names. Thus the Mr. and Mrs. Hallock of the original
narrative appeared as "this lady and gentleman" until Mrs. Challis,
whose puzzled look was on the increase, asked a question about them:
"What were they--this lady and gentleman? What was their name?"
"I fancy he was a coal merchant or dealer in something. Mrs. Steptoe
didn't say. The name was Hallock." Mrs. Challis sprang up from the sofa
excitedly.
"Charlotte!--_what_ did you say? Hallock?"
"Yes--Hallock. Why not?"
Marianne's breath is quite taken away. "But that is the name I had
forgotten--Hallock," she says, as soon as she can speak. "They're
in one of those photographs in the old book--the one I brought from
mother's." Her speech is rapid and frightened. The strangeness of the
story is getting its mastery, and she feels, without imaging them, the
ambushes in wait for her. "Oh dear!" she gasps, sinking back again on
the sofa, "all this--it's so odd! Charlotte, I'm afraid to look at the
photograph."
Charlotte's nerves are stronger, and she, recovered from the momentary
alarm her friend had given her, is ready, one might say, to be in
mischief again. "Don't be a goose, Marianne," she says. "You're
frightened of everything. Do let's get the thing explained, dear,
instead of going dotty over it. Which photograph book is it?...
left-hand chiffonier?... no?--right-hand ... top shelf?... No!--I won't
make a mess.... I expect it's this."
It was, and it exactly confirmed Mrs. Eldridge's anticipation of a coal
merchant and his wife, two young daughters, and a governess a few years
older than themselves. A stupid seaside photographer's group, but
with well-marked face-features. The artist's address in a little oval
underneath, conspicuously Ramsgate.
"Of course it's all some confusion of Mrs. Steptoe's," says Mrs.
Eldridge. She knows she is talking nonsense, but she wants to calm all
troubled waters while she gets her curiosity satisfied. "You'll see she
won't recognize any of these--unless you give her hints, Marianne."
This is unprovoked, and Marianne resents it. "Show them to her when
I'm not there if you like. Show her now and I'll go. Only I'm afraid
they're gone to bed." If they have, no harm in ringing the bell! It is
rung, and evolves Harmood, apologetic for not having gone up yet. And
then Mrs. Steptoe, even more so.
Marianne does not go, but then that was mere talk. Mrs. Eldridge wants
Steptoe--so she tells her--to see if she recognizes a photograph.
Aunt Stingy is not dissatisfied to be consulted about anything. Mrs.
Eldridge shows diplomacy, astutely getting her to identify Mrs. Challis
at different ages. Having put the witness on a false scent, she shows
the group, and asks: "Now which of those is Mrs. Challis?"
The witness tried to find an excuse for identification, but failed. But
having admitted failure, why hold so tightly to the photo-album?
"Well, Mrs. Steptoe?" Mrs. Eldridge speaks.
"Nothing, ma'am. Oh no!--only what unaccountably caught my eye. Nothing
to detain. What would be termed an impression." She relinquished the
album slowly with a vaguely constructed "Excusin' the liberty I took,
I'm sure!"
"You noticed something, Mrs. Steptoe?"
"In the manner of speaking, yes! But not to detain. It just cut across
me like ... yes, ma'am, thank you, just a minute!" For Mrs. Eldridge
had said, "Look at it again," and handed the open book back.
Aunt Stingy looked and looked, in more and more visible bewilderment.
Pressed to explain it, she at last said: "I can't make no less of it,
put it how you may. That's Mr. and Mrs. Hallock I was telling of, just
now half-an-hour gone. And _that_ is the young lady."
Iterations, stimulated by an incredulity Mrs. Eldridge affects in order
to procure them, are interrupted by a knock at the front door. Mrs.
Steptoe departs to open it. It is Mr. Eldridge, to accompany his wife
home. He is not, she says, to hurry and fuss, but to sit down and wait,
and not knock things over. He makes the remark, "Somethin' up! Easy
does it!" implying, perhaps, readiness to wait for enlightenment, and
becomes seated, but knocks nothing over. His wife throws him a gleam,
to live on. "We are discussing the identity of a photograph," she says.
An occurrence interposes, Master Bob's arrival; the toleration for a
few brief moments of exultation over the evening's successes, and his
dismissal to bed, rather disgusted at Europe's want of appreciation.
Then Mrs. Steptoe, who had retired to admit him, re-enters and resumes.
"Those are the parties I told you, ma'am," says she, in an undertone
of confidence brought forward from the previous conversation, rather
definitely exclusive of the newcomer, who had overlapped it. But he has
his ideas, and as soon as he has thoroughly polished with his wrist the
bridge of a nose he has just blown, he offers counsel:
"No name on 'em? Look on the back. Look on the edges where they tuck
in. Nothin' like lookin'!" His wife accepts the suggestion without
tribute to his sagacity; and when the photo is slipped from the
_passepartout_, there on the back is plainly written: "Mr. and Mrs.
Hallock, Nelly, Totty, and self. June, 1888."
* * * * *
"She'll be all right," said Mrs. Eldridge, returning to her husband
in the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later. For Mrs. Challis,
already upset by her previous interview with her friend, had been
in no condition to have it burst upon her suddenly that important
events--which she could not the least understand, so far--relating to
her sister's life, and perhaps to his own, had been concealed from
her by this husband whom she was now called upon to have so much
faith in. She had completely broken down; had left the room white as
ashes, having been previously flushed and feverish; and had nearly
fainted away on the stairs. She had been got safely to bed, and had so
far recovered as to be able to say that she should go to sleep soon.
Perhaps her chief wish was to be let alone. She wanted to think to the
bottom of this photograph story. What was it all about?
But Mr. Eldridge perceived that this sort of weather was trying to
some constitutions, and suggested drastic treatment. His wife said,
"Be quiet while I write this," and ignored his suggestions. She wrote
a brief note to Mr. Challis, and left it in his bedroom candlestick
on the hall-table outside. He was sure to see it. She then asked her
husband whether he was coming, or was going to go on mooning there
indefinitely. He chose the former course without insisting on closer
definition of the latter.
A couple of hours later Alfred Challis paid a cabman a shilling too
much, to avoid discussion, through his confessional _guichet_ overhead,
and escaped from a guillotine--thanks to its momentary forbearance--in
a steady shower of rain that had heard that the wind had fallen,
and caught at the opportunity to come down. It was lucky he had a
waterproof on, though he had only to negotiate the garden's length to
reach shelter and discover his latchkey.
He was not in the best of humours; all the more so that Miss Arkroyd,
who was to have accompanied the Ross Tarbets, had been unable to do so
on account of a sprained ankle--a trifle in itself, but warranted to
become serious if walked on.
Seeing the envelope after lighting his candle, he opened it and read
the note. His comments, in their order, were a "Hm--hm!" of concern and
apprehension, another with some impatience in it, a grunt with nothing
else, and a suppressed "Damn the woman!" He read it twice, and again,
and went upstairs noiselessly.
Marianne was not asleep. She was wide awake, and wholesomely disposed
to trust her husband, and tell the events of the evening at whatever
risk. It would have to come out some time. Besides, the relief of
knowing, either way! However, to tell him as natural sequence to
an enquiry how things had gone with her was one thing; to rush the
position another. She could not bring herself to call out to him--so
little concerned about her as to make no such enquiry, and still
scintillating, as it were, with sparks from the brilliancies of his
evening's entertainment--to come into her room and hear the story. No,
let him go--him and his Grosvenor Squares and Countesses!
Meanwhile he, however little weight he attached to anything Charlotte
Eldridge said, conceived that he was on the safe side in paying
attention to what she enjoined about a patient whom she had seen, and
he had not. She might have been more definite about the nature of
the attack. It was just like her to make a mystery of it. But it was
evidently better to take her hint not to disturb his wife--now at near
one in the morning! Challis made as little noise as possible, and got
to bed in his own room, next to hers, without opening the door between
lest he should wake her.
This was the text of Mrs. Charlotte's letter:
"She is _much_ better, and will sleep. John and I both think you need
not be the _least_ alarmed. She has been too much excited lately, but
will be all right now. Be very careful not to disturb her when you go
up. I will try to come round in the morning. C. E."
CHAPTER XXI
HOW JIM RETURNED HOME, ALL BUT ONE LEG, AND LIZARANN CALLED ON HIM.
HAD THE DEVIL GOT UNCLE BOB? HOW BRIDGETTICKS HAD HEARD OF A SCHEME
FOR LIZARANN'S BENEFIT
Lizarann's deferred hopes of being allowed to rejoin her Daddy made
her heart sick, but they never ceased to be hopes. No undercurrent of
despair made itself felt. If Teacher's reassuring tones had not been
sufficient, were there not the gentleman's, known to Lizarann's direct
simplicity as Mr. Yorick--a designation remaining uncontradicted in his
laughing acceptance of it. But he was going back to his own Rectory, in
order that Gus should be once more in harness at St. Vulgate's--his own
proper field of labour--during the approaching Holy Week. The invalid
was enormously better; so he himself said.
However, Mr. Yorick was destined before his departure to put the
crowning corner-stone on the fabric of Lizarann's affection for himself.
"Now, Miss Coupland," said he, "you sit still! And don't kick! And then
tell me where you suppose you are going to be taken to-day."
Lizarann was cautious--wouldn't commit herself. "Who's a-going to tight
me?" she asked, to get a clue.
"Me," said Mr. Yorick, falling to the grammatical level of his company.
"I'm going to take you, as soon as ever you've guessed where. But only
one guess, mind!"
Lizarann thought this shabby. But then, after all, when there is only
one guess worth making, you may just as well use it up and have done
with it. She looked from one of the faces that was watching to the
other, and back; then risked her guess. "To Daddy in the Sospital!" she
fairly shouted. But, alas!--disappointment was in store for her.
"No! Not Daddy in the Sospital. Guess again."
"Oh, Yorick, how can you? Playing with the child! I shouldn't have
thought you could be so wicked. No, Lizarann dear, don't you believe
him! Daddy's out of the Hospital, and you're to go and see him.
There!... I'm telling the truth, child!" For Lizarann, bewildered,
still glances from one to the other.
"That's it, Lizarann. Not Daddy in the Sospital, but Daddy out of the
Sospital. Now wrap up warm, and we'll go at once." A wild shriek of
delight, an "undue subordination" of limbs, as in pictures of a debased
period, and a rush for wraps, is followed, we are sorry to say, by some
coughing. There is no such thing as flawless event anywhere.
"Oh no!--it won't do her any harm to go out," says Teacher. "Dr. Ferris
said it might do her good if it got mild. Now, Lizarann!--Mr. Yorick's
ready." For this Monday, known to the Rev. Gus as "Annunciation," and
to most of his flock as Lady Day--a dreadful day when your rent isn't
ready--had come as a herald of early spring, and a belief in violets
was in the air.
* * * * *
"How far mustn't we go to the Sospital?" Lizarann speaks obscurely, but
the meaning is clear to her conductor. How long is the road we are not
going to the Hospital on?--surely that's clear.
"How far is it to Daddy? Daddy's at home." And, surely enough, when
Mr. Yorick comes to Tallack Street he turns the corner. This bewilders
Lizarann.
"But Aunt Stingy, she's took a place," she says. She is not certain
of the exact sense of her words. The place might be Badajoz; or a
Chancellorship of something, with a portfolio. But it doesn't matter!
In either case, Aunt Stingy has left her home desolate--cookless! Again
Lizarann is sympathetically understood.
"Your Daddy's being seen to, Miss Coupland. So he won't starve. Here
we are!" And it is actually true! Lizarann is back in the home she
has been eight weeks away from. For although of late the child had
been allowed out, cautiously, no expedition had covered the half-mile
between the school and Tallack Street. It is actually true that she
is back there now, and wild with delight on the knee her Daddy still
has left for her--in a rapture of tears and laughter that can just
allow--but only just--the moderation of deportment called for when
knees but lately the subjects of comminuted fractures are sat upon,
even by very light weights.
Jim was garrulous about the Hospital, and the kindness and attention
he had received there. "Yes, master, I was main sorry to come away,
one side o' lookin' at it. I'll carry the doctor-gentleman and Nurse
Lucy in my mind a long day on. Many's the time I said to myself what
I'd be tellin' of 'em to the little lass, home again. There was a
bit o' sameness, as might be, when you think of it, and I got fixed
uneasy-like about the lass. But, dear Lard bless you!--there was a many
there worse off than me. Why, there was that pore chap you see, next
bed off on the right! How might you suppose he come there?"
"Don't know, Jim; give it up! How was it?" Mr. Yorick does all the
conversation. Lizarann will find her tongue presently, when she and
Daddy are alone. At present she merely nestles to him, speechless, but
blissful. Jim pursues his topic:
"As I made it out, master, it was this sort o' way: It was a kind o'
small-arms factory, and there was two young wenches in the finishin'
shop o' one mind about him. So it came to making ch'ice, for him.
And one o' them, by name Clara, she warns him if she catches him
sweethearting with her shopmate, she'd just mark him. Both decent
girls, ye see! And she was all as good as her word, with a little pot
of vitrol, right in his eyes! And he run, roaring mad with pain, and
was caught in the machinery, and made a spoiled man of, as I reckon,
all his days. Name of Linklater."
"What a terrible business! And it may have been _he_ wasn't to blame,
either."
"No--pore chap! He'd just no consolation, as you might say. I count
myself a well-off man, set against him. Just wait a bit, master, and
see me when I'm clear of them crutches. Once I get to use my stick
again, anybody'll say, to see me: 'Why, there's a man ain't got
anything the matter with him!' Nor yet I shan't have, to speak of!"
Athelstan Taylor could not help comparing Jim's resolute optimism--poor
crushed wreck that he was!--with his sister's aggressive meekness
and its pious claim to resignation or uncomplaining acquiescence in
what was really a most happy release, though paraded as a cruel blow
of Fate. But he could not stay to chat. He had to get back to St.
Vulgate's; have a talk about the local flock, chiefly goats, with his
friend, who had come home the evening before; pack his trunk, and get
to Euston by one-thirty, with or without lunch. So he had only a few
more hurried words with Jim.
"You'll think of what I was saying to you, Jim?"
"Sure, master!"
"And the lassie will just trot back to Miss Fossett, before it's dark.
She'd better; the house might be cold here. Won't you, Lizarann?"
Lizarann will, honour bright! "And how about those kisses I'm to take
to my own little girls?" Payable on demand, three crossed to the
account of Phoebe, three to Joan; both names being now familiar to
drawer. They are very loud--those kisses! Mr. Yorick says farewell and
goes. Lizarann and her Daddy are again alone together. Eight whole
weeks!
Oh, the hours that had seemed weeks, and the days that had seemed
years, of waiting--waiting for this moment. And here it was! Daddy
himself--come back out of that mysterious Hospital, where Lizarann had
never been to see him! No wonder Lizarann did not know where to begin!
"Well, then, little lass! They haven't cut the little lass's tongue
out amongst 'em?" A vehement headshake of denial precedes the first
of the many things Lizarann can select, at random, from the multitude
she has been resolving to tell Daddy all through this dreary period of
privation.
"Teacher's new cat's black all over, only white on the stomach. Yass!
And four of the kittens was drownded." Jim's sympathies are all ready
for Teacher's cat's kittens. But he is not further called on to show
them, for the child deserts the kittens almost instantly with "Oh,
Daddy!--they took you to the Sospital."
"Coorse they did! How many policeman was there, lassie?"
"There was free I see first. And one he turned back down the road. Only
there was men, as well as policemen."
"Chaps?"
"Yass! And there was the boys. And there was a woman. And there was
another woman. Only not sober." So she didn't count, that one; was
civilly disqualified, as it were. But was the sober one making herself
of use?--Jim inquires. "She wasn't finding any fault," is all the
testimony Lizarann can give. It seems to imply that the drunken one
was indicting the executive. Lizarann finishes up her report: "Then
there was Mother Groves, and the 'ot-chestnut stall at the corner, and
the Young Varmint." For this is the name--no less--by which Frederick
Hawkins is known to Lizarann and her Daddy.
"So there they all was, the biling of 'em," said Jim. "And there was
Daddy, he'd got himself under a cart, and was a bit the worse by it.
And his little lass, she come and kissed him, for to cheer him up--hay,
lassie? Nor never cried, nor made no noise, like he told her not to."
Lizarann felt proud and happy. But she could not endure a position
with the slightest false pretence in it. "I _did_ cried, too," she
said, "when I got so far as Dartley Street. And the boy, he says not to
water-cart."
"The Young Varmint?"
"Yass! He toldited me his nime, he did. Hawkins--Frederick--Hawkins."
Lizarann gives the exact words the boy had said. "And he says not
to water-cart because of his aunt and uncle. Took to the Sospital
quite flat they was, and begun singing a fortnight after!" Jim made
concession to the Young Varmint--went so far as to say that he would
not warm his hide for him this time, pr'aps! But he spoke without
confidence of the like abstention being justified in the future.
"And then the lassie come home," said he. "And who come to the door?"
"Only me, Daddy!"
"Ah!--but t'other side--who come?"
"Uncle Bob didn't come to the door, only he set it just on the jar
for me to push." Clearly "coming to a door" involves opening it wide
for friends, or conferring with strangers to learn their reason for
knocking or ringing. He who takes letters from a letter-box does not
go to the door, even if he rushes downstairs like a madman when the
postman's knock comes.
You may be sure that Lizarann's narrative that followed was full of
little niceties of language, as spoken in Tallack Street. But you have
had all the substance, and it need not be repeated in a new form.
Jim interspersed the story of the suppression of his delirious
brother-in-law with exclamations of applause. Lizarann deserved what
the players call "a hand" now and again for the vivacity of her
descriptive report of the knife scene, with its dramatic ending of
the application of the spent lucifer-match to Uncle Bob's hand. "He
just give one scroatch, and there he was!" The introduction of a new
self-explanatory word into the language alone deserved recognition. But
Jim was not concerned with this. The conduct of Athelstan Taylor in a
difficult position took his attention off minor points.
"I could have named the sart of man he was," said he, speaking half
to himself, "from the feel of his hand, and maybe no more than just
a 'Good-marning, mate!' by the way. And--but to think of it!--him a
_parson_!" Jim couldn't get over this at all. He dwelt on the unfitness
of the arrangement: "Now, if they'd 'a made pore Bob a parson, it might
'a broke him of his habit, and we'd not have had a bad miss of him
on our side." He seemed to go on thinking of the subject in all its
aspects--possibly of the utilization of ecclesiastical preferments as
an antidote to drunkenness. But his fingers kept wandering about his
little girl's face and head, as if to detect the change eight weeks had
made in it.
"Uncle Bob's dead," said she, getting closer to say it, in a dropped,
awe-struck voice.
"Ah--he's dead! He might have turned over a better day's work, mayhap!
But Lard!--if you come to that, what a many of us mightn't! Poor Bob!"
"Does it hurt, Daddy?"
"Does what hurt, lassie?"
"Being dead."
"I reckoned you might mean my old leg.... No--it don't hurt, bless
you!--not good little lassies, like mine. Other folks' I couldn't say
about. They do say the Devil gets some on 'em, now and again. But he
ain't a sartainty, himself. Though in coorse he manages all he can
see his way to." That is to say that, unless handicapped by absolute
non-existence, Satan might be trusted to do his best to get all bad
little lassies.
Lizarann knew her catechism, and all that was necessary for her
salvation, as school-knowledge. But she could not help being curious
about these things as actual facts--knowledge-knowledge, one might say.
Daddy could be relied on. Why not go straight to the point? So after
some mere conversation-making about whether Mr. Winkleson had ever
actually seen the Devil, Lizarann did so. "Has he got Uncle Bob?" she
asked.
Her father's answer was not consistent with his previous expressions
of opinion. "Never you fear for him, lass! The Devil don't take a poor
chap for making mistakes with his grog. And as for his handling that
knife a bit too free, I doubt the liquor had just got the mastery of
him. And then, you know, lass, a man ain't himself when that happens.
Ye may make your mind easy about Bob."
So Lizarann felt no further disquiet. Perhaps she was unconsciously
soothed by observing the differences of opinion among her seniors--Mr.
Winkleson, Teacher, and Daddy. The last was most likely to know, and
gave the pleasantest answer to the problem.
"And there was my little lass out in the snow in her night-shimmee.
To think of that! And her Daddy all the while no more use than a
turned turtle!" This had to be explained; and the continuity of the
conversation was risked, owing to Lizarann's womanly pity for turtles
on their backs and helpless. However, this very pity caused reaction
towards the previous questions, as Jim's situation had been no better
than that of the turtles. Lizarann had to cry a little over this, and
then renewed her petition--previous applications having been met by
evasion or postponement--to actually see the wooden substitute for a
limb that, in spite of its boasted efficacy, compelled her Daddy to
sit on a chair with more or less disguise of coat or blanket over it,
both limbs being preferably kept horizontal for the present. But she
might look at it, sure, might Lizarann; and, indeed, anyone would have
thought, to see Jim exhibiting the business-end of a very new wooden
leg, that some great improvement on a previous unsatisfactory condition
had been attained. The little woman was incredulous about this; and,
suspecting guile, put her Daddy through a severe cross-examination.
"'Sposin' you was obliged to it, Daddy; 'sposin' you had to walk all
the way up Tallack Street, and all the way acrost Cazenove Street,
and all the way acrost Trott Street to Blading Street where the cart
was...?"
"Lard, lassie!--I could do it on my head, as the saying is, any minute
o' the week!" But Jim demurs to an actual performance--says the doctor
don't allow any tricks to be played. Lizarann gives the point up; but,
oh dear!--how dreadfully afraid she feels that she is being practised
on, and that in reality this shiny, well-turned, clean-leather-strapped
contraption is, after all, no better--even perhaps worse--than an
ordinary human foot. She will--she must!--elicit the truth somehow.
"Daddy!"
"Lassie!"
"When you was out on the yard-arm, and the wind was a-freshenin' up
from the south...."
"To be sure, lass! Freshening to a three-quarter gale, and none too
little canvas on her.... Easy ahead, lassie!" Jim is only helping the
memory of the well-worn story, and the child accepts the prompting.
"... None too little canvas on her. And Peter Cortright and Marmaduke
Flyn, they was both on the mainyard reefin' alongside. And Peter
Cortright he sings out to look...."
"Ah!--and your Daddy, he looked, and there he see her, the Dutchman,
carrying all sail afore the wind.... Well, little lass, and what o'
that?"
"When you was then, 'sposin' you'd only had a wooden leg!"
Jim's big laugh comes; and so lost is he in his little lass, so free
from all thought of his own great privation, even in the face of the
bygone time, that he can make it a heart-whole laugh and never flinch.
"'Sposin' I'd only had a wooden leg? Well--as I reckon it--I shouldn't
have taken much notice. Not for one such! If you'd 'a named two wooden
legs now, lassie! That might have constitooted a poor kind of holt on
a slippery yard. But I might have made a shift to do, even at that."
Lizarann was silenced, but not convinced. She resolved to thresh the
subject out with Bridgetticks, whom she had secretly resolved to call
upon on her way home. Bridget might know nothing about wooden legs,
but she could cite a parallel experience, having herself walked on her
brother's stelts, what he made out of two broomsticks and the foot'old
nyled on, and mide syfe with a scrop of narrer iron hooping. She would
refer it to Bridgetticks whether her brother--or a Circus, for that
matter--could walk upon a bare yard, of which her own image was akin to
a yard-measure, with a pair of stelts. If she, Bridget, felt confident
of her brother's powers, no doubt Jim's assurance of his own might have
been well grounded.
"Doesn't Aunt Stingy come to see to you, Daddy?" she asked anxiously.
For she couldn't see no sign neither of breakfast, nor yet of dinner,
nor yet of supper.
"No--lassie! Your aunt, she's got to 'tend on somebody else, away off
to Wimbledon Common; and these here Simses--or Groombridges; I didn't
catch the name right--she's got a short let to, are mostly away on
a job. So she's packed together her bit of furniture, like you see
it, and Mrs. Hacker, she's so obliging as to give me her time and
attention; 'cos the master, ye see, he put the matter in trim for me.
One don't look for hospital fare all the days of one's life."
Lizarann had heard where her aunt's "place" was, but her experience of
places was of such as could be got to by half-past seven in the morning
and come back to sleep at home. She thought now that she saw her way to
enlightenment.
"Is where Aunt Stingy's gone where Mr. Winkleson lives?"
"Never a bit of it, lassie! He's by name Wilkins--Wilkinson Wilkins.
This here's Wimbledon, a place with a Common to it. I went there once,
for to see a review. I wouldn't mind going to see one again, and take
the little lass." Perhaps he meant that his child's sight would serve
for both; but more probably it was an instance of the strange way blind
folk forget their own blindness. "Your aunty, she's come over once or
twice, to pack up her traps and make straight, but I've got to put my
dependence on Mrs. Hacker, so far as I can't shift for myself."
Lizarann derived from this and what followed one broad impression
that the history of No. 27, Tallack Street had reached the end of a
chapter--the one that contained her own biography to date. Another,
that Aunt Stingy would be much less in evidence for the future.
Another, that a new force had come into her life and Daddy's--a
welcome one, connected with Miss Fossett and Mr. Yorick. She had a
happy guardian-angel sensation about this, and took it to her bosom
with only one slight misgiving--that they were too easily duped by
that ridiculous little pipe of Dr. Ferris's, that would hold up like a
candlestick certainly, and you could blow through if he let you, but
that was impotent for every other purpose.
If this story could ask its reader a question at this point, it would
be: "Have you not noticed that Lizarann has scarcely coughed, all
through this long interview with her Daddy?" It was the case, anyhow,
and rather points to the truth of what a physician once said to
ourself, the writer: "If in the early stages of lung-disease doses of
unalloyed joy, of perfect happiness, could be administered three times
a day to the patient, the later stages would be much rarer than they
are at present." Certainly Lizarann's happiness had almost touched
rapture, doubts about the wooden leg being the only alloy in the pure
gold. And she certainly had coughed mighty little. Perhaps Dr. Ferris
would have known what claim Lizarann had to be considered a case of the
kind referred to.
The delightful time had to come to an end, and Lizarann found herself
compelled to say good-bye. Daddy would have it so, although darkness
was a long way off yet awhile. So she departed, bidden first to go to
Mrs. Hacker's, and say to that good lady, that she was on no account
to be in any tirrit to come away from her own supper to attend to
Jim's, for that he had got his pipe, Lizarann having helped him to
light it,--a thing to rejoice at, after that one defective usage of
an Institution otherwise perfect--and wasn't in any driving hurry.
This message Lizarann gave fairly honestly, in an interview with Mrs.
Hacker, which--being repeated to Jim--may be held responsible for some
borrowed phrases used lately to describe impressions on her mind of his
surroundings. But she was not uneasy about him; her faith in Mr. Yorick
was too great for that.
Having given her message, it did not strike her as a serious
transgression to pay a visit to Bridgetticks. The injunction to go
straight home covered the line of road--did not deal with continuity of
movement. That seemed to her a just interpretation of it. But of course
not stopping only five minutes!
So she went to the door of Bridgetticks, and shouted through its
keyhole, in preference to knocking or ringing. But Bridget was
assisting her mother at the washtub, and up to her elbers in suds; so
she sent an emissary to the door instead of going herself. He was very
young, and was eating an apple; he was, in fact, too young and crude
to be trusted to do like he was told; and he put a false construction
on his mission, endeavouring to spit some of his apple through the
keyhole, with a mistaken hospitality. His name was, as pronounced,
Halexandericks. His bursts of laughter at each new failure of his
attempts on the keyhole obscured the voice that was calling through it.
He had a vacuous though not unpleasant laugh.
"I'll let you know directly, if you don't open that door," shouted
his sister. She gave close particulars of the means she would resort
to, but without effect. So she onsoapied the suds off of her arms,
which she then placed akimbo, and went herself; not without a certain
dancing effect, in consonance with a rhythmic utterance difficult to
class as either song or recitation. Its words were certainly, "Waxy
diddle-iddle-iddle, high-gee-wo!" ending in a pounce on Alexander, who
spat his last piece of apple in his captor's face with a fiendish crow
of delight. She wiped if off on his costume without comment.
"I seen my Daddy," said Lizarann, beaming, when the door was opened.
"I seen him afore ever you did," said Bridget, not to be outdone. "I
seen him fetched along in a cab, last night just on seven-thirty. I
seen him holped into the house."
"You story!" said Lizarann, hurt. "He can help himself, he can. He
don't call for no help. Who was helping him?"
"Clapham Church Parsing--same as see your uncle Mr. Steptoe
drownded--and rilewye-stytion cabman with rilings for trunks atop.
Three thousand six hundred and thirty-two. Got him indoors they did."
Lizarann felt inclined to cry; this was a throw-back! But she wasn't
one to give in easily. "My Daddy says he could swarm up the rigging as
soon as not," said she. "Only the doctor he says for to keep quiet a
bit, owing to prudence." When Lizarann repeated phrases lately heard,
you would have thought, to listen to her, she was quite a big girl.
Now, it must not be supposed that Lizarann and Bridgetticks had not met
during the past eight weeks. On the contrary, visits had been arranged,
by request, even before Lizarann had been thought plenty well enough
for school, only not to fret herself. These were the terms in which
Miss Fossett's Anne confirmed that lady's opinion, and sanctioned a
continued study of arithmetic and calligraphy. But intercourse during
school-hours is fettered by formula; and when there's carpets and the
bed made and all, you have to set quiet, and it's not the same thing.
So when these two found themselves once more in their old haunt, it was
as though a ceremonial padlock had been removed from their tongues.
Lizarann's improved exterior--for Teacher and Anne had reconstructed
it--clashed a little with Bridgetticks; but the principle held good.
Here, on Mr. 'Icks's doorstep, when an imputation of falsehood as
an exordium to any reply seemed natural and genial, neither speaker
felt bound to check her inspirations. Lizarann and Bridgetticks were
themselves again.
They sat on the doorstep, cloze or no!--this referred to Lizarann's
frock--and Bridget retained her younger brother, perhaps for slight
rehearsals of the vengeance she had in store for him; he was that
troublesome! Bridget smelt of soap and warm steam.
"_You_ wented on stelts, and wooden legs is better than stelts!"
Lizarann's uneasiness rankles, and she longs for public acknowledgment
of her Daddy's prospects of rehabilitation.
"I shouldn't 'a said so," Bridget answered. "Stelts you catches hold
atop. Wooden legs is balancin'. Stelts is your hands as well as your
legs. Wooden legs you're stood-on-end and pitches yourself over,
just as like as not. Not onlest you have crutches. Your Daddy he 's
crutches, he has. I see 'em myself!" Lizarann could say nothing about
Job's comforters, if only because, on the one occasion when she had
heard them mentioned--by Mr. Winkleson--she had supposed them to be
woollen ones. Besides, she was interested on another point.
"My Daddy hasn't no scrutches," said she. She had caught their name,
without understanding it, when her father used it; and now decided on
denying them provisionally, pending inquiry into their nature. "What's
a scrutch?"
"Oh, you little ignorance!" said Bridget. "Never to know what a
crutch is, at your age!" She appealed to her infant brother to say,
directly minute, what a crutch was, or she would take advantage of his
unprotected youth to smack him. His reply, needing interpretation, was
that it was a penny-farden. Halexandericks had evidently a turn for
negotiation. His sister cast him off, telling him to go and ply by
himself on the pivement, and then resumed: "If you'd 'a knowed 'em when
you seed 'em, you might have kep' your eye open, and took note."
Lizarann, skipping the unnecessary, immediately replied: "Daddy said
they was second-hand, and to go back when done with."
Bridget skipped some more. "Very well, then!--you see them cross-pieces
for the 'ands?... Very well, then!--there's a lather pad for under
the shoulder-j'int, and they're n'isy going down the street. Now don't
you go to say I never told you." There was nothing really unkind or
overbearing in Bridget's peculiar manner; it was only the strong
working of a leading mind. She was, in fact, a very clever child, being
less than two years her friend's senior.
She saw that Lizarann was downcast by hearing of the crutches, never
having rightly appreciated the position, and set herself good-naturedly
to consolation. "It's always tender where your leg's took off," said
she, "and you want something to ketch the weight, walking." She spoke
as if she had often had legs off. "But my father, he says it's nothing
to get the hump about, with a little accommodatin'. And I seen a
man with one leg and one crutch took two coppers to tike him to the
stytion." Lizarann brightened visibly. "You see what your Daddy he'll
look like when he's been a month in the country!"
Obviously this was repetition of something said by an older mouth. "Who
toldited anything about the country?" said Lizarann.
"Clapham Church Parsing. Him as see Mr. Steptoe drownded. I heard him
telling. 'You see,'--he says to your Daddy--'you see what you'll feel
like when you've been a month in the country,' he says. 'You do just as
I tell you,' he says, 'and I'll make it all square for you,' he says.
And then he says you to go too."
"Me!" Lizarann exclaimed, open-mouthed with amazement. And then
Bridgetticks gave more particulars of what really was a bout of
careful eavesdropping on her part, she having succeeded in overhearing
a good deal of conversation between Jim and the Rector of Royd, who
had accompanied him from the Hospital the night before. It pointed
to a scheme by which Lizarann was to be taken in at the Rectory, and
carefully nurtured--treated, in fact, for a disease which had existence
only on the authority of that lying little stethoscope of Dr. Ferris's!
However, as long as no project involved a new separation from Daddy,
what did Lizarann care?
Besides, look at the new experience of a world she had been so little
in--it was glorious to think of! She was not so much dazzled as
she might have been had every minute of her life been passed--for
instance--in Drury Lane. She and Bridget had both benefited by
school-treats. "I've been in the country," she said. "It's at Dorking."
But Bridget had a larger horizon. "There's more sorts than that," said
she, "without taking count of foring parts. Like you'll find when you
done some more geography." Lizarann felt awe-struck.
But it was getting along towards six, and she knew she ought to be
reporting herself to Teacher. Perhaps she would have delayed still
later, if she had not become anxious to ask that lady point-blank about
this fascinating bucolic scheme. As it was, she was received with
some displeasure--on her own behalf entirely--and decided to postpone
investigations. We, for our part, have never believed that that extra
half-hour of exposure to the evening air made in the long run the
slightest difference.
CHAPTER XXII
THE EXACT STORY OF CHALLIS'S FIRST WIFE'S FIRST MARRIAGE. HOW HE AND
MARIANNE MISSED THEIR EXPLANATION. CHARLOTTE THE DETECTIVE. CHALLIS'S
SECOND COURTSHIP, IN A NUTSHELL
If there had been no cause of irritation between Alfred Challis and his
wife about his relations with Grosvenor Square, it would have mattered
much less what he kept back from her of his previous history. And if he
had taken her fully into his confidence about the story of his early
marriage with her sister, his relations with Grosvenor Square would
have been much less capable of embitterment and misinterpretation. But
his palpable concealment of Heaven-knew-what from one who conceived she
had of all others the fullest right to know it, played the part, in
this domestic misunderstanding, of poor Desdemona's bad faith towards
her father. "She has deceived her father, and may thee," said Brabantio.
Could Marianne have known _what_ Heaven knew, she would probably have
held her husband blameless, if ill-judging; though she might have felt
very little leniency towards her sister for contracting a marriage
unknown to her family. But the ground was not in order for the sowing
of a crop of explanation, to be reaped as a harvest of reconciliation.
It was cumbered with the clover her husband was supposed to be enjoying
at the Acropolis Club and elsewhere, and choked with a creeping weed of
Jealousy unacknowledged. And as the trivial things of life are always
the ones that play the biggest parts, so that unfortunate resolution
not to disturb his wife, when Alfred Challis came home from the Club
dinner, had to answer for quite ten times its fair share of the events
that followed. No doubt her silence was a little vindictive--it would
have been so easy to give a hint that she was awake--but the truth
is it had very little to do with the matter. What had a great deal
to do with it was the fact that Mr. Challis had _not_ been enjoying
himself. Had it been otherwise, he would have felt apologetic; the
monitor he would not admit was his conscience would have prescribed
amends to Marianne for contriving to be so jolly without her. But
she had no guess that her Grosvenor Square enemy was laid up with a
sprained ankle, any more than he had that the new cook had been the
means of bringing to light a great deal--the worst half in disjointed
fragments--of a story his good if mistaken intentions had concealed.
For, needless to say, the actual story was still very obscure to her;
and Mrs. Eldridge, though clever enough, was a biassed assistant in its
elucidation.
Lest it should still be equally obscure to the reader, let him note its
broad facts as follows: Edward Keith Horne married, or went through
a marriage ceremony, with Kate Verrall, a governess at the house of
a coal-merchant named Hallock. Six weeks later he went away to New
York, promising an early return; there was some pretence of winding
up a relative's affairs. He repudiated his wife shortly after; as
she became convinced, and as Challis, his friend, also believed, on
legally good grounds. As we have already said, Challis may have met
conviction half-way, being in love with the girl himself. Of course,
it was he whose name Mrs. Steptoe had remembered wrongly as Harris.
And, equally of course, the miserable reprobate of Athelstan Taylor's
painful experience at St. Brides was Horne, who succeeded with what
was left of his mouth in nearly articulating his true name rightly.
"Kay Thorne" was close to the truth, considering the circumstances.
This story is fortunate in having very little to do with this man; as
his young wife, or victim, may also have been in having for her only
adviser a youth with a strong interest in urging her passive acceptance
of her position. If only half the betrayed girls in the world could
have such an adviser ready to hand! Alas!--how seldom is one found with
the courage to say, "Think yourself at least in luck, silly girl, that
you are not fettered for life to this lout or devil! Hug to your heart
this one consolation, that though you have bought your experience of
him, and what he calls love, dear, you have escaped scot-free of the
blessed sacrament of marriage!" Too often the poor thing finds herself
alone in the desert--the desert where correct expressions grow--sin,
and shame, and penitence, and so on--and where marriage-lines and
marriage-settlements make oases, from which she is excluded, for the
Grundy family to breed in.
Perhaps Challis had a concealed motive for his decision when, at the
time he married Kate's sister, he made up his mind to treat the whole
story as a sealed book. But, even with none, was he wrong, knowing
that his wife elect was quite convinced that no belonging of hers had
ever set foot outside her particular Grundy oasis? Remember, too,
that he was only pursuing the course he would have held it a point of
honour to pursue if he had never married Marianne at all. Why should
his marriage with her make it incumbent on him to dig up a story that
his wife had already passed years in ignorance of, without any living
creature being perceptibly the worse? No doubt Mrs. Eldridge would have
said, with a portentous gush of deep conviction, "She ought to have
been told." But why?
At least, the story shows that Challis himself had nothing disgraceful
to conceal, and that all his actions were dictated by consideration for
others. It is more than likely that an explanation, had the position
favoured it, would have ended--if not by placing him in the position
of a hero--at least by a discharge with a first-class certificate from
the high court of Morality. But the atmosphere teemed with suggestions
of malpractice undefined, and the master-hand of Mrs. Eldridge made the
most of them.
No explanation took place between Challis and Marianne at the only
time when it was easily possible--on the morning after we saw them
last. Explanations are like strawberries--bottled up, they spoil.
Now, whatever chance there would have been of Challis hearing of the
photograph mystery and Mrs. Steptoe's memories was cancelled by the
malign arrival on the scene of Mrs. Eldridge and her John, bound for
his daily toil at St. Martin's-le-Grand. So, you see, it was early in
the morning.
Charlotte had been so uneasy about dear Marianne that she felt she must
come over to find out. It was so entirely unexpected. She had been
laughing and joking the minute before. So Charlotte thought fit to say,
and Challis, to whom it was said privately, detected a flavour of an
unasked-for assurance that Marianne was cheerful in his absence. "It"
had come quite suddenly, when Marianne went away to speak to Martha.
Challis had no means of guessing what "it" had been, except Mrs.
Eldridge's note, and a certain demeanour of his wife's, which no doubt
had to answer for an expression of Master Bob's, in secret conclave
with his sister Cat. According to him, his mater was savage, if you
liked, this morning. Challis had gone to his wife's room to ask about
"it" as soon as he heard that the servant had abated; and had been
told, coldly, that nothing had been the matter that Marianne knew of.
His production of Mrs. Eldridge's note was met by, "That's just like
Charlotte!" He waited a few moments for counter-inquiry about himself,
rather anxious to tell what a failure the Acropolis had turned out;
but no curiosity was shown, and he went back to his own room to dress,
saying nothing further. Had he been wise, he would have sat on the bed
in his pyjamas, and said he meant to stop there until the mystery was
accounted for.
Matters got definitely worse when Mrs. Eldridge, whose invasion
occurred just at the end of breakfast, took advantage of a chance exit
of Marianne's, in connection with housekeeping matters, to follow
her and contrive a sympathetic interview within hearing of the two
gentlemen. Not that a word was audible, but anyone with the slightest
knowledge of human nature would have discerned that one of the
speakers, the tone of whose voice was mellow with the opposite sexes
of the persons she was speaking of, was recognizing the patience and
forbearance of the other under trials, and exhorting her to renewed
efforts in the same direction.
"What do you suppose was the matter?" Challis was filling his pipe, as
he asked this question of Mr. Eldridge.
"Mean to say you don't know?"
"I certainly don't. Nobody has told me."
"I ain't any help. Don't ask me--that's all! Don't put it on me to
say!" Mr. Eldridge, however, implies that his attitude is one of
Discretion, not Ignorance. For he closes one eye, an action that can
bear no other interpretation. He also shakes his head continuously and
gently, as one who would convey to an interviewer the hopelessness of
cross-examination.
"I suppose it was nothing but an upset. The weather's trying." It had
really been unusually normal. But Mr. Challis was talking as gentlemen
do when they are lighting a pipe, and thinking more about whether
that's enough than about the topic in hand.
"Stomach!" said Mr. Eldridge, as nearly in a monosyllable as spelling
permits. He repeated the word just half-a-dozen times in a run; then
added this rider: "Say nervous system, when a lady. Puts it better."
"Something of that sort!" The pipe draws, and the smoker ought to
look happy. He doesn't. But, then, the sympathetic murmur, with its
unguessed import, of Mrs. Eldridge afar, is reaching his ears. Sudden
appreciative gushes, and the firm tone of sound advice, are very
unsettling when inarticulate. Cannot that fool John be made to throw
a light on the mystery? Try again! "Charlotte told you all about it,
John; you know she did!" The Christian names give cordiality. But John
is not to be cajoled.
"Tellin's is tellin's," says he; and goes so far as to place a finger
against one side of his nose, in token of perspicuity. "Put it at
stomach!... Got the right time?"
"That clock's right."
"Then Greenwich is fast. Must see about gettin' off! Gettin'
off--gettin' off--gettin' off!" Mr. Eldridge's repetitions no doubt
have some bearing on his relations with his fellow-man, but it is not
easy to say what. They seem to sanction concurrent event; that is the
most one can say. He continued his last repetition even after he had
taken his leave, saying he wouldn't wait for Lotty, _because_ she was
going the other way, and seeming quite content with his speech-work.
Hence, when Lotty reappeared hurriedly, and was surprised at his
departure, having something she _must_ say to him before he went,
Challis got very little speech of the lady. All her limited time
allowed her to say was that she had had a long talk with dear Marianne,
and she was quite sure "it" would be all right now. Only she was
convinced it would be so much better to say nothing to her--just to
take no notice of "it" and let "it" drop. However, rush she must, or
she would never catch John! And rush she did. And Challis grunted, but
retired to his own room, and was soon absorbed in the Ostrogoths.
A stand-up fight between Titus and his wife at this period might have
saved the situation. It would not have mattered one straw whether
it had turned on Grosvenor Square or on the unsolved mystery of the
photograph. Anything that led to fiery out-speech would have been a
precursor of reconciliation.
* * * * *
It is difficult to tell anything with certainty about any love-affairs.
Nobody ever knows anything at all about them; even the two
constituents, if called on to explain and analyze themselves, make but
a poor show. We know pretty well what the Poet is good for at a pinch.
And as for the Man of the World and the Man in the Street--well!--all
we can say is, give us the Woman of the World or the Woman in the
Street; preferably the latter. But the duty of the story, in reference
to the psychology of Challis's two marriages, is to tell what has come
to light, or seems most probable--what it thinks or believes, not
knows, about the depths of an unfathomable ocean.
Challis, then, being a young man irreligiously brought up--that is to
say, made to understand that he was responsible for his behaviour,
and that no attempt to shift his sins off on other shoulders would be
held fair play--found himself at five-and-twenty in a position that
would have been a sore trial to the strongest fortitude. He was, if
not actually left in charge of a friend's recently married wife, at
any rate in her close confidence; and, after her return to a home and
friends from whom her marriage was a secret, the sole depository of
that secret. He might never have fallen in love with Kate had they
met on fair ground. But a youth unfamiliar with girl-kind that is not
of his own belongings--sisters, to wit, and cousins earmarked as
sisters--is always in danger if even a moderately pretty or attractive
outsider takes him into her confidence. Challis's danger was all
the greater owing to his terror of being treacherous to his friend.
Perhaps, if the avowal of his passion had been legitimately possible,
he might never have suspected himself of any passion to avow. But when
you believe your conscience will brand you as a traitor to all eternity
if you pursue a particular course, you naturally want to pursue it.
So it was a great relief to him when a letter, shown to him alone by
the terrified girl, disclosed the atrocious deception that had been
practised on her, and the miserable position in which she was placed.
No wonder the avowal came. Our own belief is that it would have come,
exactly the same, to a girl of almost any personality. Nothing could
have averted it, short of a hare-lip, an isolated projecting tusk,
or--suppose we say--onions. And this girl had pretty lips, and the
interview occurred after tea.
Information is scanty about what followed. But no serious inquiry can
have been made into the truth of Mr. Home's accusation against himself.
The exact nature of it--the particular illegality he appealed to in
support of his case--does not come to light. There really was no one to
inquire, except Challis, unless the whole story had come out. It did
not. A twelvemonth later Kate exchanged the name of Verrall--whether
rightly or wrongly borne--for that of Challis, and two years later
Master Bob was born, and his poor little mother had died of him. He
showed no compunction, but kicked and made a horrible noise.
His father was only reasonably overwhelmed by his loss. It may be that,
like many another inexperienced youth, he had not reckoned with the
difficulties this world's Bobs and their like are apt to inflict on
their family before they are formally enrolled in it, especially when
the mothers they select have nervous temperaments. Challis felt, when
he was left alone with the baby, that he had had a fierce tussle with
Fate, and had come out of it severely punished. Probably, if his wife
had survived, and Bob had lived to be a year old, without alarms about
another brother or sister, his father would have been much less easily
reconciled to his widowerhood. He would then have had a short draught
of the nectar of life at its best; that is, if--as we suppose--a
tempestuous excitability, which appeared two or three months after
marriage, was entirely due to Master Bob. Mental unsoundness seems to
have been denied; but, then, surely someone must have affirmed it?
As it was, Bob did a good deal--the best he could--to make up for the
mischief he had done. He was a satisfaction to his father; and, being
taken in hand by his Aunt Marianne, then a girl of eighteen, and in a
sense adopted by her, became a strong connecting link between the two,
and was really the agency that brought about Challis's second marriage
four or five years later. It would have happened sooner, no doubt, but
for the anomalous and grotesque condition of English Law, which, till a
year or so since, made certain marriages diversely legal in different
portions of the British Empire. The Angels might weep, but if they
cried their eyes out it would still remain impossible for a man to wed
with his deceased wife's sister on certain square yards of it. He had
to be domiciled in a special portion of the Empire on which the sun
never sets to do that, and yet live ungrundied. Marianne was slow to
give in on the point. She had, in common with many of her countrywomen,
a religious conviction--a belief in the plenary inspiration of any book
in a religious binding--you know the sort. She may have had others,
but the qualifications of her intelligence were not such as to enable
bystanders to discover their exact nature. Alfred Challis certainly
never did so. And this religious conviction did not give way until
her brother-in-law deliberately wrote formal proposals to a Miss Bax,
with elbows, whom she hated; to a fascinating young Jewish widow, who
had lawlessly said she would just as soon marry a Gentile as a Jew;
and to the daughter of a Unitarian minister. He took the three letters
to her, and said, "Now, Polly Anne, which is it to be? You may burn
two of these; the other one I post." Polly Anne promptly destroyed
the two last; her brother-in-law was blasphemous and impious enough
already without that, she said. But Emma Bax!--no, when she came to
think of it, it was impossible! However, Challis directed the letter
and, as it were, invested a postage-stamp in intimidation; so there
was nothing for it but to throw her arms around his neck and surrender
at discretion. Anything rather than Emma Bax! He kissed her tears away
and said: "You know, Polly Anne, after all, you're only poor Kate's
half-sister, when all's said and done!" This she found very consolatory.
It was a pity, at this juncture, that the girl's mother was a fool.
Had she been a reasonably good guardian for her daughter, she would at
least have insisted on the nuptials being celebrated in a land where
the marriage would have been held lawful. But she contented herself
with condemning the union in the abstract, and flinging Holy Writ--also
in the abstract--at its perpetrators. The Bench of Bishops would have
done the same, no doubt; but that Bench would have forbidden the
banns, to a certainty. As she remained silent, and no outsider could
be expected to screw himself up to prohibition-point in the case of
a half-sister, the pair were wedded by a priest who knew nothing of
them beyond their bare names, and never really became man and wife, as
they would have done if they had been married sixty-odd years before;
unless, indeed, some busybody had obtained a decree annulling the
marriage--as the Law, with a keen sense of fun, directed in the days of
our great-grandfathers.
The notable point in the psychology of these two marriages surely
is that in neither case was the bride the free selection of the
bridegroom, except in the sense that he was absolutely free to take
or leave either. He never, strictly speaking, fell in love at all.
He found himself in a well, and love trickled in. But even in this
metaphor he never was over head and ears. He never wished to be a glove
on any hand, to press any cheek. To call him passionately in love with
either of the two sisters would have been just as absurd as to say that
Romeo "got very fond" of Rosaline and Juliet. Exchange the phrases, and
each fits its place. Challis got very fond of both his wives, being an
affectionate sort of chap. But he remained a stranger to the divine
intoxication which is known in its fulness only to Romeo and his like,
and which some men never know at all.
Short of this last sort may often be found men who have escaped Romeo's
experience early in life, yet whom some cunning context of circumstance
may just upset, and convert for the moment into idiots as infatuated
as the young Montague and Capulet we have cried over so many a time.
For our own part, we count none quite safe from what is really an
ennobling phase of sheer madness; except it be, for instance, a Charles
the Second, a Rochester, a Tiberius, or a Joe Smith. _Id genus omne_ is
safe enough.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW CHALLIS CALLED ON MISS ARKROYD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. A SPRAINED
ANKLE. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE. KING SOLOMON AND HIS DJINN BOTTLE
Mr. Elphinstone, responsible for No. 101, Grosvenor Square, and
the morals and dignity of the family that dwelt in it, was not
without uneasiness about the literary and artistic circles that
his two young ladies had elected to move in. This description is
superficial; it judges from externals. Say that Mr. Elphinstone's
appearance conveyed that he, like Atlas, had the whole house on his
shoulders--was practically answerable for the honourable repute of
all his subordinates, and morally for that of his superiors. That was
the construction Alfred Challis felt obliged to put on such flawless
shaving; such a weighty deference to the slightest personalities--his
own, for instance--on production of adequate credentials; such a
hypnotic suggestion of having foregone an episcopate elsewhere to take
service with a beloved family whose interests he had at heart. It was
a construction not free from the derision Mr. Challis was in the habit
of meting out to dignitaries of all sorts. In this case he may not
have been free from personal feeling; for he must have been aware that
Elphinstone regarded him as an interloper--one who outraged the sacred
traditions of the household, calling at unearthly hours in a soft felt
hat, and smoking on the doorstep until compelled to throw away too much
cigar by hearing that the family was at home.
This is substantially what was happening about two hours after Mr.
Eldridge had declined to shed any light on anything at all, and his
wife had departed enjoining silence about Heaven-knows-what. Challis,
_désoeuvré_ by the mystification, had found himself unable to invent
any single thing a Scythian mercenary would have been likely to say in
English blank verse, and an approach towards Marianne of a conciliatory
sort was met by, "I must see Steptoe now about the dinner."
Unfortunately, this speech was absolutely passionless; if it had only
been tempersome, there might have been a row. And a row--as the Press
delights to phrase it--might have spelt salvation. But Challis could
see in it nothing that justified more than a languid "All right!" on
his part. And he had departed to the banks of the Danube again, with no
better success than before.
Presently his wife knocked at his door in an excluded, ostracised sort
of way, and he got up to open it. She was dressed for going out. "I
won't disturb you," she said. "Don't come out. I only wanted to say
that if the man comes about the gas you had better see him, because he
won't believe Steptoe, and the meter is certainly out of order. That's
all."
It was one of those queer little turning-points of existence. Challis
was not ready with any reply that would have caused a moment's delay
and saved the situation. Before he could manage more than general
assent, Marianne was gone, too far for anything short of demonstrative
recall. He did not see his way to this, and the chance was lost.
He was unable to work, and wanted to go out. But he had been, as it
were, put in bond on account of the gas-man, who wouldn't believe. He
failed to console himself by an accusation of Sadduceeism against that
functionary, and repeated Blake--
"The bat that flits at close of eve
Comes from the brain that won't believe"
--without benefit to his ill-temper. Then he impatiently wrote a note
about the meter to leave with Steptoe, to whom he said with immovable
gravity: "Is it a Sapphic or an Alcaic meter, do you know?" Aunt
Stingy's reply, without a shadow of suspicion in her voice, "I could
not say, myself, sir, but The Man would be sure to know," put him in
a much better humour. He actually chuckled as soon as he was sure the
good woman was out of hearing.
He wanted a book from the London Library, and could get it easily and
come back to lunch. He really did not admit to himself, when he left
home, that he had any good grounds for suspecting that he meant to call
in Grosvenor Square to inquire about that sprained ankle. He took pains
to disbelieve in any such intention till he had got the volume he was
in want of from the Library, and then it occurred to him that it would
be unfeeling not to inquire after the victim of an accident which might
prove serious, after all. His image of the injury done became very bad
as he told his cabman to drive to 101, Grosvenor Square. Was he aware
that he welcomed this solicitude about the sprained ankle because it
disguised, for the comfort of his conscience, his disposition to call
upon its owner?
The only palliative to the disgust of that doorstep in Grosvenor
Square--to which it is time to return--was that this time Mr. Challis
was not actually smoking on its brink; as, when his cab pulled up,
he was descried, before he had time to descend, by Mr. Elphinstone
himself, who had come out tentatively into the Universe to look round
at it, with a sense upon him of possible sudden retractation through
the open door, like a hermit-crab. A Piccadilly hansom, equal to
bespoke for Royalty, had in this case levelled its occupant up. Even
so a growler of the deepest dye, lurching, springless, effluvial,
knacker-destined as to its horse, drags down the noblest blood that
dares to ride in it--yes! even a Duke's; but who can cite a case in
point? Only, when Mr. Elphinstone crossed the pavement, he did it to
confer with the contents of the cab, as such; not with Mr. Alfred
Challis, thank you!
He was reassuring about the ankle; a slight strain that with care--his
own and Sir Rhyscombe Edison's--would disappear in a day or two. Oh
no!--in answer to inquiry--Miss Arkroyd had not been compelled to
keep her bed; a phrase that entered a respectful protest against
"stop in bed," the coarse, familiar expression Mr. Challis had made
use of. But he was, after all, a married man with a family, so it
might be overlooked, this once. He went on to say that Miss Arkroyd,
he believed, was up, though nursing the injured limb on a sofa. He
arrived, after responsible doubts, at the conclusion that he might
send Mr. Challis's card up, in case of any message. Delicacy dictating
a female emissary, Samuel was despatched with it to Miss Arkroyd's
maid; who presently, being an unpolished sample from the dairy at
Royd, came down and said briefly that Mr. Challis was to come up. Mr.
Elphinstone's expression was well-restrained protest.
But it may not have been so much the little dairy-maiden's bluntness
that provoked it, as an indescribably small shade of demeanour of Mr.
Challis's. As the girl came along the passage, and before she spoke,
Challis threw his cigar away, or the two-thirds that was left of it.
Such a little matter! But unless he had known what she was going to
say, he surely would have kept it till he did, to finish at leisure.
How came he to be so positive?
Anyhow, there it was!--the cigar--not half smoked, on the pavement when
the house door closed. And the cabman's eye rested on it. And he spoke
thus to a butcher's boy, who appeared from an area: "Wipe your fingers
on your apron, young dripping, and just hand me up that cigar, and I'll
see if I'll smoke it. I ain't proud. Only don't you discharge off any
of your natural grease upon it!"
To be addressed, even in disparaging terms, by such a hansom, was
flattering to this butcher-boy's vanity, and he did not resent it.
"Licked, but not busted, that I can see!" was his comment as he handed
the cigar up to the cabman, who went on with it, contentedly.
It is two months of the story since it saw, or rather heard of, Miss
Arkroyd and Mr. Challis driving up to this door after midnight in
another hansom. All that it said, or implied, at that time amounted to
little more than that a not very strait-laced lady and gentleman had
been rather free and easy over some theatrical schemes interesting to
both, and that the lady's sister, being less free or less easy, had
intimated that the conduct of the two might be laced a little more
straitly, with advantage. It is over six months of the story since they
discussed "The Spendthrift's Legacy" and "Ziz" in the garden at Royd.
If Charlotte Eldridge, as an authority, had been asked, "On which of
these two occasions, madam, should you suppose the chances were best of
this gentleman and lady supplying you with a story made to your hand,
akin to the one Robert Browning never went on with?" what would her
answer have been?
Our own impression is that at this present date of writing, when
Challis, smelling rather strongly of tobacco, is following the little
ex-dairymaid up the second flight of stairs to what is known as the
young ladies' sitting-room--at this very moment, with the cabman
making the most of his inherited Havana, and Judith forming to receive
visitors, the position would have been much less likely to supply copy
for Mrs. Eldridge than the previous one, but for one thing. Challis's
relations with Marianne were, at the moment--say--of the parroquets,
intact. What were they now?...
They were _something_, or Challis's last unspoken speech to himself on
the stairs would not have been, "At any rate, it isn't my fault!" It
needed the atmosphere of Judith--amused, if irritated, at her absurdity
in getting a sprained ankle--to enable him to shake free--though always
under protest--of the Hermitage.
"Wasn't it ridiculous of me!... No!--don't sit there; I can't see
you.... Wasn't it ridiculous of me to do this--just now of all times in
the year?"
"I thought you were a passive agent. I mean I didn't know that you
_did_ do anything."
"No more I did! No more than one does. You know what I mean?"
"Couldn't be better expressed! Like when one chokes and thinks one
could have helped it, and what a fool one is! But how did it happen?"
"Perfectly simple! I was getting down out of the carriage, and forgot
to think about my feet. Fenton Arkroyd was passing, and if he's not
taken notice of he's sensitive, because he married a laundress, or
something. So I forgot to think about my feet. It might have been so
easily avoided--with a little common-sense."
"So might so many things." Challis isn't the least clear how the
common-sense would act in the cases he is talking at--the plagues
that beset his own path. But what a capital thing to say!--on general
grounds, of course, with a little esoteric meaning all to oneself.
Judith, perhaps, thinks it too early in the morning for ethics, as
she changes the conversation. "How did you like my little maid?" she
says, keeping her eyes closed; which seems absurd after stipulating for
visibility on Challis's part. But it all belongs to a certain imperious
humour in the grain of her character. And rights of translation are
reserved. She can open them if she pleases.
"She's new, isn't she? Jolly little party!" Thus Challis.
"You're not warm enough! Didn't you want to kiss her?"
"Yes, badly--when she gave your message--half-way up...."
Judith opened her eyes. You can't laugh with your eyes shut; you
snigger. "She really gave it? Do tell me exactly! What did she say?"
she asks delightedly, keeping her eyes open to hear the answer.
"She turned round on the landing, and became for the moment a mere mass
of blooming conscience...."
"Is that--excuse me!--to be taken as _language_, or how?"
"No, no!--literally.... Blown flowers of intense truthfulness, and
buds on the burst.... Well!--she _said_, as near as I remember: 'Miss
Arkroyd said if Mr. Challis didn't smell too strong of smoke, only
Mr. Elphinstone wasn't to hear.' And then she got away up the second
flight with some alacrity. I thought she was afraid I might propose
investigation, and Elphinstone was still in the neighbourhood."
Judith is intensely amused. "I shall have to give that child one of
Sibyl's bead necklaces. Turquoise. It goes with her eyes exactly--they
have just the violet tinge." She closed her own again on the slight
subject, but it has suggested a weightier one. "Couldn't you give
Estrild a little Visigoth _ingénue_--I mean Ostrogoth--to wait upon
her?"
"What!--and train the little Rankshire beauty to the part? Think of her
parents--the stage!--merciful Heaven!..." But Challis stops suddenly,
discomposed by a discomposure in his hearer.
"Never mind," says she, shaking it off. "You didn't mean it. You're
forgiven! Go on."
"I naturally didn't think of it from that point of view. The cases are
so entirely different."
"Never mind!" Judith repeats her words with more emphasis. "You _are_
forgiven. Now go on about the Ostrogoths."
"I could put the little beauty in; she would be very useful as
a set-off to Estrild. Besides, I want to get rid of Isarnes the
Cappadocian, and she would work in...."
Judith interrupts him, calling to the little attendant, who comes in
answer from somewhere within hearing. "Child!" she says--"bring me
that hand-mirror off my dressing-table," and when it comes, continues,
interrupting a recommencement of the Cappadocian, "That's right!--give
it me. Now put your face over my shoulder and look in."
The order is complied with, but an inexplicable apology follows:
"Please, miss, I know. Because I looked. And I've tried monkey-soap,
and it won't wash out." The seriousness of the young voice is
heart-rending. Judith bursts out laughing, but consoles: "It wasn't
that, child! But I like you to be a funny little goose, so don't stop!
Now take away the glass, and let the monkey-soap alone, for Heaven's
sake!... You got a good view, Mr. Dramatist?... Well!--you saw what I
mean. Now, tell me what you were saying about the Cappadocian."
"Why, you see, he ought to make a showy end, after dyeing his hands in
the blood of so many inoffensive persons, and killing a Sarmatian bison
with a single blow in the arena. He might be just giving a hideous
laugh of triumph, and his innocent victim might be struggling vainly in
the grasp of a giant--it would be Jack Potter; you know what a biceps
he has--and a sudden arrow would be shot from across the Danube and
pierce his brain through the eye...."
"Of course--shot by What's-his-name?--the man that wouldn't embrace
Christianity, but does heroic deeds. You know, Challis, you'll have to
make him embrace Christianity. What _is_ the use of being unpopular?"
"Of course he embraces Christianity in the end. The high-priest or
bishop elevates a crucifix. I've been trying to think of a good name
for him. Ingomar or Anthrax...."
"That won't do. It's what the sheep die of. How would Zero do?"
"Something between Zeno and Nero. Very good name, only the
thermometer's been beforehand with us...." And so the conversation
ran on for a little, throwing an interesting light on the human drama
in its connection with Gibbon. But it was a conversation that murmured
continually: "You know you did not allow me to go my own way because
you thought I was going to be disagreeable. Finish me piecemeal as I
arise, or take the consequence--misgiving on either part about what
the other did or didn't think." Judith, who, after all, was the one
responsible for the discontinuity, gave in to these murmurs first, and
harked back.
"I know you think, Challis, that I am keeping the _madre_ and papa in
the dark about what I mean to do. But I'm not, because Sibyl knows, and
_they_ can know perfectly well if they like; it's only that they don't
choose to know. Besides, what on earth _is_ the use of making scenes,
when I've made up my mind? I'll confess when the time comes."
The levity or laxity of Challis's voice is gone from it in his reply,
scarcely a sequel to the words just spoken: "When I said that about
your little maid, I had no thought that it could possibly apply in your
case. The child, remember, is under the legal control of parents. How
old is she?--sixteen?..."
"Yes, perhaps--not more, certainly. You mean that I'm...."
"Over twenty-one. I don't say you would assert a legal independence
against the wishes of your family. But it separates the two cases. I
wouldn't have any hand in getting a very young girl on the stage in
any case. And I think I should avail myself of the existing legal ...
well!--call it pretext, if you will ... to excuse myself from doing so."
"That's just like you, Challis! You really are a disciple of Mr.
Brownrigg's Groschenbauer--what's his name? You deride every existing
usage, merely because it exists, and then you make use of it for your
own purposes! You're just the same about the parsons, and all religion!
You tolerate it, or pose as tolerating it, because you dislike
wickedness on the whole, and can't see your way to a substitute--not
even to a Metaphysical Check."
Challis's laugh left his face twinkling with paradoxical intention.
"I believe I am the only known example," said he deliberately, "of
a person apparently of sound mind who has never once succeeded in
justifying a single position he has taken up...."
"Don't talk like Felixthorpe! At any rate, you can justify the position
you have taken up that I'm more than twenty-one."
"Because you told me!"
"Yes--the day after my birthday. I was twenty-six the day you came
to Royd. I remember telling you the day we went to the Rectory. Six
months ago! Oh dear!--how the time does run away!"
In obedience to a mysterious law, which dictates that no speech of
any good-looking woman to any passable man shall mean to him nothing
beyond its obvious meaning, this little reminiscence of Judith assumed
an identity. It reminded Challis of the existence of that soul-brush,
which had become--it is useless to deny it--so much a part of his
relation with Judith that he had ceased to hear the machinery. _He_
denied it, mind you!--denied it systematically. Yet he was indignant
with anything that reminded him that it was time to deny it. Plague
take this necessity for walking guardedly! How acceptable it would
have been to be able to say, "_How_ we enjoyed that walk back through
the sunset!" Another type of man--the type that says, "Let Charlotte
Eldridge do her worst, and be blowed!"--would have had no scruples
on the subject. But Challis was a nervous person, and his Self was
perplexing him--very especially now, with poor, dear, stupid Polly Anne
making life a weariness, with her tempers and her fancies.
Was Judith Arkroyd aware, all the time, that this man's bark was in
troubled waters, while she was floating in a secure haven--secure, at
least, for now? Did she ask herself any questions?
Or was Challis just a shade priggish to show a stony front to such a
very meek little reminiscence? His actual reply was: "I thought it was
a good deal more, since my visit to Royd, I mean."
"I hope you'll pay us another visit." Judith thought to herself
that two could play that game. And Challis immediately felt chilly,
illogically; rather as though the soul-brush had slacked off. He would
have to say something serious now, to merge this little fault in the
stratification of their conversation.
"I hope to, certainly. Well!--what were we saying?... Oh yes!--you told
me your age, you know. But even then I had misgivings about Aminta
Torrington. I can't say I wasn't glad when old Magnus put his foot
down. It's an odious part, and it wouldn't have suited you. Thyrza
Schreckenbaum won't look so well on the stage, but it's more her part
than yours."
"I should have thought Estrild was wicked enough for anything."
"So she is. But it's mediæval--good, honest, outrageous atrocity. It's
almost Scriptural. Suppose, now, you had to apologize to the papa of
your little tire-maiden for putting her on the stage, think how much
easier it would be if she was only to play Messalina or Lucrezia Borgia
than if it was Frou-frou, for instance!"
"That little sugar-plum--just fancy! No, I shouldn't like her to play
Frou-frou at all. The atmosphere is purer in the other cases. How
ridiculous one is! But point your moral, Mr. Dramatist."
"Let me see!--what are we talking about?" For Challis had forgotten.
"I believe I'm on a line of self-justification. Didn't I tell you I
never succeeded? I believe I'm creeping round to a sneaking apology for
having offered you Aminta Torrington at all. I wouldn't have written
the part for you--even then. But there it was, and you asked for the
chance, and it was the only thing I had to offer."
Judith's laugh rang out. She had a capital stage laugh, musical but
penetrating. "Nobody's finding fault with you, stupid man! But why
'even then'? It's not four months since. Where is the difference?" She
had opened her eyes full on him to laugh at him, and now closed them
again to wait for an answer. Had Challis been at his best, observing
nature with a view to copy, he would have noticed that last time she
laughed--about the sugar-plum's message--she had left her eyes open,
full flash on him.
But he was too busy with a difficulty to do his duty by human nature,
that it behoved him to know, like Peter Ronsard. That unfortunate "even
then" that he had blundered out had brought him face to face with a
fact that--so it struck him now--he had never felt properly ashamed
of. How came it that, up to this moment, he had scarcely seen in it
a matter to be ashamed of at all; and now, almost involuntarily, he
had drawn a distinction between _now_ and _then_ that seemed to place
Judith Arkroyd _then_ on a lower level? It was actually true that three
months ago he was trying for all he was worth to negotiate this girl
into the good graces of his stage Jupiter; to get her on the boards to
represent a woman whose wickedness he had specially invented, thereby
to fall into the fashion of a time that he himself accounted an age of
stark fools. For he had never come across an Aminta Torrington; but
he conceived, for all that, when he put her on the stage, and set Mr.
Guppy and Dick Swiveller off being up-to-date about her, that he was
performing his part in the dance--the dance of fools! He felt he was
in difficulties, and even for a moment contemplated an appeal to the
Artist's Love for His Work, as an excuse for his own attempt to get
the help of Judith's beauty for his _corps dramatique_. He hesitated,
negatived it, and said to himself uncandidly that--thank God!--he had
not fallen as low as that. But he never suspected, as this story has
begun to do, that his sense of shame was due to the fact that this lady
had become less cheap to him in these three months--dangerously less.
But he could not leave that "Why _even then_?" unanswered, with his
questioner waiting there behind her closed eyelids for whatever excuse
he might see his way to. _Why_ even then? He felt he was flushing a
little, and hoped she would not open her eyes. But his speech hung fire
too long; and when they turned on him suddenly to see what it was going
to be, he was caught, and could only see his way out through frankness.
"I know," he said--"I know. Of course, I was wrong to suggest it.
Still, it was the only thing that came to hand. It was either that or
nothing. And you wished it ... and besides...."
"I am not blaming you. Go on ... 'and besides'...." The beautiful eyes
that were to make so much mischief on the Danube were almost cruel in
the way they waited for what Challis felt he had better not have begun
to say.
But there was no help for it now. He had to continue, and did so:
"... And besides, I did not know you so well as I do now.... I mean,
I saw the thing differently...." He was getting deeper and deeper in
the mire, and the eyes showed no signs of letting him off. "No; it's
no use," he said abruptly. "I did wrong. But then, can you understand
me?--how could I know it was _you_?" Then he made a weak attempt to
_dispersonalize_ his words. "No one of us remains the same." And then,
feeling he wasn't shining, settled to hold his tongue. But he did not
look Judith in the face over it.
She, for her part, being perfectly collected and thoroughly mistress
of herself, only saw in his confusion a clear token that she was also
mistress of the situation. She had done this sort of thing before--love
of power being always her chief incentive--and had come out scathless.
If a doubt now crossed her mind that she might be playing with edged
tools, it was not strong enough to stop her.
"How true that is! Do you know, Challis"--please note this habit of
address; it has somehow become natural to Judith--"I was thinking only
just now, before you came in, how completely you have changed your
identity since those days. Do you remember when we played chess?...
Well, I'm almost ashamed to tell you how I thought of you then...."
"You owe it me. See how I've been at the confessional myself!" Challis
submits to the soul-brush without protest. It is no use. Why resist?
"You were merely an author whose works I hadn't read--yes!--that's
true; authors never have any idea what a lot of people haven't read
their books. I thought you would just come and go, like the rest of
them. But I fancied you seemed at a loose end, and I would take pity on
you. I never thought...."
"Never thought what?"
"Don't look so _empressé_ over it, Challis!" Really, this woman's
faculty for going close to precipices, foot-sure, is something
perfectly marvellous. Tenderness outright seemed the only natural
sequel just now. But she will get back to safety, after gazing coolly
over the edge. Trust her! "I couldn't say it all in one word, you
see.... Never thought that in six months you would be writing a tragedy
for me to play in. That's all that it comes to. At any rate, you
seemed quite a different person then." Had she recoiled too abruptly
from the precipice? Is there slight concession, just to accommodate a
working equilibrium, in her last words? Her own working equilibrium,
mind you;--in which to dangle her victim over that precipice at
leisure, and yet to keep able to deny its proximity undisturbed, or
pooh-pooh it altogether, at choice. For a thorough-paced female flirt
enjoys driving her quarry mad best, when she knows she has plausible
innocent unconsciousness enough left in the cellar to quench any fever
of self-accusation of her own. "Who ever said a word, or thought a
thought, about love-making?..." Don't we know the sort of thing?
Challis's own frame of mind--for the story must needs try to define it,
however difficult it is to deal with--was one of a sort of thankfulness
that he had perturbation of feeling all to himself. Therein lay
his safety; he could keep it secret. He could and would pay for it
by additional tenderness to poor dear Polly Anne--who _was_ Polly
Anne, after all, mind you!--when this last stupid bit of purposeless
quarrelsomeness should have cleared away. But he wanted security that
the conflagration whose smouldering he could not disguise from himself
would be local. He had just, only just, stamped out a spark that might
have become a flame at that precipice-edge, now a moment since. He was
willing to go great lengths in persuading himself that there were no
fires smouldering elsewhere; for to what end, in Heaven's name, should
he recognize them?
But suppose he should be forced to! Suppose he should find one day
that he could no longer parade before his mind this creed that was his
security--this impossibility that he was ever present in his absence to
this woman; as he had to confess perforce, struggle as he might against
growing conviction, she was so often--nearly always--present to him. He
built this faith upon a rock of friendship, genial and firm, but always
cold, that an exaggerated respect for her character--which really
did him honour--chose to assign as the only leasehold her heart could
accommodate him with. Perhaps unfounded hallucinations about the beauty
of Judith's character were the most dangerous features of the disease
Alfred Challis was sickening for, if it had not developed already.
All this may seem too many words about a simple thing. Perhaps Sibyl's
way of disposing of the subject was more intelligible--saved trouble,
certainly. "That man admires you too much, Judith, for it to be safe
to play tricks with him. You'll do this sort of thing once too often.
And then you'll be sorry." However, it was clear that there could be no
real danger as long as the lady remained detached, and very little as
long as the gentleman was convinced that she was so.
And he may have been so convinced--one would have said--when he
found himself able to answer Judith with a philosophical, "Have you
ever known a new acquaintance not to change completely in the first
six months?" And she may have thought he was running too much to
abstractions when she said, "I did not say you had changed completely";
as though she would not have him suppose her too unconcerned. He was
not to slip from the web she was weaving round him by a device of
gossipy discussion. Her remark just met the case; and the soul-brush,
which had got a little out of gear, got to work again.
They went back to the tragedy, and talked of it so long that at length
it came to measuring the minutes by his watch. Then Judith said to him,
as though she had but just recollected it: "You found my letter, I
suppose?" No, he had not--had she written? Oh yes!--it was posted last
thing last night. There was nothing in it, or she would have spoken
about it. The fact that she had written lubricated that soul-brush. But
he must go, or he would be late. A few more words, mostly about how
last night's entertainment had missed her presence, and the lady the
Ross Tarbets had brought in her stead had proved a failure, and then
Challis was standing beside her to say adieu--her hand in his. Really
inevitable, if you think of it, on the supposition that the forms of
civilization are to continue to hold good.
It was a perversity of Fate that chose this very moment for the only
other frequenter of that room to open the door unheard. Judith could
not see her sister through Challis as he stood there. He turned to go.
"Oh, Mr. Challis. I did not see it was you. Perhaps you are talking
business. Don't let me disturb you."
"Not at all. I am just going."
"Stop one minute, Mr. Challis." Thus Judith. "Never mind Sibyl! You
_must_ try to persuade Mrs. Challis to come and see us. Now promise you
will!" She had not referred to Marianne before, by the way.
"I'll try what I can do. But my wife goes her own way. Good-bye!
Good-bye, Miss Sibyl!"
* * * * *
"How long had he been here?"
"Over an hour. I can't say exactly. You must ask Elphinstone when he
came, if you want to know."
"It doesn't matter to me when he came."
"You asked." Sibyl made no reply. A lunch-gong sounded below, and she
vanished, but presently returned.
"You are not coming down to lunch?" she said. "At least, are you? Or
not?"
"Of course not! How could I, without flying in Sir Rhyscombe's face?"
But Sibyl's question had been mere conversation-making, or
skirmish-seeking. She said what she meant directly after. "I suppose
it's perfectly useless _my_ saying anything. But you know what I think."
"I know what you think, dear! Go to lunch."
"Very well, Judith!" And Sibyl departed for lunch as Judith sounded her
bell for her little handmaid, the reputed sugar-plum.
* * * * *
"How long will it take you to get to Wimbledon?" Challis asked the
driver of the waiting cab.
"A tidy long time, the rate I'm going now!" was the reply. "Jump in!"
Challis, feeling he was in the hands of a master-mind, obeyed without
question, and the cab was off, at speed. Presently the master-mind said
briefly, through his orifice above--as King Solomon may have spoken
to the evil djinn he bottled--"Within the hour," and closed it on his
fare for that period. The djinn was in for a lifer, and was immortal;
so thought Challis to himself. That was too long, but short of that,
something over an hour would not be unwelcome--just to think things
over a little!
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW MARIANNE WENT TO TULSE HILL. OF BOB'S PHONOGRAPH, AND HOW
HE POSTED A LETTER TO JUDITH. OF MARIANNE'S RETURN, AND MORE
MISUNDERSTANDINGS. BUT IT WOULD BE ALL RIGHT IN THE MORNING
If King Solomon's captive had gone on scheming conciliatory attitudes
through all eternity, he would probably have failed to hit upon the
right one at the end of it, from mere want of presence of mind. Even
the short "Within the hour" of Challis's cabman was a little too long
for his fare to think things over in safety, without a risk of the
things tripping one another up. He conceived a very good deportment to
suit his return, based on sorrow for being so late, and then began to
complicate it with considerations whether he should at once inquire
more particulars about Marianne's alleged--and denied--indisposition
of last night, or let it alone. Also, should he confess up at once
where he had spent most of the morning, or let _that_ alone! Perhaps
that letter of Judith's that he would find on arriving would help
matters. Yes, it would! He pictured himself to himself--as an actor
in the concurrent drama of Life that he always made notes of by the
way--saying, "Oh yes! That's nothing!--only about the play. I saw Miss
Arkroyd for a few minutes this morning. You know, she was kept away
last night by a sprained ankle, so I went to inquire. Hm-hm-hm!" He
went the length of supplying the sound of reading a letter to himself,
and threw the imaginary pieces he had torn it up into, to show how
unimportant it was, into an image of a waste-paper basket. Then he
turned round, that actor, and kissed his wife, who had recovered her
temper. And then all went well in that play, and that actor told
himself not to be a damned idiot about a fashionable beauty, who knew
he was a married man with a family, and hadn't the slightest idea
that--well?--that anything!
That was the play. The reality did not work out so comfortably.
Challis was in time for lunch, as the cabman was as good as his word.
"Fifty-six and a half," said he, looking at his watch; and added, in
a comfortable sort of way, "Make it up eight shillings," as one who
felt he really deserved the extra half-crown or so. He had a pleasant,
engaging manner with the opposite sex, this cabman, saying to Harmood,
when she brought him his money out: "Don't you get married without
letting me know, my dear! My old woman, she might get sick of me any
minute!" But Miss Harmood was accustomed to admiration.
Mrs. Challis had left word not to wait lunch, said the young lady,
returning undisturbed. Also, there was a note to say with the
letters--that is, to wit, with the postal accumulations. Challis,
opening it, found a bald and severe statement that the writer was
going to Tulse Hill, and might be late. Marianne's mother's domicile
was always spoken of as Tulse Hill. Challis knew that this mother and
daughter were seldom on cordial terms except when he was in disgrace
with both, and it did not tend to allay the feeling of irritated
mystification that came back now to Challis, with quickened memory of
the events of the morning, that his wife should have pitched on this
particular moment for a visit to Tulse Hill. She really seldom went
to see her mother, for she was very lazy. But--and this was a big
_but_--she _always_ went to see her when there had been dissensions. So
much so that when at any time Challis found that she had gone to Tulse
Hill his tendency was to look back through the last twenty-four hours
to discover what skirmish was responsible for the visit.
This time he was completely baffled. His wife knew perfectly well
that she had been invited--cordially invited--to this last night's
entertainment. Did all this mean that in the end he would have to give
up associating with the outer world, and restrict himself to John
Eldridge and Lewis Smithson? That seemed the only programme compatible
with the enjoyment of a comfortable home. Only for God's sake let it be
formulated! Let him know what he had to expect, and Challis would put
his sign-manual to any reasonable treaty.... He stopped suddenly, yet
asked himself--why stop? Then, knowing well that he dared not answer
his own question, flinched off the subject.
This phase of reflection did not come immediately on opening Marianne's
note. He had passed through a brief epoch of lunch for himself and
dinner for Bob and Cat and Emmie since then. It had been a riotous
but not unpleasant experience, and Challis was grateful for it. Bob's
greeting to him had been, exactly transcribed: "Mater's gone to Tulse
Hill. I say!--if you were to give me five shillings, I could buy a
phonograph, because I've saved up fifteen. Tommy Eldridge has got one
that does a menagerie, and you can hear a man having his head bit off."
This felt jolly and cheerful, especially as the two little girls jumped
with eagerness to hear the subsidy voted. Imitations of insubordinate
wild beasts, and the sounds incidental to detaching a Bengal tiger from
his prey with red-hot irons, made lunch pass pleasantly, and Challis
felt much happier. He granted the five shillings on condition that no
operatic records should be purchased. He had heard "Voi che sapete"
through a gramophone once, and he knew!
He was in his study, and Bob had probably nearly arrived at the
phonograph local plague-centre in Putney, when he got to speculation,
acknowledged as such, about a _modus vivendi_ for himself and the
mother of those two little wenches. He denied Judith any place in the
problem, preferring to recognize, as the sole difficulty he had to
fight against, the attitude of Marianne towards what he summed up as
"Grosvenor Square" compendiously. He refused to admit that the class of
feelings he entertained towards that lady--or might have entertained;
he wouldn't quite admit them--could possibly come under discussion
so long as he kept them to himself. Why, if every trifling vibration
of personal feeling, every grain of salt on the dish of a man's
friendship for a woman, was to be made the foundation of an indictment
of faithlessness to his wife, where would matrimony be? But he nearly
lost the thread of his reflections in the obligation to define what the
feelings were that he was refusing to admit.
He would not allow for a moment that these feelings could possibly
interfere with his affection for his wife. In fact, he actually shouted
"Nonsense!" aloud in answer to some accusation to that effect for
which he was not responsible. So loud, in fact, that Harmood came,
and said, "Did you call, sir?" and disbelieved the "No, _I_ didn't!"
that she was met with. He would not have felt foolish on hearing his
own voice getting out of bounds, but he did when it came home to him
that Harmood must have heard him two rooms off at least. This would
never do. He would get back to the Ostrogoths. How about Estrild's
little handmaiden?--a good name for her?--something ending in _illa_?
Favilla?--Scintilla?--Yes, that would do, without the _S_; otherwise,
like Law Courts and tittles of evidence! Yes--certainly Cintilla! But
he got no further.
Because the little sugar-plum brought back his interview of the
morning. There was Judith again--he had nearly given up thinking of
her as Miss Arkroyd--holding the mirror at arm's-length to make it
include both faces easily, watching the _ensemble_ with a slightly
Ostrogothic effect, sympathetically resumed from some passage in the
play she had half read, and knew the purport of; eyelids thrown up as
per instructions of stage-trainer, to secure the glare which seems to
have come so freely on the faces of all our forbears whom the Stage
has thought worthy of portrayal; just a hint of what upper lip and
nostrils could do, if they tried, in the way of callousness towards
tortured prisoners. For Judith had been thinking over the part. And how
grand her eyes were, too!--something of the dark colour of sapphires by
artificial light. And the little chick's face had come so well! That
episode of the monkey-soap had produced a _nuance_ of terror-stroke;
exactly how Cintilla would have looked over a Christian martyrdom; a
penalty deserved by a Dissenter, but alarming, for all that. He would
tell Judith next time he wrote.... Well!--he _would_ write, of course.
But it was all in the way of business. What of that?... He would tell
her he had christened the child Cintilla. She would call her Cintilla
now; he was sure of it.... Now he must get to work! This would never do.
He actually did get to work this time. He wrote blank verse, or prose
abstract to turn into blank verse, or other blank verse that was
better than the first blank verse; or, if worse, could be rejected
when found wanting. But the worst was when alternatives turned out
equal--impossible to make choice of. After a while, he found himself
with two such samples to choose between. Which speech of the two would
come best from the lips of Estrild? He had to acknowledge that he was
puzzled.
And yet a good deal might depend on it. He was wavering between two
courses in the plot of the play. Each of these speeches seemed to
point to one. Suppose he chose the one that, afterwards, Judith liked
least, and followed on the line of plot that suited it! He would not
feel happy over it, that way. Obviously, Judith was the proper person
to decide. Master Bob might just as well carry the speeches to a handy
typewriter at Putney, wait for them to be executed, and bring them
back. Or stop! Challis knew he could rely on the accuracy of this
typist, at a pinch. Why not write to Judith, leaving the envelope open,
and let Master Bob put the typed copy in and post it? It would save a
deal of time. Then he would be able to get on with the play first thing
in the morning, if an answer came by the early post, as it might. He
could mention Cintilla, too.
So said, so done! Master Bob was off like a shot, though reluctant to
leave his phono, whose hideous din had been audible from afar since
its arrival an hour ago. No sooner was he past recall than Challis
remembered that if he had decided the question himself, it never would
have been necessary to show the rejected version to Judith at all! But
the fact is he had got rather into the way of consulting her. Anyhow,
it couldn't matter much, either way. He went back to his writing, and
found something else to go on with. He went on with it peacefully until
a cab arrived, and he looked out, expecting that it was Marianne. It
was not, and he had an odd sensation of being glad he was sorry it was
not. He saw who the visitor was, and retired.
Confound that woman! Why on earth need Charlotte Eldridge come
bothering in when Marianne was away? A confirmatory announcement is
followed by, "Oh, Mrs. Eldridge!--Did you _tell_ her your mistress
wasn't here?" Thus Challis to Harmood, who checks the incorrectness of
his speech. "I said Mrs. Challis was not at home, sir. Mrs. Eldridge
said she would come in and wait." On which Challis's comment--too much
to himself to rank as an answer--is, "She'll have to wait."
"Am I to tell her so, sir?" Harmood, docile and well-bred, awaits
instructions.
"_No!_--don't tell her anything. Perhaps your mistress will be in soon."
Challis made a show, for his own satisfaction, of going on with his
work--but not for very long. As tea-time drew near, he looked at
his watch, and decided not to have tea in the drawing-room with his
visitor, but to go out. So, when he looked in on Charlotte for a
moment, he was in walking trim, and merely shook hands hurriedly, and
said: "Marianne must be in soon. She'll never stay to dine at Tulse
Hill. _I_ have to go. Ring the bell for tea, and make Harmood attend to
you properly. Ta-ta!" and departed, affecting haste.
Mrs. Eldridge was not quite ready for tea, and also hoped Mrs. Challis
would reappear shortly. So she postponed summoning the handmaiden,
and took Challis's old novel, "The Spendthrift's Legacy," from the
bookshelves, wishing to compare the portrait of his first wife, which
she knew it contained, with current events. As she speculated over this
and that, an unmistakable boy's head--that first wife's boy's--came in
at the door, and said "Hullo!" in a very uncompromising way. It was
merely greeting--no more!
"Well, Master Bob, where have you been? Come in and talk, and shut the
door."
"Haven't got much time for talk. I say! I wonder if you can hear up
here. We've got such a ripping phonograph."
"I can hear beautifully." Indeed, a woe-begone and God-forgotten croak
has been audible for some minutes, rendering patter-songs. Bob warms to
his subject: "Isn't it awfully jolly? You're really sure you can hear,
though? I say, though, isn't it a pity? I got 'Movement in A flat,'
and I might have had 'The White-Eyed Musical Kaffir,' and it's such
rot. Harmood says she's sure it's only music--like pianos."
"Why don't you open it and see?"
"Because then they won't change it. I might have changed it when I was
out, if I'd known. But I thought it was a row in a house, and furniture
getting broke, don't you know?" He gives further particulars of his
misapprehension, but it will be as clear as it needs to be without them.
"Where did you go when you were out?" Mrs. Eldridge seems strangely
unconcerned about the phonograph. But Bob is too high in the seventh
heaven about it to conceive it possible that such indifference
should exist. He takes his hearer's sympathy for granted, and as for
suspecting any non-phonographic motives in his questioner--impossible!
"Putney. I could have gone to the shop twice over in the time I was
waiting."
"What were you waiting for?"
"Typewriter. For the governor. Oh--quite half an hour!"
"What a shame! And you wasted all that time waiting. But you got what
you went for? I mean your father got his type-writing?"
"No fear!" This with scorn. Then, to keep the heaven of veracity
spotless: "_He_ didn't get it, you know. I shoved it in her envelope,
and shoved it in the pillar-box in High Street. Not the one near the
tobacconist's."
"Whose envelope?"
"It was all right. There wasn't any other. Judith's. I say--are you
quite sure you can hear up here? Hadn't I better bring it up, while you
have tea?" For tea is coming of its own accord, audibly, outside the
door.
"No--after tea. I shall listen better. Whose letter did you say you put
in? Judith's--who's Judith?"
"Oh--_you_ know! Me and Cat always call her Judith. Miss _Ark_royd."
There is a trace of contempt, quite unexplained, in the accent on
the first syllable. But Bob will be lenient, adding, "But she gave
me my skates." Then, for he cannot honestly conceal a defect, "She's
duchessy, for all that. A hundred-and-one, Grosvenor Square, W." And
leaves her, classified.
Should Harmood make the tea? Not on Mrs. Eldridge's account, certainly!
Mrs. Challis was sure to be back. Too probably, in practice, for either
speaker to say "D.V." about it. But no atheism was meant--far from it!
Harmood attended to the fire; enough just to keep it in, although if
it went on like this we should soon be able to do without. And the
water couldn't go off the boil as long as there was ever so little
methylated. Mrs. Eldridge was beginning to fear that there _was_ ever
so little, and that the boil's hour was come; and was questioning
whether it would not be better on the whole to make tea in order that
its getting cold should favour Marianne's return, when a cab-sound
recommended itself to her notice for some unexplained reason, and she
began making the tea. She really wished to see Mrs. Challis, having a
card in her hand she wanted to play. One fights against a misdeal when
one has seen the ace of trumps in one's hand. But let us be just to
Mrs. Charlotte. Of course, it was well understood, between her and her
conscience, that her motive was to make sure that no mischief came of
that letter to Miss Arkroyd. Suppose that young monkey were to say he
posted the letter, and say nothing about the palliative typewriting!
And then suppose Alfred never thought it worth mentioning that he had
written at all. Quite a case for a judicious friend, etc., etc. Oh,
these meddlers!
The cab _was_ Mrs. Challis--not literally; only household _patois_--and
Mrs. Challis was sorry she was so late, Charlotte. Why had that lady
not had tea? Marianne's manner was dry and hard. No--she was not the
least tired, she said. She would go up and take her things off and come
down immediately. She threw out a skirmisher to stop that horrible
noise on her way up; and when she returned, if peace did not exactly
reign where Bob was, somewhere below, at any rate the sounds that
continued were human, not diabolical.
"Well?" Mrs. Eldridge spoke first.
"Wait till I've had some tea, and I'll tell you." A cup apiece elapsed,
and then Marianne said briefly: "Says it's a parcel of lies. If poor
Kate had been married, she _must_ have known."
Charlotte considered. The detective character asserted itself. "How
does she account for Mrs. Steptoe knowing the name of these Hallock
people?"
"She doesn't account for it."
"What does she suppose her motive to be?"
"She doesn't suppose."
"Even if she knew the name, it's impossible to believe she would trump
up such a story! With nothing to gain by it, Marianne dear, with
nothing to gain by it!"
"I didn't say I did believe it. I only told you what mamma said."
A conversation that flags from lack of any visible step forward
welcomes another cup of tea, to pause on. After a measure of silence,
so filled out, consciousness of the _impasse_ brought in a new element,
as stimulus.
"I talked to John about it."
"Why must you talk to John?"
"My dear Marianne! Well! John's a fool, I know, but I have a great
respect for his judgment, sometimes. I shouldn't have begun about
it myself. But he was there when Mrs. Steptoe was looking at the
photographs, and he spoke of it to me.... What did he speak of? Oh--the
whole thing!"
"What did he say?"
"It wasn't so much what he _said_. You know his way. He only said that
a party he knew in the City knew a man in a Private Inquiry Office, and
that sort of thing always ran into money. So his idea was--you know how
funnily he phrases things?--his idea was that 'keep it snug' was the
word. In fact, he repeated it several times. John's habit of repetition
gets rather irritating, now and then."
"Did he say nothing else?"
"I don't think he did ... oh yes!--he exonerated your husband. At
least, he said that that sort of trap wasn't the sort of trap anyone
would suspect Titus of being up to. It was a little obscure, but John
is obscure."
Marianne showed no disposition to take an interest in John's opinions,
even assuming them to be capable of recasting in an intelligible
form. She sat holding her teacup, as one anxious not to break with a
pleasant memory. But her face was not pleasant for all that. It might
be unfair to say it had a set jaw and a scowl, because that suggests
a prizefighter without a prize. But accept as much of the description
as leaves an image of a comely woman with dark hair--plenty of it--in
a plait, and rather _embonpoint_ for thirty. Put in the mole we have
spoken of, just on the cheekbone; but don't run away with the idea
that there must be a stye in the eye on the other side, that you are
not looking at. Let Marianne have all that is left of a bonny robust
girlhood that was in its day rather more acceptable--consciously so--to
her brother-in-law than the more delicate approach to beauty of his
deceased wife. But Marianne had gone off, too; there was no doubt of
it. Nevertheless--and in spite of occasional acerbity and frequent
sullenness--her husband loyally cherished the idea that she was good
with a deep-buried goodness, a quality that might be relied on when the
hour of trial came, a rockbed of sound-heartedness, to build on even
when appearances suggested earthquake.
Some such appearance may have made Mrs. Eldridge cautious about
pursuing the thread of John's judgments, as she joined in her friend's
silence beyond her usual habit--a loquacious one. Presently she said,
to relieve the monotony, "Shall I put your cup down?" and took it
with a well-formed hand she was vain of--indeed, it ran close to
beauty--from one that was rather a defect in its owner; too chubby,
too accented at the rings, to be redeemed by a mere addendum of
filbert-nailed fingers.
Marianne then said, as she surrendered the cup: "You saw him before he
went out?" She spoke as though she took her companion's knowledge of
the contents of her own silence for granted.
Mrs. Eldridge seemed to acquiesce. "He looked in for a moment," she
said.
"I suppose he got his letter." This was mainly thinking aloud, for
how could Charlotte know anything about his letter? She could guess,
though, and was not slow over it.
"I suppose so, because he answered it." Then she may have felt that her
knowing so much without data might seem unwarranted; for she added:
"At least, if it was a letter from her," and then explanatorily, in
response to an inquiring look, "Yes!--Judith Arkroyd, of course."
She probably had no definitely mischievous motive in the phrasing of
this. The assumption that any "her" must be Miss Arkroyd only showed
what she herself had been thinking of. But it teemed with suggestion
of continuous correspondence between the lady and gentleman in hand.
Marianne flushed angrily, far more moved by the way in which she heard
of it than by the mere letter itself. It was only one of many letters,
after all!
"How do you know? How can you tell?"
"Marianne dear--really!"
"Really what? No, Charlotte, you're nonsensical. Of course it was her!
Why _do_ you take a pleasure in mystifying me? Can't you tell me what
you mean? How do you know he answered it?"
"Dear, if you'll be patient, I'll tell you. But, really, you do make so
much out of nothing ... it's all about _nothing_." And, indeed, Mrs.
Eldridge looked frightened, as a mischief-maker may whose hobby has got
the bit in its teeth.
"If it's nothing, at least you can tell me what it is." And Marianne,
who a moment since was red, now goes white, with hands just restless
and a foot that taps uneasily. There had been nothing in antecedent
circumstance to warrant so much excitement. So thinks Mrs. Charlotte,
and would like to hark back, and make her mischief gradually, on
congenial safe lines. A row would be premature, to her thinking.
"What _what_ is, Marianne dear?" she says. But then makes concession:
"Only, of course, dear, I know what you _mean_. How did _I_ come to
know about the letter he sent her? It's quite simple...."
"Well--go on!"
"... It was Bob. He was in here just now, and told me his father had
sent him to post a letter to Judith--that's what the young monkey calls
her--and then you asked if he had got his letter. Of course, I thought
it _must_ be from her."
"Why?"
"Oh, nonsense _why_, Marianne dear! How _could_ it be anyone else?"
And Mrs. Challis cannot answer this, naturally, as she knows quite
well it was Judith's handwriting alone that attracted her attention to
the letter, and that there were at least a dozen other items by the
same post. Charlotte continued: "I can see nothing to make such a fuss
about. With this play-acting going on, a letter might be anything."
"How do you know I thought it wasn't anything?"
"I dare say you didn't, dear. Of course, one takes for granted that
one's husband ... well!--even if it was John, it would never occur to
me. And look at the difference between my John and your Titus!"
As it is impossible to fathom Mrs. Eldridge's motive for ascribing the
character of Lovelace to the chosen of her affections, the attempt
shall not be made. Some things begin, exist, and cease, and none knows
why. But one may conjecture. Was it that Charlotte wanted a certificate
to her understanding--from experience--of Man the Baboon that she
sometimes sketched St. Martin's-le-Grand and the Royal Exchange as a
sort of ilex-groves furnished with Mænads and Bassarids, all for the
delectation of respectable Satyrs with stove-pipe hats or billy-cocks,
each in his degree? Like Nicholas Poussin, you know! Yes--that was it!
John's character had to be sacrificed, to show through what slant or
squint in a side-aisle his wife had got a glance at the mystic altar of
the Bona Dea.
But Marianne was not prepared to accept the view suggested. "One man's
the same as another," said she. Then, with an access of feeling that
she was being entangled in something, she knew not what, that she was
not clever enough to escape from, "I wish you wouldn't talk like this,
Charlotte. I hate it!"
"Talk like what, dear?" says Charlotte, but adds illogically, "It
wasn't me began talking like this. It was you said, how did I know he
answered it? I could only tell you."
"I don't care what who said, or anyone. It's nothing to do with it.
You know what you're trying to make out, so where is the use of
pretending?" Mrs. Eldridge interjects, "What am I trying to make out?"
But this is ignored, and Marianne continues, "And you know you're wrong
and the thing's ridiculous." Through all this runs a tacit acceptance
of the existence of "the thing." But it remains undefined, by mutual
consent.
At this point Mrs. Eldridge began to suspect that Marianne was showing
more tension of feeling than the case, as known to her, seemed to call
for. She must find out, in the interests of the drama she wanted to
enjoy--for, of course, true mischief-maker that she was, she never
admitted that mischief was her motive--what had passed at Tulse Hill to
account for her friend's _accès_ of asperity. Because of course it was
that! It was that horrid old woman.
"I suppose you talked it all over with your dear mother, Marianne?"
"There wasn't anything to talk over with my dear mother that I know of.
Yes, I did--I talked over what you mean."
"And she agreed with me, I'm sure?"
"I don't know whether she did or didn't, and I don't know what 'agree'
means. But I do know that I won't talk to mamma again, neither about
this or anything else, unless...."
"Unless what?"
"If she talks as she does. She knows, because I told her."
"Don't tell me about it, dear, if you don't like." With which licence
to silence Mrs. Eldridge settles down to the hearing of a good long
tale, which she knows will have to be elicited by jerks, as Marianne
is profoundly Anglo-Saxon--not a drop of Celtic blood in her veins. It
comes, and, summed up, amounts to this:
Marianne had carefully avoided saying a single word at Tulse Hill
about "it"--in fact, had wanted to keep Grosvenor Square out of
the conversation altogether. She had really only spoken about Mrs.
Steptoe's story and the photographs, and how "it" came in Heaven
only knew. But there "it" was, and mamma had been very disagreeable
about it, and said things. What things? Oh, of course the sort of
things she always said ... well!--about her own marriage with Titus,
and the Deceased Wife's Sister business. Just as if she, Marianne to
wit, wasn't only poor Kate's half-sister--and it just made all the
difference! But what did she say? Well, it seemed that she had up and
denounced, in the most positive way, about how she had always said,
and always should say: that the Blessing of God could never rest
on an Unscriptural Union. And then, being pressed to develope this
thesis, had fallen back feebly on the position that "we were told"
it was Sinful, and that Marianne knew where just as well as she did;
which was indeed true in a sense, for neither of them knew anything of
theology, or divinity, or exegesis, except that the Bible was the Word
of God, and contained everything necessary to Salvation, as well as
to the fostering of all our little particular prejudices. In fact, it
would have been difficult to light upon any two completer agnostics,
etymologically, than this mother and daughter. So, though the former
was happily unconscious of the whereabouts of any texts bearing on
the question, she was convinced of their existence; only making this
much concession to her daughter's position--that the marriage of a man
with a half-sister-in-law was only half as bad as with the complete
article. It was a Venial Sin, and a commodious one thus far, that it
still permitted intercourse under protest between a daughter who had
committed it and a mother who went to church.
On this occasion, when the admixture of foreign matter into the
discussion had raised the question of possible nuptial infidelities,
the old lady had embittered her criticism of her daughter's position
by pointing out that Titus might do whatever he liked, and she would
never be able to get a divorce, like a legally married woman. The knot
that had never been tied could never be untied, clearly; and one of
the great advantages of conformity to established usage was hopelessly
lost. This view had fairly enraged Marianne, who had fought for her
right to a divorce as the tigress fights for her young. Not to be a
wife at all according to the law of the land was bad enough, but if you
had to forego your birthright to be a legal _divorcée_ or _divorceuse_,
whatever were we coming to?
"I must ask John how that is," said John's wife, really to make talk,
for she was at the moment weighing the question whether this item in
Marianne's recent collision with her dear mother was enough to account
for her ill-temper. "You would never suppose John knew anything at
all, by his manner; but it's wonderful what he does know. There he
is!" There he was, and there also was Mr. Challis, who had met him on
his way from the station, and told him he believed Charlotte was at
the Hermitage, and he had better come in. And there also was a Mrs.
Parminter, or Westrop--Marianne wasn't sure which--who had really
wanted to leave a card and cease, only Titus had gone and asked her in,
and now Marianne supposed we should have to be civil.
Do not suppose this Mrs. Parminter or Westrop has nothing to do with
the story. She will go out of it, certainly, very soon; because she has
promised to be at the Spurrells' at six, and it takes a full quarter of
an hour. But she has an influence on it, by the spell of her presence
acting on the social _rapports_ of the household. Briefly, we all know
it's quite different when there are people; and this Mrs. Parminter
or Westrop was quite as much people, _ad hoc_, as if she had been the
Spurrells.
When there are people, you assume a genial smile, and affect a crisp
alacrity of interest you do not feel in their loves or their sheep, or
even their digestions. You shout; so do they. Then someone else shouts
louder, and you try to finish what you were shouting. But you don't
succeed, and perhaps you give in; and then your family--lady-wife,
mother, sister, what not!--says afterwards, need you have been so glum,
and couldn't you have exerted yourself to make things _go_ a little?
And you're sorry, because it's too late now, and the Mrs. Parminter or
Westrop of your case, or your particular Spurrells, have trooped away
with parting benedictions, and left the hush of daily life behind. And
then your family lady looks at the cards the Mrs. Parminter or Westrop
has deposited, and sees which of the two she is, and says she thought
so.
All this happened in the present case, the Mrs. Parminter or Westrop
having swept Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge away in her vortex, because they
were going in the same direction; and having said to them what a
delightful call she had had, and what delightful people the Challises
were! To which Mr. Eldridge had appended a note to the effect that he
had known Challis quite a long time, now you came to think of it. And
the equivocal lady had said dear her!--how very interesting!
The genial wooden smile, as of the visited, on the faces of Marianne
and her husband died abruptly as its cause became a distant shout. It
gave place to a mere puzzled look on his, provoked, no doubt, by the
expression of cold fatigue on hers and her silence. So far as he could
recollect there was nothing to account for this--at least, at the date
of their last parting. The interview about the gas-man was unleavened
with tenderness, certainly, but then it was the merest household
colloquy. But, to be sure, there had been Tulse Hill since then! That
was it!--it was that horrid old woman! So it was just as well to say
nothing. Challis said it, and went to get ready for dinner.
"Getting ready" amounted to little more than washing his face and
hands. It could not interfere with mental schemes for approaching and
conciliating his wife. He really wanted to do so, for he knew in
his inmost heart that he had more than once this day turned angrily
against suppositions that _would_ present themselves--hypothetical
readjustments of his life, always with Judith Arkroyd sooner or later
working into them through a mist of the honour in which he held
Marianne. Suppose--oh, suppose!--all his life had been different!
Suppose he had known her in her girlhood, this Judith! He had let
the image he had formed of the self he would have been, had all been
otherwise--just for one moment he had let it hunger for the hand, the
lips, the eyes of this hypothetical girlhood. It seemed so slight a
wrong to grant himself that luxury, when by hypothesis he was then
never to have seen or spoken to either of his wives of the time to
come. But the moment he had recognized the nature of this supposition
he had flung it from him, as he had others of a like sort. Just so the
watcher, sworn not to sleep, believes himself awake even as the spell
seizes him; then strikes hard to slay the coming dream, and is awake
again. Alfred Challis had been secretly guilty of this particular
dream, was angry with himself for it, and was scheming now to lay some
stress on his affection for his living wife. He knew enough from long
experience of Tulse Hill to ascribe to it powers of producing an even
greater severity of deportment than Marianne's at this moment.
He judged it best "not to be too previous," and went from his own
dressing-room straight to the drawing-room. That would make the best
job. He felt obliged to John Eldridge for this expression of his.
Marianne followed in due course, and appeared in conflict with a
preoccupying wrist-button. His proposed arrangement was to say, "Well,
Polly Anne, now let's near all about it!" And she spoiled it with,
"Stop one moment. I must get Harmood to do this for me."
A new departure became necessary. But it would not be half so _dégagé_.
A certain amount of spontaneity would have to be surrendered. Try again!
"Got it right now?" Yes--that was best!--not to go outside current
event.
"What--the button? Oh yes, it's right enough! At least, it'll do." And
then dinner, according to Harmood, was on the table, and the button
lapsed.
"Did you find your mother well?" This followed on the heels of
soup, concluded. By this time Challis had given up all his little
conciliations, and was drifting, a mere log on the current of
matrimony. Oh yes!--Marianne had found mamma well--that is, just as
usual. She wasn't going to help, evidently. However, he would try
yet again, but presently. Presently did not come, apparently, till
cigar-time. Then he made a more vigorous attempt. "Well, Polly Anne, I
think you might ask me where _I've_ been."
"Where _have_ you been?" The amount of concession there was in this was
just sufficient to make it impossible to indict the conversation as
unendurable, and demand improvement or silence; but not enough to pave
the way to cordiality.
Challis would probably not have ventured on his last attempt if he
had had nothing to report but his visit to Grosvenor Square. But
this afternoon excursion, later, had given him confidence. He was
able to answer that he had looked in to tea at the Ponsonby-Smiths',
or whatever the name was; and what did Polly Anne think? Celia
Ponsonby-Smith had got twins.
"Celia Robinson, I suppose you mean," said Marianne coldly. "I saw it
in the _Telegraph_. Did you go nowhere else?"
"In the morning--yes! I went for a book to the London Library, and made
a call. Nowhere else this afternoon."
"I meant in the morning. Don't spill your coffee. The cup's too full."
"No--it's all right. There!" Challis reduced his coffee to
safety-point, and was not ungrateful for the slight break in the
conversation. He was able to affect a balked readiness to speak, as
one whose swallowed coffee has left him free to say the words it
interrupted.
"I called in at Grosvenor Square."
"I see." This is a simple speech enough, but if the _I_ lasts a long
time and the _S_ even longer, it expresses diabolical insight. Yet one
can say nothing. Challis could only ignore it, and continue:
"I told you Judith Arkroyd had had an accident. Or didn't I?" But
he knew quite well; and Marianne knew he knew, and merely shook her
head. He went on: "Well--she has. And she wasn't able to come to the
Acropolis last night."
"A bad accident?" Marianne seems determined to keep her words at the
fewest.
"Nothing very serious! A sprained ankle. She'll have to lay up for it.
Not a hanging matter!"
"Of course you didn't see her?"
"I did. There is nothing to prevent her receiving visitors."
"Was she up?"
"My dear Marianne! Of course she was up. What do you suppose?"
"I don't know. I don't pretend to understand these sort of people. I
suppose it's all right, either way." And this lady then withdrew from
the conversation, leaving her husband half-nettled and half-apologetic,
but quite unable to lay hold of any excuse for expressing either
irritation or apology. Especially the latter, because why should he
think confessions or apologies necessary?
Perhaps nothing could throw more light on the way the heads of this
household quarrelled--for domestic bliss has many forms--than the
internal comment made by its eldest son when he returned by contract
at half-past ten from supping with his friend Tommy Eldridge. What
Master Bob said to himself, after a short wait for sounds of human
voices, was: "_Row_ on, I expect. Pater and mater not talking!" He put
his head in at the drawing-room door and made a statement. "I say. I'm
not late." His father, who understood Master Bob down to the ground,
attached the right meaning to "What are you?" which followed. He looked
at his watch. "Ten-thirty-three," said he. "Three minutes late! Now go
to bed, and leave the phonograph alone till to-morrow."
"What!--not only just one, in the breakfast-room, with the door shut?"
But even so conditioned, it is too late for phonographs, and Bob goes
to his couch a sadder boy but as great a goose as ever. Before doing
so, he has to give securities that he will not pound about overhead and
wake his sisters; and to note that his pater is reading and sorting
letters, and his mater has settled down to a book.
You know what that means, especially when the book is bicolumnar,
microtypical, and there's such a lot to read before it gets to where
everyone says it's so improper. You read the first brisk spirt, till
you get to the point at which the author's inventive power has flagged,
and then you become strangely content to repose underneath that work,
with your eyes closed and your hands peacefully folded over your
foreground. But Bob was wrong. His mater had not settled down to her
book in the true sense of the words, and Challis knew it by the speed
at which the leaves turned. Marianne couldn't read at that rate, even
without stopping to think of the meaning. And you must, sometimes.
Besides, Challis had glanced at that book himself, and knew his wife
would never understand local Americanisms and Indian dialects in
Kamschatka. It was an interesting book, though, and Challis remembered
how the first chapter began: "Midnight in Nootka Sound, and the blood
still dripped monotonously from the shelf above, etc." He was just
thinking could he safely venture on asking the reader why this first
chapter was called "Hello!" when she put the book aside, and said
briefly: "I'm going to bed." She had not spoken a word since Bob's
incursion.
Special effort is needed to keep in mind how little Marianne's husband
knew of the causes of her perturbation. So far as he could see, the
whole ground was covered by illogical resentment against a group of
his friends, whose advances to herself--as it seemed to him--she had
inexcusably rejected. Still, he could frame excuses for her; it was
not for her as it was for him; he had the key of the position. It was
a case for compromise, and Marianne was uncompromising. That was all!
As for any conception that a new light thrown on his past had presented
him to her as distrustful and secretive--certainly keeping back
something she must have a right to know; possibly, though she hesitated
over this, something disgraceful to himself--no such idea crossed his
mind for a moment.
It would be all right in the morning! He had said that many a time
overnight, in tiff-times, and peace had followed as predicted. Tulse
Hill, considered as an incident, was too recent for any sort of
conciliatory effort to be worth making--to-night, at any rate. Let it
alone, and have a finishing smoke! Go back to the Ostrogoths!
Then, as he wondered whether, for all its slow combustion, the grate
would not consume its coal before he got through his cigar, there came
back to him an image of Judith Arkroyd in a dangerous form--an image
in which physical beauty was subordinate to a subtle relationship of
soul, which he had imperceptibly slipped into ascribing to his own and
hers. A dangerous form, because Love played a new part in it for this
man. His first wife had probably been--put it plainly--a mistake; his
second ... well!--he was very fond of Marianne--very--and they had had
many happy times together. But it wasn't quite the same thing as--oh,
dear!--well, it couldn't be, you know! One can't have everything.
Much more dangerous, that sort of thing, to our thinking, than the
primitive fascinations of Aphrodite herself! Indeed, we have sometimes
thought that lady didn't go the right way to work in that affair with
Adonis. She should have _sympathized_ with him. All the same, mind
you!--so Cynicism murmurs at our elbow--man has an extraordinary
faculty for detecting companion-souls to his own, pulses preordained
to beat in unison with his, in bodies of extraordinary beauty, of
indisputable grace. _He_ may squint, and his eyesight be defective, but
his predestined She, the mate of his soul, will gaze on him through
lustrous orbs of tender radiance. Her voice will reach him through the
rosiest of lips, the pearliest of teeth, without so much as one gold
stopping; and all the while there will he be, without a sound tooth in
his head to boast of, unless he has the effrontery to make a parade of
his crown-and-bridge treatment. He may even wear a wig, and brazen it
out, in the same breath with a protest against a single false tress on
the head of his other dearer life-in-life--this comes out of Poetry,
somewhere--while as for a Venus Calva ... simply out of the question,
thank you!
Anyhow, the predestined mate of the soul was a much more kittle
head of cattle to shoe behind when chosen for her beauty from among
the daughters of an aristocracy not celebrated for ugliness, and
manipulated by photographers into bestowing their eyes upon the
readers of the shiniest print that ever lay on the table of an hotel
reading-room.
CHAPTER XXV
OF AN UNCALLED FAMILY ROW, AND HOW BOB'S BREAKFAST WAS POSTPONED. OF
A LETTER FROM JUDITH THAT MADE MATTERS WORSE
The Mistake's son was the unfortunate means of causing the next day to
begin badly. For he rose early, and hastened to the plague-centre at
Putney whence Records flowed, to acquire in exchange for the condemned
piece of mere music either "The White-Eyed Musical Kaffir" or something
equally juicy. Naturally, he found the shop not open, at an hour when
sparse milk and eggs were the only things procurable. "Won't open till
ten," was the current opinion. Bob, disgusted, called on his friend
Tommy Eldridge, and found sympathy and consolation. Tommy had had the
"Musical Kaffir" for two days past, and the Kaffir had palled. He
would swop him for the "mere music" record and twopence. Bob closed
with the offer, but the bargain had taken time; and, as a consequence,
he burst in upon breakfast at half-past eight o'clock, and announced
his acquisition with an evident conviction that his hearers had been
awaiting his return with suspended breaths. His step-mother--or aunt;
either will do--confiscated his treasure promptly, and denounced
Science within the home-circle. Lectures, she said truly, were one
thing; houses another. Bob cited the indulgences shown to other
fellows by their parents in respect of phonographs, and Cat said that
Tommy Eldridge always had his till tea-time. Her mother told her not
to speak with her mouth full, and met Master Bob's half-inaudible "I
shall ask the Governor, anyhow!" with so harsh an enquiry, "What's that
you're saying, sir? Don't mumble to yourself!" that Bob evacuated his
position, and awaited reinforcements.
Marianne was making the common mistake of easing ill-temper by
attacking objects blameless of provoking it--blowing off steam through
wrong channels. At another time she would have been too lazy to open
a campaign against a phonograph. Now she found it a relief to pitch
in--Bob's phrase--and enlarged her scheme of operations. "If it wasn't
for your father," she said, "you would all be breakfasting upstairs."
Bob, who was afraid of her because she had boxed his ears for him
before now--and not so very long ago--only muttered a _sotto-voce_
"I'm a Rugby boy now, and that would be grandmother," expressing in
his simple, limited way his sense of acquired status, and the folly of
ignoring it. Marianne, who was not really the least angry with Bob, and
certainly didn't care twopence about the "Musical Kaffir," saw in this
suppressed defiance an outlet for her own high-pressure atmosphere,
and jumped at its inaudibility as though it were the head and front
of its offending. What was it he was mumbling?--she said again, with
growing anger. He wouldn't mumble if his father was here. Bob denied
this audibly, probably meaning that he had said nothing he would have
scrupled to say to his father. He felt indignant and injured; having,
indeed, meant no wrong, though his preoccupation about the glorious
phonograph had no doubt made his speech appear careless.
As ill-luck would have it, Challis, coming down at this moment to
breakfast, and not in a beaming good-humour himself, heard his wife's
indictment, and quickened his descent of the stairs. He resolved
at once on his usual policy whenever Marianne came to open warfare
with any of the family--namely, to take her part at the moment, for
discipline's sake, even supposing he had to make amends for it after by
concessions.
"What is the matter?" said he magisterially, in the pause of silence
his entry created. It was more impressive than any amount of
excitement, and the younger little girl, Emmie, began to cry in a
terrified way. Nothing creates the formidable like fear, even when it
is only a small child's. The tension became full-blown, having--please
observe!--all grown out of nothing.
"You must ask your boy what he means, Alfred, and find for yourself.
All I can say is, that if I am to be spoken to so before the servants,
I cannot go on."
"How dare you speak to your mother so--eh? What do you mean by it?"
Challis's assumption of uncontrollable anger is affectation, merely
from motives of policy. He knows he can make it up with Bob, any time.
"_I didn't._" Bob no more knows what he is denying than his father
knows what he has accused him of. Never mind! Families don't quarrel
by the book. Bob is scarlet, for all that, and warms to his subject.
"_She_ took my Record, and it cost a shilling, and twopence over. _She_
wanted to prevent me...." But it remains untold, whatever it was, for
Marianne interrupts:
"You can hear for yourself how he calls me _she_. But do as you like,
Alfred!"--use of this name means a state of siege, observe!--"He is
your boy." After which disclaimer of a parentage no one had accused her
of, she repeats, "_She, indeed!_" to rub it in.
Challis at once perceived that he must either sacrifice poor Bob on the
altar of Peace, or be entangled in a hopeless discussion of rights and
wrongs with Marianne; _how_ hopeless, only experience such as his could
know! Action was necessary, and he pounced on Bob, seizing him by the
collar of his coat. "How _dare_ you speak so to your mother? How _dare_
you...." But stop! He could never ask him how he dared say _she_ to his
mother! Even Marianne would suspect him of making game of her. So he
had to pretend that his indignation had overwhelmed him. "Don't answer
me, sir," he shouted, shaking the culprit with a severity probably more
apparent than real. "Be off to your room directly, and stop there!" And
the child that was crying broke into a roar, to do honour to the way
the scene had climaxed. Bob vanished.
The roaring slowed down, and was gradually merged in
bread-and-marmalade. An intermediate period of sobs and bites,
overlapping, was filled out with public discomfort--an embarrassed
silence in which Challis's visible vexation was unfairly taken
advantage of by Marianne, to say, "You can't wonder at the child, when
you're so violent." Challis closed his lips lest he should speak;
but it came home to him, in some mysterious way, that he was in the
wrong. Men are; or if they are not, it comes to the same thing. For
a firm conviction in the mind of a woman with a strong will and a
proper spirit has all the force of fact. But Challis's acquiescence
in his guilt was accompanied by a growing resolution to take Bob to
the play, _coûte que coûte_, before he went back to school on Monday.
He had no misgivings about the boy's breakfast. He knew Harmood might
be relied on, as Bob was a favourite in that quarter. Probably a
compensation-breakfast was in store for Bob, later.
It was a bad moment for dealing with a female correspondent who is
"always sincerely yours." Had Challis been confident that an unopened
letter on the table was from one who was only "his faithfully"--though,
indeed, Rebekah could not have been much more to Isaac--or even "his
truly," he might have opened it confidently and made some excuse to
throw it carelessly along the table to his wife while he went on to his
last consignment of press-clippings. Or he might have done so equally,
however "sincerely his" Judith Arkroyd's signature said she was, if
only this stupid needless row had not been bred by Mrs. Challis's
Short Temper out of Bob's Phonograph. But then, in addition to the
sincerity with which Judith surrendered herself for ever, Challis knew
the letter would contain a repeat of her invitation of the day before
to his wife--probably to accompany him to Royd at Whitsuntide. So
he postponed opening all his letters, and made the fatal mistake of
hustling them together as though he valued them all alike. Marianne
knew better. Had she not seen him pause half a second over that
characteristic, unmistakable hand--a strong bold upright script that
seemed to speak its contempt in every line for the scratchy Italicisms
of its writer's ancestors? How was she to interpret its being packed
away out of her sight in this way? However, she wished the jury in the
court of her inner conscience to understand distinctly that she did not
care one straw what Titus did or did not do in respect of Grosvenor
Square--but within well-defined lines. For, apart from the degree to
which she relied on the social safeguards of that Square's aristocratic
pride, she had about her husband the feeling many students of nature
ascribe to married folk who are not ripening for divorce--the feeling
Geraint had about Enid, according to Tennyson. Marianne, for all her
tempersomeness and jealousy, loved and reverenced Challis too much
to dream he could be guilty of anything that would supply copy for a
modern novel.
A more frank nature than Marianne's would have said to him when he
pocketed his unopened letters, "What!--not read her letter? Well!--_I_
wouldn't write again, if I were she!" or some such pleasantry. Her
obdurate silence provoked him to say what might else have stopped on
his tongue's tip. It came just after the children had vanished to the
nursery. "I think, Marianne, considering that the boy is going back
to school on Monday, you might have.... Well!--you might have been a
little easier with him."
"I'm sorry he is going back to school; that is where he learns it all.
But I expected to be found fault with."
"Learns all what? What does he learn?" But the lady simply bristles
with silence in reply to this question, so intensely does it call
for no answer. Titus continues, letting it lapse: "I don't think you
remember that it was I that gave him the phonograph; at least, I gave
him leave to buy it."
"I don't remember anything about it, and I'm not going to try to. Of
course you gave it him, to encourage him against me. Very well, Alfred,
you take his part! Oh, _I_ know!--oh yes, I'm not his mother. But I
know what poor Kate would have said, if she had been here now." This
was rather a favourite position of Marianne's; only she never by any
chance filled out her claim to knowledge of what would have happened
under perfectly inconceivable circumstances. She kept details secret.
He thought of replying: "Poor Kate wouldn't be a fool, anyhow!" For he
was vexed about Bob. But he was ashamed to find how Time had changed
the face of things, that he should actually take exception to his own
statement on its merits! Wouldn't she? He wasn't at all sure. He gave
it up, and merely said: "We won't talk any more about it now. Where's
Bob's Record?"
This was unfortunate. He had better have swept his letters into his
pocket, with the hand that was waiting to do it, and carried them off
to his study. Instead, he waited for the confiscated Musical Kaffir.
"No--Alfred--it's no use! I won't give it you if Bob's to have it.
Horrible noise! Besides, look at the way he's been behaving!"
Challis gets visibly angry, or angrier. "You had much better give it
me, Marianne," he says, reaching out his hand for it. But he just
misses it, and it goes into Marianne's pocket; past recovery, without
concession on her part or physical force on his. All might have been
well if the dispute had not got to this point.
Things being thus, nothing remains for the story but to tell what
actually took place. The lady persisted. No, she would _not_ give it
up! Nothing would induce her. Appeals on moderate lines, to come,
to be reasonable, and so on, only made matters worse--tending, in
fact, towards admission of weakness on Challis's part. He became more
irritated, and in his annoyance at having to give up the point made an
unfortunate speech. "Well--keep it, then, if you're so obstinate. I
won't try to take it from you. But I tell you this, Marianne: there are
many husbands that would." His only meaning was to lay a little stress
on his own forbearance. He would not even try. But his speech sounded
like an assertion of male power against female weakness, as well as of
legal right.
The last was what stung Marianne. Her recent encounter with her
mother had thrown doubts on her right to a divorce. How could they be
reconciled with a husband's legal right to confiscate a White-Eyed
Musical Kaffir, or any record, for that matter? Her eyes flashed, and
she bit her lip as she turned to leave the room. A laugh that was
no laugh came of it, but scarcely speech, to speak of. All she said
was, "Because they could"--not very intelligibly. And then the nurse,
Martha, with some appeal through the just opened door, cut off the
interview, and imposed an every-day demeanour on both.
Challis went to his room to cool down. To him his wife's last words
were inexplicable, unless they meant that his physique was not his
strong point, and that he might not have recaptured the Musical Kaffir
so very easily. But that did not seem to ring quite true, neither.
Never mind!--he had to look at his letters. After all, it was not the
first time Marianne had been unintelligible.
But her exclamation had no relation whatever to what Bob chose to call
"vim." It was part of the new phase of thought connecting her mother's
views about the legitimacy of her own marriage-knot with Challis's
suggestion of a male domination that others--not he--might have
legitimately claimed. If she was not to be Titus's lawful wife--if she
was to be swindled by a trick of jurisdiction--at least let her have
the advantages of her freedom. Let there be no rubbish about a man's
right to rule, about a wife's duty to obey. Keep that sort of thing for
authenticated marriage-lines, if hers were to be flawed.
It was the vaguest hint of an idea--no more! A gleam not worth a
thought, except for what it grew to.
* * * * *
A human creature with an unopened letter in its hand is raw material
for an Essay on the Past, Present, and Future. Rather dangerous things
for a thoughtful scribbler to touch on rashly! Better say as little
about them as possible.
That, or something like it, was Challis's thought as he stood in his
writing sanctum, reasonlessly hanging fire over the opening of Judith
Arkroyd's letter. Or was it that he wanted time to settle down after
the recent _émeute_? Some nervous characters--like his--shrink from a
clash of conditions, a discordance of consecutive surroundings, and are
prone to let each association die down before another takes its place.
Challis wanted to shake clear of his domesticities, maybe, before
transferring his thoughts to Judith and the invitation to Royd that he
knew her letter would repeat.
For whatever reason, he hung fire. And when in the end he opened the
letter, he did it slowly. He took a broad view of it; then placed it
on the table while he lighted a pipe, with a misgiving that there was
a flaw in it that would prevent his showing it to Marianne. When he
picked it up for deliberate revision, smoke-encircled, he found it read
thus:
"DEAR MR. CHALLIS,
"Speech A. will suit me best--but never mind that if you feel like
deciding on the other. Both enclosed back.
"Remember about Whitsuntide. Only please do succeed in persuading
Mrs. Challis to come this time. Shall I come and go down on my knees
to her? It does seem such a shame that she should keep so much in
the background. Tell her she _must_ come. I leave it to you--but do
try!
"Sincerely yours,
"J. A."
What the dickens possessed Judith--not Miss Arkroyd, please!--to use
that unfortunate expression, "keep so much in the background"? Of
course, Grosvenor Square is the foreground of the Universe--a little
of Challis's style as an author outcropped here--but why not take it
for granted? Why, in a communication that was to be shown to a fretful
porcupine, need Grosvenor Square let the cat of its deep-rooted faith
in its position out of the bag of its good-breeding? That was Challis's
metaphorical standpoint. But really Judith very seldom sinned in this
way; scarcely ever, so Challis persuaded himself, trespassed on Mr.
Elphinstone's department.
Now, why need Mrs. Challis choose this exact moment to remind her
husband that his Fire Insurance expired on the twenty-fifth, within
fifteen days of which, et cetera? Why had he left his door on the jar,
so that she should look in, unannounced, just as he was deciding that
it would never do to show her this letter from Judith? He had no time
to reflect--barely enough to replace it in its envelope. And that,
after all, was the worst thing he could do. For Marianne knew the
envelope by heart already. The only way of accounting for things of
this sort is by imputing to Eblis a conscientious attention to detail.
He reaps his reward, as we know, the smallest interventions often
yielding a profit. This remark is suggested by Challis's decision,
after his wife had left the room, that the Devil was in it.
* * * * *
Has all this incident of Bob's phonograph been worth recording?
Certainly it has. Because, coming as it did on the top of Mrs.
Steptoe's reminiscence, and Mrs. Challis's visit to Tulse Hill, it
blocked explanations by supplying reasons for the attitude of that
hill--reasons valid enough to throw dust in the eyes of Mrs. Challis.
The phonograph ruction was an effect, not a cause of ill-temper,
and poor Bob was really a victim, not a prime mover in it. It did
not matter much to him, for his release was not long delayed, and
reinstatement and compensation followed somehow. Besides, his father
took him to hear the _Barbiere di Siviglia_ before he went back to
school. But he refused to admit that Melba was any better than her
record would be, if he might only buy it for three bob.
By itself the Steptoe incident might have been explained. So might
Challis's correspondence with Judith, or might never have attracted
attention. It was the correlation of each to each, and the visit to
Tulse Hill, with the subtle touch of Charlotte Eldridge at critical
points, that provoked the dissension over the boy's harmless instrument
of torture, and gave the Devil his opportunity.
Mrs. Steptoe had never recognized the young man whom she remembered as
Harris, who, of course, was Challis himself. But the identification was
in the air--bound to be made sooner or later. Although Mrs. Challis
kept silence towards her husband, she lost no time in recurring to
the subject with Mrs. Steptoe. Her own penetration had gone very
little way, but Mrs. Eldridge had not been behindhand in finding out
that either Kate Verrall had been thrice married, or that the second
husband of the Brighton story was Challis himself. Charlotte would
not have made a bad female detective. "Don't be a goose!" said she to
her bewildered friend. "Don't give the woman any hints. Show her an
old photograph of your husband, and see if she doesn't recognize it."
Marianne did so, and it was straightway identified as that young Mr.
Harris. "But," said she, "that is Mr. Challis, before we were married."
Aunt Stingy, completely taken aback for a moment, recovered herself
with great presence of mind and laid claim to having said many things
she never had said the first minute she set eyes on Mr. Challis. In a
very little while she persuaded herself she had known him at once. But
she could not be induced to admit that she had got the name wrong; and
as it was quite unimportant that she should do so, both ladies agreed
to leave her unconvinced.
Mrs. Eldridge's suggestion was made at her own semi-detached residence,
a quarter of an hour's walk from the Hermitage, where she and Marianne
were reviewing the position some days after "it" occurred. The latter
had been dwelling on a suggestion of her mother's, a very stupid old
woman, that her husband had been, and still was, ignorant of poor
Kate's first marriage.
"_Ab_solutely impossible, dear!" said the authority. "Thing couldn't
be! Besides, she would have had to be twice a widow, in such a very
short time, if this young man Harris wasn't your husband. He _must_
have been." And then she added her detective suggestion, as recorded,
and the result removed all chance of acquittal on this score.
CHAPTER XXVI
AT ROYD AGAIN. THE BREAD OF IDLENESS. A GOOD PLAIN COOK. A DIALOGUE
BETWEEN A PRIEST AND A PROFANE AUTHOR. THE RECTORY AND ITS GUEST,
LIZARANN. HOW THE CARRIAGE DIDN'T STOP
That Whitsuntide the may-trees were thick with bloom at Royd when
Marianne Challis once for all flatly decided not to accompany her
husband there. As for him, he couldn't possibly refuse to go merely
because she wouldn't. And when you particularly want to do anything,
intrinsic impossibility to refuse to do it is always welcome. So on
an early day in June Challis found himself again on the lawn at Royd;
not exactly breathing freely because Marianne had refused to join the
party, but distinctly glad that he was not called on to speculate as
to what she would have said or done in this contingency or that, or
which of the guests she would have fallen out with, or the extent to
which he would have been bound to try to lubricate the situation, or
the exact nature of the mess he would have made of it. Marianne had
decided the matter, in spite of _bona fide_ efforts on his part to
reverse her decision. He had made them _bona fide_, in the interest of
his conscience later on.
Anyhow, that was all settled, and he could inhale the aroma of the
may-trees and the lilacs, and identify the note of the wood-pigeon--he
was just bucolic enough for that--and pretend he meant blackbird
when he said nightingale, and, in short, betray his Cockney origin
_ad libitum_, while basking on the lawn in the first enjoyment of
his escape from the hoots and shrieks and petroleum-stench of town.
For even Wimbledon Common is not exempt. And nowhere can the music
and the silence--strange compound!--of the world of growing trees go
home more strongly to the jaded sense of a mere town-rat than in the
charmed circle of a park-girt home, with centuries of repose behind
and possible decades of conservation ahead. Not too many, because
that would savour of sentimentalism; and it is always our duty to be
prosaic in the interests of an advancing Civilization. Not too many,
in this case of Royd, because that would imply too great a delay in
the development of the wealth of coal that is known to exist below the
beech and cedar of the three-mile drive, and the woods of ash and oak
the deer and the keepers have pretty nearly kept to themselves since
the days of William the Socialist. And when the coal comes, what that
means in the end is--perhaps more people! Never mind what sort! Don't
bother!
Don't bother! That was Alfred Challis's view of the Universe in two
words as he settled down to the enjoyment of faultless afternoon tea,
which would be a little stronger presently for those who waited; of the
society of his hostess, the Rector, and two of the previous chits; of
whom one, the young soldier's idol of last September, was drawling with
sweetness, but without interest, to oblige. She was looking frequently
towards the house. Challis said to himself that she need not be uneasy,
because _he_ would come, all right enough, in due time. He knew
this, because they had ridden from Euston together, and talked about
tobacco the whole way, that being their only topic in common. When the
young man appeared, with the visible benediction on his head of two
ivory-backed hair-brushes with no handles--which Challis had seen when
a dressing-case was opened in the train for a moment--the young lady
received him ceremoniously, almost distantly. Never mind!--thought the
author to himself--they'll be romping like school-children the minute
we oldsters are turned off.
There was no one else yet, of all a large house-party; nearly the
same as in September, said Lady Arkroyd. She apologized for this to
Mr. Challis, who replied that he, too, was nearly the same as in
September, if not quite, and that it was a coincidence. He hoped his
identity would be as welcome to the house-party as its would be to
him. Lady Arkroyd smiled acquiescence without analysis. She remained
gracefully on the surface of things, confident that all would go well
below it in the hands, for instance, of an eminent, if sometimes
puzzling novelist. Lady Arkroyd had not the insight of Judith, Challis
perceived. He indulged a disposition to detect insight in Judith.
_Geist_ in that quarter made their relation--not that they had any,
mind you!--plausible and warrantable.
There may have been concession to some such relativity in her
ladyship's remark that Judith would not be back till dinner. Challis
fell flat over it, not knowing whether he ought to say, "Cheer up!--I
can wait," or shed tears. Athelstan Taylor relieved the position
by saying that he hoped Miss Arkroyd had stopped on her way at the
Rectory, as he wanted her to see the little girl. Then her ladyship
bestowed on Challis, for a snack, as it were, the odd chit, who was at
a loose end; devised her to him by name, and went back to a talk on
local games at Providence with the Rector. The chit's name, however
improbable it may seem, was Lady Henrietta Mounttullibardine, and she
did not look as if she could live up to it. She coloured at intervals,
and seemed hushed. Challis distinctly saw her want to say something
several times, and give it up. He encouraged her tenderly, and in
time she confessed that she really wanted to know whether it was
Pepperstraw, in Challis's last novel, that hit upon the idea of using
digitalis, or Bessie. He told her, and she retired on her information,
in awe at having spoken to a live author. Challis could listen
undisturbed to the conversation of the Parson and their hostess.
"There is something very engaging about the child," said the latter.
"Of course, she has that defect. The mouth is too large for beauty. But
she cossets up to you nicely, and opens her eyes wide. The eyes are
fine in themselves, and remind me of ... oh dear!--what was that girl's
name, now, in Somersetshire? I can't recollect the least." Athelstan
Taylor felt helpless, and was wondering if it would be legitimate to
say never mind, when her ladyship decided that it didn't matter, and
continued: "Sir Murgatroyd is quite of our opinion, that it would never
do to let the child lapse."
"Never do at all!" said the Rector. "Indeed, even if the child were
not there, I should be very reluctant to lose sight of the father. I
suspect, too, that the people at the cottage--where I put him to stay,
you know--wouldn't thank me for taking him away. It's very curious to
me how a man with such qualifications for being an encumbrance can
manage to make himself welcome at all. But he's become very popular
there, especially with old Margy. She says it's like a clock to hear
him tell. I think she means that he goes on chatting in a pleasant,
easy kind of way. Sea stories, you know--that sort of thing!"
"Didn't you say he was inclined to give trouble?--they _are_
troublesome sometimes." She referred, no doubt, to the _intransigeant_
pauper population, and their natural love of independence combined with
outdoor relief.
"I didn't mean exactly troublesome in that sense. Troublesomely averse
to giving trouble, perhaps I should have said. He never said anything
to me, but old Margy is in his confidence. It seems that that sister of
his--the Steptoe woman, you know? ... oh yes!--_you_ know--the woman
whose husband was drowned in the lock--the _delirium tremens_ man...."
"_Delirium tremens_ man?" said her ladyship dimly. And then suddenly,
"Oh yes, I know, of course," almost in one word. Challis listened with
stimulated attention, and Mr. Taylor continued:
"Well!--she's Jim Coupland's sister, you see--and it seems that she
used to twit him with eating the bread of idleness before he took to
the retail match-trade. He considers that he is eating the bread of
idleness now. Perhaps he is. But he is submitting, until he is strong
on his legs again--that's his expression. Besides, we have made a
composition, and half his keep is to be deducted from his savings.
By-the-bye...." The Rector paused, with recollection on his face.
Lady Arkroyd's speech is apt to have a superseding character--to pass
by lesser folks' unimportant remarks. "I liked the father at the
Hospital," she says indifferently. "I hope the child isn't going to be
delicate." Mr. Taylor was arrested long enough to say, oh dear no!--oh
no, it was or would be all right as far as that went--and then left it,
whatever it was, to finish his own beginning.
"I was just going to say what an odd chance it was that Mr. Challis's
housekeeping should have absorbed Mrs. Steptoe. How does the woman
answer, Challis?" For, as we have heard, these two gentlemen had become
fairly well acquainted last September, in spite of the cloth of the
one and the predisposition of the other--a better word for the case
than "antipathies," which had almost crept into the text. One or two
country-walk chats had ended in Challis giving the Rev. Athelstan
practical absolution for his black stock and silk waistcoat, and the
latter reflecting much on the figments of mediæval creed and formulary
that make a gulf between so many intellects with concord at the root,
and play into the hands of their common enemy, the Devil. Why was
he glad that his friend Gus was safe in London dabbling in incense,
coquetting with Holy Water, preaching Immaculate Conceptions, and not
letting his left hand know that his right hand had renounced the Bishop
of Rome--when a visitor like Challis might accrue at any moment at Royd
Rectory, as per promise given eight months ago? Why?--simply because
he felt that the bridge of his own liberality, however long the span
of it, was not enough to cover the great gulf! And there was Ahriman,
chuckling all the while!
"I am given to understand that Mrs. Steptoe is a good plain cook," was
Challis's answer to the Rector's question. Something in the manner
of it seemed to throw doubt on his good faith. Otherwise, why seek
confirmatory evidence, as his hearers seemed to do?
"I suppose you dine at home?" said the Rector, going to the point.
"I don't judge so much by that. It wouldn't be fair to do so,
because I gather that in our house the flues don't act, and the best
kitchen-coal at twenty shillings has no burn in it, and goes to
cender in no time. Also we have no saucepans the right size. Also
our greengrocer supplies us with potatoes which on peeling turn out
irregular polyhedrons. So it doesn't do to be biassed by what we get to
eat. But I am convinced she is a good plain cook."
Lady Arkroyd was accepting all Challis said in the spirit of Bradshaw.
A territorial lady knows nothing of the small domesticities of any
middle class. The Rector, perceiving a danger ahead--a new-born
interest in the peculiar potatoes obtaining in suburban villas--headed
Lady Arkroyd off just as she had begun, "What very curious pota...!"
without a smile.
"Challis isn't in earnest," said he. "It's only his chaff." Her
ladyship said, "Oh!" and looked puzzled--awaited enlightenment. Challis
laughed, admitting jurisdiction. But he pleaded in extenuation of his
offence that it was difficult to fight against the conviction that Mrs.
Steptoe was a good plain cook--whatever direct evidence there was to
the contrary--in the face of her apron and the material of her dress,
her punctual attendance at chapel, her handwriting and its blots, her
arithmetic and its totals. She really had all the qualities of a good
plain cook, except the bald and crude ability to do plain cookery--a
thing no one who looks below the surface ever bothers over.
"I'm afraid the good woman's a bit of a humbug," was Athelstan Taylor's
conclusion. It was welcomed by the lady, as a relief to the necessity
for smiling in a well-bred way--a Debretticent way, call it--while
queer arrivals from below uttered paradoxes on Olympus.
Judith might be late; she was at Thanes. Challis pretended he hadn't
known this. But he knew well enough that the young lady had forgiven
the Castle, because they were going to have theatricals; and she, with
an imputed experience, had been petitioned to accept the principal
part. All this was in her last letter, written to Challis at his club.
It had also told him that William Rufus, her brother, would not be at
Royd for a few days, as he was busy in town over the Great Idea, which
was going to be a very great Idea indeed, as some men had come forward
and were going to put a good deal of Capital into it. Challis had said,
"Dear me!--how like!..." and had not finished the sentence.
A little thing occurred that amused the novelmonger's heart and
stirred his sympathies. When he began talking with his hostess and
the Rector, he had turned his back on the chit and the young soldier.
When, as the Rector's departure provoked dispersal, he looked their
way again--behold!--they had vanished, as by magic. "I think," said
the second chit, "they have gone for a walk to Fern Hollow." And
thenceforward there was a consciousness about this young couple and
their destiny between Mr. Challis and the second chit. For had she not
detected his thought about them, when his eyes looked for them and
found them not?
The other visitors, some of whom were as identical with those of
September as circumstance permits in such a case, were scattered about
elsewhere, subject to well-grounded confidences that they would be back
to dinner. And the only important variation of identity among these was
that one had become a Confirmed Christian Scientist. Challis didn't
know whether he was expected to be glad or sorry.
He became somehow aware that her ladyship was going to drive to Thanes
Castle accompanied by the second chit, to bring Judith back. Also that
he was not going to be asked to accompany her. "_What_ is Mr. Challis
going to do if we all forsake him?" spoken with a sweet smile, left no
doubt on the point. Mr. Challis had a letter he must write; so that was
settled.
"You haven't got a letter to write, Challis," said the Rector at the
front gate, to which both had walked in company. "Come some of the
way with me, and talk as profanely as you like. I won't go fast." For
the resolute stride of a pedestrian had made Challis cry for mercy in
September.
"Yes--it was a lie about the letter," said he. "But it was good and
unselfish in me to tell it. Saved bother, in fact! Can you wait two
minutes while I put on walking-boots?"
"I can wait five, luckily; which I take it is your meaning." He waited
six, beguiling them by letting the gate swing to and fro, and noting
what a long time it took to reach equilibrium. "Wait a second," said
he to Challis, arriving booted at the end of the fourth experiment.
"Let's see how long it means to go on!" And then, having settled the
point, the two were walking along the great avenue through the murmur
of the beeches, conscious of a dispute between the woodlands and the
hay-fields as to which was adding the sweeter flavour to the air of
heaven.
Neither spoke at first. Then Challis said, as though still thinking
over recent words: "Why 'as profanely as I liked'? I am a Profane
Author, certainly, in the old sense of the word. Was that what you
meant?"
"Why--yes! That is, if that was the sense you used the word in the last
time we talked together, in September. Do you remember? You said you
always had diabolical promptings towards profanity in the presence of
anything sacred. Then you said my cloth was conventionally sacred, and
that made matters worse."
"I remember. We were getting very candid. You said you liked it."
"So I did. I said what I said just now because I wanted to go on where
we left off. We were just going to quarrel healthily when Mr. Brownrigg
pointed out that in the millennium of Graubosch the impious man would
have no cause for despondency. The class of Insulated Ideas, evolved
from the theory of Metaphysical Checks, will at once provide the
Dogmatist with materials, and the Blasphemer with an object to give his
attention to...."
"I remember. If I belonged to the latter class, I shouldn't be a
Grauboschite. Too much like Temperance Drinks, that make you feel as
if you were drunk...." Challis arrested his own speech, as if he had
had enough of triviality, and spoke seriously. "I want you to tell me
something, without any reserve."
"Go on. I will, if I can."
"You read one of my books, I know ... what!--two more since
September!--fancy that!... Well--what was your impression? As to what
we are speaking of, I mean. Did it strike you that I made light of
subjects usually held sacred?"
"It struck me that you did not hold them sacred. I do not mean a
syllable more than I say. Your writing, so far as I have read it, is
negative."
"I have wished to keep it so. Why should any author try to disturb or
unsettle beliefs that he cannot replace--even by a Metaphysical Check?
You remember what I said to you last year, just the other side of
where the brook runs across the road on its own account, by the little
footbridge?... well!--it was quite true. I have no antipathy to any
beliefs of other people, having none of my own. I merely take exception
to the recitation of Creeds."
"Even when the reciter is free to choose silence."
"If he stands up it comes to the same thing."
"He needn't unless he likes. At least, in my Church."
"Then suppose he _does_ believe some of it, is he to jump up and down?
There must be what my Bob calls a good few persons who believe the
first seven and the last four words of the Creed ... well!--the regular
Creed--you know which one I mean ... and you could hardly expect them
to sit still all through the business part of the recitation and cut in
at the end."
"You're only half serious, Challis. Your inveterate propensity to quips
of thought and paradox, as it is called, misleads you and spoils your
talk. Surely a declaration of faith is an intrinsic necessity in a
communion! How can it exist otherwise?"
"You must keep the disbelievers out--is that it?" Challis thought it
time for a cigar. When he had got it lighted, he resumed: "Yes!--as a
means of constructing communions, Creeds are invaluable. The communion
that had none would be too big. As for me, I never can help thinking of
those lines:
"'One all too sure of God to need
That token to the world without
Of homage paid by faith to doubt,
The recitation of a Creed.'
... Where do they come from, did you say? 'In Memoriam,' I suppose."
"Can't recollect them!... I wish you would tell me what you understand
by the word 'believe.'"
"I'm very doubtful. It just depends on how I use it. When I tell my
wife that I believe her letter has gone to the Post, my meaning is
clear. I mean that I didn't see it on the hall-table when I last
looked. When I say that I believe I am engaged on Thursday, it is
equally unmistakable. I mean that I don't want to meet the So-and-so's
at your house, morning-dress. But when I say, as I am apt to do, that
I believe in God Almighty, I do so with a misgiving that my meaning is
not intelligible to myself. Perhaps I regard my speech as a civility to
the absolutely Unknown--I really couldn't say. Or it may be I only use
it in fulfilment of a convention which, so long as I comply with its
conditions, binds all the other signatories not to bother."
"You always make me think you are going to be serious, and then you go
off at a tangent. I never have any doubt what I mean by the word...."
"What, for instance?"
"Whatever my mind does not question, I believe."
"Then the Creed might be reworded, 'I don't and won't question the
existence of God the Father,' and so on. Somehow it doesn't sound
convincing."
"Because it seems to imply that the question is an open one."
"And saying you believe it doesn't? I'm agreeable, if you're satisfied.
But, then, you see, I stop away from Church, by hypothesis. And I
should do so just the same if the re-wording were made. Nokes and
Stokes and Styles and Brown and Thompson in a row, shouting that they
didn't and wouldn't question the existence of God Almighty, would keep
me out just as much as if they said they 'believed' in Him."
They walked on a little in silence, the Rector very thoughtful.
Presently he said, rather as one who comes to a sudden conclusion: "My
definition of the word doesn't cover it. One means more...."
"And doesn't exactly know what," said Challis.
"Precisely. But isn't it possible that the common use of a word long
received among many people may, from the habit of its usage, acquire a
meaning to each and all alike, and yet continue to baffle definition?"
"Very possible indeed, and certain. I know a case in point. I went to a
sort of spiritualistic _séance_ once, and in the course of operations
the audience was requested to _will_ powerfully. To my surprise, all
the _habitués_ seemed prepared to comply as a matter of course. One
young man said, 'How?' but was sat upon by public opinion. I heard him
after ask a friend, 'How did _you_ will'? And the reply was: 'I held
my breath and caught firmly hold of four-and-sixpence in my breeches
pocket. How did you?' He answered that he had shut his eyes tight and
thought of his toes. But all the faithful--these two were outsiders,
like myself--seemed to know what to do; and did it right, I suppose,
because an accordion played. They had found out what _willing_ meant,
by habit and telepathic interchange. Probably believers know in the
same way what is meant by belief. But it's no use outsiders holding
their breath and thinking of their toes."
This sort of chat continued till the two reached the Rectory. It is
given in the story to throw light on the friendship that sprang up
between two such opposites, or seeming opposites.
When one walks part of the way home with a friend, Euclid's axioms get
flawed sometimes, for the whole of the way is no greater than its part.
Challis went all the way to the Rectory, of course; said he wouldn't
come in, of course; said he mustn't sit down, of course; did so, of
course; and kept his eye on his watch, of course. Having complied with
all forms and precedents, he started to walk back.
His short visit had given him odds and ends of human things to think
of. That was the Rector's sister-in-law, that dry lady who had made
him feel tolerated; and that other one who had begged him not to throw
his cigar away was only an old friend. Challis was sorry the reverse
was not the case, for the Rector's sake. He felt that the old friend
might be kissed with advantage to the kisser, while the officially
permissible peck of the dry lady's cheek could not be a source of
satisfaction to any connoisseur. It was a thought entirely on his
friend's behalf--he himself was indifferent. However, he might be
wrong. The dry lady seemed very congenial to the two little girls,
her nieces, who, it appeared--hurriedly, for his visit was short--had
engaged a nurse for their baby. Challis suspected that a dispute
between the two children, which the dry lady peremptorily silenced,
turned on a question of paternity. Which of them was to be the baby's
papa? It seemed late in the day for considering the point, thought
Challis. The oldest sister was _always_ the papa, said that claimant;
and confirmed it by adding, "Eliza Ann says so, and she knows." The
colloquy was half-heard, but this seemed the upshot.
That little Eliza Ann in the blue cotton dress--the nurse in this
drama--was, of course, the little girl whose mouth was too large for
beauty; Mrs. Steptoe's brother's child. How small the world was! "So is
the kid herself, for that matter," was Challis's reflection thereon; a
typical instance of the whimsical way his mind twisted things. He would
have said it aloud with perfect gravity to any hearer, had he had one.
She was a nice little wench, anyhow, the nurse, with her great big eyes
and her Cockney-up-to-date accent. Also Challis had noted her quickness
in repeating words just heard. "The biby is on no attount to be wyked,"
she had said, with an earnest sense of the reality of her part. "_O si
sic omnes!_" Challis had thought to himself.
But the nurse forgot herself the moment after, saying: "I must sow this
biby to my daddy, tomollow--maten't I?" However, she resumed her part
at once, on assurance given. She was certainly to show that baby to her
daddy. And he would feel it, and see how fat it was. Thereon Challis
had remembered what had till then escaped his mind, that Mrs. Steptoe's
brother was eyeless and half legless. Oh, what an indurated baby, for
an appreciator dependent on touch alone! And, oh, the stony glare of
its eyes fixed on the zenith, when roused from sleep by a practicable
wire in its spine!
A man with a permanent source of disquiet always lights on something
to remind him of it, go where he may. Challis had succeeded on his way
from London in persuading himself that the warmth of his own farewell
to Marianne had been more than skin-deep, whatever hers was; and had
felt that he could justifiably stand his own self-reproaches over, and
enjoy the day that was passing, without remorse. And then what must he
needs come across, of all things in the world, but a sister-in-law! Not
one certainly resembling in the least the sister-in-law of a decade
past, whom she reminded him of! There was nothing in this one of the
girl who then, in the language of Oliver, bestowed herself like a ripe
sister, and was accepted with a sense that she more than made up for a
too mature mother-in-law, and put the advantages of marriage outside
all question. Nothing of Marianne then or now, for that matter, in the
dry lady personally; but much to remind him of his own case in the way
she had taken over the two little girls, much as Marianne had taken
over Bob.
Was it his fault--the whole thing? For there was a "whole thing" by
now. He could not disguise that whole thing from himself, and that
it was a thing that had somehow grown, slowly and surely, since the
first days when he and Marianne were rejoicing together in the dark
front parlour of the Great Coram Street house over a letter just come
from the publishers, Saxby's, Ltd., which accepted "The Spendthrift's
Legacy," and named terms which led to a calculation that success,
followed by a book per annum equally successful, would yield two
thousand a year; and to castles in Spain, the building of which would
have cost that sum twice over.
Or, if not from that hour exactly, it had grown since the days of the
success that followed. It was hard to say when it began. Was he aware
of it--of "the whole thing"--when Marianne refused to go with him
to Lady Horse's because the Honourable Mrs. Diamonds had been rude
to her first, and encouraged her after? These were not the ladies'
real names, but everything else held good. Marianne had then said
that once was quite enough, and she knew all along exactly how it was
going to be, ever since that woman in skirts had given herself such
airs--a reference to a previous delinquent. Oh dear!--now suppose the
Honourable Diamonds had not "encouraged" her--how then? Anyhow, Challis
could see now, too late, what he ought to have done. He ought to have
taken bulls by the horns, and bits in his teeth, and opportunities by
their forelocks, and said flatly that _he_ wouldn't go to Lady Horse's
unless Marianne came, too. It was his going that once without her that
had done it! And all because of the confounded good-nature of that
diamond woman, who must needs go _encouraging_ her. That was what hurt
the most, a thousandfold. The Diamonds might have stood on Marianne's
lilac silk all day long, and broken that little crickly man's arm with
her fan, if she chose, and her victim would have forgiven it. But
when she came off, she scarcely apologized. And then, after that, to
_encourage her_!
Still, in those days he was not aware of "the whole thing" that had
"come about." Suspicion that something was amiss was followed by belief
that the something had melted away. Intermittent phases succeeded,
now and then with an appearance of concession to Society on Marianne's
part; occasional acceptances of invitations to houses where Challis
innocently hoped all had gone well, till he found himself driving home
with a hurt and silent lady, and came to know that the very things he
had fondly fancied almost angelic ebullitions of sweetness in their
hostess were really only the woman's impertinence; and that what
seemed to him good-humoured informality in her daughters was nothing
but that sort of hoydenishness that seemed to be thought the proper
thing nowadays. He could recall many incidents of this description, yet
none that seemed to warrant the evolution of married discomfort--of
disintegrated family life--that kept on gaining slowly, slowly on his
resistance to it.
It had intensified, he knew, since his first visit to Royd in
September. It was mixed up with his professional association with
Judith Arkroyd. It _was_ a professional relation, and nothing else.
He called the ancestral beeches of the family to bear witness to the
utter impossibility of its being anything else. If he, Alfred Challis,
ex-accountant, ephemeral scribbler of an empty day, was conscious
of a certain warmth in his admiration for that lady, that was _his_
concern--not even the business of the beech-trees, or the new young
fern he was treading underfoot. It would remain a buried secret,
unknown to all men, most of all to Judith herself. He would even, as
an act of discipline, never think of it but to question its reality,
as he did now. It was to die, and should do so. At least he could keep
his own counsel about this soul-quake, heart-quake, self-quake--call
it what you will!--admitting that one existed. If he failed to do so
successfully, would he be the first man that had ever loved two women,
and been forced to hide away his love for one from the other and
herself? But he was obliged to admit that this was the first time he
had allowed the word "love" to be heard in his intercourse with himself
on this subject, even as an hypothesis.
He was relieved to observe the pleasure he felt in the thought that,
at any rate, Polly Anne need never know anything about it. _She_ need
never have any real cause for a moment's disquiet. Of course, any
_groundless_ suspicions she might choose to nourish were entirely
her own look-out. He could only recognize those that had a warrant
in reality. She should not be provided with materials for any such.
Of course, Polly Anne _was_ Polly Anne, after all, and her happiness
must always be a first consideration with him. Think of all their old
days together! Think of his hours of acute misery, when that young
monkey Emmie, five years ago, must needs imperil her mother's life
and her own by her indecent haste to see the World. Think, never too
often, of his gratitude to her when she took him, a mere derelict, in
tow, ten years since, and piloted him into safe waters. Think as much
as possible of her many nursings of him--of the many pipes they had
virtually had together, though he was the operative smoker--of the
many welcomes he had looked forward to. And as little as possible of
the shortness of temper that had certainly grown upon her, but was
very likely only a phase of health that would one day pass away and
be forgotten. Remember that confounded little monkey--bless her! of
course--and be forbearing to her mother.
There was one thought about her that twisted and tortured this
victim of over-self-examination beyond all reason. Look how utterly,
how almost terribly, Polly Anne had replaced poor Kate! Surely the
Great Unknown had made a record in cruelty when he created Love the
Monopolist! Why feel shocked because, after Kate had ceased, her sister
had taken over her inheritance so thoroughly? Besides, this entire
supersession of poor Kate showed him how really devoted he was to
Marianne, and how safe he and she were from intrusions from without.
It never struck him as strange that he should be seeking for assurance
that he loved his own wife.
It probably would have done so, in time, if his reflections had not
been interrupted at this point. The sound of the carriage--with Judith
in it, no doubt--returning from Thanes. Saladin, the huge boarhound,
coming on the scene first, examined Mr. Challis without any sign of
recognition, and seemed to decide that he had nothing contraband about
him. Then he waited till the carriage he had charge of came in sight,
and trotted on. The import of his demeanour was that an appointment
awaited him at the house, but that he could find time to see that
carriage and pair to the door--if only it wouldn't dawdle!
Whether it was from consideration for Saladin, or because it was
haughty, that carriage hardly stopped. Its pause was barely long enough
to say, through the mixed and hurried inspirations of its occupants,
that it could bring itself to accommodate Mr. Challis on the front
seat. Mr. Challis, alive to the importance of not sitting down on
miscellanea, preferred walking; for all that the miscellanea professed
readiness to be quite happy elsewhere. It was only a step to the house
now. And Saladin was waiting. All right--go on!
Why should Challis feel something akin to pique because that carriage
and pair took him at his word and went on, all right? Why need that
unfortunate propensity of the foot-passenger beset him, the vice of
mind that ascribes every action of a two-horse carriage to aristocratic
pride? Perhaps he wanted to file an accusation against something or
someone, and was not ready to admit that Judith's majestic smile and
head-inclination had anything to do with it. Anyhow, the rest of his
step to the house associated itself with a warm forgiving feeling
towards Polly Anne the tiresome, the miffy; and an intensified sense
of outsideness as to his own social whereabouts; the insidedness being
that of a fold with Sir Bernard Burke for shepherd, and Rouge Dragon
and Garter King-at-arms for collie dogs.
He arrived at the house to find the world flocking to dress for dinner,
or doing it already, out of sight. Flying cordialities from members
of the family, unseen till then, or visitors known to him previously,
intercepted him in his flight up the great staircase; but innuendoes
from well-informed contemporaries that dinner was at a quarter to eight
justified abruptness and pointed to opportunities for explanation.
Challis escaped to his room, and found his external self of the evening
to come--all but the head and hands he had on--laid out upon the bed,
waiting patiently to be scrambled into in a hurry, and have its studs
and buttons sworn at.
But he was not destined to be the last in the drawing-room, although he
thought it could not be otherwise. For when he arrived at the foot of
the stairs, it was with a consciousness on him of having heard, as in
a waking-dream, the sweetest possible drawl to the following effect:
"It was awl yaw fault. It wawsn't mine one bit," and a male reply, with
the climax of human contentment in every syllable, "I'm jolly glad--it
lasted so much longer?" and then a headlong rush to a chaotic toilette.
And that young man's appearance seven minutes later, looking as
if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, would have done honour to a
lightning transformationist. But the distant manner of the guilty
couple was carried too far, as everybody guessed all about it, and
would have done so even without the furtive looks they exchanged from
either end of a long table.
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW JUDITH'S STAGE MANIA HAD COOLED. TROUT BEND, AND A TICKLISH
INTERVIEW. HALF-A-MILE OFF TEA. A DISCUSSION ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
The story has scarcely room for anything that was said or done at Royd
until two days after the reunion that closed the last chapter. All it
wants may be told in a few words. Challis was sulky all the rest of the
first evening, and would not admit it to himself. Judith was dignified,
glittering, and universal; talked to everybody, whereas Challis wanted
her to talk to him. She was judicious, no doubt--woman of the world,
and so on--but was it necessary to carry it so far? Surely Marianne in
the background safeguarded the situation?
The party made itself at home rapidly, having begun at an advantage
from previous experience. On the third day after its arrival any
two members of it were ripe for arranging their day in each other's
pockets, and treating their hosts as a sort of lay inn-keepers of
benevolent dispositions, but quite negligible. Challis had taken the
latter at their word when they said he was to stop in his room and
write all day if he liked. He had brought his MS. of "Estrild" with
him, and had made up his mind to complete it. The play would have its
value, even if the Estrild he had set his heart on, and had written the
part for, decided on not attempting it.
For a doubt had crept into the scheme as it stood when Challis paid
that visit to the sprained-ankle patient in Grosvenor Square. Something
had influenced Judith since then; probably some passage of arms with
her family. At least, so Challis surmised. But she had told him next
to nothing, so far. Her passing lameness had occasioned a break in
tentative readings of the play, in which others than herself had taken
part; and during this interruption it had been evident that the young
lady's ambition to fly in the face of Society and family tradition had
undergone a change. But the invitation to Royd at Whitsuntide remained
in black and white, and could not be gainsaid.
Therefore, Challis had found himself on that well-remembered lawn, as
recorded in our last chapter, at the time appointed, with no misgiving
on him at the moment as to the cordiality of his welcome. Nothing had
happened to create one. But as the hours grew to a day, and then to
days, he began to be conscious somehow that his hosts had towards him a
feeling they were too well-bred to show; and not only that, but that an
indefinable discomfort had arisen between himself and Judith. Something
had flawed the relation that each called friendship, and refrained from
speculating about any other designation for. He had recognized this
consciousness for the first time at that moment beside the carriage.
And the reason he so readily accepted her ladyship's permission to
indulge his inspirations _ad libitum_ in his own room was that he felt
it was a sort of release to him to do so. Was it a release for them
also?--for Judith?
If this visit was to be no more than the fulfilment of an invitation
to which his hosts stood pledged, let him work it out like a term of
penal servitude, and go his ways at the end of it. But he chafed at the
impossibility of challenging the position in any way. How in the name
of common-sense could he say to the Baronet or her ladyship, "I see
through your persistent amiability of manner that your feelings towards
this eminent author are not the same to a nicety as they were six
months since, and I should like to review the situation with you, with
a view to the removal of misunderstandings"?
Still less was it possible to say to Judith, "You know that an
indescribable change of manner has come over you in your demeanour
towards your humble admirer, and he would give worlds to know the
cause of it. But, in consideration of a certain effect you have upon
him, of a certain exaltation he experiences in your presence, a
certain depression at your absence, a very certain exasperation at any
suspicion of a slight to him in favour of another male, he much doubts
his powers of self-command through an explanatory interview. So he
cannot ask questions. But if you could, with your womanly tact, frame
some communication that would let him know what-the-anything it is all
about, he would feel very grateful."
The position was a delicate one, with that necessity in the background
for locking his heart up tight, for the sake of Polly Anne, of
whom--odd though it may seem--he never lost sight. Only he never
actually formulated an admission of its delicacy. The nearest approach
to it was when a sudden image of Mr. John Eldridge flashed across his
mental bioscope, shut one of its eyes, and said, "Rather ticklish,
Master Titus--eh?"
Very few people will understand the odd freaks of Challis's mind, but
it is useless to write this story and omit them.
There was only one thing he was absolutely clear about. Nothing
the word _dishonourable_ would apply to was admissible into any
hypothetical drama his mind would construct, to cut the--rather
hypothetical, please!--Gordian knot of his relation to Judith.
He pictured himself to himself as potentially Don Juan, Captain
Macheath, Silenus, or the late Prince Regent, as far as his normal
ideas of morality went; but _he_ was one thing, mind you, and Judith
was another! She, being what she was, made any speculations in that
department irrelevant. They did not arise from any question before the
House. Besides--her position! Think of it!
He never contrasted his estimation of Judith now with his rough
valuation of her at first sight. Just a handsome woman--the fine
contents of an expensive, well-cut dress--a fit mate for fifty thousand
a year, deer-forests in Scotland, houses in Park Lane, opera-boxes,
and newspaper paragraphs! If he had done so, might he not have
suspected, in the exaggeration of thought that placed her above and
beyond suspicion, an element of danger more formidable to him than the
imaginary laxity he was so ready to credit himself with. He might at
least have seen the moral imbecility of what was virtually an appeal
to Judith's self-respect and integrity to protect him from his own
weakness. Perhaps he had subcutaneous misgivings of the correctness of
his insight into her character when he decided that it would never do
to tempt confidences of a personal nature.
If a friendship between a man and a woman is to remain contented with
itself, seeking neither promotion nor dissolution, there must not be
present in it, on the part of either, any longing to gain power over
the other. Our own belief is that if Miss Arkroyd's self-love had not
felt hurt at what seemed to her a too ready acceptance by Challis of
the position in which a slight change in her manner had placed him, he
might have paid his visit to Royd, gone back home, and maybe pretended
to himself that the still waters of his inner soul had never been
ruffled by Judith or any other fashionable enchantress. But a woman's
pleasure in the power of her beauty is like that of dram-drinking.
She may "swear off," as Rip Van Winkle did, a thousand times--but
she will go back and do it again, or die for it. How can she help
it, when a glance, a movement, a slight inexplicable intonation of
her voice, is enough to bring back to bondage the idiot that thinks
he has broken free? Why should she try to help it, from the point of
view of self-interest, when she believes--as Judith did, without
misgiving--that she can throw her end of the chain away at any moment,
and wash her hands of that booby, and go on to another?
Judith believed her position was security itself, and was a little
piqued at the readiness with which Challis had jumped at the permission
to withdraw into his own sanctum. Whatever behaviour of her own had
influenced this readiness, she resented it as an interruption to an
assertion of power she was beginning to feel herself entitled to. Like
the dram-drinker, she could not do without it. So, after three days of
cordial civility, too dexterous to indite as a change of front, and
equally dexterous postponement of Estrild for some future discussion,
the young lady, without explanation, resumed the half-familiar,
half-patronizing tone Challis had become accustomed to in Grosvenor
Square.
Some three days later it happened that this household decided on a
sort of picnic known to it as "half-a-mile-off tea." A houseful of
able-bodied servants made this festivity, which was exactly what its
name implies, easily possible. All the most critical tea-drinker
could want had gone before, and the house-party, or most of it, was
straggling across the parkland to Fern Hollow, the place appointed.
Challis and Judith were accidentally last.
A chance left him the only hearer of a voice dropped languidly for the
benefit of his ears alone. "Let these noisy people go on in front,
Scroop," said its owner to him; and then, in reply to his amused look
at hearing himself so addressed, "I knew I should do it in the end,
because of the newspaper reviews. Do you mind my calling you Scroop now
and then, by accident?"
"Nothing can please me better," said he. "Biggest compliment you can
pay me!" It started the soul-brush afresh, and he had to settle whether
it was to be submission or protest. He fancied he could manage the
latter even though he acknowledged the voice, that continued, "Suppose
we go by Trout Bend! It's nonsense hurrying. The tea can wait. Or
we can have fresh made." This was concession, both in the proposed
_tête-à-tête_, and something in the familiarity of treatment, which
seemed to savour more of the Hermitage than Grosvenor Square. But it
was only the simple vocabulary common to all tea-worlds; they are above
class distinctions.
"Suppose we do," said Challis. And they did.
Trout Bend is a small incident in Geography. But it has a quality in
common with--for instance--the Arctic Circle. It is always the same.
Its lower segment has the same merry ripple over the same stones, and
its upper one spreads to the same pools, that foster here and there
each year the very selfsame bulrushes, to all appearance. And in the
middle of the best one--the one, that is, that lends itself best to
self-deception on the part of the fisherman--the fish that leaped last
year, when you were looking at it and wondering how deep it was in
the middle, does it again, and doesn't bore you. Because if he did,
you wouldn't watch for him a third time. Only then he _doesn't_ do it
again, and that does bore you. And where the pools end and the ripples
begin are the same infatuated stepping-stones, that think they can bear
your weight, and can't. And then you become spell-bound on them as they
wobble, and are rescued by extended walking-sticks from either side,
and get across quite dry, or only a very little water in one shoe.
It was all the same this time, certainly, as when Challis was here in
the autumn; all but a black swimming-bird, who had nodded a great deal,
and surprised him, but not his companion--it was Athelstan Taylor--by
diving suddenly and never coming up. The Rector had explained the ways
of water hens, and that this slyboots was still under some floating
rubbish, with her nose out for breath. Challis remembered wondering
whether the whole of this class of birds was feminine, and watercocks
only existed in connection with the Company. There was none this
time--neither cock nor hen--and the open pastureland this side the
beech-covert was all ablaze with buttercups in the high grass. For the
fallow-deer found their pasture farther from the house, and never a
little tail wagged on a dappled back in sight of Challis and Judith as
they crossed the bridge--one slice of an elm-tree, with the outline on
it of its trunk of a hundred years ago.
"I suppose you know the legend of this bridge and the convict," said
the lady, turning to the gentleman.
"What legend of this bridge and what convict?" His inattention to his
words was shown in the way he echoed them--sounds without meaning.
"You must have heard it. When he was a boy--the convict--he was sent
with a small package containing a ring to a lady at Tallack's Gate--one
of the Cazenoves, I think it was--and on the way he thought it would be
good fun to have a look inside his parcel. So he got the ring out, and,
standing near this bridge, dropped it. He hunted for it in vain, and
then, in terror of his mishap, ran away. I never quite understood it,
but I suppose in those days they convicted people very easily...."
"Much more than now! Was this chap convicted?"
"Yes--and sent to Botany Bay. Twenty years after, having served his
time, he came back to England, married, and lived to be an old man, but
always under a ban. One day he came here, to this spot, with a grown-up
daughter to whom he then told the whole tale for the first time. When
he finished he said to her: 'I was standing just where you are when I
dropped it.' She said, 'Here on the ground, or here on the bridge,'
and touched the plank with her parasol. The point of it slipped into a
knothole in the wood, and when she drew it out, something glittered on
it. It was the ring."
Challis was in the habit of inventing horrors for serials, and had
had some success. But it chanced that he had never before heard this
story--which, by the way, is told in connection with more than one
locality in England--and he envied the master-hand that had fashioned
it. He told in exchange the tale of the man who brought what he thought
was his wife out of a house on fire, too black for recognition by his
scorched and dazzled eyesight, and sat with his hand in hers till
a strange voice came from the lips, and asked if the lady had been
got out, naming his wife. "But your story is more probable," he in
conclusion. "A man would know...."
"Know his own wife's hand? Of course he would! But are we under any
obligation to sup full of horrors on a day like this?" Her voice was
that of indifference, dismissing an unpleasant topic. Challis slightly
resented its placidity, which looked as if the horrors had been easily
digested, at least. It seemed to him to do injustice to a sweetness of
disposition he chose to consider inseparable from the beautiful eyelids
at ease under a slight protest of raised brows--the beautiful lips that
waited unclosed for an answer to their question.
"What do you prefer me to talk about?" said he. "The crops? The
weather?"
"Nonsense, Scroop!" She paused in her walk, so that he had either to
look round at her or show no wish to know why. "I suppose you must
have guessed," she said, without logical continuity. A request for
explanation would have been warranted.
But Challis was in no mind for make-believe. He took her meaning,
which he knew quite well, for granted. "I have had my suspicions,"
said he. "But I could not catechize, as you seemed so silent. Tell me
now!... Which is it?--mother--father?--sister?... Is it Sibyl?--or the
Bart?--or the _madre_?" The way in which these familiar designations
were accepted as a matter of course showed how their relations of last
September had defined and strengthened themselves.
"All three. At least--I ought to be fair--my father least of all! Indeed
I believe that if an instance could be found of any lady of William the
Conqueror's taking part in a Court performance, he would concede the
point altogether. Has he spoken to you about it?... Well!--of course he
wouldn't do that. But has he 'approached the subject'? Of course, that
is what he would do--'approach the subject.'"
"No--no one has said a word about it. But I guessed, soon after I came
down, that the play was doomed. I did not at first suppose it was
your family, as a matter of course. I thought you might have settled
to throw it up on your own account." She made a sort of impatient
disclaimer--a head-shake that flung that possibility aside, and
forgot it. But she said nothing, and he continued: "There was a row,
I suppose? Don't tell me more about it than you like. Don't tell me
anything if you...."
"I prefer to tell you. Who is there that I can talk to about it if
not to you?" This was the soul-brush again; and again Challis's inner
consciousness gasped at the choice he had to make between giving way
to a luxury, a dangerous intoxication, and attempting to freeze the
conversation down to a safe temperature.
Duty dictated a struggle for the latter. He affected a manner of
equable unconcern fairly well. "No one," said he, "unless you were
to make a confidante of...." He stopped short of saying "Marianne,"
conscious of difficulties ahead. But he could shelve the side-issue,
and fall back on the previous question with a sense of getting out of
shoal water. "There _was_ a row, then ... well--a warm discussion,
suppose we say? It's more refined, certainly. What form did it take?"
"Then we mustn't go so quick," said Judith. "Or I shan't have time."
She was inconsecutive; but it was clear, when she paused in her walk
through the long grass, that it was for an anchorage. "Suppose we sit
down a little here," she said. "Unless you mind?" Challis didn't.
"Here" was an oak trunk that must have said to itself when it was a
sapling--four hundred years ago, maybe--"I will see to it, when I am
grown up, that my roots shall live above ground, and be thick with
moss; and one shall be horizontal and a seat for a king, who shall lean
against me contented. But he shall go, that lovers may come; and they
shall make up _my_ contentment, and I shall hear their voices in the
twilight." Challis half made this little legend as he took his place by
Miss Arkroyd on that tree-trunk. But he fought shy of the sequel their
presence suggested--what word ought his fancy to supply as the tree's
imaginary speech about themselves? He shrank from it, and he knew the
reason why. It was because, as his own disordered passion grew, as he
found himself more and more at loggerheads with his lot, he became more
and more alive to the danger of relying on this woman _her_self as his
protection against _him_self. How if _she_ gave way, too?
As far as any conscious loss of self-control at that moment went, on
the part of Miss Judith Arkroyd, Challis need not have fretted. Never
was a young woman more perfectly cool and collected, more equal to any
occasion that might arise in connection with a love of power that she
just felt this man was a satisfactory lay-figure for. That best defines
all the feeling she had on his account--so far.
She resumed the conversation where the question of anchorage had
interrupted her. "I don't think we have rows in our family, in the
ordinary sense of the word. That is, if I understand it rightly....
No!--I know what you are going to say. It has nothing to do with that
repose that marks the caste of Vere de Vere. It is entirely individual
and local. We have our quarrels, of course, but they take the form of
distant civility, entirely due, as I understand, to our self-respect.
There is nothing we Arkroyds respect more than ourselves, not even the
Bill of Rights or the Protestant Succession...."
Challis interrupted: "But the distant civility, this time?..."
"Followed naturally on my telling Sibyl that the first act of Estrild
was ready for rehearsal. She merely said she supposed I must go my own
way. But that day after lunch she allowed me to leave the apartment
first. It had been a cold lunch, as far as emotions went; and I knew,
when Sibyl stood courteously on one side to let me pass, what was
coming. So I wasn't the least surprised to find a letter from my mother
on the dressing-table next morning."
"A letter from your mother!" Challis's tone was puzzled, awaiting
enlightenment. Judith was not to be hurried, though. For one thing,
she was engaged with a beetle, who wanted either to go home or to get
farther away from home. She had been heading off his successive rushes
in different directions with an ungloved hand, which he always refused
to crawl upon. The perseverance she gave to this seemed not altogether
without its charm to her companion.
"He seems to be praying for those that despitefully use him," she said,
referring to the action of his antennæ. Then, without discontinuing her
amusement, she went back to the conversation. "Yes--a letter, with 'My
dearest daughter' at the beginning, and 'Your affectionate mother'
at the end. Do you not believe me? It's quite true--all my family do
it! In fact, it was a long time before I found out that other families
didn't do it, too. I can tell you this letter all through."
Then in a semi-humorous, indifferent way she gave alternately its
actual wording and the upshot of some of its passages. Lady Arkroyd
hoped she had been misinformed about her daughter's intentions. She was
aware that she had no longer any legal control over her, and she made
no appeal to anything but her good feeling. She would not comment on
the character of the associates with whom her daughter would probably
be brought in contact. She would limit what she had to say entirely to
the underlined deep grief that Sir M. and herself would experience if
their child persisted in a course which could only lead to degradation
and disgrace. She then forgot her promise to say nothing against
the profession, and gave a brief sketch of it founded on Hogarth's
"Strolling Players." After which she wound up with an exhortation
to her daughter not to break her father's underlined heart in his
underlined old age. "And so on," said Judith, in placid conclusion,
still continuing her persecution of the beetle. Challis's infatuation
believed that all this was _parti pris_--mere bravado; and that his
insight saw truly a hinterland of devoted affection to her parents, and
consideration for the comfort of beetles. Such is the power of beauty!
"And that letter determined you to give up the drama?"
"Oh no!--it was only the beginning of it. I wrote in reply, saying I
was sorry to give pain to such an exemplary parent as my papa--that was
not the wording, only the sense--but that I had made up my mind, and
was not prepared to disappoint you in order to keep up the traditions
of a rather dreary respectability. I said you had written this part
for me, and I had promised to play it, and that ended the matter. My
ancestors had always kept their promises, and I should keep mine. I
laid a good deal of stress on Sibyl." At this point the beetle got away
cleverly, threatening a break in the conversation. This was not what
Challis wanted.
"I don't understand," said he. "Why 'stress on Sibyl'?"
"I mean on Sibyl's being allowed to indulge all her fancies, at any
cost; and to take up trade, too--a thing that our ancestors would not
have tolerated for a moment. Why is the Great Idea to be capitalized
with thousands?..."
"And Shakespeare's trade discountenanced? I see, and agree in the main.
I suppose they said it wasn't a trade--the Great Idea?"
"They did. Sibyl said it was Guilds and Crafts, and Mediæval, and
quite another thing. Perhaps it is; I don't know. But I'm sure '_Sibyl
Arkroyd, Limited_' is neither Mediæval nor Guilds, and that's what they
propose to call it."
"It sounds like six three-farthings, and pay at the desk. They can
hardly be in earnest."
"Well, I don't know! People of--of condition are getting to take such
curious views of things. It's nothing nowadays for a Countess to
promise punctual attention to orders. Was it you told me there was a
Curate who preached a Sermon on the New Atheism in its relation to
Socialism?... No?--oh, then, it was somebody else!"
Challis suspected that Judith was talking in this way to defer telling
him the upshot of the family discussion. He said nothing, and the
flight of a heron filled out a lapse into silence which followed. And
then Judith, who had risen from the tree-root to watch the vanishing
bird, turned to Challis, and resumed:
"Shall we go on?... Oh, what was I talking about? Sibyl and the Great
Idea. Well!--you see, the thing worked out like this: Papa had been
wavering a good deal about financing the Great Idea, and Sir Spender
Inglis had become very restive indeed, and was ready to jump at any
excuse for backing out of his undertaking. He saw his opportunity, and
pointed out--like Mr. Brownrigg--that my logic was irresistible, and
that it was impossible to forbid my appearing on the boards if Sibyl
was to be allowed to go behind the counter. A recent slump in Kaffirs
had fostered economical impulses, I suppose. Anyhow, if I surrender the
stage conditionally, my parent will keep his money in his pocket."
"Won't Sibyl Limited get it somewhere else?"
"She thinks she will, and my brother thinks so, no doubt. But will
they? Perhaps you know about these things. I don't."
"I know little or nothing," said Challis. "But I understand that
the chief point is settled. You won't play Estrild." There was no
affectation of unconcern in his manner now.
The two walked on together along the river-brink of Trout Bend in
silence; until, leaving the river, a path, winding through scattered
gorse and fern, brought them in sight of the picnic party in the shade
of a great beech, the vanguard of the deep woods beyond. Then Judith
stopped and said: "I suppose you are angry with me?"
To which Challis replied, with vexation in his voice: "I could have
forgiven you more than that." Said as a politeness this speech would
have meant, "That is a mighty small matter to forgive you for." Said
with a gasp, or something like it, it meant, to Judith's ears, that she
had been winding that skein--this man's life, you see!--too quickly
round her finger. He might become embarrassing.
"You will find another Estrild," she said. An attempt at a laugh
failed, and its failure was worse than its omission would have been.
"I shall not try," said he. And then his evil genius saw his chance,
and made Alfred Challis conceive that he could, for the release of his
soul, make a false fetch of what he would have liked to say, in terms
of a parallel line of thought. "I care little or nothing for the play
for its own sake. My interest was in your presentation of the leading
part." The words were safe, so far as they went--might have been spoken
to a male actor who had taken another engagement. But he could not
leave it there. That Evil Genius must needs make him go on speaking,
with more and more betrayal of the great share she whom he addressed
had personally in his visible chagrin. Visible in the restless movement
of his hand about his face. And audible in the way he crushed his
words out, cut them short on their last letter, threw them behind him:
"Listen to me, and believe what I say. I count the play not worth
completion now. With you the life goes out of it. It has become nothing
for me." Then his voice fell, and whatever it had of petulance settled
down to determination. "As for what is written of the play, I tell
you plainly, I shall destroy it. At least, it shall never be acted by
anyone else.... Stop one minute, and let me finish. I have not a word
or a thought of blame for you, Judith Arkroyd. It was a mad idea--the
whole thing! Now I see plainly that it never could have been. Let us
forget it--all!"
The face that he spoke to was none the less beautiful that its owner
was frightened at his vehemence. It continued to be--to this fool of
a man who had not the courage to run away from it, but who was not at
liberty to love it--the face of six months ago that had been growing
on him ever since. He would almost have been thankful--though he
would not confess it to himself--for visible flaws in it; a squint, a
twist, an artificial tooth or two betraying their extraction, or their
predecessors'. A wig would have spelt salvation, as the Press puts it.
As for Judith, she was perfectly alive, by now, to the sub-intents of
meaning woven into Challis's speech, for the easement of a feeling
he could neither tell nor conceal. "Let us forget it all!" was so
overtense in emphasis, if referring only to a disappointment about
a part in a play, that it scarcely left room for an equable society
response. Her tone of voice had to keep at bay any hint of a meaning
that might have betrayed both into a recognition of the precipice they
were so close to. As might have been expected, she lost her presence
of mind, and overdid it. "I can't see any occasion for hysterics about
it," said she. "Of course, I am awfully sorry, and all that sort of
thing. But we live in a world, after all! And I suppose one must
sometimes accommodate one's views to the necessities of Society....
Oh dear!--these people are quite close." She referred to their near
approach to the assembled tea-drinkers, some of whom, at peace with
all mankind under its influence, were scattering abroad through the
neighbouring woods and dingles, discussing religious education and the
fighting power of nations, pigeon-shooting, and Psychical Research.
"We came away from the tree too soon," Challis said. "Can't we turn?..."
"Suppose we do. We can go round the coppice.... What was I saying?
Oh--about Society! Don't you think it is so? One has to reckon with
one's Social Duties. So I'm told."
"We could have thought of Society before," Challis said, rather
sullenly. And then he felt brutal. "No, Judith Arkroyd, I won't say
that. Forgive me! All I mean is--it was all just as true--what you say
about Society--six months ago as it is now. The mistake was then."
A small thing in his speech unnerved Judith--the way he used her
full name. This was the second time he had done so. It seemed to
imply some new aspect of their relation--the throwing aside of some
veil--the recognition of some discarded formality. She was no longer
"Miss Arkroyd"; and "Judith" would have been either patronage or
impertinence. In her case there was no professional name to build a
half-way house to familiarity on.
She dropped her worldly tone as misplaced or useless, as she said:
"I had at one time half thought I would leave you to finish the play
before I cried off. But should I have done you any service? I thought
not, in the end, and I wished to get it over."
He said: "It _is_ over now. No harm is done. I would not have had it
otherwise."
She replied: "Your work will not be lost. You will think better of
it--better about destroying it, I mean. You will finish it, I hope."
"No--I think I shall probably destroy it. I hate having incomplete
manuscripts hanging about. They keep me always in doubt whether to go
on with them or not."
"Then give this one the benefit of the doubt, and finish it. Come!"
She tried to _leggierire_ the tone of the conversation, but it was
a failure--worse than a failure, by the speech that followed on its
provocation.
"I can have no woman play the leading part but you. It was written
for you, and I have kept you in my mind as I wrote. I...." And then
Alfred Challis stopped dead. But his speech, had he let it all out of
his heart, would have been: "I have kept you in my mind, and now you
will not leave it. You have crept into its secret corners, and rise
up between me and my duty at every turn. It is not for nothing that
those eyes of yours have flashed through every syllable of my very
commonplace blank verse, that that voice of yours has filled out my
imagination of a dozen soliloquies complying with the highest canons of
dramatic art, that that hand of yours has caressed undeserving tyrants
and stabbed innocent persons on insufficient provocation!" It would
have been all this, for he would not have been himself if he had kept
back his constant sense of the ridiculous, a term in which his mind
included himself as a prime factor. But he said never a word further
than what we have reported. Only the last particle, "I," as good as
contained all the rest.
Judith understood it all now--all that was needed--and began to
find her breath and the pulsation of her heart--things one usually
forgets--forcing themselves on her attention. Why need the former catch
and trip, and clip or magnify her words? Could not the last keep still?
Plague take human nature! To think that she, Judith Arkroyd, mistress
of herself in her own conceit, should be thus upset; unable to steer
her ship out of the currents of a semi-flirtation--granted, that much,
Sibyl!--with a middle-aged scribbler, who meant to be bald, in a year
or so!
Had Challis dared to look at her at that moment, he would have seen
that she had lost colour, as she stopped beside a hawthorn with some
pretence of gathering the pink may-bloom. No one gathers may without a
knife, and what Judith really did was to get a passing stay, against
a slight dizziness, from a hand rested on a bough in easy reach. The
gathering pretence sanctioned Challis's half-dozen paces in advance.
But he did not look back at her--and it was well for him, perhaps, so
beautiful was she against the may-tree--nor she at him. She knew, and
he knew she knew.
Both were so conscious of their mutual consciousness that they tacitly
agreed to say nothing. But there was a difference of feeling due to
their positions. Challis could not live with a Tantalus cup held to
his lips, and was, moreover, constantly stung with the injustice to
Marianne of admission of--entertainment of--submission to love for
another woman. Poor dear old Marianne, at home there by herself! So he
honestly wished to fly--fly from himself if you like to put it so--from
Judith, at any rate, as her beauty had become insupportable, and to his
home as a haven by preference, just to live this folly down and forget
it.
And as for the young woman--well!--she didn't want to lose Challis
altogether. She could see no reason why a sort of affectionate
friendship should not be cherished between them, not she! It was in the
nature of the animal, and it may be Challis had been entirely at fault
in casting the part of Estrild, whom he had certainly not portrayed as
a person who would be content, like Bunthorne, with a vegetable love.
It may be also that the cold-blooded faculty Sibyl objected to in her
sister was part of this nature. A pleasure in disconcerting married
folks' confidence in each other may belong to systems without a heart.
Only, biters are sometimes bit.
Whether or not what this lady said next, after the two had walked,
a little way apart, exchanging neither look nor speech, until the
tea-party came again in view--for they had made the circuit of the
coppice-wood--whether this had anything to do with her wish to avoid a
complete separation from her literary friend or not, we cannot guess.
It may have, and yet she herself may not have known it.
"Marianne has never answered my letter," she said. "You knew I had
written?"
"No," he replied. "I did not. What had you to say to Marianne?"
"I wrote to beg her earnestly once more to change her mind, and pay us
a visit. We do wish her to come."
"What good would it do?" His question vexed Judith. Why could he not
help her at least to shut her eyes to a change in their relation each
had to know of, yet to seem, in self-defence, to ignore the other's
knowledge of? He evidently had no intention of doing so.
"What good?" she repeated. "What an odd way of putting it, Scroop!
Why--of course--only that it would be pleasant, and that we should be
glad to have her! I always feel that I should like to know her better,
for my own part." Her pique at his want of tact had been a bracing
stimulus, and enabled her to put their talk more on its old footing.
The subdued tone gave place to what was almost like that of those
thoughtless, unembarrassed groups they were drawing so near to. How
free from care everyone else does seem when one meets him out!
Of course, she threw off their late conversation--washed her hands of
it--quicker than he could. But by the time they came within hearing
of the nearest group, and heard the word _denominational_, and knew
thereby that religious education was under discussion, Challis had
shaken off the gloom or distraction that made his answer ring so false:
"You are kindness itself to Marianne. I wish she were more tractable."
Those were his words. They had sounded rather civil than true or
heart-felt. But behind them, inexplicably, was a feeling akin to
gratitude to Judith, who had somehow made it easier to his mind to go
back to Marianne without a shock. Not that it would have been good form
in him to acknowledge it!
In the pre-Shakespearian days of Love, did ever a King Solomon, we
wonder, feel grateful to the last Hareem capture for a courtesy shown
to a disused, tolerated survival of other days?
Challis was intercepted by the group of heated discutients, saturated
with religious education. Judith passed on without looking at him,
merely referring to the abstract truth, "There is tea," and leaving his
teawardness to develope itself at leisure, or die of neglect. The huge
boarhound left a sweet biscuit to meet her, and after exchanging a few
words and a kiss, made believe that he had found her in the wilderness,
and brought her in safety to refreshments, which it was distinctly
understood that he was to share.
The conclave on religious education, like Polly's employers after Sukey
had taken the kettle off again--presumably--had all had tea, and were
horridly indifferent about anyone else going without.
They were confident they might rely on Mr. Challis's impartiality to
distinguish between things that to the casual observer might seem
identical; to assign due weight to considerations which the superficial
observer would overlook; and to sift and examine evidence which the
prejudiced observer would be only too prone to reject.
Mr. Challis, appealed to to give an impromptu casting-vote on a
variety of subjects, felt impartial and flattered. He could only
contribute, he said, an absolute freedom from bias on the question of
religious education. He regretted his total absence of information, the
possession of which, in however small a degree, always adds weight
to the decisions of the most unbiassed judgment. However, it soon
became clear that all that was asked of him was that he should listen
impartially to all three disputants, and hold his tongue _sine die_
while they talked sixteen to the dozen. As he was not in a humour for
talking, he had no objection to this.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BRITISH HOUSEKEEPER. HOW MRS. ELDRIDGE CAME INSTEAD OF TO-MORROW.
HER ADVICE. TELEGRAPH GIRLS. A FRENCHWOMAN'S IDEAS. HOW THE CAT
GOT NO SLEEP. HOW MARIANNE POSTED A CIVIL SORT OF LETTER IN THE
PILLAR-BOX, AND WAS SORRY
In the absence of Master Bob at Rugby, and of his father with those
Royd people in the country, Mrs. Challis had a quiet time in the
Hermitage. She was able to keep housekeeping at bay by ordering in a
joint for the family to prey on slowly for three days or thereabouts;
after which Mrs. Steptoe had to help her to think of what to have in.
Marianne sat still and bit a pen-stick, while Mrs. Steptoe remarked at
intervals, "You see, as I say, ma'am, it isn't as if there was anything
in the house."
When Aunt Stingy had done this two or three times, her mistress
indicated the nature of the problem to be dealt with; saying, as a
contented giraffe might have done, "I don't want another neck."
Mrs. Steptoe advanced a cautious suggestion: "You don't take to liver,
ma'am?" Mrs. Challis did _not_; that was flat! But a piece for the
kitchen was a different thing. Just as you liked! Mrs. Steptoe said in
a soothing manner, "A nice little bit of liver!" and that was settled.
Should anyone not accustomed to these islands ask why the question of
one day's rations should be approached as though it had been raised
for the first time in the history of mankind, no answer can be given
in the present state of human knowledge. All that can be said is that
an equivalent interview is going on in most households of the natives
every other morning, or thereabouts.
In time stimulated perspicuity saw a light. Shrewd discriminative
subtlety was on Aunt Stingy's face as she said, "Why not the fowl
to-day, ma'am, and stand the joint over for a day or two? Because
in this briling weather it is that liable to smell faint!" Marianne
cogitated deeply, turning the pencil in her mouth; then said, "If we
were to have Mrs. Eldridge to-day instead of to-morrow.... It doesn't
matter which, because Mr. Eldridge won't be back till Wednesday."
This will not bear close analysis; but Marianne was not pricking pins
at a tissue, and all purposes were answered. When the children went
out for their walk, they brought back word that Mrs. Eldridge would
"come instead of to-morrow." And that is how on this particular Monday
evening these two ladies are agreeing that this coffee is too strong,
and there's no hot water, and the more florid one of the two is saying
that she must speak to Steptoe about it.
The heat of the weather tells differently on them, which has to do
with our epithet for Marianne's complexion. Charlotte's look is rather
sallower than usual, as she leans back fanning the full lids of her
half-closed eyes. She is not bad-looking, certainly--must have been
very graceful when she was a girl.
The coffee-incident must have interrupted a conversation, for the sound
of resumption is in Charlotte's remark as she sips it. "I should write"
is what she says.
"Which to? Him or her?"
"Her. No!--him. I should write to him."
"Which do you mean?"
"Him."
"I don't know what to say."
"What you've been saying to me just now."
"Nonsense, Charlotte! How can you talk such stuff?"
"Well!--I _should_." After which neither lady spoke for awhile, but
seemed to be thinking over points raised. Marianne uneasily, and even
with an occasional impatient jerk, resented as selfish by a cat asleep
on her knees; Charlotte introspectively, but as one enjoying some
internal satisfaction.
Presently Marianne spoke, looking curiously at her friend, as though
she suspected this concealed something. "I wish you would say plainly
what you mean, Charlotte," she said.
Charlotte answered evasively. "It doesn't the least follow that what
I should do you ought to do." She had on Marianne the sort of effect
the ringed snake is said to have on the oriole--was sure her victim
would jump down her throat if she bided her time. And if Marianne
did this of her own accord, she herself would clearly be free from
all complicities. For there was nothing Charlotte was so clear about
in theory as that she did not wish to mix herself up in the affair;
or any affair, for that matter. It was curious how frequently she
found herself abstaining from getting mixed up. In this case, even
when Marianne said point-blank, "But what _would_ you do?" she still
replied, "Never mind, dear! What can it matter what I should or
shouldn't do?"
"Charlotte, you're unkind! At least, you're not friendly. You go in and
out. First it's one thing, and then it's another. Suppose you were me,
what would you do? Write to this girl, and just refuse the invitation?"
After all, Charlotte was not so very clear about what she would write.
"N--no, dear!" she said. "I don't think I should write to _her_. I
should send her a message, through him. All civility, don't you know?
Couldn't leave home at present. Hope some other time. So nice of her to
ask you! Best thanks. Kindest regards. That sort of thing. But writing
to _my_ husband, you know--the rule mightn't hold good for yours; I
quite see that--I shouldn't mince matters."
"What _does_ 'not mincing matters' mean? I think you might speak plain,
Charlotte. Can't you _say_ what you mean?" She puts her hand up to her
head restlessly, causing her friend to ask, "Headache?" To which she
replies impatiently, "_Not_ headache!" and takes it down. Charlotte
then resumes, with much implication that the use of her husband as a
lay-figure franks her of responsibility.
"I should tell _him_ plainly that if he wanted to make love to
fashionable young women he might go his own way, and I could do without
him perfectly well. I should let him know he's not the treasure he
fancies he is."
Marianne looked unconvinced, incredulous. "Suppose he took you at your
word, Charlotte!" said she.
Charlotte laughed out scornfully. "My dear woman," she said, "John's a
born fool, I know. But he's not such a fool as that! He knows what he's
like well enough to know that this sort of young woman is not the sort
to give me a case."
"Give you a case?"
"Stupid girl!--don't you see? A case for divorce. It's plain enough
to anyone who isn't a downright fool. A telegraph-girl would be quite
another pair of shoes."
"I suppose I don't understand these things."
"Now, my dear Marianne, do you mean to say that if you heard that your
Titus had been lunching at Jules's with Lady Thingammy What's-her-name,
it wouldn't be quite different from a telegraph-girl and an ABC?"
Marianne said she couldn't see any difference. But this was only her
obstinacy. Charlotte continued: "Well, _I_ should! And so would the
jury. Why, I know by this--that if it was Jules's I shouldn't lose a
wink of sleep about it; but if it was a telegraph-girl, I wouldn't go
to Clacton-on-Sea in August and leave John alone in London. Not with
my ideas, which are rather strict. Of course, one isn't a Frenchwoman
or an Italian."
"What are _their_ ideas? How should _I_ know anything about them?"
"Do you want me to tell you anything about them, or not? That's the
question.... Well, of course, one knows what a Frenchwoman's ideas are,
and I suppose Italians are exactly the same." Strange to say, this
shadowy suggestion in a dropped voice, to fend off the dangers of empty
space, seems to convey a distinct impression to its hearer, for she
says, "Suppose they are, what then?" and the reply is, "Well--I suppose
you wouldn't want us to do as they do! Would you?"
Mrs. John Eldridge possessed in the very highest degree the faculty of
making it understood, by slight inflections and modulations of voice,
by pauses in the right place, by gestures the shrewdest eyesight could
not swear to, though the dullest could never remain in ignorance of
them, that a lady and gentleman were engaging her attention. She had
manipulated the subject in hand by a dexterous introduction of the
Latin races, who are notoriously immoral, until a halo of profligacy
had encircled her friend's husband and his aristocratic acquaintance.
Marianne kicked in her soul against all suggestions of the kind, but
with a misgiving that her friend knew more about "this sort of thing"
than she herself did. This, too, she strove to keep under, not to allow
Titus, whom she believed incapable of the part Charlotte's management
would have assigned to him, to be attired for it in the cast-off
garments of some reprobate of the Parisian stage.
"I can't see what the ways of French people have to do with the matter.
When I said what I did just now I wasn't thinking of that sort of
thing."
"Then, dear, perhaps you'll tell me what you _were_ thinking of.
Because I can't make out, for the life of me." This came rather coldly
from Charlotte.
"It's very simple. I meant that if Titus is tired of me, I had just
as soon that he should go away to someone else. And so I would--just
as soon. S-s-sooner!" If Marianne had stopped on the penultimate
word, there might have been no breakdown. But it came, with the
intensification of her courageous little falsehood; came in the
stereotyped course one knows so well--first, the failure of the lips to
be still, then the quickened breath, and then the final irrepressible
tears. Then the beseeching to be left alone--only just for one
minute!... all will be right in a minute, only don't speak to me,
please! Go on talking!
"There!--I've been a fool, and I'm sorry." As she said this, Mrs.
Challis returned to her pocket a handkerchief that had dried her tears,
certainly, but had finished by taking a very unpoetical part in the
transaction. The cat, bored by her demonstrativeness, had left her lap
for a short stretch on the rug, and now returned with returning quiet.
Mrs. Eldridge took a base advantage. "No, dear!--you're very, very
brave about it. I know just what I should feel myself. Any woman would
feel exactly as you do.... Oh no, dear!--of course we both thoroughly
understand. There's nothing really wrong, and nobody is to be suspected
of anything."
"You don't see what--I--mean!" said Marianne. "You never have,
Charlotte. But it ought to be simple enough. You don't suppose I think
Titus isn't to be trusted away from my apron-strings after all the
years I've known him."
"_I_ don't know, dear. Don't ask me! Men are men. However, if you _can_
trust him, I don't see what you want."
"I can want a great deal, and I do. I want him not to care about other
people more than his own home."
"You want him not to care so much about this girl? Isn't that it?"
"In a certain sense, _yes_!"
"Very well, dear. Perhaps if there are more senses than one in the
business, you'll tell me what they are. According to me, a man either
cares for a girl, or he doesn't. I can't see any half-way."
"I can see heaps of half-ways. What I mean is, when he takes more
pleasure in her society than he does in...."
"In his wife's? I don't see that we don't mean the same thing, so far."
"Then I don't mean that at all, but something else. What is the use
of talking if you always twist what I say round?" Marianne is like a
witness in the hands of a clever counsel, but with an advantage. If
the witness resorts to the use of a bludgeon against the legal rapier,
the Court interposes to protect his assailant. There was no Court in
Marianne's case.
Charlotte retreated into the entrenchments of forbearance. "I don't
want to quarrel, dear!" she said. "Suppose you write the letter!"
"To her?"
"To him. Do it now! You may just as well." None the less, Charlotte
was surprised--only she didn't show it--when Marianne shook off the
re-established cat, and rose to go to the writing-table. The cat,
this time disgusted beyond words, stretched herself, and weighed the
comforts of divers corners available. Mrs. Eldridge could have afforded
one, but decided that cats were too hot in this weather. So Pussy had
to be content with an angle in sofa-cushions.
The long-expiring light of the summer evening had been good to talk by,
but enough of it was not left for letter-writing. Nevertheless, Mrs.
Challis wouldn't ring for the lamp. Candles would do, she said. And
having lighted them, she sat down to write.
A fly had perished in the ink since it was last used, and had to be
coaxed out gradually, legs having got left behind by the first drags
employed. Also, the pens--so described--consisted of a single example,
which was a very long pen with diabolical corrugations at its shoulder,
and a terrible sharp point. It refused to write on any terms, and on
examination was proved to consist of one widowed nib, a source of
despair to the scribe. There were no other pens; at least, Harmood had
put them somewhere. Never mind!--there was a fountain-pen that did
perfectly if you dipped it in the ink. It was really a lot better that
way, because then you didn't inky your fingers all over. The experience
of many among us is that _escritoires_ are strewn with writing
materials of these sorts, especially the last.
However, there was no doubt of the fountain-pen, once its haughty
spirit could be curbed and induced to submit to the position of a mere
agent. And the sounds of writing come presently from the writing-table,
mixed with the curses of its occupant, who presently discovers that she
has been writing on a sheet with a "limerick" on the back.
"Never mind. Let's see how far you've written." Mrs. Eldridge stretches
her fingers out to receive the letter without taking her eyes off a
paragraph she is reading in a _Daily Mail_. She holds the letter till
she has finished, then reads it, and gives an immediate verdict. "You
can't send _that_," she says.
"And why not?" asks Marianne, a little nettled at this rather cavalier
treatment of her effort. But she knows she has not the courage to
rebel, not having a particle of faith in her powers of composition.
"You can't say, 'Your Miss Arkroyd has written to me, and I won't come,
and you know perfectly well why.'"
"Why not?"
"My dear!... However, do if you like."
"Well, then--I _shall_." This was mere bluster, of which Charlotte took
no notice.
"And you can't say: 'You know I am not wanted, and both of you will be
wishing me somewhere else all the while.' Simply impossible!"
"I cannot see the impossibility. Titus would be in a panic about what I
should say next. I hate their rooms, full of people. They always make
me nervous."
Charlotte sees that interpretation down to her companion's level is
necessary. "Rooms-full have nothing to do with it," she says. "He will
think you meant you would be _de trop_."
"Well, and what does that mean?"
Charlotte coughed explanatorily. "It is only used under circumstances
of three," she says, not without obscurity. And then adds, as a full
light on the subject: "One has to go."
"Same as 'two's company and three's none,' I suppose? But why French?"
"It means more. There are niceties." And this lady seems to keep back a
suggestion that these niceties are beyond her friend's range of French.
She goes on with a roused attention, having glanced farther on as she
spoke last, absently. "And, my dear, look here! You can't possibly send
this: 'Why can't we agree each to go our own way? Lots of people don't
go about everywhere in couples.' You can't send that!"
"Well, Charlotte, I _shall_ send that, and I think you're ridiculous.
Why shouldn't I send it when I mean it? If Titus would only not worry
about, and think it his duty to say things, these people wouldn't
want me. Why should they? And then perhaps we should have an end of
complaining about Steptoe's gravy. I'm simply sick of it all." And Mrs.
Challis taps with her foot, and shows a feverish irritability.
Charlotte keeps well on her higher level. "My dear Marianne, you are
the most unworldly baby! Don't you see the interpretation that might
be put--I don't say your Titus _would_ put it, but he _might_--on 'Why
can't we agree, et cetera?' If I were to say such a thing to John, it
would be a telegraph-girl directly."
Marianne flushes angrily. "Charlotte! How often have I said to you that
I hate you when you draw comparisons between Titus and your John! It
might be fifty telegraph-girls with him, but I know Titus well enough
to know...."
"Oh!" A slight interjection, but it checks Marianne half-way.
"At any rate, he has never deceived me about anything of this sort."
The flush is vanishing.
"Not _exactly_ of _this_ sort--no!" Now, Charlotte had been watching
her opportunity to say this, having noted that the effect produced by
Mrs. Steptoe's story had been falling into abeyance, owing to the
subsidence of a policy of pin-pricks between Mr. and Mrs. Challis, in
view of his pending visit to Royd, and still more in consequence of a
sufficiently affectionate farewell at his departure. Marianne had in
fact been gradually minimising the incident, and was on her way towards
asking Titus straightforwardly for an explanation, as, of course, she
ought to have done at first.
It is quite possible Mrs. Eldridge might have kept this card up her
sleeve if Marianne had not nettled her by the way she spoke of her
John. She may have provoked it; but did that matter? She was not going
to let anyone else pelt him. Anyhow, she played the card, and, glancing
up at Marianne, had reason to be satisfied with the effect it had
produced.
Marianne may have known she looked white, and wished for darkness to
hide it, for she blew both candles out, and returned to her seat with
her back to the window. The cat sighed, as lamenting the selfishness
of mortals, and resumed her old place, now again available, with a
pretence of magnanimity.
"I shall copy that letter on a clean sheet, and send it." The darkness
seemed to give the speaker fortitude.
"Go your own way, dear! I've done my best." Mrs. Eldridge claimed
freedom from responsibility.
"You know, I suppose, that I spoke to mamma about that Steptoe
nonsense--the photograph?"
"No, I didn't. What did she say?"
"Said it was all sheer impossibility. Said Steptoe had been turning the
cupboards over when we were away at Easter, and cooked it all up."
"That won't do us any good. How did Steptoe know the name of the
coal-merchant?"
"Saw it on the back of the photo, mamma says."
"And how did she know the name Verrall?"
"Because it's Bob's second name. Besides, it's on a brass plate on
Kate's old portmanteau in the trunk-room."
"I can't say I think that accounts for anything." Mrs. Eldridge pointed
out two or three weak points in Mrs. Craik's explanation, and condemned
it as worthless. She was wrong. The explanation was a good one _per
se_, but, like so many explanations, taxed human powers of belief more
than the thing it explained. However, no one who has the faculty of
selecting his creeds ever stickles about the trouble one will give him.
He only thinks of the advantages it will bring with it.
"Perhaps it doesn't explain. That's what mamma said, anyhow."
Thus Marianne, as if it didn't matter much, either way. Then, more
convincedly: "I don't believe Steptoe is lying, because I can't see
what she has to gain by it. Besides, I pulled the photo out of the
_passe-partout_, and it was gummed in, and the name on the back."
"Did you say so to your mother?"
"Yes, and she said I must have been mistaken, because, if not, the
story would have been true."
"I can't see"--Mrs. Eldridge is talking reflectively,
introspectively--"I cannot see _why_ your husband did not tell you all
about it! Suppose your sister _was_ married to this man first, I don't
see that it was any such hanging matter. Unless...."
"Unless what?"
"Well!--nothing, dear. That is, perhaps I oughtn't to say...."
"Charlotte!--that's you all over! You know you're wanting to say all
the time. _Do speak out and have done with it!_" Marianne got up
uneasily, and walked from place to place in the room. The cat went back
to the sofa cushion, and resumed her task of getting a little sleep.
Charlotte means to say, in time. Trust her! "You know, dear Marianne,
that all this is the _merest_ speculation. We really know _nothing_!
And ten to one, when you do speak of it to Titus, he'll be able to
clear it all up. Besides, after all, it could only be the sort of thing
that's always happening, and one says nothing about it as long as the
parties get married afterwards...."
Marianne interrupts stormily. "Will you have the goodness, Charlotte,
to tell me what you mean, and not beat about the bush? You can't mean
that poor Kate...."
"I can't tell you anything, dear, if you get so excited (Your hair's
coming undone. A pin?--here's one.) Remember, I'm only mentioning this
as _one_ of the possibilities, and I don't suppose it's true. But if
it were ever so true, I don't see that it would be anything to fly out
about. After all these years!... Will I tell you what I mean? Yes,
dear, if you'll be quiet and listen."
"Will you _go on_?"
Mrs. Eldridge braces herself up to consecutive narrative, as in
response to unreasonable impatience. "There was a marriage. That's
understood--I mean your sister's with her first husband. And it was
kept dark...."
"I wish you wouldn't talk as if it was the Criminal Classes. Go on!"
"I can't if you interrupt. Well!--Mr. Challis was quite a young man
then, and a friend of the first husband's, and she was young. You see?"
"I see their youngness would make it all the worse, instead of better.
If it was true! But it isn't." At this point Marianne gives up the
attempt to engineer the hairpin. "Can't you stop stopping, Charlotte,
and go _on_?"
Charlotte deserts the extreme of deliberation for irritating rapidity
and conciseness. "The first husband may have been anything, for
anything we know of him. Only, there must have been a reason for their
parting, if you think of it. Within a few months! Now suppose--don't be
in a rage, Marianne dear, it doesn't do any good!--suppose your husband
_was_ the reason! Of course, he would never tell you, if Kate never
did...."
"I was a child!"
"I don't think anything of that. Children are easier to tell than
half-grown-up people. Remember, too, as time went on, how much harder
it would get to tell. Fancy his beginning to speak of it! How would
he? Come, Marianne!" And Marianne's silence admitted that she felt
the difficulty her husband would have had in publishing for private
circulation an early transgression of his own--and Bob's mother,
please! It may all have been, and yet Titus may have done rightly to
let bygones be bygones. That was her thought at the moment, but it
jumped gladly at leave to go when further speech of Charlotte's brought
a respite: "Of course, _the_ obstacle to accounting for it this way is
the divorce. It seems impossible there should have been a divorce, and
your mother never heard of it!"
"Why, of course, Charlotte! What nonsense it all is!" Marianne is
greatly relieved. But we must not halloa before we are out of the wood.
Charlotte had a reservation:
"Only there's just one thing--I'm afraid I must shock you, Marianne;
only, mind you, I don't believe for a moment that it's true--just one
thing, and that is ... yes!--I'm going on ... that is, that there may
have been _no need for a divorce_. You see?"
She doesn't, evidently. For, after a moment's consideration, she says:
"If there was no need for a divorce, why drag Titus in? What nonsense,
Charlotte!" She is breathing freely over it--too freely.
"No, dear--not that way! You don't understand." A pause to get a clear
start. "Your sister Kate and this man were _supposed_ to be lawfully
married. At least, the coal-merchant and his wife must have thought so.
But suppose they were _not_! Don't you see, dear"--this very gently,
not to tax her hearer overmuch--"don't you see that _then_ no divorce
would have been necessary?"
"You puzzle me so, Charlotte! Do stop and let me think. Say it again."
She opened to the full a window partly raised for the heat, and found
the sweet air from the Common grateful. For her head had become hot,
and her lips were dry.
Charlotte followed her last instruction, by choice. "Try to imagine,
dear, for instance, that your sister had been entrapped into a false
marriage by this man, and that he discarded her because he was jealous
of your husband. You know if he had grounds for his jealousy your
husband might be bound in honour to keep silence--especially to her own
sister. And then consider!--they _were_ married afterwards."
It was beginning to dawn on Mrs. Challis that in the little drama
her friend's imagination had constructed her husband figured as a
licentious youth, a traitor to his friend; and a dissimulator, when he
was posing at her mother's house as an honourable suitor to her sister,
his only redeeming feature being his constancy to the girl of whose
second betrayal he was the guilty author. While, as for that young
woman herself!... Marianne's whole soul recoiled from the semblance
of an indiscriminate _liaison_-monger with which Charlotte had not
scrupled to clothe her. The intrinsic impossibility of associating such
an image with her sister made her feel as though she really disposed of
the whole question when she said, with perfect _naïveté_, "But this was
Kate!"
How perfectly clear and exhaustive! That was Kate--or would have
been had there been any truth in the tale--and Kate was her grown-up
sister in the early days when her father was living, and they were a
household. That was our Kate that was just thinking about being a young
lady when she herself, Marianne, was just beginning to take intelligent
notes of her surroundings--our Kate that knew how to play the piano
and had a governess--our Kate that became one herself in a modest way
when father died, and it turned out that Uncle Barker had invested her
mother's settlement money in himself, contrary to the behests of the
Lord Chancellor. How in Heaven's name could a thing one knew as a girl,
unlengthened, become an immoral, unprincipled woman, like in books and
newspaper-paragraphs! Absurd!
And yet--may not this be a question as hard for us to answer as poor,
slow, middle-class, muddle-headed Marianne? Look at it from the other
side! How many reprobates, dashing and otherwise, may there not
be who began good and sweet, and kept so till they became bad and
putrid--can even look back, from the gutter their last stage of decay
is on the watch to defile, on a spell of blameless maturity? That
ill-complexioned thing that thought it was singing as it reeled from
the pothouse door but now, was once--maybe--a savoury little maid
enough, with a sweetheart. What if he saw her at this moment?--saw the
passers-by shrink from her and leave her a clear pavement?--heard the
mock approval of London humour, seasoned to the shameful sight, and
unashamed, "Go it, old Sairah"?
The story disclaims imputing all these thoughts to Marianne, or any of
them. But the sum and gist of them came out--just as clearly, maybe
more so--in those four words, "But this was Kate."
She turned from the window and looked her friend full in the face, in
return for "What if it was?"--which was the answer she got. She felt
angry with Charlotte, who, for all her profession of belief that her
surmises were probably baseless, seemed to be always supporting the one
that ascribed most lawlessness to her husband and sister.
"What if it was?" said she. "Everything if it was." She couldn't
argue to save her life. But she dealt with dialectical difficulties
in a method of her own that was quite as effectual. This time it told
forcibly.
"Don't blaze out at me like that, Marianne," said the enemy. "_I_ can't
help it. I suppose everyone was somebody's Kate once--even Jezebel
and Judas Iscariot!" The selection sounded trenchant, and no Biblical
critic was at hand. "Besides, as I said, it wasn't a hanging matter, at
the worst."
"I thought you said you were strict, Charlotte."
"So I am. But this sort of thing _does_ take place, and one knows it,
and I don't see the use of going on nagging for ever." Marianne's
religious feelings prompted her towards pointing out that the
Almighty might not subscribe to this view, but she was not quick
enough. Charlotte continued: "And how a girl who knows nothing can
know if a ceremony's done correctly is more than I can tell. Look at
vaccination--all the little ivories exactly alike! Why, you may be
vaccinated from a mad bull and never be a penny the wiser!"
Any metaphor or analogy makes Marianne's head go round, and she still
keeps silence. Charlotte ends with consolation: "And when you come to
think of it, if they weren't correctly married, it was all to the good."
"What on earth you mean, Charlotte. I cannot imagine!"
"Well, dear!--I should have thought anyone would spot that at once.
Even John saw that! Of course, if the first marriage was irregular,
there _was_ no breach of the Seventh Commandment." Marianne felt a
distinct relief from one of the nightmare apprehensions about her
husband's past that Charlotte's ingenious speculations had aroused.
She and her friend shared with a large section of the respectable
World, strict and otherwise, the idea that trespassers who jump over a
wedding-ring fence should be prosecuted, while poachers on unenclosed
property may escape with a caution.
But her mind was not capable of more than one idea at a time, and in
dwelling on this remission of the imputations against him, she quite
forgot that the theory of a victimization of Kate by her first husband,
if it did not acquit him of any indiscretion towards her sister, at
any rate altered all the circumstances under which the indictment was
framed. If there was no divorce, why select a co-respondent? Marianne
just missed the important point. Out of the chaotic cross-questionings
of the mystery she emerged with one false fixed idea, that her
husband's reason for concealing the story _must have been_ his desire
to draw a veil over that Brighton period before his pretended courtship
and marriage. Mrs. Eldridge encouraged this idea.
"I hope you see now, dear, what I mean about the letter," said she,
after some more talk, embodying the foregoing, more or less. She pulled
the letter from under the cat, who had lain down on it, and read
again: "'You know I am not wanted, and both of you will be wishing me
somewhere else all the while.' I'm sure I'm right in saying you can't
send that. If it was all innocence and Paul and Virginia and Jenny and
Jessamy and Arcadian shepherds, I dare say! But, with that story not
cleared up! My dear Marianne, _do_ be a little a woman of the World....
Isn't that my cab?"
Marianne said drearily: "I think so. They'll tell us." Because,
although Mrs. Eldridge made things worse for her every time she
spoke, she clung to her as the only person in her confidence--for she
restrained her communications to her mother--and as one for whose
knowledge of the mysterious thing called "the World" she had always had
a superstitious reverence. So, when Harmood announced the advent of
the cab--in cypher, as it were; for she merely said, "Adcock, for Mrs.
Eldridge, ma'am"--she was sorry.
"It _is_ Adcock," said Mrs. Eldridge; and Harmood would bring her
things down to save her going upstairs, and did so. During Harmood's
absence the conversation could be rounded off and wound up.
"Am I to send the letter or not?" said Marianne. This was concession,
for had she not flounced her intention of sending it in Mrs. Eldridge's
face half-an-hour ago?
"Do as you like, dear! But I hope you won't. That's all I can say. Now
good-night!" Charlotte's lips are extended as towards a farewell kiss;
her hands tell well, anticipating embrace, and all her suggestions are
graceful--as a lady's may be, who terminates musically in skirts.
But Marianne wants a straight tip for that letter.
"What am I to say, then?" says she doggedly. "I _must_ write."
"Say what I told you, dear! So sorry--too much wanted at home to be
able to come away just now--hope to see Miss Arkroyd ... or Judith, if
you call her Judith ... in town before she goes away for good. Just a
civil-letter sort of business! Don't you see how much better it will
be yourself?" Harmood has come again, and is tendering a shroud from
behind. Two hands accept it gracefully over each shoulder, and it abets
the music of the skirts.
"I suppose it will," says Marianne doubtfully, and they go out to
where Mr. Adcock awaits them. And then either of them who desires
to do so may study the relations to one another of a very civil man
with a flavour you would pronounce beer if encouraged by an expert;
a four-wheeler he has to bang the door of--_you_ are no good!--or it
wouldn't shut; a horse that wants to be at home, and a summer moon
doing its level best to make some birch-trees down the road look like
silver. It is overhead, and you have to crane your neck to look at it.
Mrs. Challis did so, but saw nothing in it to make her eyes and lips
less dry and hot. She returned to the drawing-room, and told Harmood
not to shut the shutters; she would herself ultimately. Whereupon
Harmood asked whether she would like anything. And being told she would
like nothing else, thank you! said good-night, and was soon after
audible passing upstairs with the plate, and not being absolutely
cordial with Mrs. Steptoe.
Did Charlotte know how miserable she was making her? So thought the
poor lady to herself as she looked out at the persevering moon. She
felt feverish--and revengeful. Not with Charlotte, of course; a little
aggravated, perhaps--that was all! But this girl--this Judith, with
her insolent beauty and her knowledge of its power! This anxiety that
she should go to Royd--what was it worth? Was she asked because it was
so clear the invitation would never be accepted, or because she was
wanted to cover the position? One or the other, or something like
it--no good or honourable motive!... Oh no!--nothing dishonourable, of
course, in that sense--so Marianne reasoned with herself--but there
were distinctions of honour and dishonour in higher strata of morality,
above the gutter-ethics Charlotte would always be harping on. And
yet!--suppose there had been any truth in that Steptoe legend, with the
worst interpretations on it, might not Titus have concealed another
self all along? He had concealed something: that she knew. Why not many
things? Why not everything?
The condemned letter was not altogether judicious, but its very errors
of judgment might have led to plain speech, recrimination, a storm,
and a reconciliation. Anything would have been better, as the result
showed, than an ill constructed epistle Marianne wrote in the end, a
message for her husband to pass on to Miss Arkroyd much on the lines
Charlotte had suggested. Too many words for a message, too few for a
letter from any wife to a husband under circumstances where brevity
might be ascribed to pique. In which, too, she could not bring herself
to the point of saying she hoped to see Miss Arkroyd, either in town or
elsewhere, because she didn't. She hated Judith, but would not confess
the reason to herself. So the letter worked out as nothing but a cold
and civil message, refusing a very cordially written invitation. And it
was all the worse that it contained a few lines in answer to Titus's
last--not an unaffectionate epistle, written promptly on the evening
of his arrival. But Marianne was a truthful person when her back was
up, and wasn't going to tell any lies when candour tasted sweet in her
mouth. So she indulged in a word or two of postscript on the back of
the letter, and didn't quite like it when re-read. But really the text
was just as bad without it. Look at the chilly "My dear Alfred," and
"yr: aff: wife"! She fought off her vacillation, helped by a glance
at Judith's letter and an allusion to her "dear husband"; closed the
envelope, directed and stamped it, feeling determined, while she knew
under the skin that she was wrong, and showing a proper spirit.
Then, possessed by her evil genius, she must needs go downstairs,
undo the front door and walk out in the sweet moonlight to the red
pillar-box only a few paces off, that was so convenient. Then, when she
had heard the letter fall to the bottom of the empty box, past hope,
past help, past cure, she was sorry. Then she called herself a coward
and went back to bed. But she felt like a criminal as she pushed open
the door she had left unhasped.
What a many miscarriages proper spirits have to answer for!
CHAPTER XXIX
HOW CHALLIS MET LIZARANN IN SOCIETY. OF A LECTURE THE RECTOR READ
CHALLIS, AND ITS EFFECT ON HIS IMAGE OF MARIANNE. HOW HE HADN'T BEEN
TO ASHCROFT. IT WAS AN UNSATISFACTORY LETTER THAT!
The persistent self-absorption and stunning monotonous clatter of one's
fellow-creatures, however execrable it may seem when one wants to
predominate over them by the legitimate employment of one's superior
gifts--without shouting, you know!--may be not unwelcome when one
longs for an excuse for silence, as Challis did after that unsettling
interview with Judith--silence, and a little time to think things over
before any further speech with the source of his disquiet. The more row
other people were making, the better! This feeling was quite consistent
with susceptibility to a magnetism which needed some device to veil
its nature. He would call it tea, for the nonce, anyhow. He made tea
the pretext to escape from his position of arbiter without rights of
speech, and left the disputants, promising to return forthwith, and
meaning to break his promise.
He made the most of the hundred yards to the tea-camp, nodding
remotely to casuals by the way. He looked for an excuse to avoid
joining the group at headquarters, who appeared at his distance off
to be discoursing brilliantly, interestedly, on absorbing topics,
with smiles. He knew they were talking nonsense about nothing
particular, and was glad to find his excuse in Athelstan Taylor and his
sister-in-law, who had joined the party, bringing with them their own
little girls and the small cockney waif in blue, whose aunt was Mrs.
Steptoe. That was how our Lizarann presented herself to Mr. Challis.
"I like you better than your aunt," said that gentleman candidly, when
Lizarann was introduced.
"So do I," replied Lizarann. But this answer, clear as its meaning
was to all sympathetic souls, was taken exception to by the Rector's
sister-in-law.
"What can the unintelligible child mean by that?" said she. "Because
you _are_ unintelligible, you know you are, Lizarann!"
"Yass, please!" said Lizarann. And then she felt when people laughed
that she was being treated like a child, which at her age was absurd.
Miss Caldecott, the sister-in-law, was one of those tiresome people
who are always forming grown-up Leagues against children, and making
it distinctly understood that these leagues, though ready to stoop to
the level of children's understanding, do so under protest, and with
reservations as to their own superiority. Miss Caldecott paraded hers,
greatly to Lizarann's umbrage, in the tone in which she said, "We do
not yet know, my dear, that Mr. Challis has an aunt"; into which tone
she contrived to infuse a suggestion of respect for Challis's family,
even if the previous generations consisted only of the direct line.
Challis refused to be taken into the League. To avoid it he stated
that he had more aunts than was really the case. He went further, and
ascribed to one of them attributes that have surely never belonged to
any person's aunt. She had, he said, a front, and lived on tea-leaves,
which came out on her person as a kind of stiff black net which he had
the impudence to say he believed was never removed at night.
Lizarann recalled a like experience which she thought would bear
repetition.
"Bridgetticks," she said, in a loud, outspoken way that commanded an
audience, "she's a hunkle comes out a Sundays and Schristmas Day, and
gold trimmings to his coat, and brarse buttons, and Bridgetticks, she
could count up eight and two behind."
"You must try to say 'uncle,' my dear, not 'hunkle,'" said Miss
Caldecott, which Lizarann did, meekly, with an impression that
perhaps she had claimed too much for Old Shakey, which was the old
man's bye-name in Tallack Street, where he appeared at intervals. She
had used the "h" to give an adventitious force of character to the
tremulous relic of better days she was referring to. She wished him to
be thought of as resolute, without presenting him in the aspect of a
swashbuckler.
"What do you make of _him_, Rector?" asked Challis.
"I know all about him. At least, Gus knows." Athelstan Taylor had
appropriated a camp stool, that he might accommodate Lizarann and his
younger daughter on his knees. He looked round at his sister-in-law.
"Don't you remember, my dear? Gus told us about him. A sort of old
pensioner chap!"
Miss Caldecott remembered him, primly. "Not very sober, I fear!" said
she.
Lizarann joined in the conversation. "Wunst you get him inside of the
bust," she said, "the sconductor keeps his eye upon him. Yass!--All
the way to Stockwell." Lizarann's confidence that her hearers knew the
world had something very pretty and touching about it.
But Miss Caldecott, as the exponent of the League--which no one had
asked her to form--checkmated Bridgetticks's relative. "We won't talk
any more about him now, my dear," she said. The smallest shade passed
over the Rector's face. However, it didn't matter for him. He could
tickle Lizarann slightly, thanks to his position of vantage, and thus
avoid being misunderstood.
With Challis it was otherwise. The effect upon his mind of the action
of the League was that he now felt that Bridget's disreputable uncle
was absolutely the only topic of conversation possible. He tried in
vain to remember that anything else existed in the Universe.
"Mayn't we hear more about Miss Hicks's family?" said he, with some
sense of proposing a compromise--not to run counter to the feeling of
the League, as it were. Miss Caldecott said something confidentially to
Space about not encouraging the child too much.
But she did not understand the earnestness and good faith of the said
child. Lizarann had no suspicion that the gentleman's anxiety to know
about her friend's connection was sheer affectation, and hastened to
supply particulars. She proceeded to sketch the Hicks family, laying
stress as much as possible on the excellence of its motives and the
sobriety of its demeanour.
"Bridgetticks," she said, "she spinched her finger in the jam of the
door, and felt it a week after in her shoulder-j'int. Yass--she _did_!
And Mr. 'Icks, he don't take nothing till after gone twelve o'clock,
and then mostly at meals. And Mrs. 'Icks, she never touches anything.
Only then she never has scarcely no rheumatic pains to speak of."
"You see that point, Challis?" said the Rector parenthetically, in a
quick undertone, over the heads of the two young ladies. "What Mr.
'Icks does touch is part of a course of treatment for rheumatism."
Challis nodded the completeness of his understanding, and then the
little girl Phoebe, who was listening with gravity, leaning on the
shoulder of her father, said, "And then say why!"
Lizarann, prompted, continued, "Yass--she hasn't! Because of the nature
of the suds. Because she's over her elbers all day, and can't roll
nothin' up high enough, not to keep dry. And Dr. Ferris, he puts it
down to the lump soda." An inquiring look of Challis's produced the
additional information. "Yass!--you can buy it at the oilshop just
acrost the road from the Robin Hood. Only it comes to less by the
quarter-hundredweight." All this did the greatest credit to Lizarann's
power of storing information.
But the League had been tolerating this sort of thing too long, and
its Secretary or Solicitor--whichever Miss Caldecott was--struck in
with, "Perhaps we've talked _qui-ite_ enough now about Bridget Hicks
and her family, my dear! We mustn't trespass too much on Mr. Challis's
good-nature." Suspicion of the sinister intentions of the League
gleamed in Lizarann's eye; for she disbelieved in its representative,
while admitting her goodness. She might have ignored her intrusion
if it had not been that the extraordinary sensitiveness of childhood
to impressions that never penetrate the thick hide of manhood made
her detect in Challis's disclaimer an understanding between himself
and the League--one that civility had dictated reference to on his
part, but that he would have preferred to conceal. Now Lizarann might
have fallen back disconcerted on silence, even on tears, had it not
been for Athelstan Taylor's keen understanding of children, and the
supreme necessity for not letting them know allowances are being made
for them. He said, with great presence of mind and an appearance of
absolute sincerity: "Old Mrs. Fox sells it--where your Daddy lives,
Lizarann. She'll let you have twopenny-worth if you say it's for me.
So mind you bring it on with you when you come home." For Lizarann
was to call on her Daddy on her way back from this visit. The Rector
added that he should like old Christopher to try it, and this confirmed
Lizarann's belief in his _bona fides_. She would not have believed his
sister-in-law, who, with the best intentions, had been unfortunate
enough to incur unpopularity by throwing doubt on the Flying Dutchman.
This was her chief offence; but she had also questioned the accuracy
of the surgical reports of the boy Frederick Hawkins, and other minor
matters. So that Lizarann, while she acknowledged her kindness, took a
low view--but secretly--of her intelligence.
When the children had gone away dutifully to play, discussing by
the way such things as might be played at with advantage, the Rev.
Athelstan said, "Now I must be getting home, or I shall be late for
Mrs. Silverton." Said Mr. Challis: "Then I'll walk with you, Rector; I
don't want any tea." Said the Rector: "Then I'll wait till you've had
it," and waited. Presently they were walking through the long grass,
overfield, having said little till the Rector spoke, as one who resumes
conversation in earnest:
"What was all the interesting discussion about?"
"As far as I could gather--because they all spoke at once--they agreed
in condemning the measure now before the House. But that may have been
merely the common form of political discussion. There must be agreement
about something to establish cordiality."
"Didn't they agree about anything else?"
"I think not--as far as I recollect. But really, in listening
to discussions of this sort, I find myself handicapped by not
understanding any of the terms in use. I am convinced I shall die in
ignorance of what Secondary Education is, and though I talk confidently
of University Extension, I am painfully conscious that the meaning I
attach to it is founded, not on information of any sort, but on a washy
inference that it can't mean anything else. So it's quite possible our
friends were agreeing about something, and I didn't catch them at it."
"What had the M.P. to say?" asked the Rector.
"What M.P.'s generally do say. Things lay in nutshells, and called
aloud for decisive handling, which there was but little reason to
anticipate from a venal Press and an apathetic electorate. He would
not presume to arraign the judgment of any fellow-mortal, but he would
venture to call our attention to several things, and to lay before
us a great variety of alternatives with which it would, sooner or
later, be our bounden duty to grapple. He dwelt once more, at the
risk of wearying his hearers, on the necessity for dealing with each
political problem, as it arose, in a truly Imperial Spirit. I believe
he did touch upon some aspects of the question of religious education,
but then he also said he would not dwell upon them, and proceeded to
consider everything else. I have a very vague idea of his views, but I
understand they were luminous."
Athelstan Taylor thought he could detect in his friend to-day rather
more than usual of his spirit of careless perversity. Something was
the matter. But he made no attempt to find out what, and pursued the
conversation.
"It would be interesting to know what he thought."
"It would--in view of the difficulty of inferring it from what he says.
Mr. Brownrigg was more intelligible."
"What did _he_ say?"
"Brownrigg pointed out. Of course! He pointed out that the subject
had been exhaustively dealt with by Graubosch in his twenty-ninth
volume. The forty-eighth chapter of that volume--one of its most
brilliant passages--indicates the means by which all the objects of
moral and religious education can be attained, without involving the
instructor of youth in the solution of a single difficult problem.
Strictly speaking, all such problems will at once disappear with the
abolition of Morality, Religion, and Education--changes which form a
fundamental feature of the scheme of Graubosch. But each of these will
be more than replaced. The Great Doctrine of Retributive Inconvenience
will result, as an inevitable consequence, in the Theory of the
Avoidance of Retributive Inconvenience, which will attain all the
ends Morality proposes to itself, but falls very short of. Religion
will cease to be a necessity to a race of beings to whom it has been
pointed out in their babyhood that they will do well to comply with the
Apparent Aims of the Metaphysical Check, who will supply more fully
the place the human imagination has hitherto supplied with Deities so
unsatisfactorily that even now monotheism is not quite agreed about
their number...."
"Never mind me!" said the Rector, who thought Challis hesitated. "Go
ahead!"
"Well--it was Brownrigg, you know; it wasn't me."
"It's all quite right, my dear fellow! I want to know now about the
Education. Suppose a member of the human race refuses to pay any
attention to the Apparent Aims of the Metaphysical Check...."
"He will come into collision, clearly, with the Doctrine of Retributive
Inconvenience. In the case of young persons, on whom a certain amount
of Inconvenience can be inflicted without overtaxing the Salaried
Suggesters who will take the place of the so-called Educational
Classes, an exact system might be formulated. Brownrigg gave as
an example the case of a child refusing to comply with the System
of Hypothetical Notification, under which it would be required to
address propitiatory sentiments, or requests for personal benefit, to
an unseen Metaphysical Check, whose hearing of the Application the
Salaried Suggester might hold himself at liberty to guarantee. He might
also--this was Brownrigg's point--endorse his suggestion, in the case
of a child refusing to Notify, by the infliction of a certain amount
of Inconvenience, tending to produce, if not an actual belief in the
existence of the Metaphysical Check, at any rate a readiness to confess
it, which would be for working purposes exactly the same."
The Rector shook his head doubtfully. "At present," said he, "the
practice in this village is to threaten rebellious youth with the
wicked fire. Would Brownrigg's substitute be as effectual?"
"You remember what he said in September--that Graubosch meant to retain
the Personal Devil until the new System had had time to settle down?
Just as people keep the gas on till the electric light is a certainty!"
The Rector laughed. "You'll make me as bad as yourself, Challis, before
you've done." Then he became more serious. "I would give a good deal,"
said he, "to know what you _really_ think on matters of this sort."
But Challis was persuading a pipe to light inside his hat, and no
immediate answer came. One vesta had perished in the attempt. The
second made a lurid flash on his face, in the shadow of the protecting
hat, his invariable grey felt. As Athelstan Taylor looked at him, he
saw again, more clearly than before, that the face was inconsistent
with its owner's levity of tone two minutes since. He negatived his own
impulse to ask questions, and waited. Perhaps it was part of a growing
interest in his companion that made him mix with this curiosity, about
what was going on inside that head, a wish to see the hat back on it.
For the sun was still fierce at the end of a hot June day, and the soft
brown hair the wind blew about so easily seemed to have little shelter
in it for the somewhat delicate skin the blue veins made so much show
on below, on the forehead.
"You would give a good deal," said Challis, when the pipe was well
alight, "to know what I think about the religious education of
children? So would I!" It was a disappointing ending. His hearer had
expected something better.
"What have you done about your own boy?" said he, with a kind of
magnanimous impatience. "Come! That's the point."
"Nothing. At least, I have sent him to Rugby, where he will be brought
up a member of the Church of England."
"But before?"
"I left him to his mother--at least, his aunt.... I told you...."
"I know."
"So you observe that with respect to Master Bob I have pursued a policy
of well-considered devolution of responsibility. Perhaps I should
say of evasion. However, I think I may lay claim to having given my
son every reasonable opportunity of believing the creeds that will
best advance his interests in the world. He has had the advantage of
imbibing them from a lady who enjoys the privilege of being able to
believe what she chooses, and has inherited or selected the tenets of
the well-to-do. He has been till lately at a preparatory Academy, where
every one of the masters is in orders, and every other boy the son of
a Bishop. And now he's gone to Rugby! What can a human father do more,
in the name of respectability?"
"My dear Challis, if you want to make your son's education a text for a
sermon against worldliness and hypocrisy, do so by all means. We have
weak joints enough in our armour, God knows, for you to shoot your
arrows into. But let me finish finding fault with you first."
Challis slipped his arm into the Rector's. "Go on finding fault," he
said. "Don't finish too soon."
"I won't. It seems to me, my dear friend, that under cover of a
complete confession you have contrived to raise issues which have
nothing to do with the question before the House, which I take to
be--what is a father's conscientious duty towards the child for whose
existence he is partly responsible? I want to keep you to the point."
"I'm a slippery customer, I know. Go on."
"Do you, or do you not, think a parent is bound to supply a child
with a religious faith? Failing the parent, is it the duty of the
guardian--of the State? That seems to me to lie at the root of all
questions of religious education. But our question is about the
parent's duty when one exists. _Exempli gratiâ_, yourself and Master
Bob! It seems to me that your policy was one of evasion, and that the
devolution of responsibility upon your wife was a rather cowardly
evasion. Especially as her responsibility could only be for her own
children!"
Challis's hand pressed the arm he held a little more warmly. There was
certainly no offence. "You are perfectly right, Rector," said he. "I
took a mean advantage of a little local patch of obscurantism to get
my boy inoculated in his youth with a popular form of Christianity, in
order that his father's heretical ideas should not stand in the way of
his advancement. But I lay this unction to my soul; that if ever he
sees his way to a bishopric, nothing I have ever said to him need stand
in his way.... Oh no!--there is no idea at present of his entering
the Church. The Army is engaging his attention at this moment--and
phonographs.... But go on pitching into me about cowardly evasions."
"I am afraid you are incorrigible, Challis. I can't help laughing
sometimes. But for all that, I think you were wrong. You were wrong
towards your wife, because, instead of helping her, you made her task
difficult. What can be harder than to turn a child's mind into any
channel with a strong counter-influence, as a father's must needs be,
constantly at work against one's efforts?"
Challis smiled in his turn. "It was Marianne, you see," he said. "I
can't express it. The position was harder to deal with than you think."
He then went on to tell one or two incidents connected with Bob's early
indoctrinations of the Scriptures. How, for instance, when Marianne
once crushed him under, "You know perfectly well, Titus, what the
words of Our Lord were," and followed it up with a quotation, he had
remarked in the presence of Master Bob that at any rate Jesus Christ
didn't speak English; and then she had flounced out of the room white
with anger, and not spoken to him for two days; and when she did at
last, it was to declare that if there was to be any more blasphemy and
impiety before the boy, she should go straight away to Tulse Hill, and
not come back. Also, when he once innocently remarked that he believed
there was now a tram-line from Joppa to Jerusalem, she had become very
violent, and accused him of speaking of Jerusalem as if it was a place
in Bradshaw.
The Rector considered, and then said: "I was just going to say Mrs.
Challis must be unusually ill-informed, when I happened to recollect
what a number of very good people are exactly like her. In fact, a very
dear old friend of mine"--he was thinking of the Rev. Mr. Fossett--"is
rather shocked when he hears Our Lord spoken of as a real person; and
with him it isn't exactly ignorance, because he's a priest in orders.
It's a phase of mind that seems to have its source in a belief that
nothing can be both Good and Actual." He stopped abruptly, as one who
changes a subject. "By-the-bye, should _you_ have said the little
person looked delicate--that little Lizarann, I mean?"
Challis had stopped to think. "N-no!" he said. "On the contrary,
I thought she had such a good colour." On which the Rector said,
"Ah--well!" and then more cheerfully, "Well--well!--I suppose it's all
right. However, we must keep our eyes open."
"Isn't the child strong? She's a funny little party."
"Why, no!--they say she isn't. Isn't strong, I mean. Never mind! What
were we talking about?"
"People and Scripture, don't you know. Things being actual...."
"I know. I was just going to tell you what dear old Gus--my
friend--won't forgive me for. I'll risk it. Only don't you make copy
of it.... Very well!--mind you don't.... It was this. Some years ago I
was urging him to marry, and he pleaded in extenuation of his celibacy
that he wished to model his life on Our Lord's in every point within
his power. 'It's all very fine,' I said. 'But why do you suppose the
Apostles did not model their lives on Our Lord's? Do you mean that they
all led celibate lives?' Gus said this was almost an insinuation that
Our Lord was or had been married. I'm sorry to say I couldn't help
saying, 'Can you produce a single particle of direct evidence that Our
Lord was not a widower when John baptized Him?' Gus hardly spoke to
me all that day. But what hurt him was the realism of the expression
'widower.' The case was exactly on all fours with your wife's."
They were just in sight of the Rectory, and Challis had to get back in
time for dinner. So he shook hands with his friend, remarking: "You
will go on blowing me up another time." Athelstan Taylor replied with
a cordial handshake. "You deserve it, you know!" and pulled out his
watch. "I shall be in time for Mrs. Silverton," said he. But who and
what that lady was this story knoweth not, neither whence she came nor
whither she went. But she occurs in the text for all that.
* * * * *
Challis wandered back, having intentionally allowed himself time to do
so, keeping out of the direct path to avoid meeting people. He liked
his own company best.
His talk with Athelstan Taylor, which else could claim little place in
the story, had had a curious effect on him. It had brought back vividly
his early days with his wife. As he sauntered on with his eyes on the
ground, choosing rather destructively special whitey-green heads of
new young fern to crush down, or cutting here and there an inoffensive
flower with his stick, his ears heard nothing of the wind-music in
the trees, his eyes saw nothing of the evening rabbits, popping away
and vanishing one by one--for which of them could say he had no gun,
off hand?--as he approached. The small village maiden who stopped and
stood still through a blank bar, and dropped a semiquaver curtsey
in the middle and then went on _andante capriccioso_, might almost
as well not have been there for any notice Challis took of her. His
thoughts were back in Great Coram Street, in the dingy London home this
Marianne--yes! this very Marianne--made cheerful, more than cheerful,
to the industrious accountant of ten years since; who parted from
her each morning looking forward to the return each evening brought
to the grubby domicile he associated with so many blackbeetles in
the impenetrable basement, such smells of mice in spite of such much
stronger smells of cats, and the wails and choral conclusions of these
last in the backyard they held against all comers, in the small hours
of so many foggy mornings.
How many escapes from the fog without to the firelight within could he
recall, in those days when he rose from his office-desk without a dream
of what he could have used his brain for, instead of those interminable
figures! How many a shock of trivial disappointment to find that
Missis wasn't home yet!--how many an insignificant reviving thrill of
contentment when Missis's knock followed near upon his own arrival and
his thwarted expectation! For now and again it must happen to a man
that some woman he has no passionate love for, pedantically speaking,
shall grow round his heart and make the comfort of his life. That was
the sort of thing that had come to pass in the case of Marianne and
Alfred Challis. And now, as he--the flattered guest of folk he then had
never thought to sit at meat with--passed up the great beech-avenue to
the house, respectfully saluted by a great game-keeper, a Being who, in
those older years, would simply have spurned him, his thoughts had all
gone back to the rosy, if rather short-tempered girl who then seemed
plenty for his life, and might surely have remained so, only ... only
Challis couldn't finish the sentence. Now, why was he, in his own mind,
commenting a moment after on the inappropriateness of two lines of
Browning that had come into it:
"... Strange, that very way
Love begun! I as little understand
Love's decay."
He resented their intrusion. Who would dare to say his affection for
Marianne was not what it had always been? It was--he would swear
it!--and that in spite of the fact that Marianne, look you, was not now
what she was in those days.
How and when had the change come over things? He was on the alert to
keep Judith out of the answer to this question. He must see to that, or
Unfairness, that was in the air, would twist awry the admiration of her
beauty that was all mankind's--womankind's, for that matter, jealousy
apart!--and put a misconstruction on his simplest actions, his most
obvious feelings. He could have held his head up better, true enough,
over this passage of his analytical self-torment, if only it had not
been for that unhappy revelation of unspoken suspicion, by the river
there, not two hours since. But be fair!--be fair! It _was_ unspoken,
at least! Who had said anything? As he asked the question of himself,
Challis wiped from his brow perspiration he ascribed to the weather!
Did he not know of old how often he had deceived himself? Might not all
this be self-delusion, too? At least, he had as good a vantage-ground
as the man to whom some woman may often say, truly: "You have looked
love, and there has been love in the pressure of your hand, in the
tone of your voice. But I cannot indite you. Live safe behind your
equivocations." Nay, he was safer than such a one! For in his case the
more he could ignore love, the better he would discharge his duty to
Judith. The other man would be the greater sneak, the more he did so.
But the question--the question! It was still unanswered. When did the
change come over Marianne? Oh, he knew perfectly well! It was from
the day when he began, to all seeming at her request, to go out into
this accursed Society without her. Very well, then!--it was all mere
glamour, the whole thing. Let him do now what he should have done at
first--insist on her being his companion, among his kind as well as in
his home. Then would the old Marianne come back, and all would be well.
So by the time he was two-thirds through the avenue, his thoughts had
worked back into his old existence, and taken him with them. If only
his knowledge of his surroundings in his daily life at home would bear
him out, and help him to keep at bay this image of Judith that forced
itself upon him now--this image of her as she stood in the sunset light
last September, just on this very spot!
* * * * *
What he recognized at once as the nose of a large grey boarhound
touched him gently, and he turned. There stood Saladin, satisfied to
all seeming that what he had smelt was in order, but content to take
no further steps. Challis glanced round, expecting to see the dog's
mistress; in a sense rather afraid to do so. She was near at hand, a
few paces from the pathway, and her perfect self-possession reassured
him.
"I never told Saladin to disturb your reverie, Mr. Challis," she said,
quite easily, and with deliberation. "The darling acted on his own
responsibility." Saladin, hearing his own name, seemed to think he had
leave to go, and trotted on, giving attention to tree-trunks and the
like. Challis had to say something.
"Are we not late for dinner?" was what it came to.
"I believe we are, but it never matters. Did you get your letter?"
"No--I got no letter. What letter?"
"Haven't you been up at the house? It was there when I went back. I
thought it looked like your wife's handwriting. I hope it's to say we
shall see her on Saturday."
"I hope so, too." But Challis wasn't sanguine.
No pretence that no embarrassment exists between two people, however
determined, can do more than encourage a hope that a _modus vivendi_
may be found. These two persevered in theirs, because each hoped for
a working pretext that would carry Challis's visit through, without
further useless complications, and this one of Marianne was a good one
to make a parade of their detachment about. See how anxious we both
are to emphasize the perfect self-possession a friendship like ours
allows!--was what it seemed to say. Each knew it was a pretext, but
each was loyally ready to accept the other's belief in it as a reality.
So when Judith said those last words of hers, Challis went so cordially
through the form of believing her in earnest that he powerfully helped
the image he had set his mind to construct of a Marianne based on his
impressions--illusions, if you must have it so!--of ten years past.
Conversation that followed on the way to the house, artificial though
it might be, all tended towards a cheap local apotheosis of Marianne,
with a beneficial side-influence on her husband's disposition to
idealize her. Thus Judith: "Of course, a change would do her so much
good. Housekeeping is tiresome work."
"Yes," said Challis. "It's wearing! And if you understand what I mean,
it makes her unlike herself."
"Oh, I understand so exactly. Everyone would--every woman, I mean. It
has nothing to do with ill-temper."
"Nothing whatever!" Challis made the most of this. "There isn't a
better-tempered creature in the world than Polly Anne." He called her
a creature, though, to keep the position properly qualified. "And one
knows what children are."
"They are darling little people." Judith yawned slightly. "But they are
nicest when you know them as acquaintances. Too much intimacy palls.
Unless they are very nice children. I am sure yours are. But all the
same, Marianne would be the better for a change." And so on. But there
was very little life in this talk.
None the less, Challis was feeling good about his wife, when he reached
the house looking forward to finding Marianne's letter awaiting him,
and carried it up into his room to read it. He was more curious to
read it than to wait for the arrival of the motor, whose hoot had just
become audible from somewhere near the park-gate, a mile off. Saladin
immediately started at a gallop either to sanction or condemn it, and
Judith lingered, awaiting its arrival.
"I see Mr. Challis didn't go to Ashcroft," is what Sibyl says first to
her sister. It refers to a projected excursion a full day long, which
had been cancelled after the departure of the motor in the morning.
Judith looks ostentatiously indifferent. "No one went," she says. "It
was given up. But how came you to know?"
"That Mr. Challis didn't go? We saw you from the Links, walking
together in the avenue."
Judith turns with handsome languor to Lord Felixthorpe, the other
occupant of the motor. "Did she?" she says. "Did you? I mean." Sibyl
says: "Thank you for doubting my word! The avenue is visible from the
Links."
His lordship is deliberate, as usual. The answer to Judith's first
question is, he says, in the affirmative; to the second, in the
negative. Identification, even of eminent authors, at a distance in
an evening light, is difficult when a time-limit is fixed by the
rapid locomotion of the observer. Sibyl's comment, in an undertone,
Judith understands to be a caution against prosiness. But a respectful
reference by Elphinstone to the many minutes ago that the first gong
sounded causes a hurried flight to dress.
* * * * *
Challis felt good about his wife as he opened her letter; and the
feeling grew rather than lessened when he saw how short it was. She
must be coming, that was clear! But the satisfaction in his face died
out as his eye caught the "Yr: aff: wife" at its conclusion. He read
the two ill-covered pages twice and again before he threw it down with
an angry "Humph!" and set himself to make up for lost time with his
toilet.
He only just succeeded in scrambling into his coat in time for the
second, or heart-whole, dinner-bell. All right!--he would run,
directly. But it would only make him a minute late to glance once more
at that letter. Besides, he could do it as he went downstairs. He
did so, and ended by pocketing it just in time to appear last in the
drawing-room, apologetic.
CHAPTER XXX
HOW CHALLIS HAD A NEW NEIGHBOUR AT DINNER AND METAPHYSICS AFTER.
HOW HE WAS GUILTY OF EAVESDROPPING, AND MET MISS ARKROYD AFTER IN A
LITTLE GARDEN CALLED TOPHET. A FOOL'S PASSION. WHAT ABOUT BOB?
That was a very fortunate interview in the park-avenue between Challis
and Miss Arkroyd. If their sequel to that half-hour before they joined
the tea-party, when they stood hand-in-hand on the edge of a volcano,
had been a stiff meeting in society, the position would have become a
rigid one; its joints would have ossified. Some may hold that it would
have been best that they should do so, and that the lubrication of this
interview was really unfortunate. It depends on how one looks at it.
Efficacious it certainly was.
So efficacious that Challis almost felt at liberty to be sorry that
Judith was moved to the far end of the long table at dinner, beyond his
range of communication. He grudged the geometrical distance between
them, while he acknowledged their moral or spiritual _éloignement_. He
had to confess to his regret when a fresh dress she had on that evening
rustled and glittered--it was all sparks and flashes--past the place
she occupied the evening before. "We move up, like the Hatter and the
Dormouse," said she to her partner.
The house-party had become enormous; indeed, some of it had oozed
out into an adjoining apartment, and had a little round table all to
itself--which it may be said to have forgotten, for it made a great
noise.
Challis's own flank-destinies for this dinner were an elderly young
lady with a bridge to her nose--a county family in herself--whom he had
protected through the dangerous passage from the drawing-room; and the
extraneous chit, Lady Henrietta Mounttullibardine. The latter had been
provided with a counter-chit, who was always spoken of as Arthur, and
seemed to be many people's cousin. The former had a powerful pair of
eyeglasses on a yard-arm, or sprit, workable from below; these, Challis
noticed, were manoeuvred so as to leave the bridge free. He imputed
powder, or something that might come off, to its owner. She seemed to
have been very carefully prepared to go into Society, and to look
down on it now that she had arrived. But she had to be talked to about
something within its confines, and Challis had to find out what.
"I wonder what the brilliant stuff is called," said he, therefore.
Judith's dress was the stuff.
"Sequin net is the name, I believe." This suggested somehow that the
stuff's sphere was one grade below the speaker's.
"How much is a sequin?" asked Challis.
"It is not an expensive material," said the lady.
"I don't want a dress for myself," said Challis.
"Oh, indeed!" said the lady. Settlements ensued. And then Challis's
other neighbour addressed him.
"They are in the other room this evening," said the chit. Her remark
related to a mutual confidence between herself and Challis, begun on
the lawn on the day of his arrival. They never spoke of anything else.
"I can hear them," said he. "They're making noise enough. But I thought
they had quarrelled this morning?"
"This _morning_--oh _yes_!" This was very _empressé_. "But they made
that up _long ago_!"
"When do they?... when are they?... when will it?... Clear, please! Oh
no!--that'll do beautifully. I meant thick." This was to the servant,
respecting soup.
"I'm so afraid it never _will_! Do you know, I really _am_!"
"Instances are not wanting of young ladies and gentlemen who haven't
got married.... Hock, thank you!"
"Of _course_! But they _always_ do, if they _can_. Don't they now, Mr.
Challis?"
"I admit it. Unless they meet with someone they like better. Of course,
that does happen."
"Oh yes--of _course_! But then it only matters when it isn't _both_."
Challis, on the watch for copy, noticed that whenever this chit
italicized a word--which was frequently--she opened her large blue eyes
as far as possible.
"You express it to perfection. When it's both, it doesn't matter the
least. But this time it's neither, so far!"
"Oh no!--they can't _look_ at anyone else."
"Nothing can be more satisfactory. But why shouldn't it?... why
shouldn't they?..."
"Oh dear! I'm so afraid they never _will_. Because he has only his
pay, and she has--_nothing_!" Human eyes have only limited powers of
opening, and the speaker's had done all they could.
"Couldn't a rich aunt settle something on them, or someone place a
fund at their disposal? Or something of that sort?... What a shindy
they _are_ making!... Not before Christmas." This was because his
left-hand neighbour had said sternly: "When is your next book coming
out, Mr. Challis?"
But the chit had a secret knowledge of the _vera causa_ of the
riot in the next room, when three chits and as many counter-chits,
uncontrolled, had the small round table to themselves. She knew exactly
what they were doing--trying to pick up tumblers upside down, like
this!--"this" being the thumb on one side, and one finger only on the
top.
"I have forgotten when your last book came out, Mr. Challis." This
left-hand neighbour seemed reproachful. But Challis couldn't help it.
"Just eight weeks ago," said he.
A lull came in the next room, with the young soldier's voice audible
in it, "Now all together, or it doesn't count!" Some sort of wager
was being put to the test. Challis's chit murmured in the moments
of suspense that followed, "They broke several yesterday in the
billiard-room." Challis, amused, waited for the inevitable smash.
It came, and was a grand one. And the chorus of contrition and apology
from the culprits was only equalled by their indignation at the way the
Laws of Nature had proved broken reeds. If there was one thing more
than another that the student of dynamics could not have credited, it
was that under the circumstances a single tumbler should have been
broken. Challis perceived that Lady Arkroyd spoke _sotto voce_ to Mr.
Elphinstone, who, he thought, replied, "Plenty, your ladyship. They
came this morning." Then followed a fine exhibition of dexterity in
the rapid collection and removal of broken glass. Challis thought to
himself, but did not say so, that it reminded one of being on board
ship.
The chit had done her duty by Mr. Challis, and now deserted him. Arthur
had done his by Mrs. Ramsey Tomes, on his other flank, who had told
him she wasn't quite sure if Mr. Tomes approved of football. She was
almost certain he thought young men gave up too much time to rowing,
and cricket, and lawn-tennis, and cycling, and everything else,
and perfectly certain he didn't disapprove of anti-vivisection or
anti-vaccination, but she wasn't quite sure which. She was not a gifted
person, and was quite unable to keep pace with her husband's powerful
mind. She had been freely spoken of before now, by heedless linguists,
as a Juggins. Arthur deserted her with a sense of duty done, and passed
the remainder of the banquet in exchanging wireless undertones with
his other neighbour. It was wonderful how much communication they
seemed to get through, considering how little noise they made. It
seemed to be done with eyebrows, slight facial adaptations, new ways of
keeping lips closed, but rarely completed speech.
Challis was conscious that each of these young people would be the
other's _menu_ for the rest of the banquet, so he surrendered himself
to a portentous catechism from the lady with the eyeglass touching his
habits.
"Where do you write, Mr. Challis?"
"At home--when I'm at home. Or wherever I happen to be at the time."
When he had said this, he wondered whether he was going idiotic. It was
like saying a mother was always present at the birth of her child.
"But upstairs or down? And is the room at the back of the house?" He
gave close particulars of all the rooms at the Hermitage. A capital way
of making conversation! But in the end it ran dry.
"I like writing in bed," said he, for variety. "Rabelais wrote in bed."
He wasn't sure of this at all. But it didn't matter.
"Oh, indeed!" said the lady. She was an Honourable Miss Something, and
not nearly dissolute enough to know anything about authors who write
in bed; and, besides, she had her doubts about Rabelais. She changed
the conversation delicately. Did Mr. Challis use a Fountain Pen? No,
he didn't. Because he thought for a quarter of an hour at every third
word, and that was time enough for an active person under fifty to dip
his pen in the ink. Pressmen had to write straight on without stopping.
The lady took this seriously, and said, "Dear me!"
What followed was very like the sample. Challis could make talk and
think of something else quite well. So he thought how different his
right-hand neighbour was from Charlotte Eldridge. And that set him
a-thinking again about his wife. But there were unnavigable straits in
that sea. His thoughts got into shoal-water, and his neighbour pursued
a topic unaccompanied until she found she had left him behind. Then
indignation kindled, but subject to good-breeding. She would put a test
question, though, to see how much attention this gentleman had been
paying.
"How many words are there in a book?" The question came with sudden
severity, and Challis had to pull himself together to reply.
"Of course," he said, "there's not always exactly the same number. But
a hundred thousand, more or less." It was a good answer, and embodied
a feeling current in the book-trade. And the conversation, thus
re-established, developed on the same lines until the vanishing-point
of the army of womankind. Challis fancied he saw commiseration on
Judith's face as she brought up the rear. He certainly had seldom in
his life passed a duller hour.
He knew what it was going to be next. Dreary politics, wearisome
ethics, maudlin philosophy, execrable--thrice execrable!--Social
Problems which it was every man's duty to confront, and every other
man's duty to hear him elucidate. Yes!--there was Mr. Ramsey Tomes at
it already! He had got a good new word to talk with--"noumenal"--and
was brandishing it over his hearers' heads....
Oh dear!--metaphysics! Not even free treatment of what Challis's mind
classed as Charlottology! That always appealed to our common something
or other. Now what he could catch at first hearing seemed bare, cold,
cruel Metaphysics. Never an indiscreet lady nor an unprincipled
gentleman, nor even a New Morality, of any sort! No fun at all!
But stop a bit! Was there none? Challis listened, and perceived, before
coffee-time, that the changed guest of last September, who had become
a Complete Christian Scientist, had denied the existence of matter.
He took a chair nearer to the discussion, not to seem out of it, and
so attracted to himself the attention of Mr. Ramsey Tomes, whose
lung-power had taken possession of the rostrum.
"I appeal," said that gentleman, "to Mr. Challis." He went on with a
testimonial or appreciation beginning with "than whom I will venture to
say," and elucidating Challis's great accomplishments and intellectual
powers, Challis seized the opportunity of a coffee-deal to ask what
he was being appealed to about. A mixed response informed him on this
point. A definition of Matter had been called for, and the Confirmed
Christian Scientist had demurred to giving any such definition. "No
one," said he, "can be logically called on to define a thing he denies
the existence of. The burden of definition manifestly lies with those
who affirm it."
"Personally," said Challis, "I prefer--but I admit it may be only
idiosyncrasy on my part--to know, when I deny the existence of
anything, what the thing is that I am denying the existence of. Perhaps
I should say, rather, what it would be if it existed. If I knew, I
think I should always communicate my knowledge, both from civility and
as a politic act. For how the dickens anyone else would know what I
was denying the existence of if I didn't tell him, I'll be hanged if
_I_ know!"
An indignant murmur was perceptible round the table. It gathered force,
and became a protest against this treatment of the subject. Everybody,
it said, knew perfectly well what matter _was_. All that was wanted was
a Definition of it.
"What _is_ Matter?" said Challis. But he had some difficulty in hearing
all the answers to this question. However, he caught the following:
"Obviously, there is no such distinct thing as Matter. What we
call matter--stuff, substance, body, or what not--is really only a
manifestation of energy."
"Obviously, Matter is a phenomenon."
"Obviously, Matter is the negation of mind."
"Obviously, Matter is the antithesis of spirit."
"Obviously, Matter is the reciprocal interdependent externalization of
what used at one time to be called Forces, but which are now almost
universally recognized to be merely modes of motion."
"Something you can prod." This last piece of crudity came from the
young man Arthur, and attracted no attention.
Now, when several persons shout simultaneously a profound and intuitive
judgment apiece, each naturally pauses to hear what effect his own has
had upon the Universe. An opening for speech is then given to anyone
who has the presence of mind to abstain from wasting time over the
detection of a stray meaning anywhere. In this case, Mr. Ramsey Tomes
saw his opportunity, and seized it.
"Am I mistaken," said he, "in supposing that at least one suggestion
has been made that the Universe, as at present formulated, has but two
constituents--namely, the subject under discussion, Matter, on the one
hand; and on the other what has been variously called Mind or Spirit.
Shall I presume too far on the attention the Philosophical Mind is
prepared to vouchsafe to the voice of a mere sciolist in Metaphysical
profundity if I indicate the existence of yet a third constituent of
what has been not inaptly called the Universal Whole? I refer to what I
may term the Unknown."
The speaker felt that this was so admirably expressed that he rashly
paused to lick his lips over it. This gave Challis, who was in a
malicious or impish mood, time to interject a remark. Its effect
was that, for the purpose of discussing the Existence of Matter,
no definition of it would be of any use to us, unless we provided
ourselves also with an accurate definition of Existence. Agreement on
these two points would enable us to _approfondir_ the question of the
entity or nonentity of the appreciable Universe.
There seemed to be no serious difficulty, unless it were the selection
of the required definitions from an _embarras de richesses_. Among
those which survived the tumult of many confident voices, Challis
distinguished the following:
"The relation a thing has to itself."
"The condition precedent of the concept 'nothing,' which is itself a
fundamental condition of thought."
"A quality thought imputes to the external cause of every phenomenon."
"The recognition by the Ego of the reality of its environments."
"When you've nothing particular to do." This one was Arthur, who,
however, was heard a moment after to say, "All right; I'll come!"
in response to a summons, and thereafter went, carrying away his
unfinished cigar. Challis heard his voice afar very soon, probably
in the garden in the moonlight, where chits and counterchits were
in council on the lawn. He wanted to go out in that garden himself,
but--he supposed--he recognized the reality of his environments, like
the Ego, and felt that such conduct would be rude. Besides, he was
rather amused, too. What was that Mr. Brownrigg was saying?
He was pointing out, of course. Nay, more!--he was pointing out
that Graubosch had already pointed out, in his Appendix B, that we
had no direct evidence of any existence whatever independently of a
percipient. The Confirmed Christian Scientist applauded this audibly,
but remarked that that was merely Immanuel Kant, after all! On the
other hand, Mr. Brownrigg continued, we have not a particle of evidence
that any percipient could exist as such, independent of a percipiendum.
We could not collect his evidence, clearly, without exposing ourselves
to his untried observation, and thereby upsetting the conditions of the
problem.
The Confirmed Christian Scientist's face fell, and he asked
dejectedly, What conclusion did Graubosch draw? Mr. Brownrigg replied
that Graubosch considered the problem afforded a fine instance of
Metaphysical Equilibrium, which would under that name continue to
engage the attention of thinkers long after the Insolubility of
Problems had ceased to be admitted as a Scientific possibility. The
final solution of all questions could not be regarded with complacency
by a thoughtful world; and the recognition of Metaphysical Equilibrium,
in questions which the Primitives of Philosophy had condemned as
unanswerable, was a welcome addition to the resources of Modern
Thought, for which the world had to thank its originator and greatest
exponent, Graubosch, et cetera.
Challis began to think he must really make an effort, and go. He would
watch for an opportunity. It came.
The advocates of the Existence of Matter were disposed to make a stand
in favour of Human Reason; in fact, they were inclined to claim for
Man, before the dawn of sight, hearing, or feeling, the position of a
Unit charged with Syllogism, ready to make short work of any Phenomenon
that might present itself. But, then, how about anthropoid apes?
Didn't Sally count up to five? Well, then--Reason be blowed! Make it
perception, and include all forms of Life.
This brought up Mr. Ramsey Tomes in great force. We were now landed,
he said, in a crux on the axis of which this most interesting group of
problems might be said to rotate. Let the many-headed activities of
Ratiocinative Speculation agree on a Definition of Life, and he would
venture to say without fear of contradiction that a keynote would have
been struck that would resound through the proper quarters. Challis
missed their description, owing to Mr. Brownrigg's voice intercepting
it resolutely.
"Surely," said he, "we need go no further than the one supplied by
Herbert Spencer." Everyone listened with roused attention, and Mr.
Brownrigg continued. "You will all recall it at once! 'The definite
combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive,
in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences.' It is
among the few decisions of modern thought which Graubosch has been able
to accept intact; and the translation he himself made of it into German
surpasses, if anything, its English original in force and lucidity."
Challis thought he might go. No need to stay for the German
translation. On the way from the entrance-hall into the garden, he
nearly collided with the largest possible white shirt-front associated
with the smallest possible black waistcoat. The owner, Arthur, the
universal cousin, begged his pardon. He begged it awfully, it seemed;
but why? What he added, before going away up the broad staircase four
steps at a time, was enigmatical: "No gloves--only I can lend Jack a
pair." Challis left the meaning of this in a state of Metaphysical
Equilibrium, till the sound of music under moonlit cedars on the lawn
explained it. A chit-extemporized dance was afoot on the close-cropped
turf. Challis remembered this young subaltern's definition of
Existence, and felt he knew what sort of definition of Life his would
be.
He himself would not mix with it, under the cedars there, but would
finish his cigar with his arms crossed on this ledge of clean stone
balustrade, all silvery with lichens in the moonlight, where he would
see and not be seen. Perhaps he would remember the name of the little
creeping flowers that last September were climbing all over the shrub
that half hid him; that were only pledges as yet, but that he knew the
morning sun would soon make rubies of. Cockney that he was, he had
had to ask the little flower's name of Judith, as she stood on that
gravel path below, near ten months back. What a short time it seemed!
Petroleum?--No!--Protæolum, was it?--No!--that wasn't it exactly. But
near enough!...
Footsteps were coming along the pathway now. Was it honourable to
overhear what those two girls were discussing in the moonlight?
Pooh!--stuff and nonsense! These chits--the idea! What _could_ those
children have to say that they could mind his hearing? Besides, they
would never know; and he could cough at a moment's notice.
"You could have lawts of awfers, if you liked, Flawcey. I know a girl
that's had eleven awfers. I've had three awfers. I suppose now it is
Jack I shan't have any maw awfers." The sweet drawler, who is of course
the speaker, has rather a rueful sound over this.
"I could have been engaged twice," says the other; "only one was
forty-five, and the other was a Hungarian."
They do not interest the drawler. She ripples on musically: "Of
cawce, I shall have Cerberus, because he belawngs to Jack. Oh, he is
a dahling!" Then the two go out of hearing; but the drawl is there,
in the distance still. Challis notes afar, under the cedar-trees, how
Chinese lanterns are coming to birth in the twilight. There will only
be real darkness quite late to-night.
Two other voices are audible near for a few seconds, with a roused
interest for Challis, whose sense of eavesdropping increases. Before he
can decide on stopping his ears, he has heard Sibyl say: "I have eased
my conscience, and you can't blame _me_, whatever happens!" She is
speaking as one who has the Universe on her shoulders. Judith's answer
is lost, rather to his relief, all but the _timbre_ of its resentment.
Here come the chits back! _They_ don't matter. What's the story now?
"Oh, it was hawrible! If only it had been an awdinary eyeglass, with a
string!"
"But then it would have had to be fished up, you know!"
"Of cawce it would. I didn't think of that. Perhaps it's just as well
it wawse a lens.... No, it was quite easy how it happened, if you
think!"
"But whatever did you do?"
"Of course, d'ya, we both pretended it had rolled on the floor, and
kneeled down to look for it. But we both knew quite well where it was,
and I could feel it cold all down my back. Oh, it was hawrible!" The
speaker added thoughtfully after a pause: "I am so glad it's Jack now,
and not Sholto. He did look such a fool, and _such_ strong cigars!"
Challis was able, being a dramatist, to put an intelligible
construction on this little dramatic experience of the young lady and
her previous admirer. We need not probe into its obscurity, as its only
interest in this story is that it reminded him of an incident of his
own bygone youth--the disappearance of a pearl from a ring of his first
wife's, and its resurrection from the inside of his own stocking after
setting him limping, inexplicably, all the way home to his rooms from
her mother's house. Oh, the ridiculous trifles of life!--nothing at the
time, but all-powerful for sadness in the days to come.
So powerful, in this case, that he was less than ever ready for the
sphere of pink and green illumination and dance-music, just becoming
self-assertive. Of course!--those young monkeys were hanging about
in the suburbs merely in order to be fetched. They knew their value,
bless you! So Challis thought to himself as he lit another cigar,
sauntering among the cut yew-hedges of a side-garden. A wing of the
house was between him and the dancers, and their sounds were dim. But
from a back-window of the room he had left a quarter of an hour since
still came such noise as is inevitable when a number of close reasoners
with strong lungs go seriously to work on the Nature of Things, and
point out each other's fallacies. "Word-changers in the Temple of
the Inscrutable," thought Challis to himself, as he turned to seek
congenial silence farther afield.
He would find it, he knew, if it were nowhere else in the world, in the
sweet little rose-garden called, for no sane reason, "Tophet."
He and Judith had walked there more than once on his previous visit,
and he had surmised that its most inapt name might be connectable with
the now common word _toff_, meaning a person of birth and position--a
descendant of ancestors. Judith had asked why, and he had told her she
would never be an etymologist at that rate. Bother _why_!
It was a very exclusive little garden certainly--if that would make a
reason--with four high stone walls and a very small door with a very
large key. Perhaps this was locked. It was sometimes. But no one had
ever confessed to having locked it. And the large key always hung on
a hook almost in the lock's pocket, so to speak. A very old gardener
had told Challis it was done on the understanding it might be used.
"I see," said Challis. "'Locke on the Understanding.'" And the old
gardener had said "Ah!" with perfect unsuspicion.
This night it seemed that someone had taken advantage of the
understanding, for the key was in the lock, and the door stood partly
open. Someone must be inside. There was an unaccountable little grating
in the door one could look through. Challis did so, and saw who it
was--the woman in the moonlight.
It was strange how his relations with this woman had changed since
their walk by the river two days since; when, mind you!--not a word had
been spoken to which either ascribed a meaning that could have changed
them. A few days ago theirs was a normal friendship enough, bearing in
mind difference of age and social standards; always factors in human
problems all the world over, shut our eyes to them as we may! Now, the
weft of _his_ consciousness at least was hot with a new disturbing
tint. Why, in Heaven's name, else, need his first instinct be to turn
and run? And all because, forsooth, he had come on Judith Arkroyd
walking in a garden! Surely all the circumstances were vociferous
enough of detachment and independence, for both, to make a start and
a quickened pulse enormously illogical. Why will emotions never be
logical?
One thing is certain, that he did all but turn and slip quietly
away. He accounted to the upper stratum of his consciousness for
this by referring it to a strong desire to be alone and "think over
things." But he had to ignore a mind-flash that had crossed its lower
stratum--one the story should almost apologize for recording, as too
improbable--a sudden image of his odious neighbour, John Eldridge;
which he knew, without hearing anything, had said: "You can't stand
that, Master Titus--never do!--never do at all!" Again, this story is
compelled to disclaim all responsibility for Challis's mental oddities.
But they have to be recorded, for all that.
Perhaps that speech of Sibyl's, in the garden just now, had something
to answer for. What had she been protesting against? Not the stage;
that was all over and done with. Challis never detected his own
absurdity in jumping to the conclusion that the protest must have
related to himself! What right had he to infer, from a tone of Judith's
voice, that she spoke about him?
He did not run, though he went near it. Self-contempt stepped in.
What imbecile cowardice! What a miserable fear that he would lose
the whip-hand of a fool's passion he was not even prepared to admit
the existence of! He--Alfred Challis--who but half-an-hour ago had
been moved to a puny heartache over that memory of the pearl and its
wanderings and recovery! And then, to stagger in a fraction of time all
sane contemplation of past and present, came the clash between that
memory and his moment of shame, a short while since, that "poor Kate's"
place in his heart had so soon been filled by poor slow Marianne. His
wife now!--how his brain reeled to think of it all! There was that home
of his, and the children, and Bob; the thought of the boy as good as
stung him. What should he--what could he--say to Bob hereafter, if...?
CHAPTER XXXI
CONCERNING A ROSEBUD, AND MARIANNE'S TORTOISESHELL KNIFE. CHALLIS'S
PRESENCE OF MIND. THE FOOL ON FIRE. DEFINITION WANTED OF DEFINITION.
CHALLIS'S SUDDEN CALL BACK TO TOWN. HOW SIBYL HAD SEEN IT ALL
There was a little fountain in the middle of the little garden, with a
little _amorino_ from the court of the Signoria at Florence to attend
to the squirting. The moon was comparing the light she could make on
its shower of drops with sparkles from the lady's dress who stood
beside it. It was in no hurry to decide--might perhaps ask a tiny
cloud, that was coming, to help. Once inside the garden Challis was
committed to approaching its centre. There was--remember!--no official
recognition of any change in the position of the two since Trout Bend.
"I came here to be alone, but you may come." Judith's words might well
have made matters worse. But her tranquil, unconcerned, almost insolent
beauty in the moonlight was fraught with a sense of self-command that
more than counterbalanced them. It gave her hearer a sort of _rangé_
feeling--determined his position--put him on his good behaviour. He
could trust to her control of their interview, but all the same a
little resented feeling so much like a child in her hands.
"I came here to be alone, too," said he.
"Perhaps I ought to go?" Manifestly not spoken seriously, but not
jestingly enough to set _badinage_ afoot. She did not wait for his
answer, but went on, "Perhaps we both ought, for that matter. Did you
find the politics bored you?... oh!--metaphysics, was it? _I_ came here
because I found my little sister unendurable."
Challis thrust what he had overheard, when eavesdropping, into the
background of his mind: "About the stage, I suppose? Why do you not
tell her--set her mind at ease?" But he knew Sibyl knew already, and
this was only to help him to keep his foreground clear.
Judith appeared to select her answer at leisure, from among reserves.
"Sibyl knows," she said. "The indictment related to something else this
time." Then, as though she were weighing a possibility: "No--I suppose
I could hardly tell you about that. One is too artificial. We should be
much nicer if we were small children. Never mind! Some day, perhaps!"
Challis decided on saying, with a laugh, "I suppose I mustn't be
inquisitive and ask questions," as the best way of suggesting that his
own guesses, if any, were trivial and impersonal. She ended a silence
in which he fancied the subject was to be forgotten by saying: "I
should tell you nothing, whatever you asked. Besides, you have never
had a little sister, and would not understand. Family relations are
mysteries."
"No, I have never had a little sister." And then Challis felt like a
liar, and heart-sick as he thought of the thoroughness with which he
had accepted Kate's "little sister" as his own. What a compensation he
had thought her for a mother-in-law his most gruesome anticipations had
not bargained for! When did the change come about?--when?--when? Why
need the memory of it all come on him now, of all times? But Judith
stopped his retrospect short with: "Get me that rose-bud, if you have
a knife. Don't scratch yourself on my account." For Challis to reply:
"What care I how much I scratch myself, if it is on your account?"
would have savoured of Chitland, musically audible afar. Challis left
it unsaid.
The rose-bud was soon got with the aid of a little tortoiseshell
knife that was really Marianne's. There was another twinge in ambush
for her husband over that, and a sharp cross-fire between it and the
soul-brush, that was being kept at work all this while--unconsciously,
one hopes; but this story knows exactly what Charlotte Eldridge would
have thought and said. And she might have been right, for it makes
little pretence of being able to see behind the veil this Judith's
beauty hides her inner soul with, nor to read her heart. All it, the
story, has known of her so far has been that beauty and her love of
power. A perilous quality, that!
All it can say now is that if this woman knows, as she bends, careless
how close, to take the flower from the hand that gathered it; as she
flashes the diamonds on her white fingers quite needlessly near his
lips--if she has any insight, as she does this, into the way she is
playing with a human soul, then is she a thoroughly bad woman. And to
our thinking all the worse if she knows, or believes, her reputation
is safe in her own keeping. For then what is she, at best, but a keen
sportswoman wicked enough to poach on her fellow-woman's preserves,
destroying the peace of a home merely to show what a crack shot she is.
We must confess to a preference for the standard forms of honourable,
straightforward lawlessness. But perhaps these reflections are doing
injustice to Judith. She may be capable of good, honest, downright
wickedness. Remember that she is comparatively young and inexperienced.
One should surely beware, too, of doing injustice to beautiful
women--ascribing to them motives of overt fascination, to entangle
man, in every simple action a discreet dowdy might practise unnoticed
and unblamed. Make an image of such a one in your mind--make it ropy,
bony, obliging, with unwarrantable knuckles--let it place a flower in
its bosom, if any; and then say whether Charlotte Eldridge's keenest
analysis could detect in its action the smallest element she could
pounce on as seductive; the slightest appearance of a hook baited to
captivate her John, or anybody else's? No, no!--let us be charitable,
and suppose, for the present, at any rate, that Judith was unconscious
in this flower incident of every trace of guile--merely _wanted_ the
flower, in fact, and asked Challis to get it, rather than risk her
"Princess" skirts in the thorns which would have made shoddy of them in
no time.
There are those, we believe, who hold that all the fascination of woman
is due to adjuncts; that the thrill of enchantment that "goes with"
adroit coiffures and well-cut skirts--especially the latter--would not
survive seeing their owner, or kernel, run across a ploughed field in
skin-tights--for we assume that the Lord Chamberlain would allow no
more crucial experiment. It may be they are right. High Art teaches
us the truth of the converse proposition. For that draggled-tailed,
ill-hooked, ill-eyed, ill-buttoned thing with a bad cold and a shock of
tow on its head, that is emerging from a damp omnibus to the relief of
its next-door neighbour, is going, please--when it has got rid of some
raiment which would certainly go to the wash with advantage--is going
to sit for _Aphrodite_, of all persons in the world; for that very
goddess and no other!--for her the light of whose eyelids and hair in
the uttermost ends of the sea none shall declare or discern....
There!--it's no use talking about it, and stopping the story. Besides,
Miss Arkroyd "had on" her "Princess" dress aforesaid, a strange
witchery of infinitely flexible woven texture, snake-scaled and
gem-fraught without loss of a fold, rustling and glittering till none
could say which was rustle and which was glitter. And it all seemed
a running comment on its owner--its pith and marrow, as it were!--a
mysterious outward record of her inner self. Where is the gain of
trying to guess how much was shell and how much was self? Enough that
few women would have looked as lovely as she did, then and there.
For all this speculation--let the story confess it--is due simply to
the excessive beauty the moonbeams made the most of, as its owner's eye
dropped on the flower her fingers were adjusting, to make sure it was
exactly in the right place, and to engineer stray thorn-points that
else might scratch. As for what is really passing in her heart, the
story washes its hands of it.
"Marianne refuses again, of course," said she, when the rose was
happily settled--or sadly, as it must have felt the parting from its
stem.
"Again, of course!" said he. "But...!"
"But how did I know, you mean? Why, you would have told me at once if
she had been coming."
"Not necessarily. I might have hoped for a second letter, to say she
had changed her mind. It is no pleasure to me that she refuses."
"It might be to some husbands. But you are an affectionate husband. Do
tell me something."
"Anything!" His emphasis on this was a satisfaction to him. It was like
a very small instalment of what he had no right to say, or even to
think; but, uttered in an ambush of possible other meanings, it franked
the speaker of any particular one among them.
"If I were to ask to see her letter, should you be offended?"
He knew he could not answer, "Nothing you do can possibly give me
offence," in the tone of empty compliment that would have made it safe.
He gave up the idea, and said, with reality in his voice: "I should not
show it to you."
"I like you when you speak like that," said Judith.
He felt a little apologetic. "After all," he said, "it's only
tit-for-tat. _You_ wouldn't tell me what Sibyl said."
"_I_ am not offended," said Judith. A certain sense of rich amusement
in her voice made these words read: "I take no offence at your male
caprices. I know your ways. You are forgiven." But aloud her speech
was, with a concession to seriousness: "I cannot well repeat what Sibyl
said. But do not think of showing me Marianne's letter if you wish not
to do so. It is not idle curiosity that made me ask to see it. I had a
motive--perhaps not a wise one--but I think...."
"What?"
"I think you would forgive it." The suggestion certainly was that the
speaker would see some way of influencing Marianne--making her drop her
absurd obstinacy. No other motive was possible, thought Challis.
After all, what was there in the text of the letter that it would be a
hanging matter for Judith to read? She, from her higher standpoint--for
Challis believed in her, you see?--could forgive, overlook, understand
a scrap or two of rudeness, a misspelt word or so. Why should he not
show the letter, and have done with it?
"It is in your pocket, you know!" Judith was certainly _clairvoyante_,
and Challis said so. "_Clairvoyante_ enough to see you put it in your
pocket as you came into the drawing-room!" said she, laughing.
Why this context of circumstances should make Challis plead
illegibility by moonlight as a reason for not producing the letter he
could not have said for the life of him. It was a weak plea; because,
when Judith "pointed out" that so inveterate a smoker probably had wax
vestas in his pocket, it seemed to leave him no line of defence to fall
back upon. He produced the letter, and to our thinking was guilty of a
breach of faith to Marianne in allowing Judith to take it from him. At
least, he should only have read to her what related to the invitation.
The first wax vesta blew out, and the second. "Hold it inside this,"
said Judith, making a shelter for the third with a gauzy thing of
Japanese origin she really had no need for, the night was so warm.
"You must hold it steadier than that," she added. "If this caught, it
would blaze up." She was holding the open letter herself, with perfect
steadiness.
"This is the last vesta," said Challis. "So you must read quick. Look
sharp!" It was the fifth match, and the flame was nearing his fingers.
"Half-a-second more!" said Judith. She had turned the letter over.
There was writing on the back that Challis had missed. He tried to
read it now, over the shoulder that was so white in the moonlight, and
failed. For the flame touched his fingers, and burned him.
Man is absolutely powerless against the sudden touch of fire. Remember
Uncle Bob and the knife! Challis _had_ to leave go, _nolens volens_.
The burning remnant of the wax fell on the gauzy scarf, which caught
instantly. The moment was critical. But Challis showed a presence
of mind beyond what one is apt to credit neurotic literary men
with--mere mattoids, after all! Instead of trying to beat the flame
out, or waiting to get his coat off to smother it, he tore the scarf
sharply away from its wearer, who, happily, had the nerve to release a
safety-pin in time to get it clear.
"Are you burned?" His voice seemed out of keeping with the resolution
of his action.
"Very little, if at all. Just a touch, on this shoulder. Nothing
really--but I am afraid your hands...."
"Oh no!--they're all right. Stop a bit!--what's that?" It was
Marianne's letter, half-burned, and still burning. The unextinguished
scarf it had fallen to the ground with had got through its combustion
briskly. Challis was only just in time to save half the letter; and it
was not the half he wanted.
"I dare say it doesn't matter," said he to Judith; "but there was
something I hadn't read on the back. What you were reading when the
match gave out."
"Yes--I think there was. A postscript. I didn't make it out. Shall we
go in, or over on the lawn, where they are dancing?" She added a moment
later: "I don't know why I am taking it for granted that you don't
dance."
"I certainly don't; nowadays, at least. But you do, of course. The lawn
by all means!" They passed through the little _porticino_, and complied
with the understanding it had entered into. As Challis was turning the
key, he paused an instant to look round at Judith and say: "Are you
sure you can't remember anything of what was written on the back of
the letter?" And she replied without hesitation: "Not a word. I had
no time." Then he said: "I wish you could remember only just one word
or two, to show what it was about." She answered: "But I can't. I am
sorry. We must hope it was of no importance."
They walked side by side, without speaking, to the end of the last
yew-hedged terrace, just on the open garden. Then, inexplicably, they
turned and went back along the path. When they arrived again at the
little gate in the wall, Challis suddenly faced his companion. He
looked white and almost handsome in the moonlight--or so she may have
thought, easily enough--for his eyes had a large, frightened look, that
became them and the thoughtful thinness of their bone-marked setting.
He spoke quite suddenly, keeping his voice under, with quick speech
that showed its tension.
"Judith--Judith Arkroyd! It is no use. I can bear it no longer. I must
leave you. It would have been well for me if I had done so earlier.
It would have been best for me if I had never seen you." He turned
from her, almost as though he shrank from the sight of her, and leaned
against the grey stone angle of the little doorway, his face hidden
in his arms. Had the woman who watched him--shame if it were so!--a
feeling akin to triumph, as she saw how his visible hand caught and
clenched and trembled in the moonlight? It may have been so. The story
has no plummet to take soundings of her heart.
Her mere words may have meant fear lest she had overplayed her part--no
more! "Oh, Scroop, you cannot blame me." But the way she too leaned, as
for support in dizziness, on the edge of a great Italian garden-pot,
raised on a pedestal at the path-corner, and pressed her hand to her
side as though her breath might catch the less for it--these things
seemed to belong to more than the alarm of a sudden start.
He turned, with some recovery of self-possession, as one who shakes
free of any unmanliness. "Blame _you_, Judith!" he cried, calling her
freely by her name--a thing he had never yet done. "Not I, God knows!
I am all self-indictment, if ever man was. And this, look you, is my
offence: that I, knowing myself as I am, knowing what I owe to my wife,
to my children--they are dear to me still, I tell you, believe it who
may!--that _I_ have allowed the image and presence of _you_, Judith
Arkroyd, to take such possession of me, my mind, my whole soul, that
you are never absent from me. And the bondage that is on me is one I
cannot see the end of. All I know is that I am powerless against it.
It may be--it _may_ be--that the memory of you will die out and leave
me--that when I see you no longer, your voice and your beauty will
become things of the past, and be forgotten. When we have parted, as we
must, Heaven grant me this oblivion! But I cannot conceive it now."
He paused, and as he wiped the drops from his brow, seemed to hark back
a little to his daily self, saying in a quick undertone: "It is a good
world to forget in. Precedents are in favour of it. There is that to be
said."
The little change in his manner made her find her voice. "Yes!" she
said. "I see how it is. You must go. I shall always grieve that I could
not keep your friendship ... yes--you see my meaning? I _have_ valued
it. But this kind of thing is the misfortune of some women. It is a
bitter thing--we must part in a few hours, so I may speak plainly--a
bitter thing to be forced to lose a friend one loves as a friend,
merely because one chances to be a woman."
If only this interview might have ended here! If only Mr. Ramsey Tomes
and Mr. Brownrigg could have come on the scene now, instead of five
minutes later! But there never was good came of last words, from the
world's beginning.
The unhappy, storm-tossed man and his tormentor--for that was what
Judith was, meaningly or without intent--turned to go back towards the
noisy world. Half-way, as though she would use the silence and darkness
of the alley they were passing through for the freedom of speech such
surroundings give, Judith spoke again. If Charlotte Eldridge had been
there, her interpretation of Judith certainly would have been: "_She_
doesn't mean to let him go--not she!" Would it have been a fair one?
Possibly. But all Judith said was: "I am afraid I am a woman without a
heart."
Challis said interrogatively: "Because...?" and waited.
"Because I find myself only thinking of what _I_ shall lose when you
go. If I were _good_, Scroop"--a slight sneer here--"I should have a
little thought for you. I suppose I'm bad. Very well!"
"I am taking no credit to myself for any sort of altruism in my--my
feelings towards yourself." Challis shied off from the use of the word
"love"; but whether because it would have rung presumptuously without
the sanction of its object, or because of the bald rapidity of its use
on the stage, where Time is of the essence of the contract, he might
have found it hard to say.
"I should not thank you for it. Nor any woman. But many a woman who
injures a friend unawares--being unselfish and pious and so on--would
gladly...." She hesitated.
"Put a salve to the wound?"
"Well--yes--that sort of thing! But I am afraid I am rather brutal
about it. Can you not, after all, forget this foolish infatuation for
my sake? Consider the wild words you spoke just now unsaid, and give me
back my friend. Come, Scroop!" Her beautiful eyes were surely full of
honest appeal--no _arrière pensée_ Mrs. Eldridge would have damned her
for--as she went frankly close to him and laid her hand on his.
He shrank from her--absolutely shrank!--and gasped as though her touch
took his breath away. He found no words, and she had not finished.
"Think--oh, think!--what rights could I ever have in you? Think of your
wife...."
"I do think of her--oh, I do think! But it makes me mad."
"Go back to her and forget me then, if it must be so. Remember this,
Scroop--that the bond that holds you to her is thrice as strong as it
would be if...."
"If what?"
"Well!--I must say it. If it were a legal one...."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean you are not married to her--there!"
"Oh, the Deceased Wife's Sister rubbish?"
"Yes." And then Challis thought to himself, through the fog of all his
soul-torture and perplexity, "How comes she to be so ready to go home
to the mark? _We_ have never talked beyond the bare fact that Marianne
and Kate were sisters." But he let the thought go by, to make way for
another of greater weight with him.
"You never can mean," he cried--"you--you--you never can mean that
_I_----" She interrupted him with the self-command that seemed to
belong to her--to grow upon her, if anything--and completed his speech
for him: "That you would take advantage of a legal shuffle to evade a
promise given in honour? Of course, I mean the exact reverse. I mean
that you, of all men, would hold yourself three times bound to an
illegal contract."
"All men would, worth the name of men. Debts Law disallows are debts
of honour. But all that is nothing. I love my wife. I tell you I
love my wife; I will not have it otherwise." His voice was almost
angry, as against some counter-speech. But he dropped it in a kind
of exhaustion, with a subdued half-moan. "What have I to do," said
he wearily, "with all these wretched nostrums of legislation and
religion, that would dictate the terms of Love? Mine have come to me,
and my soul is wrenched asunder. Surely the penalty is enough to make
beadledom superfluous. No man who knows what Love means will ever love
two women.... There--that's enough!" He stopped abruptly, as cutting
something needless short. She spoke:
"It comes to good-bye, then?"
"Yes--unless...."
"Unless what?"
"You will say I am strange."
"You are. But you cannot change yourself. Speak plainly!"
"Listen, Judith! If you can look me in the face and say you have no
love for me--you know the sense I use the word in as well as I--then
I will pack away a sorrow in my heart till it dies; and the time will
come when you shall say: 'That man is my good friend, but he declared
a fool's passion to me once, for all that, and now he seems to have
forgotten it.' It shall be so. But, better still, and easier for me, if
you could say with truth that there was some other man elsewhere whose
hand in yours would be more welcome than mine; whose voice, whose look,
whose lips would be a dearer memory. If you could tell me this, the
fool's passion would at least be all the shorter lived." He stopped as
they reached the end of the sheltered path, and looked her full in the
face. He had stopped, as it were, on a keynote of self-ridicule--the
habit was inveterate--and he was one of those men who are at their best
when individuality comes out strongest.
She had never looked so beautiful in his eyes as when she stood there,
silent in the moonlight, weighing to all appearance the answer she
should make. Perhaps she knew how beautiful--who can say? She remained
motionless through a long pause--through the whole of a nightingale's
song in the thicket hard by. Then her bosom heaved--a long breath--and
then, with a sort of movement of surrender of her hands--how the
diamonds flashed!--she said, "I cannot," and then again, "No--I
cannot." Then, in a more measured and controlled voice: "This means
that we must part--now! I shall not see you to-morrow."
"Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss," said Helena to Bertram.
But how about those who are neither foes nor strangers, yet must be
more than friends, and dare not be lovers? An interview of this sort
had best not end in an embrace, if two victims of infatuation are to be
saved from themselves. Let the description remain for Judith as well as
Challis. But she had the self-command to check his impulse, throwing
out her jewelled hands against it, and crying--not loudly, but beneath
her breath: "No--no--no! Remember what we are--what we must be. For
Heaven's sake, no madness!" And then, as he let fall his hands and
their intention, but with all his hunger on him, and the foreknowledge
of sleepless hours to come, she turned towards the voices that were
approaching them from the house.
"I cannot recall"--it was Mr. Tomes who couldn't--"any occasion on
which a discussion of so abstruse, and I may say elusive, a topic
has been conducted with more philosophical insight, and a stronger
sense of what I need not scruple to term the argumentative _meum_ and
_tuum_. Neither am I prepared to admit what possibly inexperience in
debate may be eager to affirm, that the ratiocinative perspicuity
of a post-prandial collective intelligence has been fruitless in
result. I may point with satisfaction to at least two conclusions--the
impossibility of drawing safe inferences in discussions where the same
word is used in several different senses, and the uselessness of the
attempt to define the meaning of words until we are agreed upon the
nature, and, I may add, the legitimate limits, of Definition." Mr.
Tomes paused. He was a little disconcerted at the discovery that he was
being intelligible by accident, and also he had caught sight of Challis
and Miss Arkroyd. His abrupt full-stop as he met them was unwelcome to
this former, who would have had the orator continue, to hide his own
perturbation. But it did not matter, for Judith was more than equal to
the occasion.
"I have narrowly escaped being burned alive, Mr. Tomes. Mr. Challis set
fire to me lighting his cigar. However, he put me out." Nothing could
exceed her easy grace and perfect self-possession.
Very fortunately Mr. Wraxall, the Universal Insurer, was one of Mr.
Tomes's companions. The opportunity was a splendid one, and he seized
upon it. Challis got away in a most dastardly manner, leaving Judith
exposed to risks and averages and premiums beyond the wildest dreams of
Negotiation run mad. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wraxall must have been
welcome enough. When life jars, let others do the volubility, and spare
us!
* * * * *
The dispersal of guests and the family at the foot of the great
staircase was to-night more tumultuous than usual. Not only was the
house-party at its maximum--its noisy maximum!--but many outsiders
from the neighbourhood were among the dancers. Challis noticed, though
whether as cause or consequence he never inquired, four more young
soldiers, who, he understood, had come from as far off as it would take
a blood mare in a dog-cart, that just held them and no room to spare,
an hour and fifty minutes to trot back to, over a good road. These
youths were in such tremendous spirits that when the last farewells of
the dog-cart died away on the offing, a sort of holy hush seemed to
ensue, and people drew long breaths, and smiled excusefully--for young
folk are young folk, you know--and said now we could hear ourselves
speak. Why was it that Challis, not unobservant, for all his own hidden
fever, pictured the occupants of the dog-cart, beyond the offing, as
speaking little now, each dwelling on his own private affairs? Was it
because four corresponding chits, at least, had hushed down and become
self-absorbed and absent? And where was the relevance of measles, and
Challis's thought to himself that it was best to have them young?
The Rector was there, too. He had not been a dancer, but had refrained
merely because, in view of this great accession of force from Jack's
and Arthur's friends from the garrison, no further male dancers were
wanted. When Challis reached the house, after prolonging a voluntary
ostracism in the garden-silences until he heard the guests dispersing,
and saw Chinese lanterns being suppressed, he found Athelstan Taylor
just on the point of taking leave. He was explaining to her ladyship
why he had not come to dinner--for it seemed he had been invited--when
she stopped him with a question about one of the children who came into
his explanation. His reply was: "Oh yes!--just a bad inflammatory
cold. But she'll be all right in a day or two. Only we shall have to be
careful. Good-night, Lady Arkroyd!"
"'I think it is good-morrow, is it not?'" said Challis, quoting. "Is
Charles's Wain over the new chimney, I wonder. Perhaps, Rector, you
know which Charles's Wain is. I don't. I always confuse between him and
Orion."
"You'll have a hard job to do so now. Why, my dear fellow, can't you
remember how we talked of Orion last Autumn, and he was hardly visible
even then?"
"I remember--in your garden. You must show him to me again some day!"
The Rector looked attentively at the speaker. He had caught the minor
key in his voice; it had crept in alongside of a misgiving. "I shall
lose this friend I would so gladly keep, cloth or no!"
"All right! But you mustn't stop away till Orion comes. When shall I
tell my sister to lay a place for you? I believe we are clear next
Thursday--will that do?" He took out a notebook for an entry.
"I'm sorry," said Challis. "But I'm obliged--I was just going to tell
Lady Arkroyd--I am obliged to return to town to-morrow. I had a letter
to-day, calling me back on business. It's a case of compulsion--oh
no!--nothing wrong. A mere matter of business relating to publication!"
Her ladyship's sorrow at losing her distinguished guest knew no bounds.
She must look forward to seeing him in town, where the family would
return in a fortnight. But Mr. Challis would stay over to-morrow.
No!--Mr. Challis couldn't do any such thing, thank you! He ought to
go by the early train--was sorry to give trouble--but if he and his
box could be taken to the railway early enough.... Oh no!--_he_ didn't
mind breakfast at 6:30, only it was the trouble! But as Lady Arkroyd's
heart was rejoicing--hostesses' hearts do--at her guest getting clear
of the mansion before she was out of bed, she was able, from gratitude,
to make her grief at his departing at all almost a reality. Otherwise
she was consciously relieved that he should go; but as for any mental
discomfort on the score of her daughter's relations with him--the
idea!--a middle-aged, married, professional man! The eleventh century
to the rescue!
Athelstan Taylor said "Good-bye, then!" with real regret, especially
as there was something wrong, manifestly. His first instinct was to
forswear driving back with Miss Caldecott to the Rectory, and to
persuade Challis to walk "part of the way" with him. But--breakfast
at 6:30, and Charles's Wain over the new chimney, or its equivalent!
After all, he was human. Only, what a pity! A talk with him might have
meant so much to Challis.
Sibyl's regrets merely meant, "See how well-bred I am, to be able to
conceal my rejoicing! Go away, and don't call in Grosvenor Square when
I'm there! Do not give my kind regards to your wife, though a worthy
woman, no doubt!" That is, if Challis translated an overflow of suave
speech rightly.
Other _adieux_ followed, genuine enough. Mr. Brownrigg was honestly
sorry to lose the opportunity of showing Mr. Challis those extracts
from Graubosch. Mr. Wraxall was seriously concerned at not being
able to supply the figures necessary to a complete understanding of
Differential Equivalents, a system by which all deficits would be
counteracted. Mr. Ramsey Tomes said he should always regard with
peculiar satisfaction the opportunities for which he was indebted to
his friend Sir Murgatroyd, of shaking the hand of an author of whom
he had always predicted a very large number of remarkable things,
"considering"--thought his author--"that he does not appear to have
read any of my immortal works." The Baronet himself seemed to be
developing a scheme for correlating Feudalism with everything else,
in connection with his regret that Mr. Challis had to go away next
morning, until her ladyship reminded him that Mr. Challis had to go to
bed. So at last Mr. Challis went.
* * * * *
Sibyl hung back. Judith had not gone up yet, she said, in answer to
her mother's "I suppose you do mean to go to bed, child, some time!"
Why, then, couldn't she leave Judith till breakfast to-morrow? But
her ladyship stopped short of pushing for an answer, for she mixed
"Good-night" with a yawn, and got away upstairs.
Mr. Elphinstone testified discreetly that he could hear Miss Arkroyd
coming. Yes--there she was! Who was that with her? Only the young girl,
Tilley, miss! This was what the name Cintilla had become, naturally, in
the mouths of the household.
"Go up, child, and see that my hot water isn't cold. Cold hot water
is detestable.... _Yes_, Sibyl?" This was in answer to a particular
method of saying nothing, containing an intention to say something
disagreeable presently.
"I didn't say anything."
"Please don't be tiresome. You know what I mean, quite well. What was
it you didn't say?"
"I suppose you know Mr. Challis is going away to-morrow?"
Judith's demeanour is exemplary. Something pre-engages her. Mr.
Challis must come after. She calls the little ex-dairymaiden back; and
then, turning to Mr. Elphinstone, waiting patiently to be the last to
retire, says to him, "What is good for a burn, Elphinstone?"--as to a
universal referee. He replies, "I always use olive-oil, miss," as if he
belonged to a particular school of singed butlers. "Give the child some
for me," says Judith; and then, being free to give attention to her
sister, goes on with, "Yes, what is it? Oh yes! Do I know Mr. Challis
is going away to-morrow? Of course I know Mr. Challis is going away
to-morrow."
"I thought you did," says Sibyl. This is hardly consecutive, but
Judith's equanimity is impregnable. No impertinences or aggressions are
to affect it, that's clear! She is easily able to compare the watch on
her wrist with the hall-clock, and to find their testimony is the same,
for all their difference of size, before she makes further answer.
"Mr. Challis is called away by business. So he says.... Good-night!"
Cintilla, or Tilley, will bring the magic oil; so Judith goes upstairs
leisurely. Her sister follows. But she has not said good-night yet.
Telepathy makes very funny terms, sometimes, between sisters. And a
fact ignored, that has called for comment, may broach a reciprocal
consciousness that will never be at rest without speech in the end.
This time it is that burn, which Sibyl has said nothing about--has
asked no explanation of. And both know it.
At the stair-top both sisters say good-night, with a sort of decision
that seems overloaded for the occasion. But the valediction seems
inoperative; as both wait, for no apparent reason. Then Sibyl speaks in
a quick undertone:
"You wouldn't listen to me, Ju.... No, you needn't be
frightened--they're not coming yet...." For Judith had glanced back
down the staircase. "You wouldn't listen, and now you see what has come
of it."
"What _has_ come of it?"
"Judith!--do you think I am blind, or do you take me for a fool?"
"Yes, dear--the last! But go on. I can wait any time, in reason, for
an explanation." She embarked on a period of waiting, gracefully
indulgent, a tranquil listener.
"Do you suppose I am taken in by this story?"
"What story?"
"This story of Mr. Challis's going home on business."
"It's a very simple story."
"Very simple ... oh dear!--there's the girl. I'll tell you in the
morning...."
"I want to hear now.... Put it in my room, child, and go to bed." And
Cintilla says, "Yes, miss!" and vanishes to an innocent pillow. "I want
to hear now, and perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me."
"Come into my room!"
"Certainly!" Judith complies without reserves, dropping gracefully into
an armchair, after placing her candle in safety. She makes a parade of
her waiting patience. Sibyl, all aflame with flashing eyes, turns on
her after closing the door carefully.
"After what I have seen this evening, Judith, I know what to think....
No!--it's no use your denying it." Then in a lower voice, with the
flush on her cheeks spreading to her temples, she adds: "Not an
hour ago I saw that man Challis...." She pauses on the edge of her
indictment.
"You saw that man Challis...?"
"I saw that man Challis ... yes!--I don't care, Judith ... making love
to you in Tophet, with his arm round your waist."
"And where were you?"
"Up here in this room. My hair came down, dancing. And I looked out of
that window and _saw_ you. Oh, Judith!"
"Oh, Sibyl!" Judith repeats mockingly. She goes to the window with easy
deliberation. It is wide open on the summer night, for heat. "Of course
one sees Tophet from here," she says. "But how you could distinguish
Mr. Challis's arm, or my waist, is a mystery to me, at this distance."
"Have I no eyesight, Judith? I tell you I saw it all, as I stood
there where you are now. I saw him set fire to your scarf thing with
his cigar. And his arm was round you, and he was looking over your
shoulder. I saw it by the blaze-up, as plain as I see you now!"
Judith is undisturbed. "I see you have withdrawn my waist," she says.
She circles her diamonded fingers round its girth, and seems not
dissatisfied with the span they cannot cover. "But you've got the story
wrong, little sister."
"Being offensive won't do you any good."
"You _are_ my little sister, Sib dear! And you're a goose. Mr. Challis
showed me a letter, and was kind enough to hold a lighted match for me
to read it by."
Sibyl makes no reply. Her eyes remain fixed on her sister as she turns
a bracelet on her arm uneasily. Evidently she only half believes her.
Can she be lying? It is a matter on which a woman who has never lied
before will lie freely. One who has flirted, at such close quarters,
with another woman's husband, will tell her sister lies rather than
admit it. Sibyl wishes, on the whole, that Judith would look her in the
face as she speaks, instead of being so wrapped up in a landscape she
knows by heart.
Judith seems inclined to get out of hearing of that subject--has had
enough of it. "It seems a shame," she says, "to go to bed on such a
heavenly night. But I suppose one must!"
Sibyl is not going to be fubbed off with any such evasions. She has
made up her mind, this evening--this is in strict confidence--to accept
a peer's son who will be a peer himself when his father ceases to be
one, and she is keenly alive to the desirability of avoiding family
scandals just at this crisis. If Judith is going to bring a slur on
an honourable name, thinks Sibyl, let her do it after my coronet is
landed. Her blood is up.
"What was there in the letter?" she says bluntly.
"Sibyl dear, really!" There is amusement in Judith's tone, as of
forbearance towards juvenility.
Her sister mocks her. "Yes--_me_ dear, really!" she says. "What was
there in the letter?"
"May the catechism stop, if I tell you?" The yawn that begins in
these words lasts into what follows: "Oh, no, I don't mind telling
you, child! There was nothing to make a secret of. It was from his
affectionate wife--poor fellow! He really deserves something less
dowdy. Let me see, now, how did it run? Her dear Titus--that was
it!--she had had another letter from me, pressing her to come. Hadn't
written back. Would her dear Titus make me understand that she was too
much wanted at home to come away just now? Besides, she did not care
for society, as her dear Titus perfectly well knew. She would only be
in the way if she did come. It was much better she should have her
friends, and he his--spelt wrong: _ei_ instead of _ie_. Do you want to
know all the rest of the important letter? Very well! She had spent
yesterday evening with grandmamma at Pulse Hill, and dear Charlotte was
just gone. He was not to hurry back on her account, as it was easier
for--some name of a cook--when he was away. He had better stay as long
as he could, where he was being amused and flattered. And she was his
affectionate wife Marianne.... Have _you_ been flattering Mr. Titus
Scroop, Sibyl dear?"
Sibyl ignored the question. "Tulse Hill, I suppose," said she
thoughtfully. "Who's dear Charlotte, I wonder?"
"A Mrs. Eldridge. Nobody you know!"
"I wonder if she's good for dear Marianne." Simple truth must now
and then tax credulity, or be excluded from fiction. The whole of
the conversation is given above, and where or when on earth Sibyl
found in it anything to warrant this wonderment of hers Heaven only
knows! However, one can wonder at nothing, oneself, in these days of
Marconigraphs. Sibyl ended her speech with, "The woman's as jealous as
she can be--one can see that!"
"Can one?... oh, I dare say one can, dear! Only she's no concern of
mine. Suppose we go to bed."
"If you were Mr. Challis's wife, you might feel just as she does. And
if you were not really his wife, it would be all the worse."
"Of course, when one's neither, one doesn't care." This was faulty in
construction, yet neither sister felt that it could not be understood.
The hardships of a forgotten casual on the landing outside were
recognized with, "Oh dear! Why didn't you go to bed? It's nearly two
o'clock." And then sleep came in view, for those who were at home to
him.
If Judith said, "Not at home," was it any wonder? Think what an
amount of dissimulation she had gone through since that revelation
of Challis's in the garden--since what may have been a discovery
about herself of something she may have suspected before, but had
half-contemptuously dismissed! She may have more than once asked
herself the question, "Do I possibly love this man?" and laughed a
negative. But oh, the difference it makes when a man has said roundly,
"I carry your image in my heart, and cannot be quit of it." She had
played with edged tools, and had cut herself. The burn on her shoulder
was not the only result of tampering with fire that day, for her. Most
surely for her own sake, and his, concealment was the sacramental word,
for the moment. She had let him know she was unable to say she did not
love him; that was all! But an intent she had half formed in the very
core of her heart must be hidden from him. He must have no suspicion
that she would lend herself to a scheme that would take advantage of
a wretched legal shuffle--one of the most wretched that even Themis
has scheduled as a shift for the cancelling of a solemn contract.
Was she quite prepared to say she would not, for her own sake, jump
at an expedient granted by the solemnity of Law, to make Dishonour
seem honourable, and disallow the claims of this stupid, commonplace,
would-be wife, who was no wife at all? And who knew it, for that matter.
For this intention had sounded its first note in her heart as she read
that postscript, when the last match was all but burned out. She could
remember every word of it, as she paced to and fro in the silence of
her bedroom, fostering the idea it suggested. "I suppose you know"--so
poor fool Marianne had written, in her momentary fit of spleen and
obduracy--"what mamma always says about you and me--that we are not
really married at all. If so, I ought to go back and live with her,
and the sooner the better. Then you would be free, and I suppose it
would be Judith." For that was what the stupid, exasperated woman had
actually written, and next morning would have been so glad to plunder
the postman's bag of, when he disembowelled the vermilion pillar-box at
the corner.
But, as for Judith, her business was to bury the suggestion--which she
had read, and Challis had not--in her heart. Had she not a right to
hide her cloven foot, if it was one--to wear over it a pretext of her
reverence for the bond that linked this man to his dowdy wife, until
it broke asunder from its natural rottenness? What was that nauseous
saying male man was so fond of? "All's fair in Love!" and what the
foetid interpretations he felt no shame to put upon it? Why was all the
selfishness and meanness to belong to one sex alone?
And meanwhile Challis himself was tossing through the fever of a
sleepless night, until some wretched sleep was broken by Samuel calling
him at 6.30 in the morning, and the hoot of a motor outside. Samuel
explained that he had come later than the first time fixed, as his
lordship had placed the Panhard at Mr. Challis's disposal, and it would
more than make up the time. Challis was grateful.
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW LIZARANN AND JOAN PLAYED TRUANT. OF A RIDE IN A MOTOR, AND ITS
BAD EFFECTS. HOW LIZARANN CONVALESCED, AND JUDITH WALKED HOME FROM
CHURCH WITH THE RECTOR. HOW MARIANNE HAD BOLTED WITH THE TWO CHILDREN
Lizarann was, of course, the patient Mr. Taylor spoke of. But it
was all her own fault, said Public Opinion, that she had such a bad
inflammatory cold. If she and Joan had been good, obedient children,
and done as they were told when they came home from the tea-party at
Royd, instead of giving Aunt Bessy the slip and running away to Daddy
at Mrs. Forks's cottage, all would have been well. But be lenient to
Lizarann! It was all through her anxiety that old Christopher should
have his bicarbonate of soda. Her anxiety on his behalf was great,
although she did not know him personally.
"Maten't Phoebe and Jones go round to old Mrs. Forks, where Daddy is,
and bring it screwed up in piper like acrost the road to Mr. Curtis's?"
So Lizarann had said--for she really believed that Joan's name was
one and the same with that of the Wash, in Cazenove Street--and Aunt
Bessy's negative had been emphatic.
"Certainly _not_, my dear! At this time of the evening! Why, it's past
six o'clock.... Yes, you and Joan may run on in front, only don't get
over the gate till I come. The gate of the next field, you know." But
when Aunt Bessy and Phoebe reached that gate--where were Lizarann and
Joan? The wicked imps had gone to Mrs. Forks's.
The worst of it was that when the Rector had personally recaptured
the truants, and was taking them home, a motor-car, with a lady and
gentleman in it, passed them, going at speed. That, as they escaped
alive, was no harm. But, having passed, it stopped, and something
disagreed with it all through the colloquy that followed.
"Isn't that Mr. Taylor? Can't we give you a lift?"
"You're going the wrong way. And we're too numerous."
"Nonsense! Any amount of room! And it won't take us three minutes to
run you back to the Rectory. Jump in."
The Rector hesitated a moment. It was just on to dinner-time at the
Hall, and it seemed a shame to make this lady and gentleman late.
But Lizarann was coughing again. It may have been the petrol, but
still----! Then, too, Aunt Bessy's anxiety would be over all the
sooner. And there were those children almost frantic with delight at
the idea of a ride in a motor!
So he agreed. And it _was_ fun! Only there were two drawbacks--one,
that it was over so soon; the other, that no sooner were they deposited
at the Rectory gate, and the lady and gentleman in the motor off at
great speed to be in time for dinner, than Lizarann had such a terrible
attack of coughing that Miss Caldecott and her brother-in-law were
quite alarmed.
The report the Rector gave to Lady Arkroyd was too sanguine. Bad
inflammatory colds don't yield to treatment in a couple of hours, which
was about how long it had been at work by the time he and Aunt Bessy
drove away to the Hall, to come in after dinner, having been forced to
cry off, with apology and explanation, owing to the escapade of the
children.
Lizarann's didn't yield to treatment for many days, and during that
period was a serious source of alarm to all her circle of friends at
the Rectory, and a frequent subject of inquiry by interested outsiders.
For the little maid had a happy faculty of remaining in the memory
of chance acquaintances. Also, it was generally understood in the
neighbourhood that she was a delicate _protégée_ of the Rector's
friend's sister, Adeline Fossett, and had been sent away from town to
get the benefit of the air at Royd. So Lizarann got quite her fair
share of public interest.
But her attack must have been a sharp one, or we may rely upon it she
wouldn't have been kept in bed next day, and more days after next day.
And Dr. Sidrophel--it wasn't his real name, mind you!--wouldn't have
said, as he did till Lizarann really felt quite sick of hearing it,
that it would be as well to continue the poultices, for the present, as
a precaution. Her own view, to be sure, was that inflammation was the
result of mustard poultices and stethoscopes primarily, and that it was
bound to get worse if you had to put a glass tube in your mouth at the
bidding of well-meaning friends. But she concealed these convictions
in deference to public opinion, and did everything she was told to do,
however gross the infatuation might be that instituted the obnoxious
treatment. Her conviction that she had, intrinsically, nothing the
matter with her was, however, not one to be shaken lightly. She went so
far once as to say so to Dr. Pordage--that _was_ his real name!--who
replied, "Oh ah, that's it, is it? Nothing the matter! But you _will_
have, if you don't look alive, as safe as a button! So there we are,
little miss!"--but absently, as though she was a child and wouldn't
understand him--and blotted the prescription he had been writing. But
Lizarann heard every word, and resolved to look alive, so far as in her
lay, whenever an opportunity came. Meanwhile, none being manifest, she
reflected a good deal on buttons, wondering what was the nature of the
security they tendered, and why she had never heard it before.
When Mr. Yorick--the name she preferred for the Rector, because, you
see, Miss Fossett must know best--came to pay her a visit shortly
after, she inquired on this point, giving the whole of the doctor's
speech, and making herself cough. Now, Mr. Yorick always talked
to Lizarann as if she was a sensible person; and if there was one
attribute for which the child loved him more dearly than another, it
was that. But her devotion to him was so complete--second only to her
love for her Daddy--that analysis of it was absurd.
"Was he talking to you, or talking to himself, Lizarann?" said he,
sitting by the bed with the patient's hand in his. It was small and
feverish.
The reply called for reflection. Having thought well over it, Lizarann
said decisively: "Bofe!"
"Was he writing all the while?"
"Yass!" Nods helped the emphasis. "All the while! Scritch-scratch!"
"That was it, Lizarann! Dr. Sidrophel can't write and hear what he says
to himself at the same time. So nobody knows what he means." But the
little woman's great eyes were full of doubtful inquiry, and more must
be said. "I expect he only meant that if you went out in the air you
would get your cough back. So you must just look alive and lie in bed."
It was plausible, and would have to do for the present. The button
question might stand over.
"Mustn't I go and see Daddy where Mrs. Forks is?"
"Yes, in a little while. Daddy will come and see you every day."
"And bring his crutches to come upstairs with?"
"Daddy left his crutches here yesterday. To be ready for him whenever
he comes."
"And not tear a hole in the drugget?"
"Not if he goes gently and I put my hand on his back!"
"Which hand?"
"This one I've got hold of you with, Miss Coupland! Any more
questions?"
Lizarann pursed up her lips and shook her head. But she reconsidered
her decision. "Yass! About Dr. Side--Dr. Side...."
"Dr. Sidrophel? What about him?"
"Why's his real nime Pordage?" She had the name very pat, showing close
observation and reflection.
Mr. Yorick had to consider the point. "Well!" said he presently, "I
admit it's rather a bad job. But there's no way out of it now. It
_is_ his real name, and that's all about it!" But Lizarann looked
dissatisfied. "_We_ may call him Dr. Sidrophel behind his back,
Lizarann," added he.
"Supposing he was to hear us talking behind his back, and was to listen
behind his back...!" Hypothetical knavery being admitted between these
two, as a necessity in ingenious fictions, Mr. Yorick did not think a
homily on truth-telling necessary at this point. In fact, he counselled
bold duplicity, to Lizarann's great relief. "We should have to go far
enough off, Lizarann," said he. And the stage direction indicated was
so pleasant to her unfledged mind that she utilized it to develope the
subject further--kept the curtain up, as it were!
"Then if we wentited far enough off, you could tell me why his nime was
Dr. Spiderophel, too." She dashed intrepidly at the name, and nearly
captured it.
"Of course I could, and he wouldn't hear one word."
"And what should you sye?" Lizarann gave a slight leap in bed, from
pleasant anticipation. She was told to lie quiet, and she should hear.
And that is how it was that when Miss Caldecott came in, dressed
_cap-à-pie_ for public worship, a prayer-book in a gloved hand--for it
was Sunday morning--to remind her brother-in-law that the bells were
going to begin, and arouse him to his duties, she found him telling
how Sidrophel was an astronomer who took a fly in his telescope for
an elephant on the moon; and that this legend was only partly cleared
up by its narrator. Telescopes and stethoscopes remained imperfectly
differentiated in Lizarann's mind. And Mr. Yorick's temporary
acceptance of her pronunciation led to a misapprehension about spiders
and flies. Did this astronomer catch that fly, or did the fly get away?
Lizarann treasured hopes on its behalf, for the next chapter in the
story.
But she felt it her duty to look alive, and lie quite quiet in bed,
although--law bless you!--_she_ had nothing the matter with her. So
she lay and watched a greedy bee, who seemed bent on leaving no honey
in that jessamine, at any rate, that came across the open lattice,
and had its say in the mixed scents of hay and roses that came in out
of the sunshine for Lizarann to get her share of them. She lay and
listened to the bells, and wondered why the sound rose and fell, and
decided at first that it was done for the purpose, and was the right
way. But then, how did Nonconformity afar manage to do it so exactly
like? For the Chapel tinkle rose and fell, too. Then came the footsteps
on the garden-gravel; one big one, the Rector's, and many small ones.
And Lizarann was so sorry she wasn't to go to Church, where it was her
Sunday-wont, in these days, to drive a coach-and-six through the first
Commandment, and worship Athelstan Taylor on his pulpit-altar in a
heart-felt way, while admitting official obligations elsewhere.
But she couldn't go this time, and, what was more, she had to go on
looking alive and lying quiet while Phoebe and Joan shouted good-byes
up at the window, as though they were off to New Zealand; because, you
see, Lizarann had solemnly promised, if they did so, not to shout back
and make herself cough.
"She hardly coughed at all when I was with her," said the Rector, on
his way to his weekly _pièce de résistance_--his Sunday sermon. "I
can't help thinking Dr. Sidrophel may be making his fly out an elephant
this time."
"Perhaps, dear! But the fly may become an elephant. He's really very
clever, although you do make such game of him. You see, he was quite
right about poor Gus."
"Ah, dear, dear!--yes. But then he says, if Gus got into a better
climate, he might make old bones yet."
"So Gus will, by God's mercy, dear! But I mean, Dr. Pordage said--and I
do not see that I am bound to call him out of his name--that in the end
Gus would have to give in, and go. You see, he was right! Joan!"
"Yes, aunty darling!"
"Don't turn your toes in and out, and whistle. It's not at all
lady-like, and there's Mrs. Theophilus Silverton just behind in the
pony-carriage." Joan toned her behaviour down to meet the prejudices of
local society. "You _do_ see, don't you, that Dr. Pordage _was_ right?"
For this good lady wouldn't _glisser_, and always _appuyait_ until her
accuracy had been entered on the minutes. Her brother-in-law said,
"Quite right, aunty!" And she said, "Very well, then!" and seemed to
find the fact that she was right almost a set-off against the painful
fact she was right about.
For Dr. Sidrophel's shrewd forecast about the Rev. Augustus Fossett
meant exile for that invalid; and this exile had already taken form in
the proposal that Gus should accept a chaplaincy of an English church
in Tunis, which had been offered to him. Athelstan Taylor was keen on
his acceptance of the post; as he would have been on the amputation of
his own right hand, if he had seen therein any benefit for his friend.
But his face went very sad over it as he walked on in silence.
His mind was back in old Eton and Oxford days, when they were all
young together--Gus and his sister Adeline, and he, and the mother of
those two youngsters in front, who were being so decorous, pending
the approach of the pony-chariot behind. And this semi-sister of his
own, beside him now, who was always a sort of thorn in the Rector's
innermost conscience. For hadn't she--or had she--foregone wedlock
and babes of her own for the sake of her sister's and his? The sort
of thing no one could ever really know! And what would happen if this
confounded Deceased Wife's Sister bill were to become law? That was the
_cul-de-sac_ these explorations often led him to, more and more as the
chances increased of a majority for the Bill in the House of Peers. But
it _was_ a _cul-de-sac_. Why think about it? Was not each day's evil
sufficient for it, and something over?
The pony-carriage gained and gained--overhauled the
pedestrians--underwent a period of rapture that it should absolutely
see them alive in the flesh--and forged ahead unfeelingly. But it had
not expelled from the Rector's mind a something that it had met with in
that _cul-de-sac_--what was it?--oh yes, he knew!
"That's a very sad business, I'm afraid, of poor Challis's."
But Miss Caldecott cannot honour this remark immediately. Deportment
calls for attention. "You're not to begin again, the minute they're out
of sight, Joan.... What business, dear?"
"I thought you knew about it?"
"No, I know nothing. Only what Lady Arkroyd said."
"Exactly! Well--it's a very painful affair."
"No doubt, dear! Phoebe, don't hunch your shoulders."
"Come, Bess, be a little sorry for the poor chap! I don't believe it's
_his_ fault."
"Oh, I dare say not! I know nothing about it. And I don't want to know
anything about people of that sort."
"What sort?"
"You know what I mean, Athel. Literary, freethinking sort of people.
Them and their wives!"
"I know quite well what you mean, Bess." As Athelstan does know, he
says so honestly, instead of allowing his sister-in-law to attempt to
explain her meaning, which he is well aware she cannot. "But tell me
again what Lady Arkroyd said about Challis and his wife."
"Just what I told you."
"Which was...?"
"That they had quarrelled, and she had gone away to her mother. The day
after he went back."
"Was that all?"
"Yes--I think so! Yes, there was nothing else."
"How came Lady Arkroyd to know?"
The lady becomes suddenly explicit. "My dear, it's, no, use, your,
catechizing _me_! For I tell you I know nothing about it! You must ask
Lady Arkroyd yourself. There they are!" Meaning that carriage-wheels
are audible, identifiable as the Hall coming to Church.
And then the Rector had to mind his _p_s and _q_s. For he hadn't so
much as thought of the text he should preach on.
However, he acquitted himself well, as he had done a hundred times
under analogous circumstances. And then, as soon as he felt at liberty
to be secular, his mind went back to the profane author's domestic
affairs.
"My dear Lady Arkroyd, what's this about our friend Challis and his
wife?"
The Baronet, who is close by--for he is a punctual church-goer: it is
feudal--says, informedly, "A row in that quarter!" nods sagaciously,
and contains further information in closed lips. Her ladyship supposes
it's the usual thing; need we know anything about it? She dismisses
nuptial quarrels, presumably resulting from infidelities, with graceful
languor; perhaps reserving such as are within the pale, sanctioned by
titles. Judith, with the most perfect self-command, immovably graceful,
says sweetly: "Is there a _row_ between Mr. and Mrs. Challis?" On which
her mother suddenly becomes petulant and human--comes down from Olympus
as it were--exclaiming: "Why, Ju, you know you told me so yourself,
child!--what nonsense!"
"Perhaps I used the wrong word," says Ju, undisturbed. "Have we any
business with Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs?"
"None at all, my dear! Jump in: you're keeping the horses." Her
ladyship is in the carriage already, and will have no objection to
driving away from Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs. It was just
like dear Mr. Taylor to begin talking about them, with everyone about.
But Judith has another scheme. She is going to walk, thank you! Miss
Caldecott and Phoebe and Joan may do the jumping in, and the carriage
may drop them at the Rectory. Oh, very well!--if Miss Arkroyd really
wants to walk. All settled. Only Joan puts in a demurrer; she means
to walk with papa, and he will carry her on his shoulder. Joan is an
anti-Sabbatarian of an advanced school, and often makes her father as
bad as herself.
The Rectory is not really on the way to the Hall, but Judith's short
cut to the latter is not far out of it for Joan and her man-servant,
or ox, or ass--whichever is nearest--who ought to be doing no labour
on this day. So, as soon as the Rector escapes from the small-talk of
many parishioners on the road, and turns into the field path, Judith
can effect an end she has in view. It was none of _her_ doing, mind
you!--this was the substance of her exordium--it was entirely mamma.
What she referred to, after many minutes in abeyance, had revived the
moment the last parishioner died away. But the Rector disallowed her
line of pleading.
"Come, I say now, Judith!" He Christian-names the daughters of the Hall
when alone with them, having known them as children. "Draw it mild! You
must have told your _madre_ something. Of course you did!"
"Yes. I was obliged to. But Mr. Challis did not mean me to. It was very
difficult not to say something about what was in the letter...."
"From Mr. Challis?"
"Yes. Mamma knows his handwriting, and asked me what was in it. It was
too long for me to say--nothing! So I told her what I knew she must
hear afterwards, but begged her to say nothing about it."
"And then she told Bess?"
"I'm extremely sorry to have to turn and rend my mother--especially
coming from Church--but you see she has her idiosyncrasies, the
_madre_. I assure you, dear Mr. Taylor, she actually went straight to
Miss Caldecott, and said with the most unblushing effrontery that she
had promised not to tell anyone, but that she knew she might do so
safely to anyone so discreet, and then repeated what I had said to her,
with additions. She is a trying mother sometimes!"
"And then Bess comes and tells me! You're a nice lot of
_confidantes_...." Something in Judith's look checks his joking tone as
he glances round at her, and he says, "What?" And then, "Yes--go on!"
Then a hesitation leaves her, and she speaks:
"I will tell you more than I told mamma, Mr. Taylor. I wish to, because
I think your advice would be good. Mr. Challis wrote to me--a long
letter--we are friends, you know; I have seen a good deal of him...."
"Quite right! I like Challis, you know."
"So do I;--though he might smoke less. However, we're none of us
perfect.... Well!--I'm sorry to say the story is true. He fell out
with Marianne--his wife is Marianne--the day after he arrived at home,
although she had received him cordially enough on his arrival. She
was at her mother's when he arrived, but came back to dinner. In the
course of the evening they quarrelled, but I gathered from his letter
that he thought it would blow over. Next morning they were civil to
one another, but short of reconciliation. She went out in the morning,
and in the afternoon he went away to a club-dinner. When he came back,
quite late, he found a note from her, saying that she had gone away
again to her mother's, and had taken her children with her."
"Good God!" The Rector's voice is a shocked undertone. "Was that Bob,
and the two little girls...? Oh yes!--he told me a good deal of his
family."
"Not Bob; he's at school. The others are her own children; he isn't."
"I never was more shocked in my life.... Yes!--Joanikin. You'd better
get down and walk a bit. There we are, all alive and kicking!" Joan is
deposited on the ground, her legs in evidence. "But do tell me!--'took
away her children with her'! She _can't_, legally."
"She has done it illegally, I presume." Judith is very equable over
this point. "She has done it actually, anyhow!"
"_What_ an extraordinary thing!" The Rector cannot get over it.
"Well!--it's true! He came back from his club, poor man, to find his
house empty and his children gone. And no explanation but the note.
He roused up the servants that were left, a cook named Steptoe and
the housemaid, who said their mistress and the nurse and children had
packed a few things and gone away in a cab with a friend, about an hour
after he left."
"It seems almost incredible--at first." He has to walk on a little way,
fanning himself with his bandana handkerchief, before he can settle
down from his amazement, and try for enlightening details. At last he
says: "And then he wrote to you--when? Next day?"
"He left us, you remember, on Tuesday. His letter is dated Tuesday. The
Tuesday after. Just a week."
"Would you object to my seeing it?"
"_I_ should not. Why should I? But I fancy he did not wish anyone else
to see it. I could tell you what there was in it, just as well. And
then, dear Mr. Taylor, you will see why he wrote at such length to me
about it. You must be wondering."
"I was."
"It was simply this.... By-the-bye, I dare say you heard how he set
me on fire--that night we had the dance?... No?... Well, it was all
connected with that. You know this Marianne of his would keep on
refusing to come and see us, and I asked him to show me her letter with
a message to me in it. We were out in our little Tophet garden, and it
was too dark to read it. I thought one could read by moonlight, or I
wouldn't have asked for it. Mr. Challis lighted a vesta for me to read
by, and set me on fire ... well--yes--I was just a little burned, on
this shoulder. The worst of it was, her letter caught fire, and was
burned to a cinder."
"But what harm did that do? She didn't want it back."
"No, she didn't. But there were two or three words on the back he
hadn't read, and I couldn't tell him what they were. It seems she was
surprised at his making no reference to them; and since he told me in
his letter what he surmises they were, I can't say I wonder. _I_ should
have been."
"What were they? Or what does he suppose them to have been?"
"He might not like me to say, because she can never have meant them to
be seen. It doesn't matter what they were...."
"Certainly, certainly! I quite understand."
"If he had known of them, he would have refused to show me the
letter. As it turned out, it was most unfortunate. Because he said
nothing except that he had given me her message to read...." Judith
faltered--was coming to the difficult part.
"'Message to read,'" said the Rector connectively. "Yes?"
"Had given me her message to read, and had said nothing about when or
where or how. And then the poor man had to account for the burning
of the letter before he saw these words on the back ... oh yes!--of
course, one ought always to tell the whole truth in a fix; I know that.
But she had only his word for it that he had read the letter before
and overlooked the postscript. Of course, what _she_ thought was that
her good gentleman was allowing a strange young lady--who isn't very
popular with her--to open her confidential letters, and let him read
them over her shoulder. _Now_ do you appreciate the position, Rector?"
Probably this young lady was very glad that this way of accounting for
Mrs. Challis's resentment franked her of referring to the possible
effect on a jealous wife's imagination of the loneliness of Tophet and
the moonlight, both of which were _sine qua non_ to a true account
of the conflagration. Surmises about Challis's passionate outburst
were not to be encouraged by reference to any of the surroundings
that provoked them. Let them be ignored, "sequin net"--which is not
expensive, but deadly in the moonlight--and all!
So unsuspicious was Athelstan Taylor of the inner soul of a
thorough-paced flirt that he thought he might indulge in a little
subcutaneous paternal amusement, as of wider experience, at this young
lady's seeming innocence of the constructions Mrs. Challis might
attach to details of the story told in full. He nodded assent to his
own insight. Oh yes!--he appreciated the position thoroughly; Judith
might be sure of that!--and points below the surface as well. But these
belonged to a part of the drama altogether of minor importance, seeing
how foregone a conclusion it was that no such thing as flirtation
between a daughter of the Hall and a stray scribbler was possible. The
fact that Challis had quarrelled with his wife was on another footing
altogether. May there not have been some other cause?
"Challis puts his wife's resentment down _entirely_ to this matter
of the opening of the letter?" The Rector's question comes after
cogitation.
"Ye-es!--entirely, this time."
"H'm!--have there been other times?"
"He does not say so. That is not quite what I meant. I should have said
that she seems to have accused him of untruthfulness before, or at
least hinted at it. I don't gather that there has ever been a rupture
between them. Don't let's walk fast, or we shall be back before I've
told you what _I_ am in it--I mean, what Mr. Challis wants me to do."
"I can come a little way on with you ... why, of course, he wants you
to write to his wife and confirm his version of this picturesque event.
That's it, isn't it?"
"That's it. But what use will it be?"
Now for all Athelstan Taylor's superior insight into the world and its
ways, it had not so far presented itself to him that a letter from
Miss Arkroyd to Mrs. Challis on this subject might be like a red rag
to a bull. It crossed his mind now, and kept him silent until Judith
repeated: "What use will it be?" Then he replied uneasily: "Do you
know?--I don't feel the ground firm under my feet. I shouldn't like to
advise off-hand. What does your mother think?"
"Oh, I haven't talked to mamma, beyond what I told you. You see--she's
dear, of course; but she's a sieve. And these are Mr. Challis's
affairs, not mine ... oh no!--I _know_ he wouldn't mind my talking to
you about them."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I _know_! He would like me to talk to you, I'm certain."
"Would you mind talking to Bess about it? She's very sensible."
"I don't think Mr. Challis would like it. I am sure he would not mind
you."
The Rector admitted this was possible, in his inner conscience. But he
would make another suggestion: "Why not ask Addie what _she_ thinks?
She's coming to-morrow, on a visit to Lizarann."
"How is the little girl?"
"Getting on like a house on fire. But you will ask Addie? You needn't
answer his letter yet, you know. At least, you needn't write to Mrs.
Challis."
"Miss Fossett? Isn't she, though--isn't she somehow some sort of
connection of Mrs. Challis?"
"Is she?"
"Or isn't it?... Oh, I know--it was a cousin of hers I met at the play.
Mr. Challis hates her--the cousin. _I_ didn't dislike her."
"She might know something...."
"I don't think Miss Fossett would see much of this--Mrs. Partridge, I
think the name was. But Mrs. Partridge and Marianne are bosom-friends.
So it might be worth...." She interrupted herself. "Only isn't Miss
Fossett...?"
"Isn't she what?"
"Well, then, doesn't she feel very strongly on the Deceased Wife's
Sister question?"
"What would that have to do with it?"
"You know he married his deceased wife's sister?"
"Eh?" said the Rector. "So he did." And then, thoughtfully: "I see--I
see--I _think_ I see."
"See what?"
"The reason why she took her children away. She thinks they are hers
legally--thinks she has a right to them."
Judith evidently did not see the point involved, and the Rector had to
explain that the children of an unmarried woman belong legally to their
mother, and that probably Marianne, not being Challis's wife according
to the law of the land, had imagined that her right to possession of
them could be maintained in a law-court.
"But surely--it could!" said Judith.
"Ah, my dear young lady!"--was the answer--"little you know the amazing
resources of legislation for deciding that the weaker party is in the
wrong!"
But Judith did not want the conversation to become a review of the
iniquities of Law, a subject on which she knew Athelstan Taylor was
given to being in revolt against constituted authority. So she brought
him back to the real issue before the house.
"You haven't told me what you think I ought to write, Mr. Taylor.
Please don't send me away to ask somebody else!--that's such very cold
comfort. Give me real advice. What can I say?"
It took a little time to decide, but was clear when it came. "The
question, I take it, isn't whether the letter will do any good. I tell
you honestly, I don't think it will. But Challis asks you to write,
and that settles the matter. Well!--say you write at his request, and
that he asks you to write exactly what happened. Do it as literally as
possible."
"Say anything about how grieved I am--painful circumstances--hope to
hear misunderstanding completely removed--anything of that sort?"
"Oh no!--no, on the whole, certainly not! Better keep off that as much
as possible!"
"Won't it be rather like ... snuffing poor Mrs. Challis out, if I don't
end up somehow?"
"Hm--well! Suppose we go so far as to hope this will help to remove ...
to remove ... what seems a perfectly groundless misunderstanding. Stop
it at that. Quite enough! And I say, Judith, look here! In writing to
Mrs. Challis, don't you go and show that you've heard particulars of
the row. Stick to the explanation of the letter-business. Don't on any
account show you know she has left her home, or that he has told about
it."
"Won't that be what Mr. Tomes calls _suppressio veri_?"
"Tut--tut! If it is, not sending the letter at all will be _suppressio_
of still more _veri_. You stick to what Challis asks for, and let him
be responsible. Married couples, when they quarrel, are kittle cattle
to shoe behind. Now we must say good-bye, or one of us will be late for
lunch."
They had overshot the point at which the path diverged to the Rectory,
and it was time to hark back. But before Judith was out of hearing the
Rector called after her.
"Tell poor Challis I'm writing to him. I shall go and see him when I
get up to town--some time next week. Good-bye!"
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHALLIS'S INSIPID RETURN HOME. WHAT HAD IT ALL BEEN, THIS DREAM? OLD
LINKS WITH BYGONES. HOW CONFESS, AND TO WHAT? OF A FIRE GOD GAVE FOR
OTHER ENDS
Mr. Challis gave Lord Felixthorpe's chauffeur half-a-sovereign when he
was landed at the Station. This was because he stood in such awe of
that great man that he doubted if so haughty a soul would brook a tip
at all. However, it not only brooked it, but changed it immediately
for nine shillings in silver and eightpence in coppers and a glass of
bitters at the Barleymow, opposite the Station. So Challis felt easy,
and wondered to himself that so small a matter should disquiet him,
with all his great perplexities on hand. How on earth did Napoleon
Bonaparte contrive to exist?
However, all the perplexities came back in force as soon as he was off;
indeed, he was almost sorry no small distraction occurred during his
flight home. For he was alone nearly all the way to Euston; the many
who nearly entered his carriage seeming to condemn him on inspection,
and choosing every other carriage on its merits. The porter who put his
valise on a cab at the terminus seemed callous and preoccupied; and the
driver, when told to go to the nearest Metropolitan Station, struck him
as too unsympathetic when he said: "Which will you have--King's Cross
or Gower Street? It don't make no difference to _me_," not without some
imputation of weakness of character. Also, this cabman appeared to form
a lower opinion of his fare when the latter chose Gower Street than he
would have had he chosen King's Cross.
By the time Challis had described a large segment of the Inner Circle,
and had waited a quarter of an hour at Gloucester Road for a Wimbledon
train, he had resolved that nothing would ever induce him to try that
route again. Then a distasteful thought struck him:--should he ever
make the same journey again? "Much better not," said he to himself;
and kept on repeating it to himself till he had found his seat in the
Wimbledon train, the gear of which caught the phrase, and seemed to
repeat it to itself all the way to East Putney.
He had wired to Marianne: "Am coming home on business may come to lunch
but don't wait Titus." The "may come to lunch" struck him as making
this "business" seem plausible, without definite disingenuousness.
He wanted to account for himself, and to make his sudden return a
very matter-of-course occurrence. One thing was odd about it--and it
was odder still that it never struck him as odd--that he should be
so solicitous about not giving his wife an unnecessary start. He was
just what he had always been in respect of his constant consideration
of Marianne's comfort in small matters, and had never admitted to
himself that his affection for her had varied as a necessary result of
his infatuation for Judith. Had it done so, of necessity? It may not
have--or it may. Psychological problems need not occupy a narrative of
facts. This is one that might easily land us in an attempt to formulate
an exact Definition of Love. Better beware in time! Leave the question
in a condition of Metaphysical Equilibrium.
How Challis would have welcomed, just at this turning-point of his
relations with Marianne--scouting as he did the idea of a rupture, so
far--a thorough heart-whole _accolade_ at the front garden-gate of
the Hermitage! What an all-important factor in the moulding of the
days to come would have been an unqualified, unmitigated, unreserved
embrace--even before the cabman! Such a one as Penelope would have
given Ulysses, if he had come back recognizable: a greeting to send the
memories of all Calypsoes flying like chaff before the wind! Yes--even
the appearance of Penelope on the threshold, revealing that Ulysses
was just in time for lunch, only he must make haste, as it had been
kept back to the very last minute, and he must keep all his news till
afterwards. Any little thing of this sort--a note, spelt anyhow--a
scribble on the slate in the hall, where you can write messages if
there's a pencil--the slightest tradition of a consciousness of
tea-to-come on the part of the departed, when departing--even a caution
that you are not to spill, because it's a clean tablecloth--_anything_,
in fact, rather than the dull, neglected, flat reality of Challis's
return!
Remembering how his last arrival at home had fallen through, he had
organized a surprise in his own mind. He had so light a valise this
time--one carries less wardrobe in hot weather--that it would be no
encumbrance. He would discharge his cab, and let himself in with his
latchkey.
The cabman's expression was one of dissatisfaction with his career,
but acquiescence in fifty-per-cent. beyond the tariff. He said it was
coming on a drizzle, and drove away. Then Challis had to give up the
surprise. For the garden-gate was shut to and locked--"because of the
boys," no doubt--and he had to ring. He kept his finger on the electric
bell, to show that his mind was made up as to coming in; whereupon
Harmood appeared bearing a key. Challis did not complain that she had
not kissed him, but he did think she might have been warmer.
"Mrs. Challis never said, sir," was her brief testimony in reply to
"Where was your mistress going?" The uncompromising roughness of "your
mistress" may have widened the gulf between them. A suggestion that
perhaps Mrs. Steptoe knew was met by the concession, "I could ask Mrs.
Steptoe." Delay then resulted, as Mrs. Steptoe, though absolutely in
ignorance, wished to produce a sort of meretricious effect of giving
information, and had to make talk while she thought out spurious data.
"No, sir, I couldn't say Mrs. Challis ever said a word to me, not this
morning. Not if you was to ask. But yesterday morning she did say, 'ash
what there was of the chicken, and stew the scrag-end of the neck for
the kitchen-dinner to-day...."
"Well!--and did she say where she was going? That's the point."
"I was coming to that, sir!" Mrs. Steptoe was reproachful. "The
scrag-end of the neck for the kitchen-dinner to-day, because she might
be going to Tulse Hill. And the young ladies would certainly be going
to Mrs. Eldridge's all day. And this morning she says to me to have a
piece of rump-steak in the house in case."
"In case I came." But Mrs. Steptoe had intended a complete sentence.
Challis concluded: "That's where she's gone, I expect! And the children
are away?"
"The young ladies, sir." Thus Harmood, the stickler for the
proprieties. To whom Challis says, "Very well!--Get me some
lunch--steak--anything!" and goes to his room to wash, leaving Mrs.
Steptoe recapitulating.
* * * * *
Was ever a blanker home-coming? Challis began to suspect he would
certainly make hay of his life, unless some _deus ex machina_ came into
it. Was he a _dignus vindice nodus_? He put the question aside to read
accumulated letters, kept back by request. Then lunch was on table, and
life seemed suddenly as usual. But no Marianne, so far!
The drizzle "it" had "come on" made a dreary outlook from the house,
and a sense of the absence of the children a conscious cause of
dreariness within. No consolation could be found in the distant voices
of the two servants at loggerheads in the basement. "Probably one
specific loggerhead," thought Challis, as he gave real thought and care
to the filling of a pipe he meant to enjoy. Because a certain incisive
repetition, which seemed to relate to the same theme, conveyed the
idea of diametrically opposed opinions, intemperately advocated by
street-door knocks. A lull would come when Harmood brought him a cup of
coffee--fresh-made, he hoped--and he would then hint broadly that the
discussion was needlessly audible. "Keep the kitchen-door shut" is the
usual formula.
The coffee came. It was ower good for banning and ower bad for
blessing, like Rob Roy; only certainly not so strong. So thought
Challis to himself--all such thoughts are his, not the story's--as
he submitted to it. But he found a satisfaction for the ban he had
withheld, in an increased acerbity of manner in his allusion to the
kitchen-door. He called it out to Harmood as she departed, having
sipped the coffee in the interim. "Yes, sir," said Harmood, speaking as
though butter would not melt in her mouth.
However, the kitchen-door closed, and the discussion went on as though
both the knockers' families had had a baby. It would not interfere with
the pipe.
What was all this that had happened? He found himself asking space
this, as he watched the smoke curling away, and changing to the smell
he meant to let out of the window before Marianne came back. Now
that he was here again, in his old surroundings, he could live back
into them, and think of that intoxication of last night--only last
night!--as nothing but a strange, bewitching dream. Never was man more
susceptible to surroundings than Challis. Turn where he might, some
trifle or other brought back his old days to him.
There, upon the chimney-piece, in defiance of modern taste, were
certain treasures that had never found a place on a dust-heap because
of their various associations with "poor Kate." The parian candlesticks
at either end--religiously mended whenever chipped, and one of them
obliged to submit to a rivet--did he and Kate not buy them in Oxford
Street, and were they not therefore precious? The Swiss haymakers,
carved in wood, that were an early present of Marianne's to her sister,
were they not--although, of course, they were not high art, and you
might sneer at them--things Kate had valued, and on that account never
to be discarded or forgotten? The ingenious ship under a glass cover,
with chenille round its base, whose hull was muscle-shells, and whose
rigging spun glass, was it not a precious inheritance of past ages,
treasured with curses, because every time it was moved it tumbled over,
and had to be taken from its shelter and made the subject of unskilful
experiments with sealing-wax and gum-arabic? Each had its tale of
a former time. And everything that said a word about Kate added a
postscript about her sister.
Was it not as well that last night's folly or delirium should rank as
a dream?--was it not best? If only Destiny could have become a visible
Rhadamanthus and driven the nail home, saying, "Now that's settled,
Mr. Challis, and you are not to see Miss Arkroyd of Royd again," and
he could have believed all his experiences of the last eight months
hallucinations! But he could not do so without a warranty, and a
strong one. He happened to know that Royd Hall was still there, in
Rankshire; and that a week-end ticket was sixteen and sixpence. Let him
try to make a dream of that, with Bradshaw ready to rise in evidence
and denounce him! He could not but fail, with all the facts against
him, in an attempt to quench his memories; but the more dreamlike and
unreal they seemed to him, the less guilty he felt of duplicity towards
Marianne. Other men might not have felt so; but this is his story, and
we must take him as we find him.
Would any other man in like case have fashioned, as he did, the
rough-hewn incidents of a scene in which he should make a clean breast
of the whole tormenting dream to his wife, get absolution, and be once
more his natural self, with no reserves? How on earth should he set
about it? that was the thought that started it. Suppose he succeeded
in saying, "Polly Anne, I'm a bad, wicked man, and I've been making
love to Judith Arkroyd, and forgetting my duty to the wife of my bosom
and her kids," would Marianne know what would be a correct attitude
for an injured matron under her circumstances? Would she be able to
say, perjured and forsworn and betrayer, and hence!--ere she did some
correct thing or other? Not she! But suppose instead she were to say,
"Just one minute, till I've done with Harmood, and I shall be able to
listen to you.... Now, what is it?" what on earth would he do then
with the position? Say it all over again, or try a variation, "You
see before you a guilty _et cetera_," or something of that sort? No,
no!--that would never do. Why, part of the awkwardness of the position
was that the word _guilty_ would overweight the confession so terribly.
None of the substantial conditions of broken marriage-vows had been
complied with, and it really would be difficult to know exactly what to
confess to. How could he know that Charlotte Eldridge--for, dramatist
that he was, he knew that lady down to the ground!--would not have
dismissed the case with, "You see, my dear, there really hadn't _been_
anything!"
And all the while the worst of it was that, according to his own canon
of morals, there had been _everything_. He had profaned the temple of
Love, soiled the marble floor, torn some chaplet from the altar; done
something, no matter what, that was making him a secret-keeper from
his wife; that would make him flinch from her gaze. Were other men all
like that? No, certainly not! But then, they were not milksops, but Men
of the World. Also, they worshipped at another temple, down the road,
those merry satyrs; a temple where Pan and Silenus had altars.
No doubt this analysis of his own case, that Challis makes as he gets
on with that pipe--near its end now--and waits to hear his wife's cab
at the gate, would have clashed a good deal with his seeming reckless
speech among men; speech he was apt to get himself a very bad name by,
among precisians! But he was made up of oddities and paradoxes. Is
any light thrown on him by what he is reported to have once said: "I
can't see that it can matter how many wives--or whatever you like to
call them--a man has, if he doesn't care twopence about any of them,
and they all know it"? The funny part of this creed of Challis's about
marriage and his fellow-men was that it caused them to ascribe to _him_
precisely the same morals that he had ascribed to _them_; and that
each one of them, whenever he chanced to speak of it in confidence to
anyone he was not on his guard against, always appeared to disclaim
attendance at the temple down the road for himself, personally; and, in
fact, to suggest that he, exceptionally, had common decency in a corner
somewhere.
No man will ever know--one may say that much safely--how far any other
man is like himself. He is pretty sure to invent a curious monster
for his fellow-man to be, based on all his own worst propensities;
but utterly ignoring that mysterious impulse to fight against them
which he has the egotism to call his better self. He credits himself,
personally, with an inherent dislike of evil, and conceives that his
fellow-man is kept in check by the Decalogue. He ascribes Original Sin
to the race, and credits himself secretly with a monopoly of Original
Virtue.
But it is unfair to go on moralizing in this way, merely because
Marianne does not come back. The justification is that Challis spent
such a long time in useless self-torment over his position; he all
the while believing quite sincerely that real men of the world--say,
broadly speaking, Mr. Brown and Lord Smith--practised double-dealers
that they were in all that relates to womankind, would have dismissed
the whole matter with an experienced smile. In the course of an hour,
however, he endeavored to imitate the spirited demeanour of Mr. Brown
and Lord Smith, and went away to his room to write.
He had to acknowledge that he could not fix his attention as Mr. Brown
and Lord Smith would have done; but he made a fair show of writing,
too--felt he had got to work again! Marianne would be back to tea; he
was glad of that. He was distinctly not at all sorry to find he was
glad of that. But he was a little annoyed that it had occurred to him
to make the discovery--that he had not left the question dormant.
The noise in the kitchen below was almost inaudible in Challis's room,
but a sense hung about of the remains of an engagement elsewhere.
Challis was conscious that a dropping fire stopped when he rang the
bell at four-thirty, to tell Harmood not to get the tea till her
mistress came back. Harmood consented, provided that the obnoxious
expression was withdrawn. Only she did not put it that way. What she
said was, "To wait for Mrs. Challis, sir?" Had Challis answered, "Yes,
your mistress!" she might have shown a proper spirit. But as he said,
with discretion, "Exactly!" Miss Harmood consented to postpone tea. His
phrase seemed to admit inexactness in the epithet "mistress."
But the young lady was going to make no suggestions. If Mr. Challis
liked to go without his tea, let him! _She_ was not going to attempt to
influence anybody. The hours passed, and ink that might have perished
on a penwiper became a permanent record of thoughts which their writer
always doubted the value of the moment after writing them. But perhaps
they were immortal? No one would ever know till the very end of
Eternity.
Was that actually six o'clock? Well--she wouldn't come now till dinner!
He considered a short walk before she turned up; but the drizzle was
one of those all-pervading drizzles that despise umbrellas, and do
the garden a world of good. One never goes out for a walk in those
drizzles. He would have another pipe, and think it over--perhaps write
a little more presently.
He would have done more wisely to write the little more at once--to
remain hard and fast at his writing-table. For he had not been long
over the second pipe when the summer sun, now on its way to roost, got
a chance to peep through a cloud-rift, and straightway Wimbledon was
aware it was the heart of a rainbow it could not see, however palpable
it might be at Esher. Now, it chanced that just at the moment when
the sudden prismatic glow flooded that vulgar, incorrigible drizzle,
and clothed it in an undeserved radiance, Challis was watching the
crystal beads that chased each other in a line along the under-edge of
a sloping gutter above his window. He was wondering why they held on so
tight--it was so seldom one dropped--when on a sudden they all became
jewels, each with a little complete image of the sun in it, if they
would only have stood still while one looked! And these jewels brought
back a something to his mind. He felt it coming before he could define
it: what was it going to be? Why, of course!--the gleaming beads or
scales or spangles on Judith's dress, last night in the little garden
with the funny name--what was it?----Tophet.
And then it all came back with a rush. He had contrived, in his
home-surrounding, to dodge and evade, as it were, his memory of his
folly of last night for a moment. He had now slipped unawares into
his past; and malicious recollection had brought back this-and-that
that was pleasant in it, but had closed the door against reminders of
all that had been tedious and distasteful in his later married life.
With no Marianne there in the flesh, to call attention to that morose
and jealous temper she had developed in these later years, he had
indulged in the luxury of forgetting it; and had repeopled the empty
house with a cheerful version of its mistress, one that was exactly
what the Marianne of old ought to have grown up into--not very clever,
certainly--not Madame de Staël, by any means--but always good-humoured
and ready to laugh at her own blunders, and gradually outgrowing that
terrible vice of blood, that dire form of Christianity that made it
a wonder to him how his new friend, that good parson-chap at Royd,
should be tarred with the same feather. He had got into a backwater
of the stream of life, and found a happy anchorage for a moment; and
here came the torrent he had escaped, and caught him up and whirled him
away with it, Heaven knows where! Little things make the great things
of life, and no sooner was that miserable gew-gaw that was not even an
expensive article brought across his mind by those jewel-drops flashing
in the sun than he became again the heart-distempered victim of the
image it brought with it--Judith in all her beauty, at its best in the
moonlight. His incipient fit of reconciliation to his home had only
been momentary, and the paroxysm of his disorder that upset it--how
rightly he had spoken of it as a fool's passion!--sent him pacing
to-and-fro across the room, catching at the empty air with nervous
fingers, pressing them mercilessly on his eyes, as though he would
crush out with them the beautiful image of the woman that bewitched him.
This sort of thing is not so uncommon as you, perhaps, think. You have
read of it, of course--best told by Robert Browning, perhaps--how "the
Devil spends a fire God gave for other ends." That was like to be
Challis's case if this went on.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A BAD RAILWAY ACCIDENT. AND, AFTER ALL, MARIANNE WAS AT HOME.
CHALLIS'S REPORT OF ROYD. BUT NO!--MARIANNE WOULDN'T HAVE JUDITH
SLURRED OVER
Just as the cloud-rift closed and spoiled the rainbow a sound came of a
cab approaching. Challis stopped in his restless pacing to-and-fro, and
listened.... Yes!--the cab was stopping. That might be Polly Anne? The
fact that his mind said "Polly Anne," by preference, showed that his
relief at her arrival--for he was one of those who always fidget when
folk are overdue--outweighed for the moment a feeling that he would be
glad when he had passed the Rubicon of looking her in the face. He was
conscious, though, as he ran downstairs to meet her, of a trace of the
alacrity one shows as one enters the dentist's sanctum, to convince
oneself one is really ready to have one's molar out. But before he got
to the swing-round of the banister curve he knew it wasn't Marianne
after all, this time!
Then, on the lower flight, he became conscious that it was that booby
John Eldridge; saying, as one in indecision: "No--stawp a bit! I'll
tell you in a minute," and then somehow contriving--as it were to fill
out a pause for thought--a certain bubbling or wobbling noise, made
with the end of his tongue between his lips. It was brief, for he soon
added: "Suppose you was to tell him I was here! _I_ can't see that any
harm'll come o' that. What's your idea?"
But Harmood's idea, if she had one, remained concealed behind her
professional manner; which was what the Sphinx's might have been, had
the latter taken a house-and-parlourmaid's place. For, perceiving
Challis on the stairs, she passed her visitor on to him without reply,
merely saying: "Mr. Eldridge, if you was at home, sir." This formula
left it open to her to cancel or ignore Mr. Eldridge if her employer
thought fit to deny his own existence in the face of evidence.
"I _am_ here," said Challis, descending. "Like the Duke's motto!
Marianne isn't, but I'm expecting her every minute. Anything up?"
This query related to a certain rosy uneasiness that hung about Mr.
Eldridge's hesitation of manner.
"Oh no! No--nothing! Only Lotty said you were coming back to-day.
Suppose we was to come in here!" "Here" was the front sitting-room,
looking to the road. Harmood closed the street-door, and died
respectfully away.
"By all means," said Challis. "Out with it, John!"
Mr. Eldridge struggled with obstacles to speech, which he endeavoured,
by ostentatious clearing of the throat, to refer to chronic bronchitis.
At last he got to "Mind you, Master Titus, it's ten to one there's
nothing in it! But I thought it just as well to look in and tell
you." Challis waited, with an ugly misgiving growing on him, till two
words with a shock in them came, blurted out by the speaker, whom
they left perturbed, mopping his brow and polishing his nose with his
handkerchief. "Railway Collision!" said Mr. Eldridge. "Bad job! But
don't you run away with the idea that...."
"That--that she--Marianne...."
"Ah! Well!--I tell you, Master Titus, I don't believe she was in the
train."
"You know nothing about it! Why didn't you stay to find out?" Challis
finds natural irritation with this booby's method an easement against
the new strain on his powers of bearing anxieties. One good point about
which is that Judith and Royd Hall vanish with a clean sweep. Face to
face suddenly with a hideous possibility, that Marianne may be killed
or maimed for life, he is completely back in his old life again, and
knows nothing outside the tension of the moment. In a very few seconds
he sees that his informant _does_ know nothing; having evidently, when
he witnessed or heard of this accident, become the slave of a singular
and not uncommon idea that the sooner ill news is heard the better, and
having rushed off with his without waiting for details or confirmation.
Challis gives him up as quite useless as an informant. "Your cab's
there?" he asks. And receiving an affirmative says with decision: "Wait
till I get my boots on!"
Mr. Eldridge throws a bit of good counsel after him as he runs upstairs
three steps at a time. "Don't you get in a stoo, Master Titus! Easy
does it." He then retires into the parlour, and fidgets, variously. He
drums on surfaces that offer themselves, feels about on his razor-farm
for interesting incidents, whistles truncated tunes that do not last
to identification-point, and frequently repeats, "Nothing to go
by--nothing to go by--nothing to go by!" shaking his head and looking
profound, till Challis comes quickly downstairs. He calls out to
Harmood in some remote background that he is going out, and doesn't
know when he'll be back.
The cabman is good for information, and coherent. A petroleum explosion
on the train from Haydon's Road. Just coming into the Station, and
hadn't slowed down enough. Guard injured--couldn't apply the brake.
Train ran beyond platform, and collided with truck, shunting. What did
they want to be shunting trucks for, with the train just due? Anyone
might have known there might be a petroleum explosion, and the guard
not be able to apply the brake. Or anything else, for that matter!
Anyone hurt? Oh ah, yes!--people enough hurt, if you came to that. All
right! You two gents, if you jumped in, should be at the Station in no
time.
Did you ever have the ill-luck to be the seeker after a possible
casualty in a railway accident? If you have you will be able to guess
what Challis went through in the hour that followed. Fortunately for
him, the crucial moment of inspection of the bodies of two women
unknown, for identification, was soon over. To a certainty, neither was
Marianne. So also the few cases too bad for immediate removal were soon
decided about--some without visiting them; these having been able to
give their names. And if Marianne had been among those who had started
for home, whether injured or scot-free, she would have been met on the
road. They would have been sure to see her, or she them.
Moreover, there were not many people in the train, and Mrs. Challis was
well known at the Station. She was a constant passenger by this line,
going to Tulse Hill via Streatham. The officials at the Station felt
sure they would have seen her had she been in the train. No other train
would follow for some time that Mrs. Challis could possibly come by.
Probably she had missed her train at Tulse Hill. Good job too, for her,
said public opinion.
So Mrs. Challis's husband, relieved, but with a swimming head, and very
uncharitable feelings in his heart towards the originator of all this
needless alarm, drove home beside that really very stupid person; and
so far as his own condition of semi-collapse permitted it, gathered the
story of his friend's share in the matter, and what he considered a
justification of his action.
It appeared that Mr. Eldridge had accompanied his wife to Wimbledon
Station, on her way to an evening appointment in London. As she was
getting into the carriage, the train on the other line came in from
Haydon's Lane. She said to her husband: "That's Marianne's train; she
was going to Tulse Hill. You can drive her back in your cab. You'll
find Titus at home. He was to be back to-day." Then, as her train left
the platform, he saw a sudden blaze of fire from the guard's van of the
other one; and the collision, as already described, resulted. A cooler
or stronger judgment than John Eldridge's would no doubt have exhausted
every source of information rather than jump at the conclusion that
his friend's wife was necessarily among the injured because he could
not find her among the survivors. His reasoning powers were not strong
enough to stand by him through the panic of the scene that ensued, and
he could see nothing for it but to convey the news of the supposed
disaster to her husband.
Challis was inhospitable enough not to press him to come in and dine,
and was so annoyed with his folly that he might not have done so even
if less desirous of a quiet evening with the subject of all this alarm,
who would no doubt appear in due course, though the best part of an
hour late. He felt secure that nobody could be connected hypothetically
with one mishap, and actually with another, on the same evening!
Impossible! Mr. Eldridge seemed not so confident; for he said at
parting, "Good-bye, Master Titus! Glad Marianne wasn't killed by _this_
train!" and drove off to his own domicile.
The garden-gate was not locked; this was owing to Challis's return. For
he always insisted that the front-door should be approachable, boys or
no, when he was in residence. He got in with his latch-key, and going
straight to the top of the kitchen-stairs, called out to Harmood, whose
response came duly.
"Tell Mrs. Steptoe she must keep dinner back. Your mistress will be
late."
"I beg your pardon, sir!"
"Tell--Mrs.--Steptoe she must keep--dinner--back!" Challis endorsed his
mandate with forcible word-isolations, and gave fuller particulars of
his reasons why. Harmood responded rather tartly:
"I beg your pardon, sir! Did you say Mrs. Challis?"
"Yes!"
"Mrs. Challis is come in, sir. Been in half-an-hour!"
"God bless me!" exclaimed Challis; and nearly added, "Why didn't you
tell me?"--which would have been absurd. But he was saved from this by
a voice from the floor above; Marianne's, unmistakably.
"Oh dear!--What _are_ you shouting down in the kitchen for? Why can't
you come up?"
"I'm coming, dear! When on earth did you come in?" His salute was
cordial. Hers was ... well!--she might have done better. But then, you
see, she knew nothing about all this excitement that was afoot. And
never forget that Mrs. Steptoe's legend of Ramsgate always hung in her
mind.
"I've been in this past half-hour. Why did you go out again? It makes
things so late."
"I'll tell you directly. How on earth did you get here?"
"How on earth did I get here?" It is slowly dawning on her that
something has happened. "I drove from the Station. Just as usual!... I
suppose that's the children."
"But how came we not to meet you?"
"Who?"
"John Eldridge and I--driving down to Wimbledon."
"How can I tell? I've not been at Wimbledon. I came from East Putney,
as I told you, in a cab. You'd better get ready for dinner."
"All right! But how came you to come by East Putney?"
Marianne always had an irritating way of treating her husband as though
he were inaudible and invisible. No doubt she meant no harm by it.
But husbands do feel secretly nettled sometimes if they are, as it
were, held in abeyance by a waved hand, to await the end of a colloquy
they are excluded from. Challis felt, at least, that he was very
good-humoured not to be nettled.
"What has made the children so late? I said no later than six." So
spoke the lady, eliciting revelations of delay caused by the children
hiding themselves. Due public censure of the offence followed.
* * * * *
Challis had become himself again by soup-time. "Well, Polly Anne,"
said he, "you've never told me how you came to go by East Putney!" The
trifling excitement over the child had such a thoroughly old-world
flavour with it that he was very much at home again, and Royd Hall had
slipped away to dreamland.
"Oh, I?" Marianne is not ill-humoured now. But she is, to a certain
extent, enduring her lot. You know how that's done? "A little bit of
stopping came out of my front tooth, and I had to go up to Kensington
to get it seen to. Of course, I hadn't written, and Roots and Leaver
kept me an hour and a half."
"What did he have to do?... painful?..."
"Oh no--nothing! He put some fresh stopping. Only a few minutes! What
took you to Wimbledon?"
"Well--you see!--our excellent friend John Eldridge came and told me
you were killed in the accident at Wimbledon Station...."
"Oh! Was there an accident?"
"Yes. Nobody we know in it. But two women killed and several injured.
It was petroleum." He gave particulars of the accident, dwelling on the
fact that the wrecked train was the one his wife would have been in if
she had not been at the dentist's. "But I _was_ at the dentist's," she
said, with a certain implication in her voice of "So I don't see what
you have to complain of."
However, it slowly dawned upon her that this was a case for recognition
of the mercies of Providence. These were of two classes; one of which,
known to her as Divine Forgiveness towards Sinners, on condition that
they went to church, was an entirely different thing from certain
good-natured impulses on the part of the Creator towards persons in
difficulties, prompting special intervention on their behalf to save
them from the blunders of Creation now that He had set it fairly going,
and left it to shift for itself. He was, it appeared, very catholic in
these impulses, as often as not giving non-churchgoers the benefit of
His reserved rights of intervention in the caprices of the material
universe. Challis believed that his wife used up all the theological
liberality of which she was capable in ascribing let-offs of Jews,
Turks, Heretics, and Infidels to special interventions which could only
postpone for a very short time their Eternal Damnation at the hands of
the intervening power.
However, he was in no mood just now for laughing at her; so he let it
be supposed that he acquiesced in what amounted to a suggestion that
Providence had knocked out that bit of stopping from her front tooth
in order to prevent her coming by that train. He kept absolute silence
through her acknowledgment of her indebtedness to her Maker, being very
careful not to allow his features to assume any expression whatever.
For he had found by experience that absolute glumness, total suspension
of speech and facial movement, with great caution and reserve in the
use of the pocket-handkerchief, if resorted to, was almost a religious
force in itself.
When the good lady had sufficiently discharged all her obligations
in the proper quarter, another aspect of the case seemed to present
itself. "But, my dear Titus, what a terribly anxious time you must have
had!"
He would sooner have had this earlier. Providence could have waited.
But--sooner now than never! "Why, my dear old girl," said he, "I was
simply terrified out of my wits!" A hearty laugh came with this all the
easier that it was his order of release from the ten-minutes' penal
servitude he had just undergone in the cause of his wife's religious
sensibilities. "Come now, old woman," he went on, "say you're sorry for
giving me such a fright."
"Why--of course I'm sorry! What makes you suppose I'm not? _I_ don't
want to give you frights, I'm sure!" She paused a moment over the
subject. Though _she_ was not killed, it might touch her home-circle
at some other point. "I wonder who the women were. Our laundress
brings the Wash from Streatham. It might have been her coming to-day."
She went on with particulars of the Wash; how it itself was centred
at Wimbledon, but there was a _succursale_ at Streatham, whence fine
linen, got up, might be brought by rail. Challis interrupted:
"These two women I saw were not washerwomen."
"Oh dear!--were they ladies?" A note of alarm. Marianne had assumed
that they were people. Challis strove not to seem to broach derision
on the well-worn subject. He said seriously, "Ye-es, I think so." But
then his inherent vice of mind got the better of him, and he added:
"Not Duchesses, certainly! But ladies, yes! Perhaps they were Baronets'
wives."
Marianne flushed angrily. "Now, Titus, you know that's nonsense! How is
it likely that both of them should be Baronets' wives, when there they
were in the same train. And you know perfectly well no one ever said a
word about Duchesses! So it's ridiculous!" But still a shot home seemed
wanting, so after a pause Marianne ended up: "I suppose it was meant
to be witty. Only if it's to be that, I shan't sit with you while you
smoke."
"No, Polly Anne dear, it's not to be that. Never mind my chaff! I
had the impression they were people in our own sort of position in
life--might have been friends of ours, don't you know! But we shall
hear fast enough."
This conversation had taken longer than appears by the story; because,
at a repast, converse travels slowly. Steptoe, or her equivalent, has
to be found fault with at intervals, deservedly. By this time the best
end of the neck, and the difficulty of carving it, were things of the
past. So also was a slight sub-ruction occasioned by Challis being
disgusting about Anne Boleyn's neck, and the bungling executioner who
wanted all his patients' necks to be jointed at the butcher's. It was
an old joke of his that always enraged Marianne. But he had begged
pardon, and the topic had vanished with its cause. This and some minor
matters had made it coffee-time, when Marianne threatened to retire
and leave Challis to enjoy his pipe alone.
She did not do so, being assuaged by her husband's seeming acceptance
of social distinctions. But it rankled, too, as will be seen by the
first thing she says to him as he settles down to his pipe. "Duchesses,
indeed!"
If it were fine they would be out in the garden at the back. Only the
drizzle is there still. But it keeps very close, too, and we must have
the window wide open. The lamp won't blow out if we stand it away
on the sideboard. This sideboard is the one that was bought--such a
bargain!--for Great Coram Street. Those rings on the drawers that
swing--handles to pull them open and find the corkscrew--are the rings
that Bob in his infancy was permitted to use as knockers in a drama
he was the hero of--a postman who delivered letters at very short
intervals indeed. Oh, how his surroundings of this evening stung
Challis with memories of his past! How they drove home to him the need
to keep at bay those outlying fires--or wild beasts, were they?--that
had made an inroad on his present.
If he could only have been a Roman Emperor now! Had he not read
lately somewhere how Hadrian had married two Persian Princesses--real
ones!--two at once!--as cool as a cucumber? Oh dear!...
What is that Marianne is saying? "_You're_ not the one to talk, Titus!"
"Talk about what, Polly Anne?" His first puff, with this, and he is in
great comfort and good-humour! The wild beasts are standing over.
"About Duchesses and Baronets' wives! Just look at your Grosvenor
Squares!" There is little or no ill-humour here. Rather it might be
called concession to good-humour; an admission of her husband's friends
to their talk as permanent objects--forgiven objects, certainly--of
critical raillery. No harm meant!
And if there were, Challis would ignore it, rather than have his pipe
spoilt. "Don't let's talk about them," he says. "Let's talk about our
Grosvenor Squares."
"_Your_ Grosvenor Squares!"
"_My_ Grosvenor Squares, then! Polly Anne shall have her own way."
And then he had to stifle at birth a most excruciating thought: "If I
had only just succeeded in keeping my accursed folly under, I might
now have continued, 'You know, Polly Anne dear, they might be _your_
Grosvenor Squares, too, and nothing would please me better. Why not
be jolly?'" How could he make such a speech now? His only chance of
a real tranquil life was to keep as far away from the source of his
disturbance as possible. He succeeded in suffocating the thought, and
repeated, "Let's talk about my Grosvenor Squares."
Marianne's reply was a grudging sound. "Well!--and how are they?" The
unspoken addendum seemed to be: "I suppose I must say _something_. What
do you make of this, my minimum? Take it!"
But Challis was in for pretending that all was well, and the world
unsullied by what Mr. Riderhood called "offences giv' and took."
Everybody was very well at Royd, he testified. Only this time the
house-party was so over-powering that he had not seen nearly so much of
the family as on the previous occasion. In fact, some of the members he
had hardly spoken to--a statement so intensely true that it brought his
veracity up to a reasonable average.
"Of course," he said, "I was obliged to talk a bit to the old boy. Just
as he was obliged to compliment the celebrated author on his last book.
But I never got on the subject on which he is really interesting, the
inner life of the Feudal System...."
"Which is...?" said Marianne. Who, on being offered "William the
Conqueror" as a substitute for his System, added: "Oh, I know! We used
to say him, 'William the Conqueror, one thousand and sixty-six.'"
Challis continued:
"Last time we had quite a long talk over it, and I'm not at all sure
that we don't agree in the long run. He contends that the ideal of
Feudalism...."
"What's that?"
"Same as the Feudal System ... that the ideal of Feudalism, properly
understood, is quite the noblest...."
"I beg your pardon, dear! Just one moment! _Yes_--Harmood! ... _what?_
You _must_ come near and speak louder.... Well!--I suppose he must have
eightpence. But tell him another time I shall go to Cowdery's, because
they did them for sixpence. You haven't twopence in coppers, have
you, dear?" Challis had, and the incident, whatever it was, closed.
Marianne's economical instincts, needed in old days, had survived their
necessity overmuch.
But the ideal of Feudalism didn't get properly understood that time.
Challis left it, and began somewhere else: "Her ladyship I scarcely
talked to at all, which I was sorry for, as I don't dislike her, and
I fancy she knew some people named Nettlefold when I was a boy." He
was quite aware of careless construction, fraught with suspicion of
imbecility; it really didn't matter. "As for Sibyl...."
"Do you mean Judith?"
"I mean Sibyl. I fancy she'll end by marrying that Lord Felixthorpe.
They are always about in his motor together. By-the-bye, I hardly
know how to thank that chap. He lent me his motor to the station this
morning. I like him. He's too good for Sibyl."
But Marianne's attention has been caught by the honey in a flower on
the way. "I don't understand these people and their ways," she says.
"But I suppose it's all right if it's a motor. Charlotte says because
of the chauffeur."
Challis's sense of the ludicrous gets the upper hand. "I should have
thought the chauffeur would be too much preoccupied," says he. "Anyhow,
I shouldn't be at all surprised to hear they were engaged, any day.
As for the party itself, there were some very interesting people this
time, and some most interesting talk on abstruse subjects after dinner."
But the lady felt she would rather hear Mrs. Eldridge on the meaning of
the word "abstruse" before she ventured out of her depth about it. A
queer word, that! Also, she does not mean to have Judith elided in this
way. "What about the other one?" she says bluntly.
There it was!--the gist of the whole situation in a nutshell. _What_
about the other one? As Challis laid down his pipe, half-smoked--a
strange thing for him--he was aware that, without being absolutely
tremulous, it would not do for him to bring his teeth very near
together without touching, or they would chatter. They must be either
clutched or parted. It is just possible that people exist who have
never had this experience.
CHAPTER XXXV
OF MUTUAL MISTRUST. HANDSOME JUDITH! BUT MARIANNE HAD NO WISH TO PRY
INTO HER AFFAIRS. HOW MATTERS WERE COMFORTABLER. PLEASE BURN THAT
POSTSCRIPT! CHALLIS'S EXPLANATION. HOW IT FAILED, AND HE WENT FOR A
WALK
People go on making believe a thing is true which each knows to be
false, or _vice versa_, a very long time. But when each believes the
other thinks he knows nothing about the matter--or everything about
it, as may suit his case best--reciprocal deception will have a still
longer life. And longer still when each believes the other thinks
that he believes ... and so on across and across _ad infinitum_,
in shuttlecock flights! Our own belief is that if this topic were
discussed by Senior Wranglers, one or more of them would say something
intelligible, which we can't, about the term of mutual deception
increasing as the square of the distance of the shuttlecock flights, or
their number. The first sounds best.
At what stage of the labyrinth of reciprocities were Mr. and Mrs.
Challis left when the gentleman laid down his pipe? Perhaps,
considering that one has other uses for one's brain, it is safest to
leave that question unanswered. But there was this difference between
them--that Mrs. Steptoe's Ramsgate tale had made of Marianne's mind a
fruitful soil for suspicion; while Titus's, apart from a tendency to
detect the influence now and again of Charlotte Eldridge, was disposed
to acquit his wife of any ingenuity in cultivating crops of the
weed--indeed, of very few mental subtleties of any sort whatever. She
was to him the incarnation of stupidity and abstract goodness, a solid
substratum of which was an article of faith with him, reconcilable
with any amount of little tempers, or big ones. And this faith went
the length of supposing that Polly Anne credited him with it, and
knew it would prevent him imagining that she could think him capable
of believing that she could foster suspicions against him. Simple and
intelligible!
But the nervous tremor that seized on Challis when he laid his pipe
down just now was too palpable to leave reciprocal deceptions intact,
unless accounted for as foreign to the subject. Therefore, when
Marianne recognized the abnormal nature of the pipe-movement by saying,
with the mien of an answer-seeker, "Are not you going to finish your
pipe?" he felt that some intrepidity was called for, for both their
sakes.
"Fancy I got a little chill in the damp ... oh no!--I changed
everything. Besides...."
"Besides-what?"
"Well--it was such an awful business, you know! Why, when we were
driving down to the station, how was I to know I shouldn't find you
burned to a cinder? Just fancy!--Polly Anne!"
"_You_ wouldn't have cared," says Marianne, softening. This was an
improvement, and none the worse for the serious note in Challis's voice
as he referred again to his relief when he knew the alarm had been for
nothing. Nevertheless, in a sense, he was glad it was true that he had
gone through strain enough to account for fifty nervous ague-fits.
But he felt a dreadful hypocrite for all that! Just fancy!--availing
himself of the incident to cover his embarrassment in answering a plain
question about his young lady friend. But his duplicity _was_ really
for Marianne's sake as well as his own. Come now!
"I tell you what, Tite: you must have a regular good strong hot toddy
to-night, with plenty of lemon. I'll make it for you." This was
good--almost Coram Street again! Why spoil it? "I can't think what
could possess you to go catching cold at the station. It didn't do any
good." But she improved it: "You must have it after you're in bed, and
you must have my _duvet_." Challis made no immediate protest against
this policy, but the prospect of a June night under a _duvet_ can never
be tempting, even when one anticipates the sleep of a clear conscience.
He was, however, really grateful, kissing a rather improved countenance
his wife advanced on application: this phrase is taken from his mind,
which had taken it, _more suo_, from the moneylender's column in the
_Times_.
"It isn't anything; I've no objection to the toddy, though. Now, tell
me some more about your mother ... about the dentist ... anything ...
oh, by-the-bye! one of my letters was from Bob. It's upstairs.... I'll
go and fetch it."
"Never mind it now! Or I can send Harmood. You didn't answer my
question."
"Let me see--what _was_ the question? No, don't ring! Harmood won't
know where to find it. Besides, I don't want her fishing about among
my papers." And the obstinate man went, and came back with the letter.
If he hoped that the previous question was going to lapse, he was
mistaken.
"The question was about your friend Miss Arkroyd." She took Bob's
letter, opened it, and made a pretence of looking at it. But she left
her restatement, with all the force it had gathered by delay, for his
consideration while she did so.
He stood behind her, looking over her shoulder at Bob's letter. The
exact thing that crossed his mind as he did so was that he had now a
new box of wax vestas in his pocket. But, then, he had had to quash
the thought that suggested it. "That's a portrait of the new second
master putting on his trousers," said he. "_What_ about my friend Miss
Arkroyd, Polly Anne dear?... No, that's not his real name. Pitt's his
real name.... Rev. Iairus Pitt.... Oh, well!--boys will be boys, you
know...."
But Marianne was not to be turned from her purpose by the Rev. Iairus
Pitt, whose parents had not baptized him considerately. "Is it all
settled about her going on the stage?... handsome Judith?"
So strangely had last night's image of Judith--or, rather, her
identity--cancelled her previous one of the stage aspirant, that
Challis all but exclaimed, "Oh, of course!--she _was_ going on
the stage. Actually I had forgotten that!" For he _had_ forgotten
it--Estrild and all!--in the outbreak of fever in which he had so
completely forgotten himself and his position and his duties. But he
kept to himself what would have been unintelligible to Marianne; not
without a feeling of relief that her question had reminded him of an
aspect in which Judith could be easily discussed by both, without any
_arrière pensée_.
"Handsome Judith," said he seriously and equably as he resumed his
seat, "has given up all idea of going on the stage. That's at an end."
"Oh!" A short and thick exclamation, very conclusive.
"I shall have to find someone else to play Estrild if I finish the
play...."
Mrs. Challis was considering. "She's going to be married, of course,"
she said.
"H'm!--I've no reason to suppose she is."
"You said her sister was?"
"I said something about Sibyl and Lord F. Yes!--but they're not twins,
you know, she and Judith!"
"I know that. Really, Tite, I'm not the goose you always try to make me
out! Besides, twins _don't_, invariably: sometimes one dies of a broken
heart."
"Judith won't die of a broken heart when her sister marries," says
Challis dryly.
"I understand. But, Tite dear, do consider! A married sister younger
than herself!"
"Miss Arkroyd isn't the sort of party to contract matrimony in order
to walk in front of her sister at Court. Besides, there might not be
another coronet handy, to walk in front with."
"What sort of party is she, then?" Challis thought to himself that
a certain class of stupidity makes as formidable a cross-examiner,
sometimes, as cleverness itself. Getting no immediate reply, his wife
repeated, "Well!--what sort?"
"She's a problem; that's the expression nowadays. I'm not sure it isn't
as good as another."
"Never mind the expression! You know you admire her very much."
"I do. But, you see, Polly Anne?--she won't act Estrild. So where are
we?" What a boon Estrild, recollected just in time, had been in this
conversation!
"What excuse does she give for backing out?" The speaker's grim
attitude towards suggested breach of faith grated on her husband. But
that was all in the day's work--the bad day's work!
"I think I'll have another pipe.... Oh yes!--I'm feeling all right
again now; it was nervous, after that horrible affair at the
station.... I'll fill it up new, and then I'll tell the whole story."
"I have no wish to pry into Miss Arkroyd's affairs. However, tell me if
you like."
"Not if you don't like!" Challis is again puffing in comfort at this
point, and, to our thinking, matters are going easier. No particular
reply comes from Marianne, and he assumes a disclaimer, saying, "All
right, Polly Anne! I'll go on. It seems that the Great Idea had
something to do with it...."
"Let's see!--that's the Fine Art turn-out...."
"Yes; the new Art and Craft affair--Sibyl's. There was a family row
when she proposed to put up her name, with 'Limited' after it, over
a shop in Bond Street." He went on, and narrated briefly how Sibyl
had met her parents' remonstrances by saying that if Judith went on
the stage, she didn't see for her part why _she_ shouldn't conduct a
business. Especially as it was distinctly understood that mechanics
would not be employed; only craftsmen. Also that the articles sold
would not be things, but art-products. Also that they would be
curiously wrought. How the Bart. had interrupted her, to ask what on
earth she meant by Judith going on the stage! For the most palpable and
visible things would go on in the family under the worthy gentleman's
nose, and he be never a penny the wiser. "Then," said the narrator,
"Judith was summoned, and there was a scene. The upshot was that both
the young ladies being of age, and having a right to go their own way,
it seemed at first that each would certainly carry out her intention,
in spite of their parents' remonstrances. But maturer reflection showed
Sibyl, whose sisterly feelings run high...."
"They don't hit it off?"
"Exactly!... showed Sibyl that if she made her own compliance with her
parents' wishes contingent on Judith throwing up the play-acting...."
"I see," said Marianne very perceptively; adding, as an under-word,
"There was the lord, too."
"It was what John Eldridge would have called a _wipe_ for Judith.
And, as you say, Lord Felixthorpe might have flinched at a stage
sister-in-law."
"I didn't say so, but it was what I meant." An uncomfortable look comes
on Marianne's face, as though something had crossed her mind. She
says disconnectedly, "Tite dear!"--with a new intonation out of place
at this juncture, but immediately after cancels it. "Never mind!--at
least, never mind now! Go on about Judith."
Challis glanced sharply at her, puzzled by her words and their manner.
But he let them pass, and continued: "Anyhow, Judith has given up the
stage, and there is to be no shop with 'Sibyl Limited' over it."
"What do you suppose you will do about the play?"
"I must leave it alone for a little, and see how matters shape
themselves. You see, the play was written for Judith Arkroyd, and you
can't think what a job it will be to think another identity--Silvia
Berens, for instance--into the part. Or Thyrza Shreckenbaum."
"I really _am_ sorry for you, Titus. After writing things all over
again and making alterations! Oh dear!" Marianne thought to herself,
should she get up and go across the rug to her husband and kiss him?
But then a memory must needs cross her mind--that story of the Ramsgate
wedding--never cleared up! Till that was done, her _rôle_ of domestic
affection stopped short of gratuitous kissing. Some day she would get
at that story, and know all about it.
Meanwhile matters were comfortabler; no doubt of it! That odious
play-acting business was at an end--at least, so far as Judith, who
was the vicious quitch in it, was concerned. Titus might have as much
Silvia Berens as he liked; she knew _that_ would be all safe. Also,
Marianne misinterpreted her husband's visible reluctance to talk of
Judith, at first, as an excusable disgust with the young lady herself
for the trick she had played him. He had got to speak of her freely
enough at last. This was because, as a matter of fact, his sense of his
surrounding relations was growing on him, and each moment was feeling
comfortabler than its predecessor.
Challis finished his pipe, and they chatted of other matters. Then
followed a good deal about the railway accident, and Challis talked
learnedly about the flashpoints of petroleums. They seemed quite agreed
that if it could only be established beyond a doubt that neither of
them had ever seen or spoken to any one of the sufferers, or their
relations or belongings, the calamity would come within the category of
common accidents in newspapers, that happen every day somewhere, and
can't be helped. But Marianne was terribly afraid that the guard, who
was burned nearly to a cinder, must be the red-nosed guard who looked
in at her carriage in the morning and asked if she had dropped a pair
of double eyeglasses. That would bring it painfully near home.
Mr. Eldridge's impulsiveness and some of his individualities were
reviewed. It was impossible to acquit him of having given his friend a
perfectly unnecessary fright; but we would not dwell on it, for look at
the excellence of his heart! This quality was always saving John from
censure, which would have been dealt out unsparingly to the possessor
of a bad one. It is extraordinary what an affliction you can be to
your friends, with impunity, when once your intrinsic goodness is an
established fact.
Even grandmamma was pacifically talked over--a thing that happened
rarely enough. Marianne had not been very long with her, as, while
they were at lunch, the tooth-stopping came out, and she knew that if
it was not replaced the tooth would come on aching. These interesting
particulars came gradually, as Marianne brewed the promised toddy.
Challis had declined to have it in bed, as quite uncalled for by his
malady, which he maintained, truly enough, no doubt, was purely a
nervous affection.
But he never drank that toddy!
For when it was ready, Marianne said: "It's so hot I can't touch it.
You'll have to wait."
"All right," he said. "I shall be a few minutes yet. I dare say I'll
have another half-pipe to make up three. Don't you stop, old girl!"
Marianne yawned. "Well, perhaps I may as well go. I've had a good deal
of running about, and I'm sleepy. Good-night, dear; don't burn your
mouth!" She was more her old self than she had been for a long time.
For, you see, she had seen--but slowly--that her cloud had cleared
away. Challis's own feeling that--for him--Judith must cease, had
worked itself into speech that his wife had merely supposed to relate
to the _chute_ of the projected drama. It was a good wind that blew
Judith away, whatever quarter it blew from.
She went close to her husband, giving him the right piece of her face
to kiss. "Which tooth was it?" said he. She showed him, tapping it.
"It's a very little hole," he said, "and a good tooth!" She replied:
"That's why Mr. Leaver says it should be stopped with gold. Now,
good-night, dear! Drink the toddy, and don't be very late!"
Now, if only this woman had just gone straight away to bed and slept!
And if that man, who had fully sworn to himself--mind you!--that the
thing he had to do was to thrust his past delirium behind him, had but
smoked his pipe, drunk his toddy, slept and waked next day a wiser man,
might not the whole of the silly story have passed into oblivion, and
left this prosy tale of ours without a _raison-d'être_? Quite possible!
But, then, no such thing happened.
For Marianne seemed to hang fire and hesitate over her departure. She
paused as she passed the open window; the sweet air, now that the
rain had stopped, was pleasant after so much smoke. "What a beautiful
moonlight night it's come out!" she said. But the moonlight grated on
her husband. That moon was only a day older and a shade smaller than
the full orb shining on the little Tophet garden and that Calypso of
last night, robed in a stellar universe of moonsparks. Why need the
rain-rack, flying northward after doing the garden so much good, leave
conscious guilt exposed to the sight of Artemis--or Hecate--who knew
all about it yesterday? Why not have gone on raining a little longer?
Marianne took another view. She said again, "How lovely the moon is,
Tite!" in an unusual way for her. For she was not given to romantic
sentiments. Her husband read in her manner a recognition of their
_rapprochement_; for such it was, though no official recognition had
been bestowed on distance, its condition precedent. He went and stood
beside her; and, for her sake as well as his own--so he thought--gazed
on the moon with all the effrontery of those experienced reprobates,
Mr. Brown and Lord Smith. He forsook the toddy to do so, having just
tried it with his fingers, and decided it could be touched with safety.
They stood side by side at the window; a minute or more, maybe. Then
she said, almost as though conscious of some unscheduled ratification:
"That'll do, dear! Now suppose I go to bed. The toddy will be cold."
He followed her to the foot of the stairs, to endorse the cordiality
of his send-off. There she kissed him again, but said, rather puzzling
him: "I know you've forgiven me, Tite dear!"
He was moved as well as puzzled. "But, my dearest girl," said he, "what
have I to forgive?"
"What I said in my letter." Whatever this woman's faults were, she was
always downright.
"But, dear old goose, what did it all come to? You couldn't get away
from home just now, or something. What did it matter? _That_ was all
right!" Oh, how he wished he could have added, "Come next time"! But,
alas!--that was all over now; reasons why jostled each other in his
brain. No more Royd!
"I didn't mean that," says the downright one, pushing facts home. "I
meant what I wrote at the end, on the back of the last sheet. It was
all nonsense, you know; I never meant it."
"I didn't see the back of the last sheet. I read it in a great hurry
just going in to dinner last night."
"Well!--it was there. Don't read it; burn it! Can't you get it now, and
burn it for me to see? I would so much rather."
Challis should have replied that he had got the letter safe somewhere,
he knew, and he would look it up after he had finished his half-pipe.
The reprobates the story has referred to would have done so; would
probably have gone the length of turning out their pockets, slapping
themselves on those outworks; would even have said, being men of
spirit, Dammy, madam, the Devil was in it if they could tell what had
become of the letter! Come what might, they would have cut a figure!
Challis cut none, or if he did it was a poor one. The fact is that,
considered as a liar, he was good for nothing--had a very low standard
of mendacity; and, indeed, had suffered so much over this affair of
Judith that it was a luxury to him to say something, at last, without
any reserves.
"It's burned already, Polly Anne. So you may be easy. Ta-ta!" He had
said it before he remembered how unready he must perforce be with
details.
"Oh!" rather curtly. "I suppose you lit your pipe with it? Very well!"
He had better have let misapprehension stand. Better that amount of
false construction than the actual facts. But he must needs clear his
character. "No, Polly Anne; it was really no fault of mine. It was the
merest accident...." He stuttered over it; and she, seeing he had some
tale to tell or reserve about it--but, to do her justice, without any
idea of a lion in ambush--waited with patience. This, as you know, is
the deadliest way in which stammered information can be received.
"It really was--you know how imp ... difficult it is to read by
moonlight--and my wax vesta I lit to read it with was the last I had.
It was when I threw it away--yes, when I threw it away it set fire to
the letter. It burned my fingers, and I threw it on the ground." What a
lame business! And he dared not mention Judith, and knew it.
Marianne's voice is changing a little as she repeats: "It burned your
fingers, and you threw it on the ground?" She does not use the words
"Please explain!" aloud. She merely leaves them unspoken.
But her husband has only begun saying "Yes ..." uneasily, when she cuts
him short. "Were they dining by moonlight at Royd last night?"
"No--no--of course not! You don't understand...."
"I don't."
"I had read the letter myself just before dinner, and I missed reading
the postscript, because it was late, and the dinner-gong sounded. This
of the wax match was in the garden, after." It is coming slowly--the
inevitable--and he is beginning to know it. Maybe Marianne sees the
flush mounting on his face.
"I thought you never saw the back of the last sheet? Why did you want
to read the rest again? Had I said anything wrong?"
"No, dear!--you don't understand. Listen...."
"Yes--go on!" Because what has to be listened to seems to hang fire
However, it comes in the end.
"It was not I myself that wanted to read the letter again just then...."
"Who had read it before?"
"I didn't mean that, either, dear--do wait!"
"I am waiting ... tell me ... tell me at once!" Surely Marianne's
breath came a little short on the last words, and she is leaning on the
banister-rail perceptibly. His answer comes in the quick undertone of
one who wishes to get something said that he would have been glad to
leave unuttered.
"I was asked if I thought you would mind your answer to their
invitation being shown, and I could not remember a word in the letter
that I thought you could possibly object to my showing...."
"Who do you mean by 'they'?"
"The--the family. Lady Arkroyd...."
"My message was to Judith Arkroyd, who wrote to me. Do you mean _her_
when you say _they_? Who else was there when she saw the letter?"
"No one."
"You had better tell me exactly what happened."
"I had. They had a party, and dancing going on. I went away to a quiet
garden there is, to be out of the noise, and Miss Arkroyd was there.
She had seen your letter arrive for me when the post came, and had
seen me after reading it just before dinner, and seen me slip it in my
pocket. She asked to be allowed to see it--I know with some idea of
inducing you to change your mind and come, and I ... I may have been
wrong, you know ... only remember I had not read the postscript you
speak of ... well! I let her look at it."
"Then about the matches and the fire?"
"Just an accident. I held a match for her to read by, and it caught a
gauze veil she had. It was just got clear in time to save her a bad
burning. But the letter caught in the blaze, and was burned before I
could save it. That is all!"
"Is that quite all?"
"Quite all!"
"It is quite enough. Good-night!"
"Oh, Polly Anne, Polly Anne!--don't think--don't believe?..."
"Go on. What?"
"... anything but what I've told you.... Oh, my dear!..."
But Marianne has left him, and is on her way upstairs. She is quite
changed from the Polly Anne who was standing by the window but now. She
walks stonily, and looks white. But her fortitude only lasts as far as
the return of the staircase. As she turns, and knows that he can see
her face from below, lighted as it is by the gas on the landing above,
she breaks down altogether, and reaches her bedroom-door in a passion
of hysterical tears.
"No--no--no--no!" she cries. "Take away your hands. Go away and leave
me." For her husband has followed her, three steps at a time. He
knows, and the knowledge is a knife in his heart, how wrong he has
been; not in falling in love out of bounds--a thing he had no control
over--but in showing that letter, which he could easily have refused
to do. Passion and action live on opposite sides of the river. Now,
what worlds would he give to find palliation for himself in his inner
conscience!--it is the want of that that ties the tongue of his
explanation to her. Yet he must qualify his contrition, if only that
plenary admission of guilt would be taken to imply still more, and
worse, to come.
"Polly Anne dearest, for God's sake don't run away with a false idea!
A great deal too much is being made of a trifle. If you would only be
patient with me!..."
"I am patient. Now tell--what is the false idea? Why is it too much?
Why is it a trifle?--showing my letter to--to that woman before you had
read it yourself!" She is killing her sobs as she speaks, and has a
hard struggle. They are heads of a Lernæan Hydra.
"Don't be unfair to me, dear! I _had_ read it, all except that one bit
on the back. It was so easy to miss it!"
"_I_ never do--things on the back of letters."
"It was stupid of me. But what you don't understand, dear, is that I
wanted Miss Arkroyd to read your message herself. There was certainly
nothing you could have minded her seeing in the letter itself."
"Indeed! How do you know?"
"Well!--I don't know; I think."
"And when you had put Miss Arkroyd out, what happened?"
"How do you mean 'what happened'?"
"Oh, don't tell me if you don't like! I am out of it!"
Now, Challis would have liked to be able to say, "It is by your own
choice that you are out of it; and the whole of this misunderstanding
has grown, through a good intention of this lady you hate, to bring
you into it." But he had tied his own tongue. "It"--whatever it
was--had ceased to exist for him now at Royd. And probably his future
intercourse with Grosvenor Square would be limited to just such an
allowance of formal calls as would draw a veil over strained relations,
and silence suggestion of ostracism. His behaviour of the previous
evening had created a no-thoroughfare; but the conversation had hardly
arrived at the notice-board.
"Nothing happened; the burns were not bad." His words were almost
true--the prevarication, in this form, of the slightest, but the
notice-board was clearly legible by now. "We left the garden, and no
more was said about the letter, because some men from the house joined
us, talking politics."
But Marianne has gone stony. Her manner rejects the men from the
house, who talked politics. "I s-see," she says, fully expressing the
closure of her mind against all extenuations, palliations, evasions, or
excuses. "The letter was burned, and there was an end of it."
"Exactly! An end of it!" He extended the phrase in his mind to his
relations with Royd, and all belonging to them.
Marianne waited so incisively for anything further to be said by her
husband, and he felt so certain that if the no-thoroughfare notice were
disregarded, the trespassers would suffer penalties--his own being
enforced disclosure of what would be injurious to both, and quite
useless--that he was almost glad when his wife said stonily: "Your
whisky is getting cold. Perhaps you had better take it." He answered
drearily, "Perhaps I had," and went away, but not to the dining-room.
He went to his own study, and sat there aimlessly, thinking, in the
half-dark. Presently, making as little noise as possible, he went
downstairs, put out the lights that had been left burning, and, going
stealthily out at the front-door, went for a walk in the moonlight.
But that carefully mixed nightcap remained untouched, and was placed by
Harmood on the sideboard, as an embarrassment difficult to dispose of
where no man-servant was kept. And there it reproached its maker and
its non-consumer in the morning.
CHAPTER XXXVI
HOW CHALLIS AND HIS WIFE PARTED. A DINNER AT THE CLUB, AND HIS RETURN
FROM IT. WHAT HAS BECOME OF YOUR MISTRESS? A LETTER FROM MARIANNE
CRAIK. DAMN CHARLOTTE ELDRIDGE!
There are no hours more miserable than the first ones of a day after
a quarrel, or high tension akin to a quarrel. Next morning at the
Hermitage found it full of silences and reserves. Mr. and Mrs. Challis
were speaking with studied forbearance--even civility--towards one
another. The children had been told to make less noise, and had made
it, but had then been told to make still less, and so on, to the point
of virtual extinction. Their mother had risen at her usual time, but
looking ill, and had scarcely found fault with her usual spirit. And
yet Harmood, whose intuitions the story is now following, observed that
the butter had a flavour--namely, the one it so often has; and the
eggs were the sort that won't boil. There is another sort, which has
a passion for disintegration; but this time it was the former, which
is worse; and yet they were accepted in silence. Harmood saw clearly
that there had been words, and forthwith resolved to select this moment
to give warning suddenly--a step she had been contemplating for some
weeks. An up-to-date English servant respects herself more, or less,
in proportion to the degree of confusion into which she can plunge her
employers when she throws up her situation.
Mr. Challis had only waited--Harmood noticed--to see the children as
they went out for an early walk, not to be in the hot sun too much.
He kissed both affectionately, but his customary jokes with them were
rather under his breath. He then went to his room, and presumably wrote
something Harmood's inner consciousness was able to form a low opinion
of, without perusal; for whenever she did out the study she mentally
classed MS. literature as a lot of stuff.
Mrs. Challis transacted necessary household business, and went straight
to her room, saying she was going out, and was not sure when she should
be back. At the street-door she was stopped by Harmood, respectfully
but firmly. Was she likely to be back before twelve? She couldn't say;
why? Of course, because Miss Harmood wished to give warning, and if
she did not do so before midday, she would have to pass twenty-four
hours more under the roof that had sheltered her for three years at
least. As Mrs. Challis might be out, she would prefer to give a month's
warning forthwith.
Mrs. Challis did not show the panic Harmood had promised herself the
sight of. On the contrary, she barely raised her eyebrows as she
answered: "Certainly, Harmood! To-day is the twentieth," and was
actually going out. But she paused an instant at a prefatory cough
from the handmaiden. Had the latter any complaint to make? The answer
renounced complaint, but with implication of generosity. "Very well!"
said Mrs. Challis thereon. "I can't wait. The twentieth." And went
away, leaving Harmood mortified.
She came back between twelve and one. She was heated with walking, but
might have been crying, too. So Harmood thought when she let her in.
She went upstairs, speaking to her husband outside his door. She had
just come back from Charlotte's, she said. Was he there? Yes--he was,
and came out at once to speak with her. He was amiable, but subdued.
Had waited for her, in case there was anything--a vague expression, but
conciliatory under the circumstances. There was certainly nothing--no
doubt about it. Was he going out?--his coat suggested it. Yes; he
would not be in to lunch. A letter had come by the second post, asking
him to meet a man on business in the City at two. He would lunch at
Scallopini's, and stay at his club, where he had promised to dine with
his publisher and some authors at 7.30. But he would not come in late.
Then Marianne said coldly: "Don't hurry on my account."
He answered, as cheerfully as he dared--that is, not to seem to ignore
the conditions: "You'll go to bed just the same, of course?"
Her reply was: "I shall go to bed." Nothing more. She went on to her
own bedroom.
Challis could almost have sworn he heard a sob as the door closed. Was
it so or not? He could not bear the doubt. He would risk it--go to
her, throw himself at her feet, cry out in his misery for pardon for
the past, and oblivion; for a pact of hope for the days and hours to
come. If he could only have made his decision a few seconds sooner! But
he just missed the chance, as Marianne opened her door and came back,
stony.
"I forgot to tell you. Harmood has given warning."
"Harmood! Why--what on earth has the woman to complain of?"
"I can't say. _I_ have given her no cause of complaint. She makes no
complaint, as I understand."
"Well!--that _is_ extraordinary! However, she's not indispensable. We
can do without her. Only you'll have such a bother to find someone
else."
Marianne said: "I don't think I shall." And Challis imagined that she
referred to some possible servant or useful agency that she knew of.
But the thought in her mind was different, as we shall see. Challis
recalled her words afterwards. All that this talk of Harmood meant for
him then was that a good impulse had been spoiled by it.
He looked at his watch, and found he would only just have time to get
to town, get some lunch, and be ready for his appointment, which was
an imperative one. He changed slippers for boots, and was ready. With
his hand on the open street-door, he called out to his wife: "Good-bye,
then! I'm off." Contrary to his expectation, she came downstairs.
"You are off," she said, repeating his words. "Good-bye, then!" And
rather to his surprise she kissed him, saying: "Yes--then, good-bye!"
All the manner of it was a little odd. But his instincts--may be
mistaken ones--told him to let well alone. He replied with a warmer
kiss than hers had been, and a moment after was on his way to East
Putney Station. He was very uncomfortable about losing sight of her for
so long. But, after all, it might give their relations a better chance
of readjustment. Nothing like a pause!
A business colloquy of some warmth, with a reference to possible legal
proceedings, was followed first by a pleasant afternoon at the Club,
and next by a very informal dinner of six--of whom at least three were
amusing dogs--and lastly by a saunter homewards with one of the amusing
dogs, who wished him good-night at Gloucester Road Station. All these
experiences were of the sort that brushes cobwebs from the mind, and
Challis was feeling much freer at heart when, after midnight, his
latchkey clicked in the front-door at the Hermitage, and admitted him
to a silent house.
Well!--of course, a house is silent when everyone has gone to bed. What
would you have?
Challis lighted his candle and gathered up his letters to read in his
study. He went furtively up the two short stairflights, secretly hoping
that Marianne would speak from her room to him; for, however quiet he
was, she almost always heard him, the exceptions being when he was
unusually late, and she very sound asleep. He paused a moment to favour
the chance. Not a sound!
He glanced at her door with an uncomfortable feeling he could not at
first account for, a sense that it disclaimed an inmate. In a moment,
however, he mastered the reason of that. Nothing so very unusual! Only
that she had forgotten to put her boots out. Well!--this wasn't a
hotel. How absurdly nervous he was, and fanciful!
He turned into his study and lighted his reading-candle, with the
reflector. He would be there some time; there were so many letters.
First he would open the window, though, to let the sweet night-air in.
It was so overpoweringly hot.
Then he sat down to his desk and began upon his letters. One
advertisement of no value. Two advertisements of no value. A thick
letter from Nebraska to the author of his own first work, etc.,
etc., care of his publisher; that might be amusing. An enclosure of
slip-cuttings; so might that.... Hullo!--what was the meaning of this?
One to Mrs. Alfred Challis among his letters! Marianne had overlooked
it. Odd, that!
But--but--but, that was not all! Another, and another to Mrs. Alfred
Challis. Overlooked?--_impossible!_ Utterly impossible! She must be
still out. Where could she have gone? Did not she say she had been at
Charlotte's in the morning? Where else could she go? Where else was
there to go? Tulse Hill? Why--she was there yesterday!
He sat there a full two minutes, without dropping the letter he held
when the thing amiss first caught him, or changing his posture of face
or hand. He sat pursuing possibilities in thought, and overtaking
none. Then, with sudden resolution in a face white as the envelope he
dropped, he rose and went straight to his wife's room, lamp in hand. On
the way a thought came--it was just a bare chance!--had she gone to bed
early with a headache, saying she was not to be disturbed?--and had all
these letters come by the last post? Not probable, certainly, but not
impossible! At least, he would knock at her door before going in and
waking her suddenly. She would be less surprised.
He tapped and heard nothing. He listened longer than need was, clinging
artificially to hope. Then he opened the door and went in. There was no
one in the room.
Was there nothing that would give him a clue at once? He could not
think coolly yet; utterly useless with this nervous ague-fit on him! He
knew it would subside in time, and he would be able to think. But for
now, was there nothing?
For instance, in the appearance of the bed? Yes--something! Surely
his recollection did not deceive him. Should not the bed, by rights,
be "turned down," and be yawning, as it were, for its occupant? Would
there not be, normally, some appearance of night-clothes; if not laid
out on the coverlid as though courting their contents, at least beneath
the pillow? He threw it aside; there was nothing.
On the dressing-table, then? Yes!--the brushes and combs were not
there. They might be in the drawer, though. But how about those
stoppered bottles? One was clear in his memory--square, with horizontal
corrugations and a flat disc with a statement, hazarded by a writer
in gold, that it contained eau-de-Cologne. Where was it? Not on
that table, nor the chimney-piece. A great fear was on him that she
had _gone_! Then it flashed upon him that if she had, she would
have taken her jewels with her. Where did she keep them? In the top
wardrobe-drawer. It would be locked, but he and she had a secret
knowledge that one key opened all the drawers alike. He felt like
an over-sensitive detective; but he got the key and opened it. The
jewel-case was there, sure enough, but--not locked! He opened it, and
saw at a glance that none of her favourites were there. Oh yes--she had
gone! Marianne was gone--there was no doubt of it now!
He dropped back, feeling sick, on a chair, face to face with reality.
Event agrees ill with men of Challis's temperament, the sort that can
become unhealthily excited by the puppets of their own imagination.
That railway accident yesterday was bad enough! But this--think of
it!--at home, with the children to tell in the morning!
He tried to think--what next? Rouse the servants? Of course; but which
servant? Nurse by preference, certainly. _Procul absit_ Steptoe, and
even Miss Harmood! He rose, feeling weak; and without his lamp, for all
the house was navigable in the glorious moonlight, found his way to the
nursery. Nurse slept in the little room just off it on the landing. But
the rooms had a door between, in case of anything in the night. That is
nurse's phrase, not ours.
Just as Challis was framing in his mind the question he should
ask--and all forms that suggested themselves seemed to intensify the
position--the thought crossed his mind that it would be a relief to see
those youngsters asleep in the moonlight. Surely it would!--or, would
it? He would risk it. He opened the nursery-door furtively, and stole
in. But darkness reigned--curtain-darkness; shutter-darkness. Challis
knew that little girls that sleep exposed to moonbeams suffer in some
mysterious way--go blind, or go silly, or are witched away by bogles.
He wasn't sure which. He tiptoed to the window, and could let in the
light without noise, for, as it turned out, there was no shutter. What
of the bed? He knew how nice they were in bed. All children are.
But the bed was empty.
* * * * *
Mrs. Steptoe, roused from her first sleep, which was about two hours
old, and a promising sample, thought at first that she was back in
Tallack Street, and that the noise was her lamented husband, the worse
for liquor. Further revived, her decision that it might be thieves, and
that her choice of action would lie between affecting sleep and calling
"Police!" from the window, was short-lived; and she followed it up by
referring her master's cries to fire. Harmood's consciousness passed
through analogous phases, but with this difference: that the second one
did not suggest immediate action. A servant who had just given warning
might surely go on pretending to be asleep, unblamed. Was she there at
all, technically?
However, the thought of the great terror "Fire!" brings the laziest
from his bed. Neither waited to be sure that she was being called by
name, but ran out on the landing above, belonging to the attics, to be
encountered by Challis's voice from below, shouting madly, "What has
become of your mistress? Where are the children? Where on earth are you
all? Come down at once!" and so on.
Mrs. Steptoe's tremulous accents stopped him, but he could not catch
what she said. "Come down here at once," he cried again, "and speak up
plain. Where is your mistress, and the children?" He just got his voice
under control for the question.
Mrs. Steptoe came down half-way. Her costume forbade a complete
descent. "The mistress and the young ladies and nurse, sir?"
"Yes!--the mistress and the young ladies and nurse. Where are they?
Speak quick!"
Mrs. Steptoe found voice enough to say: "Ain't they at Tulse Hill, sir?"
"That's what I want to know. Do _you_ know?"
Mrs. Steptoe found some more voice. "Didn't the mistress say Tulse
Hill, Harmood?" She asked the question of the unseen, above, not
without recognition of her own necessity as a go-between. Direct
communications from a house-and-parlour-maid, single, in a nightgown,
could hardly be in order under the circumstances.
"Mrs. Challis said Tulse Hill, Mrs. Steptoe." The delicacy of the
position is recognized, and the intercessor and mediator installed. Who
repeats the words officially, and adds, as a mere human creature: "My
word a mercy, what a turn it giv'!"
"What did your mistress say? When did she go? Did she leave no message?"
"Not with me, sir!" Then officially: "Did Mrs. Challis leave no
message, Harmood?" Which, substituting as it does a name for an
offensive designation, confirms and ratifies the claim to mediumship
made by the speaker, who accordingly repeats the substance of Miss
Harmood's communication from above, replacing the offensive designation
in the text where it had been ignored in the original.
"The mistress didn't leave no message, sir, only a note. She was taking
the young ladies to their grandmamma's, and we was not to expect her
back."
"Where's the note?... Did she name any time?" To this Miss Harmood,
overstepping delicacy, and speaking, as it were, with the direct voice,
replies:
"Mrs. Challis said no time, sir, but you would know. She took her
things to stay, and the young ladies, and went about three."
"About three." Mrs. Steptoe confirms, adding: "The note is left on the
'all-table." This anticipates the question on Challis's lips, and also
reinstates delicacy, making further direct communication unnecessary.
Challis says abruptly, "You had better get back to bed, both of you!"
and goes to bring the lamp from the bedroom. He sees at once that he
had overlooked the letter, which must have been at the bottom of the
handful he brought up. Of course, it would be, if it was written before
three. All those later letters would have hidden it.
Yes--there it was, directed to "Mr. Challis" and nothing else. He
brought to the surface a memory of having noticed it at first, and
thought it a tradesman's account or a begging application. Now he could
see the handwriting. He could not have said whether he was more anxious
or afraid to open it. Perhaps the former, so great was his wish to know
how it would begin. But it had no definite beginning, such as letters
usually have.
"You do not really care for me, so I have made up my mind to leave
you--it is all at an end between us, for _you do not really care for
me_--now you can go away to Miss Arkroyd _if she will have you_--it
will not be bigamy, and _you know why_--I am Kate's sister, and we
cannot be legally Man and Wife--mamma has said so all along.
"Oh, Titus, how could you show that letter--could I have acted by you
like that?--to show it to that woman to read before you--think if it
had been me--my letter showed to _some gentleman_ you half knew, _and
me not seen it first_--oh, Titus--but it is good-bye.
"Besides, I know, because of the garden all by yourselves--Charlotte
says so."
Challis started to his feet as he read these words. "I knew it--I knew
it!" he cried to the empty air. "Oh, damn that woman!--with all my
heart and soul, damn that woman!" He added, without circumlocution,
words to the effect that if ever a woman of infamous character existed,
she was one. It seemed to soothe him; and after pacing the room once or
twice with the letter in his hand, he came back to the lamp, and went
on reading:
"Charlotte says so--only it is only the _sort of thing_ I mean--I
have _no accusation to make_--you must believe what I say--it is what
_I know you feel_ I go by--and I think _most women would, too_. If
you had cared for me you COULD not have done it, but though you have
behaved so to me I shall try to forgive you, though I have quite made
up my mind that we must part.
"Dear Titus, I know I have often been short-tempered, but that is
another thing--now good-bye.
"Affectly. yours,
"MARIANNE CRAIK."
The name was on the fourth line of the last page, though a postscript
followed. Challis broke out impatiently into a sort of painful
half-laugh, as his eye caught his wife's maiden name. "What folly!"
cried he. "What sheer, unqualified folly! Polly Anne!--just fancy!
Why--she _is_ my wife: nothing can make her anything else." And then he
went on to the postscript.
"POSTSCRIPT.--I have taken away the children, because they are my
own. You can ask Mr. Tillingfleet--because he told me--I suppose a
lawyer knows----" Here the writing turned sideways, running up the
paper-edge: "It is no use your coming to see me--my mind is made up."
Then a further continuation, rather illegible on the paper-edge,
Challis made out to be: "I will not say, God forgive you, because you
do not believe in God."
Challis sat still after reading this, becoming calmer, and thinking. At
last he said: "It's all nonsense! Polly Anne will come back fast enough
when I've got the kids back. She can't keep _them_." He seemed quite
satisfied of it.
He thought he should not sleep if he went to bed. But he did both,
and was a sad man in an empty house when he awoke late from a happy
oblivion, and slow remembrance came.
CHAPTER XXXVII
HOW CHALLIS COULDN'T BELIEVE MARIANNE WAS IN EARNEST. HOW HE SOUGHT
HER AND FAILED. THE EYES OF HOLY WRIT. THE DISGRACEFUL TRUTH. DEAR
MISS ARKROYD! WHY FIGHT AGAINST INFLICTED LIBERTY? GLENVAIRLOCH TO LET
"Will Mrs. Challis be back to lunch, sir?" Thus Harmood the respectful,
after giving a certain amount of attention to a series of concessions,
collectively called breakfast. Her mistress being absent, she was
taking advantage of Challis's readiness to submit to anything rather
than attend to the domesticities. Just like his fellow-males elsewhere!
She was fortified in the adoption of this course by the reflection that
she had given warning. And a servant who has given warning is a problem
not to be solved under the most subtle definition of Existence yet
formulated, even by Graubosch. She is not an Abstract Idea; would not
the butcher's bill diminish in that case? On the other hand, could any
concrete thing, worthy of the name, do so much in the way of leaving
coal-scuttles at stair-feet, or its black-leadin' brush in the empty
grate; or its dust-pan full of tea-leaves for when it should be ready
to begin sweeping; or the windows flaring wide open, and the door, and
all master's papers blowing about?
The story can't settle that point now, nor could Challis. It was
metaphysics, and Mr. Brownrigg's business. All the victim of Harmood's
qualified entity could distinguish was, for instance, that the
table-cloth was grudgingly disposed so as to cover one-third of the
table only. Being a tablecloth of huge bulk, with a court-train at each
corner, it refused, when quadrupled, to have anything stood on without
tumbling over; notably a needlessly small milk-jug, evolved from some
obscure corner to stint master in milk with. It wouldn't stand only
you held it; so, of course, it just slopped over. But, of course,
there was plenty of milk in the house, and the incident closed with
Harmood actually bringing The Milk itself, in the most matronly white
jug that ever was seen, that seemed to have thrown its whole soul into
stability, like Noah's wife in his Ark, who can be stood up on a rough
carpet cattle fall sideways on, knocking down their neighbours.
Need it be said that Challis's observation is followed in all this? It
shows a state of mind not fully alive to the reality of his position.
He was, in fact, pooh-poohing the idea that Marianne's action was
more than an outburst of ill-temper, the result--he admitted this--of
a perfectly natural resentment under the circumstances. Of an unjust
one--yes! He said this to himself again and again, but never exactly
located the injustice. He could perceive that this resentment was due
to gross misapprehension of the facts of the case, but he cautiously
avoided details of the misapprehension. He may have felt misgivings
that Marianne was not so very wrong, after all. Women can decide this;
no man's verdict has any weight in such a matter.
He attached a certain value to Harmood's concessions of warmed-up
coffee, and eggs which were a caution to poachers. He took no advantage
of them, or very little, as breakfast; but till they were finally
left to perish of cold neglect, he could postpone his answer to the
question, "What's to be done next?" However, it would have to be
answered some time. A cigar in the garden would help. There is nothing
like a cigar after breakfast to clear one's head. But first he must
answer that question of Harmood's. _Would_ Mrs. Challis and the young
ladies be back to lunch?
"Just ask Mrs. Steptoe again _exactly_ what your mistress said,"
Challis takes a pleasure in rubbing in the obnoxious expression.
Harmood's conduct has been detestable. But she is conscious, from Mr.
Challis's manner, of her success. From Mrs. Challis's she had been able
to form no opinion.
Mrs. Steptoe testified from the basement, and Harmood returned.
No--Mrs. Challis had said nothing but what had been reported last
night. She was taking the young ladies to their grandma's, and we was
not to expect her back.
"Back to lunch, or _what_?" Challis raises his voice over the question,
and Harmood refers to her authority, with an air of indifference to
trifles of this sort. Bald confirmation comes of the wording of the
message; no interpretation.
"Very well, then! Your mistress didn't say she _wasn't_ coming to
lunch. Of course she _is_ coming to lunch." Challis repulsed an attempt
of Mrs. Steptoe to entangle him in the problem of how some abhorrent
remainders from the larder--which she offered to show--might be best
utilized, and got away to that cigar in the garden, to think....
Damn interruptions!--no, he couldn't see anybody.... Stop! who was
it? Miss Harmood, who had not been explicit enough, now testified to
Mr. Eldridge; whereupon Challis asked her why she couldn't say so
at first? This was unjust and irrational; but Miss Harmood had given
warning, and felt partly disembodied. What did it matter to her?
It was John Eldridge, not very intelligible, but in much perturbation
at something. "Well--you see!--it was Lotty's idea he should come
round. Never would have entered his head himself! No sayin', though!"
This was a favourite expression of his, presenting him as a sage prone
to suspension of opinion, and open-minded.
After using it once or twice, he used his pocket-handkerchief, causing
Harmood to inquire whether Mr. Challis had called. He then stood over
the object of his visit, whatever it was, to ask, as an entirely new
idea, "How are you yourself, Master Titus?"
"_I'm_ all right, John. Won't you smoke?--that one at the end's very
mild." But Mr. Eldridge wouldn't smoke; it was too early in the
morning. Besides, he was late at the office. Challis avoided analysis
and comparison, and made essays towards explanation of the visit. "Any
more railway accidents?" said he.
"Wasn't that the day before yesterday?" Mr. Eldridge stopped polishing
his nose to ask this. Challis explained that it was quite recent
enough--he was in no hurry for more. He chose to suggest that the
question, which had absolutely no meaning whatever, was intended to
impute to him an unnatural lust for railway accidents. Mr. Eldridge
seemed at a loss, saying: "Now you're poking fun, Master Titus! None of
your larks!" Then he muttered to himself. "Thought so--thought so--day
before yesterday!"
It was evidently going to be a matter of patience. Challis knew why
his visitor had come, of course, but he was not going to supply him
with guidance. Perhaps it would be quickest and simplest to leave
him entirely alone. Then he would have to burst, or go. He chose the
former, after some vague soliloquy about not having inquests on Sundays.
"You don't object to my lookin' round to speak about it, Master Titus?"
"Not a bit, John! Please speak. What is it?"
A gentle reproachfulness was on Mr. Eldridge as he answered: "No--come,
I say, now--no gammon, suppose!" And Challis really commiserated
him. What a position to be in! To be sent round by your wife, in
the legitimate exercise of her omnipotence, to lecture a neighbour
believed to be involved in a quarrel with his! And that, too, when you
happen to have, from no fault of your own, but from predestination,
a short supply of words, and defective powers of construction.
Challis appreciated the position quite clearly, and decided to be
good-natured. After all, it was that detestable meddlesome Charlotte,
not her booby husband himself--most probably--that had organized this
expedition into his territory.
"All right, John!" said he. "No gammon, suppose! _I_ know what you want
to speak about. Marianne."
"Well, you know!" says John ruefully, "my idear was Charlotte should
come herself. Much better idear!"
"What for? Very happy to see her, of course!"
"Well, you know, Master Titus, that's just what I keep on sayin' to
Charlotte, that it's no concern of either of ours."
"Sharp chap!" This is interjected privately. So far as it reaches the
audience, it seems to be accepted as laurels. "Now, suppose you and
Charlotte were to take a holiday, and just leave me and Marianne to
fight it out our own way. _We_ shan't quarrel."
Mr. Eldridge became snugly confidential. "There, now, Master Titus,
isn't that exactly what I said to Lotty? The very words! 'You
leave them to fry their own fish,' I said." Challis thought of his
philosophical friends at Royd; here was a new definition of identity
wanted! "'You leave them to fry their own fish.' It's what I've been
sayin' all along. But when females get an idea, you may just talk to
'em. Nothin' comes of it...."
"What was her idea?"
"Me to come and talk it over in a friendly sort of way. Try to pave
the way to a good understanding.... Lots of expressions she used!..."
He paused to recall some. "... Oh ah!--I remember ... 'painful
misunderstanding'--that was one. And 'tact and delicacy.' She's a
clever woman, Lotty, that's a fact, Master Titus."
"Devilish clever, John! Everyone knows that. 'Tact and delicacy' is
a capital expression. It reminds me of Mrs. Chapone, but I don't
know why." John seemed flattered, and Challis continued, with some
disposition to laugh outright: "Look here, old chap! You and that
clever lady of yours may just as well be easy. You think Polly Anne
and I have quarrelled. But we haven't. And we shan't. I tell you, the
thing's out of the question. Sheer nonsense!"
Mr. Eldridge's idea of identity comes to the fore again. "Just what
I said--'reg'lar tommy rot.' Mrs. J. E., she agreed with me, down to
the ground. There was another expression she used, now! ... what the
dickens was it?... Oh, I know!--no, I don't.... Oh yes!--'parties God
had joined together let no man put asunder.' Nice feelin' about that!"
"Well!--no man's going to put anyone asunder this time, whether God
united them or the Devil. Don't you go and repeat that remark to Mrs.
J. E., John."
"No--no, Master Titus! Never say anything--never say a word!--that's
the rule. Never say the Devil--never say God; not before females.
Keep 'em snug! Good behaviour's paramount--can't be too particular!
Expression of my wife's.... I say, I must be runnin'."
"They'll be sending for you from the Office if you don't." Then, as
his visitor was departing by the front gate, he called to him from the
house-steps: "Sorry the missis and the kids aren't back. They went
to Tulse Hill yesterday. I'm going down there presently, only I've
some work to finish first." And Harmood overheard, and condemned her
employer for his contradictory testimony. "'Ark at him lying!" was the
candid form her censure took. Mrs. Steptoe, saying a word in arrest
of judgment, for the pleasure of gainsaying Harmood, was met by "Now,
didn't he say, only this minute, Mrs. Challis would be back to lunch?"
The question whether, when Mr. Challis remained to lunch at home,
as though he expected his wife's return, and immediately after took
his departure for Tulse Hill, he had not reconciled his apparently
conflicting statements, formed the subject of intemperate controversy
between Harmood and Mrs. Steptoe during the remainder of the afternoon.
* * * * *
No doubt Challis had treasured a hope in his heart that his wife and
the children would reappear. He succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in
pretending he had known they wouldn't, all along; and by the time he
had reached Tulse Hill Station, believed he had only remained to lunch
at Wimbledon to write important letters.
He rang more than once--two or three times more--at his
mother-in-law's, without any response. The first time someone, he
thought, looked from behind the blind of an upper window; and then two
voices, one dictatorial, the other compliant, conversed up and down the
staircase of Glenvairloch, for that was the name of Marianne's mother's
villa at Tulse Hill. The next-door neighbour lived at Bannochar.
At his second ring he suspected, at his third was convinced, that
non-admission was a _parti-pris_, in his case, at Glenvairloch. The
dictatorial voice had been, not Marianne's, but her parent's, who,
probably, had also been the scout at the window. If the household had
made up its mind not to admit him, what could he do? A scheme for
burglarious entry, suggested by a boy at large, in the hope of reward,
did not recommend itself. Even this boy asking the cook next door to
let him through, and him to climb through a back-winder, seemed a
lawless course to Challis's mind. He found, too, that this boy caused
the sudden appearance from space of other boys, and that as they
agglutinated round him, passers-by, apparently _crétins_, wanted to
know whether it was a fire. He saw no alternative but to give it up.
He did so, resolving to return next day. As it chanced, some pressing
appointments made the day after more convenient.
This time he went early in the morning, hoping to effect a surprise.
But he knew quite well that if no one else came to the door whose
admission was _de rigueur_, he was practically at the mercy of the
garrison. No portcullis need be lifted unless it chose.
A lucky chance befell, in the shape of a butcher-boy, who could not
well leave a pound of steak impaled on the gate rails, nor slip three
ounces of dripping into the letter-box. Taken into confidence by
Challis, he said: "They'll come along for me, you bet." He knew his
power, this butcher-boy; but he yelled as well as rang, from sweetness
of disposition, although not bound to yell by contract. Indeed, he also
shouted an exhortation: "Git them stockin's on, Hemmer, and come along!
Can't wait here till Sunday!"
But Emma was really up and dressed, for it was past three o'clock.
She took in the meat, and said she would ask, please, if Mrs. Challis
was in. Challis raised no objection, but walked into the house beside
her, for all that. You see, he was one of the family, however seldom
he visited his mother-in-law. And it does not come into practice for
a young servant to repulse an applicant for admission; under such
circumstances, Emma had admitted Mr. Challis more than once. How could
she turn on him and say, "You're not to come in this time"?
He had never been a frequent visitor at the house, though always
nominally--or we might say technically--welcome. There had been little
open warfare between him and its occupant since his first widowerhood,
when his scanty attendances at Divine Service, conceded during his
short period of married life, to keep the peace, were discontinued
altogether. His perdition had then become an article of the old lady's
faith; but she seemed to have decided that the Fires of Hell during
the remainder of Eternity would be a sufficient penalty for her
son-in-law's delinquencies, without the added sting of incivility from
herself when he occasionally found himself under her roof. Moreover,
Challis had made a great concession in surrendering Bob to Marianne.
His way of describing this surrender of his son was shockingly
blasphemous; in fact, he used to indulge in parallels founded on
recollections of his own short church-going experience in a way that
would have estranged his second wife and her mother for ever from him
had their information on the details of their own faith been equal to
their conviction that they held it. As it was, the impression sometimes
produced on their minds by Challis's irreverent whimsicalities was
that there must be the raw material of Salvation somewhere in a person
capable of repeating so many correct religious phrases. The story only
dwells on these things now because Challis did so as he sat waiting
for the appearance of his mother-in-law, and wondering what form her
indignation would take.
He had just recollected an occasion when, after a visit to the old
lady, he had said to his wife: "Really, Polly Anne, I think I produced
quite a devout impression on grandmamma to-day," and her unsuspicious
reply, "I thought you spoke very nicely, dear!" when the old lady
herself became audible in the lobby without, mixing an asthmatic cough
with reprimands to the servant.
"You _gurls_!" The speaker seemed for a moment almost
paralyzed by the force of her indignation against the class
she denounced. Then it burst forth in almost a shout--"WHY
couldn't-you-do-as-I-told-you-and-say-your-orders-were...?" and so on.
But the very vehemence of the fusillade that followed the artillery was
suicidal, for the cough cut short what might almost have been printed
as a continuous word. Then speech got a turn again, on a revised line,
"Why-can't-you-do-as-you're-TOLD?" the gunshot coming this time as a
wind-up. Variations followed, to the same effect.
Emma the gurl seemed of a timid and sensitive nature, prone to dissolve
in sobs and sniffs. Her defence, Challis gathered, was that he had
walked in through the kitchen-door, and that her troops were outflanked
by such an unusual move. He felt the defence was good, and that he
ought to help. He showed himself at the room-door.
"Don't scold Emma, grandmamma," said he. "It was no fault of hers. If
she had given me your message fifty times over, I should have come in
just the same. Where's Marianne?"
"Be good enough not to interfere between me and my servants." She had
a proper spirit, this old lady, and it was shown at intervals--short
ones. As she mellowed with age, these intervals grew shorter.
"Well!--blow Emma up if you like, but it was no fault of hers. Where's
Marianne?"
"Will you have the goodness to wait till I have done with this _gurl_?"
Challis returned into the drawing-room, and waited. Emma--he said to
himself--was catching it hot. He felt in his pocket to make sure of
half-a-crown, as a _solatium_, in case Emma showed him out.
Nothing lasts for ever. "Such a thing again, and you go!" was the last
shot from the old lady's citadel at the servant. And her first at
himself was, "Now _you_!" He accepted the challenge.
"Where is Marianne?" But an attack of coughing stopped the old woman's
reply; and when it subsided, and left him free to repeat his question,
he re-worded it, "Where is my wife?"
"My daughter is _not_ your wife."
"Very well, grandmamma, let's pretend she isn't. Where is your
daughter? Where's Marianne?"
"What do you want with her?" The speech and the speaker are sullen,
dogged, and in deadly earnest. If Challis plays any impish tricks--and
he isn't taking the old cat seriously; witness that malicious twinkle
in his eye!--there will be an explosion, and a bad one.
"What do I want with her? Why, of course, to come back and live in Sin
with me, like a dutiful wife. Stop a bit, though, grandmamma! Perhaps
you don't know about Marianne's letter--the letter she left for me when
she bolted off yesterday! Do you, or don't you?"
"I refuse to be catechized. I am in my daughter's confidence, and I
know exactly what she has written and what she has not written." The
suggestion was that Challis's report would be untrustworthy. She seemed
to warm to her subject. "Marianne has told me _everything_, and she has
my fullest concurrence in the step she has taken."
"Then I suppose," says Challis, with irritation, for the old lady's
fangs are beginning to tell, "that you are giving your 'fullest
concurrence' to her carrying away my children?"
The inverted commas in Challis's voice are caught at. "Yes--you may
sneer, and you may repeat my words! You may despise me, Mr. Alfred
Challis, because I am only an old woman. But I tell you this, and you
can believe it or not, as you like--that in the eyes of Holy Writ those
children are _not_ yours, and any lawyer will tell you they are not
yours."
"I don't see how more than one lawyer can vouch personally for the
paternity of either of the kids."
"I don't understand you."
"Never mind! Try to understand this, and tell my wife: that whether the
children are mine or anyone else's--even the most respectable legal
firm's in the City!--they are _legally_ mine, and I intend to have them
back."
"You know as well as I do that they are _not_ legally yours. You know
as well as I do that when you married Kate's sister you were committing
an act forbidden in Holy Writ, and expressly condemned by Our Lord
Himself. You know that your children are illegitimate children, and
contrary to the Act of Parliament. Do not pretend you are ignorant of
this, Alfred Challis. Be truthful for once!"
"I suppose my copy of the Bible isn't a recent edition; I must get one
brought up to date. Or I might order one from the _Times_ Book Club....
Oh no!--no doubt all you say is correct. I shall find the passage."
A misunderstanding occurred here, owing to the old lady's deafness.
An image generated in her mind had to be dispersed, of a Club of
Freethinkers who had a copy of the Scriptures, certainly, but kept it
in the passage, reserving the library shelves for Mock Litanies and the
like. Challis's tendency to regard the whole thing as a joke revived
somewhat over this. "No, no, grandmamma," said he, with something like
a laugh; "no one has had anything to say against the Book Club, so
far, on the score of Unsoundness. You misunderstood me. All I meant to
say was that my recollections of Holy Writ seem to want polishing up.
No doubt you're right! But the notion of Marianne having any right to
appropriate _my_ children--_our_ children--why, the idea is simply too
ridiculous to bear speaking of!"
"You can ask any lawyer."
"What lawyer ever told you such rubbish?"
"Mr. Tillingfleet."
"Mr. Tillingfleet deserves to be struck off the Rolls. When did Mr.
Tillingfleet make this precious statement?"
"I suppose you fancy you know better than Mr. Tillingfleet?"
"When did he tell you this?"
"I can show you his letter if you like." Letter produced. Challis
muttered that _he_ didn't want to see it. But he took it, and made a
visible parade of superficial reading, until he came to the end, when
he appeared to re-read the last paragraph. He then went back, and
re-read from the beginning, half aloud, skipping words.
"'Dear Madam reply to your esteemed ... hm-hm ... regret must repeat
advice ... _re_ matrimonial status ... hm-hm ... in no case can
marriage of man with deceased wife's sister hold good in law, however
pledged parties hold themselves ... hm-hm ... consequently legal
dissolution impossible no legal contract existing ... old friend of
late Mr. Craik ... excuse ... delicate position ... your daughter
... counsel moderation ... jealousy may be justified ... may be
groundless....' Sensible chap, Tillingfleet!"
The widow of the late Mr. Craik snorted. "He was my husband's legal
adviser," said she. How could he be other than a sensible chap?--said
the snort. "Perhaps you will be kind enough to give your attention to
what he says about Marianne's children."
"About our children, certainly!" Challis continued, reading more
distinctly. "'With regard to your other question as to the relative
claims of your son-in-law and daughter to the guardianship of their
children, I am personally of opinion that as no legal marriage
exists, the children are technically illegitimate, and this technical
illegitimacy would bar any claim to guardianship on the part of Mr.
Challis. How far any claim for maintenance could be sustained is
another question, Mrs. Challis's object being, as I understand, to
withdraw the children entirely from their father. On the justifiability
of such a course I do not understand that my opinion is asked.'
Sensible fellow, Tillingfleet!" said the reader. But with so plain a
meaning that his hearer caught him up sharply.
"What do you mean to imply?"
"That Mr. Tillingfleet thinks you and Marianne a couple of fools. He
all but says that your behaviour is unjustifiable, in his opinion...."
"His opinion was not asked."
"So he says. Hadn't you better ask him?"
"Certainly not. He does not know how you have behaved to your wife. It
is a matter of which she alone can judge."
"How have I behaved to my wife?"
"You know, as well as I do."
"No doubt, and a great deal better. But you don't know as well as I do."
"I do not wish to talk any further. Have you anything further to say?"
"I wish to see Marianne and the children, and to know when they are
coming home."
"I am here to speak for Marianne. She refuses to see you, or to give up
her children to you. You will gain nothing by remaining here."
"Come, grandmamma, do be a little Christian-like, and help to make
things comfortable again...."
"Christian-like indeed! What next?"
"Perhaps I used the wrong word. Couldn't you manage a little Heathenism
for once, and be jolly? At any rate, grandmamma, tell me what the
accusation is. The worst criminals are allowed to hear the indictment."
Challis was just a shade uncandid in this, because he believed he knew
the worst of the indictment. But he excused his conscience on the score
of his right to any means of finding out whether his character, sadly
soiled by that unfortunate letter business, had not been well smudged
over with soot by Mrs. Eldridge into the bargain.
This conversation will have shown that grandmamma, though she
had achieved a narrow-mindedness of a very choice quality, while
preserving a virgin ignorance of the meaning of the popular teaching,
or perversion of teaching, by which vernacular bigotries are usually
fostered and nourished, was by no means a stupid person when she had
an end to gain. Whether her end in the present case was the final
separation of Marianne from her husband may be questioned. A working
hypothesis of her motives might be that she merely wished to pay her
son-in-law out for the slights he was always heaping--as she knew,
while she could not understand or answer them--on her cherished booth
in Vanity Fair. Whatever her ultimate object, she was unable to resist
the opportunity of hitting hard that the culprit's application to hear
the indictment afforded her.
"What the accusation is!" she echoed derisively. "Ask your Miss Judith
what the accusation is. Ask _her_, and then look me in the face, Mr.
Alfred Challis!" The old lady seemed quite vain of this formula of
denunciation, for she picked up the missile and reloaded her arbalest.
"Ask your fashionable friends--oh yes!--they look the other way, no
doubt, but they have eyes in their heads, and can see for all that. Ask
_them_, and _then_ look me in the face, Mr. Alfred Challis! Ask your
neighbours...."
"Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge?" asked Challis sharply.
"_No_, Alfred Challis!--not Mrs. Charlotte Eldridge only, but _all_ the
neighbours--ask them _all_! Ask them to say what _they've_ seen...."
But the good lady lost the luxury of her climax this time, because
Challis interrupted.
"Could you mention any responsible householder who would tell me what
I am accused of? I could call on my way back." Being thoroughly angry
himself, he naturally spoke in a way that he knew would exasperate.
This dry kind of speech was like a red rag to a bull in this old lady's
case. Nothing is more infuriating than one's adversary's apparent
contentment with mere words, left alone with their syntax, to shift
for themselves. It makes one so conscious of one's own war-whoops,
and one's occasional faulty expression of meaning, during attacks of
uncontrolled anger.
"I am prepared for any evasion and prevarication from you, Alfred
Challis. But I was not prepared--no, I was _not_ prepared--for such an
unblushing statement that you are kept in ignorance. Have I not told
you plainly--have I not told you repeatedly--that this Miss Judith
Arkroyd is what is complained of? Have I disguised anything? What I
have said is the shameful, disgraceful _truth_. The TRUTH, Alfred
Challis! Down on your knees and acknowledge it!" A bouquet of vital
doctrines essential to salvation hung about this; the attitude of
kneeling was especially telling. More of the same sort followed.
When a lull came, Challis spoke. "Am I to see Marianne, or am I not?"
said he. "I am convinced she is here, and I have a right to see her."
The old woman kept glum silence, and he repeated his words. Then she
said: "You shall not see her. It is no use. You had better go." He then
said, "I know she is here, because I saw her blue silk sunshade in the
entry," and left the room, as though to verify his observation. At
the stair-foot he paused, and called aloud to his wife: "Polly Anne,
Polly Anne! Are you there?" No answer came, and then the old woman came
running out, quite inarticulate with rage and coughing.
"Listen to me," said he, and his manner stopped her. "I am going. But
you will do well to pay attention to what I am going to say to you.
If you repeat any impudent falsehoods about Miss Arkroyd or any other
lady--yes!--whether you make them yourself or get them from any other
pigsty or gutter, you will place yourself within reach of the law. You
had better talk to Tillingfleet about it. He seems a sensible chap.
At any rate, he will be able to tell you that people have been ruined
before now by the damages they have had to pay for circulating filthy
slanders without foundation. So be careful, grandmamma! Good-night!"
He had been so self-restrained up to the moment when his anger broke
out in speech that his worthy mother-in-law was taken completely
aback by it. She remained so until the door closed behind him. It was
then too late for any demonstration, and the disappointed guardian of
family morals fell back into the house gobbling like a turkey-cock.
Challis found Emma at the garden-gate, and gave her her half-crown of
consolation. He received the impression that she had been sent out
with orders to warn Martha and the children should they return, and
head them off in time to prevent a meeting. He was afterwards sorry he
had not entered into conversation with this girl, and made a friend
of her. But the truth is it was impossible for his mind to receive
the idea that his wife's resolution would be a lasting one; and he
felt confident of a penitent letter in a day or two, and an _amende
honorable_ to himself, whether he deserved one or not, for suspicions
which he persisted in looking at as false _per se_, although one or
two circumstances, quite outside their radius, might be coaxed into
court by a malicious prosecution to testify against him. Any other
anticipation was mere nightmare.
But a day passed, and another, and many postmen's knocks, each with its
exasperation of hope frustrated; and many cabs, that might have ended
in the voices of the children shouting to the cabman, by permission,
which gate to stop at. And a loneliness indescribable, so unlike the
happy empty days one gets for work now and again when one's housemates
troop away to some assured haven elsewhere, and write every day, if
it's only a postcard. How Challis envied the splendid self-absorption
of our old friend the cat! How he envied the sound of a happy freedom
in the chronic controversy of the kitchen; always the same controversy,
but possibly on various subjects! How happy the tradesmen's boys
seemed!--how callous to the smallness of the orders!
Every day he wrote a line to Marianne, ignoring all that had passed.
She would give way in time. If he persevered, one day she would be
unable to resist the temptation to reply; it would be a sort of
hypnotic suggestion, mechanically brought about. It was on the day
after his last visit to Tulse Hill that he made up his mind to try
whether a letter to Judith would not procure one from her that would do
some good. It could not make matters worse.
Oh, this strangely compounded clay, Man!--that any story should have to
tell it! But it is true, too. This Alfred Challis, who, face to face
with such grim reality of wreck at home, had as good as escaped from
subjection to the witchcraft that had brought it about, had no sooner
taken up his pen to write to its author, than he was again subject to
the experience that has been spoken of as the soul-brush. All his
consciousness--which was intense--of his own folly could not prevent
him attaching a special force to the first words of his letter. Surely
"Dear Miss Arkroyd" might have been a pure formality, just as much as
"Dear Grandmamma" would have been if he had brought himself to write to
that veteran practitioner in discord-brewing. It was no such thing. A
magic hung about the three words, with a suggestion in it of a phrase
of music, or a whiff of burnt incense. The image of Judith crept back
promptly into his mind at permission given, suggesting disloyalties
to his hope that Marianne would quarrel with her mamma, and take a
reasonable view of the position--come back and reinstate life.
Why, in heaven's name--he half asked himself--if it was to be like
this, if Marianne was going to persist in her unreasonable jealousy,
should not he take advantage of the freedom she forced upon him, of
the legal pretext of an irregular marriage that assumed the right of
Law and Usage to cancel a promise given and taken mutually, believed
by each giver to come from the heart of the other? He would have flung
from him angrily any suggestion of an advantage to come to himself from
capping to a dirty Orthodoxy--the words are his, not the story's--from
any joining in the World's dance; any acquiescence in the mops and
mows of the Performing Classes; any obeisance to a great organization
which--when it suited him--he chose to consider a mere mechanism for
keeping the funds up and the fun going, and the distribution among the
sanctioned of unlimited stars and garters and loaves and fishes. But
if it were forced upon him in the face of his persistent repudiation
of it, if the other contracting party flaunted it in his face, might
not he avail himself of this pretext?--use a disgraceful shuffle in the
service of truth? Was he not almost in honour bound to do so, to that
lady from whom his evasive declaration of passion had elicited what was
at least a strong disclaimer of indifference to himself?
But Challis only half asked himself these questions, because he knew
the answer. He knew that he knew the difference between Right and
Wrong, and he knew that his wife had Right on her side--not much, but
some--and he suspected that he had Wrong on his--not some, but much. So
he finished his letter to Judith and posted it.
Judith wrote in answer to Challis's letter, and he forwarded an
enclosure it contained, addressed to his wife. It was returned to him,
torn in three or four pieces, by the next post. He joined it up and
read it, and thought it the most sweet, conciliatory, angelic human
document he had ever read. But, then, he was a man!
He went more than once to Tulse Hill after this, without succeeding
in seeing Marianne. The third time he found the house empty, placed
in the hands of an agent, who said in reply to all inquiries that
his instructions were limited to dealing with the house. He was, he
said, a House-Agent. But he would undertake that letters should be
forwarded. He evidently enjoyed being civil, so satiated was he with
the offensiveness of his position.
Mrs. Eldridge called on him as a peacemaker, having in tow her husband,
who winked at him over her shoulder, uninterpretably. He said to
her, subduing his anger well: "I would not have seen you, Charlotte
Eldridge, if there had not been something I have been wishing to say to
you. I cannot prove it, but I am as certain of it as that I stand here
that it is you that have poisoned my wife's mind against me, and have
filled it with every sort of nasty misinterpretation of a perfectly
innocent friendship. You have known absolutely nothing of the lady
whom you have thought fit to malign as a means of maligning me.... No,
I know I have no means of knowing that you have ever said a single
word against her. But my object in seeing you is to tell you that I am
convinced that you have. I am convinced that Marianne has shown you
my correspondence without any warranty--and for that she may be to
blame--and that you have read into it meanings she never would have
dreamed of ascribing to it, left to herself. I am, in short, sure that
it is you--you--you at the bottom of all this mischief, and I tell you
honestly that after you have left this door I shall not be sorry if I
never see you or hear of you again. Good-bye!"
Mrs. Eldridge had thrown in denials; and when her husband, moved to
eloquence, had interposed with "Come, I say now, Master Titus, ain't
'nasty misinterpretation' coming it rather strong?" had briefly
directed him to be quiet till he was spoken to. She had then placed
herself on oath, offering an extemporized solemnity if called on. "I am
ready to go down on my knees here and now, Alfred Challis, and to call
on God, who will one day be your judge and mine, to bear witness that
this is a _cruel falsehood_! He knows"--here she threw in upper-case
type freely--"that all my wish, all my effort, has been towards
conciliation and peace...."
At this point Challis interrupted her, saying curtly: "Then your
efforts have not been very successful. I do not see that we shall gain
anything by talking any more about it. Good-bye again!" This occurred
before the exodus from Glenvairloch, or Challis might have been less
unconciliatory, with an eye to keeping open a possible channel of
communication with his wife, even though it would involve communication
with a woman whom he now thoroughly detested.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE EMPTY HERMITAGE. A COMPROMISE ABOUT BOB. HOW MRS. STEPTOE HAD
NOTHING TO CONCEAL. HOW CINTILLA CAUGHT MR. CHALLIS. CALYPSO'S RUG
ISLAND. GOOD-BYE! PROMISE NOT TO COME TO BIARRITZ! THE SKEIN WOUND
The unhappy author hung on persistently at the Hermitage, in the face
of the candid neglect of every duty by the servant who had given
warning, and the uncandid pretences of Mrs. Steptoe that, in the
absence of her mistress, which she treated as a thing _de die in diem_,
the one object of her life, deep-rooted in her heart of hearts, was
the comfort and well-being of her master. Her catering took the form
so common in the British household, of a joint twice a week, twice
re-incarnate as hash and mince, and a nice little bit of rump-steak on
the odd day out. Her potatoes were hygrometric, owing to their being
the wrong sort--there was great latitude for physical defect in that!
Her other vegetables--lettuce, cabbage, what not!--had all lost their
hearts, whatever was not stalk being flamboyant exfoliation. Even her
brockilo sprouts were diffuse, and her cauliflowers wept. The bread was
always second-hand--owing to the price of flour, said the baker's man,
and he knew--and The Cheese was an affliction, a nightmare, which was
supposed to be American or Cheddar, but whose days in the States or in
Somersetshire were long, long ago.
Why did Challis endure it, when he might have thrown off all disguise
and lived at his Club, where there is a capital library to write in,
which nobody ever uses? Simply because of a pleasant dream he flattered
his mind with, of a cab with luggage atop, and a sort of revised
Marianne alighting, and the voices of his children. He was lying low
for the fulfilment of this dream, without ever saying aloud to his
heart that it was a possibility. Or, rather, he was fending against her
return to the damper of an empty house. That would be altogether too
sickening.
It was horribly dreary in the empty house. How he would have rejoiced
to hear but one short torrent of unruly fury, but one complaining
whimper, from the unrevised Marianne of the past! But he was given over
to the Silences and the intermittent sounds that drive them home--the
tradesmen's boys--the postmen's knocks. This could not last for ever,
though! Bob would be back from school--was overdue, in fact--and then
he would keep watch and ward in his father's absence. Challis favoured
an image in his mind of a hospitable Bob, welcoming his revised
step-mother, and risking statements about his father's return in
fabulously short periods. He devised a plan for Bob to ring him up at
the Club from the call-station at East Putney.
* * * * *
He had a bad half-hour when Bob did return, knowing nothing, and found
him the sole tenant of the Hermitage. He thought it best to take his
stand on Mrs. Steptoe's security of indefinite to-morrows, treat the
matter lightly, and assure Bob that his mater and sisters would come
back in the course of a few days. Bob accepted the statement in view
of the fact that he didn't know yet that his phonograph, reluctantly
forsaken when he returned to school, had not suffered from neglect.
Presently Challis heard the diseased voice of the hideous instrument,
dwelling on the fascinations of a yellow girl; and, for once, felt
grateful to its inventor. But it was only a short respite. Bob soon
suspected something seriously wrong, and had to be told. Not the
whole!--that was impossible; what could his father have told him? But
he had to have his painful experience of a first family disruption, and
to understand that the sort of thing that might happen in other chaps'
homes was also possible in his own.
Challis, who was still writing disheartened letters to his wife,
addressing them through the Tulse Hill house-agency, told of Bob's
return, and earnestly begged her to make it possible for the boy to see
his little sisters again. He received an answer, reposted by the agent,
with only the Tulse Hill postmark. It was written by her mother, and
contained a proposal for a sort of truce as far as Bob was concerned.
Subject to a written guarantee that he himself would keep his distance,
Bob might come. Then he wrote earnestly and at length, dwelling on
the cruelty of his wife's misjudgment of his actions, reproaching
her with meanly taking advantage of a legal pretext to deprive him
of his children, and imploring her, for their sake and his, only to
consent to one interview. He was horribly embarrassed in writing this
letter by the unwritten law--so his mind named it as he wrote--which
dictates that every word that is written or spoken on this odious
subject of men and women must be an equivocation or a shuffle. How
could he formulate a phrase that would convey the truth to Marianne;
acknowledge his aberration, and define its extent, without letting
loose the whole gutter-brood of Charlotte Eldridges to point the
finger of denunciation at him; and, worst of all, to squirt at Judith,
skunk-wise, and run away? And if he assumed what so many would be ready
to accept as a sound view, that an attack of amorous intoxication
didn't count, and denied fully and roundly that he had ever been guilty
of any transgression at all--why, then, in the first place it would be
a lie, in the second, the troop of skunks would only resort to another
secretion. "You know, dear, a man always holds himself bound to deny,
for the woman's sake." It was characteristic of Challis that he all but
heard these words from the image his mind made of Charlotte Eldridge
on a sofa, shading its eyes from the light with that confounded pretty
hand of hers. "I see no way out of Charlotte Eldridge," said he in
despair. He ended his letter by an ill-chosen phrase, which put his
head in the lion's mouth. "Is a man never to be forgiven," it said,
"because he is momentarily overtaken by passion for a lady under
exceptional circumstances?" Mrs. Eldridge made her teeth meet over that
expression, be sure of that!
The outcome of the negotiations that followed was that Bob spent
the last half of his long vacation with his mater and sisters and
grandmamma at Broadstairs, which was the place of retirement chosen
by the last-named lady, to be out of her son-in-law's way. It was
recognized by Mrs. Steptoe when Master Bob said where he was a-going.
"Well, now, Master Robert, to think you should go to Broadstairs of all
places in the world! That near Ramsgate it is!"
"No, it isn't!" said Bob. "It's near Margate. I'm right, and you're
wrong." But a compromise was effected over a railway-map in Bradshaw,
very much tore across.
"That is where I saw your dear mamma, Master Robert, afore ever you was
born or thought of. Ramsgate!"
The amenities of controversy were not Bob's strong point. He gave a
prolonged shout of derision. "_You_ never saw _my_ dear mamma! Why, she
died before I was born!" It was a hastily constructed sentence, and
reflected very little credit on Rugby. You may recall Stony Stratford,
and the way some person suffered from insect-bites there?
But Mrs. Steptoe repeated her statement, firmly but respectfully. Not
only had she seen Bob's mamma, but his papa. "Very well, then, I'll
tell the Governor," said Bob, and kept his word before he took his
departure, two days later.
"What's this story my boy has, Mrs. Steptoe, about your seeing his
mother and me at Ramsgate?" It was Sunday morning, and Challis was
pretending to look at a series of volumes known as "The Books," in each
of which a string of misstatements appeared, sanctioned at intervals
by a rubber stamp. Challis made some pretence of adding up a total, to
give Mrs. Steptoe time, and then repeated his question. "Yes--Master
Bob. About Ramsgate. Where were _you_? _I_ can't recollect you." His
mind was seeking some younger Mrs. Steptoe among the children on the
sands, far away from her lodging-house.
"You hardly would, sir!" said she. "I was attending to the house
where you was visiting. I had undertook the cooking at my aunt's
sister's--name of Cantrip...."
"Can't recollect Cantrip."
"No, sir, not likely! But perhaps Hallock?... name of lady and
gentleman stoppin' the season.... Coal-merchant, I believe, in a
considerable way of business." This to keep the whole transaction on
its proper level in Society.
"I remember Hallock," says Challis, reminiscent. "Man lost his hat over
the cliff!... Oh yes--but I remember!--it was his house we dined at...."
"That was the occasion, sir.... The Baker desired me to say, sir, that
he was sorry, but it should not occur again...."
"Never mind the Baker now, Mrs. Steptoe. Tell me about Mr. Hallock. I
can't remember you, but I suppose you were there?"
"Not all along, but in and out of the room. I was divided with the
kitchen. I remember the young lady very well." Mrs. Steptoe felt it
would be safer to leave the young lady's name alone. The ground was
shaky under her feet. In fact, she would rather the matter should never
have come to Challis's knowledge.
His perception was growing of the oddity of Mrs. Steptoe knowing
anything about it. "_I_ can't understand," he said. "That youngster
said you saw _his mother_. How came you to know the young lady was ...
how came you to connect...." He hesitated over the description of Kate.
To say "the lady whom I subsequently married" would have been making
Mrs. Steptoe too much of a family _confidante_.
Now, that good woman had no objection to being of importance, but she
wanted to keep safe, first and foremost. She had nothing to confess to
personally; was, in fact, blameless. Why not simply tell all she knew?
She took that course, telling all that happened about the photograph;
but suggesting that the whole occurrence had been slight, trivial,
colloquial--rather than otherwise hinting at surprise that Mr. Challis
had known nothing about it. Why had she not told him? He made the
inquiry, but interrupted her disclaimer of any _locus standi_ in the
matter, with an admission that he had asked a nonsensical question. Why
_should_ she have done anything but hold her tongue? She was quite an
outsider. Well!--leave her outside. That was the obvious course.
"Thank you, Mrs. Steptoe," said Challis. "I fancy I remember that
photograph.... Oh, the Baker!--yes! Tell him to be very careful that it
doesn't occur again.... No, nothing else. That's all; good-morning!"
But his face, always grave now, was graver than ever as he hunted
through the photograph albums he disinterred from the chiffonier
Charlotte Eldridge had exploited so successfully, and got no success
for himself. He found what he supposed to be the spaces these Ramsgate
portraits had occupied, but nothing in them. They were two or three
sudden blanks in a well-packed book. Marianne had taken them away.
For the first time since the rupture he felt undisguisedly angry with
his wife. It was too bad!--what had he done that she should be so
secretive and mistrustful? Why could she not frankly ask him for an
explanation? After all, it was a subject he would have been so glad she
should be in his confidence about, and one he had only kept back from
her to spare her a needless disquiet. To get absolution for himself he
resumed the whole story of his silence and its reasons. He failed to
see how differently the thing had presented itself to her.
What would Kate have said to him--thought of him--if, when he first
came to her mother's house, he had made a clean breast of the whole
story to any of the family! As long as she kept silence, surely he was
bound to do so? And then, when Kate was in her grave, or in Heaven,
according to the immediate exigency of speech-without-thought among
believers in God-knows-what--all this is Challis's language--when,
anyhow, her demise had qualified her to be spoken of in a hushed voice,
was he to intrude a revelation of a transaction that would have been
at least out of keeping with the ideal Marianne's memory had made of a
beloved and lamented elder sister? Then, as time went on, and no one
seemed a penny the worse that the whole thing should be forgotten, the
lock that shut the secret in got rusty, as such locks do, and Challis
felt far from certain that he could turn the key at all, if he tried.
Besides, for this last five years there had been another cause for
silence. Challis had not been entirely without tidings of the man Keith
Horne in his subsequent career. He had identified him--to his own
satisfaction, at least--with the central figure of a hideous story
told to him by a gaol-chaplain, an observer to whom he was indebted for
much material for copy of a most popular sort. This particular atrocity
was unfit for publication, even in a modern novel, and made Challis
feel grateful to its miserable perpetrator for what would otherwise
have been the crowning act in a series of betrayals. He sometimes even
felt uncertain whether he ought not to feel unreserved thankfulness,
and ascribe credit to him for what may have been the only noble motive
of his life. He had endeavoured to trace the ex-convict, but without
success.
Perhaps the way in which Challis regarded this man's relation with his
first wife and himself may suggest itself from the gaol-chaplain's
having laid great stress on the interest this man excited in his
colleague, the surgeon of the gaol. If the patching up of an absolutely
rotten profligate, that he might complete a term of penal servitude and
return to his sins, was a thing to be desired, then that surgeon had a
right to his triumph. That does not come into the story. But those who
have given any attention to the pathology of disorders incidental to
the ways of destroying body and soul adopted by this wretched creature
will be able to understand why every year that added to Master Bob's
stature, and increased his impudence, without a trace of any visible
taint of constitution, was one more nail in the coffin of a painful
misgiving, which Challis was only too glad should never have been
shared by the mother of Bob's sisters. As Marianne never came to a
knowledge of the ugly story, we may dismiss it finally, having only
cited it because it appears to supply a justification of Challis's
persistent concealment from her of her sister's former marriage.
* * * * *
The story draws a long breath of relief as it returns to Bob, who had
come back from school fuming with an uncharitable jealousy against
a boy named Tillotson, who had two Camberwell Beauties, while Bob
had only one. So the few days he spent at home were chiefly employed
tearing over Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park with a butterfly-net
in a tropical heat. Then he ate his dinner too fast, and rushed away
to his phonograph, at whose maw he gloated over incidents of Love and
Jealousy in the plantations of Louisiana. As his father allowed him to
do exactly what he liked, he was able to give full vent to his devotion
to this pestilent abomination. He even wound it up to stand at his
bed's head and soothe his first sleep with "Bill Bailey."
But when Bob departed for Broadstairs, the desolation was worse than
ever. Challis met it boldly, writing persistently all day, and spending
the evening at his Club. He was rather glad town was so empty; for,
indeed, a week or so after the boy said good-bye to his governor,
hugging him as a French or Italian boy would have done, no two folk who
met seemed ready to accept each other as actual. "You don't mean to say
_you're_ here!" was the commonest greeting. But the incredulity of each
gave way before the other's attestation of his existence.
Challis's disbelief in the presence in Grosvenor Square of any of The
Family was so strong that he had no misgivings whatever on the point
when he knocked at the door with drawn cards in his hand, and set
phrases of inquiry on his tongue. He felt so reassured by the opacity
of the closed windows, parading the emptiness of the mansion, and the
_insouciance_ of the nondescript who looked up from the area at him
before coming to the door, that he never doubted that his visit would
end as he himself at any rate believed he intended it to do. Was he
glad or sorry--did he know himself?--when a light step caught him up at
the street-corner, and a musical voice said, "Oh, please, Mr. Challis!"
It was Cintilla.
Cintilla and Challis had always been on the most familiar terms, so if
he did take her dimpled chin between his thumb and forefinger before
saying, "Oh, please what, Miss Tenterden?" the butcher's boy need
not have pretended to look the other way ostentatiously. Tenterden,
by-the-bye, was the little maid's real name--Clemency Tenterden.
"Please I was to catch you and bring you back for Miss Judith."
"You don't mean that Miss Judith is in town?"
"Oh _no_!--not _really_ in town. Why, you should see the state the
house is in! And Mrs. Protheroe has gone to her brother James's widow
at Bridport." Mrs. Protheroe was the housekeeper.
"We won't dispute about terms, Miss Tenterden. I gather that
Miss Judith is not technically in town. I suppose she's going on
somewhere--that's it, isn't it?"
"Oh yes--and, please, it's such fun, Mr. Challis. She's going to
Biarritz to stay, and take me, and I'm to learn to speak French."
Evidently there was one little maid in this world having a high old
time, and determined to make the most of it.
There was an island on a rug in the back-parlour--the sole outbreak
of visible furniture in a wilderness of brown holland, and rolled-up
carpets, and chandeliers in bags, and pictures whose backs provoked
an interest none had ever felt in their faces. "Like some females,"
thought Challis, as he picked his way to the island through the
_débris_. On the island was its Calypso, the only member of The Family
in town.
Judith was as beautiful as ever, as she extended both hands to him.
"I'm so glad the child caught you, Scroop," said she. Absolute
self-possession!--Estrildis herself could not have been more collected.
"But I'm sorry for things. Now sit down and let us talk reasonably....
Yes--there!" This was to Cintilla, fixing a nicely chosen distance
for Challis, neither too far nor too near. Cintilla would have liked
to supply a chair a little nearer; she had no idea of people being so
artificial.
Challis's self-possession was far from absolute. In fact, he was
tremulous. "You were good to send that letter," he said. But the last
word sounded like "letterm," as he checked his speech short.
"You were going to say 'Miss Arkroyd,'" said she. "At least, do not let
us be prigs. Call me Judith--at least, for now."
Could it matter, either way? "You were good to send that letter,
Judith," he repeated. "But, as I told you, it did no good--has done no
good." For he had written as much, and some more, to Royd. But his pen
had always stopped short of a full account of his desolation.
"I suppose we're all human," said she absently; and the remark seemed
to want application. "What leads you to suppose she will never forgive
you? What she says?" Challis shook his head. "Her manner?... No?--then
what?"
"You don't understand.... Well!--I have never told you, certainly.
Marianne ... I have never succeeded in seeing her. She and her mother
have gone away from London, and in order that my boy may not be
separated from his sisters, I have been obliged to promise not to
follow them." He explained the position more fully.
Judith laughed, and Challis heard nothing sinister in her laugh. But,
then, he was on Calypso's island.
"You are too soft-hearted, Scroop. Really, you must forgive my
laughing! But you are so very--Arcadian!" Challis waited visibly for
an explanation. "Couldn't you see that what this dear good woman will
want, when she gets tired, will be a golden bridge to come back across?
Something to save her face! _She'll_ never admit she was wrong. But for
the sake of the children, don't you see? We are in the region of high
unselfish motive at once."
Marianne would never admit she was wrong! Very likely; but the point
was, was she wrong? Challis caught himself almost taking sides with
Penelope against Calypso. The point was danger-point in these seas.
Never was a stranger clash in a human soul than the one Challis was
conscious of when he half resented the tone in which the woman he had
a passion for spoke of the one for whom he had an affection. We had
nearly written "the one whom he loved." But surely he loved Judith?--or
what is the vocabulary of the Poets worth? The ambiguities of language
have been beforehand with the story, and it cannot stop to _préciser_
them.
"Marianne will not persist a moment after she is convinced she is
wrong." He spoke a little stiffly--almost a mild censure of Calypso.
But as a set-off he took for granted that Penelope _was_ wrong, past
contention.
"Perhaps I should have said she will never _believe_ she was wrong.
Better than 'admit.'" This was spoken with placid indifference. One
might have thought the speaker absorbed in the flashing of brilliants
on the beautiful hand she was holding to catch a sunset-ray from the
back-window; the palm, as she shifted it about, showing each finger
outlined with transmitted rosy light. Challis tried to reason away its
witchery--to quash its jurisdiction. But it was a fatal hand. "Go on
telling me," said its owner. "Tell me more about Marianne. What do you
suppose she thinks?"
"I have no right to suppose she thinks any more than she said in her
letter. I told you in my letter all I think I had any right to repeat."
"And I have no right to be inquisitive. But the letter spoke plainly. I
am convinced of it."
"The letter was indignant with me for showing _her_ letter to you
before, as she supposed, I had read it myself."
"Before, as she supposed." This was mere repetition of the phrase, as
a writer from dictation might have spoken. She turned her eyes full on
him. "You _hadn't_ read it, Scroop," she said.
"I had to the best of my belief, at the time I showed it to you." He is
a little nettled, and she sees it. He embarks on self-justification--a
thing one should never do. "There was not a single word in what
I supposed the letter contained that you might not have read. My
statement that I had not read the words on the back was entitled to
some consideration. _I_ never put anything of importance away in a
postscript, where it may be overlooked." He stopped abruptly, feeling
irrelevant.
"Because you are an eminent author! We mustn't forget that." Judith's
laugh lightened the conversation. "No, no, Scroop! you haven't got a
leg to stand on, and you had better admit it. You oughtn't to have
shown me the letter."
"Very well--admitted! But admit, too, that I have made amends as far
as I could. It seems to me that a mountain has been made out of a
molehill...."
Challis stopped suddenly, very ill at his ease. Judith, with a look
half amused, half expectant, waited. She evidently was not going to
help. Indeed, she would not have found it easy. Each knew that the
conversation was being sustained artificially by attaching undue weight
to the fact that Marianne's sole ground of complaint was this showing
of her letter. Each knew how much more there was behind; how strong
Marianne's indictment might have been with a full knowledge of the
facts. After all, this blaming her for unjust action, on imperfect
data, which would have been just had the whole come to light, was the
merest quibble, and both knew it.
Judith broke the silence first, but only with what amounted to a
declaration that she would not help. "There must be a beautiful sunset
somewhere," was all it came to. And then matters were relieved by
the silvery voice of Cintilla. Might she take away the tea-things?
Yes--she might. While she did so, the talk turned on the legal question
of Marianne's right to capture the children. Challis had, he said,
consulted more than one legal friend on the subject, and they were all
in a tale. The children were illegitimate, and _therefore_ belonged to
their mother. He got some satisfaction, evidently, from shredding a
conspicuous absurdity of human law--why should children be claimable at
all by a father who was a mere predecessor _et præterea nihil_--just
a parent? He himself had made his title good to these two kids by his
share in fostering them. Had his claim been a legal one only, he would
have foregone it to make way for that of their natural owner. But he
touched the matter very lightly. It did not outlast the removal of the
tea-things.
Then Judith, going to the window, stood looking out, watching the light
die from a cloud whose under side had broken into ridges of rosy flame.
Its last ridge no longer saw the sun, when she turned slowly, coming
back to a seat nearer Challis than the one she had occupied.
"This will be good-bye," she said. "I am going to Biarritz, and shall
be away till January certainly. I did not want to go without seeing you
again. So I was glad when the child came running up to say it was you,
and shouldn't she catch you?" Her speech was redolent of self-command;
no concessions to the pathos of parting.
"May I write to you?"
"I was going to ask you to do so. I shall hope to hear that your home
is happy again, and that all goes well. This sort of thing has happened
before--oh dear, how often!"
As Challis sat during the short silence that followed, not looking at
all at his companion, one might almost have fancied that he shrank away
from her, as one afraid. He found a voice to answer her, but not easily.
"I will write," he said. "And, believe me, Judith, in what I am going
to say now I am speaking truth. I look with hope to the softening of my
poor wife's heart, to the sound of her return to my empty home, and the
voices of my babies...."
"Why should you suppose I doubt you? Of course you do!"
"Yes, but, dearest!--I must call you so, or call you something with
some heart in it; pardon me!--can I tell the reason? Can the reason be
told?... Oh yes, of course, I know what you are going to say--it is
reason enough that she is my wife, that the kids are _my_ kids, that
the home is my home. So it is; but there is more reason than that, and
I am at a loss to tell it.... What?"
But Judith left whatever it was unsaid, and exchanged it for "No--go
on!"
"Perhaps I do wrong when I use the only words I can find when I say
that I long for Marianne back again to help me against _you_? Ought I
not to say to help me against myself? Where is the fault in you that
you are what you are? _You_ are blameless, at least. It is _I_ that
must needs love you!"
And perhaps the story does wrong to allow a suspicion that, in the
heart that beautiful face belonged to, was a half-formed thought
that the speaker was even more Arcadian than the owner of both had
suspected. But it creeps in--this suspicion--with the telling of a
smile kept under by lips on the watch to check it. One thing may be
relied on: Miss Arkroyd was not the least agitated.
Challis saw nothing of her face, as he never raised his eyes, and his
face was half averted. He continued: "I cannot help an experience
that no one will believe. I have no appeal against it. But I tell you
this--that when I came home after ... after that evening at Royd, when
I forgot myself and told the truth, for a few hours I forgot _you_ too.
As I sit here now, it seems to me a thing absolutely incredible. Even
when Marianne turned against me on grounds that seemed to me almost a
pretext, no memory of you or my folly--call it so if you will--anything
you like!--no memory came back to me. Indeed, it is almost as though I
had been two men by turns." He raised his eyes to hers, with a slowly
drawn breath, as of fatigue, from the turmoil of his own feelings. If
there was any of the smile left then, she was in time to cancel it.
But she hardly said anything. A mere run of the vowels of a sentence,
as one speaks through a yawn, is not speech. It just made him say
"What?" but evidently had no share in the question she replied to him
with, and stopped in the middle of, "And what was it then made you?..."
But the words she had decided on ignoring were "How funny men are!" Let
us hope there was some affectation of indifference in this.
Challis understood her question. "What made my disorder break out
again?" he repeated. "I can't fix the time. But now that I have been
forced to discard one of my selves--the one that hoped for the calm of
his old home life again ... no, Judith, indeed there have been many
happy times...."
"Why? Did you think I doubted it?"
"I wasn't sure.... But I had not finished. Now that my hope has been
simply strangled, I have to be my other self, in self-defence. I tell
you--I must tell you--that the thought of you is with me every hour of
the day, and what have I to help me to fight against it? Even my boy
is away, and what adds to the cruelty of the position is that, will I
nill I, I have to feel glad of his absence. Because when he was with me
I was in constant terror of being asked for explanations which I could
not give. A girl of his age would have been far easier to tell it to."
"Do you think so? I feel as if I could tell him about it all--much,
much easier!" During some chat over the fact, and its strangeness,
that the tongue of either sex is freest in speech with its opposite,
on this one particular subject of Love, Challis felt, as they sat on
in the growing twilight, that the soul-brush was at work again with
a vengeance. The utter satisfaction of his thirst for speech about
himself and his plight was so much sheer nectar to him while it lasted.
If he paid for it after, at least his draught should be a deep one now.
He confessed to the extent to which his constant home-life in the past
had stood in the way of the formation of intimate friendships, and that
he really had no one he could confide in. "I have a second cousin,"
said he--he was always absurd, sooner or later--"who has an impediment
and a wig, and is slightly deaf. No, I really could _not_ take him into
my confidence." Judith said: "Of course you couldn't; I see that."
"Besides," he continued, "he wears spats, and goes through courses of
treatment for dyspepsia at Cheltenham." And Judith said again: "I see."
"The only man I have spoken to about it," continued Challis, "is
Athelstan Taylor. Well, I suppose he's about the only man I know that
I _could_ speak to. You know he came to see me straight away. You told
him?"
"Yes, I told him. I showed him my letter--the one I wrote to your wife.
He said I could not possibly write a better one. And she tore it up and
sent it back?"
"She did. You know he went to try and see her, and only succeeded
in getting at the old hag, her mother. I had built on his being a
parson--thought it might be some use for once. But I suppose he was the
wrong sort somehow--out of the wrong _cuvée_."
"Did he give offence over the--the Deceased Wife's Sister question?"
"Why, yes! The hag said he ought to be unfrocked for saying he didn't
care a straw about the legal question, and only wanted to clear up what
seemed a painful misunderstanding. The cloth fell through, and the old
body drove him out with religious hoots."
"There's a thing you won't mind my asking?..."
"Go on!"
"People are saying--political people--that the Bill will pass the
Lords next summer, and that then all past marriages of the sort will
be legalized, because it will be _retrospective_--I believe that's the
proper word. Suppose it passes, what shall you do then?"
"Get the kids back, of course! And then Polly Anne will come to her
senses. But she will--she will, you know--before that."
"Suppose she laid claim to having annulled her marriage, while she
still had a legal right to do so?"
"It wouldn't be allowed. She's a woman. Women's claims are not allowed
in law-courts. It's heads Law wins, tails they lose.... Yes!--I should
stoop to take advantage of it in this case."
"Perhaps you would be right, this once. We must hope it will pass."
"I do hope it--with most of my heart. Do you believe me? Can you
believe me, in the face of what I have said to you?" For Challis knew
quite well that this profession of a hope was only what he knew he
would be able to say when the soul-brush stopped, and that he said it
now mechanically. Wait till he was off Calypso's island!
Judith left his question unanswered; put it aside, rather. "I
suppose you know it's all settled about Frank and Sibyl?" she said.
Oh yes--Challis knew. When would it be? As soon after Christmas as
possible, Judith supposed. An interruption--Cintilla with a letter--was
not unwelcome. But she needn't light up; when Mr. Challis was gone
would do. "That was a broad hint, Scroop," said Calypso, lying back in
her chair with the unopened letter in that destructive hand fallen idly
on her lap.
But in a few moments, when he took the hint and made a move towards
departure, she rose. And if the truth must be told, she went quite as
near a good stretch and a shake as such high breeding as hers could
allow itself. It did not matter; her grace and beauty, perhaps her
dressmaker, negatived the action. That bodice was perfect in cut. "You
know, Scroop, that this _is_ good-bye?" she said. And then in reply to
his assent: "We won't be mawkish over it, please! I want you to make
me a promise, and keep it.... Well, yes!--I'll tell you what it is. It
would hardly be fair to make you promise in the dark. Promise not to
come to Biarritz!" Challis hesitated, but promised. Judith laughed. "I
was right, you see," she said. "You would have asked about trains at
Cook's to-morrow."
There they stood, in the half-dark! Was Calypso saying to herself:
"Now, can I trust this man to break his promise?" Was Challis asking
himself, did she mean him to keep it?
In the end she spoke first, with a sudden movement that implied an
end to disguise. "Oh, dear, how silly one is! Why should we not speak
plain? After all, we are alive, and grown up." Yet it seemed difficult,
too, and came with an effort. "Listen to me, Scroop, and don't try to
say things--because it does no good. You and I have to say good-bye,
and mean it. We are best apart, for both our sakes. You as good as said
but now that you would forget me if Marianne would help. That is what
it came to; don't deny it!" Challis felt that his attempt to lay his
soul bare had failed; that he was being misinterpreted. But he had a
poor case; silence was safest. She continued: "It is not as if I were
prepared to quarrel with my family for your sake. I certainly would
not for anyone else's, if that is any satisfaction to you. But suppose
I were, have you asked yourself what course would be open to us?...
Oh yes!--I am talking like a lawyer; but a woman has to be practical
when her life is at stake.... Well!--what could you do? Ignore your
marriage, under the false warranty of a law we both disallow, and make
a sort of Gretna Green business of it next spring?..."
"Why next spring? I don't see how the time comes in."
"Foolish man! You haven't thought the matter out. Just think of it
_now_. Suppose that Bill were to pass next session--or next whatever it
is--while we are arranging this escapade? ... what would you do then,
please?"
"I can't look at it in that--concrete way."
"Because it puts you in a fix." She had a half-hearted laugh for man's
superior wisdom, with his eyes closed to all practical issues. Then
her voice got a sudden tone. "Come, we must part, you and I! There is
nothing else for it. It is all nonsense about your wife. She will come
to her senses. She will have to, if the Bill passes."
"I should not try to compel her against her will."
"Are you sure? Might it not be your duty to the children?... Now, don't
let's talk about it any more. It must come to good-bye in the end...."
Her words hung fire, but she kept her self-control admirably; no one
could have called her excited, much less hysterical. Then she said, in
a quick, subdued voice: "I shall always think of our good time--before
all this--as one of the happiest times of my life. Now good-bye!"
Why could the man not shake hands and go, without more ado? Of course,
that would have been the correct form--left his cards--sent his
compliments to The Family--_bon voyage!_--all that sort of thing!
Well!--perhaps the woman did not mean him to.
What happened was this--that is, this is all the story needs: that
Judith repeated decisively, "Good-bye!" and Challis said never a word.
But he had her hands in his, and it was some slight emphasis in his
clasp, or some little turn a bystander would not have seen, from which
she shrank back, saying: "No--or listen! Promise me again you will not
come to Biarritz." To which he replied: "I promise." Then she said:
"Very well, then--on those terms say good-bye how you like."
Then it was that Challis made matters ten times worse, ten times
harder to deal with in that period of his life that followed. It is
a curious thing that one good long kiss--a transaction that when in
a frolic has absolutely no meaning whatever--should acquire from its
concomitants a force to cling about the memory, and in a sense to warp
the understanding, of its executant--the only word we can find at a
short notice. It did, in this case, and possibly Calypso meant it
should do so all along--administered her little dose of nectar with a
full knowledge of its powers as an intoxicant. Indeed, if Miss Arkroyd
had it in her heart through all this last interview to complete the
winding of that skein she began a twelvemonth back, she could scarcely
have handled the thread more cleverly.
It is not for this story to decide what the young lady had in her
heart. For all it knows, she may have felt either triumphant,
disgusted, or indifferent, when she saw the name of Mr. Alfred Challis
the author--"Titus Scroop" in a parenthesis--in the list of recent
arrivals at Biarritz, and did not mention the fact to her hostess or
any of her friends. But she met Mr. Challis on the esplanade next day,
and introduced him to them equably as a friend of her father's. She
must have forgiven him his broken promise, or ignored it.
CHAPTER XXXIX
OF THE NEWS MR. ELPHINSTONE TOLD MRS. PROTHEROE. HOW CHALLIS HAD
FOLLOWED JUDITH TO MENTONE. YOUNG MRS. CRAIK AND HER DEAD DICKY-BIRD.
HOW CHALLIS BECAME A KNIGHT
When Miss Arkroyd came back to her sister's wedding in January it
was not to Grosvenor Square, but Royd Hall. A wedding in London in
midwinter would have been too awful. Fancy being married in a thick
fog! Thus it happened that Grosvenor Square remained packed in brown
holland and carpetless until the Family came back from abroad in April.
The middle of that month saw the wrappers off the picture-frames and
the carpets on the stairs. The windows were cleaned, and the beds were
made, and the fires were lighted. These last in every room, for snow
and sleet were whirling about in the Square; and the full horror of an
average Spring was cutting Londoners to the quick, after hopes had been
held out of an abnormal one.
The housekeeper's room in the basement had as good a fire in it as the
best; and the butler, who had been abroad with the Family, and had
come back in advance to prepare the way for it, was taking a cup of
tea there, and chatting over the occurrences during his absence with
the lady in possession, Mrs. Protheroe, the housekeeper--a responsible
person, to whom it was safe to speak about things, under reserve. One
of the things was a thing to the importance of which we couldn't shut
our eyes, if true. It threw all other subjects into the shade.
"That's the gentleman, Mrs. Protheroe. You mark my words if it isn't!"
And Mr. Elphinstone repeated his words, that they might be better
marked, more than once, in the silence that followed.
"I shall be very greatly shocked, Mr. Elphinstone, if it turns out like
you think. But we must hope and pray no such a disgrace could happen to
the Family."
The old lady, a perfect example of her kind, who had known the Family
through two generations, was gravely disquieted provisionally. But such
a thing was not to be accepted lightly, whatever it was. Dismiss it or
condemn it, certainly! Entertain it, scarcely!
Mr. Elphinstone appeared to revolve something in his mind. It found
expression in the words, "It was Michaelmas. Last Michaelmas twelve
months. Just a year and a half."
"He and his wife dined once, and then he came down to Royd." In Mrs.
Protheroe's speech all things relate to the Family, so there is no need
to say whom Mr. and Mrs. Challis dined with.
"Too free and easy, to my thinking. Wife a stoopid sort. Spoken of so
afterwards in the Family freely. 'Armless, I should have put it at,
myself."
"Received, certainly!" Mrs. Protheroe shows that she anticipates
comment on the stupid lady's social drawbacks. But Mr. Elphinstone
covers the ground fully.
"No questions were asked," he says. "Subsequently it was elicited
Deceased Wife's Sister. Information from Bishop Barham's lady at the
Castle."
"But her ladyship had called when in London." The implication was that
the Family's _ægis_, once extended, was not a thing that could be
withdrawn without loss of prestige. Mr. Elphinstone can recall, with
reflection, incidents bearing on this point.
"In my hearing," he says, "no one but the Family being present, strong
opinions tending to liberality received sanction. His lordship the
Bishop's lady being referred to as bigoted, Sir Murgatroyd especially
exculpating. Parties happening to be other parties' Deceased Wife's
Sisters said to be victims of equivocal state of Law. I should say,
too--but this, Mrs. Protheroe, is merely opinion--that the voice of her
Grace the Duchess had weight, being thrown in the scale on the side of
Toleration." Mr. Elphinstone felt pleased with his figure of speech,
although he knew it was not original. He was indebted for it to Mr.
Ramsey Tomes, to whom he was an attentive listener.
"Her ladyship," said Mrs. Protheroe, "has been predisposed towards her
Grace from a child. Addicted, you might almost say. Some do think her
Grace's opinions too easy."
"In this case," said Mr. Elphinstone, who wished to pursue his sketch
of the _status quo_, whatever it was, "nothin' applied. Owing, I should
say, to the fundamental attitood of Mrs. Challis. Both young ladies,
as well as her ladyship, having gone lengths--I assure you, Mrs.
Protheroe, having gone great lengths."
The housekeeper was not inclined to admit that she knew less than the
butler. "So I have understood," she said, and added nods about more
things she knew, but held in reserve. But she would not entirely
exclude Mr. Elphinstone. "Miss Sibyl behaved sweet, I must say. But it
was just no use at all, any more than a lump of lead."
The butler looked introspective and analytical.
"You have to consider, ma'am," said he, unconsciously borrowing a
phrase from Dr. Johnson, "that class-feeling may run high when least
expected. Can we blame a lady of her style for refusing to mix?
Especially when compliance leads to ructions."
Mrs. Protheroe looked thoughtful, too. "Once to dinner," she said.
"Once to an evening. Afterwards excuses. No--Mr. Elphinstone. I'll
tell you just how I see it. No lady would ever feel so to undervalue
herself--not to the extent of denying herself. Their looks satisfy,
personally, and give confidence. But, sought for in Society on behalf
of their husbands--no!"
This way of putting the case would bear polishing, no doubt! But when
we have said that no woman with any _amour propre_ at all would keep
out of brilliant Society on her merits, but might do so rather than be
the mere satellite of a distinguished husband, have we improved so very
much on Mrs. Protheroe's inexactitudes?
Mr. Elphinstone would take a second cup of tea, thank you! He was
determined to sift to the dregs this matter he couldn't shut his eyes
to. "I should like, ma'am," said he, "to pursue the sequel with you,
having spoken so frank. Allow me! It is impossible for me, although
no names are mentioned, to keep going a pretence of ignorance." He
dropped his voice. "There is great warmth of feeling in the Family; it
cannot be disguised. The Family sometimes forget the presence of the
household, and raise their voices. The household may conscientiously
withdraw, but the principle continues to hold good that scraps leak
out." Mr. Elphinstone seemed to feel a reluctance, creditable in
so old a retainer, to confess to so much knowledge of the Family's
private affairs, overheard against his will; and his apologies for
this knowledge made him prolix. Abbreviated, his narrative told of
fiery passages of arms between Judith and her mother and sister; more
temperate, but still warm, discussion between the former and her
father, and a certain amount of chance phrases from semi-confidential
talk between her ladyship and the Duchess, and one or two others. But
they all related manifestly to a determination of Judith to marry a
gentleman the Family would have none of on any terms. And this not
on the score of class-prejudice, nor of ways and means, nor of any
personal aversion, but simply because the said gentleman was to all
intents and purposes a married man. Having regard to some niceties
of social intercourse, or their omission, as between Mr. Alfred
Challis and Miss Arkroyd, their frequent correspondence and obvious
_empressement_ in each other's society, there could be no reasonable
doubt who this gentleman was. Mr. Elphinstone's second cup must have
been cold by the time he drank it, so absorbed was he in this narrative.
"I don't see all you do, Mr. Elphinstone, nor hear. Naturally, because
of opportunities! But I _have_ seen our Miss Judith and this Mr.
Challis together...."
The butler interrupted. "He's been honoured with knighthood, as I
understand. Sir Alfred Challis. Doo to literary distinction!"
"Oh, indeed, I didn't know." Mrs. Protheroe was impressed. "Sir Alfred
Challis. Well, I should have said, without ever being told, they was
going on. And you said she called him Alfred, and said she would marry
him?" This referred to the most striking passage of the butler's
narrative. Repetition would reinforce it.
"It was exactly that," said he. "I was approachin' the door, and
endeavoured to call attention. But Miss Judith, partly not noticing,
partly in her 'igh mood, not caring, just went on: 'I should marry
Titus if he were divorced,' she was just shouting it out in a tempest.
'I _should_,' she says. 'Why should I not marry him, when this woman is
not his wife?' And then, 'If she is his wife, how dares she refuse to
live with him?' And then, 'If she is his wife, how dares she deprive
him of his children? Answer that!' It all came very quick. Then Miss
Judith, she sees me--just come in--and says to me, a bit quieter: 'No,
Elphinstone, don't you go. _I'm_ going.' And sweeps out, white. I asked
pardon, but the bell had rung twice. Her ladyship says, 'Never mind,
Elphinstone!' Then she sinks back like on the sofa, and says to Miss
Sibyl...."
The housekeeper interrupted. "We mustn't call her ladyship out of her
name," she said deprecatingly.
"Old 'abit!" says Mr. Elphinstone. "Where was I?... Oh, says to Lady
Felixthorpe, 'The girl frightens me.' And then, 'Oh dear!--fancy her
making a scene here in the Hotel!' Then Miss Sib ... her ladyship, Lady
Felixthorpe, she says to me: 'Can't the people in the next room hear
every word through that door, Elphinstone?' As if I knew everything,
Mrs. Protheroe!"
"You reassured her ladyship, Mr. Elphinstone?"
"I mentioned that the party in the next room was fouring, and not
unlikely unfamiliar with English. Also, if anyone was there they would
be audible--all being alike in that respect on the Continent--but in
point of fact the suite was vacant." His cup was, too. When he had
received another, and said "Thank you," he added: "But that was not the
only occasion, by many, Miss Judith made use of the expression 'Titus.'"
From this it may be gathered that the Family, diminished by one of the
daughters, had after her wedding fled to the Riviera, and remained
until an enjoyable sunshine convinced them--they being English--that
it was getting too hot, and also imposed on their credulity to the
extent of making them believe Spring had begun in England. So, at
this moment, they are _en route_ for Grosvenor Square, somewhere,
having sent Elphinstone on ahead, to get the house ready for their
arrival. He and Mrs. Protheroe have, therefore, a splendid opportunity
for comparing notes, and just before we found them doing so he had
remarked that a gentleman whom Mrs. Protheroe would remember two
years ago--"play-acting gentleman--friend of Miss Judith's--slight,
middle-aged--soft felt hat--talked to himself--smoker--got him?"
had turned up at Mentone just before he left, and had renewed his
intercourse with the Family.
Thereupon Mrs. Protheroe, who had "got" Challis after some effort
of memory, had said uneasily: "I hope that would not be the same
gentleman...." And Mr. Elphinstone had asked, "What gentleman?" On
which Mrs. Protheroe pleaded, apologetically, guilty to gossip. Perhaps
she ought not to have said it. But there, it was only the child, after
all. Little Tilley! All nonsense, most likely! Being pressed, she had
produced a letter from Cintilla, saying boldly that "Miss Judith's
lover had reappeared, and they'd made it up; only her ladyship and Sir
Murgatroyd refused to see him." The pretty little ex-dairy maiden, whom
a course of spoiling had not improved, had withheld the name of Miss
Judith's admirer. Mrs. Protheroe might guess. It was then that Mr.
Elphinstone noted his desire that his words should be marked. No doubt
Mrs. Protheroe marked them as little as you and I have done in response
to like appeals.
However, this April chat, more than ten months after Challis wrote his
letter to Judith, to get her to try to whitewash him in Marianne's
eyes, will serve to show how the pieces have shifted on the board. For
an untold gap in a tale is like the hour of the game of chess you, the
spectator, were called away from to speak to Mrs. Smith. When you left,
not a piece was lost, and Black had taken the opportunity to castle.
When you returned, White and Black had exchanged queens, and heaps of
pawns and pieces were smiling sickly smiles upon the floor, and had
lost interest in the proceedings, as you had done yourself. Still, you
pretended that you could see exactly what had happened, which was
fibs. But you recovered interest in the game then, and may do so in the
story. However, the intervening _hiatus_ cannot be left an absolute
blank.
It was made up, for Challis, of more or less disguised dangling at the
heels of Judith Arkroyd, broken by several short excursions, pleasant
enough, abroad, and one short, dreary sojourn at his own empty home.
This was chosen at the period of Bob's holidays, which were divided by
that young man impartially between Wimbledon and Broadstairs. He showed
an accommodating, unenquiring spirit in his acceptance of the _status
quo_, as somehow or other right; offering to fight any disputant of his
own sex and weight who suggested that his domestic arrangements were
exceptional. He silenced controversy by trenchant expressions, such as
"You shut up, anyhow!" and went so far once as to tell Tillotson--who
had two Camberwell Beauties, certainly, but was in all other human
relations an Awful Little Humbug--that Dean Tillotson, his father,
and Lady Augusta Tillotson, his mother, only resided together to
produce a false impression of concord on the cathedral-town society
they were central pivot of. Once out of the public sight, according to
Bob, this worthy prelate--of whom he knew absolutely nothing--and his
aristocratic wife "went on" like a cat and dog. Morally, of course! Bob
admitted, under catechism, that her ladyship was not driven up trees
and afraid to come down because the Dean was barking at the bottom;
but, metaphorically speaking, he held to his indictment--provisionally,
at least, until it should be shown in a fair ordeal of battle that the
owner of the Camberwell Beauties could lick its promulgator. Challis
ventured to dwell on the unfairness of making the preservation of an
unblemished family reputation turn on such an issue, but Bob was deaf
to argument. Europe would see, next term, if he didn't give Tillotson
an awful licking, and thereby prove his words true. He would have done
so last term, only that old fool Spit had caught the combatants _in
flagrante delicto_, and made them write alternate verses of the sixth
book of the "Iliad" all through, off the same copy.
Bob's reports of the household at Broadstairs were Challis's only
information about Marianne and the little girls, and it appeared
from these that his mother had been loyal to her husband in one
respect; she had kept back the reasons of their separation from the
children. Circumstances had been glossed over--veils drawn. Young folk
can be easily duped by guardians and parents, who do not generally
scruple--did yours?--to take advantage of their simplicity. As long as
his father and mother were satisfied, Bob was content. And as long as
his sisters felt in some sort of touch with "at home," through his own
holiday visits "at grandmamma's," their inquiries took no very active
form. Challis could not ask his boy the questions he longed to ask. How
was it possible, for instance, to say to him, "Do Chobbles and Mumps
never ask after their Pappy?" He was constantly in dread of saying
something that would set the boy's curiosity on the alert. And he was
thankful, when the time for school came again, that it was still, so
far as he knew, at rest.
But the joy of oblivion, in change of scene and association, grew on
him. He left England for the South of France, as we have seen, shortly
after Bob departed for Broadstairs the first time, midway in his summer
holiday. He wandered about a little in old French towns after Judith
returned for her sister's wedding, catching the last half of Bob's
Christmas holiday, that youth having spent the first half partly at
his grandmamma's and partly in a visit to a school-friend. If you know
and understand boys, you will feel no surprise on hearing that this
was Tillotson! Bob had a high old time at the Deanery at Inchester to
tell his father of when he went to the Hermitage in January. And his
spontaneous narratives of the distinguishing features of Inchester and
Broadstairs, to the disadvantage of the latter, did more to bring an
image of Marianne and her present surroundings to her husband's mind
than more carefully prepared statements, substantially true, could have
done. Grandmamma was not a stinking old Salvation Army Dissenter, but
a properly enrolled member of the Establishment. Nevertheless, Bob's
contrast between what he called "her style" and that of the Venerable
Dean was full of suggestion to his father, whose imagination could
supply the merely academical accuracy needed for a perfect picture.
When Bob went back to school Challis remained at the Hermitage long
enough to complete the correction of the proofs of his forthcoming
novel for the Spring issue. "The Hangman's Orphan" had been already
announced in the press, and only a revise or two was wanting to
complete it. He arranged that this should be posted to him at Mentone,
where he expected to remain through January. He could wire corrections
if needful.
Whether his selection of Mentone for a winter sojourn was the result of
a suggestion from Judith or not is of little importance to the story.
What does concern it is the question how Challis came to be admitted on
the family visiting-list at all when he left his card at the Hôtel de
la Paix on their arrival. Remember what Sibyl's report may have--must
have--been of the little drama she had distinguished in "Tophet" in the
moonlight of last June. Certainly Challis had "left cards" in Grosvenor
Square once or twice; had, at Judith's suggestion, been engaged
elsewhere when once asked to dinner, but had had no real intercourse
with any of the Family, except that time when he was caught and brought
into the house by Cintilla. Of course, if Judith's hand had been free,
things would have been different. Still, something is needed to account
for the position of affairs at Mentone. There was certainly a change.
Our own belief is that the brilliant success of a play of our author's
at the Megatherium Theatre had a great deal to do with it.
Nice scruples bow before great booms; and although Sibyl's antipathy,
shared to a great extent by her mother, and her father's irresolution
before their united forces, were obstacles to Miss Arkroyd's perfect
freedom of intercourse with that Mr. Challis who had married his
Deceased Wife's Sister, and was living apart from her, they were
obstacles of a sort liable to disappear under a sufficiently lofty heap
of laurels. Even her Grace of Rankshire, who had condemned Challis
off-hand, and recommended that the doors of Royd Hall should be closed
against him, softened in the Royal box before the thunders of applause
that accompanied the call for the author when the curtain fell on
"Aminta Torrington." He wasn't Shakespeare, of course; but, then, he
wasn't Ibsen, and _what_ a comfort that was! And one couldn't stand
against a popular verdict. "And, after all," said she to Lady Arkroyd,
"we probably only know half the story."
"Well, Thyringia," said Lady Arkroyd, thereon, "you know it isn't me
that is making the fuss," which was not only bad grammar, but untrue.
"If you would say a word to Sir Murgatroyd to influence him, it would
have such weight. And then the man could come to a reception or
something, and Ju would let me have a little peace. I can't tell you
how sick and tired I am of it all."
Whereupon her Grace had attacked the Bart. before the Bishop, to the
discomfiture of both; the Bart. because he was really unconscious of
any active share in the ostracism of Challis, and only supposed that he
was meeting her ladyship half-way; the Bishop because Thyringia seized
the opportunity of flouting his lordship on the Deceased Wife's Sister
question--trampling on his most cherished episcopal conviction as
nothing but a coronet would have dared to do. She chose to ascribe the
attitude of Royd towards Challis entirely to his irregular marriage,
and "pointed out" that if the legalizing Bill passed next year--"and it
would, yes!"--the Bart. would look like a fool. "What a parcel of geese
you are," said her Grace before a whole roomful of people, "to suppose
the man wants to marry Judith!... Well! he'll have to look sharp about
it, anyhow!" The Bishop turned purple; but there!--a Duchess can say
exactly whatever she likes.
No doubt the confidence her Grace expressed that the "legalizing Bill"
would pass--backed as her opinion was by that of many others--had
its fair share of weight. For both Judith's parents, with a probably
well-grounded faith that their daughter, if only from self-interest,
would do nothing irregular, could not hide from themselves that they
would welcome any change that would define the position, and keep the
suspected couple permanently apart.
This feeling may well have increased and taken a more heart-felt
form when Challis, possibly with the written sanction of Judith--but
nothing came out to that effect--made his appearance at Mentone. Lady
Felixthorpe and her husband joined the party later. It must have been
during their short stay that the little scene occurred so graphically
described by the butler to Mrs. Protheroe. This little scene, the news
of which reached England a few days before its actors, prepares the
story for a change in its conditions. It has to adapt itself to a new
state of things--a state three words of Mr. Elphinstone's narrative
suffice to show. Judith is speaking of Challis as Titus.
* * * * *
Had the lonely and reserved young widow with the two little girls, who
lived with her mother at Broadstairs, and was called by the few who had
occasion to call her anything "Young Mrs. Craik"--had she been told
that that other woman, whom she hated as a Choctaw hates a Cherokee--to
scalping-point--was actually speaking and thinking of the husband she
had renounced by the name the pride of her heart in his first great
success in authorship had chosen and kept for him and, although less
frequent in speech than of old, it was the name her own mind still gave
him--would it have added anything to her resentment? Would she have
been one scrap more miserable than she was, for knowing it? The story
has to report otherwise.
As a matter of fact, Marianne would in a sense have welcomed the
knowledge. She had made up her mind to kill her love for the father of
her children, and it may be she found it died harder than she expected.
Did you, who read this, ever have to kill anything larger than an
insect you could flatten out in a trice to a mere blot? You may perhaps
have caught some bird, maimed by a sportsman--or sportsbooby--past
all hope of rising in the wind--just a scrabbled wreck, good for
nothing but for a sportscat to get a little joy from--and may have
seen that it would be merciful in you, not a sportsperson at all, but
a sentimentalist, to make a quick end of it; and then you may have
tried, and found it still had heart in it for a fight for life. Did
your sentimentalism make you feel sick, till the last last kick left it
collapsed and cooling? Then, were you not glad?
Marianne would have been glad to know that her love for Titus was dead,
and the killing of it come to an end. But would it die? There was
always the painful doubt. Your little dicky-bird ended on a tiny jerk,
and hung limp and chill. Would a love those two young folks brought
back memories of, hour by hour, do the like?
More than once, Choctaw as she was, her mind had wavered towards
relenting. Once she had actually begun a letter to her husband--not
imploring forgiveness for her overstrained anger and jealousy; she was
too proud for that sort of thing--but the other sort of thing, the
sort that is ready with Christian Forgiveness, the sort that makes the
consumption of a good large humble pie a _sine qua non_, the sort that
indulges in a truculent sort of joy over the sinner that repenteth.
She was too proud to admit that she had been at all in fault, but
just--only just--_not_ too proud to indulge a secret hope that Titus
would be magnanimous enough to shut his eyes to her omission. All she
wanted was contrition galore and absolution absolute. On those terms
she would come back and marshal Mrs. Steptoe and the crew of a new
domestic Argo. Only, bygones were to be bygones! She had a dim sense
that this expression was to be held to mean that Charlotte Eldridge
was to be assoilzied. It was a dim one, because she had no idea of
admitting that she had been influenced by Charlotte.
Her mother dissuaded her from sending this letter, if you call it
dissuasion to "point out" that Hell-fire awaits those who run counter
to your voice of warning. What Challis would have called the "religious
hoots" of the worthy old lady took the form of warning her daughter
against returning to what Holy Writ denounced plainly as a Life of Sin.
She omitted to mention the chapter and verse; but, then, her style,
as Bob called it, was one that lent itself to fervour--not to say
bluster--rather than verification of references. It was a style that
Bob, backed by his father--and Tillotson's, for that matter--could
easily sneer at. But it was harder for Marianne to ignore the force
of the words-without-meaning that had been thundered at her from her
cradle. The well-worn phrases had force in them still for her, and
when she burned that letter she had a kind of sacred feeling, like the
Northern Farmer when he came away from Church.
It is right to mention, lest any reader should condemn Marianne for too
great submission to her mother, that the thunderbolts of hereditary
superstition were not the only malign influences she had to bear
up against. She never lost touch with Charlotte Eldridge. In fact,
Charlotte paid her more than one short visit at Broadstairs, and made
the best use of her time in each. Nothing could have exceeded the
earnestness of her supplications to her friend to allow her to act
as intercessor and mediator, to be the bearer of the olive-branch of
peace, except it were the warmth of her exhortations to forgiveness,
or the subtle dexterity with which the suggestion of offence still
untold weakened the effect of both. It is impossible to enlarge on
the merit of overlooking the wrong that has been inflicted on us,
without by implication enlarging the area of the wrong itself. Meekness
needs something to work with; a buffalo cannot find sustenance from
a flower-pot. Charlotte never asked pardon for the offender without
contriving to suggest a new offence.
Of course, if Marianne had not been a bit of a Choctaw, the position
need never have become so exasperated. But it isn't fair to make
her the scapegoat on that account. What a many items of the total
imbroglio could have cancelled it, by simply attending to their own
non-existence! If, for instance, Judith Arkroyd had kept her eyes to
herself, or had never left Challis's hand to do the letting-go--who can
say, then, what the exact force of that moonlight adventure in Tophet
would have been? Or if that theatrical nonsense had not let witchcraft
loose on an easy victim; easy because unsuspicious? Or if Marianne's
writing-paper had been the thin sort that goes abroad, eight pages for
twopence-halfpenny, instead of that sort the envelope cuts your tongue
when you lick it to--Harmood's phraseology, we believe--would not
Challis have read the postscript? Think of the difference that would
have made!
No!--there is no sense in trying to fix blame; certainly not on either
of the principal actors. Blame Judith if you like! But even then,
bear in mind that until Challis broke out in that foolish way, Judith
had observed all the rules of the game, and was playing fair. Do her
justice! Can you gibbet Judith, without affirming that a woman has no
right to be beautiful, and very little to take for granted that a man
with a still young wife and two children will not credit her with a
readiness to assume as a matter of course that he will never imagine
that she will suppose he has fallen in love with her?... We hope this
is intelligible. More might be added to the same effect, but let it
stand.
Judith's father never saw any fault to be found with his daughter's
conduct; so why should the story? However, it is true that Sibyl always
said that papa was a bat; and her ladyship suggested that, socially
speaking, conflagrations might break out all round, and Sir Murgatroyd
never notice them until she called his attention to them. When the
Duchess said what the story has already reported about Challis and
Judith, it only presented itself to him as a sheer joke; his Arcadian
mind could not receive the idea of Judith--our Judith!--nourishing a
_tendresse_ for ... a married author! It was not the authorship, but
the marriage, or marriages rather; for if we considered Marianne null
and void, what should we call her residuum? A widower at large, with a
doubtful record?
The fact is, the old boy had a fine chivalrous heart behind his
occasional absurdities, and any advantage taken of a legal technicality
to shuffle out of a deliberate contract would have been branded by
him as it deserved. And, although it was quite untrue that he was the
maker of the fuss her ladyship disclaimed any hand in, it is certain
that he inaugurated a fuss of his own invention after that outbreak of
the Duchess, when he heard--to deglutition point--the full story of
Marianne's revolt. It had been placed before him some time since in an
imperfect form, but he had swallowed barely a mouthful. Now that his
wife satisfied the curiosity her Grace's escapade had excited, and gave
him full details, he became keen to justify Mrs. Challis, and was for
a while secretly intolerant of her husband. He _would_ know all about
it; and in spite of his informant's appeal to him to be most careful on
no account to say anything to Judith, he seized an early opportunity to
get at that young lady's version of the subject.
"Oh dear!--that tiresome woman!" was her spoken response. But the kiss
she bestowed on her parent's shaving-area was commiserating, tolerant
of the inquiry, not absolutely unamused at the Arcadian simplicity of
the kiss. Dear old man, leaving his manures and eleventh centuries and
things, to meddle with Us and the World! A kiss that said, "What a
shame of mamma to disturb such pastoral tranquillity!" But Judith would
keep nothing back, not she! She dropped into the visitor's chair of the
Bart.'s sanctum, to tell the tale, throwing her hands in her lap, to
lie there till wanted; a sort of despairing submission to lip-boredom
to come. "I need not drum through the whole story; it's too silly!"
She looked appealingly at her father, who immediately weakened his
position of catechist.
"Oh no!--your mother has told me the main facts," said he. And then,
perhaps feeling ground lost, added: "At least, I infer so."
"Did she tell you _I_ was supposed to be the heroine of the romance?"
Eyes closed for a second on an amused face, reopened to look for the
answer. Self-possession perfect!
"Well--yes! She said something of the sort."
"Did she say I was in love with Challis?"
"Certainly not!" Emphatically.
"Well, I don't know! One can't trust one's _madre_. I shouldn't have
been the least surprised."
"Oh--hum--well! Very distinguished man...."
"Oh, I like Challis very much. He's a most amusing companion. I wish
that fool of a woman wouldn't make him so miserable."
"I understand she took offence at his showing you...."
"Showing me her letter! Yes--just fancy! Why--the letter was as good
as a letter to _me_. It was nothing but a message to say why she
wouldn't come to Royd.... No, really there was nothing else in it....
Well!--something illegible on the back that he had overlooked. And she
would listen to no explanation, and went off in a fury, and took the
children with her. And he's never seen her since."
"I can't believe she has any claim to the children. Has he taken legal
advice?"
"Oh dear, yes! Heaps. But it seems he can do nothing. She was a
half-sister of his first wife, you know. If he had married her
in Australia, he might, they said, have got some legal remedy in
Australia; but even then they thought he would have had a deal of
trouble to get at the children. I think he has done wisely to let it
alone. Frank says the Bill is sure to pass the Lords this year or next;
probably this. Then she'll _have_ to be his wife, whether she likes it
or not. I've no patience with such folly."
The Baronet assumed the look of intense profundity political
males generally wear in the presence of womankind, suggesting
magazines of thought beyond their shallow comprehension.
"Some--very--funny--questions," he said, in judicial instalments, "will
arise if that Bill becomes Law. Ve-ry funny ones." But apparently too
complex or too delicate for discussion with one's daughters. So the
Bart. shut them into his soul with the closed lips of discretion, and
looked responsible.
Perhaps Judith saw her way to quenching any suspicions anent herself
and Challis by parading her unreluctance to talk about him. "I don't
know," said she, "that a little trouble is necessarily bad for Challis,
with all this success going on. It may save him from becoming odious.
Besides, of course, Marianne means to come back to him in the end."
* * * * *
This was about the time of Sibyl's wedding, shortly after the
production of "Aminta Torrington." So convincing was Judith's attitude
of her detachment from Challis, helped always by his leaving England
immediately afterwards, that all suspicion had vanished from the mind
of her parents by the time he made his appearance at Mentone; and at
that time Sibyl was honeymooning. There had never been anything that
could be called a split. And discretion, for some reason, must have
been carefully observed by Challis and Judith during this visit, for
gossip never mentioned them in the same breath. And the lady's father,
in our opinion, was righteously shocked when it came to his knowledge
that his daughter and this gentleman, who had been accepting his
hospitality as a married man, were to all intents and purposes plighted
lovers, and free to wed without let or hindrance. Except, indeed, on
the lady's side, an almost solid phalanx of family opposition; and on
the gentleman's a previous marriage which was no legal wedlock at all,
but which he could not be said to have been disloyal to, for he had
never either refused to play the husband nor been guilty of any legal
infidelity. It was entirely Marianne who had refused to play the wife.
Lord Felixthorpe, Sibyl's coronet, was the only dissentient in the
family circle. "It certainly seems to me," said he, as deliberately
as ever, "that either our Legal Acumen, or our Boasted Civilization,
or our Moral Sense, or the Marvellous Elasticity of our Political
System, or Convocation, or the Higher Socialism, or something equally
impressive, must be in a sense defective, when any person not convicted
of crime is under compulsion to live single, as long as there is a lady
willing to marry him. I say nothing of the case of a friend of ours
(whom I do not name for obvious reasons) who says that no lady will
accept him. If he were to endeavour to drag an unwilling bride to the
altar, the police should be instructed to interpose. But in the case
of Challis--if I am rightly informed--my fascinating sister-in-law is
ready to accept the situation. Now, although, under the existing Law,
one's own Deceased Wife's Sister is excluded from the questionable
advantage of becoming one's Legitimate Wife, the most stringent
morality has never enrolled someone else's Live Wife's Sister among
prohibited degrees of consanguinity...."
"Do say what you mean, Frank, instead of going out of your way to make
fun of Will, and talking nonsense!"
"I mean, dearest, that it's too much to expect of any fellow that he's
to stand his wife bolting on the plea that the wedding-knot wasn't
tied, and lugging away his kids, and refusing to see him, and him not
be allowed to marry somebody else."
But William Rufus, who had been slighted by an American beauty, and was
gloomy in consequence, shook his head and said: "Can't see it--never
shall!" And Sibyl settled the matter. "If he wants to marry anybody
else's husband's Live Wife's Sister, let him! Only not mine!"
So it had come about that discord reigned in Grosvenor Square when the
Family returned from Mentone. But the outer world knew nothing about
it. Mr. Elphinstone and Mrs. Protheroe talked of what they heard to
each other, and nothing reached the lower stratum of the household.
Conjecture must supply a motive for delay on the part of this betrothed
couple: for they must be called so. If they intended to ignore Marianne
and defy public opinion, why not do so at once? Was it because no
certainty existed that Challis's marriage was invalid? No legal means
of dissolving a marriage not recognized by Law seems to exist. It was
impossible to make a clean slate and start fair. Who could say that
time would be sufficient to calm the family tempest and put the ship
in commission so as to be sure of sailing before that Bill was brought
forward in the Commons? Suppose it was rushed through, and overtook the
wedding! Was Judith's thirst for wedlock intense enough to run such a
risk? Was it not, rather, common prudence to wait for the rejection
of the Bill, and have a cool year to turn the matter over? Our own
impression is that the young lady was not in love enough to say _yes_
to the first question, or _no_ to the second.
Whether Challis's arrangement of his affairs and his
whereabouts--always favouring what Harmood would have called "keeping
company," while thrusting himself as little as possible on the
Family--was in consequence of a definite plan of campaign, arranged
with Judith, is not known to this story. There is a suspicion that
the attack of influenza that laid him up at Marseilles on November
6 was made the most of, in order that he might shirk the receipt of
knighthood in person on the 9th. There is his name among the Birthday
Honours of the year; and, as we all know, he is now Sir Alfred Challis.
He was able, somehow, to get enough degrees of fever certified to make
his presence at the Palace impossible; but whether he knelt to receive
them subsequently, or whether they reached him through the æther, like
a Marconigraph, we do not know. He had certainly shaken off the "flu"
very completely when he came to England after Christmas.
The story is a bit hazy on many points at this period. What made
Challis, with all his impatience with what he called the "performing
classes," accept a knighthood? One theory--a plausible one--is that
Judith ordered him to do so. Not from any idea that her parents or
Sibyl would soften towards Challis on that account--much they cared for
knighthoods! But she was woman enough to wish to have the World on her
side. It might be a snobbish world; but what a big one it is! And what
a lot of power one's elbow gets from the sympathy of it! Anyhow, to our
thought, Challis, having accepted the honour at Judith's bidding, ought
to have overcome his reluctance to conform to usages, and not run his
temperature up to 103. As it was, the little thermometer had its way.
He remained abroad, then, until the Easter holiday--which coincided,
you see, very nearly with the return of the Family to Grosvenor
Square--when he came to Wimbledon for some more Bob. All we want to
know about him at this time, and for a little time yet, is that his
correspondence with Judith continued, and that during the season in
London the two of them contrived to meet very frequently. It was a
wonder they managed to steer clear of gossip as cleverly as they did.
But an anxious time was approaching. Suppose that Bill passed!...
Did Challis ever say to himself, to put a finishing-touch on the oddity
of his position, "What would it matter? If it did put a barrier between
me and Judith, would it not give me back my old home and the kids?"
The story can conceive his doing so, and also that his mind would then
wander back on his old days ... not always perfect; but still!...
and then would shudder at its own brutality, for never asking what
of Judith, in that case? What would be left for _her_? For Challis,
though he had speculated a good deal in his writings on the many ways
of loving that there are, had scarcely applied his conclusions to
himself. Some theorists will have it that no man ever has the slightest
consideration for the woman he loves--in one of the ways, mind
you!--suppose we say the volcanic way! They hold that it is himself he
loves all the time.
However, the Bishop said it was impossible that Bill should pass. And
he ought to have known.
CHAPTER XL
HOW MISS FOSSETT WENT TO ROYD. ON SUSPENSION OF OPINION. ANXIETY
ABOUT LIZARANN. A VISIT TO JIM, AND A RETROSPECT. HOW MISS FOSSETT
MADE A NICE MESS OF IT
A hot July was drawing to a close, and Athelstan Taylor and his friend
Gus's sister Adeline Fossett were out early in the Rectory garden, and
had many things to talk about. It was the Saturday morning of a Friday
to Monday visit, which could not be prolonged, on any terms, till
Tuesday.
One of the things they had to talk about was sad, as anyone could have
told from their voices, without hearing a word distinctly. Because they
were speaking with such very resolute cheerfulness of it; putting such
a good face on it; each of them evidently thinking the other wanted an
ally.
"I go by Sidrophel." It was Athelstan who said this. "Taking a man
out of London to live on the south shore of the Mediterranean is like
giving meat and drink after a diet of poisons. You'll see Gus's first
letters will say he's well. He won't be, of course; one mustn't expect
miracles. But it will seem like that--to him."
"I think that's very likely. But when I said I wished I had been able
to go with him, I didn't mean that. I don't believe he'll want any
coddling or looking after out there. What I was thinking of was the
poor boy being so lonely, all by himself." But Athelstan laughed out
at this: the idea of a pastor of a flock being _lonely_!--the last
thing in the world! The lady admitted this, and helped it a little.
"Yes--and, after all, it isn't as if we had seen each other every day
when he _was_ in London." Then she reflected a little, and added:
"Besides, I couldn't have gone, anyhow, because of mother." Of whom
this story can report nothing, no questions having been asked. "Mother"
must have her place in it as the reason Miss Fossett could not go to
Tunis.
Something came to the Rector's mind which provoked a cheerful laugh.
"I suppose," he said, "poor Challis would say we were bringing an
indictment against the Almighty."
"I wonder you call him 'poor Challis,' Yorick. I've no patience! I've
heard all about it from the other side, you know. But what did you mean
he says?" The question is asked stiffly. Challis is evidently not in
favour.
"He says that resignation, as practised, always seems to be meant as an
indictment against the Almighty. It's true he said he was referring to
venomous resignation. We must hope ours is t'other sort."
"I won't laugh at anything Mr. Challis says, Yorick. I've no patience
with a man who behaves so to his wife. My cousin Lotty knew the whole
thing from the beginning, and it's quite impossible she should be
mistaken.... Oh yes!--I know what you're going to say. That little bit
of Latin...."
"Well!--it's a very good little bit, as far as it goes. _Audi alteram
partem!_ Nobody ever bursts from bottling up his judgment until he has
heard both sides."
"My dear Yorick, I agree with you _ab_solutely about the principle
as a general rule. But in this particular case I do think you are
unreasonable. How is it possible Lotty should be mistaken, when Mrs.
Challis is actually living at her mother's at Tulse Hill? Oh no! I do
think you're quite wrong!"
"But I'm only refusing to form an opinion. I'm not expressing one."
"Well, if you don't see that Mr. Challis _must_ be in the wrong, you
never will see it. Don't be ridiculous and paradoxical, Yorick dear,
because you know perfectly well you agree. Now don't you?"
"Can't say I do." And the conversation ran for some distance on the
same pair of wheels, the lady always maintaining that in this one
particular case suspension of opinion, pending production of evidence,
is the merest affectation, and the gentleman resolutely refusing to
make any exceptions. However, Miss Fossett had not produced all her
arguments.
"Besides, Yorick dear, you know Mr. Challis _did_ tell you all his side
of the story." A head-shake. "No?--well, he had the opportunity of
telling you, and he didn't, which is the same thing."
"No--no, Addie, not the same thing--not the same thing! You know I had
a long talk twice with him about it. I went to see him on purpose, and
neither time would he say a single word in self-defence...."
"Because he couldn't!"
"Oh no--no! Indeed, you're unfair to him. When I say _audi alteram
partem_, in this case, I really mean wait till we are certain we have
heard all there is to be said on the other side. I am as sure as that
I am standing here that the poor chap was tongue-tied by chivalry to
his wife. I wish she would have seen me when I went...."
"You did go?"
"Oh yes--I went at once after seeing him, and only succeeded in seeing
her mother, a horrid, religious old woman...."
"Yorick dear!"
"Well--you know what I mean. The old woman as good as told me I was
a disgrace to my cloth, because I spoke of marriage with a deceased
wife's sister as an open question. You know that question comes into
Challis's affair--comes very much in...."
"I know. I know all about it. Only it's not the chief part ... a ...
but you know, of course?"
"Yes--yes!--what it _was_--of course!" And then each nods and looks
intuitive. If Charlotte Eldridge had been watching them then through a
telescope, she would have been able to spot the exact moment at which a
lady and gentleman--an unsanctioned brace, that is--came on the _tapis_.
How far can they be legitimately discussed--by us who know the lady?
That's the point! Miss Fossett bites a thoughtful lip about it. Mr.
Taylor utters a succession of short "hm's" and one long one; then says
in a by-the-way manner that accepts a slight head-shake as an answer:
"Didn't Judith Arkroyd speak to you?... Oh, I fancied she did;" adding,
in a reserved tone of voice: "You know, I dare say, that she herself
wrote to Mrs. Challis." And this speech seems to have the singular
effect of removing a padlock from Adeline Fossett's tongue.
"Handsome Judith?" she says, oddly lighting on Marianne's term for her
_bête noire_. "Oh, _I_ know!--I quite understand."
"But _what_ do you understand? Come, Addie dear, don't be ... don't be
_female_ about it. Do say what!"
The impression or suggestion that she might have married which we fancy
this story referred to when she first came into it seemed to mellow
and mature in Miss Fossett as she replied, "Oh, Yorick, dear old boy!
What an Arcadian shepherd you are!" And then she laughed, and repeated,
"Handsome Judith!"
"But she showed me the letter--she showed me the letter!" cries the
Rector, in a kind of frenzy with his friend for her persistence in
being female, as he calls it. "Come, Addie, what could she do more?"
The above-named suggestion seems to mature until it all but insinuates
that Adeline might marry still, if she chose. The thought just reaches
the Rector's mind, and leaves it as she repeats, in answer to his
question, "What more, indeed? But what did she say, I should like to
know?"
"Ah!--that's the point. And we think we're going to be told, do we?"
The Rector laughed a big good-humoured laugh. He detects in himself,
and is puzzled by it, a new-born disposition to treat Addie as if she
were in her teens, entirely caused by her excursion into feminine paths
hard to explain or classify.
But she unexpectedly forms square to repulse patronage; harks back, as
it were, to her thirties or forties--scarcely the latter yet--and says
gravely, "No, dear old boy! I won't try to pry into any confidence.
Don't tell me anything."
"I would as soon tell you as anyone"--he is looking at his watch--"a
... yes ... sooner than anyone--now Gus is gone." If the last four
words had not been spoken, a hearer--Mrs. Eldridge, say--might have
built an interest on what had preceded them. Those four made the speech
fraternal.
* * * * *
Miss Fossett had come to Royd Rectory to pay a visit of consolation,
following close on her brother's recent departure for Tunis. But it
was also a visit to Lizarann. Her affection for the child was manifest
from the fact that, when she arrived last night, before ever she ate
a scrap of anything, after all that long journey, she went to look at
her where she was asleep. It was nurse who made this mental note, and
who remarked also, when Miss Fossett left the child's bedside, that
she looked that upset you quite noticed it. Also that when the visitor
said, "Is she always like that?" she seemed asking to enquire, like.
"And what did you say, Ellen?" said Miss Caldecott, in nurse's
confidence. "I hope you didn't frighten Miss Fossett."
"Oh no, miss! I was careful not. I said the doctor took a most
favourable view, and had all along. I told what he said about
perspirations, and not to take too much account of temperatures, and
improving symptoms. Oh no, I wasn't likely!" And Ellen is a little
wounded at the bare suggestion that she should have any such a
thing--her own phrase in speech with another confidante next morning.
And yet Miss Fossett _was_ frightened! And when the Rector's voice
intercepted the above colloquy from below, saying, "Bessy, come down
and tell Addie what Dr. Pordage said about Lizarann," it was because
Miss Fossett had gone to her very late refection quite white, and had
said, referring to her visit upstairs, "Why, my dear Yorick, the little
thing's in a perfect bath of perspiration!" And then she only had a
little soup, and Cook took away the things, because Rachael had gone
to bed with a toothache.
However, next day in the sunshine, walking through the fields with the
children to pay a visit to Lizarann's Daddy at Mrs. Fox's, she felt
encouraged when she saw the little person running about in the highest
spirits, gathering blackberries, with a beautiful faith that her Daddy
would appreciate them.
"That wasn't a coft at all, Teacher," said Lizarann, when taxed with
coughing. "I didited it myself."
"Then _that_ was!"
"Only because I very nearly stumbled down," said Lizarann. She had a
high colour in her cheeks, and her eyes looked very large, and her
face wasn't thin--only her fingers. But her spirits were all that
could be desired; so Miss Fossett had to be content with hoping all
would go well, if she was stuffed with preparations of malt, and syrup
of hypophosphites, and so on. But how about the winter? Was there
no possible Tunis? For Miss Fossett's affection for the small waif
went any lengths in projected antidotes to phthisis. If it was money
that was the difficulty--well!--Yorick would have to get it from Sir
Murgatroyd; none of his conscientious nonsense!
However, it might be all unnecessary. Just look at the child tearing
down the hill with Phoebe, to get to her Daddy three minutes sooner,
and shouting out "Pi-lot!" in defiance of orders. And such an
_accolade_ as she gave her father did not look, at this distance, at
least, like either extract of malt or hypophosphites.
Miss Fossett intended to make use of this visit to Jim to get from him,
if she could, some information about the medical record of Lizarann's
family. She had the old-fashioned faith that consumption is hereditary.
It would be very nice to hear that it had never shown itself among her
little _protégée's_ ancestors. She had herself seen very little--almost
nothing--of the blind man, and was curious to make his acquaintance,
after hearing so much of him from the Rector.
Jim was not in the summer-house, but in Mrs. Fox's kitchen that opens
on the garden. It is lucky none of the party is six-foot-six. But there
is plenty of room, laterally.
Jim has to remind Lizarann of her social duties. "Ye'll have to name
the good lady for me to know, little lass." And Lizarann shouts out
"Teacher!" vehemently.
"Miss Fossett, at the school, you know, Mr. Coupland," says the owner
of the name. "Lizarann's one of my best pupils, and she's going to
get quite strong." There was an error in tact here: she should have
recollected that Jim would be a stranger to the medical discussions
over his child's lungs. A slight misgiving crossed her mind.
"Quite strong--the lassie? Aye, to be sure!" says Jim in a puzzled sort
of way. But the lassie herself supersedes the point, doing violence to
the conversation. "So's Daddy's leg," she says, wrenching in a topic of
greater importance. "Daddy's going to walk on it, quite strong, more
than free miles, and no scrutches. Yass!"
Certainly no conversation such as Miss Fossett wished for would be
possible as long as the children were here. Consultation with Mrs. Fox
developed a scheme for their temporary suppression.
Suppose the two young ladies and Lizarann--the distinction is always
nicely marked--were to go with her just three minutes' walk up at the
back of the house to see the swarm of bees in Clyst's orchard. The
supposition is entertained, and they go.
Miss Fossett admits to Jim that she has covertly sanctioned and
encouraged this move, that tranquillity should ensue. But she nearly
repented, she says, when she heard of the bees, lest they should sting.
She hopes it's all right? Oh yes, Lard bless her, that's all right
enough! Jim will go bail for the bees. Look, he says, at the many a
chance they've had to get a turn at him in his summer-house--he seems
to have appropriated it--and never gave him a thought! Besides, Jarge
would be there, and he'd say a word to the bees and tell them.
"Ye see, mistress," Jim continued, "it's a trade with Jarge. He's a
bee-master--so they call him--or you might say a bee-doctor; the folk
round about send for him, miles."
"I want to talk about Lizarann directly," said Miss Fossett. "But tell
me about George and the bees."
"Ah, Lizarann!... But I can tell about the bees, and soon done with. It
was martal queer about George, when he was a youngster. The bees nigh
stung him to death, for pinching of 'em inside the deep flowers when he
got a chance. They were making a mistake, though; for it wasn't he did
it, but another young shaver of his inches. So they cast about for to
make him some amends."
"You don't mean they found out their mistake?"
"Ah, but I do! They're a sly race, and full of knowledge. How they did
it between them I can't say, but there it is!--they've come to the
understanding. And what's the queerer is that George himself don't
above half-understand what's said to him by a Christian. It's only bees
he can tackle!... What was you kindly going to say about Lizarann?"
Miss Fossett, rendered cautious by the lapse she had so nearly made,
saw no way of approaching the subject she was curious about. So she
chatted on about Lizarann, hoping it might come into their talk
accidentally. Jim was eloquent about his gratitude for all that had
been done for himself and his child. "But for you and the master,"
said he, "I'd have been selling matches in the streets still. That
was before my accident. But you won't say anything of that to my
lassie." His hearer understood him. No--she would say nothing of his
begging days to Lizarann. He thanked her again. "But," he added,
"I wish you and the Rector-gentleman could have seen me eight year
agone--no!--barely seven year. I might have been grateful to some
kind of purpose then. I'm little use now!" Pride without a trace of
vanity was in his voice as he added: "There was a fine man in my place
in those days, and you'd ha' said so, lady." The waste remnant was
speaking of its former self.
Adeline Fossett succeeded in none of the things she tried to say. It
did not matter. He would be sure to talk of the past, and she would
glean all she wanted. He took for granted, as part of the conversation
in the interim, the fact of his wife's death.
"That was it, ye see: her mother died. She would have been the eldest."
"I understand. The little one herself told me of your accident, and how
you came back...."
"Aha!--my little lass! In coorse she would tell it! And she told about
the Flying Dutchman, I'll go bail." Jim laughed joyously at the image
his mind formed of Lizarann telling her inherited legend dramatically.
As to the incredulity, he knew it would exist in some minds; so let it
pass! "I came back, lady," he continued, "and I found Lizarann. But I
was all in the dark, and no sight of my wife's face. And there was no
hiding it from her about my eyes--no chance! I never ought to have gone
a-nigh the house. But she might have died, too...."
"You mean she would not have recovered, perhaps, if you _had_ stopped
away."
"Ah--if I had, ever so! But I was mazed with the longing to hear my
girl's voice again, and maybe I never gave her the thought I should
have done. I was a bad young man in those days, and suited myself when
I might have done others a turn, many's the time. It's over and done
with now." And his old self had vanished with it; so completely that
the voice of its derelict, now speaking, had no consciousness in it of
the way his narrative affected his hearers, as he continued, replying
to a word of inquiry from her: "My accident--ye'll have heard all that
from the lassie? My mates, they got me off to the Hospital, and the
doctor there, he dressed my face. And, do ye know, mistress, it wasn't
till the dressings and strappings was removed I knew that I was blind.
Nor my mates. And they had to tell me--mind you!--that the last strap
was off. I couldn't have guessed it. I was thinking I should see. But
it was all dark, and the doctor, he says: 'Sorry for you, my lad, but
the sight's gone. Ask 'em in London; they'll tell you the same.' So my
mates, they brought me away; and there was the sun, by the heat. But I
could only see black, and I judged the doctor would be in the right of
it, in the end. My mate Peter Cortright, he says, 'Never you fret, Jim;
it'll all come right. Give 'em a week or so, and wear a pair o' blue
spectacles a while, and you'll soon be forgetting all about it.' So I
says to him, 'What did old Sam Nuttall say ten days a-gone?'"
"What did Peter say?" asked Miss Fossett.
"Well, ye see, Peter, he _knew_! My ship's owners, out at Cape Town,
they were sorry, but in course no responsibility lay with them. I'd
myself to blame. They gave me my passage home, and home I came, in the
dark! Aboard of an old screw-collier from Liverpool, one o' the sart
they call 'tramps.' Not fit for sarvice, and underhanded. And on to
that dysentery, and half the crew down in their berths, doctorin' each
other the best they might. Well!--I'll tell ye." Jim seems amused at
this narration. "I was passing the time nigh to the binnacle, where
the master and a young man with a fractured arm were steering at the
wheel; for the rudder-chains, they'd fouled and got jammed, and there
was nothing for it but to run a file through 'em and free the rudder,
so they could work the starn-wheel, kept as a resarve. Ye see?...
Well!--the master, he'd been thirty-eight hours at it, and he just
gave out. So I made bold to suggest he should go to his berth, and I
should put a bit of force on the handles, and young O'Keeffe--that was
the young man's name--had a pair of eyes in his head, and we'd make it
out between the two of us. 'Keep her off two points when you see the
flashlight,' says the master, and off he goes to his berth. And from
then on, mistress, ye'll believe I did a stroke of work at that wheel,
just clapping on at the given word. But that's the last bit of work, to
call _work_, ever I did, or ever I shall do this side o' the grave."
Jim's voice rang its saddest note till now, over the dire knowledge
that had come to him that the joy of work could never be his again.
Miss Fossett thought, in the silence that followed, that Jim was
dwelling on thoughts of old times brought back by his old story. The
fact was that her unfortunate reference to Lizarann "getting quite
strong" had been slowly gathering force in a mind that found it hard
to receive, and was beginning to call aloud for explanation. He began
uneasily: "When you mentioned, lady, just now...." and stopped.
She saw what he meant, and saved him further words. "About Lizarann's
health?" she said.
"Ah! Is anything amiss?"
"Oh no--nothing _amiss_!" She had begun too confidently. She had to
retract somewhat. But there was nothing to cause the least uneasiness.
A fatal word that! She saw its marked effect on Jim, and, though she
felt about for some reassuring phrase that would not suggest the
question, "Why reassure?" she found nothing she felt confident of
getting to the end of successfully. When she did begin, Jim cut her
short:
"Are ye keeping something back from me, lady?" His voice was firm and
collected.
Adeline Fossett saw that it would have to be told in the end, and Jim
would have to bear it. Better to rely on his manhood, but make the
least of it. She replied with what was effectively an admission that
something had been kept back. She said that the Rector had wanted to
tell Jim the whole story at once, and exactly what the doctor had said,
but Miss Caldecott had dissuaded him. What the doctor had said came to
no more than this--that the child would want a good deal of care while
she was growing. This phrase, which she had invented for the occasion,
seemed good to her; it implied such confidence that Lizarann would
grow. She decided against repeating the doctor's exact phrase, "She'll
outgrow it with care--oh yes!" as it seemed to her somehow weaker, as a
hopeful expression.
Jim was very silent over it, and Miss Fossett felt that nothing would
be gained by fragmentary attempts to soften her main fact. Having said
it, best leave it to be looked in the face. If it could be safely
diluted, the Rector's testimony could be relied on to do that later.
Rather than dwell on the subject, she preferred to wonder why the
bee-inspection was so long on hand.
"I'm thinking maybe the young folk are too many for the old mother,"
said Jim. "But I doubt we shall hear the lassie sing out one o' these
minutes." Then he went on quietly asking questions about Lizarann; as
how long had the "uneasiness" been felt; to which the true answer,
which was not given, would have been, "from the beginning." For Dr.
Ferris's stethoscope had not given an absolutely clean bill to the
child's left lung. Then, what did the Rector himself really think?
"Would he be minded to tell me himself, if I made bold to ask him?"
said Jim.
"Tell you at once, of course!" said Miss Fossett. "He would have talked
about it before, only he didn't want to alarm you. Next time you see
him, ask him." This was much the best line to go on. But it was rather
a relief when the bee-party came back, elevated by natural history, and
anxious to impart new discoveries. "I never did shouted out 'Pi-lot,'"
said Lizarann, "because Teacher said not to." And she was rather
offensively vainglorious over this achievement, referring to it more
than once.
* * * * *
When Miss Fossett returned to the Rectory, she said to Athelstan
Taylor: "A nice mess I've made of it, Yorick!"
Said Yorick then, laughing: "What's the rumpus?"
"I've told Jim Coupland about Lizarann's chest."
"Hm-hm-hm! Ah well!--he's got to know. How did he take it?"
"Very well--but...."
"But, of course! Never mind, Addie. Don't you fret. I'm going round
that way after lunch, and I'll call and see Jim."
This was about a month after Challis and his wife parted. But is it
necessary to synchronize the events of the story so closely?
CHAPTER XLI
HOW JIM FOUND A MISSION IN LIFE, AND LIZARANN MOVED TO MRS. FORKS'S
COTTAGE. OF A FINE AUTUMN, AND HOW ALL WAS RIGHT TILL SOMETHING WENT
WRONG. OF A SEASIDE SCHEME, AND ITS EFFECTS ON JIM
If you stand up at the rifle-butts when they are not shooting, and look
away from Royd village towards the Hall, you will see a sharp curve in
the road, maybe a mile from Mrs. Fox's cottage on your left. You will
identify that by the little shop built out from it towards the road,
and the covered arbour where Jim smoked his pipe, over a year ago now
at the date of the story. He continues to do so when not professionally
employed. For Jim found an employment, strange to say, shortly after he
talked to Adeline Fossett about Lizarann's health, and got his first
scare about his little lass.
It is just within that curve of the road that his vocation is plied.
Not for gain--nothing so low as that! His is an official appointment,
in the gift of the Rector of Royd, and there is a parish fund of ij
shillings a month, with the additional emolument of a fat capon at
Christmas, for the man at the well-head. The Charity Commissioners have
never found it out; and the Rector has long since appropriated the
fund, and turned it into four shillings, with appendices and addenda;
while a composition has been effected in the matter of the capon, the
holder of the office receiving instead as much barker as is good for
him, all the year round, whether actively employed or not. For the
employment Jim had the luck to step into is one that may have to be
suspended during hard winter weather, being, in fact, the turning of
the well-handle whenever applicants come for water.
It was through Miss Fossett hearing that tale of Jim's, about how his
blind strength had come in so mighty handy in that steerage business
aboard of the undermanned coal-tramp. She recollected it when, on the
afternoon of next day, it came out that the office of water-drawer was
vacant, the last man at the well-head having retired at eighty-seven
years of age. Not that he had turned the handle himself for a long
time past. He had only given official sanction to the efforts of
customers; who, when very small, had to way-ut till soombody else coom
for t' wa-ater. Obviously, Jim was made for the place, and the place
for Jim. And he--poor chap!--for whom all personal life had merged in
solid gloom and hampered movement, felt like the prisoner in solitary
confinement whom the boy threw his pegtop and string to, through the
bars.
It is hardly a fair comparison, though, for the lonely gaol-bird had
to spin his top with never a soul to speak to, day or night, and Jim
had constant intercourse with his species; for as soon as the cottagers
round became alive to the fact that they could send little Mary or
Sally with a pail to t' wa'all, with a reasonable chance of return in
half-an-hour, his services were in constant requisition. Royd village
is at least five hundred feet higher than Grime; and the light soil,
though good for the beech-woods, is bad for the water-supply. That
is why the Abbey Well, so-called, has a clear bucket-shoot of fifty
fathoms before it strikes the water. So, even in answer to Jim's
effective appeals, the supply came slowly; and there was plenty of
time, before the responsible bucket came in sight, to hear family
history from Mary or Sally, or the latest news from seniors with two
large pails stirruped on a shoulder-saddle.
Besides, there was Jim's chief resource, to which all these were as
nothing. There was his little lass. Whenever she was not complying
with the Education Act, and whenever the weather permitted, the child
was pretty sure to be with her father in the little semi-enclosure,
half-hidden by hawthorns, where the well with its interesting
parclose--some of it as old as the thirteenth century, if you
choose--tempts the passing excursionist to stop and be antiquarian
for five minutes; and to put a little jewel of a memory in some close
corner of his brain, to be found there on a winter's night in the days
to come, when all the excursions are over and the merry year is dead.
The fine warm months that followed Jim's entry on his duties were
surely the halcyon months of his broken life. Because for all that he
and Lizarann, with a sort of _ex-post-facto_ optimism, had decided to
construct an image of a glorious past from their memories of Bladen
Street and Tallack Street, misgiving of the soundness of its materials
would creep into _his_ mind, at least; never to the child's. That image
was all beaten gold and ivory to her. Tallack Street, that would have
seemed to you and me a sordid avenue of hovels, grudgingly complying
with a Building Act, and enclosing imperfectly a rich atmosphere of
Lower Middle Class families, was to Lizarann an illuminated stage
on which moved the majestic figures of the heroes of her past, into
which flitted at intervals visions of delights now extinct: organs
with a monkey, that played slow, not to tax the nervous system of
their obsessor; organs without, that played quick, so you could dance
to it--played music-hall airs that had three phases apiece, and lent
themselves to being done over and over again, and nobody any fault to
find; the man with the drum that couldn't raise his voice to holler,
and potatoes he run out of unless you looked sharp; and, above all,
that pre-Wagnerian contrivance without a name, that you could set on
and go round for a halfpenny all through the tune, and no cheating--so
"Home, Sweet Home" was more popular than the National Anthem, along of
the hextry at the end. And the highroad itself, that took two policemen
to get them children safe acrost after Board-School! What a scene of
maddening--more than Parisian--gaiety it was Saturday nights! And what
a mysterious antechamber to some Institution undefined, but with a
flavour of Trinity House or the Vatican, was that corner where it was
wrote up, "Vatted Rum, fivepence-halfpenny!"
Jim lent himself, you may be sure, to gilding these remnants of
bygone glory, whatever doubts he may have felt about them himself.
Through that happy season when Lizarann could be so frequently his
companion--for Dr. Sidrophel said the child couldn't be too much in
the air: it would do her good rather than otherwise--recollections of
Tallack Street and Vatted Rum Corner rang the changes on tales of the
high-seas and the Flying Dutchman. Lizarann had never seen the sea!
Wouldn't she just like to it! Patience! Lizarann was to see the sea in
time.
Her domicile at the Rectory came to an end a week or so after her
Daddy got his appointment. It had begun with what was intended to be
a stay long enough to get rid of that bad inflammatory cold caught in
London; had been prolonged at the petition of Phoebe and Joan till
that half-a-mile-off tea-party at Royd Park. After this it consisted
of postponements, due to reluctance that she should run risks from
moving till quite strong again, but growing shorter and shorter as Dr.
Pordage laid more and more stress on the definite character of the
chest-delicacy, and the modern belief in its communicability. And the
fact was that Aunt Bessy, and, indeed, the Rector, were not a little
ill at ease about the constant association of the children. The Rector
tried to fence with his own uneasiness, and made but a poor show.
"_I_ don't know!" said he to his sister-in-law. "Only a few years since
doctors were treating the idea with derision. Now it's all the other
way. You never know where to have 'em--never!"
"Do as you like, Athel! But I'm for being on the safe side, if you ask
me." And the Rector was obliged to admit to himself that accepting the
advice that enjoins caution is a very different thing from running a
risk on permission given. The doctor said that if all disorders were
accounted infectious until the contrary was shown to be the case, it
would be a good thing for the public, but a bad one for the profession
and the bacilli. A man must live. So must a bacillus, from his point of
view.
Discussion was afoot at one time about the possibility of sending
Lizarann to Tunis, where the ex-incumbent of St. Vulgate's would
take her in hand and look after her. He was sending highly-coloured
reports of his own progress. But these schemes never fructified. The
fact, though it was admitted, that it would have been an excessive
interpretation of Samaritan good-nature had less to do with their
rejection than the inevitable separation of the child from her father.
"She'll never come back to England if she goes," said Dr. Sidrophel;
meaning that she would only be safe in Africa if she did outgrow her
symptoms. But would she be sure to outgrow them?--said Athelstan
Taylor, Miss Fossett, and Miss Caldecott, all at once. "That's more
than I would swear to," said the doctor. It was a relief, because _you_
know what a stiff job this sending patients abroad is. Most of us do.
But, short of sending Lizarann to be nursed in an antitubercular
climate, everything was done for her that could have been done in
Samaria itself, with additions up-to-date, such as ozone, peptone,
hypophosphites, and several other "ites" and "ones."
So dexterously was her removal to Mrs. Fox's cottage brought about that
neither she nor her Daddy ever had a suspicion of the truth. Obviously,
so everyone thought, the reason was that she should guide her Daddy to
the well-head every morning before going to school, and bring him back
in the evening. Lizarann's rejoicing over her importance made up to
her for her separation from Phoebe and Joan. The whole manoeuvre was
executed without a mishap, and Lizarann started in the summer weather
to install her Daddy in safety, and to return for him in the course of
the afternoon, duly calling out "Pi-lot!" at a chosen point. Phoebe and
Joan gave her up with reluctance, but acknowledged the force of the
reasons for the change. They were plausible.
Mrs. Fox put her to sleep in a sweet little room under the thatch, with
a lattice-window you could stand open and hear the wind in the trees
all night. And a bed with a white tester and a fringe, and a white
vallance all round underneath. Only the curtains were chintz, with
roses done on them, shiny-like; and the counterpane was made of pieces
of everything sewn together. Wherever anyone could have got 'em all
from Lizarann couldn't think.
From underneath which counterpane the occupant of that bed continued
an early riser throughout those three satisfactory months. Because
Lizarann had nothing the matter with her. Ridiculous! Why shouldn't she
cough if she chose? That was her view. And why shouldn't she go to the
window to see how the sunflower was getting on! The sunflower grew on a
giant plant that had shot up flush with the roof--a record in growth.
Lizarann looked out at it every morning, and wondered how big ever
_was_ it going to get. She didn't know which she liked best, the back
or the front of that sunflower. Sunflower-backs are very fascinating.
She had a little triumph over her Daddy and Mrs. Forks about that
window. For they belonged to the old school of nursing, which went for
suffocation, and had told her not to go to the window at six in the
morning in her nightgown. Dr. Sidrophel, when appealed to, said: "Hurt
you to go to the open window? Not a bit of it! More open windows the
better!" So Lizarann kept on looking out at it until the rime frostis
come in October; and then Jarge coot it off for her, not too high up to
the coop, and Lizarann's prevision that it would be as big as her head
was shown to be very, very far short of truth.
"There, now, Daddy," said the convalescent, on her way to the well,
with her convoy in tow, after Dr. Sidrophel had endorsed the views of
the new school so vigorously. "Dr. Spiderophel said I was-s-s-s-S quite
well!" The climax of a prolonged sibilant, _crescendo_, burst like a
shell against the coming initial, and stung its adverb to vigorous
action.
"Who said you warn't, lassie?" said her father, affecting indignation.
"Phoebe and Jones. And Mr. Yorick, he's always for asking what did the
doctor said."
"Vary right and proper, little lass! Wouldn't ye have him know?
Nay-tur-ally, such a good gentleman likes to know you're well. That's
where the enquiring comes in. He'd be martal sorry to hear the lassie
was ill. What do ye make out the young ladies said?" Jim's tactics of
raising false issues were compatible with an attempt at a side-light on
public opinion.
"Phoebe and Jones said--nurse said--Dr. Spiderophel said"--here
concentration became necessary--"that simpsons was favourable, but
to continue the medicine two stable-spoonfuls free times a day." She
then corrected herself, as though the pronunciation might vitiate the
treatment. "No!--_three_ times a day." And added corroboratively,
"Yass!"
Jim knew that the sky-sign of an engineering firm in the neighbourhood
of Tallack Street was responsible for a confusion of the little lass's
ideas, or at least speech. He accepted the name, to escape discussion,
saying: "If Simpson's is favourable, and the medecine's nice, what
more can a lassie want? In coorse you're quite well, with such like
medecine. When little lass's medecine's nasty, that's when they're ill."
Optimism in any form was welcome on such an autumn morning, with such
a many larks afloat in the blue above the shorn stubble-fields--more
songs than Lizarann could count, in token of a million more
unheard--and the Royd church-bell striking seven a mile off, and some
sheepbells making it difficult to hear if it struck right; and the same
bees as last month making the same noise about an entirely new supply
of honey. Besides, Daddy had to be guided through the sheep, who were
filling up the road on ahead, and repeating themselves sadly, though in
a variety of keys. Sheep ought never to come in the opposite direction,
because no dog can influence them to leave other people space to pass.
This time they would have been enough alone to knock medical discussion
on the head, even if there had been no other distracting combinations.
During just that fine perfect autumn time no one who was not in the
confidence of that useless implement of Dr. Sidrophel's, that you
could neither play on nor see through, would have picked out Lizarann
as a patient at all. The change came with the chill of the year. Not
the first morning frost of all; that, when it scatters diamond drift,
every speck of which means to be a mirror to the great sun it knows is
coming--coming from beyond the Eastern red, to quench the glow of the
Morning Star--is but a fall of temperature, with repentance to follow.
It is all right again after breakfast. But the real chill of the year
comes soon--too soon! And then there is sunshine at Westminster; and
it's going to snow, and does it. And you have fires, and catch cold.
It all happened just as usual that year. Only something had gone wrong
with Lizarann. She was no longer the Lizarann of Tallack Street, to
whom the first frost that meant business, the first fog that meant to
interrupt it, the first fire we did without and the first we didn't--a
day or five minutes later, according to our powers of endurance--were
one and all mere annual incidents, fraught with holly and mistletoe
and intensification of butchers. In those days Lizarann's greeting to
winter was to go out in the snow and avail herself of it as ammunition,
or develope it as slides. In these, as often as not it was doubtful
whether she would be allowed out at all. And even if it was only to the
little schoolroom near the church, not unless she was wropt up real
careful, and her red woollen comforter round and round and round, like
that. The way was never so in Tallack Street.
Lizarann herself confused between cause and effect. She ascribed
her cough to mixtures, and a place in her chest, that prevented her
coughing and done with it, to its location by that malign little
stethoscope. It was either that or the linseed meal of Teacher's
careful slow poulticing that had done it all. She considered that the
linseed meal had penetrated through that vermilion disc on the area she
called her chest, which had afforded her such unmixed amusement seen
in Miss Fossett's little hand-mirror. She was haunted by the flavour
of that linseed meal; was convinced it had got through and stuck.
But these were views she kept to herself. She tolerated the strange
scientific fancies and fallacies of the grown-up world, recognizing in
them the benevolence of its intentions.
But the something that had gone wrong never made any real concession.
It seemed to have made up its mind which direction it would take, and
jogged on without remorse. Now and again it may have sat down by the
roadside, and set the credulous a-thinking that it might turn back and
start again and go right; but it always went on again refreshed in the
end. Sometimes it travelled slowly--came to a hill, perhaps? But the
road was a give-and-take road, only just a little more downhill than
up. It always is, in this complaint.
Dr. Sidrophel gave the Rector very little hope of any real success.
He did not say the child would die. Nobody ever says that. He only
said she would never make old bones. He probably thought her skeleton
would not reach its teens. He continued the treatment; was in favour
of plenty of air, plenty of nourishment, the last new chemical _elixir
vitæ_--wasn't it called "Maltozone," and didn't every teaspoonful
contain an ox from Argentina?--and so on. The cottage smelt of iodine;
and dear old Mrs. Fox's lozenges, which had been active in the early
stages of the complaint, had to die away before the new agencies and
real prescriptions that had to go to the village apothecary to be
made up. Even so the parish engine, that the fire took no notice of,
has to give way to the brigade from the nearest station. If only the
metaphor would hold good a little farther! If only the parallel could
be found for the efficiency of the waterblast that comes so swiftly
on the heels of their arrival--steam at high-pressure panting to show
its elasticity to advantage--blood-horses that have touched the last
speed-record--serpent-coils of hose that mean salvation; if only the
latest rescue-powers of Science were on all fours with these! But....
Well!--we must hope.
When Sir Rhyscombe Edison, the great London physician, paid a visit
to the Hall just before the Family started to go abroad--no one was
ill there: it was the head of Thanes Castle he was summoned to consult
about--Lady Arkroyd begged him to overhaul a little patient she and
the Rector were interested in. He made as careful an examination
of Lizarann as he had done of the Duke; was as encouraging to the
one patient about her chest as he had been to the other about his
hemiplegia; and was nearly as explicit in his second verdict to her
ladyship and the Rector as he had been in his first to the family at
Thanes. It was a well-marked characteristic case, but one lung was
free, so far; and as long as that was so the duration--by which he
meant the duration of the patient--was a thing the ablest pathologist
in the world could not pronounce upon. The little thing might live to
be an old woman--at Davos. He instanced cases of one-lung life in the
high Alps going on to old age. But in England, no!... Still, she might
go on for a year or so. Sea-air would be the best thing. Anywhere on
the south coast.
Do not suppose that any means were left undiscussed that could be
reasonably entertained of sending Lizarann to live by the sea. The
higher Alps did not come into practical politics. But there were
sea-possibilities. Inquiry discovered nursing homes, havens of
convalescence, where a very moderate payment would obtain sea-breezes
and good food and medical supervision for a patient either curable
or doomed--either would do. But the separation of the child from her
father would have been almost inevitable. The thing worked out so;
all details would want too much telling. Besides, Lizarann's friends
flinched from sending her to live among "cases" confessed and palpable.
It had too much of the character of surrender. How could the truth be
softened to her father, if it came to that?
It had come out through Mrs. Fox, who held a roving commission to tell
Jim things gradually, that a scheme was under consideration for packing
off both together, father and daughter, to a cottage by the seaside.
It had been pronounced quixotic, and condemned, before Mrs. Fox had an
opportunity to report its effect on Jim; so what she told of had no
influence in procuring its rejection. But it made its impracticability
less to be regretted.
"It would just be like to carry on, Mr. Coupland." So the old woman,
extenuating absence from Royd in any form. "It might be a bit lonesome,
and I would miss your pipe of an evenings--so I tell 'ee! But what is
three months, after all, when you come to name it?" Mrs. Fox, with true
tact, ignored the main evil, the cause of the whole, and chose her own
loss as the thing to dwell upon.
"It's not a big turnover of time," said Jim. A moment after he said,
referring back: "That's very kind of ye, mother, about the pipe. Thank
ye kindly!"
"You've no need to thank me, Mr. Coupland. All the fill-out of the
smoke's away up the big chimney in the thoroughdraft, when there's a
bit of flare to help it. I like to watch it find its way. Summer-time
the gap of the little window scarcely favours the letting of it out.
More by token, too, I can mind the many that's gone, by the very smell.
My husband, he would always have a yard o' clay ... ah!--that name he
gave it...."
"I know 'em, mother. Churchwa'ardens they call 'em."
"That sort. And my Daniel, he'd none of 'em, but just a cherry-wood. I
can hear the voices of them now, in the smoke."
"Thank ye, mother, for leave given, too! But I'd bring ye back the
little lass, safe and sound. Afore the end o' January would be the
time."
"'Tis nothing to speak of. But this I do tell 'ee, Mr. Coupland: I
shall have a fair miss of the little maid, with her clack."
"Ah--the little lass! But she'll have the more to tell ye, mother, when
she comes again in the spring-time. All set up and hearty, hay?"
It was then that the dear old thing, with the best of intentions, made
a mistake. She must needs refer--bless her!--to the length of time that
had passed since ever Jim had seen the sea. Then, concerned at the
sound of the blind man's "Ah, mother!" she misinterpreted her mistake,
conceiving it to have been in the reference to sight. Poor old lady!
How hurt she was when she found it out!
Jim was equally concerned on her account. He understood what her
thought had been almost before she had begun to explain. "Oh no,
no, no, mother!" he cried out, filling the little cottage with his
big voice. "Never you think it was that! Where should we be if I
couldn't bide to hear a word about my own bad luck? It don't make it
neither more nor less, ye know! And it might just as easy have been
anybody else." Jim's meaning was that the sum of human misery had been
arranged, and this tribulation had to be borne by someone, to balance.
If _he_ had it, someone else escaped. "No, no," he continued; "that's
not to be thought on, mother!"
But there had been a something, very distinct; and it was equally clear
that Mrs. Fox would like to know what, without asking intrusively.
Besides, Jim wanted to make that wrong guess a thing of the past. He
would try to explain why he was so moved. "It's none so easy, mother,
now and again, to say just what you have an inklin' to say. Not if the
other party's to understand, mind you! But ... did ye never see the
sea, mother?" No--Mrs. Fox had never seen the sea. But she had been
in Worcestershire, to her uncle's, many was the time. Jim declined
Worcestershire, but gently, not to seem scornful. "It might be a
far-off sight," he said. "Not like seafaring folk see it, from sun-up
to sun-up; just a fair offing all round ye, and the sky overhead."
However, Worcestershire had only been referred to that the old lady
might not seem quite untravelled. So Jim returned to his explanation.
"It was just a queer feel I had," said he, "about the sound of it
again, after such a many years."
Mrs. Fox's slip of the tongue had given her a fright, and she sat
silent. A log tumbled on the great open hearth, and a shower of sparks
went up the chimney to whirl away in the wind that was roaring down it
about the cold white drift of the winter night. Jim sat and thought of
his watches out upon the sea, and the same wind whistling through the
shrouds, and his strong arm and keen eyesight in the days gone by. All
gone--for ever! Nights by the galley-fire, or in some warm corner of a
steamer's 'tween-decks, welcome in the spells of look-out duty, when
the look-out was for icebergs in the Atlantic--the sort that wait till
a ship is well alongside, and choose a clever moment to turn turtle and
catch her in the nick. Nights in sailing traders--there are some left
still--on a still sea in the tropics, with not a breath of wind below,
and strange activity of meteors in an unresponsive universe of stars
above. Nights of battle with the storm-fiend--of whirling spray-drench
and decks swept by the torrent of the crested seas, all vanished in the
past, with that little wicked reason in between that lay in ambush for
Jim's eyes on the quay at Cape Town, in the bunghole of an oil-cask.
And then the broken sailor said to his heart: "Can we bear it, you and
I?--we that have borne so much; we that must live perforce in dread of
so much more still left to bear; we that may even have to say good-bye
to the little voice that has been the stronger half of our strength
till now? But this--oh, this!--to stand again in hearing of the sea;
to know it as of old by the endless intermittent rush of the shoaling
beach in its caress, by the music of the curling ridge of its wavelets,
nearer, nearer to the shore; to breathe the scent of it in the landward
wind--and then!... What then? Just to go mad in an aching void of
darkness, and cry out in agony for but one glimmer of the daylight that
has been once and shall never be again, just one momentary image of the
living world that void can never know."
Presently Mrs. Fox rose, saying quietly, "It's the remindin' brings
it back," and busied herself to get some toddy for her tenant. She
condemned a lemon-scrap as too dry; her stimulated pity for poor Jim
suggested a new one from "the shop," and she disappeared to get it.
Jim sat on in the glimmering firelight he did not know from sunshine,
thinking of the sea. He did not put his consolatory pipe down; it was
something, if not much, against thoughts that ran close on the lines
the story guessed for them, if not word for word. But it could not
stop the tears that _would_ come from the eyes that were good now for
nothing else but to shed them.
CHAPTER XLII
HOW A NAUGHTY LITTLE GIRL CAME OUT IN THE COLD AND TALKED TO HER
DADDY. AND HOW WINTER MADE HER WORSE. OF A TALK BETWEEN THE RECTOR
AND MISS FOSSETT, AND A SUGGESTION SHE MADE TO HIM
A little bare foot came stealing down the twisted oak stair at the
far end of the room, which leads straight up to Lizarann's eyrie
where Jarge got the sunflower through the window for her not three
months ago. The little white figure in a nightgown is taller than the
Lizarann whom we saw, also in her nightgown, rushing out into the snow
last winter to summon the police to Uncle Bob. But the robust look of
childhood has given place to what is at least an entire unfitness to
be out of bed in the cold. If Mrs. Fox had not been lemon-hunting in
the shop, she would have sent the delinquent back in double-quick time.
Jim's sharp ears caught the patter of the shoeless feet.
"That's the lassie, I lay," said he. And Lizarann, who didn't care, was
on his knee before he had got a proper reproach ready. All he could say
was, "A little lass out of her bed in the middle of the night! Where's
the police, hay?" He affected inability to deal with the case in the
absence of the civil authority.
"I come down because it wasn't cold," said Lizarann. "I come down
because the stackace is mide of wood. I come down for to kiss my daddy
very often." She did so.
Jim called to Mrs. Fox, without. "Mother! Ahoy! Here's a young
charackter come out of her bed in the cold."
Mrs. Fox testified to her horror and surprise, saying substantially
that, even in the most depraved circles she had mixed with, such a
thing as a little girl coming out of bed in the middle of the night
was quite outside her experience. Jim suggested that a blanket would
be useful as protection, inside which Lizarann could watch him through
his toddy, after assisting in its preparation. Mrs. Fox went for the
blanket.
"'Tin't cold," said Lizarann. "And there hin't any cold wind outside
in the road. Only in the chimbley.... I'm thicker than I was, Daddy."
This last was in response to Jim's explorations about her small limbs
in search of flesh. Dr. Sidrophel had been a little hopeful about the
possible effect of the _ones_ and _ites_, if persevered in.
"Where's the flesh you was going to put on, the doctor said? Hey,
lassie? Sure you haven't put it on some other little lass?"
Lizarann seemed very uncertain--perhaps didn't understand the question.
"Old Mrs. Willoughby, lives near the Spost-Office," she says, "medgers
eighteen inches round, and her son Gabriel does the horse-shoes."
This is not irrelevance; its object is to show that fat is not always
an advantage. Jim misunderstands its drift, and conceives that Mrs.
Willoughby is brought forward as an example of slimness and its robust
consequences.
"That's no great shakes, anyhow," says he; "for round an old lady's
waist...."
But Lizarann interrupts. "I didn't sye wyste," she says. "Round her
arms with string above the elber. She hin't got a wyste. She's all one
piece. Yass!" Then Mrs. Fox returns, and throws a light on old Mrs.
Willoughby. She is her cousin Catharine, and is dropsical. What set the
child off on her, she asks?
Jim explains. "The lassie wasn't so far out, mother," he says. "You may
have too much of a good thing. Only...." But he doesn't finish.
And Mrs. Fox, when she afterwards told Athelstan Taylor things about
Jim, recalled how, at this interview, she could see him always feeling,
feeling gently, about the little feet and hands that came out of the
blanket she had wrapped about the child. "I did all I could to give
him heart," she said then. "But I couldn't say too much about looks,
because he could see with his finger-tips, as you might say."
In fact, old Mrs. Fox could offer very little in the way of
reassurance, and had to fall back upon a resource that had already been
freely drawn upon--the growth of little girls and the attenuation that
was alleged to accompany it, though really an appeal was being made to
conditions of development that belong to growing children over eight
years old. Probably Jim saw through all this. But he did not want to
discourage those who wished to give him hope. What though it _were_
to be hope against hope--by which one means hope against fear, with
despair in the bush--was not their goodwill as good, whatever foes were
in league against him?
But, except it were just this once, Jim never allowed his fears to
leak out. He could lock them up in his own bosom, and endure life to
the end. If he lost his little lass, why!--that _was_ the end of
things. He looked forward to it, if it was to be, as a believer in the
possibility of his own extinction may look forward to the guillotine.
Only, the knife-edge of this guillotine of Jim's was to touch his neck
and spring back, then do the same again, then just draw blood and spare
him--a guillotine-cat at play with a human heart. But as for showing
his fears to the little lass--no more of that!
This was in January. The child was then still enjoying life, with
the drawback of that nasty cough. It was only a few weeks since she
had been up in the early morning to see her Daddy to his field of
operations. Why was that stopped, and why was Lizarann so ready to
surrender, and even to remain in bed till the day got warm and she
could go out? It was all put down to the winter days. But who ever gave
a thought to the winter days in Tallack Street? She firmly believed in
her heart that, if only the medicine-bottles were flung on a dust-heap,
and she and Daddy were to go back to their old lives, she would still
be able to wait his coming in the cold, and perhaps tell all about
the Flying Dutchman again to old Mother Groves, and hear more of the
strange experiences of the Turk. She identified her old health with
her surroundings at that time, and credited _them_ with claims for
gratitude really due to _it_.
However, the exhilarating bygone time had disappeared. Perhaps it
was the healthy, bracing influence of Aunt Stingy that she missed,
and the occasional stimulus, when Jim was afar, of a strap or a
slipper? Perhaps it was Uncle Bob? Perhaps it was The Boys? If she and
Bridgetticks were shouting defiances to them--now this moment, through
the snow--would it make her cough? She scouted the idea. It never used
to it. Indeed, she did not feel sure that Bridgetticks might not prove,
if fairly tried, worth quarts of Chloric Ether. A dream hung about
her waking consciousness of Bridgetticks and the Turk, mysteriously
visitors to relatives in the neighbourhood of Royd, and of a wild
escapade to the highest ridge of a hill in the neighbourhood, in the
snow. At the end of that dream an imaginary self passed through the
mind of the little pale dreamer, a robust young self and a rosy, that
broke in upon an image of Daddy at his hour for leaving the well-head,
with, "Me and this boy and Bridgetticks, we been right up atop of
Crumwen, and I haven't coftited not wuntst, the whole time!" A little
of that sort of thing would set her up. But she wasn't going to say so.
She loved the big Rector and Phoebe and Jones, and Mrs. Forks, and even
poor Dr. Spiderophel, with his scientific delusions, far too much to
hint that they could be mistaken. They should have it all their way,
they should!
Athelstan Taylor became quite hopeful about the little girl during
that January and February. He paid Lizarann a visit at intervals--very
short ones when her absences from school were frequent. According to
the reports he carried to Miss Caldecott and his own little girls, the
patient took a decided turn for the better so often that a very few
weeks should have sufficed to qualify her to practise as an Amazon.
Phoebe and Joan were quite satisfied that when papa and aunty took
them up to town in autumn Lizarann would come too, and then they would
all go to see Madame Tussaud's, Westminster Abbey, and Tallack Street.
Especially the last. But this expedition never came off.
When Teacher from London came again about Easter time she was
disappointed. She did not find what she had been led to suppose she
would; not by any conscious exaggeration of the Rector's, but by his
genuine over-hopefulness, backed by groundless mis-statements of fact
from the little woman herself contained in very well-written letters
enclosing hieroglyphs that meant kisses. Adeline Fossett took the first
opportunity of finding out whether the patient was still a self-acting
Turkish Bath in the small hours, or dry. Her observations were not
satisfactory. But there!--you know all about cases of this sort; at
least, we expect you do, though we hope you don't.
"I wish we could get her to the seaside," said she. "Any of those
places would do. You know, Yorick, you are just as anxious to save the
little person as I am. Every bit!"
"My dear Addie!--of course I am. The idea! But we mustn't talk of
_saving_ her, yet. I should say _losing_ her, perhaps; but you know
what I mean. We can talk to Sidrophel--see what he says."
So the doctor was referred to, and his opinion amounted to this: that
if the child went away by herself to any sort of hospital or home, she
would either have to be indoors with the other patients, or exposed to
all the windy gusts of spring on the sea-beach, or perhaps in a shelter
with a fine sea-view. People were always hunting climates that didn't
exist, and inflicting horrible hardships on themselves in the chase.
When summer by the sea was a certainty, send her, by all means. After
midsummer, he should say; no sooner!
This was in early April, just when a misleading rush of crocuses into
a treacherous few days of sunshine had set folk off hoping for a real
spring this year; like when we were young--like Chaucer--like Spenser.
Some mistaken nightingales arrived, and must have felt foolish.
Infatuated orchards promised themselves a crop of pears; it even went
as far as that!
"We may be thankful for one thing, at any rate," said the Rev.
Athelstan to Miss Fossett two or three weeks after. "We did _not_ pack
off that little wench to the seaside. In weather like this she's best
where she is, on the whole. Sidrophel's right. He often is."
"He was right this time. Just look at it!" Sleet was the thing referred
to.
"Werry bad state the roads are in, sir," says a third party in this
conversation. "Bad alike for 'orse and man. Thankee, sir!" He was a
cabman, and he had just driven this lady and gentleman over five miles,
so he knew. He departs with the postscript sixpence his last words
procured, as an extra concession after an over-liberal fare, and his
late tenants pass in at the door of the little house that is part of
the school-building where Lizarann developed that first inflammatory
cold months ago. The story is back for the moment on the Cazenove
Estate, and the Rector is going presently to walk over to the new
incumbent at St. Vulgate's, who will house him to-night, and tell of
his few sheep and many goats. He can stay for a cup of tea now, and get
there by seven.
"Yes, the doctor was right. She's just as well off under Mrs. Fox's
thatch. Better! When the warm weather comes we'll send her for six
weeks to Chalk Cliff, and give her a good set-up!" But his hearer only
sees her way to silence on this point.
The story has told, but very slightly, the strange _rapport_ between
these two, that had lasted through so many years. For over twenty they
had elected to pose as brother and sister. During all that time the
mind of each had referred to the other as in some sense the principal
person; that is the only way to express their thought. When Athelstan
first adored the fascinating Sophia Caldecott, he really could hardly
have said which he wanted most, that young person herself, or Gus's
sister's sympathy about her. But so blind was he at the time, so blind
had he remained through all the years of his married life, that he
never conceived that, midmost among all her memories of the past, a
lurid star outshining all the others, was the record of that hour when
the young man she thought and spoke of as a boy, remembered so well,
came to her father's house intoxicated with a new-found joy, to tell
her chiefly and above all others that he was affianced to--well!--to
the wrong sister; not the friend she had set her heart on!
As they sat there by the fire in the half-dark, resting after their
journey, his mind, like hers, went off on old times. Presently he shook
off his own burden of memories with, "Well!--I suppose I ought to be on
the move."
"Don't hurry away. It's not much past five yet, and they can make
dinner half-past seven. You've plenty of time."
The flicker of the fire has the best of what is left of the light of a
dull day; it shows two faces serious enough, certainly, but not sad.
They are dwelling on the same past, each from its own point of view;
but their owners are really happy to eke out a little more time in
the half-light, each knowing the heart of the other. They are glad
dinner at St. Vulgate's can be half-past seven; it is half-an-hour
longer to be together, and really those people in the train had made it
impossible to talk.
"I shan't see you again for ever so long, Yorick, unless you and Bessy
change your minds and come up earlier."
"You must manage a visit to Royd in July."
"If I can!--it depends. But...."
The Rector glanced shrewdly up. "But anything particular?" said he.
"Well, Yorick, yes! Something particular. Only I don't know how to
say it." As she sits there, a little flushed--or is it only the
firelight?--one hand a face-rest, the other coaxing the burning coals
into groups with a persuasive poker, the question that suggests itself
is the old one--how comes she to be an old maid? A six-and-thirty maid,
at any rate!
"I know what it's about, Addie. It's the Bill, and the Bishop."
"Yes, dear old boy." This was a great relief. "Now, do tell me, what
shall you do?"
"You mean if the Bill passes?"
"Yes."
"I shall do nothing. Why should I?"
"Not even if Dr. Barham...?"
"Dr. Barham can _do_ nothing. He can only remonstrate. What was it he
said to Lady Arkroyd?"
"That if the Bill passed it would be his duty to point out to you that
your relations ... well!--your relation with Bessy had altogether
changed since the Act; and that for a clerk in holy orders to keep
house with any single lady not his sister by parentage would be ...
well!--would not do at all."
"And what did Lady Arkroyd say to the Bishop?"
"Not herself; it was the Duchess. Only she told me. What the Duchess
said was, 'I hope if you do, the Reverend Athelstan will bring a suit
against you for libel, and make you smart for it.' Dr. Barham won't
speak to her Grace now."
"Dr. Barham would be quite within his rights. No action for libel could
possibly lie. Any remonstrance on a matter of morality within his
diocese must be a Bishop's privilege. Besides, a written letter would
hardly constitute publication...."
"Dear old Yorick! I wonder why men are so fond of talking law to women,
as if they knew by nature and women didn't. Never mind the law! It
isn't that.... Don't you see how disagreeable it would be for Bessy?"
"No--I don't know that I do. I don't see why Bess need bother herself
about it...."
"Hm...!"
"Oh--well--yes! Yes, I do--of course I do! It would be detestable for
Bess."
"You see I'm right?"
"Oh yes, absolutely. It was only my perversity." A self-excusing,
deprecatory shoulder-shrug. _Peccavit confitetur_ is its import. Then
he breaks into a good-humoured laugh. "After all, you know, there's
always a way out of the difficulty."
Something brings a sudden exclamation from Adeline Fossett. "Yes,
what?--but go on!" She has risen from her seat, and stands with her
hands pressed close together, and eyes of expectation fixed on his.
"Oh, Yorick!--is it--is it.... Oh, I do hope ... _is_ it the one I've
thought of?" She hesitates. He hesitates.
"That depends on _what_ you have thought," he says at last. But with a
suspicion that they may have thought alike, too.
"Oh, if I dared guess!... I don't know; dare I?...--yes, I will--I
don't care!..."
"Go on!"
"If the Bill passes, you know ... then ... then ... you and Bessy to
get married! Was that your idea, Yorick? Oh, do tell me!"
"Why, of course it was."
Miss Fossett throws herself back in her chair again, with a deep sigh
as of relief. "Oh dear, how nice that would be!" she says. But she is
taking it all to heart, and her eyes are full of tears. The Rector is
very cool over it.
"It would be a way out of the difficulty," he says. "Not a bad one,
perhaps. Better, at any rate, than Bess having to turn out and leave
the children. They are quite like her own, you see. And it wouldn't
make any difference." This is not quite understood, apparently, and he
adds: "Everything would go on exactly as usual."
Miss Fossett had a sort of feeling that it might be possible to parade
an unlover-like attitude too far. Athelstan surely might warm up a
little. He had spoken as he might have done if marriage were a new hat.
It would, or wouldn't, fit. "You would ... like it, though--wouldn't
you?" she asked, in a rather frightened sort of way.
"It would suit me very well. I shouldn't like the only other
expedient--marrying somebody else to make up a possible housekeeping.
We both should know exactly why we had done it, and we should gain the
end proposed. It would rather be for Bess to decide if she would like
such a very prosaic arrangement."
"You mean chilly?"
"No, I don't. We're not chilly now, Bess and I. And we never quarrel.
The temperature wouldn't go down because we had deferred to the opinion
of our diocesan." He drew out his watch, "I must go.... Don't think
I'm not in earnest, Addie. If the Bill passes, I might have to ask
Bess to settle the point. I should do it for the sake of the children.
The worst of it would be that if she negatived the idea, we might be
uncomfortable afterwards. As for her leaving the children, of course
that's out of the question. And I couldn't have her carry them off,
like poor Challis's wife.... I _must_ go." He got up to depart.
"I'm disappointed, Yorick," said Adeline.
"What at, Addie?"
"Why, of course she wouldn't have you on those terms."
"Just consider! If you were in her place?"
"Well--_I wouldn't!_ Not on _those_ terms." She seemed to mean every
syllable.
The Rector stood in the passage, buttoning his overcoat. "Poor
Challis!" said he, going back on the conversation. "They've made a
knight of him! I shall go and look for him before I go back. I fancy
he's back in town."
"You know I don't agree, Yorick?"
"What about?"
"About 'poor Challis.'" These words were said in inverted commas. "I
told you, don't you remember, that I had heard all about it from the
other side--from Charlotte Eldridge."
"Yes, but you were biassed against him, because of his deceased wife's
sister marriage. You know you were!"
"Well!--wasn't I right?" But there is an amused twinkle in the Rector's
eye, which is understood. "Oh no, Yorick, no!--it's _quite_ a different
thing...."
"Before and after an Act of Parliament, is that it?"
But Adeline has run her ship on the sands, and must back off. "It's
impossible to compare the two cases," she says. "Do you know, if you
are to be at St. Vulgate's by seven-thirty, you'll want a cab. You
can't carry what you're pleased to call your little valise and get
there by then. _Do_ take a cab, Yorick!"
"Fifty-five minutes does it," says Yorick. "And I've got fifty-seven.
I've a great mind to spend the odd two reading you a little homily
about consistency...."
"Go away. Good-bye." A cordial shake of the hand is all that forms
permit, and it seems such a shame!
* * * * *
One reason why it was impossible to compare the two cases was a
perfectly clear one, to the thinking of Miss Fossett's innermost heart.
But she kept it tight locked up there.
In the old days, when all her forecasts of life took her own practical
exclusion from it for granted, and wrote celibacy large on every page
of her record-volume, her great dream had been to unite her beloved
friend Bessy Caldecott to that dearest of all possible young fellows,
her brother Gus's friend Athelstan. Adeline was a little prone to
playing at Providence, and--don't you see?--Bessy was so good and
sound, and so much better altogether than that showy little sister of
hers. So, what wonder, when Athelstan led the family minx, Sophy, to
the altar, that Adeline rather than otherwise wished that the earth
would open and swallow the altar? She would have resented the idea that
any personal feeling entered into the matter.
Even so in these new days, with all this change, she could and did
believe that she could see her old girl friend the wife of her old boy
friend, without any feeling but sheer rejoicing that Yorick had married
the right sister after all. And this feeling entered strangely into her
real views on the Deceased Wife's Sister question. Catechized closely,
she might have confessed to a belief in real wives, with a sub-creed
that marriage with a sister of one was somehow a worse desecration of a
sacrament than marriage with a second cousin, for instance, or a mere
female undefined. There was no evidence to show that Challis hadn't
married the right sister first. If he hadn't, of course the "living in
Sin" business had come off in the first act of his drama, and nothing
was needed but an Act of Parliament to qualify the parties to live in
purity, ungrundied.
At any rate, those were the lines on which Miss Fossett would have
justified her friend's defiance of his Bishop. And when Yorick had
referred to that other way of solving his problem--marriage with the
female undefined--she had shut any hint of that female being defined as
herself into the very core of her heart with a snap.
CHAPTER XLIII
CHALLIS'S VISIT TO THE RECTORY. A VISIT TO JIM AT THE WELL. HOW
LIZARANN WAS AT THE SEASIDE. ST. AUGUSTIN'S SUMMER. HOW THEY MET
SALADIN. HOW CHALLIS TOLD ALL
"Have him down here if you like, Athel," said Miss Caldecott to her
brother-in-law on the first of August, a little over three months
later. "I shall be in London with Phoebe and Joan. So it can't matter
to me. Only I think he ought to be on honour."
"How do you mean, aunty?"
"You know what I mean. On honour not to."
"Not to what?" But Aunt Bessy wasn't going to answer questions on the
subject, whatever it was. So she closed her eyes in harmony with an
expressive lip-pinch, and said _finis_ dumbly to this chapter of the
conversation. However, she began another.
"Apart from that, I don't like his tone," said she.
"I know you don't." This meant that the Rector didn't want the second
chapter. He harked back to the first. "Perhaps Sir Challis will promise
not to," said he.
"I don't see how you can ask him." This was said very dryly, and the
speaker indicated that it was an ultimatum by going on with a letter
she was writing.
For Miss Caldecott was a sort of inverse Charlotte Eldridge. To the
latter lady, as we know, the mention of a lady and gentleman, as such,
and such only, was as the sound of battle to the warhorse. The former
was very apt to petrify if the conversation went outside the limits
of the neuter gender without stipulating for a strict neutrality on
the part of the other two. A hint of what Mrs. Protheroe called "going
on" on the part of properly--or improperly--qualified masculines and
feminines was enough to make Aunt Bessy discover that we must be
getting back, and begin looking for those children's gloves.
Why Adeline Fossett had yearned to link the lives of this lady and
her friend Yorick was very difficult to guess. That, however, does
not belong to the story at present. Its business is with the lady and
gentleman responsible for the little bit of frigidity it has just
recorded.
When Athelstan Taylor called at the Hermitage in April, just after
Challis's arrival in England, he threw out, in thoughtless hospitality,
a suggestion that the latter should pay him a visit in the Autumn. The
invitation was jumped at, and the Rector perceived afterwards that
there might have been a reason for this, to the possibility of which he
was at the moment not sufficiently awake. But he was too honourable to
go back on his word.
If he had felt sure enough of his ground he might have spoken frankly
to Challis, and put him off till some time when Judith's absence from
the Hall was a certainty. But he had not enough to go upon for that. He
found out the poverty of his case by attempting a letter to Challis.
"My dear Challis--You know me, and I know you will excuse my speaking
plainly...." And then had to think what the plain speech was to be.
He considered "I know that you and Miss Arkroyd are quite within your
rights when, etc.," and "I think your wife's strange conduct has left
you free to take advantage of what I should otherwise regard as a
legal shuffle, etc."; and "I know you would not avail yourself of my
hospitality to, etc."; and even "I can't have you making love to Judith
Arkroyd while you are staying at the Rectory, etc."; but concluded by
rejecting them all--he liked the last best--and tearing his letter to
fragments.
He ended by saying to himself: "These are not young people, to be
_chaperon_'d and guardianed. If they are in earnest, they will not
be kept apart by _not_ having Challis at my house. And the more I
see of Challis the better my chance of influencing him towards the
wiser course." A little sub-commune with his soul as to whether he
was quite sure he was not being influenced by his relations with the
county-families and the Bishop confirmed him, and Challis came down to
Royd Rectory early in August. Thus it had come about that the Rector
and his guest, one day in the middle of that month, were walking about
in an early-morning garden--breakfast is very early at the Rectory
when its master is by himself there--using up their subjects of
conversation; or, rather, perhaps we should say, chat.
You know what a fool one always is about that, when one goes to stay
with a friend; how one gets gravelled for lack of matter, and the old
subjects have to do a second time, and more. Challis had come down from
London by a late train the night before--too late to indulge in arrears
of common topics then and there. That slaughter of the innocents had
been postponed till next day.
"How's our poor friend blind Samson and his small daughter?" The
recollection of Lizarann--more than a twelvemonth past, mind
you!--twinkles in the speaker's face as he blows a cloud from his
invariable cigar.
"Lizarann's getting on capitally, according to the latest accounts.
Samson's become a public character, and is making himself useful as a
sort of human pump. Do you want a large bucket of water?"
"Not at this moment. But I may some time. Why?"
"When you do, Samson will wind you one up from under the chalk, as
fine a bucket of water as you'll find in the country. It isn't good
for gout, certainly. But otherwise it's perfect. Not the ghost of a
microbe!"
"Perhaps the microbes were gouty, and died of it. An image of a well
presents itself to me, with Samson everlastingly raising water, and
villagers bearing it away in pails."
"You've got it exactly. We'll pay Samson a visit."
"Of course we will. I like the idea of Samson at the well-head.... But,
I say, Reverend Sir!..."
"What's the question?"
"How about the little wench? Samson's little wench."
"I told you. She's getting on capitally...."
"That's just what I mean. What business has a little wench to be
getting on capitally? Has she been ill?"
"I should hardly put it that way. No--I think I may say she hasn't
exactly. But this chest-delicacy made the womankind and the doctor a
little uneasy. On the whole we thought it best to send her down to
Chalk Cliff to get a good dose of sea air. It appears to be setting her
up."
Challis glanced shrewdly at the Rector's face of discomfort. "Sea air's
the thing," he said. "Does wonders!" And both felt very contented with
the effect of imaginary sea air on imaginary human lungs.
That remark we made, a page ago, about the way one uses up one's
material for talk so heedlessly, was made with a reservation. It should
only be applied to _causeries_, not to serious debate of deep interest.
There are two distinct strata of conversation with all people; the
things that interest us generally are the top stratum; those that touch
us are the second. Go a little deeper, and you will reach those that
put us on the rack. Only, when it comes to that, is it conversation any
longer? What is it?
These two men had plenty to talk about in the top stratum--enough to
fill the day out had they chosen. But the Rector had no intention of
leaving the second untouched, and no fear of digging down to the third,
if need were. There was, however, no need for either yet awhile. Both
might remain in abeyance, under a silent pact, as long, at least, as
the sun shone. Serious talk-time comes with lamps and candles. Once
in the day Challis was conscious of the thinness of the crust of the
second stratum. On their way to visit Jim's well-head he asked his
companion whereabouts it was. "Half-way between the village and the
Hall," was the reply--"perhaps rather nearer the Hall than the village.
Oh yes--certainly nearer!" Challis asked--to make talk, for he knew
the answer to his question--whether the family were there now. "Miss
Arkroyd isn't," said the Rector.
"I have never seen blind Samson, you know," said Challis. "Only the
little cuss." The recollection of Lizarann brought a twinkle to his
face. To his companion's, none. Who, however, says gravely: "She was a
dear, amusing little thing."
Blind Samson is on duty. The blaze of a sun, low enough to make long
shadows, shows the wreck of a man, his face bronzed now by its glare
through a hot summer and the congenial effort of the well-handle. A
little way off you would not know the eyes saw nothing, but for their
never flinching from the sunlight that strikes full upon them. Going
nearer, you would know them for dead. So too, if his legs were hidden
as he leans on the bearing-post, puffing placidly at his pipe, you
would judge him a fine sample and a strong, well cast indeed for the
part of Samson.
"Jim's a popular chap in these parts," says the Rector as they draw
near. "Our barber in the village tells me he always looks forward to
Mr. Coupland's weekly visit. Every Saturday Jim goes to him--in spite
of a fiction he indulges in that he can shave himself--to be ready for
church on Sunday."
"I thought you said the other day--I mean last April--that he was a
worse heathen than myself?"
"So he is. But he has made a compromise with his Maker--whom he
disapproves of strongly otherwise--on the score of music. He is a
tremendous addition to the village choir. I fancy he was always
musical, but his blindness has developed the faculty."
"Well--it must be water in the desert for poor Jim. Here we are, I
suppose?"
A dog came down the path of worn bricks, set on edge, that leads to the
well. He is Jim's dog, and very important, for he conducts Jim to the
well and back daily, in Lizarann's absence. But the actual importance
of this dog, though great, is as nothing compared to his conviction
of it. This, if it does not amount to a belief that he turns the
well-handle, lays claim to reserved powers of veto over, or permission
conceded to, Jim's interference with the water-supply. He smells every
applicant for water carefully, to see that all is right, and he glances
into every bucket before it leaves the well-head, and occasionally
tastes the contents, as though in search of microbes. In his opinion
it is entirely owing to him that the well has not been poisoned by
bicyclists, who are afraid to stop and effect their wicked purposes
because of the promptitude with which he runs out and barks at them.
He appears to sanction Challis and the Hector, and to explain them,
obligingly, to his principal--or perhaps we should say employee.
"I caught the sound of ye, coming down the road, master," says Jim.
"You're a glad hearing to a man, a marning like this. A sight for sore
eyes, as the saying is." Which was said with such a serene, unconscious
confidence that it almost imposed on his hearers. Jim didn't let the
Rector's hand go at once. "Nothing further, I lay?" said he anxiously.
"Not since yesterday, Jim. I thought the letter a good one. I've
brought it back in my pocket.... We're talking about his little girl,
Challis, down at Chalk Cliff.... This is Sir Alfred Challis, Jim, a
friend of Lizarann's."
Jim seemed puzzled for a few seconds, perhaps not recalling the name in
its present form; then experienced illumination. "Ay, sure, sir!... I
lost my bearings for the moment.... The little lassie, she's talked of
you many's the time. But that'll be a while back?"
"Over a twelvemonth, Jim," says Challis, and his inner soul adds, "And
what a twelvemonth!" But he has to talk about the child. "I'm sorry
she's not here, Jim," he says, and means it. "We made great friends,
your little lassie and I did. She said she liked me better than she did
her aunt."
Jim laughed delightedly. "There never was love lost between the
lass and her Aunt Priscilla. They weren't cut out for berth-mates."
Nevertheless, he didn't want to leave his sister quite out in the cold.
"Priscilla's a good-hearted woman, ye know, too, when all's told. But
she's had some bad times ... a bad husband...." He hesitated on his
condemnation, and went for palliation instead. "Well!--perhaps that's
too hard a word. Poor Bob Steptoe!--he'd have made a better end but
for his drawback. He took a good rating as a cobbler." Jim paused,
perplexed by some reminiscence. "I don't hear much nowadays of my
sister Priscilla; not since I come down here. I make out she's in
service with a lady at Wimbledon." The fact is, Jim and Aunt Stingy
were drifting apart by tacit consent.
Challis ought to have been able to contrive a reminder that Aunt
Stingy was his cook. He began by saying: "Of course--with my wife.
She's our cook at the Hermitage." That wouldn't do, clearly. Try again!
"She's our cook at home." He wasn't at all sure this wasn't worse. He
decided on, "She cooks for me, you know, when I'm in London," but threw
up entrenchments against possible surprises by changing the subject.
"So your little maid's gone to the seaside?"
Jim forgot Aunt Stingy with avidity. "Ah! for sure she has!" said
he. "My little lass! But she's coming back early next month. Ask the
master!"
"Early next month, Jim. That's the fixture." Is there a trace of
cheerful reassurance in the Rector's voice? Yes--just enough to produce
misgiving in Jim. It has to be stifled in its birth. Jim treads bravely
over the cinder-traps--the fires smouldering underground. "Ye see,
gentlemen," he says, "it's this way: If my lassie comes back afore
September, there'll maybe be a spell of sunshiny weather fit for a
lassie to see her Daddy a mile down the road. Belike, too, stop a
little to bear him company, in the best o' the day. Many a September
month have I known, early morning apart, to compare with the rarest
days of the summer."
"They call it a summer, you know, Jim. St. Augustin's summer." So says
Challis; and he is ready to supply any climatic record to please Jim.
"Sometimes the thermometer has been known to stand at ninety in the
shade."
Jim is greatly impressed, and very happy over this. He sees before him,
in imagination, a fortnight or three weeks of matchless weather, with
Lizarann beside him. His soul laughs; indeed, his lungs join chorus.
"What did the doctor say again, master?" says he.
But Athelstan's face is one of concern. The doctor's report had been,
alas! that the effect of the sea air would very likely begin to tell on
the patient when she got back. She would, no doubt, be better when she
got back to her father, about whom she was fidgety. This doctor kindly
vouched for the same thing having happened several times in like cases.
Challis watched his friend as he made out the best tale he could. Do
you remember Challis's first appearance in this story, and how we spoke
of him as perceptive? He was that, and all sorts of little intimations
constantly reached him, by mysterious telegraphies, of concurrent
events--things many would miss altogether. No wonder he read between
the lines of Athelstan Taylor's version of the doctor's report! No
wonder!--for any but a blind man would have detected in the Rector's
serious face how little he believed the well-worn forms of speech folk
use to keep the hearts of others alive, in case--just this one time--a
real change for the better should come, or the last new remedy should
fulfil the promises of the ream of testimonials it was wrapped in when
we bought it. But the Rector threw as much hope as he dared into his
telling, and did well, on the whole. And Jim was satisfied for now.
A little later, when the two were starting to go back to the Rectory by
a roundabout way, having left Jim attending to the demands for water
of an influx of applicants, Athelstan Taylor said to Challis: "I felt
quite ashamed of myself just now.... What for? Why, for talking all
that stuff to Jim about poor little Lizarann! But what can one do?
There's nothing to be gained by plunging the poor fellow in despair, as
long as any hope remains of her outgrowing it."
"You mean there is some hope, then?"
"Some." That was all the Rector said.
"I see. But is it to be a long job?"
"Probably not--probably not. But she may live for some little time
yet--with care. I don't know how much Jim knows or suspects."
"Where is she now actually?"
"It's called the Browne Convalescent Home, at Chalk Cliff, in Kent.
Sidrophel--I should say Pordage--said he saw no object in sending her
to a mild lowering place at this time of year. What she wanted was
the sea-air, and he is very much in love with Chalk Cliff. Well!--one
smells the seaweed there."
"It's the iodine, I suppose." Challis's mind travelled to his own
children, who were, he hoped, soaking in the iodine, wallowing in the
sand, wading in the shallows, and not keeping their things out of the
water. Should he ever see Mumps and Chobbles again? Possibly. Suppose
he were to meet them years hence, lengthened and completed, at Girton,
perhaps--even engaged; who can tell?--would they know him again?
His thoughts rushed swiftly, _more suo_, to the construction of all
sorts and conditions of social horrors, beginning with an improbable
evening party with Chobbles in the foreground, and her married sister,
and a fiendish necessity for explaining to a dazzling lady who was
charmed with both of them, that they were his children by his former
marriage--the very identical Mumps and Chobbles he had so often told
her about! But that dream was soon sent packing, although the dazzling
lady said, with a pleasant, graceful contempt for all correlatives of
Grundy: "You _must_ come and see me, you two dear girls! Do let's be
German, and take no notice of things. Never mind the _orkwidities_,
as my husband calls them." A worse phantasm followed. Two girls in
mourning beside a grave, and "Marianne, daughter of James and Sarah
Craik," on the headstone. So vivid was the impression that the words
were on his lips: "Mumps and Chobbles, don't you know me?" He shook it
off, denouncing its intrinsic absurdity, even while he admitted he had
no justification for doing so. Marianne would die, and so would he, and
neither would be beside the other when the hour came.
"Am I going too quick for you?" said the Rector. He had broken into
his tremendous stride, as he was always apt to do when not checked.
Challis admitted his limitations, and suggested that they might go
easily up this hill. As this hill was a short-cut across a curve of
the road, and the path over it was zig-zagged, and landslipped, and
fern-grown, besides seeming to consist almost entirely of rabbit-holes,
it was not a hill to go up easily, in any literal sense. But Challis
had only intended to suggest moderation. He gave his whole soul to
avoiding burrows, and reached solid ground alive. As he approached the
top, alongside of his companion, he was aware of a huge dog, blue-black
against the sky, on the ridge in front of them. Saladin appeared to
be waiting for them, and to have time on his hands. Whistled to, he
condescended to trot towards them, the sooner to meet. Interrogated as
to his reasons for being there by himself, he kept silence, but smelt
his questioners.
Perhaps he wasn't by himself. Surmise inclined to the supposition that
the carriage was in the neighbourhood; probably Lady Arkroyd, driving
back from Thanes, said the Rector. But attentive listening established
carriage-wheels on the road from Furnival--the opposite direction.
"It's Miss Arkroyd coming from the station. She was coming by the
two-forty from Euston." So spoke Challis.
The Rector looked full at him. "How did you know?" said he. He seemed a
good deal surprised.
"Because she told me," said Challis. He in his turn seemed surprised at
the surprise of the other, and interrogation remained on the face of
both. Saladin seemed able to wait.
After a moment the Rector said suddenly: "Because she's been away at
her sister's--Brayle Court, you know--the Felixthorpes'."
"Yes; why not? She told me three weeks ago she was coming to-day. She
drove to Bletchley from Brayle."
Athelstan Taylor's face was a funny mixture of perplexity and mild
reproach, not without confidence in his companion. "But why didn't you
say so?" said he.
"You mean when you mentioned her just now--just before we came to
Jim? Well!--because I didn't want to spoil our walk.... There's the
carriage!"
The carriage was there, in the road some distance below, and was
whistling for Saladin. He appeared to accept the whistle as a courtesy
on its part, intended to keep him _au fait_ of its movements and
whereabouts. Otherwise he had a short time at his disposal, and would
pass it in giving sanction and encouragement to his present companions.
The horses' hoofs and the whistle passed and grew less in the distance,
but Saladin remained undisturbed and statuesque.
"No," said Challis; "I didn't want to spoil our walk. Indeed, I'm in
two minds if I shouldn't do better to say nothing at all about it."
"About what?"
"Well!--that's just the point. However, as I've leaked out this much, I
suppose I may as well tell. About myself and Judith Arkroyd."
"Oh dear!" said the Rector, "I had been supposing--I mean I had been
beginning to hope--that was all at an end...."
Saladin had no more time to spare for nonsense of this sort. He went
with a rush--the rush of a sudden whirlwind--crashing through mere
valueless briar and fern like gossamer; but suggesting that it was for
_their_ sakes, not his, that he steered clear of timber-trees. The
carriage, still audible, became aware of him, and stopped whistling.
"I want to tell you all about it on my own behalf. And I suspect Judith
will on hers." So Challis spoke, when the lull came. He then went on
to tell all that this story has told, and it may be more. And the
narrative lasted all the way back to the Rectory.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE RECTOR'S OPINION, AND WHY IT CARRIED NO WEIGHT. OF THE EFFICACY
OF PRAYER, AND WHY CHALLIS DOUBTED IT. YET THE RECTOR TOLERATED HIS
IMPIETY
The Rector sat in his usual chair in the library smoking his usual
after-dinner pipe, his only concession to tobacco. It served a turn
now--harmonized his life with that of his friend, who, of course,
sat on the other side of the rug, that both might be conscious of an
empty grate. One pays this tribute in the summer, to the comfort the
warmth would have been had it been winter. Or is it a survival of some
ancestral fire-worship?
It was Challis's second pipe in the day that he was lighting, but his
fourth smoke. He looked as though something narcotic were wanting, if
he were to sleep in the night ahead of him. His forehead throbbed, the
Rector felt convinced. Else why did that restless, nervous hand skim it
over, from side to side, then press the closed eyelids below as though
to squeeze a pain out?
He had told the whole of his story, ending it up during dinner, and
doing poor justice to the efforts of the Rectory cook. Athelstan Taylor
had listened nearly in silence, not saying how much he had already
heard, or had guessed, of the way things had gone since his attempted
intercession with Mrs. Challis. Challis's absences from England, and
the chance that their London visits never coincided, had kept them
apart until his visit to London three months since. On that occasion
they did little more than arrange that Challis should visit the
Rectory "as soon as he could get away." And he couldn't--or at least
didn't--"get away" till August. But nothing that he had told his friend
had occasioned the latter the least surprise.
"Well!--that's all," said he, as he lighted his pipe.
The Rector's face was all strength and pity as he sat looking at his
storm-tossed friend. He remained silent awhile over it. Challis could
not hurry him to speech. However, there was the whole evening ahead.
At last he spoke. "That's quite all, is it? Very good. Now, I can't and
won't recommend any course to you, because, my dear man, you are under
an hallucination, and you wouldn't pay the slightest attention to
anything I suggested. But I'll tell you, if you like, what I shall say
to Judith Arkroyd if she comes to me for advice."
"What?"
"I shall say, 'Don't!'"
"Don't go on with it, that is?"
"Exactly. I shan't mince matters. I shall tell the girl flatly that I
think she's doing wrong...."
"But why--but why? Surely if _she_ is, I am. Or more so! Far more so!"
"Do you suppose I regard you as a responsible agent?"
"I don't think you do. But I am one, for all that. What shall you say
to Judith?"
"That I _do_ regard her as a responsible agent. I shall entreat her
not to consent to such a mad scheme. I shall try to make her see the
folly of acting under panic in a matter of such vital importance. I
shall tell her plainly, as I told you an hour ago, that I think your
wife's action has been justifiable, although it has been violent and
exaggerated. I admit that, you know...."
"And _I_ think that it has been violent and exaggerated, but admit that
it has not been altogether unjustifiable. Isn't that the difference
between us, Rector?"
"Precisely. Well!--I shall say so to Judith. And I shall put it this
way to her. 'If before God and your conscience you can disclaim all
share in what has come about, if you have never by word or look been
guilty of an attempt to make this man's plighted faith to his wife a
wavering one, then it may be you may marry him and not live to repent
it. But if it is otherwise, you may be sowing by such a marriage the
seeds of a remorse that may last you a life-time.'..."
Challis interrupted him. "Judith is absolutely unconscious...." he
began.
"Exactly, exactly, exactly!" said the Rector, nodding in a comfortable,
we-understand-all-that sort of way. "But, about this sort of thing,
sometimes a young lady's standard of unconsciousness is low. You must
excuse me if I try--it's a toss-up if I succeed--to make her probe her
soul to its lowest depths."
"My dear Yorick!--excuse my boning Miss Fossett's name again; but it
does suit you so exactly--My dear Yorick, whatever you do or say will
be right--_shall_ be right. That's the rule of the game. All I say is,
don't make Judith imagine herself to have been guilty of a treacherous
scheme that never entered her mind. She assures me...." He hesitated.
"Yes!" from the Rector.
"Well!--she assures me that until that unfortunate--or mind you!--it
may prove fortunate--failure in self-restraint ... suppose we call
it!..."
"Call it anything you like, as long as you feel properly ashamed of it."
Challis accepted the rule of the game he had just laid down loyally,
and continued, "Until that moment she had not the slightest idea that I
had ever entertained...." Again a hesitation.
"Precisely!" said the Rector. Both went as near a laugh as the contexts
permitted, and then Challis said, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
"Well!--it's no use talking." But his friend meant to say more. "It may
be no use," said he. "But I've picked up--in the pulpit, I suppose--the
old vice of the sermon-monger, and I like to have my say out...."
"I didn't mean _you_ were to stop," interjected Challis.
"Then I shall go on, as per contract." He appeared to put semi-levities
aside with the finished pipe he laid down, and stood facing Challis
as he sat. Standing so, he looked so much the build of a soldier that
his cloth, so obnoxious to Challis, almost became regimentals. He
resumed, very earnestly, "I shall say this, too, to Judith--no!--don't
be afraid I shall be cruel to her. Why!--haven't I known her since she
was a little tot, and sat on my knee?... I shall tell her that to me
marriage is a sacrament just as solemn as any mutual undertaking where
each party is in earnest and believes in the earnestness of the other
... yes!--even as contracts about darling money--and that no antecedent
relation of the couple can flaw the pledge once given ... yes!--I am
prepared to go any length; but never mind that now.... And I shall tell
her this:--that however obstinate and wrong-headed your wife's conduct
may have been, just in so far as it has been provoked by any misconduct
of yours or hers--just so far are you morally guilty in contemplating
any step which will make the position irretrievable."
Challis broke into his momentary pause. "Do you really mean, soberly
and seriously, that you think Marianne's dragging the children away--my
Chobbles was like your Joan, you know, Yorick!--do you think her
catching at a legal pretext to deprive me of them has not given me a
free hand? What right has Marianne to condemn me to a loveless and
lonely life...?"
"Stop, Challis--stop! Stop on the legal pretext! At what age of the
world has man, the strong, scrupled to catch at legal pretexts to
secure the betrayal and confusion of woman, the weak? Legal pretexts,
mind you, whose iniquity stinks in every legal phrase that relates to
her, in every statute that he has framed and she has had no hand in!
How many legal pretexts are there in the whole of them that a woman can
catch at to her own advantage? One turns up now and again, in a rare
conjunction of circumstances, and hey presto!--we are all on the alert
to blame the woman who does it."
"You're quite right," said Challis ruefully. "It's melancholy to think
how keenly alive one is to other folks' sinfulness when one suffers by
it personally; loses one's Chobbles, for instance. I was fond of the
young person, you see, Yorick! Besides, there's Mumps. And even Bob she
contrives to stint me of. Either that, or the boy drifts away from his
sisters."
"You should have thought of all that when you...."
"Made a fool of myself?"
"Quite so. By-the-bye, Challis, have you asked yourself--supposing that
you ratify this folly of yours, as I understand you propose to do--what
you mean to tell Bob to account for the new order of things?"
"Yes, frequently."
"And have you answered the question?"
"No, I have not."
"Do you see any prospect of answering it?"
"None whatever!"
"Very well, Challis! Now listen. It appears to me that you are going
to take a step you are this much ashamed of, that you cannot look
your own son in the face about it. And you are doing this confessedly
in case the passing of an Act of Parliament should make that step
impossible at a future time. You know perfectly well that--Judith
apart--you would welcome that Act of Parliament, because it would give
you back your children, and at least pave the way to a reconciliation
with their mother.... Yes, it would! The 'living in Sin' twaddle
would die a natural death before an Act of Parliament; your excellent
mother-in-law's teeth would be drawn, and your wife would come to her
senses as soon as the two little girls were delivered at Wimbledon by a
judicial order. Once you two were face to face--just think of it!--do
you suppose old times wouldn't come to the rescue?"
The Rector was hitting hard. He could see it in the compressed lips,
the nostril and eyelid and brow that would not be still, in the face
that was hard to control at the best of times. Why could he not keep to
his artillery? Why send his troops into the enemy's country, bristling
with ambuscades? Why bring Judith's image back, when all the strength
of his case lay in revival of the days gone by?
But he did, possibly because he could not conceive of a passion for
one woman dwelling in the same heart with an affection for another. He
could not measure the force of the personal factor in Judith. He had
never been under fire.
"And see," he went on injudiciously--"see what it is you look to gain
when you have cut yourself finally adrift from almost everything
that has been precious to you in the past. What are the chances of
happiness for a couple so assorted? Think of your difference of age!...
well!--perhaps that's the least important point ... think of the
difference in the habits of a life-time, of the sort of life Judith
has been accustomed to, of the way her pride may suffer ... and not
only hers--yours too--yours too, my dear Challis, in a thousand ways!
Consider this too; what right have you to take for granted that she
will ever be forgiven by her family? You say they are now at daggers
drawn. What claim have you to ask such a sacrifice of her as the
surrender of her relations with her parents and all the associations of
her childhood? Think of it!"
A moment after he perceived he had pushed his argument too far. Challis
said firmly, "I accept Judith's readiness to make this sacrifice as
a sure proof of her feelings towards myself. I see in it a guarantee
of a happiness far beyond my deserts. It is _because_ she is ready to
give up so much for me and risk her whole life in my keeping that I
am rushing the position. I cannot have her think hereafter that our
union was made impossible by my remissness--by my _fainéantise_--at a
critical time."
The Rector walked uneasily about the room. "Oh dear," said he, "I
wish to Heaven that Bill would get itself brought into the Lords and
rejected, _tout à l'improviste_, before you could arrange this madness.
Then you would have a cool twelvemonth to think it over in. And perhaps
you would both come to your senses."
"And perhaps--_d'autant plus à l'improviste_--that Bill _would_ pass
the Lords and become law. How should I seem then to the girl who is
ready to throw all away for me now? Do you conceive that I should be
able to console myself for the wrong I had done by dragging back to my
home a wife whose jealousy ... I must call it so--poor Polly Anne!..."
"What else can you call it?"
"There's no other word in the dictionary. What was I saying? ... oh, a
wife whose jealousy would by that time have every justification. Where
would the happiness be in all that, and for whom?"
"In no case can you hope for an immediate reconstitution of your old
home life. You, Challis--excuse me--have stirred up too much mud
for the pool to become clear in a moment. But remember Disraeli's
phrase--the 'magic of patience.'"
"A good phrase, a very good phrase! I am game for any amount of Hope,
dear Yorick--hypothetical Hope, of a state of things that will never
come about! If it did, _I_ might get some sort of consolation out of
it. What would Judith?"
The Rector was handicapped by his disbelief in Judith, whom he did
not credit with overmuch heart; certainly not with one that would
break on slight provocation. He could not say anything of this to this
passionate fool of a man, over head and ears in love. Or he might have
replied, "Don't you fret about Judith. _She'll_ be all right enough."
As it was, he could only keep closed lips, and pace about the room.
Challis continued:
"And, after all, we are leaving the most probable possibility of the
lot quite out in the cold. Suppose the mad scheme--Judith's marriage
with me--does _not_ come off, and the Bill passes. Suppose that I
am inconsequent enough to jump at the new-fledged legal powers of
depriving Marianne of her children, after damning her uphill and down
for doing the very same thing herself; suppose me with my family back
on the hearth--crying and frightened probably--and never a mother to
see to them! Suppose, in fact, that Marianne stands to her guns! How
then?"
"Other men have been in the same position before now." Perhaps the
speaker was thinking of himself.
"Can you name a case in which no substitute for the mother existed, and
the father was not at liberty to provide one? Please exclude salaried
employees from the answer."
"Oh, I wasn't going to go that length. Heaven forbid!"
"You must observe," Challis continued, "that divorce _a vinculo_ is
only available if my wife arranges about the co-respondent. _I_ can't!"
He added in a voice that showed how strangely racked his feelings were,
"Poor Polly Anne!--she wouldn't the least know how to set about it."
"I'm _horribly_ sorry for you, Challis," said the Rector. "I am indeed!
I would go the length of wishing that bigamy could be sanctioned,
in certain cases, only that you are quite the wrong man for it. You
wouldn't enjoy it."
"Have I not a foretaste of its horrors?" said Challis. "You see, Yorick
dear, when Love comes in at the door, Patriarchal ideas fly out at the
window. Jacob was a cucumber. I'm not!"
"Well!--Jacob must have loved Rachel, after a fashion. Seven years!...
consider!..."
"Oughtn't it to be read 'weeks,' perhaps? Criticism is very
accommodating about the seven days of Creation. Make it weeks." The
conversation became irrelevant.
But after a good deal more talk of the same sort, an hour later,
Challis said, "You're not a consistent Rector, do you know! You said
when we began that you couldn't and wouldn't advise me. And you have
substantially advised me to tell Judith to-morrow that we must leave
the forelock of opportunity alone, and just take our chance of a
permanent veto on matrimony, if that Bill goes through the Lords."
"Well!--yes! At least, it comes to the same thing. It has leaked out in
conversation what I should have said to you if I had thought you would
take my advice...."
"Which would have been...?"
"Which would have been, 'On no account take an irrevocable step under
pressure.' Believe me, Challis, if you do this thing, and this Bill
never becomes law at all, and then you live to repent of the knot you
have tied indissolubly, the thought hereafter that you gave way to a
needless panic will make remorse tenfold more bitter."
"Are not you, when you say that, allowing a disbelief in the Bill's
passing to influence you?"
"I may be, a little. But not nearly so much as I am by a belief I must
try to explain to you ... well!--it's none so easy. But I thought I had
succeeded in explaining it to myself too." He paused a few seconds,
then got clearer. "It's something like this. I can't conceive that any
retrospective clause of the Act could declare valid a marriage the
illegitimacy of which the parties themselves had acknowledged during
the period of its legal invalidity. Do you see?... You would very
likely word it more clearly than I can."
"No--that's as clear as daylight. But I am not prepared to acknowledge
the illegitimacy of my marriage with Marianne."
"How can you act upon it, to the extent of marrying another woman,
without acknowledging it?"
"If I were not under compulsion to acknowledge it, should I ever
have thought of marrying the other woman? I plead coercion. Marianne
dissolved our marriage. I had no hand in it."
"Coercion or no," said the Rector, "it comes to the same thing. No
retrospective clause could declare valid a marriage that had been
voided by one of the parties yielding to a coercion quite within the
rights of the other to impose. Not that I'm sure there isn't a sort of
general legal usage, that no one can claim legal advantage from the
illegality of his own action."
"I see," said Challis. "Heads, deceased sister's husband wins. Tails,
deceased wife's sister loses! But how would such an interpretation of
retrospective action affect me and Judith?"
"Why, clearly! If the Bill passed ever so, your marriage with Marianne
would remain void. It would class with any other contract, illegal at
the time, whose illegality had been subsequently acknowledged and acted
on. I heard once of a curious case in point. Two young people had got
married, knowing nothing of a consanguinity between them, owing to an
old family quarrel. The girl was really a very much junior aunt of the
young man; their respective mothers, daughters of the same father,
having been born forty years apart. Of course, the children of this
atrocious marriage were illegitimate."
"Did they part when they found it out?"
"Oh dear no! They brazened it out--said the meaning of the term 'aunt'
was clear. Aunts had fronts, and so forth. The gentleman calls his wife
aunty to this day, I believe. Perhaps you've seen the people? They've a
large property in the South Riding of Yorkshire."
But Challis hadn't, and didn't know their name when mentioned. He
seemed more interested in his own affairs. "If I understand you," said
he, "your advice is--not to marry, in view of the possibility of this
new enactment not acting retrospectively in cases of couples disunited
by mutual consent, at a time when law held that no union existed. Let's
pretend my consent was given, this time, for argument's sake."
"You have stated the case admirably. That is my advice. Wait!"
"You have a beautiful confidence, Yorick, in Acts of Parliament--before
they are made! Would it be reinforced or weakened, I wonder, by a
perusal of the Statutes at Large? Doesn't an element of hopefulness
come in?"
"Hm--well--perhaps! That's my advice, anyhow. And that's the advice
I shall give to Judith Arkroyd, if she comes to consult me. I shan't
volunteer anything."
"I wish I could think as you do--about the effect of the Act. I mean."
Challis's manner was to the last degree fitful and uneasy. "I mean I
wish I could be sure it would leave the question open."
The Rector, returning to his friend's side after one of his walks about
the room, laid his strong hand on his shoulder, and the sense of its
strength was welcome. "Challis, Challis!" said he, earnestly, "can you
not read in your own words how well you know that you are acting under
panic? Ask your heart--ask your conscience--if a wish for an extension
of time would be possible in a mind really made up--a mind really
believing such a step as you propose to take a right and honourable
one! Confess that the reason you would be glad of a respite is that you
are none so sure, after all, that what you do is the wisest course for
either yourself or your wife; or, for that matter, for Judith."
Challis seemed for a moment puzzled about his meaning. Then he said,
"Do you mean that you doubt the reality of my--of my love for Judith?"
He seemed half ashamed of it, too!
"I mean that I think you are besotted about her--bewitched by her
woman's beauty--the slave of an inclination you may live to repent one
day in sackcloth and ashes. Well!--one can understand it all, down to
the ground. You are not the first...."
Challis flushed a little angrily, and began, "Do you mean that Judith
is...." He hesitated.
The Rector caught his meaning, and interrupted him. "A flirt?" said he.
"No--I didn't mean that; though, mind you, I can't give the young lady
complete absolution on that score. What I meant was that mighty few
men in the world get through life without knowing all about this sort
of thing from experience. Perhaps your catching the fever so late in
life, after two marriages, makes the case exceptional. However, as I
told you, I don't regard you as a rational being at present; so I won't
preach."
He had not removed his hand from Challis's shoulder, and the action of
the latter as he turned away and, crossing to the window, looked out at
the starlit night, had its shade of protest in it, though it could not
be said that he had exactly shaken the hand off.
Athelstan Taylor waited a moment, looking half sorry, half amused, but
not the least disposed to weaken his words. Then he followed his friend
to where he stood looking out, and said as he replaced his hand--only
that this time he laid his arm fully across the shoulder--"Remember the
compact, my good man, remember the compact! I'm to say what I like."
"You are to say what you like, dear Yorick, and soften nothing. You
think me a fool, and I am one. But the fact that my folly is carried
_nem. con._ won't get me out of the difficulty it has got me into.
Blame it as you will--but your blame won't answer the question I ask
myself every hour of the day: what sort of value will Judith set on the
love of a man who hung fire about carrying out his pledges till it was
too late, on the miserable plea that it was ten chances to one another
twelvemonth of vacillation might be possible? What right has any man
to put expediencies, calculations of chance, the unforeseen outcomes
of this or that, against the well-being of the woman he is all the
while coolly asking to give herself away to him? No, Yorick, I haven't
got it in me to go and say to Judith, 'I love you; it is true. But if
I wed you now, while we know we are free to wed, and then some time
repentance comes, it will be a bitter thought to me that--had I waited'
... et cetera--don't you see?"
"My dear Challis, I am no match for the eloquence of a gifted author
who is pleading the cause of his own inclinations...."
"Even when he ends up with 'et cetera'?"
"Even then. But remember this--that what I am saying to you now is
scarcely meant as urging definite action upon yourself. It may have
seemed so in form, but my actual meaning has been to show the sort of
advice I shall give Judith if I have the good fortune to speak with her
in time; if, that is, she gives me the right to speak by speaking first
herself. I shall do the same with the Bart. and her ladyship. If they
don't take me into their confidence, I shall presume they don't want me
to share it."
"Talk to Judith by all means. But Judith won't counsel delay--I feel
sure of it--if she supposes that I shall think she has done so for my
sake. She knows perfectly well that the readier she is to sacrifice
herself for me, the keener I shall be to confiscate the knife. If she
were to plead against this hasty action that she herself felt insecure
in it--would rather run the risks, on the chances--that would be quite
another matter. But she won't do that."
"If it comes to cross-fires of reciprocal misgivings and
misunderstandings--or understandings, if you like--between you and
Judith Arkroyd, I give up, and there's an end on't!" The Rector's laugh
made the atmosphere happier. "But I'm afraid my general conclusion is
that man is never at a loss for good reasons for doing anything he
wants to do, especially when it involves a lady."
"You may be right. But it's a horrible perplexity."
Athelstan Taylor was lighting candles for bed. For it was past
midnight. As he took Challis's hand to say good-night, he said to
him: "We superstitious, old-world, out-of-date folk, priests and the
like, are in the habit of praying to be guided right in horrible
perplexities. Is it any use...?"
"Well!--plenty of use as far as my good-will to feel with you is
concerned? But to my inner vision, none! To my thought, Omnipotence
is already doing everything--everything everywhere--and I don't see
how I could put up a prayer to the Top Bloke ... pardon my using an
expression you object to...."
"Not at all. Go on."
"... A prayer to guide me right without appearing to suggest either
that He was already guiding me wrong, or that the Bottom Bloke--no one
can possibly object to that--had usurped his functions."
Strange to say, the Rector seemed not the least shocked. On the
contrary, he laughed. "All right, old chap," said he. "You leave
yourself in the hands of the Top Bloke. He'll see to it all right.
Good-night!" But he looked back as he opened his bedroom door to say,
"Keep the gas on till you have the electric light."
CHAPTER XLV
HOW CHALLIS AND JUDITH MET AGAIN AT TROUT BEND, AND TALKED IT OVER.
HOW SHE CRIED OFF, FEELING SECURE. AND OF THE ARRANGEMENT THEY MADE.
OF A CENTENARIAN WHO GOT HALF-A-SOVEREIGN
It was early morning at Trout Bend, and the man who sat on the
moss-grown beechen root this story told of--more than a year ago
now--was turning over in his heart all that had come about in that
short time, and trying to say to himself point-blank that it was no
fault of his own. He succeeded in saying it--said it aloud in words,
that there should be no doubt at all about it. He said it twice, in
fact, and seemed in the end dissatisfied.
Every little incident of the day's life seemed to throw doubt on the
point. The discordant jay that shrieked in the thicket as good as cried
out "Liar!" and fluttered away disgusted. The squirrel that paused
half-way up the beech-trunk had an air of shocked reproach in his very
large and startled eye, and when he moved again seemed to want to get
out of the way as soon as possible, and to mix with sincere Society
again. The fish that leaped in the pool had come to the surface this
time, clearly, to say to Challis: "We have met before, and _my_ life
has not changed. Yours has, and you have only yourself to thank for it!
Why need you leave your native waters uncompelled?"
Challis denied the suggestion his own mind had made. He had had
to share in what followed; his exodus from those waters had been
compulsory. Or, rather, was it not true that the waters had drained
away from him, and left him to find another pool downstream, or
die unnourished on the dry sands? But it was a metaphor that rang
false, and he dismissed it impatiently; the more so that some mental
distortion, akin to the one he invented the strange name for, must
needs intrude an unwarranted image of an angler with rod and line, and
rouse him to an indignant denial of that angler's identity. Whose fault
soever it was, it was none of Judith's.
And as he thought this, there she was herself, crossing the little
plank bridge where the convict dropped the ring, and found it again so
many years too late.
He was on his feet in a moment, and on his way to meet her. He had a
double-barrelled kiss ready on his lips, supposing the coast clear
at the moment of their meeting. Saladin, who was present, was in
confidence, and didn't count. Botheration take that old woman gathering
sticks!--did she matter?
Judith thought so, evidently, and payment had to wait. "Company!" said
she. She was looking as beautiful as ever--more so! "She's a hundred
and two, I believe," she added. "But one has to lay down a rule in
these matters, and stick to it." She was referring to the old woman,
who most likely neither saw nor heard, or if she did, only harked back
to eighty years ago, and thought, "Why not?"
All Challis's cloud of doubt and self-reproach vanished as her
consolatory hand lay in his arm. Something of her masterful nature was
in the touch of it, communicable through nerve-currents. It reassured
him, and he could respond to its pressure, old woman or no!
It was an arranged meeting: much taken for granted. Conversation to
go on presently where our last meeting left it. Meanwhile, short
recognitions of current event.
"When did you come?"
"The day before yesterday."
"The voice of gossip cannot say you followed me down here. Not that it
would matter!"
"I fancy we are pretty transparent." Challis dismissed the matter as a
slight interest only. "Are we peaceful at the Hall?"
"Oh--well! One short row--a very small one! It's rather unfortunate
that some people who were expected have cried off. And another gang
had just gone. So my dear parents ... to whom I am really devoted;
and they are so good and upright and that sort of thing ... what was
I saying about them?--oh yes!--my dear parents and I were alone. It
was unlucky." Challis threw up his eyebrows very slightly, and made a
barely audible note of interrogation through closed lips. She replied
to it: "Yes--the usual sort of thing." And they walked on slowly arm in
arm, not speaking.
Presently the lady resumed, seeming always the more talkative of the
two: "Compulsory truce this evening, I suppose. Most likely Sibyl
and Frank, who, I understand, is ridiculous about Sib. Besides, Mr.
What's-his-name is coming ... what _is_ his name?"...
"Tell me who he is, and I'll see if I know."
"Oh dear!--man that talks metaphysics...."
"Brownrigg?"
"Of course! Brownrigg. Well!--he's coming this afternoon, so we've only
time for a very short allowance of Family Life. I suspect Brownrigg of
having an Attraction down here, but I can't for the life of me find out
who it is!"
"Attractions are feminine?"
"Always."
"Otherwise I should have thought it might be the Rector."
"The Reverend Athelstan--dear good man! Oh no--it's a lady! It always
is. But did the Reverend speak of Broadribb--Brownrigg?"
"I've got an impression that he has been at the Rectory more than
once--considerably more. Couldn't exactly say why?"
"There's nothing feminine there--at the Rectory."
Challis was beginning, "Oh yes!--there's ..." when Judith's outburst of
laughter cut him short.
"Dear Aunt Bessy! She's forty.... Oh yes, I know she's worthy!" She
laughed more than need was; then recovered her gravity, and said, as
though she feared her laughter might have grated on her companion: "Not
to laugh at the good lady?--is that it? Very well." Judith's mockery
for once seemed just short of charming to her lover, to whom it was
usually one of her happiest contrasts to Marianne's unsympathetic
reverence for so many things her husband's derision classed as
beadledom. This time he would have preferred that the time-honoured
practice of making game of old maidenhood should have been touched with
a lighter hand. There was suggestion of a consciousness of this in
Judith's next words: "It was your fault, you know, Titus, for hinting
at Brownrigg. It was quite too funny."
Her fascination reasserted itself; indeed, its wavering had been of the
slightest, and had not lasted long enough for acknowledgment. "I admit
it was a laughable notion," said Challis. "However, I don't think an
enchantress is necessary in this case. Athelstan Taylor would account
for anything, and you know he is liberality itself towards all new
ideas. He told me yesterday he thought Graubosch a most interesting
personality."
"Did you--you say you had come yesterday?"
"No--the night before."
"You and the great Yorick--isn't that what his friend Miss Foster calls
him?--haven't been talking of Graubosch all that time?"
"Fossett. Oh dear no! We have been talking chiefly of...." A pause.
"... Well!--of _our_ affairs."
"Meaning yours and mine. _Eh bien!_--and what says Sir Oracle?...
No, no!--no irreverence, indeed!... oh no!--you _said_ nothing. But
you have such a mobile countenance." A shade of protest had been
detectable, presumably, in Challis's face, and he had disclaimed it.
"Meaning your affairs and mine," said he, with only a pooh-pooh smile
for the sub-colloquy. "Sir Oracle is in opposition."
"I knew he would be--dear good man! You'll tell me I'm sneering, I
know--but I'm not--if I say...."
"What?"
"That his is such a beautiful unworldly character. I can tell you
exactly what he said to you."
"Then, dearest, I needn't tell _you_. Fire away!"
"He said we must on no account take an irrevocable step in a hurry; and
must trust to Providence to keep His eye on the Lords when the division
comes, and make sure of a majority against the Bill."
"He said something not very unlike it. A good shot! But he never
suggested that Providence was disposed to consider our interests. I
must admit that I don't see why Providence should. My own attitude
has hardly been conciliatory." Challis then went on to give a fairer
version of what the Rector had said. As he spoke, a touch of scorn came
on the beautiful face beside him, and grew and grew. And he fancied the
pressure of the hand on his sleeve lightened.
"A thorough business man's view!" said Judith, when he stopped.
"Scarcely so unworldly on the whole as our good Yorick generally is! I
don't know, though, whether I ought to say that. Beautiful unworldly
characters manage their affairs unselfishly only because...."
"Because they think Providence will act as their agent? Is that what
you were going to say?"
"Well!--they always boast that it pays best in the long run. Anyhow,
this clearly _was_ the business view. To the business mind, with its
faith in Law and Order and Representative Government and things,
nothing can be clearer. You and Marianne have cried off a compact
Law and Order condemned, while you still had a right to do so. Is it
creditable that the New Act will tie you together again, willy-nilly?"
"Dearest!--try to see my difficulty. Don't think me cowardly or
politic; only believe that it _is_ a difficulty to me, and a serious
one. Suppose us wedded--to-morrow--before the passing of the Act,
anyhow! Suppose that when it comes it legitimates retrospectively every
marriage that was not acknowledged void by _both_ parties while it was
still an unlawful one!"
Judith withdrew her hand and looked away. "Have you not acknowledged
the illegitimacy of yours?" she said coldly.
"In a sense I have." Challis was evidently flinching under his
consciousness of his position.
"I do not like 'in a sense,' Titus. Is Marianne your wife or not?"
"Listen to me, dearest!" He would have replaced her hand in his arm,
but she withstood his doing so, partly qualifying her resistance by a
pretence of finding Saladin's whistle. He continued pleadingly: "Think
what it would be for me if at some future time my two little girls were
to suffer from a reproach their brother does not share, and charge me
with giving my boy a better hold on the world than they could lay claim
to...."
"It was their reproach from the beginning...."
"Yes--yes! But suppose this Act would, but for me, have conferred
legitimacy retrospectively...."
"How 'but for you'?"
"Why--clearly! It might include in its retrospective action only such
marriages as were held valid by one or other party at the date of the
passing of the Bill. Mumps and Chobbles might be legitimate or no,
according to my attitude towards their mother about our separation. It
seems to me that my having refused to acknowledge it might make all the
difference...." Challis paused awkwardly. For he had suddenly become
aware that he was adducing reasons in plenty why he should not marry
Judith at all. He had not meant his argument to go that length. He was
only showing one form the Nemesis of Repentance might take in the event
of the immediate passing of the Act. He was losing sight of the fact
that if the Bill was thrown out, all his reasonings would apply just as
much to a more leisurely union during the twelvemonth of respite.
The fact is he wanted to eat his cake and have it too--to get the
advantage of the Act for his children and to avoid the guillotine
himself. If he and Judith were not married in time, either their
project would be made impossible, or at best the problem of justice or
injustice to the children would stand over _sine die_, with all its
present difficulties unsolved. If, on the other hand, they got married,
the Act could only benefit his children by affirming his marriage with
their mother a lawful one, and declaring Judith the second wife of a
bigamist. Unless, indeed, a dexterous special clause in it gave his
rupture with Marianne the validity of a divorce. Not a very likely
provision of legal ingenuity!
How little idea the old lady gathering sticks must have had of what
the gentleman was talking--talking--talking about to the lady, whose
undisturbed beauty seemed to make no response, or barely a word now
and then! Her centenarian mind probably thought it was only the usual
thing--the use of eighty odd years agone, when she first knew of it;
and so till now, except folk were changed since then.
But the gentleman would have done well to say less. None of his
earnestness, none of his perturbation--none of his Law, none of his
Logic--made matters a bit better. In one way they made it worse. A
sense of a painful contingency crept in that had hardly had sufficient
consideration. How if in the labyrinth of possibilities that sheer
Legalism can construct over the grave of Fair Play there was really
hidden a possible indictment for bigamy? If Challis married Judith,
his first wife being still alive, with the reservation that the latter
wasn't his wife at all, how then? Could he even obtain a Special
Licence at Doctors' Commons? He would have to declare that no legal
impediment existed, and to satisfy the Archbishop of Canterbury that
his reasons for wanting it were sound. Perhaps his Grace would be
crusty, and refuse it, to spite him for marrying his Deceased Wife's
Sister. However, the idea of a piqued Prelate hitting below the belt
in this way relieved a growing tension, and brought a smile into the
matter.
Challis was glad to shift away from a perplexity. After a pause of
silence he said: "Do you remember how we walked here--more than a year
ago--and you told me you had given up the idea of Estrild?"
Judith replaced the hand she had taken away. "Oh, so well!" said she.
"I was so sorry. But it seems to me that if my dearly-beloved family
are going to quarrel with me about my marriage, I deserve to play
Estrild as a set-off. I shall think about it."
They came to the coppice-wood, and the half-shade of its light and
shadow-chequered path was grateful; for the sun was mounting, and his
heat beginning to tell. Saladin brushed roughly past them, to see--at
a guess--that all the tree-stems were in order. Judith leaned a little
more on the arm she held.
"Do you remember," said she, "how I called you Scroop, and how funny it
made you look? Oh dear, how strange it does all seem!"
"I remember. And how I couldn't well call you Judith back. Would you
have been offended?"
"Should I ever have been offended at anything you did, dear love?" Her
hand was pressed between his arm and the other hand, that had come
across to caress it.
The two of them had the little secluded path well to themselves;
certainly Saladin didn't count. Now was the time for those kisses
that had waited, and others, if need were. Challis, as he took Judith
Arkroyd to his heart, felt his own past grow insignificant and dim.
This was Life!
A phantasmagoric presentment of Great Coram Street and Wimbledon ran
rapidly across the background of his mind. It was wonderful how many
images he could feel the dimness of at once. Even so, the man who fell
off the Monument marvelled at the incredible grasp of his powers of
recollection, stung to a paroxysm of self-assertion. Why need so many
things appeal to be forgotten; each one a bygone to itself; a faint
spark, surely, but craving a separate extinction? He could feel--oh
yes!--he could feel--that the nourishments of his life in those days
were the merest refreshments. This was a banquet! He had attained to
a satiety of Love. But why need those all-but-forgotten satisfactions
of an unpretentious past thrust in their claims for recollection, each
with its ill-timed reproach--"You did not despise us then!"?
There was no need for him to forget Kate. She was little more now than
a bad misadventure of his early life. But there was many a little
memory of Marianne in the earlier days that he would have to oust
from the future unless his every hour was to be cross-textured with
a weft of self-reproach. One little paltry thing went near to madden
him with its importunity. Could he never touch the damask cheek of his
enchantress of to-day without an intrusion into his mind of--Marianne's
mole? Too ridiculous!--many will say. But there it was--the mole--back
in this man's inner vision, to plague him with a reminder of that
long-ago when he rallied its proprietor--Marianne was eighteen then--on
its possession, but congratulated himself at the same time that it was
not in the best place.
The story knows Challis too well to attempt to make the oddities of his
mind plausible; it can only vouch for them. About minds it cannot vouch
for, only speculation is open to it. It makes no pretence to know the
inner heart of the beautiful woman whom he conceives to be so entirely
his own. Whether what followed was, on her part, schemed to make all
wavering on his impossible, and to bind that skein of his life fast in
hers, or whether it was really what it seemed, she alone could tell.
The story has no blame for her, mind, if it was the former! She was
within her rights--every woman's rights.
"Oh, Scroop--dear Titus--dear love! Let's have done with it and forget
it all--all! It can never be, and we both know it." He had released her
waist at some sound of footsteps approaching them as they stood in the
pathway, but had kept her hands in his. Whoever it was was not in sight
yet.
"'Odsbodikins, dearest, why--why--why? Why this of a sudden, out of the
blue?"
"No--dearest--no!--it is truth. I _am_ in earnest, indeed. It _cannot_
be!" He would have taken her in his arms again, but her outstretched
hand on his breast repelled him. "It must come to an end, and we know
it.... No--do not!..."
"Then tell me, darling, quietly; why not--why now!"
"Listen, Scroop! I see it all so clearly. Yorick is right--good,
clear-sighted man! If we get married in a mad hurry, under pressure,
just to avoid this legislative Bill business...."
"Cutting the ground from under our feet? Yes!"
"We may, as he says, live to repent it. After all, we are human!" The
footsteps drew nearer--became a passing boy--caused a pause, and died
away, leaving Judith to continue: "Suppose that all goes ill, and
our fruits turn out Dead Sea apples, and so on! Suppose that you are
disappointed in me!..."
"Never!"
"Foolish man, how can you tell?... However, this you _can_ see: that
if we fell out, you and I, anyhow, it would be a bitter thought to you
that you had sacrificed your girls for my sake, as you would have done!
You said so yourself, and I see it."
"The blame would not be mine." Challis got it said, but only just.
He knew at least that he was dishonest in shirking his share of the
blame. He went on to excuse, and, of course, accuse, himself. "What
right had Marianne to imagine infidelities for me?... Yes!--I grant
you 'infidelity' is a long word. But see what I mean, and think of
it Marianne had not a particle of evidence that ... that you were to
me ... anything that any other lady is not. She was just as wrong in
building false constructions on no grounds at all...."
"On no grounds at all? Be fair to Marianne!"
"Well--on very little!... She was just as unjust in using what she
_did_ know to condemn me as if the things she did _not_ know had never
happened. The accident of the postscript might have happened a thousand
times with any stranger. As to anything else that had passed between
you and me, Marianne chose to take action without a particle of proof,
and she is to blame for the consequence. Yes, Judith; if Marianne
hadn't acted as she did, I should have locked you out of my heart, and
gone my way in silence."
"Would you?" asked Judith. It might have been reproach; but, then, it
might have been mere questioning of his words. Challis gave himself
the benefit of the doubt, and let Judith go on. "And if you had, do
you think Marianne wouldn't have found you out? Oh, Scroop, Scroop, do
you think women have no eyes?" She had a half-laugh for what she ended
with: "You and your proofs and particles of evidence!"
He gave up the point. "Then let us whitewash Marianne," said he, "and
make it all my fault. How much nearer are we--how much nearer to plain
sailing? It seems to me I have to choose between a chance--only a
chance, mind you!--of a legal sanction for the babies ... and, really,
dearest, it's not a thing I have ever fretted much about...."
"But you ought to have. What's the other choice?"
"... Between a chance of legitimacy for them and a certainty of
not losing you. Can you wonder that I, thinking as I do of these
legalities, should choose the last?"
"Listen, Scroop, and don't puzzle me with any more arguments. You make
my head spin. I can only see the thing as I believe any woman would see
it. This Parliamentary business may cut us asunder for ever; because
you know if the Bill passes you won't be able to divorce Marianne. If
I am to give you up, I want to do it here and now--to get it done and
part at once, for good...."
"I cannot give you up...."
"And we cannot linger on through a life of miserable uncertainty. Fancy
it!--next year the whole question over again--the same doubts--the same
arguments! No--let us part and have done with it!"
"You do not mean what you say."
"Perhaps not. Perhaps I am only flinching like a coward from a life
that might be unendurable. I would rather have my tooth out altogether
than have it ache for a twelvemonth. So what can I say now? I am ready,
if it can be arranged--that I don't know about...."
He interrupted her. "And I am ready--more than ready!" And this time
she did not repel him as he took her in his arms.
"But mind, dearest," said she, "if it were a certainty about the little
girls, I should still say we ought to hesitate. But...."
"But it isn't certainty--even if the Bill passes ever so!" He sealed
the compact on her lips--on her cheeks. It was a _fait accompli_.
But nothing could keep all those memories of the past quite, quite in
the background. They were all in evidence--dim evidence; yes!--even
that confounded mole on Marianne's cheek.
* * * * *
The day had become quite hot when the centenarian faggot-binder saw the
lady and the great dog say adieu to the gentleman in the light summer
suit, and noted with some satisfaction that the adieu was a loving one.
The gentleman seemed to watch the vanishing sunshade, in such request
against the heat, across the little bridge and out of sight, to the
last; then lit a cigar, and, passing near her, said "Good-morning," and
unprovokedly gave her what she thought a welcome sixpence. That old
lady and her great-great-grandchild called at the Hall next day to say
the gentleman had given her half-a-sovereign by mistake, and, inquiry
connecting the gentleman with Miss Arkroyd, procured the opinion of the
latter that of course the gentleman meant old Mrs. Inderwick to have
it. Who thereupon consigned it to a Georgian purse, and departed with
benedictions.
But before Challis and Judith parted they had planned their campaign.
And it only just came short of a prompt marriage by special licence.
Concession was made on two points; one was regarded as almost out
of court--namely, the chance that such a union could be regarded as
bigamous. For was it conceivable that a law that quashed his paternity
of his own children could indict him for his marriage with their
mother? It seemed grotesque; but was worth a word, in view of the
pranks of Themis.
The other point was this: So great a certainty might exist among
political informants that the Bill would be thrown out in the Lords
as to make the proposed step a ridiculously strained precaution, and
needless under the circumstances. Unanimity of one or two strong
Parliamentary authorities would be practical certainty, if they held to
their opinions up to the brink of the division. If the political sky
changed, causing them to waver, prompt action might be necessary.
In any case Challis was to procure a special licence, to be used or
otherwise, at discretion, the date chosen being as late as he should
think safe under the circumstances. Several minor difficulties had
to be disposed of, but the only point necessary to the story is that
Judith was to hold herself in readiness to become a bride at a short
notice, and that Challis was to be answerable for time and place and
the making of all the necessary arrangements. Trousseaux, travelling
gear, and the like, did not need consideration at present. For, in
fact, both parties distinctly understood this marriage to be a mere
precautionary measure, legally irrevocable, but otherwise _nil_.
The bride would return to her paternal hearth, and might even make
no allusion to the little event of the morning. The birds would not
nest, but their names would be entered as man and wife on some parish
register.
Challis said nothing to Athelstan Taylor of this scheme. He did not
wish to put his friend to the necessity of either concealing it and
assenting to it, or declaring it and fighting it. It seemed to him
that the Rector would be compelled to an attitude of protest by his
position, and that the most prudent as well as the fairest course for
himself would be to hold his tongue.
So he finished his visit at the Rectory, and said farewell.
CHAPTER XLVI
HOW LIZARANN SAW THE SEA, AND A CHINESE LADY WROTE A BAD ACCOUNT OF
HER TO HER FRIENDS. HOW IT NEVER REACHED JIM, AND MISS FOSSETT WAS
WIRED FOR. HOW THE RECTOR HAD TO GO TO CHIPPING CHESTER.
The tide was coming in at Chalk Cliff, and the Children, meaning
thereby all those on the coast at the time, were little glowing
spots of perfect unconcern; entire freedom from care, from memory
of the past and apprehension for the future; things as unencumbered
of responsibility and pain as tracts of smooth and furrowed sands,
beneath a broiling July sun, with endless pools at choice awaiting
the returning flood, and little boats to navigate them, and nets
to capture prawns, and sand-castles and spades and wooden panniers
you could pat the sand into, could make them. And the Children were
paddling in the pools, and insuring swift and prosperous passages to
the vessels under their control by pushing them--for there was never
a breath of wind--and chasing elusive prawns and unknown specimens
beneath the rocks, and putting their fingers in anemones, and molesting
crabs, and not succeeding in removing limpets suddenly from their
holdings, because the limpets were too sharp for them. Also they were
hard at work, the more purposeful ones, erecting sand castles the
very self-same shape as the limpets, and meeting in the middle, when
they--the Children--burrowed from opposite sides to complete the said
castles with four or even more tunnels, essential to perfect structure;
and, ending with their country's flag, in tin, upon the summit,
contentedly awaited the coming of the tide to wash it all away, and
leave them new clean spaces for to-morrow.
Why is Lizarann content to watch the Children in the sun, to be
dissociated from them as she lies upon the sand in the shade of that
big white umbrella a guardian nurse manipulates in her interest? Why
does she not seize the glorious opportunities of Life at its best; of
Life those babies yonder, too happy now to measure their own happiness,
will look back on one day not so very far hence as a sweet Elysium
of the past, a heaven of unquestioning content the clouds of the
years to come will never let them know again? Why does Lizarann--our
Lizarann!--prefer to lie still and converse with the good woman who
has charge of her?
Well!--you see, she got tired with the journey yesterday. That's all.
You'll see she'll pick up when she's been here a few days, and the
sea air has had time to tell. Besides, it is notorious that its first
effect on you is always enervating; and then you take quinine, and it
gives you a headache.
Whatever the cause, Lizarann accepted the effect, and was content to
watch the Children in the middle zone of best building sand, not too
wet and not too dry, all working hard to be ready for the tide that
was heralding its coming in a major key, as is the manner of tides
that have died sadly away to sea, six hours since, in a minor. A false
musical metaphor to him whose hearing goes no deeper than the surface
of sound--true! But not to Lizarann, though she knew as little as we
how to word the difference rightly between the joy of the sea returning
and the lament of its departure. For this is written because Lizarann
wanted to ask the lady in charge of her questions about this varied
sounding of the waters, noted by her in the wakeful hours of her first
night at the nursing-home.
This lady was benevolent, Lizarann was convinced. But for all that,
she was like the stout Chinese carved in wood who sat all day long in
the window of the tea-shop Aunt Stingy bought a quarter of a pound
at a time at, nearly opposite Trott Street. Only then this image was
evidently a portrait of a benevolent Chinese, of whom no little girl
would have been afraid to ask questions about the tides. Lizarann
reasoned on the position before she ventured on speech. Then she said:
"I heard that all the time I was in bed. Yass!--through the open
window."
"Poor little woman!" said the lady. "Yes, my dear, that's the water.
It's the sound it makes."
"It didn't kept me awike," said Lizarann, anxious not to reflect upon
the sea, of which she knew her Daddy had a high opinion. But the lady
had said, "Poor little woman!" on general principles; not, as the
little girl supposed, with reference to wakefulness caused by it.
"Some little girls like it very much," was the comment.
Lizarann wished this lady had thrown out a hint, for her guidance, as
to whether these were good little girls or bad little girls. She would
have to risk something, evidently. "I like it very much, please," she
said tentatively. "Please, ma'am, don't you?"
"I can't say I do, my dear. It fusses me. But then I sleep at the
back." Lizarann was disappointed. She had, in fact, been cherishing an
idea that the Mandarin-like, placid seeming of this lady had resulted
from the soothing lullaby of the ocean, heard night and day. Clearly
it would be safest to leave personal experiences and speak of Physical
Geography. Lizarann had a question to ask:
"Did it went on just like that when my Daddy went viyages aboardship?"
"Did it go on just like that? Yes, dear! It went on just like that.
More so, sometimes!"
"Louderer and louderer? And then it blowed a gale?"
"And then it blew a gale. I dare say." The Mandarin looked benevolently
round at her patient, and added: "We're very nautical."
Now Lizarann missed the last syllable, and therefore thought that she
and the lady, for some reason unknown, were very naughty. Of course,
the lady knew best; and, as she herself was inculpated, would never be
so dishonourable as to tell. So Lizarann asked for no explanations.
But she wanted to know about the tides, and some points in navigation.
Presently an incident supplied a text.
"Why did the lady ran away from the water?"
"Because she didn't want wet stockings." Yes--that was clear enough.
But why did the water run after the lady?--Lizarann asked, recasting
her question. "Because the tide's coming in," said her informant.
Explanations followed--not embarrassingly deep ones; the moon was left
out altogether. The water would come right up to where we were at two
o'clock because it was spring-tide. Then it would go back again for
the same reason; which seemed inconsistent to Lizarann, who was no
politician. But she was not really keen about the physical questions
involved. As soon as courtesy permitted, she reintroduced her personal
interest.
"When my Daddy was sarving aboardship"--it was funny to hear the child
repeat her father's words, said the Mandarin after--"did he _seed_ the
water go in and out, like we do?"
"If he was on the coast."
"Are _we_ on the scoast?"
"We are at Chalk Cliff, and Chalk Cliff's on the coast." Lizarann
didn't see why we should wash our hands of the coast, and throw the
whole responsibility on Chalk Cliff. But she accepted this too; only,
further definition would be welcome.
"Those are ships?" she half asked, half affirmed, looking out to sea.
"Those are ships. Some big, some little."
"Are they on the scoast?"
"Oh dear no!--miles away." Then Lizarann was beginning, languidly, a
demonstration that her Daddy, when voyaging on board ship, could not
also be on the coast and observe the tides, when the Mandarin--good,
well-intentioned woman that she was--must needs feel her patient's
pulse, and say she mustn't talk too much and make herself cough, and
advised her to lie quiet, and even go to sleep. Lizarann repudiated
sleep, as she wanted to watch the life around, and was only wishing
she hadn't got so tired with that railway-journey yesterday. It would
have been so nice to catch prawns and make sand-castles, like the
Children. But she acquiesced in inaction, to her own surprise; and to
her still greater surprise waked suddenly, shortly after, from a dream
of Bridgetticks and her small self building sand-castles in the gutter
in Tallack Street, and terribly in dread of the Boys.
Still, through it all, the little patient saw nothing strange in her
own readiness to submit to being nursed. She was first and foremost
among the disbelievers in the seriousness of her malady, and ascribed
all the solicitude that was being shown about her to an epidemic of
public benevolence, more or less due to misapprehensions set on foot
by Dr. Spiderophel's imperfect auscultations. It was a whim he had
inoculated a kind-hearted world with; and she felt, for some reason she
could not analyze, that it was easiest to indulge it.
So when her eyes opened again on the glorious vision of the great wide
sea her Daddy had told her of so many a time, as she nestled to his
heart by that dear bygone fireside in the London slum, with Uncle Bob
ending the day in a drunken drowse, and Aunt Stingy adding a chapter
to her long chronicle of her world's depravity and her own merits,
she made no effort towards movement--just lay still unexplained, and
watched the flood coming nearer, ever nearer, to a grand sand-castle
just below; and listened to the music of its ripples, and wondered
at the builders' exultation over the coming cataclysm, the wreck of
their morning's work. It seemed illogical, that shout of joy when a
larger wavelet than its fellows glanced ahead of them, and catching
sight of the majestic structure, rushed emulously on to be the first
to undermine it. But not illogical neither, to be proud of the gallant
stand that castle made against the seas; a miniature Atlantis dying
game, protesting to the last! Nor when the final effort of the British
Channel made of it mere oblivion--an evanescence in sand and foam and
floating weed--to mingle a general concession towards going home to
dinner now, with resolutions to come at sunrise, or thereabouts, and
build a bigger one still to-morrow.
The Mandarin lady was conversing with a family when Lizarann opened her
eyes, and all were looking towards the patient. But if what they said
was overheard by her, it was not understood; it was to the child only a
part of the general goodwill the World seemed bent on showing towards
herself.
"Very quick sometimes," said the lady, who couldn't have been really
Chinese, or the family wouldn't have called her Miss Jane. Then the
family's mamma, whose beauty seized on Lizarann so, almost, as to take
her attention off the sand-castle, said, "Poor, darling little thing!
How sad!" And then the castle was overwhelmed, turrets, battlements,
and flag; and if Lizarann had heard that much, she certainly heard no
more, and attached little meaning to that.
Besides, a very succulent little boy, who could not speak for himself
yet, owing to his youth, who had been interpreted as anxious to show
his prawn to the little girl, was being urged by his nurse to that
course, he having to all seeming suddenly wavered, and resolved to
conceal the prawn--who was lukewarm and unhappy from being held too
tight--in a commodious crease under his chin. Lizarann's attention was
at the moment divided between solicitude for the prawn's welfare and an
affection for this little boy she could not conceal, in spite of his
callous indifference to the lifelong habits of his prisoner.
And then the beach and its glories had passed away, and Lizarann was
aware that she had been carried indoors from a donkey-carriage she had
accompanied other patients home in, and was lying down indisposed for
food she recognized as nice; but trying to eat it too, to oblige Miss
Jane, the Mandarin, who seemed to have taken a great fancy to her.
Only she couldn't the least account for _why_ it should be such an
effort to eat her dinner; and ended by putting it down to the absence
of her Daddy, and wanting sorely to be back with him at Mrs. Fox's;
or--strange preference!--bringing him home from Bladen Street an intact
Daddy as of old, albeit eyeless by hypothesis, and all the dreadful
accident a dream.
There were reservations, though, to the way she let her heart go back
to those sweet stethoscopeless days. To make none would have been
disloyal to Teacher and to Mr. Yorick--oh yes!--and to Phoebe and Joan,
and Mrs. Fox, and even to Aunt Bessy, though the latter was not a
really well-informed person, and Dr. Spiderophel, who was more sinned
against than sinning, the victim of a fraudulent black pipe! If she
were still the little pilot of her eyeless Daddy through the crowded
streets, what would she now be to Teacher, who had got to be a sort of
mother to her?--what but one of a swarm of little girls in time, or
otherwise, for religious instruction at a quarter-to-nine, and breaking
loose in possession of two hours' more secular information at twelve,
except Saturday? What but an unknown unit of a crowded slum to Mr.
Yorick? Just think!--if there were no Mr. Yorick...!
"I think we may put it down to the fatigue of the journey yesterday.
You'll back me up in that, doctor?"
But the head physician of the Convalescent Home, who answered
Miss Jane, the Mandarin, wasn't a firmly outlined character. "I
see no objection to that," he answered. "But there's very strong
feebleness--very strong feebleness! Shouldn't say too much about
anything."
"I see," said Miss Jane. And that was all she said. But Lizarann, who
heard more than she was supposed to hear, this time, formed a very
low opinion of her new medical adviser. As if she had anything the
matter with her! She had a better opinion of Miss Jane; and when that
lady asked her, referring to a letter she wrote that afternoon to
Adeline Fossett--who was a friend of hers, it seemed--what message she
was to give on Lizarann's behalf, the patient had no misgiving about
entrusting a full cargo of loves and kisses for delivery to her.
As she lay and listened in a half-dream in the sunny room, with the air
coming in from the sea, to its distant murmur mixing with the drone of
those untiring flies on the ceiling, and the scratching of Miss Jane's
pen near at hand, the recent arrival at the Home had no suspicion
how serious a report of her case that lady was framing. She lay and
wondered when that long letter would come to an end, and looked forward
to the sweet experience of rejoining her Daddy, and talking more to
him about the sea he had known so well in the days when there was no
Lizarann. _She_ knew it now too; and was going to know it better still
to-morrow.
* * * * *
"We shall have to make up our minds, Bess," said Athelstan Taylor two
or three days later to his sister-in-law, at Royd.
"To...?" said Miss Caldecott, in brief interrogation.
"We shall have to make up our minds what to say to Jim Coupland. You
see what Addie thinks?"
Aunt Bessy saw, she said. But after reflection hit upon an escape from
painful inferences. Didn't Addie sometimes look on the worst side of
things? "Perhaps she does," said the Rector, and felt more cheerful
over it. Then he got sundry letters from his pocket, and re-read them.
His little access of cheerfulness seemed chilled by the reading, for
when he had ended he shook his head, in his own confidence, and sighed
as he refolded the letters.
"Let me look at them again," said Miss Caldecott. Both knew the
contents of these letters perfectly, and each knew the other knew them.
But it looked like weighing them in a more accurate pair of scales than
the last, every time of reading.
"Make anything of them?" the Rector asked, but got no answer. The
letters were being read slowly. Justice was being done to the question.
But the truth was Aunty Bessy was suppressing her inspirations because
she couldn't trust her voice with them. She was a dry and correct lady,
but affectionate for all that; and it was her affection for Lizarann
that had got in her throat, and would have to subside before she could
screw herself up to pooh-poohing the letter Miss Jane the Chinese had
written to Adeline Fossett, with such a bad account of her patient.
This was the letter we left Lizarann listening to, as she lay looking
forward to the sea, next day.
Presently the answer came, following on a short cough or two connected
with the throat-symptom:--"I do think people of that sort are often
very inconsiderate. Don't you?"
"Which sort?"
"People who are constantly in contact with this kind of thing--matrons
of hospitals--nurses--all that sort! However, you know best."
"Miss Fanshawe's a very old friend of Addie's, and tells her the truth
perhaps more freely because of her own experience--knows about Gus,
and remembers Cecilia." The name of the Chinese, then, was Fanshawe.
Cecilia was the sister that died.
"Perhaps," said Miss Caldecott. "Isn't the post very late?"
The post was audible without, with a powerful provincial accent. After
debate--which accounted for the post's lateness--its boots departed
down the garden gravel-path, and Rachel brought in the letters, and
said, "Shall I shut up, miss?" as Pandora's box might have said, if
willing to oblige.
The Rector was keen on one letter; the others might wait. Miss
Caldecott said, "Addie, I see," and waited also to read her own
letters. Then the usual course was followed in such cases. The Rector
read, and said, "All right! Directly," and, "Just half-a-second!" in
response to, "Well?" which came at intervals, like minute-guns with
notes of interrogation after them. Then expansive relief followed in
his voice. "Oh yes!--that's very satisfactory. Now I shall be able to
tell Jim." Then he surrendered one letter and read the other, saying
as he neared the end, "Ah well!--it's _substantially_ the same. I'm so
glad we got them to-night."
"I thought it was that," said Miss Caldecott. "Naturally, people who
see so many cases of this sort get frightened at every little thing."
She read the letter aloud, making selections: "'Was up and walked about
on the beach this morning.' You see, Athel? 'Sea air very often has
that effect at first'--oh, that's what Addie herself says--'expect the
Vim Æthericum will do wonders.' Some new medicine, I suppose. What does
Miss Fanshawe's own letter say?"
"Only what Addie reports. But I don't quite like...."
"What?"
"You'll see at the end there. 'Must be thankful she suffers so little'?"
"Oh, Athel! Now you _are_ begging and borrowing troubles."
"Well--I didn't like the wording of it. However, I think I shall be
justified in not reading that bit to her father. Poor Jim!"
* * * * *
This was in July, a fortnight or thereabouts before Challis paid his
visit to the Rectory. It is a good sample of the sort of thing that
had gone on in the interim. The sort of thing only very young or very
lucky folk are unfamiliar with--the bulletin-foundry's intense anxiety
to make the most of every little scrap of nourishment for Hope, on the
one hand; on the other, the amazing capacity of Hope for growing quite
bloated on starvation diet.
All the news that reached Jim about his dying child--the words give
the truth, brutally; but what does the story gain by flinching from
them?--was what a succession of kind hearts had tried to make the best
of, each without a particle of conscious wish to falsify or suppress.
What wonder that when Challis saw him at the well that day, Jim was
using the mere letter of the daily tidings he received to silence the
misgivings that were whispering to his heart? But they were there for
all that, making deadly forecasts in his mind of a life he would have
to live, he knew not how--a life that was darkness now, but still had
a light shining in that darkness that it heeded--a light that helped
oblivion of the cruel past. What would be left for him if that solace
were withdrawn?
He had always an undercurrent of suspicion that the evil was being
made the best of, for his sake. And in the greatness of his heart--for
Jim had a great heart--he felt pity for those who had to be the bearers
of ill news; none of them cut out for indifference to the suffering
of its hearers. If he lost his little lass, the Master--so he still
called Athelstan Taylor--would have to come and tell him; and Jim would
have been glad he should be spared the pain, after so much kindness
to himself and the lassie. Only, that pain would not be outside the
range of pity; a practicable human pain that could be thought of
and dealt with--not a pain like his own if the lassie followed her
mother. Or rather, that last pain would be no pain at all; merely the
dumb extinction of a soul. Or would it be like the anæsthetic that
multiplies suffering tenfold, and leaves its victim inexpressive--just
mere adamant? So much the better! Death would come the sooner.
But all the information Jim received was softened down, and he knew it.
A murmur he could not have found voice to speak aloud was always in
the inmost chambers of his mind, prompting doubt of the reports that
reached him. But he never showed a sign of his growing consciousness of
the gathering cloud, unless it were that he listened to his news, as he
got it, more and more in silence.
* * * * *
"How would he be the better if we did send him?" said Athelstan
Taylor to his sister-in-law, less than three weeks later. "He might
just arrive to find her dying. How would he know his little lass? Not
'by the feel' now! Addie says she's gone to a mere shadow. Not by
the voice...." His own broke, and he stopped. Aunt Bessy sobbed in a
window-recess, and thought she dried her tears unnoticed.
They had been walking to and fro and about the room in restless
perturbation, she interlacing the uneasy fingers of hands that wandered
to her brows when free, then interlaced again; he somewhat firmer,
but with lips not quite within control. He held the yellow paper of
a telegram to hand an hour since, and kept re-reading the twenty-odd
words that made it up, failing always to read any new and better
meaning into the heart of their brevity. It had come enclosed in a
letter from Adeline Fossett, who had the day previously been wired for
suddenly by Miss Jane, the Chinese lady at Chalk Cliff. A short and
grisly summons she knew the meaning of at once, following as it did on
a forewarning letter thirty-six hours ago--a letter that teemed with
excruciating assurance that there was no "immediate danger," but that
when there was the writer would send a telegram at once. She had kept
her word.
That letter, forwarded promptly on to the Rectory, had made heart-sick
discussion between Athelstan Taylor and Aunt Bessy since its arrival by
this morning's post. What ought to be said?--what _could_ be said to
the father of the dying child, who was now looking forward to her near
return home, building still whatever structures of hope the hesitating,
irresolute tidings of a month past had left a weak foundation for?
Who was to say to Jim that the time had come to give up that sweet
vision he to this hour was trying hard to cherish, of a miraculous late
summer and his little lass again, beside him at the well-head, in the
sunshine? Who was to shatter the thin crust of artificial hopes that
still kept under the fires of his misgivings, and leave them free to
break loose through the crater of a volcano of despair?
"How would he be the better?" the Rector asked again presently. "And if
I say to him now, 'Lizarann is dying, but you cannot be beside her when
she dies'--why--will not that be quite the worst thing of all? I can
only judge by imagining myself in his position. Poor Jim!"
"You must do as you think best, Athel dear," said Aunt Bessy. She was
not a tower of strength in a crisis, this good lady; but she wouldn't
hinder, though she couldn't help. Only, there are ways and ways of not
hindering. Her brother-in-law would have liked another sample, this
time one with less flavour of protest.
"Just look at it this way, Bessy," said he. "If I could say to Jim,
'The doctors are sending bad accounts of the little one, and you must
come with me straight away to see how things are going'--well!--that
would be quite another thing. But to prepare him for bad news, and the
rest of it, and then leave him alone in the cottage...!"
"He will be alone in the cottage. I had forgotten that. But it won't
be so soon ... surely...?" The hushed voice shows what is referred
to--the "arch-fear in a terrible form" on whose face Europe at least
cannot bear to look. How rarely does even the bravest among us speak
of the grim terror by name, with reference to a particular case!
What does it matter? Ways of saying the same thing are provided by
conventions that seem quite alive to the whereabouts of the sting
of Death, of the victory of the Grave. If the language of the daily
press is any evidence on the subject, the Immortalism of the Creeds is
only skin-deep. Disorders terminate fatally; folk breathe their last;
they share the common lot; they succumb; none is so old and weary
with the storms of Fate that the vernacular forecast of his release
will not "anticipate the worst." But nobody _dies_, except paupers,
in contemporary speech. Did you ever hear of a disorder "terminating
fatally" in a workhouse? Or perhaps insolvents die--was one ever known
to succumb?
Aunt Bessy was flinching before the inexorable, and pleading for
useless respite. "I know what it means," said the Rector, "when
telegrams like this begin. The old story!" He put the point aside with
a sigh. "Ah well!--anyhow, Jim may be alone for some days. It isn't
even as if I could be with him now and again. I _must_ go to this
Memorial business at Chipping Chester, and I can't get off stopping
to marry Audrey: she would never forgive me." He enumerated other
engagements--things that would keep him absent a week--even longer.
They were matters quite outside the story.
"When do you suppose old Margy will be back?"
"How can I tell? When do you suppose her niece's baby intends to be
born?"
CHAPTER XLVII
OF THE APPROACH OF LIZARANN'S RETURN, AND HOW JIM'S HOPES WERE FED BY
OLD DAVID. HOW JIM DID NOT CURSE A MOTOR-CAR. HOW LIZARANN DIED OF
TUBERCULOSIS
So it had come about that for weeks past news of Lizarann, that
none could doubt the meaning of, came to the Rectory, and that all
of it that passed on to her Daddy reached him corrected out of all
knowledge--the sting withdrawn.
Had he been able to read the letters that contained it himself, this
would not have been possible. Some may have a stone ready to cast at
Athelstan Taylor for this. The story has none. It was a question with
the Rector of allowing poor Jim a few more days of false hope in order
that he himself might be beside him in the first of his despair. His
own easiest course, far and away, would have been to read Adeline
Fossett's last letter to the poor fellow aloud, say, "God's will be
done!" and so forth, and get away to Chipping Chester. But he had it in
his mind to go to Jim when the use of the knife became inevitable, and
remain with him, if Mrs. Fox were still away, at least until the day of
her return. He shrank from leaving him alone in the cottage, a tortured
soul in a sunless universe, within reach of a razor.
Had he conceived for one moment what the speed of events would be,
his course might have been different. But the letters that he could
not read aloud to Jim were misleading on one point. The writer caught
constantly at the only easement words could be found for, that the
actual hour or day, or even week, of Death could not be forecast. The
dear little thing was not actually _dying_; she might live for weeks,
even months. But the doctor here--said Miss Jane Fanshawe--who really
had had immense experience, thought the case could only end one way.
Still, the temperature was half a degree lower to-day, and we thought
the air was beginning to tell. We should be able to see better when she
was got back home, with her old surroundings. She fretted a good deal
about her Daddy. That was the general tone of the penultimate letter.
Then came the one Miss Fossett enclosed on with the telegram which
followed it. It came too late for the Rector to modify his plan of
operations.
So Jim lived on by himself, and thought of his little lass, counting
the days to her return. He spoke with no one, water-customers apart,
except a neighbour who had undertaken to see to his needs in Mrs. Fox's
absence. His dog was under the impression that it was _he_ that was
doing this, and there can be no doubt that he actually did conduct
his master to and from the well. But nobody, except his canine self,
believed that he had any share in cooking the dinner or making the beds.
Each long day that went by was a day nearer to the blind man's hearing
of his child's voice. It would come, and would be hers once more--many
times more than once. His reason might whisper to him of one end, and
one alone, in some vague terrible future, to this insidious plague
that had stolen on him like a thief in the night, to rob him of his
happiness--the one jewel his darkness and his crippled limbs had left
him. But that the hour was at hand, and the word spoken, that the
light in his heart should be utterly quenched, and leave his soul to
a darkness blacker than the void his eyesight had become--this was an
idea it was not in him to receive, a thought that nature rose against.
No!--her return would be very soon now, and he knew how it would come.
He had nothing to guide him to the day or the hour beyond his knowledge
of the term first fixed--six weeks from the day of her departure. But
he knew what would be his first hearing of it. She would call out to
him--he was sure of that--the signal he had taught her to greet him
with, in the old days of Bladen Street; the word he had listened for so
many a time as he felt his way, touching with his stick the long blank
wall he had to pass before he could feel her little hand in his. He
dreamed and dwelt upon the moment when he should hear that call again,
"Pi-lot!"
The villagers coming to the well for water were a great solace to him;
a mine of robust hopefulness in which the choke-damp of misgiving was
unknown. Often when Jim was downhearted about the little lass--had got
a hump about her, as he phrased it--some village matron's voice would
come to him like a breath of fresh air. "Yow'ull be having yower little
maid back again vairy soon now, Master Coupland!" And the sympathetic
confidence bred in Jim's own voice would help him to a conviction
that it was well-grounded, as he answered, "Aye, mistress, sure!
But a very little time to run now!" Even when the slight insecurity
implied in the addendum, "Please God!"--making the little lass's return
conditional on anything--weakened the robust language of unqualified
Hope, Jim received it as a mere concession to the prejudices of
Society. Besides, he and his Maker were on better terms now, since his
initiation into church-music.
No note of alarm had reached the villagers; in fact, the Rector and
his sister-in-law kept their information to themselves. Even Phoebe
and Joan, when they paid Jim visits of consolation--every other day
or thereabouts--were a reassuring element; though so near sources of
better, or worse, information. They--poor little souls!--knew nothing
of death close at hand, though alive to funerals, somewhat as a
counsel's children might be alive to law-suits.
* * * * *
It was near the close of a cloudless day in the fourth week of that
August that Jim, undisturbed by applicants for water, was enjoying his
last pipe before starting for home. He was not alone. One of the very
old men one knows so well in every village was with him; a survival of
the past who will tell you tales of your grandfathers, and end them
up with some memory of a grandchild of his own, then living. Death
is keeping them in mind, be sure!--will not forget them in the end,
even though they may tax his recollection for another decade. This one
could remember his childhood better than the events of yesterday, and
though he could tell but little of it, was not quite without a record
of Waterloo. For he could recall how his father held him up, a child of
five, to see the blaze on Crumwen Beacon yander, when they loighted up
fires all round about for the news that had come of the great battle
across the water. But as for Nelson and Trafalgar, inquired about
keenly by Jim, as pages from the same book, he could say nothing of
them; they were afower his time. But he minded when they painted up
the sign of the Lord Nelson on the roo-ad to th' Castle, with an empty
sleeve to his cwo-at; and the painter of un didn't know his trade, and
put stoof with th' payunt to ma'ak it show up gay, and look at un now!
"It's a tidy bit o' time too, Master David," said Jim. "Many a year
afore ever I was heard tell of."
"Aye well--that's so! But you'll be quite a yoong ma'an, coo-unting by
years. Why, I lay you'll be yoonger by many a year than Peter Fox's
widow--she that's gone to her sister in Loon'un."
"My old mother at the cottage? Ah, she'll be my age twice told, and a
spell thrown in."
"Aye--aye! She's getting on, forward, now you ne'am it. But I mind
her when she first came to these parts--just a yoong wench, not long
wed--more by token my power missus lay dying at the time.... Noa!--I'd
been marrud woonce afower then--marrud to Sarah Tracey--you may ree-ad
her ne'am on the sto'an in the graveyard. But for Peter Fox's widow,
she was a coomly yoong wench, shooerly!"
He wandered among domestic events, until the dog, feeling he was
being taken too little notice of, remonstrated. The substance of his
communication, interpreted by Jim, was that it was time to be getting
back home. On the road, his opinion was they were going too slow, and
he endeavoured to drag his master at a trot. Old David commented on the
restlessness of youth.
"But you won't be needing th' yoong poop soon, Master Coupland. That
little maid of yowern she'll be coomin' ba-ack, I lay, none so many
days ahead."
Here was a chance for Jim to reassure himself.
"For all I could say," said he, "the lassie may be up at the Rectory
now. She'd come with her lady, as I make it out; just for the first
go off, seeing the old mother's not handy for to nurse her up. Not
that there'd be the need for it, to my judgment. These here doctor's
stories...."
The old man interrupted him, stopping in the road to speak, with an
uplifted impressive finger. "Do'ant ye hearken to none o' they, Master
Coupland. They be a main too clever, that they be! Why, I'm not the
only ma'an with a tale to tell about they doctors?"
"What might your tale be, Master David?"
"My tale? Now I only say this to ye, Master Coupland. Just ye look at
me.... Aye--be sure!--I should ha' said, feel hold of my arm.... There
now!--where do ye find th' hospital pa'atient in that? Towerned o'
ninety-nine year, last Whitsuntide! What'll your doctors ma'ak of that?"
"Won't they give you a clean bill, Master David?"
"Couldn't roightly say, Master Coupland, without consooltin' of 'em.
And I can tell ye this much, they'll have to make shift without me; you
may tell 'em so! Now, you hearken to me, not to they." The voice of the
old boy, so nearly a centenarian, rose quite to vigour as he worked up
his indignation against leechcraft. "That little maid of yowern, she
has a bit o' cough o' nights?"
"Aye, aye!--a fair sort of a cough--comes and goes by the season."
"Ah!--and I lay, now and again o' nights, she'll sweat like to sop a
flannel shirt through, like a spoonge?"
"And that's true, too!"
"And happen she's thinned doon a bit?--happen she hasn't...?"
"To the touch o' my hand, belike! But I'm an onsartain judge--and
that's the truth."
"Now I'm telling ye this." The old man stood still to make his tale
the more impressive, his thousand wrinkles and his few grey hairs all
fraught with emphasis that was lost on his hearer; though the sight
of them in the afterglow might have held a passer-by, and made him
listen. He repeated: "I'm tellin' ye this, Master Coupland. If ye
could have handled me when I was a yoong lad of mebbe fowerteen year,
or fifteen, you would just have felt through to th' boans. _And_ the
cough, night and mowerning--my word! You might well ha' thowt yower
little maiden's just a gay trifle.... What said th' doctor?" The old
man laughed scornfully, if toothlessly. "Said to my moother she might
let the oonderta'aker measure me for my coffin. And she was that
simple she took his word for it, and vairy nigh did ... ah!--you may
be laughin'--but vairy nigh she did! And there was I the while, just
turned off my food and drink for a spell! Groo-wun I was, I ta'ak it.
And to hear doctor cha-atterin', cha-atterin'! Such a maze o' wo'ords,
it passes thinkin' where he could have gotten so ma-any. Ha--ha--ho!"
And the old man resumed his walk with, "Eighty-fower year agone, Master
Coupland, and me here, hale and hearty, to tell the tale!"
And no doubt a good deal of the tale was true, and the good-will of
its narrator past all question. But he was making the most of it for
the sake of the pleasure it gave him to cheer up the blind man's
loneliness, without thinking quite enough of his responsibility to
truth. When he wished Master Coupland sound sleep and pleasant dreams
at the gate of the little cottage, and went slowly on to his own home
in the village, he was saying good-bye to a man only too ready to give
the rein to the horses of the chariot of Hope, even without an excuse.
And here he had one, surely.
So, through his lonely supper--for, granting it cooked and placed on
the table, Jim had a marvellous faculty of shifting for himself--he was
building a sweet castle in the air with the materials so good-naturedly
placed at his disposal. He imagined to himself as a thing to be
to-morrow, if it had not already come to pass to-day, a journey home of
a reinstated Lizarann, all eagerness for her Daddy. Not an exorbitantly
robust little lass--he would not be unreasonable--but one perceptibly
better than the one that left him a month since; whose kisses he could
still feel, was soon to feel again. As he lighted his pipe in the
garden with a vesuvian--for he never lit it in the house when alone,
for safety's sake--and sat smoking under the stars in the clematis
arbour, now beginning to lose its glory, it glowed in unison with the
fire of a stimulated hope the old man's tale had kindled. If old David
had been worse off eighty-four years ago than Lizarann, why should not
the child have many a long year of life before her--aye!--even after
he, Jim, had borne the last of his troubles, and was laid beside Dolly
in the grave? Short of that, why should not he at least treasure the
hope of the month to come, with Lizarann herself beside him in the
warmth of that late summer the gentleman had all but guaranteed? For
this castle in Spain owed a great deal of its vividness to Challis's
obliging meteorology. He had vouched for "St. Augustin's Summer," and
it sounded well.
Then a painful thought came to him. It had fretted him before this, at
intervals. How if that grave where Dolly lay could not be found? What
did he know about it? Little enough! Priscilla knew; she had arranged
all that--as Jim, for all his good-nature, suspected--with a certain
ghoul-like joy. But suppose, when he himself came to an end, Lizarann
wished to place as much as was left of him beside her mother, where
was the Lizarann of that day to find her? Well!--he could do nothing
about it now. He would speak to the master, and make a clear chart, for
the lassie's sake. No question came in here of how _he_ might be the
survivor, and have to place _her_ in her mother's grave. Old David's
tale had been an opiate to thoughts like that, and his heart rested on
it.
Oh yes!--Lizarann was due, to-morrow or next day at furthest. She would
tell him about the sea. He could bear to hear of it from her--his
lassie who had seen it--though he had fought shy of actually hearing
what he could never see again himself.
He was so happy in his dwelling on her near return, and the glamour he
had clothed it with, that he could smoke there beneath the starlight
he could not see, and think of his old nights on ship-board without a
pang. Little things came back to him, long forgotten; one particularly,
slight enough in itself, but so unlike Tallack Street and the spurious
match trade! A wandering ice-floe from the Antarctic Circle, as the
ship passed the Falkland Islands; and upon it, clear in the light of a
great golden moonrise, a huge white she-bear with one young cub. They
were drifting northward--ever northward--to the heat, and the seeming
firm ground beneath their feet would melt quicker and quicker each day,
to fail them altogether in the end, and leave them to die hard--the
strong swimmers--in the deadly warmth of some tropic sea. Jim wondered
at the thoughtlessness of his young day of brute courage and heedless
energy, and how he never had a thought _then_ for the mother-bear and
her despair of saving her child in that plain of immeasurable waters;
while _now_, for some unexplained reason, it was quite a discomfort to
him to think of it, there in old Margy's arbour under the clematis.
But presently he suspected a reason why he felt a new feeling over
it. How if his hold over his child, his precious possession, was
melting--melting away! He brushed the intolerable thought aside! Could
he not feel for the poor soul on the iceberg, bear though she was,
without that? Oh yes!--Lizarann would come to-morrow.
All this trouble, and doctoring, and the like, makes a man raw, thought
poor Jim to himself, seeking for apologies for his failure to attain
a Spartan ideal. 'Tain't like then-a-days, when you might be in a
high sea any hour of the day or night, and be whistled up to take in
sail--as he was, to be sure, out of a dream about Dolly, that very time
he saw the Flying Dutchman, and lost his sight the week after.... There
now!--where was the use of going back on bygones, when Lizarann would
be here to-morrow, to hear him tell again about the Dutchman, with all
her added knowledge of the sea to help.
But it was true, for all that, that a man got soft with nothing to
rouse him up like, and keep him off of nursing up his old grievances,
with ne'er a soul nigh to throw a word to. Jim never felt any too sure,
neither, that his new cult of music was not an enervating luxury.
Undermining musical phrases crept into his practice as a chorister
that made him no better--mind you!--than a cry-baby. There was one
in particular that was almost cruel to him in its beauty--it was as
a matter of fact an adaptation by the Rector of that Ave Maria of
Arkadelt that you know as well as we do--and he sang it aloud to the
night-wind stirring in the trees, and the owls, for by now night was
over all, in a kind of bravado, to show that he could bear it. But
his voice broke on the last cadence, do what he might. "There, ye
see!--just come of being so lonesome!" Jim spoke aloud to the darkness
and the owls, to feel his solitude less if it might be.
But what did it matter when his lassie was coming to-morrow--coming
to-morrow!
How the time was passing! There went the cottage clock again the
third time since Jim lighted his first pipe after supper. Surely he
must be mistaken!--it would stop on the stroke of ten. He counted the
deliberate strokes, each with its long preliminary warning; and on the
eleventh said to himself that he must have counted wrong. Could he
possibly be within an hour of the day that was to bring him Lizarann?
Listen for the church-clock of the village, and make sure! He could
hear his own heart beating in the stillness, even through the monotone
of a cricket somewhere close at hand. Old Margy's clock was a bit fast
always....
There!--sure enough this time, the first stroke on the wind. Jim
counted steadily to the tenth, and all but made quite certain he had
heard the last, so long did the pause seem to his anxiety, when yet
another came. No mistake this time. Eleven! Bedtime.
Was it true? One hour more, and he might be asleep, to wake up to the
day that would bring him back the thing that was dearer to him than the
light no day would ever bring again. Only an hour!
His little dog, sharper of hearing even than he, caught a coming
sound afar, and started up in sudden indignation, dog-wise, that
something, somewhere, was presuming to exist without consulting him!
Whatever it was, Jim thought a restraining finger in his collar a good
precautionary measure; with a slight admonition that a smothered growl,
for the present, would meet all the needs of the case. It continued to
express, under protest, a deep, heart-felt resentment as of a wrong too
great to be endured, and still Jim could not spot the cause. At last
a motor-horn, somewhere, perhaps, on the far side of the village--two
miles away, say!
Loud and faint, by turns, through the village; then clearer on the
open road, and then the noise of wheels at great speed. The little
dog, probably catching the blinding glare of the lamps, lost all
self-control at those two great unheard-of wrongs to his kind, and gave
way to his feelings without reserve. Then a rush and a dust-cloud, left
to do its worst, at leisure, to the lungs of man and cattle and plants,
and a stench to poison the sweet air of heaven. And then a couple of
folk had been carried, quicker than need was, from Thanes Castle to
Royd Hall, with the execrations of a small population behind them.
Jim was too happy at heart to curse even a motor-car. Besides, he
remembered how once this very car had given his little lass a ride. He
owed it a benediction rather. He felt his way to his couch, and had got
his wooden leg off, and found his pillow, before the reek of petrol had
died away, and was asleep almost as soon as the little dog beside him.
Was it his last sleep there before he should hear his little lassie's
voice again?
* * * * *
The gas was turned down low, almost to extinction, in the ward of the
Chalk Cliff Nursing Home, where Adeline Fossett was preparing to
pass the night beside her little invalid's bed. There was no other
patient in the room. Miss Jane, looking worn and sad, was just saying
good-night, with a small hand-lamp in her hand, whose green shade was
no help to the pallor of either lady. Both knew what was pending;
neither knew how soon.
"Ring if you have the least doubt about it, dear," said Miss Fanshawe.
"But my own impression is this will go on a day or two longer. I can't
say, but I think if there's a change you'll see it."
"I won't scruple to call you. But I suppose there's nothing to be done
that I can't do?"
"Nothing at all. No one can do anything now. Good-night, Adeline!" As
she opened the door to go, a muffled clock outside struck midnight.
"It's twenty minutes fast," said she, as she closed the door. Then,
as Miss Fossett sat in the half-darkness in the large chair by the
bedside, she could hear two sounds--the interrupted breathing of the
little patient on the bed, and the rapid, irritating ticking of her own
watch, laid by chance on something resonant. It would become maddening,
she knew, in the growth of the stillness, as the night took its hold
upon her; so presently she rose and quenched it. Then, being up, she
went to the window, just open for ventilation, and feeling the soft
air, warm for late August, opened it gently to its width, and leaned
out. The voice of the water was a bare murmur now, away off over half
a league of sand; and the wind must have changed, for the bells of a
church a mile inland were striking twelve at leisure, and were clear
through the silence; till, a railway-yell cutting them off at the tenth
stroke, they wavered, lost heart, and died. These were sounds new to
the day at Chalk Cliff, bathed for forty-eight hours in a southwest
wind, off the sea.
"What did you say, darling?" She closed the window gently, and went
back to the bed, to hear.... "Why can't you hear the waves? Is that it?
Because the tide's going out. Because it's gone out as far as it can
go."
"Can't it go no furver?" asks the voice from the pillow, through a
breath that goes heavily.
"Not to-day. Next time it goes out it will--at least, I think so."
The speaker was not sure on the point, but she had caught sight of a
three-quarter moon, and that would do to quote in case of catechism.
She turned on the light slightly, to talk by; then sat by the bed
again. But Lizarann's days of scientific inquiry are over. She listens
for the sea though, because her Daddy once went sea-voyages, still.
"Mustn't I be took to my Daddy in free dyes, by the rilewye?" The sound
of the railway-whistle through the window has helped to this.
"Yes, darling; in three or four days you shall go to Daddy. There's a
big grape with the skin off for you to suck. Such a big one! Try if you
like it."
Lizarann gives her old nod, with the grape in her mouth. She is
refusing other diet now, and it was clear two days since that
nourishing food and stimulants had been given every chance and failed.
She is to be allowed to die in peace, being in good hands.
"I do love you, Teacher, very, very much!"
"So do I, darling.... There are no pips to spit out, because I took
them all out. Another?... No?--very well, dear; then I won't bother
you.... The counterpane?--it's too heavy? Very well, dear, we'll have
it off ... so!"
Which of us, over five-and-twenty, has the luck to be still a stranger
to the penultimate restlessness of coming Death--to the hands that
will still be weakly seeking for God knows what!--the speech that
cannot frame some want its would-be speaker may be helpless to define,
but will not give up attempting? Lizarann is nearing that stage
fast--faster than Adeline Fossett thought when Miss Jane left her but
now.
But her mind is quite clear still on the great main point of her small
life. The words "Only Daddy most!" show the continuous current of
her thought, coming as they do a long pause after her apostrophe to
"Teacher."
"Of course Daddy most, darling child!" says the latter. "But Mr. Yorick
very much too!"
The name arouses enthusiasm. "Oh, very, very much too!" But this is too
great a tax on the poor little lungs, tubercle-gripped, and an attempt
to follow with a schedule of loves deserved and granted fails, and
quiet is imperative.
Adeline Fossett turned down the light again, and remained silent,
listening to the heavy breathing, with its ugly little spasmodic jerk
now and again. She was unhappy in her mind, over and above grief.
Here was this little thing with only a few days at most to live--she
was convinced of that--and utterly unconscious of her state. Was
it right--was it fair--to leave her so? All the traditions of her
religious cult from youth upward said no; according to them, the dying
were to prepare, or be prepared, for death. But when the patient was
simply slipping almost painlessly away--seeming at least to suffer
only from an inexplicable feverish unrest, never from acute pain that
could not be denied at will--what was to be gained by thrusting on a
childish mind a demand to face the black contingency, to make a formal
acknowledgment of the grave? Would it not be safe to give one little
soul Godspeed into the Unknown, whose only care was now that each of
her many loves should be known to their recipients, each in its right
degree? Would not those very loves be as garments to shelter the
new-born soul in the world beyond, whether the date of its arrival was
now or hereafter? She was shocked at the venturesome impiety of the
question she half-asked herself:--Could she not trust God for that?
A happy inspiration hinted at a half-answer in the affirmative, and
biassed her to silence.
Another anxiety, perhaps more pressing still, took the place of that
one. Ought she not to have written more explicitly to the Rectory
about the child's state? On her arrival, in answer to Miss Fanshawe's
telegram, she had found nothing to warrant prediction of the days, or
even weeks, that the tension might be prolonged. All she could say with
certainty was that Lizarann was at present quite unfit to be moved, but
that it was impossible to foresee. We must wait on events. But she said
never a word to set any hopes afoot. She had written almost daily; once
in answer to a letter of Athelstan Taylor, telling how he might have to
go away for a few days, and of his resolution of silence with respect
to Jim. She was, at first, inclined to disapprove this course, but
later saw that it was unavoidable, and wrote to that effect. Still, the
idea of Jim in ignorance, nourishing hopes, perhaps, while his little
lass lay there dying, was an excruciating one. She said to herself
repeatedly that it was merely an idea; that the co-temporaneousness
of a death with far greater unconsciousness of its possibility than
Jim's was an everyday occurrence. What would the wife, who now hears
of her husband's death months ago, have gained by the knowledge of her
widowhood, had the news come sooner? She pictured other instances to
persuade the idea away. But it remained.
Miss Fanshawe, to whom this case was only one of a hundred, said to
her, "If you could spirit the child's father down here to be with
her when she dies, that would be another matter. But you say that's
impossible. Why give him ups and downs of anxiety? Tell him what you
like by way of preparation, but not till it's all over." Miss Fossett
felt the truth of this view, but the position grated on her moral
sense. However, she felt she must submit to the discomfort of a sense
of untruth for awhile. It was not to last long.
She must have been dozing, and for longer than she could have believed
possible, when she waked suddenly to reply to the child, who had
spoken, with, "Yes--darling! What did you say?"
"Aren't you going to bed, Teacher?"
"Yes, dear, presently."
"'Tin't night?"
"Yes, it's night. But that doesn't matter. I shall go to bed presently."
"When shall you go to bed?" After a pause, this.
"Presently, when Miss Jane comes. She'll come very soon." Then, in
response to something only audible to close listening, "No, darling,
you're not to have the nasty medicine--only the nice one. It's not time
yet for either.... Why mustn't you have no medicine?... Well, darling,
you know we all have to take medicine when the doctor says so...."
"Did the doctor said I was ill?"
"Yes, dear, the doctor said you were ill, and to stop in bed till you
were quite well ... what?"
"And then go home to my Daddy where Mrs. Forks is?"
"And then go home to your Daddy where Mrs. Fox is." A phase of coughing
comes upon this; alleviation is tried for with the nice medicine. But
stimulants and sedatives have had their day in this case. Adeline
Fossett is becoming alive to the fact. However, the nice medicine can
still soothe a little; and in half an hour a lull comes, and a kind of
sleep.
Then for the watcher another deadly doze, of jerks and nightmares.
And then another waking to the sound of the little patient's voice,
curiously full of life this time.
"When I'm took home to my Daddy, Teacher, where Mrs. Forks is...."
"Yes, dear!"
"Shall the children go on digging and spaddle in the water, just the
same like now?"
"Yes, darling, just the same, till it's too cold. Then they'll go home
and go to school."
"And fish for sprawns just the same?"
"Just the same."
"And when they've gone to school and no one's on the beach to see, will
there be high water?"
"High water? Yes, of course, dear--every day, just the same as now ...
what?"
"And low water?"
"And low water too."
"Like when my Daddy went sea-viyages?"
"Like when your Daddy went sea-voyages." But this has been a long talk,
and has gone slowly against obstacles of speech. So when Lizarann ends
with a half-inaudible, "I sould tell my Daddy that," the torpor is
returning, and it may be she really sleeps, for all that the breathing
is so difficult. She has persisted that she suffers no pain; so Miss
Fossett tries for satisfaction on that score. But the fear is that
having no pain may only mean that the pain eludes description. Still,
there is room for hope, of a sort.
* * * * *
"I've heard many cases talk like that, quite brightly, just before,"
says Miss Jane, standing by the bed. She has come to relieve guard, and
has heard her friend's report of her night's watching. Lizarann has not
moved since she spoke last, an hour ago, and still lies in what may be
sleep, breathing heavily. The jerks in the breathing do not wake her,
strangely.
"She was almost chattering, one time," says Miss Fossett. "Poor little
darling!"
"About her Daddy?"
"Yes, and about the high and low tides, and how he went sea-voyages."
"Fancy that! The little soul! But no delirium?"
"I think none. Just a little feverishness--in the half-waking. Not
delirium."
"You go to bed now. I'll call you if there is anything."
"Promise to!" A nod satisfies the speaker, who goes away to lie down.
As she looks out, from a window on her way, across a sea without a
ripple, she understands why the tide was unheard. Even now, scarcely
a sound! She pauses a little to look at the planet blazing above the
offing, and its long path of light upon the water--wonders is it Venus
or Jupiter?--and passes on to rest. How callous is the bed one lies
down on in one's clothes, with something over one, to get a few hours'
sleep! And how hard they are to get, sometimes!
* * * * *
Adeline Fossett had had over three hours when she waked with a start in
response to a hand on her shoulder. "I should like you to come," said
Miss Jane, who then returned at once.
Lizarann, or the shadow that had been she, was propped up with pillows
on the bed when Miss Fossett followed her friend two minutes later. "Is
that Teacher?" was what she seemed to say. But speech was very faint
indeed.
"I don't think she sees you," said Miss Jane.
"Can you hear what I say, darling?" Yes, apparently; and knows it is
Teacher who speaks. What is it we can get for her? For the feverish
movement of the hands, and the constant effort to articulate, have all
the usual effect of baffled speech, with much to say.
Miss Fanshawe's wider hospital experience makes her less receptive of
the idea. She waited, silent, while Miss Fossett asked the question
more than once, before any intelligible answer came.
Then speech came suddenly to Lizarann. She wanted to get up now, and
go to her Daddy. Yes!--she sould like to have her new flock on and go
to her Daddy. Mustn't she go, Teacher? To which Teacher replied: "Yes,
darling, you shall go, very soon. But it's night now, and Daddy's in
bed."
"But I _shall_ go?"
"Yes--indeed you shall! Very soon." Then Miss Fossett looked up at
Miss Jane, who merely said, "Not very long now." But how strong the
voice was for a moment! Yes--that would be so sometimes--sometimes even
louder than that. Wasn't she speaking now?
Miss Fossett stooped to listen again. "I shall see my Daddy," is all
she hears. Yes--Lizarann shall see her Daddy--it's a promise! What is
that she's saying now? Be quiet and listen!
"When I see my Daddy--when I see my Daddy...."
"Yes--darling! What?"
"When I see my Daddy I shall call out, 'Poy-lot!'"
CHAPTER XLVIII
HOW JIM ADDED STORIES TO HIS AIR-CASTLE, AND SMOKED HIS LAST PIPE.
HOW HE KNEW CHALLIS'S VOICE AGAIN. WHO HAD TO BE AT THE PARK GATE BY
NINE. HOW JIM HEARD THE MOTOR COMING BACK, AND LIZARANN'S VOICE. HOW
ATHELSTAN TAYLOR ARRIVED WITHOUT HER. OF JIM'S DEATH AND HERS
Athelstan Taylor and Aunt Bessy were at breakfast when the telegram
came to say all was "over unexpectedly; writing." It was opened by the
Rector, who rose and handed it to his sister-in-law; then passed on to
the door in time to stop an incursion of Phoebe and Joan with "Aunty's
coming directly, chicks. Run away now." But not in time to prevent Joan
having good grounds for asking Phoebe why Aunt Bessy was crying.
Aunt Bessy was, no doubt. And the Rector was completely upset, too, for
the moment. He had not the least expected anything so soon. But his
work was cut out for him now. "I must go to poor Jim at once," he said.
"Oh, Athel, Athel!" said Aunt Bessy through her sobs. "You know, don't
you, dear, that Jim would have been told before if I had had my way?"
It was what Athelstan himself afterwards spoke of to Adeline Fossett as
"poor Bessy's I-told-you-so consolation." The Rector was grieved for
her grief, and knew that this expedient would really help her to bear
it, so he was not going to grudge her all she could get from it.
"I know, Bess," said he. "Perhaps I was wrong. However, I didn't see
quite what else to do. And I never imagined anything so sudden as this.
Poor Jim!"
But it was only an easement, to be used and discarded. Miss Caldecott
was ready to surrender the point--certainly wouldn't rub it in.
"P-perhaps you _were_ right, after all!" said she. Her grief for
Lizarann was very real. And how was she to tell Phoebe and Joan?
"You may trust me to do whatever can be done for poor Jim, Bess. I
shall go to him at the Well at once. He won't be absolutely unprepared
by the time I tell him, because he knows my foot on the road a long way
off, and he will know something has happened by my coming so early.
It's not half-past eight yet. I shall be with him soon after nine."
"Won't he think you're bringing her with you? She was to have come here
first, you know. That was the arrangement."
"Oh no! He never used to expect her till he heard her call, 'Pilot.'
You know?"
"Oh, I know! Poor little Lizarann!"
* * * * *
And all those weary hours of the watchers by the bedside of his dying
child, Jim had slept sound, treasuring in the heart of his dreams
the inheritance of that last lucky memory of overnight. Old David's
tale of how he was condemned in boyhood, to live after all into his
hundredth year, stayed by Jim as a pledge of a sure Lizarann in the
days to come--a very sure one in that St. Augustin's summer that was
all but due now. Jim had slept sound, and the story does not grudge
him his sweet delusions. The heart-tonic of that false diagnosis of
eighty years ago took a variety of dream-forms before the morning, but
never lost its savour. By turns it would be a thing and an incident.
Jim had hardly time to appreciate the draught of nectar it became, when
it had changed, even as it touched his lips, to a triumphant arrival
in a glorious port, after stormy seas, with a wreck in tow, called
the Lizarann. Jim would fain have kept that dream, to see that wreck
refitted ready for sea. But then of a sudden, the wreck was no wreck,
but a tree, and Lizarann was up in the tree. And Jim was just thinking
now that he would see what Lizarann was really like, without any
wonderment why she was never visible before, when the tree changed its
identity and became old David himself, or his story; Jim was not clear
which. But through these dreams, and others, the interwoven warmth of
joy was always the same--the reinforced hope the old chap's yarn had
left behind.
Nevertheless, when Jim woke he found it hard to remember where on 'arth
he was; and didn't remember, at first. But he knew that when he did it
would be nice. And so it was. It was old Margy's cottage, and Lizarann
was coming back to it. Jim noticed that everything said so to him. A
voluble hen, however anxious she was he should know about her egg, made
frequent reference to Lizarann's return. A blackbird conversed with
a family of wrens about it, and a linnet endorsed their view, that
Lizarann was certainly coming back. A herd of cows, going leisurely to
pasture, lowed a great deal about it, and repeated to each other again
and again, "Lizarann is coming back," as they died away in the distance
musically. And Jim knew that, far afield, a thousand larks were all of
a tale, above the shorn crops in the blue heaven, telling each other
Lizarann was on the road--was coming back once more to her Daddy. His
little dog especially was clear about it, but was also clear that it
would never do to neglect official obligations, and dragged Jim to the
well-head with all his wonted enthusiasm. He was perfectly competent to
give due notice of her arrival, but business was business.
The essentials of Jim's breakfast, arranged overnight, scarcely brought
him in contact with human converse, because the very little girl, who
came with milk, and took ba'ack t'yoother joog, was so absorbed in her
task as to be able to think of nothing else, and speechless. Besides,
she had misgivings that the little dog wanted her blood, and made her
visit as short as possible. But when Jim arrived at his well-head, he
soon got a chance to speak of his hopes to a fellow-creature, although
it was a young one--too young to talk the matter out with. It was not
always easy to identify these youngsters, as they made no allowance for
blindness; only nodding affirmatives when asked their names right. Jim
had to impute wrong names, and provoke corrections.
"You're little Billy Lathrop, young man, I take it?"
"No-ah be-ant. Oy be Ma-atthew Ree-ad doon th' la-an--two dower off
Lathrop's."
"I reckoned you might be. It's your brother Jack I've to thank for the
loan of this young tyke. He'll be wanting to see him back. Suppose
you was to tell him he may have him back to-morrow. Or next day at
farthest. A smart young character like you can begin larnin' to carry
messages."
"Oy'll tell un."
"Because Lizarann's coming back--that's what you've got to tell. _Who_
is it's a-coming back, hey?"
"L'woyzara-ann."
"My little maid, d'ye see?"
"Yower little may-ud."
"That's a likely young customer. Now mind you tell your brother Jack
just that and nothing else, Matthew Read." And Matthew Read departed
with his pails, leaving Jim all the happier for having, as it were,
substantialized and filled out his hopes by this little performance.
The pipe Jim lighted with a vesuvian after discharging a few more
water-claims, now and then recurring to the subject nearest his heart
with the more talkworthy claimants, was as happy a pipe as he had
ever smoked. As the sun rose higher, a full-blooded southern Phoebus
with no stint of heat in his veins, he could rejoice in the evident
influence of this mysterious St. Augustin, of whom he had never heard
before, but who clearly could make a summer for him and his little
lass. It was coming, and so was she. She would not, maybe, be her old
self for a bit. But, then, no more had old David been. And that was
eighty-four years ago--over half a century before Jim was born! Any
number of glorious expectations might entrench themselves behind such a
precedent--making a fortress in his soul against Despair.
Who says tobacco cannot be enjoyed in the dark? Jim had heard that
story, and thought to himself as he cleared his pipe of ashes that
he could tell another tale. But what was that pipe to the pipes he
would smoke when his little lass was back, to make all this caution in
lighting them needless? It was as good as having eyes himself to have
the child beside him. But suppose now he had been blind from birth!
Think of what it would have been like to have never a tale to tell to
his little lass! He had so lost himself in his love for the child that
this little bit of optimism came spontaneously, without a shade of
bitter comment about being thankful for small mercies.
It was curious to him now--admittedly so--that he had shrunk from
hearing again the sound of the waves, seeing he was actually looking
forward to hearing Lizarann tell of them. It was on one account a
disappointment to him, that since she was taken away to Chalk Cliff
the weather had been so calm. It was true that the one letter she had
written him--just at the time of that slight fluctuation upwards in
the first week of her stay--had told of a rough sea, with such big
waves; but then it had told also of how a pleasure-boat had been shoved
off and a lady got wet through. Would that rough sea help him to tell
her, better than before, what the waves were like when he was on that
steamer in the China seas, and a typhoon swept the decks clear?
Talking was going on, down the road. Somebody was referring to the
Rectory, speaking of it as the parsonage. Jim listened. Pa'arson
had coom whoam yesterday. That was all right, but had no one else
come to the Rectory? Yesterday was exactly six weeks and a day since
Lizarann's departure. But Jim had hedged against despair with constant
self-reminders that her not having come need mean nothing. So he could
ask questions, equably.
"News of th' Master, belike, Jarge?" He affected great ease of
speech--a chatty nonchalance--as he awaited the arrival of the voice
he had recognized at the road-end of the avenue to his Well. He had
stumped along it quick, though, for a wooden leg and a stick.
"Nowt amiss has gotten t' Maister," said the bee-tender, taking time.
"Not for to reach _my_ ears, this marn'n."
"Thought I heard some guess-chap give him his name, Jarge. Yonder
along, a good cast down the road. Who might you have been talking to?"
"Po-ast."
"Ah!--and what said the Post?"
Jarge took more time, during which Jim urged him to fix his mind firmly
on the Rector. Jarge had understood that the Rector had come home, and
that the Post's son had just gone off to him with a telegram when the
Post left home. This was as much as Jarge could be expected to know all
at once, outside bee-craft; so Jim spared him further catechism. "Thank
'ee kindly, Jarge!" said he. "What o'clock might you make it?" Jarge
made it a qwoo-aater to eight-yut by th' soon, and Jim thanked him
again, and stumped back to the well-head.
In his sanguine mood, he took a rose-coloured view of that telegram.
Lizarann and Teacher had not come back yet, but it heralded their
coming. Why!--what else could it be, unless it was no consarn of his,
anyhow? He lit another pipe, and gave himself to happy anticipations;
for the influence of old David's early experience was strong on him.
Being alone, he talked to his little dog, to whom he could speak
freely; for with his keen hearing he could be sure he was alone, even
if the young pup's quiescence had been no proof. It wouldn't be but
a day, or two at most--so Jim told that pup--before Jack Read could
reclaim his property; if, indeed, he hadn't got a better little tyke
by now, as very like was the case; a superior article altogether, to
whom Keating was unknown, and who especially never ran after chickens.
However, it wouldn't do to make too sure, because maybe the little
lass wouldn't, just yet awhile, be allowed out by the doctor on cold
mornings, in which case things would have to remain as they were
for a bit of time. But a day would come when little tykes would be
superfluities, and Jack Read might have this one back, and see what he
could do towards larning him better manners in the house. The object
of these remarks misconceived the drift of them altogether, and,
taking them for recognition of his own merits, heaved a sigh over the
shortcomings of other little dogs, and fell asleep in the sun.
Jim sat again alone and smoked, and listened to the growing sounds of
the day, the insect life stirring in the sunshine, the birds that meant
to sing the summer out; growing fewer now, but revived by St. Augustin,
evidently. He could hear, at the interval of each new furrow, the
team of horses in an old-world plough swing round; and the ploughman's
voice, now near and clear, now at the far hedge of his field, and
dim. Somewhere a long way off a threshing-machine was droning, and as
the sound of it came and went, and rose and fell with the wind, Jim
thought of his little lass; and how that one letter of hers old Margy
had re-read to him so often had told how she had heard the sea sound
so through the night, now more, now less. If she had not come back
to the Rectory yesterday, as he hoped, was she up now and out on the
beach?... but no--hardly! It was barely eight o'clock. Yes--there went
the church-bells! But he could not count the strokes for the noise some
hedge-sparrows made suddenly, almost close to his ear.
That was a harvest cart with a many horses, Jim supposed, and every
horse with bells. Going to load up, at a guess; for it was soon gone
by, and its bells a memory. Then another sound of wheels stole in, and
grew. Not a cart; carts rattle. Some sort of carriage, coming from
Furnival Station. Not indigenous to this village; Jim had learned every
native wheel by heart. Not a very dashing carriage neither! It went
slow, and the horse seemed to think of every step. A hired fly from the
station, of course! Why didn't Jim spot that before?
Now, suppose it had been eight in the evening, it might have been
Teacher bringing Lizarann from the station. At this time in the morning
ridiculous, of course! Still, the thought was nice.
That fly had pulled up on the road, and not so far off. Jim could
hear interchanges between the driver and his fare, evidently male and
English. Did Jim know that voice?
"All right--pull up here! I'll get down and walk the rest of the way.
How far is it?"
"For to step it afut? Twenty minutes, easy."
"Which does 'easy' mean?"
"Easy for time, mister. You'll have to be a bit brisk to do it in
twenty minutes. Give you twenty-three, to do it without idlin'."
A foot on the road, a coach-door that wouldn't hasp, a discovery that
the driver has only one and elevenpence change for half-a-sovereign,
and then the half-sovereign is on its way back to Furnival, and the
fare has started on his twenty-three minutes' walk, with some of the
change in his pocket. But he is not going to do it without idling, it
seems.
Jim heard him approach the well-gap, and come to a stand. Then he
turned up the brick pathway. Now, who was this chap going to be?
"Well, Jim Coupland! Where's Lizarann? I've come to pay her a visit.
And you too!"
Jim knew Challis again the moment he heard his voice close. "Aha!" he
exclaimed joyfully. "You're the gentleman. Came with the Master nigh a
month agone!" And the cordiality of Blind Samson's big right hand was
all the greater that it was welcoming, not only a friend, but what was
in a sense the dawn of Lizarann. For this gentleman, whose name had
slipped Jim's memory, would never have asked for her on insufficient
grounds. In a flash of his mind, Jim had inferred that his visitor, on
his way to the Rectory, had decided--from information received--that
his lassie, due there the day before, would be, or might be, already
with her father at the Abbey Well. A very reasonable view! It was
almost an assurance that his child had arrived, that this gentleman
should speak of her thus.
Challis left his hand in Jim's, while he said, "But where's the kid?"
Said Jim, with confidence, "If you'd come another half-hour later, I
lay you'd have found her, back with her Daddy. Six martal weeks she's
been away. But you'll find her at the Master's, I take it, or meet on
the road."
Challis's voice hung fire a little as he answered, "I'm not on my way
to the Rectory now. I shall have to pay my respects to Miss Coupland
later. Jolly glad she's back, though, Jim, for your sake! How's she
coming on? All the better for the sea, I'll answer for it." Jim was not
the one to be behindhand in optimism. "Done her a warld o' good, I'm
told! Only, ye see, I haven't set eyes on the Master this week past,
and I have to put my dependence on the two little ladies, seeing the
old mother at the cottage has gone to London."
At this point Jim saw his way to still further flattering his certainty
of Lizarann's return by sending a message about her to his sister,
so he let Aunt Stingy into the conversation provisionally. He worded
a _couleur de rose_ account of his invalid, subject to reserves, and
asked Challis to be the bearer of it.
"What's that, Jim?... Ah, to be sure; I had forgotten that. Mrs.
Steptoe's your sister. Yes--I'll tell her." His manner was unsettled,
tense, _exalté_, but not that of a man preoccupied with any but
pleasant thoughts. Jim felt that some inquiry after this relative of
his would not be out of place. He hoped she was giving satisfaction
to "the mistress," and half suggested that her cooking was what he
was asking about. His shrewd hearing detected discomfort in Challis's
reply: "Oh aye--yes! Very good wholesome cooking!" Had he touched a
sore subject? He decided that he had, and was sorry when the gentleman
said abruptly: "That's all right enough. Can't stop now! Got to get to
the Park Gate by nine. How far do you make it out to the Park Gate?"
Jim gave what information he had to give; but Challis remembered quite
enough of the ground to know that the fly-driver's estimate was a low
one; in fact, it had been the interest of the latter to minimize the
distance, in order to get away as soon as he could. "I shall have to
look alive," said Challis. He shook Jim's hand cordially, and started.
In the accident of passing words it had so chanced that if either of
these two men had been asked--how came he to know that Lizarann had
returned to the Rectory?--he would have referred to the other as an
authority. Challis's confidence that he would find Lizarann at the Well
was only the echo of some words of the Rector's three weeks previously,
fixing the date of her return; while Jim's assurance that she was at
the Rectory was based on Challis's way of taking her presence at the
Well for granted. Certainly when they parted, each had an image in his
mind of the invalid back again, much improved, and looking forward to
her meeting with her Daddy.
Such serene unconsciousness of the truth as Jim's was at this moment
strikes harshly on one's sense of probability; but, probable or no,
it was actual. Jim had not experienced such happiness since his child
left him to live, during her absence, on hopes of her return in renewed
health. She was coming now; not a doubt of it! She was actually near
at hand; so near that, with a guide, he could almost have walked the
distance on his wooden leg. She was coming....
Then a gust of disbelief that anything so good could be his, so soon,
seized on his faculties, and made his judgment dizzy. He must be silent
and patient, and wait.
But with this added assurance of Lizarann, pending or near at hand,
Time got a quality of tediousness. The half-hour that followed on
Challis's invasion seemed longer than all the previous half-hours of
the morning added together. Till then Jim had been making all allowance
for the chance that Lizarann was not due till to-morrow, or even next
day. The question was an open one. Challis had managed to leave behind
him an implication that she had arrived. How the sluggard minutes would
crawl now, till she came! Well--patience!
Why was the gentleman going to the Park, not the Rectory? Pending
Lizarann, Jim thought it worth while to wonder at this; or, indeed,
at any other trifle that would hold his mind for a moment, and help
his patience. He had hardly noticed Challis's _distrait_ manner at
the time, but it came back to him now. Yes--why was the gentleman not
going to the Rectory? Of course, he was only known to him as a guest
there; might have been a perfect stranger at the Hall, for anything
that appeared to the contrary. But it was the way he had disclaimed the
Rectory that clashed with Jim's slight knowledge of him. "Not on his
way" there now! "However, it was no concern of Jim's, anyhow! Think of
Lizarann again--only Lizarann!"
His mind ran back to the old match-selling days in Bladen Street. There
was the terrible January night again, no darker than his day was now,
for all he felt St. Augustin's sun on his hands and face; for all he
knew at a guess how the white road would have glared on the eyes he
had lost, even as his last memory of daylight blazed on them still,
leagues away in Africa. There was he again!--a spot in the darkness
that was his lot for ever; a something made of sick torture, borne in
a litter; and then the voice of his little lass, and the touch of her
lips as he lay.... Well!--at least he had a man's heart in him then,
and, crushed as he was, made light of his agony, to spare her. That was
a consolation to him now.
His lot for ever! His lot, that is, so long as he himself should live
to bear it. His lot, till what was left of what was once a man was
laid by what once was Dolly, in a grave! Then touch and hearing would
be gone too, and he and Dolly alike forgotten in the black void of the
time to come.... What did _he_ matter? He flung the unconsidered unit,
himself, aside, in view of a new terror that came suddenly--an image of
his little lass without her Daddy. That was too much pain to bear. To
think of the lassie left alone!
But why think of it at all, yet awhile? Might not he see her again
within the hour? Was it not a chance that even now she was on her way,
coming----coming?...
What was that? A dog's bark he knew quite well--the Rector's
dog--somewhere over by the Rifle Butts. Near a mile off--yes!--but
clear to the sharpened hearing of a blind man. Equally clear to his dog
too, asleep in the sun, and calling for prompt action. The little tyke
started up, barking in reply, and scoured away to make his presence
felt elsewhere. Jim's thought stopped, that he might listen for a
distant step on the road, a step he knew well. A great swinging stride
unlike any other man's in those parts--how mistake it? But another
quarter of an hour must pass before either could have articulate
speech of the other, mere shouting apart. Jim was just on the very
verge of his release from suspense, and could not bear to wait a moment
longer, patience or no! He started along the paved way that led to the
road, guiding himself, as he could well do, by touching the curb with
his stick. It was all plain sailing to him, so far, and no guide was
needed.
He stood and listened, waiting for the approaching footsteps. He could
hear his own little deserter's bark, no great distance down the road;
and through it, at intervals, the bark of the other dog, coming slowly
nearer. But otherwise, nothing outside the sum of noises he could know
the day by from the night, a monotone with here and there a special
sound of beast or bird or insect. Yes!--there was another sound, some
way off still; the motor-car that had passed the cottage last night,
coming from the Hall. Jim knew its special hoot of old; could have
sworn to it among a dozen others.
An old turf-cutter was near enough to see Jim at this moment, and,
after, told what he saw. This man was some way off, trimming the
roadside turf; but his eyes were good, though he was deaf as any post.
He saw Jim--so his tale ran--standing where the path began, close
against the road. He seemed to be listening for something. Quite
unexpectedly he saw him throw up his arms as though surprised or
delighted; but of this the old man, hearing nothing, could not speak
with certainty. He had somehow an impression, though, that Jim was
"raising a great shouting." Then he saw him step suddenly into the
road, and limp with his stick, but with wonderful activity, towards the
twist in its course that it makes round the clump of thorn-trees that
shuts in the Abbey Well. The old turf-cutter saw him last just as he
turned that corner.
Immediately after, a motor-car, going at a mad speed, tore along the
road from the Park. Whether this car was sounding its trumpet the deaf
man could not say. All he knew was that it followed without slacking
down round the corner Jim had been last seen at. It vanished in a thick
cloud of its own dust. The deaf man "misdoubted something had gone
wrong," not from any noise, of course, but because he "watched along
the road" for the dust-cloud, and none came. He suspected nothing,
however, beyond some hitch in the car's working-gear, until some ten
minutes later, when the motor came back, slowly--or relatively slowly.
Then he saw that it contained a young lady, who looked, he said,
"all mazed and staring like"; a gentleman, who lay back with blood
running down his face, and seemed "no ways better than dead," and the
chauffeur. Then a little dog came barking down the road, and went after
the motor-car. He could see it was barking. That was all he could tell.
He laid his turf-spud aside, and went along the road to find Jim and
learn what he could of the mishap.
* * * * *
Athelstan Taylor left the Rectory, with a heavy heart, shortly before
nine o'clock. He knew he should find Jim at the Abbey Well, and he
wanted to make sure the news should not reach him through any other
channel. It would inevitably leak out now. He knew well how things of
the kind will travel, contrary to all calculations.
It occurred to him just as he was starting that if he took his dog with
him, Jim's prevision of something wrong, which he looked to as likely
to make his task easier, would have time to mature before his arrival.
Jim would hear the dog's bark, and recognize it, long before his own
footsteps could reach his ears. He had not at first intended to have
the animal with him, but he now went back and released him, and felt
that the idea was a good one. He could cover the ground, going by the
short-cut near the Rifle Butts, in less than half-an-hour. He might be
hindered on the way, but at least he would be as quick as he could. No
one should be beforehand with Jim, if he could help it.
The hindrances were few and slight. Two or three colloquies of as
many minutes each, ending with apologies for their brevity, made up
the total of delay. Twenty-five minutes may have passed since Challis
left Jim to keep his appointment, when the Rector reached the Rifle
Butts and took the path that goes across from them to the Abbey Well;
it branches off from the path Lizarann and Joan followed to go to the
cottage.
What ensued does not explain itself, unless it is made quite clear
that the curve in the road round the Abbey Well was no mere kink, but
a full curve, like the letter U. One side of this U looked towards the
Hall, the other to the village; and beyond it the turning for Thanes
Castle, along which the motor-car came last night. The point to keep in
mind is that the entrance to the Abbey Well gave towards the Hall, not
the village. Nevertheless, the Well was visible from the Rifle Butts
through a gap in the trees, which grew thicker on each side of the
curve of the road, concealing a portion of it very completely. It was
into this the motor-car vanished from the eyes of the deaf turf-cutter.
Athelstan Taylor, half broken-hearted as he thought of the task before
him, had a struggle with himself not to flinch from it, and slacken
the speed that was bringing it so near. He could see, shortly after
passing the Rifle Butts, the figure of Lizarann's Daddy, and could
picture to himself his unsuspicious ignorance. How sick he felt! How
glad he would be when it was over!
He saw Jim rise from his seat and make for the entrance, and
conjectured that his own footstep was the cause. He saw him stop and
wait when he reached the road, and then lost sight of the entry for a
moment. But he thought he heard Jim shout, as he had heard him often
shout before now, in answer to little Lizarann's call of "Pilot." When
he next saw the entry there was no Jim.
He had to go only the length of the curve to get to the place where he
saw Jim last. He was within five minutes of it now. Courage!
That was the motor-car from the Hall making that hideous noise. Louis
Rossier, the chauffeur, going by himself, of course! He always broke
out of bounds when alone, and that speed was something awful. The
Felixthorpes must have stayed at Thanes. Bess had said they were there;
and now M. Louis was going to fetch them. Would he never slacken down
at that bend in the road? Apparently not. A terrible corner that, to
whirl a motor round at sixty miles an hour! He could hear Jim's little
dog bark in answer to his own, but he was still some minutes' walk from
the road....
What was that cry? What were those cries, rather--cries of panic or of
warning, with a woman's shriek above them? And what was that terrible
cry in a voice he knew?--Jim's voice!
Then he was conscious, in spite of distance, of rapid, panic-stricken
interchange of speech. Two voices, a man's and a woman's, mixed with
the pulsations of the shut-off machinery of the car, checked in its
course. Then of alternations of the sounds of the working-gear, which
he knew meant the turning of the car in the narrow space. Then, as
he reached the spot, the sound of its resumed movement, and its
trumpet-signal again. When he arrived it was vanishing, but he took
little heed of it or its contents. All his thought was for the man
who lay, crushed and groaning, on the bare road in the sun. Would his
message need to be given now?
"Twice over's soon told, Master, and there an end!" Those seemed to be
Jim's words to the man who kneeled over him, not daring to touch him
yet till he should know more. Should he examine him where he lay, or
try at once to move him off the road?
"Oh, Jim--Jim Coupland--who has done this?" He raised the head that
lay in the dust with cautious strength, fearing that any touch might
only be so much more needless pain. But there was no appearance of
flinching; and he raised him further yet, to rest against his knee;
then carefully wiped the forehead, red with blood from a cut on the
temple, but still there was no sign of flinching from his touch. "Can
you bear to be lifted, Jim?... Say if I hurt you."
"Ah!--get me up out of the gangway. I'm a job for the doctor, I take
it...." His voice became inaudible, but not before the word "Water!"
had passed his lips. The old turf-cutter was coming slowly. If he could
be raised and moved to a safe place by the roadside, for the moment,
further help could be got. The Rector knew the old man would not hear
if he spoke at his loudest, but he contrived to make him understand.
Between them they raised poor Jim gently, and got him out of the
blazing sun. His fortitude was great to utter no sound--or, was he
injured to death, and half insensible? The Rector recalled what he had
heard of him in that old accident, and thought the former.
No, he was not insensible! For when they had laid him on some soft
bracken a little way off the road, and the old man had gone for
assistance to the nearest cottage--for he himself did not dare to leave
him--Jim tried again to speak.
"What, Jim? Say it again!" The Rector put his ear close to catch the
words.
"Make the best of me, and let my lassie come!" He was wandering,
clearly. But it was easy to see his meaning--that he wished to seem as
little hurt as might be to his child, whom he imagined near at hand.
Easier still when he added, "She came afore. Let her come now!"
"Lizarann is not here now, Jim." The speaker's voice half choked him.
But why was this worse than the other telling would have been?
He was speaking again. It was only repetition. "She came afore. Let her
come now!" His voice was all but inaudible, and the Rector's words had
been lost upon him.
The deaf old man had done his errand well. The daughter of the little
roadside inn, quicker of foot than he, came bringing water, and, what
was needed too, brandy. Speech came again after a mouthful, swallowed
with difficulty.
"Am I a bad sight, master? Let the lassie come! Never you fear for her!
She's used to her Daddy." He spoke so naturally, all allowance made
for pain resolutely kept at bay, that his only hearer--for the girl
from the inn heard nothing--was quite at a loss. A bald truth was safe
for the moment, though.
"Lizarann is not here, Jim. She cannot come to you now." The last words
almost said why as well! Then both Jim's hearers heard what came quite
distinctly from his lips: "What's got the lassie, Master, my lassie? I
tell ye, I heard her sing out 'Pi-lot!' Aye!--once and again, 'Pi-lot!'
when you was coming across the common yonder!"
But whether he himself heard the only reply Athelstan Taylor could
force his lips to--"Not with me, Jim; Lizarann was not with me"--no one
ever knew. For all he said was, "My little lass!" and never spoke again.
His shattered body was carried to old Margy's cottage, but the moment
of death was hard to determine. All that came to light from the
post-mortem examination was that the spine was injured beyond all hope
of recovery, and that this was only one of several injuries, any of
which might have caused death.
* * * * *
The windows of the ward at the Nursing Home at Chalk Cliff stand
wide to allow the sweet air from the sea to come and go at will. All
has been done that Death has left to do for Lizarann Coupland. Her
end and its cause are certified by medical authority, and registered
officially, and a little coffin has been ordered, in which the tiny
white thing, like an image well carved in alabaster, that Adeline
Fossett and her friend Miss Jane know is under that sheet on the bed,
is to be interred shortly, as soon as its Daddy's wishes are known.
They never will be, but neither lady knows that yet.
"Poor little darling!" said Miss Fossett. "Do you recollect, Jane,
those very last words she said?"
"About the Pilot?"
"No, no--after that. I wasn't sure you heard. I had tried to tell
her what ... what it was ... and I couldn't find words. But I fancy
the little thing half understood, too. What she said was--quite
clearly--'But who's a-going to tell my Daddy?'" It was so like herself.
The speaker breaks down; but then, you see, she had taken Lizarann to
her heart so thoroughly--was thinking she would never have another
child she should be so fond of. Miss Jane is used to these things, and
affects strength.
"I think it will be ready for the flowers now," she says, and removes
that sheet. Yes, the handkerchief round the face may come away. The
two ladies place flowers round the little alabaster head. It is the
head, one would say, of a sweet little girl, and the mouth is not too
large for beauty now, although that line of black is in the lips.
* * * * *
So it came to pass that neither Lizarann nor her Daddy lived to
mourn the loss of the other. The child was never an orphan, and the
father only childless an hour or so. And Lizarann never knew what his
employment had been, but cherished to the last an untainted memory of
those happy days when she led him home, blind but otherwise uninjured,
from the honourable fulfilment of some mysterious public service. And
yet, had she known, would she have thought it other than right? For,
was it not Daddy?
CHAPTER XLIX
JUDITH'S VAGARIES. HOW SHE BROUGHT SIR ALFRED CHALLIS, INSENSIBLE,
TO ROYD HALL IN A MOTOR. A MESSAGE PER MR. BROWNRIGG TO THE RECTOR.
HOW TO PROBE THE MYSTERY. JUDITH'S RESERVE. PUBLIC IMPATIENCE. THE
CHAUFFEUR'S TESTIMONY
Royd Hall was at its quietest that morning when the young man Samuel
answered the bell from his master's bedroom, and found the Baronet
still in bed, at a few minutes after nine. The old gentleman must have
dozed off again after ringing it, because Samuel had to knock twice
before he said "Come in."
"I thought you rang, sir," said Samuel.
"I did ring. Who was that went away in the motor five minutes ago?"
Samuel was not going to admit that the motor had been gone a full
quarter of an hour. It would have been disrespectful to suggest that
his master had been asleep unawares, so he accepted the five-minute
estimate. "I believe it was Miss Judith, sir; but I couldn't say, to be
certain."
"Just ask. What o'clock is it?"
"It's gone nine, some minutes, sir."
"This coffee's cold ... never mind!... I suppose I went to sleep
again.... Oh, Samuel!..." Samuel, departing, paused. "See that the cold
douche _is_ cold. It was neither one thing nor the other yesterday."
"Sure to be cold, sir, now! Because both the other gentlemen's run it
on." To those acquainted with the heating gear of bathrooms the way
the old supply proves lukewarm, and nothing bracing comes to pass, is
well known. The Baronet referred to it again as he met Samuel returning
on his way to the bath. Was he sure it was cold? Yes, Samuel was; and
that _was_ Miss Judith, he found, that had gone off in the motor, after
breakfasting early in her own room. As witness Mr. Elphinstone and Miss
Judith's maid Tilley.
Sir Murgatroyd never wondered much at anything his family did. He had
a beautiful faith that everything was all right always, and asked
few or no questions. Still, he would wonder a little, tentatively,
at rare intervals. Only he strained at gnats and swallowed camels.
This time he swallowed the camel of Judith's early departure after a
solitary breakfast. That was all right--it was some appointment with
the Duchess, "or something." But he strained at the gnat of her having
left her little attendant behind. He had a superstition that the
absence of any two persons, known to be together, was never a thing to
cause anxiety; but he was liable to fidgeting about any of his family
unaccounted for, if he supposed them to be alone. There may be other
people like him.
It was this superstition that caused Sir Murgatroyd to say to Lady
Arkroyd--through a door between their rooms that he opened on purpose,
having become aware of the departure of her ladyship's maid--"What
has Judith gone out so early for?" To which the reply was: "You must
speak plainer. I can't hear you while you shave." For during shaving
the shaver's attention cannot be fully given to speech, owing to the
interdependence of razor, eye, and jaw in a delicate relation to one
another, to say nothing of the care needed to preserve a soapless mouth.
So Sir Murgatroyd wound up his shave before he spoke again, adding to
his first question the words, "In the motor."
"How do you know she went in the motor?"
"Samuel said so. Besides, I heard it go."
"I suppose I was asleep.... Oh no!--I can't account for Judith's
vagaries. She goes her own way. I suppose she's taken the child with
her--her maid, I mean?"
"Why, no, she hasn't! That's just it...."
"I didn't mean that. I meant that if she hadn't, Cintilla would know."
That is to say, her ladyship washed her hands of any complicity in the
Bart.'s superstition spoken of above. She always, in talking of her
husband, to the Duchess for instance, affected a Spartan stolidity;
saying that no one who did not know him as she did would ever suspect
Murgatroyd of being such an hysterical character.
Nevertheless, she felt curiosity about Judith, and bade Mrs. Cream,
her own lady's-maid, summon Cintilla to give evidence. Only first
she closed the door into her husband's room, not to be open to any
imputation of hysteria. The Baronet accepted his exclusion the more
readily that he had just rung for Samuel. For his relation towards that
young man, who was officially his valet, was that he allowed him to
help him on with his coat as soon as he himself was otherwise complete.
He had to, or Samuel wouldn't have been his valet.
It was nearly a quarter to ten when her ladyship said to her
son-in-law and Mr. Brownrigg, the only guest outside the family, that
we were frightfully late at breakfast. She said it on the long terrace
the breakfast-room opens on, where the two gentlemen had been for some
time wondering whether they were to have any. A peacock shrieked a
condemnation of late breakfast; and the Baronet, appearing last, took
the sins of the congregation on his shoulders. His lateness eclipsed
all previous lateness.
But he must needs make matters worse; for after communications
about Sibyl, and record of her husband's conviction that that young
lady would pay attention to her medical adviser, and not appear at
breakfast, he inquired about Judith's escapade, as a Baronet inquires
when he really wants to know, not as mere passing chat. To which her
ladyship replied, as one whose patience is tried by an inopportune
husband: "There, my dear, Judith is all right if you'll only leave
her alone. I know _all_ about her. She's gone to go somewhere with
Thyringia, and won't be back till I don't know when. Now don't hinder,
and do let's have breakfast.... No, Elphinstone, don't sound the gong
on my account. We's all here. I do hate that banging." For her husband,
the fidget, had suggested absurdly that perhaps Judith was back, and
didn't know breakfast was ready. "Besides, she _had_ breakfasted,
anyhow!" adds her ladyship.
Lord Felixthorpe has a word of illumination for the Baronet, who
acquiesced in the will of a senior officer. It causes him to recur
to the subject again, saying, "Frank says Judith asked for the car
yesterday ..." and to be again extinguished with an impatient, "My
_dear_!--_do_ you suppose I don't know all about it?" from her ladyship.
* * * * *
When that scanty gathering of four persons sat down to breakfast at
the table where last year this story told of so large an assemblage,
Royd Park and mansion alike seemed a haven of serenest peace, sheltered
from impact with the outer world, and unconscious of its turmoil.
Every sound of living creatures was as good as silence--articulate
with its denials of discord. Even the peacock's screech upon the lawn
fell in with the music of the wood-doves in the beech-woods--just a
high staccato note; no more!--and the gobble of a turkey from the
stable-yard, across the big red wall there, was modulated to its place
as an instrument the composer should not use too freely, though full
of spirit. A million undertones of insects; a perspective of scattered
voices afar, each fainter than the last; the sound of the manger-chain
of a horse in the groom's hands--all agreed that whatever that
railway-whistle might mean about the world a league and more away, here
in this sacred enclosure was peace--peace guaranteed by a bygone peace
of vanished years, and a security of entail. Peace without end, Amen!
So much so that when the motor-trumpet was suddenly audible, but
unmistakably, beyond the Park Gate on the road from the village,
each of the four at breakfast looked at some other, and said--there
it was! But they were undisturbed in their minds, and gave various
consideration to Yorkshire ham and filleted plaice and potted beef and
Keiller, and all that one associates with clean damask and steaming
urns. The Baronet only said, with apparent sense of relief: "I thought
she could hardly have gone for the whole day." To which his wife
replied: "Oh, my dear, how funny you are! Don't you know Judith?" And
then they talked current topics of the day--Raisuli and Employer's
Liability.
The motor-trumpet close at hand, and wheels! Now we shall know. But not
so soon that we need leave Morocco for a moment. And Mr. Brownrigg will
take half a cup more coffee.
What is that, Elphinstone? May Mr. Elphinstone speak to her ladyship?
He may; so he does, in an undertone. Her ladyship says, "I'll come,"
and then to Mr. Brownrigg, "The milk's beside you," and follows the
butler from the room. All the three men look at each other. "Something
wrong!" says Lord Felixthorpe. He and the Baronet look the inquiry at
one another, "Ought we not to follow?" and both answer, "Yes!" at once,
aloud. Mr. Brownrigg neglects his coffee and follows, looking concerned
and apprehensive.
There is a lobby between the dining-room and the entrance-hall to the
house, and her ladyship meets them in it, returning. She says to her
husband: "Oh, my dear!--you will have to come, about this." She is
looking ashy white, and when she has spoken sinks down on a wall-seat
in a recess, saying: "Oh dear! Do go out and see." She is quite
overcome by something.
A new identity comes suddenly on Sir Murgatroyd. "See to her, Frank,"
he says. "Is Mrs. Cream there--yes?--See to your mistress, Cream." And
goes out.
The butler is just beyond the lobby, and the firm voice of the Baronet
is audible above his terrified undertone. "_Who_ is it?... Sir Alfred
Challis?... Badly?" The speaker then passes out of hearing, going to
the entrance-hall.
Mrs. Cream has come, and finds that her mistress has not fainted
away, though not far short of it. Her ladyship rallies, saying to
her son-in-law: "Never mind me, Frank!" Whereupon Lord Felixthorpe
says: "You'll excuse me, Brownrigg, but I _must_ see to my wife.
She'll be frightened if I don't." And goes three steps at a time up a
side-staircase, leaving Mr. Brownrigg embarrassed, and feeling in the
way.
* * * * *
When Sir Murgatroyd set foot outside his house, the first thing he saw
was the face of his daughter, still seated in the car, supporting the
head of the man who was with her, but shrinking from it, covered as
it was with some shawl or cloth, in terror. The first words he heard,
above the drumming beat of the stationary car's machinery and the
hysterical excitement of the chauffeur, dismounted from his seat, were
a relief to him. His daughter, at any rate, was uninjured, or only
shaken at the worst. "I am not the least hurt," she said, with perfect
self-command, though in a bewildered, stony way. Her dress was not
soiled or seriously disordered, so she could not have been thrown from
the car.
His hearers at first thought M. Louis incoherent. "C'était la faute
de ce sacré aveugle--qui m'y trouvera à redire--moi? Qu'ai-je pu
faire, moi?--c'est l'arbre du frein qui m'a trompé. J'ai tiré la
manivelle--oui!--et elle m'a trompé. Peste soit de cet aveugle...." And
so on. He was understood by no one.
"Get this man out of the way; he's no use. Where's Bullett?" Thus the
Baronet. "Now, Elphinstone, get that deck-chair--the long one, you
know--look sharp about it!" Elphinstone departed, as Bullett, the model
groom, came running. "The roan, in the dogcart," said his master;
and then: "Yes, my dear, you shall tell me directly." For Judith was
beginning: "It has not been my fault...." She was speaking like a woman
in a dream, or one half waking from one.
Her father only glanced at the white face with the blood on it, then
covered it again. "He might be able to get some brandy down," said he.
He stood with his finger on Challis's pulse till it came, and then
tried to get him to swallow some, but without success. "We must get him
in," he said. "Where's Frank?" Samuel testified that his lordship was
just coming downstairs. The fact was that his lordship, although his
solicitude for his wife had been appreciated, had been told not to be
absurd, but to go away and make himself useful.
He arrived just as the long deck-chair was brought--one such as
one sees on passenger boats for India and China--and assisted in
transporting the man who lay absolutely insensible on it to the room he
had occupied when he had visited the house as a guest--the room where
he missed that postscript of Marianne's, and probably sowed the seeds
of all this mischief. It was easy for three to carry the chair--one on
either side and one behind--so the Baronet left it to his son-in-law
and Elphinstone and Samuel, and went to speak to Bullett, who had just
arrived with the dogcart. On his way, coming from the lobby, he met Mr.
Brownrigg, looking horribly shocked.
"Is it Challis?" said that gentleman. The Baronet nodded.
"It's the author," said he. "Is my wife still there?" He pointed to the
lobby.
"She has gone upstairs to Lady Felixthorpe, I think. Can I be of any
service?"
"A thousand thanks! I don't know of anything.... Yes, I do, though.
My groom is just going to bring the doctor. Will you ride with him
and call at the Rectory?--tell Taylor of this, and get him to come at
once. He and Mr. Challis--Sir Alfred Challis I should say--were great
friends. He'll come."
"I will go with pleasure," said Mr. Brownrigg. He went with pleasure,
evidently. It is, of course, a great satisfaction to be of use in any
painful crisis.
Sir Murgatroyd, as he turned to the entrance-door again, met Judith,
who was accompanied by her little maid, terrified beyond measure, but
behaving well. She gave an inanimate face to her father to kiss, saying
collectedly, but in the same stony way: "There really is no occasion
for anxiety about me. I am perfectly safe. Only don't ask me to talk
about it now." Her father followed her in silence to the door of her
room, when she turned and spoke again, after a visible effort that
failed. "Is he _killed_?" she said, forcing the word out.
"Oh no!--no, no!--no such thing! Stunned--contused--that sort of thing!
I've sent Bullett for Pordage. I should have sent the car, but Monsieur
Louis isn't in a state to manage it. There would have been another
accident.... What?"
"Tell them--mamma and Sibyl--not to disturb me. I will tell you
after.... No! When the doctor has seen him, tell my little maid here.
She will bring me word." And then Judith, whose beauty had lost nothing
by the shock she has sustained--if anything, the reverse--vanishes
into her room, and her father hears the key in the lock turned
significantly. In the old Baronet's look now, roused as he is from his
easy-going homeliness, and with a certain resolve growing on him, one
sees that that beauty is not inherited from her mother alone. He goes
straight to the room where the injured man lies, still insensible and
motionless, still with a low pulse that neither gains nor loses. The
doctor cannot be very long, if Bullett finds him at home. His practice
is to remain at home in the morning.
* * * * *
"Do you know anything of all this?" Sir Murgatroyd asks the question of
his wife and younger daughter in the bedroom of the latter, where he
has found them, white and frightened--talking in a nervous undertone,
but quickly, and as folk talk who can tell things.
"She _has_ been seeing him. Sibyl says so."
"Seeing Challis?"
"Of course. But she hasn't spoken of him to me for a month--quite a
month." This was her ladyship.
"I told you it would be no use, _madre_," says Sibyl. "But you wouldn't
listen to me."
"My dear--how unreasonable you are! How was it possible for your father
and me to allow it to go on? You may say what you like, but he is a
married man...."
"All I say is, you made matters worse."
"Never mind that now!" said the Baronet. "What I want to hear is--how
did Sib know this was going on?"
Sibyl is quite clear on that point. "Judith met him in the Park the day
before we came, last month. Old Mrs. Inskip saw them together, behaving
like a couple of--like _lovers_." Her tone is one of reprobation and
disgust. She goes on to tell how she had interviewed the centenarian on
the subject, and been fully enlightened.
"That is all at an end now, anyhow." So says the Baronet, but when his
wife says "Why?" he does not answer, but goes on as to another point
reflectively. "Judith must have met him on her way to Thanes.... Where
did he join her--this morning, I mean?"
Both ladies strike a new clue. "Was she going to Thanes at all?" And
Sibyl adds: "I don't believe she was."
"You said you _knew_ she was, Therèse," says Sir Murgatroyd, addressing
his wife by her name--a thing that always means, with him, a definite
attitude of some sort. She is on her mettle directly, for expostulation
or defence.
"My dear, I never said anything of the sort. She talked yesterday of
going to-day, and, of course, I _supposed_ she had. That little girl of
hers only said she said she might not be back to lunch." Her ladyship
exonerates herself at some length, denying what she had said plainly an
hour before at breakfast.
Her husband treats the point as an open one, to avoid indefinite
discussion of it. "I see," he says. "It was only your inference. I
wonder if that crazy French chap has come to his senses. It's no use
my talking to him. I can't understand three words he says." Then, at
Sibyl's suggestion, he went away to his son-in-law, who was still with
the injured man, to get him to interview the bewildered chauffeur, and
see what could be made of his testimony. During Lord Felixthorpe's
absence he remained by Challis, still perfectly insensible on the
bed, but apparently only stunned, like a man in a deep sleep. He
breathed regularly, and though his pulse dragged a little, it was quite
steady. Sir Murgatroyd felt only moderate uneasiness about him. He had
himself been thrown from his horse in the hunting-field, and remained
insensible till next day.
Lord Felixthorpe returned. The chauffeur's account of the thing, now
that his mind was more settled, was that, in order to avoid a collision
with a man in the road, he had swerved at a sharp corner. Challis
started to his feet at the moment, and was thrown over the edge of the
car, falling on his head in the road. "Mademoiselle"--so ran M. Louis'
testimony--"était terriblement épouvantée, mais elle ne s'est pas
évanouie," Lord Felixthorpe translated, for the benefit of the Baronet.
"Alors," said M. Louis, "nous avons soulevé le corps, nous deux, dans
l'automobile, et Mademoiselle m'a crié--en avant, vite, vite! Et moi,
j'ai retourné vite, vite! Qu'est ce qu'on aurait voulu de plus?"
Questioned as to where Challis had got into the car, he replied--at the
Park Gate; as to what he understood its destination to be, that he did
not know anything except that it was about forty miles off, but that
Monsieur had a map with the route marked; as to when Miss Arkroyd had
requisitioned the car, that she had spoken about it to him overnight.
Milord had instructed him that it would not be required during
the day, as he himself should _monter à cheval_, and Miladi would
remain at home. It was to be at Mademoiselle's disposal, or Miladi
Arkroyd's. "Effectivement," said he, in an injured tone, "j'ai suivi
mes renseignements, et je ne suis pas à blâmer." His lordship had then
explained to him that he need not be so touchy; no one was blaming him.
There was another point. Who was the man who caused the car to swerve,
and was he hurt? Monsieur Louis replied with the Frenchest of shrugs,
"Mais je ne sais pas! Comment voulez-vous que je sache?--quelque
vagabond--quelque mendiant!" He turned the conversation to the damage
done to a tyre.
Had Lord Felixthorpe heard the chauffeur's words on his first arrival,
a suspicion he now felt that M. Louis was keeping something back would
have been greatly strengthened. Sir Murgatroyd may have noticed the
discrepancy, but he said nothing at the time. His only remark was, "We
shall know more of this soon."
Presently Lord Felixthorpe said: "It certainly does occur to me that my
sister-in-law would be able to contribute some valuable information,
and I do not understand that she is any the worse for this mishap,
fright apart. Why should we not...?" He stopped short; for his
father-in-law had touched him with his finger, saying only, "Frank!"
The manner of it made him end with, "Why--do you know anything?"
"When was that Bill to go into Committee--the Deceased Wife's
Sister--you know?"
"What's to-day? Saturday? It was yesterday, Friday. Why?... Do you
suppose...?"
"It may have something to do with this--mind you, I only say _may_
have!... I suppose the _Times_ has come?"
"I'll see." He went out and spoke to Elphinstone over the great
staircase, and returned. "I've told him to bring the papers here."
"Yes--here we are!" said the Baronet, five minutes after, controlling
an outspread sheet of last night's Debates. He went on, reading
scrapwise: "'Lord Shaftesbury moved amendment to remove from Bill
retrospective character ... very indistinctly heard in gallery ...
no real hardship would be inflicted by amendment ... persons who had
contracted these marriages fully conscious of legal consequences
involved' ... hm-hum!" and so on. "Where's the end of it? ... oh--here!
'Amendment withdrawn.' Yes, Frank, that may have something to do with
it--may have a great deal!"
"I'm not sure that I follow. Has it to do with...?" He dropped his
voice, and looked towards the motionless figure on the bed.
"Of course it has ... _he_ won't hear--you needn't be uneasy. I was
just like that.... Well!--we'll talk outside if you like.... Yes, look
at this, Frank: Prorogation is next Wednesday, when this Bill will
receive the Royal Assent, and become law. Until next Wednesday at
midday, or thereabouts, Challis's wife isn't his wife, and any woman
he marries on Monday or Tuesday is. He couldn't even be convicted of
bigamy unless his first marriage was held legal, and that would be
rather discourteous to the Royal Assent on Wednesday. _Now_ do you see?"
"Surely you never can imagine...."
"Well!"
"Surely you never can imagine that Sir Challis and Ju were going to
make a runaway match of it, to outwit the action of this Bill...."
"I can only see this," says the Baronet: "that if they did not do so,
they were losing the only chance they had left of making an honourable
match of any sort or kind. Isn't that the doctor?"
It is the footstep of the roan, unmistakable, and the wheels of the
dogcart, at speed. It is poor little Lizarann's friend, Dr. Sidrophel.
But all his old look has left him--a look as though he was born to
be amused, and found his patients diverting--as he comes quickly to
Challis's room, meeting the two gentlemen on the way, to whom he speaks
very little. He nods once or twice, in reply to a brief abstract of the
accident, saying only, "Let's have a look at him!" He finds time to say
that the Rector could not come, but would come later. There was a good
deal to be done. The Baronet did not seem to understand this.
The household has fought shy of touching an insensible patient, pending
a doctor on the way, especially as there is no visible hæmorrhage. The
blood from a cut on the temple was not renewed when the face was wiped
with a sponge on his first arrival at the house. The doctor makes a
very rapid examination. "You wish him to remain here, Sir Murgatroyd?"
he says.
"To remain here? Of course I do."
"Then I must have his clothes off first. The cut's nothing on the
forehead. That can wait."
The coat must be sacrificed, but it can't be helped. Slit up the
sleeves, and off with it! Better than jarring him about in his present
state. Once wardrobe-saving is discarded, it is easy work to get the
author in trim for a careful overhauling. No bones broken, is the
verdict. All the worse! His head took most of his weight, and bore the
shock. A broken knee-joint might have spared his brain. As it is, Dr.
Pordage seems to think the net volumes may come slower in the future.
Besides, you never can tell at first about the spine in cases of this
sort.
For the present, concession must be made to treatment. It never does to
do absolutely nothing. So let's have mustard and hot water to the feet,
and ammonia to the nostrils, and try to get a little brandy down his
throat. But quiet is _the_ thing. Presently, all that seems feasible
has been done, and quiet is to have its opportunity. Still, quite
insensible!
Ought not Mrs. Challis, or Lady Challis, whichever she is, to be
communicated with? The question is a joint-stock one in which Lady
Arkroyd and Sibyl have shares, having come into conference. Of course,
they were not on terms--her ladyship says this--but is that our concern?
"I shouldn't put it on that, Lady Arkroyd," says the doctor. "He'll
probably be conscious in a few hours. Better not alarm her needlessly.
If he continues unconscious for twenty-four hours ... why, then we
might think about it. But I don't suppose him to be in any danger." The
speaker's serious manner, unlike himself, seemed out of keeping with
his light estimate of Challis's danger.
"We haven't got her address, so we can't, and there's no use talking
about it. Unless Judith knows. Only it seems she's not to be got at."
This is Sibyl, not without asperity.
"How _is_ Miss Arkroyd?" says the doctor, whose emphasis on the verb
means, "I am conscious that I ought to have asked before, and my doing
it now is rather a formality." Lady Arkroyd testifies that Judith
is in her room lying down, but was all right when she spoke to her
through the door--oh yes!--she seemed perfectly right, but had locked
herself in, and wanted to be quiet. The Baronet says, to his wife only,
"Perhaps we had better leave her alone, Therèse." And Therèse replies,
"Oh, I'm sure _I_ don't want to meddle with her." Impatience with Miss
Arkroyd is in the air. She is credited with being the underlying cause
of all this disturbance.
There is a surprise in the bush for her father; only half-informed, so
far. For the doctor, departing, pauses and says gravely, hesitatingly:
"I believe--but I don't know--that the inquest will be on Monday, or
Tuesday."
"_The_ inquest!--Why inquest? _What_ inquest?" The Baronet is
absolutely in the dark about everything but Challis's mishap. His wife,
better informed by the groom during the doctor's visit to his patient,
touches him on the arm, saying, "My dear, Dr. Pordage is referring to
the man ..." and falters.
"There was a man killed," says Sibyl abruptly. "We supposed you knew."
"A man killed! Good God! I knew nothing. What man?"
Sibyl's husband overhears, and comes quickly. "What is that about a man
killed?" he says. He also is completely taken aback.
Then Lady Arkroyd says again. "We thought you knew." And the doctor
follows, saying collectedly, "Jim Coupland, the man at the Abbey Well,
was struck by the motor-car and killed. The Rector found him lying dead
in the road. That is why Mr. Taylor did not accompany me. He will be
here shortly, and will tell you more than I can."
Sir Murgatroyd gazes from one to the other, shocked and speechless.
Lord Felixthorpe, nearly as much concerned, says below his breath,
"That miscreant Rossier never said a word to me of this." But he is
preoccupied and ill-at-ease about his wife, who will be none the
better just now for upsets and tragic surprises. He persuades her to
go back to the quiet of her room, in spite of her protests that he is
nonsensical, saying as he goes away with her, "We'll have that French
scoundrel up when I come back. I won't be three minutes." But he was
a little longer, and when he returned, the doctor, who was wanted
elsewhere, was on his way back. He found his father-in-law alone in
the library, sitting with his head on his hand, as though completely
oppressed and stunned with what he had heard. "Oh, Frank," said the
old gentleman, "this is horrible!" He had made sure that the patient
upstairs was properly looked to, and had sat down to rest and be quiet
until Athelstan Taylor's arrival. But the chauffeur might be sent for.
* * * * *
A female servant, told off to mount guard over the patient, and report
any change or movement, had been at her post about a quarter of an
hour, when Miss Arkroyd opened the door and came into the room. "Don't
go, Hetty," was all she said. She looked as white--so Hetty reported
afterwards--as the clean wristband that young woman made use of in
illustration. Also, her hair was all coming down. She stood at the
bedside maybe a minute, maybe two--Hetty couldn't say--then touched
the inanimate hand on the coverlid. "Oh no; she never took hold," said
Hetty. "Touched and drew back like!" Then she turned to the girl and
said, "Have _you_ heard what the doctor said?" rather as if she took
scanty information for granted. "But, of course, I could tell her all
right," said Hetty, who had been taking notice. "Only she didn't any
more than just stop to hear, but went. My word!--she _was_ looking bad."
She must have slipped back quietly into her room after this, taking
the young girl Cintilla with her. For when her mother, an hour later,
after consultation as to the wisdom of the step, went to her door to
try again for admission, it was opened by Cintilla, and Judith's voice
said, "Oh yes, come in; I want to hear what the doctor said." But her
speech was so composed as scarcely to comply with the show of feeling
the circumstances demanded, even if the runaway match idea was not a
well-grounded one.
M. Rossier did not make a good figure when summoned to appear in the
library. He bristled and stood on his defence at once, instead of
making, as requested, a simple statement of his version of the facts.
Perhaps Sir Murgatroyd would have done more wisely not to remind a
witness under examination that he himself was a Justice of the Peace;
it tended to invest him with the character of a _Juge d'Instruction_,
and M. Louis with that of "the accused." The latter was as strange
to the idea of waiting for a proof of guilt as the former to that of
demanding a proof of innocence.
Oh yes!--there was a man in the road--what did M. Louis know? He came
from a _sentier_ by the roadside. But, said his master, speaking
French _de rigueur_, as English was not understood, "Cet homme
était au mi-chemin," meaning in the middle of the road. M. Louis
misunderstood, or pretended to. "J'avais passé le mi-chemin," said he,
meaning, apparently, half-way to the village. Then he tried to assist
by speaking English. "He wass bloke ze hackross," and then finished
naturally with, "Que diable allait il faire au milieu de la rue?"
"Ou--avez--vous--vu--dernièrement--cet homme?" said the Baronet, a
loud word at a time, to make sure of reaching that strange organism, a
foreigner's brain. M. Louis understood, anyhow.
"A peine l'ai-je vu! Je n'ai fait que jeter un coup d'oeil, et pst!--il
est disparu. Je ne l'ai pas cru blessé. Pour moi, il n'a pas souffert
la moindre égratignure. Que voulez-vous? On ne peut pas avoir l'oeil
à tout!" But his speech was not absolutely consistent, for he added,
"Pourquoi diable ne put-il s'abriter sous la haie?" He evidently
thought the road belonged to the motor interest, and that the world
ought to run for the nearest sheltered corner at the sound of his horn.
Lord Felixthorpe endeavoured to impress him with the advisability of
telling the truth, as a mere matter of policy. There would be a case
to go to a Jury, unless the inquest decided that Jim Coupland had
died by the Visitation of Providence. But M. Louis might feel secure
of fair treatment; and, unless he had sinned grossly, need be under
no apprehension of serious consequences to himself. As the chauffeur
knew he _had_ sinned grossly, in not slacking speed at the curve, his
apprehensions continued. But he seemed convinced, when he went away,
that it might be wisest to say the least possible for the present.
"We must look out sharp," said Sir Murgatroyd, "and make sure the
Coroner's Jury is fairly chosen. I can't have any leniency shown to
County Families, Frank. I'm inclined now towards seeing what I can make
of Judith. I see no use putting it off.... By-the-bye, Frank, what did
that story-telling Mossoo mean by talking about a blind man--avoogle's
blind, isn't it?--and then saying he hardly saw Jim?... what?..."
"I didn't hear him say anything about a blind man."
"No, no--before you came--when he first came back. He said 'avoogle.'"
"I expect he knows all about it. See what Judith has to say!"
Sir Murgatroyd didn't seem at all in a hurry for his interview with his
daughter. He hung about, finishing topics up. He dropped his voice to
say, "Poor Jim! Taylor said he was just expecting his little girl back.
And now she'll come back and find him lying dead."
"Ah--the nice little girl, Lizarann. Yes--I had forgotten Lizarann.
Poor little woman!" For remember it was this young swell who had made
Lizarann's acquaintance near two years since, in Tallack Street. Do you
recollect?--when William Rufus called him Scipio.
CHAPTER L
OF MARIANNE AT BROADSTAIRS, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A "DREADNOUGHT."
AND HOW SHE READ OF HER HUSBAND'S ACCIDENT ON ITS ARMOUR-PLATES, AND
AT ONCE STARTED FOR ROYD. BUT SUPPOSE THEY CALLED HER "LADY CHALLIS"!
Marianne Challis, or, as she preferred to be called, Craik, had
sentenced herself to an embittered life, and knew it. But she had, as
we have said, so much in her of the dogged tenacity and vengefulness
of a Red Indian brave that scarcely any idea of surrender had ever, so
far, entered her mind. Whenever the smallest suspicion of wavering had
approached its outskirts, during the year and a half of her residence
with her mother at Broadstairs, she had at once brought into the field
an auxiliary force, the consolation to her conscience that she was,
at least, no longer "living in sin" with the father of her children.
Even if her jealousy of what she found a satisfaction in calling his
"connection with" Miss Arkroyd--a phrase first used, dexterously, by
Charlotte Eldridge--had been ill-founded, which it wasn't, it would
have been a misapprehension to be thankful for, in that it had made her
alive to the heinousness of her immoral life, and qualified her to go
before the Bar of an Offended God, not only with mere lame apologies
for the existence of her two girls, but with a statement of account,
claiming payment of Joy over the Sinner that Repenteth. Where would
have been the use of pleading, before that Awful Throne, that she was
"only Kate's half-sister"?
This story knows that accusation will be brought against it of
"sneering" at things sacred; but let the accuser try to depict the
frame of mind of this poor lady without seeming to do so. Marianne had
accepted her mother's Choctaw Deity, a creation of the sullen vices
of her own mind, on the strength of an assurance that he was also the
God of the man who paid, in Syria, the penalty of the most intrepid
and magnificent attempt to touch the hearts of men the world has ever
known. Let him be sure that when he talks of "things sacred" he is
really holding those things sacred that that man was tortured to death
for proclaiming the truth of, two thousand years ago, and that he is
not exalting the comicalities of a Theologism.
But the outcome of it all was an embittered life for Marianne. And the
bitterness was bound to come out--could not be concealed. It showed
itself in severity towards her children to some extent, but very much
more in acrimony towards her mother. It was just as well, perhaps,
that the safety-valve existed. The worthy old lady would have been
quarrelling with some one else if she had not quarrelled with her
daughter; so it was all one to her.
This old lady was the soul of dissension and savage righteousness. It
must not be understood that what Bob called a "regular set-to between
Gran and the Mater" was of daily occurrence. Often a week would pass
without a battle-royal. But no hour ever passed without an exchange
of shots. Bob's reports to his father of the life at Belvedere Villa,
Broadstairs, were highly coloured, perhaps, but they enabled the author
to picture to himself a daily routine not far from the truth. When
Bob stated that Old Gran was all shaky-waky with rage to begin with,
and would pucker up and fly at a moment's notice if you didn't look
uncommon sharp, Challis accepted the first clause of the indictment
as a false diagnosis of the tremulousness of old age; the second as
realistic poetry; and the condition precedent of immunity at the end
as an admission that his son's own attitude was not always faultless.
When that young man said it was "pray, pray, pray, all day long," and
he didn't see the fun, his father perceived that his meaning was that
religious exercises were protracted beyond usage, for instance, of the
Deanery at Inchester; where, according to Bob, it was "once and done
with." Besides, the Dean didn't snuffle, and Old Gran did. Challis
remarked that Bob would have cut a poor figure as a Hindu Yogi, and
felt grateful in his heart to Dean Tillotson for not snuffling. It
might arrest a violent reaction on Bob's part against all Religion,
Law, Order, and Morality. For Challis would not trust anyone but
himself without the first; weak natures, like other people's, might
lose touch with the other three as well, and take to the secret
manufacture of melinite. He never suspected himself of a weak nature.
These illuminations had been thrown on Belvedere Villa after Bob's
first visit there, a year since. This August he was acquiring more
dignified forms of speech, befitting a fifth-form boy. But he was
still capable of saying that he had seen "awfully little" of his
Governor these holidays. Indeed, if he had not gone with him to a
place in Derbyshire for a week, he would hardly have set eyes on
him. Then if his Governor was stopping on a week at this beastly
little place--Heaven knows why!--why shouldn't _he_? Why was _he_ to
go to Broadstairs? However, he went. And from Broadstairs he wrote
to his Governor, at Brideswell-Poulgreave, Derby, saying that Gran
was "as bad, if not worse, than ever," and provoked severe criticism
of his English in reply. He had his revenge, though, for he pelted
his Governor with samples of the same solecism, cut from current
literature, till the accumulations became quite formidable.
It may seem strange, but the story must record it, that almost the
only thing that gave poor Marianne any real pleasure during this
year-and-a-half in her mother's house was the reading from time to time
in the newspapers of the literary successes of "Titus"; for to her
he never ceased to be Titus. So self-contradictory was her frame of
mind that, when "Aminta Torrington" made such a sensation just after
Christmas, her bosom swelled with pride over the play's success, just
as though she herself had been by the author's side at the fall of the
curtain. Her curiosity was intense to know whether or not the name of
the actress who personated Aminta was her own or one assumed by that
detestable woman to whom she owed all her unhappiness. "Silvia Berens"
puzzled her, because it sounded familiar. But not sufficiently so to be
sure she had known it in those last days she had spent at the Hermitage.
It was a grievous vexation to have no one she could take into her
confidence. She would have shrunk from showing her inner mind to her
mother, even if there had been the slightest prospect of the old woman
knowing anything on dramatic or literary subjects; and when she threw
out a feeler to Charlotte Eldridge, that lady irritated her by taking
for granted that the pleasure she had expressed was a creditable
impulse of generosity, and not spontaneous at all. Just like Charlotte!
And all the while her pleasure was a reality she had a right to indulge
in--a luxury she could allow herself without any weak concession to
feelings she had destined to extinction.
For the fact is Marianne had never ceased to love the father of her
children. Can a woman ever succeed in doing so, except by hating him?
Now, Choctaw as she was, she was under no obligation to detest her
husband as long as she could fully gratify her hatred elsewhere. Judith
Arkroyd had the full benefit of it--drew the fire of her batteries on
herself. Oh, the hypocrisy of that letter the girl had the impertinence
to write to her! But _she_ saw through it. As for Titus, did she not
know him well enough to know he would be mere wax in the hands of a
designing woman like that? Oh yes!--_she_ knew how to flatter him, no
doubt! And how to make the best of herself, too. Charlotte could at
least sympathize about _that_; _she_ knew the sort this Judith was!
Indeed, Charlotte had been liberal in her realistic suggestions about
Judith, who may have been in some ways no better than she made her out,
but who was certainly short of the standard of depravity this moralist
vouched for in telegraph-girls, her _bêtes-noires_ in all that touched
the purity of the domestic hearth. Charlotte's sidelights on the Tophet
incident, as explained in "that hypocritical letter from the girl
herself," would have done credit to Paul de Kock.
Chewing this cud--or these cuds; which should it be?--would take the
poor woman so perilously near a fit of exculpation of Titus that
she was often forced to have recourse to the old story of their
consanguinity to keep her resentment up to the mark. Yes!--she
would--she could--go through a mental operation technically called
"forgiving" Titus. But go back to him? No! She had sinned, all those
years, in ignorance, and with a false ideal of her husband, who had now
fallen from his high estate. And look you!--it was not only this Judith
business. How about that other story? How about that Steptoe story,
not an hour's walk from here? She found the neighbourhood of Ramsgate
oppressive to her.
No--she could never go back to Titus, whatever happened. Not even if
this Bill that was to come into Parliament were to make marriages like
hers and Titus's lawful for the future. What was wrong was wrong, and
how the House of Lords could make it right was more than Marianne
could understand. She wasn't aware that it was the House of Lords that
originally made it wrong.
But if she did her duty towards the supposed instructions of Holy
Writ--which she did not doubt could be found somewhere, as her mother
was so positive about them--she might claim as a set-off the pleasure
of reading the literary columns of the daily Press in the hope of
coming on Titus's name. She did more reading in that year-and-a-half
than she had done in all the rest of her life put together. And as
she was not literate enough to skim, she had to plod; and plodding is
slow work in the columns of a voluminous Sunday paper--the largest
possible paper in the smallest possible type. But one does get a lot
for one's penny, whether it's _Lloyd's Weekly_, or the _Dispatch_, or
the _People_; and there's sure to be all the theatrical news and recent
publications, whichever you take. So Marianne pored intently over one
or the other, every Sunday afternoon, on the sofa; while her parent
dipped into sermons, or ran her eye through the Prayer-book, now and
then looking at the newspaper. Not, that is to say, in the mere cant
sense of the phrase, but glaring at it wolfishly over her own more
legible type, with a basilisk eye to slay the profane intruder. The
presence of the unhallowed secular abomination in the house on the
Lord's Day was a bone of contention between the mother and daughter;
but the old lady had had to give in, and every Sunday afternoon saw
strained relations in abeyance, and the tension of a skin-deep concord,
that might or might not last until the children should be allowed down,
and given the obnoxious thing to make boats of.
On this particular Sunday--the day following the events of last
chapter--Marianne's attention seemed deeper and more prolonged than
usual. She had found something that interested her. It was taxing her
apprehension severely, and she had no one to go to for enlightenment.
But it is not human to accept exasperation in silence, and Marianne
saw a prospect of relief in putting her mother's uselessness as an
informant on record. So she said, as though referring to a matter of
course, "I suppose it's no use asking _you_ what these Parliament
things mean," and went on reading.
Few people admit complete ignorance in any department without a
struggle. "Perhaps I know nothing about anything," said the old woman,
snarling meekly. "Perhaps I know more than you choose to think I
know. Now snap!" These last words claimed the position of a private
reflection made by a person of rare self-restraint in a den of mad
dogs. There was nothing unlike her mother in them, and Marianne left
them unnoticed, and continued:
"I suppose you don't know what is meant by 'an amendment to remove
from the Bill its retrospective character'?" For Marianne had got at
the report of the sitting of the House of Lords of two days since; and
though she had kept herself uninformed, intentionally, on the subject
related to, still, when she saw it all in print, her curiosity took the
bit in its teeth, and she read.
"It happens that you are entirely wrong, because it happens that that
is just the one thing I do happen to know. But I shall not talk about
it on this day." This resolution lasted quite three minutes, when the
speaker resumed, under a kind of protest that the little she had to say
wouldn't count. "You know perfectly well what Mr. Tillingfleet said in
his last letter about this wicked Bill business."
"What did he say?"
"You know perfectly well"
"I do not."
The self-denying ordinance of Sabbath silence became too hard to keep.
The old lady broke out, "You know perfectly well that Mr. Tillingfleet
said that, if this Bill was given a retrospective character, you would
have to be Mr. Challis's wife again, and live with him, whether you
liked it or not."
"I don't recollect that he said any such thing. I don't believe he
_did_."
"You can get his letter and look at it, if you doubt your mother's word
on Sunday." This was not an admission of fibs on week-days; it referred
to the intensification of unfiliality as a Sabbath vice. The speaker
closed her eyes and began saying nothing about the subject again, in
fulfilment of her manifesto.
Marianne ran her eyes over the scanty fringe of letters stuck in the
mirror-frame over the chimney-piece. Mr. Tillingfleet's business
handwriting was soon found. "He _does_ say no such thing," said she,
after reading it to herself. "What he says is absolutely and entirely
different."
"I am corrected. When you are quiet once more, perhaps you will kindly
tell me _what_ he says?"
"Grandmamma, I tell you plainly it is no use trying to make me out in a
temper, because I'm not...."
"Go on. I am accustomed to being snapped at."
"I shall not go on if you talk like that."
"_I_ have no wish to hear the letter again. Don't read it if you don't
want to. I know perfectly well what's in it." The venerable lady then
murmured to herself, most offensively, "Three little Liver Pills."
It was one of her practices to sketch correctives for controversial
opponents, the doses increasing in proportion to the degree of
diversity of opinion.
Marianne, armed with a combative immobility of face and monotony of
accent, read aloud from Mr. Tillingfleet's letter. "'The retrospective
action of the measure now before Parliament will, if carried, seriously
affect the relations of Sir Alfred Challis and your daughter. It will
undoubtedly determine the technical legitimacy of their children, and
give their _de facto_ father a legal right to their guardianship.'
There!" says Marianne in conclusion, replacing the letter in the
looking-glass.
But her mother rallies her forces with asperity against the assumptions
of this monosyllable, saying enigmatically that she is "not going to be
'there'd.'" It is ridiculous, she says, to pretend that she said that
Mr. Tillingfleet said there was anything in the Bill to compel anyone
to do anything. But, for all that, Marianne would have to live with her
husband again, or go without her children.
Marianne walked up and down the room over this, chafing. She couldn't
believe such disgraceful injustice was possible. Besides, if the
Bill passed ever so, Titus would never have the meanness to take her
children from her. To think that, all this year past, he could have
married that girl at any moment, and then to have a right to his
children!
Grandmamma said she would never be the least surprised at any
freethinker committing bigamy. All freethinkers committed something, or
many things, for that matter, avoiding felony from motives of policy.
"He knows that his children are contrary to the Act of Parliament now,
and that he's no right to them, and that's why he keeps his distance.
You'll see, Marianne, that it will be quite another story if this
wicked Bill passes."
"I don't believe it. Anyhow, it hasn't passed yet! Besides, the
amendment was withdrawn."
"Well!"
"Well, of course! Then the Bill won't have a retrospective character."
But the old lady was too sharp to fall into this topsy-turvy view of
the case, and presently succeeded in convincing her daughter of her
mistake. However, Perplexity was only scotched, not killed. "Suppose
Titus had married this girl already, I mean, and the Bill passes, which
of us would be his wife? I don't see how any amount of retrospects
could unmarry _them_." Thus Marianne; and her mother can't meet the
difficulty off-hand.
But consideration lights on a solution. "It would make your children
legitimate, and he would claim them," says she, with the sort of glee
in ambush people feel over a fellow-creature caught in a legal man-trap.
But Marianne's short sight is often clear sight. "What rubbish!" says
she. "If Miss Arkroyd had a baby.... No!--I don't care, Grandmamma.
She wouldn't be Titus's wife, if she married him at all the churches
in London, and you know it.... Yes!--I say again, if she had a baby,
Titus would have two legitimate families at once, and she would be his
Law-wife, and I shouldn't. It's silly!"
Those who read the Debates on this question at the time--it is not so
long ago all this happened--will remember that arguments akin to this
one of Marianne's repulsed the forlorn hopes of the Bill's opponents,
and clinched its retrospective character. What has happened to women
who had married their sister's husbands, and been superseded by a
"lawful" wife, before the passing of this Bill, the story knows not.
Have the husbands been convicted of retrospective bigamy?
But this story has little more concern with the intricacies of
difficult legislation in this matter than with those that have arisen
in any other coercion by Law of the private lives of the non-aggressive
classes. It is hopeless, apparently, to look forward to a day when the
guiding rule of the law-giver will be non-interference with all but
molestation; but one may indulge in satisfaction at each removal from
the Statute Book of an enactment that infringes it.
Marianne's last speech, recorded above, shows a curious frame of mind.
She had thrust her husband away from her in a fit of jealousy--not an
ill-grounded one, by any means--and had bolstered up her conscience
by what she more than half suspected to be a false pretext; but
one in which she felt sure of the support of Grundydom in Great
Britain, _passim_. How if this new legislation, or abrogation of old
legislation, should undermine the fortress of her powerful allies, and
leave a small and unconsidered band of bigots to fight the battle of
an imaginary consanguinity? Those are not the words of her mind--only
the gist of her thought. What she said to herself was that now there
was to be an Act of Parliament everyone would go round the other way.
To her that included the thought that the old catchwords that had done
duty for so long would begin to ring false when brought into collision
with that powerful agency, a Parliamentary majority. Since she had been
dwelling so constantly on the subject she had more than once found
herself face to face with impeachments of well-worn arguments derived
from Scripture; notably when she found that one Biblical denunciation
treated a marriage with a woman who might have one day become her
husband's Deceased Wife's Sister, but who would not have been so when
he married her, unless he had waited for that _sine qua non_, his
wife's death. Thoughts of this sort strengthened and multiplied as
the time drew nearer for this Parliamentary discussion, and here was
the Bill apparently going to become Law, and by a backhanded thrust
to make her Titus's "Law-wife" again, as well as what her own heart
in some mysterious way proclaimed her to be--namely, his _real_ wife,
whatever that meant! She was certainly in a very curious, confused,
self-contradictious frame of mind, was Marianne.
Perhaps her contradiction and confusion had never been much greater
than on this Sunday afternoon, where the story has left her for so
long, feverishly pacing up and down the room, after puzzling her poor
stupid head trying to follow the Debate, and make some sense of it.
She had succeeded in finding out that the Bill was nearly through
Parliament, and that it would affect her and Titus more than she had
conceived possible hitherto. She was working herself up into a state
of bitten lips and sobs kept in abeyance. Her mother was not the person
to encourage this sort of thing. "If you must prowl, Marianne," said
she, "can't you go and prowl somewhere else?"
Her daughter may have shown her state of mind; for as she returned to
her sofa, her amiable mother added, "If you are going to sniff and make
a scene, Marianne, you had better have the children down." The old
woman was sitting with her eyes shut, and really had very slight data
to go on.
"Whatever Titus was, at least he wasn't unkind!" said Marianne tartly.
But she touched the bell-handle, and its sound was followed by the
prompt appearance of Mumps and Chobbles, now no longer known by those
names, which had been to some extent their father's private property.
The younger child came into the room shouting, with jumps as emphasis,
"Now we may have the Thunday papers to make boats of, long ones and
short ones."
The construction of a Navy had been a great _pièce de résistance_
at the Hermitage in old days. The vessels had weak points; notably
that when the deck was flattened out on completion, the cut-water was
apt to part amidships, unless firmly held together by a neighbouring
shipwright, or stuck together with a pin. But this last practice was
looked upon with suspicion, as hardly legitimate. The question does
not arise, so far as we are aware, at Chatham or Devonport; as in no
case are ships first constructed with decks analogous to the bottoms of
wine-bottles seen from within, and levelled down before launching.
Traditions of bygone Dockyards naturally survived, and gave rise to
controversy. Marianne was always in dread of some painful reminder of
the past during ship-building. But it kept the children quiet; so,
though she had not seen the whole of the paper, owing to the difficulty
of analyzing that Debate, she conceded it to the Contractors.
Now, a practice obtained between them quite at variance with the
care and foresight usually shown in the placing of new ships on the
stocks. If in any of the Government Dockyards it is common for the
actual length of a ship to remain an open question until the moment of
construction, it should surely be made the subject of a question in
Parliament! Mumps and Chobbles, having obtained the paper, differed
about the length of the first hull to be put in hand. Chobbles
preferred a normal full sheet, alleging that vessels built of two
sheets were only just seaworthy, owing to weakness of the backbone.
Mumps was ambitious, advocating a ship of huge length, made with two
full sheets. Chobbles opposed this scheme on the ground that, if
pushed, such a vessel would collapse, or go scrunch. Mumps, however,
had set her heart on it.
"Papa _thaid_ it wouldn't go scrunch--not if we sticked it over in
the middle--not if we pulled bofe the edges across--not if we doo'd
like viss." Mumps ended an imperfect description with a practical
demonstration of how the vessel might be strengthened in the middle if
some of the length were sacrificed. "Overlap" was the word she wanted.
"Then we must have wafers," said Chobbles. Because otherwise, you see,
the ship might come in half, and founder--who knows?--with all on board.
"You may have wafers if you won't quarrel," said the mother of the
shipwrights. And wafers being obtained from her writing-desk, a threat
of violence from Mumps was withdrawn, and overlooked.
Now it so chanced that, the newspaper being large and difficult to
control, Chobbles, as principal, gave instructions to Mumps to hold
the two sheets the long ship was to be made from as directed, while
she herself stuck the two together, cautiously advancing across the
paper on her knees. A more mature shipwright would have wafered the
two corners first, and distributed the remaining wafers over the space
between, so as to make the most of them. As it turned out, Mumps
shifted her corner while Chobbles was yet half-way, and when Chobbles
completed, dismay ensued. For the paper didn't lie straight, and all
the wafers were used up. Words followed, and recriminations. Mumps
maintained that she had held on to her corner loyally, unwaveringly;
Chobbles that she could not have done so, because she herself had
selected a passage in large type as the point Mumps was to remain
faithful to. She was in a position to show that if her little sister
had adhered to her instructions, the accident would not have happened.
"What are those children fighting about?" said their Grandmamma, who
had fallen asleep--had been snoring, in fact--and who waked suddenly.
"It all comes, Marianne, of your letting them play on Sunday afternoon.
When I was a child I should have been writing out the sermon, and well
whipped if I couldn't recollect it...." And so forth.
"What's all that noise about, children?" said their mother. "If you
can't make less I shall ring for Martha to take you back to the
nursery. Be quieter!"
Chobbles plunged straight into indictment, Mumps into justification.
"I said, 'Hold the corner to Motor Car,' and Mumps didn't."... "I
_did_ held it to Motor Car, and never leaved it loose one minute."...
"You did _not_ hold it to Motor Car, or it would be up against Motor
Car now."... "Be-because you shov-oveled it all crooked, and it wors
your fault and it worsn't my fault" ... and more to the same effect,
came mixed with heart-broken lamentations over the ruin of the great
ship's chances; for all the wafers but two were licked and used, and
the wobble of the raw material was too disheartening for any attempt to
be made to rectify it.
"It just serves you right for quarrelling about it," said Grandmamma
savagely, taking a mean advantage of the difficulties youth has in
convicting maturity of defective reasoning. "And it serves _you_ right,
Marianne, for letting the children have the horrible things at all."
She went on to point out that all the benefit of Afternoon Service was
lost if contact with such profanities was permitted afterwards.
Meanwhile Marianne, painfully conscious that in these days she could
not say, as of old, "What would your father say if he heard you quarrel
like that?"--for fear of complications--went to the children, still
at daggers drawn over the newspaper on the floor, to make an official
investigation of the facts.
Did not the story note, a page ago, that she had altogether missed
a sheet of the paper? She had, and it was an important one; the one
containing the very Latest Intelligence and Stop-the-press News.
And the words "Motor Car," chosen by Chobbles as a finger-guide
for her small sister, formed part of the following piece of Latest
Intelligence:--"_Fatal Motor-Car Accident._--An accident, which has
already caused one death, and which it is feared may have other fatal
results, occurred yesterday morning at Royd, in Rankshire, close to the
seat of Sir Murgatroyd Arkroyd, Bart., some years since Member for the
County. The car, the property of Lord Felixthorpe, Sir Murgatroyd's
son-in-law, was turning a sharp corner near the picturesque and
interesting spot known as 'The Abbey Well,' when the deceased, a man
known as 'Blind Jim,' stepped incautiously into the middle of the
road, so suddenly that the promptest action of the chauffeur in his
application of the brake could not avert a catastrophe. Unfortunately,
as the car swerved, one of its occupants, a gentleman whose name had
not transpired at the moment of writing, rose to his feet in his
apprehension that a mishap was impending, and was thrown violently
into the road, falling on his head. He was conveyed to Royd Hall
insensible, but we understand that hopes are confidently entertained of
his recovery. We are glad to be able to add that the lady who was the
other occupant of the car, Miss Judith Arkroyd, the eldest daughter of
Sir Murgatroyd, had the good fortune to sustain no injury beyond the
inevitable shock attendant on so tragic an occurrence." Jim's death was
rather taken for granted in this paragraph; no doubt the wire on which
it was founded had felt the greater importance of the motorists. No one
ever knew who sent it. In such cases, no one ever does.
The overlap amidships just hid all but the first three lines; and
when Marianne examined it, with a view to remedying the miscarriage,
she attached no more importance to "Fatal Motor Accident," in large
capitals, than to any other mishaps the newspaper world gets killed in.
There are always accidents! But in the course of a laborious detachment
of the last two or three wafers, to be employed in reconstruction if
gummy enough, the words "Royd in Rankshire" were uncovered, and caught
her eye.
"Stop, children!--don't fuss and worry. I want to read this.... Royd
Hall in Rankshire."... The last words were said to herself in relief of
thought, not as information for the children, who didn't matter.
"_What's_ that about Royd in Rankshire?" Grandmamma waked suddenly, and
put a good deal of side on her snarl, provisionally, not knowing how
much acrimony might turn out to be needed.
"Wait till I've read it, and I'll tell you."
"Oh, don't tell me if you don't like. It's no concern of mine."
Nevertheless, Marianne, after reading through the paragraph to
herself--during which the old lady affected perusal of a sermon--took
her anxiety to hear for granted, and read it through aloud. It met with
the comment:
"I suppose that's what you grunted at, the first time?"
"Suppose what's what I grunted at ... oh! 'had the good fortune to
sustain no injury,' do you mean? Well, Grandmamma, I suppose you
wouldn't expect me to cry my eyes out if...."
"If 'handsome Judith' got her beauty spoiled--is that it?"
"I shouldn't cry my eyes out. I wonder who her other gentleman was, in
the car! I'm glad it wasn't Titus, at any rate."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, mamma, how can you be such a fool, when Bob heard from his father
only yesterday, at that place in Derbyshire; he got the letter this
morning." Bob had been at Broadstairs a week at this date, and, in
pursuance of a policy of avoiding his grandmother on Sundays, when she
was liable to malignant forms of piety, had started early in the day to
walk to Canterbury--his beloved Tillotson was staying there with an
ecclesiastical relative--where he would stop the night, and whence he
would walk back next day, accompanied probably by Tillotson. Well!--it
was only eighteen miles!
Marianne was as sure that her husband was safe, leagues away from
Royd Hall, yesterday morning, as she was that she had packed off Bob
with sandwiches and cake after an early breakfast twelve hours ago,
and that he and Tillotson were enjoying Choral Services and Purple
Emperors alternately to their hearts' content. She was satisfied--not
reasonably; but then, it was comfortable to be unreasonable--that he
had posted the letter as soon as it was written; and as it reached on
Sunday, it was posted on Saturday. What could be clearer?
She was so comfortable about it that she re-read the paragraph once or
twice, not quite without a kindling hope that Miss Arkroyd's motoring
about with a gentleman unnamed might "mean something"--mean something,
that is, that would end the chapter of Titus's admiration for, or
"connection with," Miss Arkroyd. It didn't matter which you called it.
One thing was clear enough. The injured man was a stranger to the
purveyor of the news; not the owner of the car, just mentioned, nor any
other of the _habitués_ of Royd Hall, all of whom would be well known
in the neighbourhood. Oh yes!--that was all right. She hoped, however,
that if he was an aspirant to Miss Arkroyd's hand, he was not seriously
damaged, so as to diminish his probabilities of success. As for "Blind
Jim," she was sorry for him, with a general feeling that "handsome
Judith" was responsible for his mishap, but without any definite
recollection of him. She may never have heard him mentioned at all,
for Mrs. Steptoe was not communicative about her brother; and although
Challis had certainly made Lizarann's acquaintance before Marianne left
her home, it was only on that last day of his abruptly terminated visit
to Royd. And that was all ancient history by now.
She resumed the reconstruction question quite at ease in her mind; if
anything, with a sense of something not unpleasant having happened.
Further search yielded two or three more wafers, and the ship was
completed and launched. But the resistance, to shearing-force, of the
bolts that held the fore and aft parts together had not been properly
calculated. A dissension between the owners led to an attempt to drag
her two ways at once, and--to use very un-nautical language--she gave
at the wafers. Mumps, seized with despair, was told that if she roared
and stamped, she shouldn't be allowed to make ships at all; and her
mother, to show that she was in earnest, picked up the shattered
vessel, and proceeded to re-embody it as the Sunday paper. But a
something caught her eye, and she read again.
A moment after Grandmamma, rousing herself wrathfully, exclaimed,
"What is all this horrible noise about? Those children had better go
upstairs. I tell you they _shall go_, Marianne; I won't have the noise
any longer!" and began pulling the bell to summon Martha, the nurse.
She must have taken a sound that came from her daughter for protest or
remonstrance; for she stormed on, heedless that the voice of the two
children had changed from mere unruliness to terror. "It's no use your
saying 'yow,' because I tell you I won't have it. On Sunday afternoon,
too!... _What?_" She turned furiously, but her fury gave place to alarm
as she caught sight of her daughter, ashy white, gasping to speak, but
speechless; clutching with one hand the paper that had been the ship,
pointing to something in it with the other.
Then Marianne found a voice, or a voice she hardly knew as her own, to
cry out chokingly, "Oh, Titus, Titus!--dying!" She relinquished the
paper to her mother, saying, "Oh yes--here!--oh, here! Look, look! ..."
still pointing, and then covering her eyes, with a cry of despair: "He
is dying--dying! Oh, children, children, your father will die, and I
shall not be beside him!"
"You fool!" said the old lady. "Don't go on like a mad thing.
Before the children!" She was scared, but it must be admitted she
showed discipline. "You might at least be quiet while I read it....
No!--_Wait_, Martha!... can't you see? ... you servants never
_can_ see...." She took the paper to the window--for the light was
failing--and read to herself. After a minute, she said abruptly, "Ho!"
and then _sotto voce_, "He'll die in her arms, at any rate." And then
this venerable woman--let us hope with an affectation of indifference
to the fate of her son-in-law, contrived something nearly approaching
a snigger as an accompaniment to the remark, aloud, "_He_ won't die!
_You_ needn't fret yourself. Handsome Judith will see that he's
properly doctored up." Leniency might have supposed this an attempt
to strengthen her daughter against her trouble by appealing to her
resentment. If so, it was an impolitic one. For Marianne, apparently as
a response, said decisively, "I shall go to him at once," and seemed to
mean it.
"Don't be an idiot! You can't pay for your ticket. You haven't any
money, and _I_ shan't give you any." But it seemed that Marianne had
money, so this attempt to hinder her departure only hastened it. She
was not one to submit to coercion tamely. To be brief, she put a few
necessaries in a bag, hugged her children well, consoling them as best
she could, begged that the news should be kept from Bob till more was
known--for this Marianne, with all her faults, had a strong leaven of
family affection--and caught the quick train for London.
She would have travelled all night had there been a train. As it was,
she was up very early at the Hotel, got a poor breakfast, and left
Euston by the first express, before eight o'clock struck. Would Titus
be alive on her arrival?
For the item of "Stop-the-press News" that had caught her eye, and
thrown a light on the paragraph she had just read, ran as follows:
"Name of gentleman thrown from motor-car yesterday morning at Royd, Sir
Alfred Challis, well-known author and playwright; condition precarious,
but not despaired of."
In the greatest stress of trouble absurd thoughts hang about like imps,
and vex one with their insignificance. All through that five hours'
rail Marianne was plagued with the question:--Suppose those people
chose to address her as "Lady Challis," what should she do?
CHAPTER LI
HOW CHALLIS CAME TO, AND SPOKE. BUT HE ASKED FOR MARIANNE, AND DIDN'T
KNOW JUDITH FROM ADAM. HOW THE LATTER PROMISED TO TELL HER FATHER.
THE WORLD'S GUESSES, MEANWHILE. HOW THE DUCHESS SAID WHAT THE POINT
WAS, AND CHALLIS RELAPSED
It was on a Saturday, the twenty-fourth of August, that Alfred Challis
met with his mishap, at half-past nine in the morning. It was not till
eight o'clock on Monday that he began to regain consciousness, very
slowly, having been nearly forty-eight hours speechless, and seemingly
insensible.
Experience tends to show that in most cases of recovery from coma,
whether the cause be traumatic or otherwise, the first memories that
present themselves are those of the last events of which the patient
has been conscious. With Challis it was otherwise. During his stupor he
had forgotten, apparently, all about his accident--about what led to
it--about Royd Hall, his infatuation for Judith, his wife's desertion.
Nothing of the story of the past year-and-a-half was left when he first
became aware that he was in a strange room, lying on luxurious pillows,
with a great deal of bandage on his head and a great deal of pain
inside it. What must seem strangest of all was that he had forgotten
Judith herself!
For Judith, whose communications with her family will be easiest
explained later, had been roused before her usual calling-time by her
little maid, Cintilla, who announced joyously that if Judith pleased,
miss, Sir Alfred Challis had spoken. "Did he ask for me?" said the
young lady. But Cintilla couldn't say. The nurse didn't hear words. A
nurse had been got from Grime on the Saturday afternoon.
"Ask the nurse not to talk to anyone else till I can come," said
Judith. Then she scrambled into some clothes and a _peignoir_, and went
straight to his bedside.
"My little Cintilla said Sir Alfred Challis had spoken, Miss O'Connor,
but that you couldn't make out what he said?"
"Oh yes--I'm quite sure he spoke. But I shouldn't like to swear to the
words, Miss Arkroyd."
"But short of swearing to them ... you've an impression?"
"Yes--but I think it must have been a mistaken one. I thought what he
said was 'Polly Anne.'... Perhaps there's someone?..."
The story has more than once spoken of Judith Arkroyd's splendid nerve
and powers of self-control--at least, against all moral disturbing
forces. On this occasion the perfect self-possession with which she
said, "Oh yes!--he was speaking of his wife," would have done credit to
Julius Cæsar or Napoleon.
The nurse showed by a perfectly natural question her absolute
unsuspicion of a fox under the cloak. "Had Lady Challis far to come?"
For she must have been sent for--that saw itself.
"We don't know--I mean, we don't know where Lady Challis is. When
Sir Alfred comes to himself, he will tell us.... Is he not speaking
again?..." Yes, he was. Both listened. Judith was reflective a moment
over what to do; then said: "Would you kindly knock at my father's
door, and say we think Sir Alfred is coming to himself? Or tell James
to tell him." The nurse thinks to herself: "More obvious, surely, for
this young lady to hunt up her father, and leave the patient to me!"
But Judith, seeing hesitation, suggests a motive. When Sir Alfred opens
his eyes he may be alarmed to find himself alone with a professional
nurse. Also, Judith is always authoritative.
She seemed half-frightened of the patient, left alone with him. Would
not you, woman, who are reading this, have taken the hand of the man if
you loved him? Did Judith love him? She did not take his hand. Do you
find her inexplicable? She was not really so; it is only the story's
want of skill that makes her seem so. Then, think of the conflict of
feeling and motive under her circumstances.... However, let that wait!
Perhaps it was as well that she did not take his hand. Possibly what
she did and said was safest, all things considered. She remained
standing, immovable as a statue, by the bedside, and when his eyes
opened and turned to her, more in inquiry than astonishment or alarm,
said simply, "Well?" and waited for speech to come from him.
"Are you real?" said Challis. Her white, scared look and seeming
shrinking from him grew more marked. His words, creepy and uncanny all
the more that their speaker uttered them so equably, made her fear
his reason had given way. Even those who have loved one demented will
shrink from his insanity. But she kept her self-command, and replied
with a voice under control:
"Scroop--do you not know me? I am Judith."
"Judith?"
"Yes--Judith Arkroyd. Do you not remember?"
"Judith Arkroyd--yes--a--oh yes!" There was an amiable air about him of
a wish to be civil--an evasive acquiescence he might have shown to an
attractive lady he had met in Society, and now met again and took the
word of for her identity. He would talk a little, and something in the
conversation would soon remind him whom he was speaking to. That sort
of thing! His provisional pretence of recognition was more convincing
a thousand times of his forgetfulness than any amount of denial of it
would have been.
What could Judith do? Attack the position at once? Say to him: "Try to
think! Try to recall all our love-passages of this year past! Remember
the little garden in the moonlight, and your arms you found it so
hard to restrain within the rules of good-breeding! Remember your
mad, hot outburst, and your flight from an _entichement_ you found
insupportable; your quarrel with your wife; your troth-plight and mine;
the tension of that Bill question. And last and most, or worst, that
automobile and the man ahead, already as good as slain! Think of any of
these things, and surely you will remember that this is I, Judith, that
was to have been your wife!" All that this man must have forgotten,
to forget _her_, rushed through Judith's mind, to take form in words
should she nerve herself to utter it, or any choice from it. But the
next thing he said clashed so ruthlessly with the last of her thought
that speech on those lines was made hopeless.
"My head aches so confoundedly that I feel quite an idiot, and can't
think of anything. But I can see one thing--someone is being very kind
to me. I think if my wife were to come she would be able to thank you
for me. Is she not here? Can she not be got? My wife Polly Anne?"
Yes--the barrier of his utter lack of recognition could not be
surmounted yet, if ever. She must accept the _rôle_ of a stranger; for
now, certainly--perhaps for good. Luckily, he had closed his eyes as
his voice grew fainter with his effort, and died out on his last word.
She fought bravely against the tremulousness of her own to say: "We do
not know where to send to her. Can you tell us?"
"Yes--but don't frighten her. Send it as from me. Say I have had a
slight accident--that is it, I suppose?..."
"Yes, you have had an accident--a fall."
"... And am doing perfectly well. Mind you say that!"
"Oh yes--that shall be worded all right. But where are we to send?"
"Number eighty-three--I think it's number eighty-three--Great Coram
Street." Again his great effort to speak overcame him; and, though he
got through the last words plainly, they ended in a groan. Then Judith
heard her father coming, and the nurse, and left the room to meet him.
The nurse passed on into the room, but Sir Murgatroyd stopped to speak
with his daughter. He looked ill and harassed, and his age was visible
on him. The last two days had tried him, no doubt!
"They say Sir Alfred has spoken. Is that so?"
"Yes--he has been speaking to me. But, oh--papa--papa!..." It stopped
him dead to hear the distress in her voice.
"Yes, dear child, what? Tell me--tell me all!..." It took her a moment
to choke down a sob, and then it came.
"He does not know who I _am_--he does not _know_ me." There is such
a thing as a whisper, as well as a cry, of pain, and Judith's strong
resolve of self-control curbed her last words down to one. Her father,
as he took her in his arms, felt how she was trembling with the shock
of her upset. She had borne the effects of the motor accident better
than this.
The old gentleman kissed her tenderly, calling her by an old pet name
he sometimes used. "Dear girl, dear Jujube," said he. "I am afraid you
loved this man."
She seemed to recoil from this placing of the fact on record. "That is
all over now," said she stonily. "But you are a dear good papa"; and
kissed him in return affectionately. He seemed relieved, and said: "But
now you will tell me all about it." She replied: "I will. All!" And
then her mother came, in haste, and all went together into Challis's
room. But previous exertions had told upon the patient, and he was
equal to no more than a few broken words of thanks, recognizing no one,
but somehow conscious that he was being hospitably cared for, and that
his visitors were his hosts.
* * * * *
Up to this time Judith's family had been kept in the dark about the
important fact in the story of the accident--the reason why Judith and
Challis were in the motor-car at all. Each may have had his or her
surmise as to the object of their rendezvous and sudden departure, but
they had not conversed openly about it, so far. Sibyl had certainly
said to her husband in confidence, at an hour when she supposed all the
rest of the house asleep: "You'll see that I'm right, Frank! It was an
elopement, pre-arranged. Fancy their meeting by accident--parcel of
nonsense!" To which her husband, who was going to sleep, and not in
his usual linguistic form, had replied: "Oh, gammon, Sib!" Sibyl had
then adduced reasons, such as that Challis could not have been on his
way to the Rectory out there near the Park Gate; that the Duchess at
least knew nothing of any appointment for Judith to come to the Castle
at an hour which, according to her Grace, was "almost yesterday"; and
that, most of all, M. Rossier had said Sir Alfred had a map in his
pocket. What did Sir Alfred want with a map unless they were going a
long distance? But his Lordship was not listening, and her Ladyship
convicted him of it, and then both their ships went to sleep.
All this makes one _see_ Judith, and how each member of her family,
without being exactly afraid of her, left the elucidation of the
mystery to the others. But behind a natural reluctance to belling the
cat--though the metaphor is no doubt exaggerated--lay the feeling that
the truth might work out as tragedy; the facts might contain the germs
of heart-break. Silence certainly had its recommendations. Besides,
explanation was inevitable in the end; so why analyze and probe now,
with the uncertainty still hanging over us whether this gentleman
would live or die; and the other uncertainty as to whether the inquest
to-morrow would absolve the motor-car, or find that poor Jim had been
the victim of its gross carelessness? Its owner was feeling bound to
make a fight for its chauffeur, but he had told M. Rossier his mind as
plainly as his French would permit.
As for poor Jim's death, there was no lack of perfectly honest and
heart-felt sorrow for the tragical disaster on the part of any member
of the family, except Judith. She _said_ nothing, certainly; but surely
it was a case in which a stony silence was ungraceful? However, her
mother and sister let her go her own way. She was Judith!--and would be
so to the end of the chapter.
Meanwhile it was a serious grief to the Baronet and Lord Felixthorpe,
shared to a great extent by their respective wives, that poor Jim had
left no family that would have been open to endowment or adoption. When
Athelstan Taylor, arriving late on Saturday evening with Mr. Brownrigg,
who had remained on at the Rectory, brought the full particulars of
Jim's death, he had also the unpleasant task of crushing out all the
plans Sir Murgatroyd and his wife were forming for Lizarann's benefit.
They had all but adopted her in anticipation; indeed, a sort of
competition for possession of the child had arisen between them and
their son-in-law. But, alas!--poor little Lizarann, or the shell she
had left, lay dead in the sound of the sea that was to have done her
so much good. It was a cruel disappointment to Sir Murgatroyd.
The Rector's surmises, which he kept to himself, about the true story
of the motor-car and Challis's meeting with Judith, were based on
fuller information than the Baronet's. He was quite satisfied in his
own mind that the pair had resolved to anticipate the retrospective
operation of the measure before Parliament by constituting themselves
legally man and wife, and making its action in their case impossible.
He knew Challis's disposition was towards taking this step; and while
he was far from having the heart to say, "Serve him right!" of the
man who, when he went up to his bedside and touched him and spoke to
him, lay dead and irresponsive--perhaps never to speak again--still,
he could not but feel that in that man's place he would soonest have
taken his chance of some possible reasonable operation of Law later on.
Failing which he would--so he thought--have borne his lot courageously
as in any other case where Duty bars the road that Inclination beckons
us to take. But, then, how about that awkward thought--what right would
he have had to prescribe his own high moralities to a woman whose sole
crime would have been that she loved him? "Judge not, that ye be not
judged," said he to himself, as he turned from the impassive figure on
the bed. You see, he _had_ never been under fire on that battle-field!
But, whatever he thought, he said not a word of it to the Baronet or
the Family, and he purposely avoided speech apart with Judith. He
looked forward, by preference, to hearing the first explanation from
Challis himself.
The doctor came and went--saw no danger--anticipated early return to
consciousness--would not oppose Sir Murgatroyd wiring for Sir Rhyscombe
Edison, if he thought it necessary; but he did not see, neither did a
colleague, summoned from Grime to consult, what Sir Rhyscombe could say
more than "Wait with patience!" Apparently there was no depression of
the cranium, and certainly there was no fracture. Still, it was all for
their interest that Sir Rhyscombe should come; the less responsibility
for himself and Dr. Shaw Cox, the better for them! Sir Murgatroyd
consented to let the wire he had written stand over till next day,
though he nearly went back on his word when his wife said: "Just
consider!--a two hundred pound fee!" As far as that went, he would have
wired for the whole College of Surgeons if he had thought it his duty,
and taken his chance of the workhouse.
Mr. Brownrigg the Grauboschite found his visit very different from
what he had anticipated; and, indeed, felt himself very much _de
trop_. He had been in the habit of regarding places like Royd Hall from
their guest-recipient point of view--a kind of gratuitous taverns, or
hydropathic establishments, rather, of a refined sort; where, provided
always that he behaved sweetly, and tipped the servants liberally, all
the currents of Life were to run smooth, and troubles be unknown. But
this sudden inroad of Death and Misadventure had changed all that; and
while he had to acknowledge to himself that his affection for his hosts
had grown much greater since they became, as it were, human as well as
merely opulent and amiable, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that
the character of his visit had completely changed. Still less could
he shut his eyes to that other fact--that he really wasn't wanted.
Least of all when he found grounds for suspecting that his hostess was
writing to put off other guests! He mooted the suggestion, with all
due round-abouting, that he should return to his rooms at Cambridge
to-morrow, and come another time.
But he was so sorry for himself that the Rector saw it, and
good-naturedly suggested to Mr. Brownrigg that he should pay him
a visit at the Rectory for a day or two before going home. Lady
Murgatroyd had only postponed her house-party for a few days, just till
all these troubles should blow over; and then, who knew but what Sir
Alfred Challis would at least be well enough to be moved before the end
of the week? Mr. Brownrigg accepted the invitation _con amore_.
And then, throughout a very cheerless and oppressed Sunday, slightly
alleviated by callers, things went on without change. Judith scarcely
left her room, and was reticent. Very little allusion was made to
yesterday's events by the other members of the family in conversation
with one another. It rarely went beyond an inquiry whether Challis
had shown any sign of consciousness. None of the family appeared at
Church--a very rare event in the annals of Royd.
Towards Judith the attitude of her mother and sister was a perfectly
indescribable compromise between toleration and exasperation, good-will
towards a blood relation in difficulties, and condemnation without
benefit of clergy, all kept in abeyance pending illumination. Probably
the freest speech on the matter was Lady Arkroyd's to the Duchess, when
the latter, having been told all the facts in full, asked in her brief,
incisive way--which none but a Duchess could have resorted to without
seeming questionable form, dear!--"What were they up to, Therèse?
That's the point!" and her ladyship replied: "Oh, of course we all know
perfectly well, Thyringia. Only nobody's to say anything. They were
going to take the wind out of the sails of this precious new bit of
legislation by going through a ceremony, at any rate...."
"I see. A honeymoon under protest. I suppose Judith would have come
back here and said nothing about it?"
"My dear, I really won't undertake to say what Judith would or wouldn't
have done. She would have had to come back for her things, anyhow!"
Thyringia looked amused. Perhaps she was canvassing in her mind the
sorry plight of a thingless bride. Many complications would suggest
themselves to the mind of a Duchess of experience. "Not so much as a
tooth-brush, poor girl!" said she. "However, she could have bought
_that_ at any chemist's shop. What are you going to do?"
"Why should we do anything? If that Bill passes...."
"My dear, it was through Committee in the Lords on Friday afternoon.
The Bishop will be black in the face with rage. I shall see him in a
day or two, and be able to twit him. Poor Dr. Barham!... But I don't
see that there can be any marrying now--not till this Sir Alfred gets a
divorce.... _Can_ he?"
"No; he has the most exasperating wife. She _is_ his wife now, or will
be on Tuesday, if Murgatroyd is right! And she's quite _sans reproche_,
as I understand. _Isn't_ it a nuisance?"
"Do you _want_ Judith to marry this man, Therèse?"
"My dear!--is it likely? But if the girl has set her heart on him,
it _is_ a nuisance to have him married to a woman who won't commit
anything and make it possible...."
"Couldn't he force her to divorce him by...?"
"By committing something himself? Oh no!--she's too sharp for that. Of
course, she wants to pay them out, and make it all as uncomfortable as
possible. I'm sorry for Judith, but I must say it's a great deal her
own fault. Oh dear!--why _cannot_ people be ordinary and reasonable?
Hush!--there she is...."
At the sound of an identifying skirt-rustle descending the stairs, the
Duchess dropped her voice to say reflectively: "Yes--why can't the
woman misbehave herself, and be hanged to her?" She was silent by the
time the rustle reached the door. It was Judith, self-possessed, but
pallid, who met a cautious half-approach to the burning subject of the
day with, "Now do, dear Duchess, be a good woman, and _don't_ ask me
questions now. I'm coming over to-morrow, and I'll tell you _all_ about
it.... No, really, I can't tell you about it now, if I try; it only
makes my head go round."
On which her Grace, telegraphed to aside by slightly raised eyebrows
and an almost unperceptible shrug of Lady Arkroyd's shoulders, that
seemed to mean, "You see?--Judith all over. I told you!" merged inquiry
in mere commiseration. Oh no--_she_ wasn't going to catechize and be
odious. Poor child! How ill she was looking! And no wonder! It was all
so dreadful. But, at any rate, she, Judith, was not to blame for this
terrible mishap. No one would ever believe _that_!
"I'm not so sure even of that myself," said the young lady wearily.
And the Duchess made a mental note that this girl really looked her
loveliest in trouble. But this girl did not intend to _s'appuyer_ on
the topic. She had only come in just to say a word of greeting, and
that she would come over to Thanes to-morrow. And now she must go and
lie down, for her head was simply splitting. No; she knew Mr. Taylor
was in the next room with the others, but she couldn't stay to talk
even to him. Her mother must make her apologies. For this was in what
was regarded as the confidential room of the house--the little cabinet
off the first staircase landing, with the suite of buhl furniture
that belonged to Cardinal Richelieu, or somebody; and the cinquecento
Milanese armour, made for Galeazzo Sforza, who was a Monster of
Iniquity. It was always spoken of as "the _mezzanina_ room."
This may be enough to make it understood how a complete revelation of
the circumstances preceding the accident was still to be made, two days
after its occurrence; although pretty shrewd guesses of their general
nature were afloat. It was with a sense of relief that Sir Murgatroyd
said to his wife, as they came away from Challis's side, satisfied
that, for the present at least, his revived powers of speech had
lapsed, "Judith has promised to tell me the whole." And it was with a
sense of relief that her mother heard him. For the doubt of what story
might be still to come was more painful than any probable certainty
would have been.
* * * * *
Down in the village and round the Abbey Well, and round Mrs. Fox's
cottage and its tenant lying dead, survivors of the Feudal System hung
about in groups, and spoke their pristine mother-tongue, an institution
that has not been Americanized in Royd, so far. If that tenant's
subtenant, the victim or _bénéficiare_ of a recent writ of ejectment,
was also hanging about, unseen owing to the Nature of Things, he must
have lamented the pain he was giving, and the trouble his survivors
were having with his residuum. Our interpretation of Jim Coupland's
character favours that view, granting the needful assumptions. But, of
course, he may have been extinct, whatever that means. Poor Jim!
CHAPTER LII
OF JUDITH'S STATE OF MIND, AND HOW SHE TOLD HER FATHER, BUT DID NOT
IMPRESS HIM AS HE WOULD HAVE WISHED. WHO KNOWS WHAT JUDITH WAS? OF A
MYSTERIOUS VISITOR TO THE HALL. HOW NO ONE RECOGNIZED MARIANNE. IS
MY HUSBAND DYING? A SCENE ON THE BIG STAIRCASE, AND HOW TWO TOFFS
WERE FAR FROM ODIOUS. HOW THE NURSE RECOGNIZED ATHELSTAN TAYLOR.
HOW JUDITH SAID GOOD-BYE TO CHALLIS. HOW IT CAME OUT WHO MR. KEITH
HORNE'S FRIEND WAS
A sleepless night had preceded that interview between Judith and
Challis, and she was not at her best when his wandering speech and cold
unrecognition struck a chill to her soul. When a like event occurs--and
it does chance, now and again--between folk who have been linked
together for a lifetime, and the uninjured survivor, awaiting with
the return of consciousness the accents and the look of the affection
of a few hours ago, is repelled by the insensate stare of eyes that
only see a stranger, the unimpassioned sound of a voice from which all
tenderness has vanished, even then the trial is a hard one. But the
memory of the past years is too strong to allow belief that the thing
will last--it is dismissed as a passing nightmare, as the nurse by the
bedside of fever dismisses the wanderings of delirium. It will last its
time, and pass away and be forgotten.
A cool judgment and more experience might have told the girl to
bear her soul in patience; to treat the wanderings of a brain
shaken as Challis's had been as mere sleep-waking. But even had her
self-possession been at its best, she had no long-past years of love
to look back to, to give her confidence in its return with a returning
calm of health. And not only this, but these same wandering words of
his had shown how full his soul still was of the past in which she
had no share. She had been allowed a peep into her lover's heart, and
had felt the force of another love's preoccupation of it. If only his
utterances had been stark rambling, mere Tom-of-Bedlam incoherence! But
the worst of it was, their outward form was clothed in such a terrible
sanity.
There was one thing in it that hit very hard--had a special sting of
its own. Judith knew perfectly well about Challis's bygones. He had
taken her into his confidence about the humble home of the days of his
obscurity. His half-humorous reviews of his past had shown her plainly
how little hold his first wife Kate--the "Ziz" of his novel--had ever
had upon him. He had evidently wedded the wrong sister first. He spoke
of Bob's mother with affection, certainly, but it was an affection that
was artificial and perfunctory, whereas, even if he had never been
passionately in love with Polly Anne--if no volcanic eruption had ever
raged on account of this young person, whom Judith would have classed
as an insignificant puss--still, that Deceased Wife's Sister seemed
to have generated something that was at least a very good working
substitute for a _grande passion_. What was the worth of all his
protestations to her, Judith, if this memory of the days of Great Coram
Street was to be the first resurrection of his mind from its temporary
death?
But where was the use of answering the question now? Or any question
at all, for that matter? Was not the last chance gone of passing the
barrier that held them apart? Well--she had kept her share of the
compact. "I am ready, if it can be arranged," she had said. And she
had complied with every arrangement, stipulating only that the wedding
was to be a mere legal precaution--a formal bar to the creation of
a new obstacle by a retrospective mood of the Lords and Commons.
It would keep the position unaltered; and that was only fair-play,
surely! But now all was changed. She had always been alive to the fact
that Marianne _in esse_, legally warranted in the appropriation of
her husband's children, and canonically warranted in her paroxysm of
sensitiveness to consanguinity, was a very different force to reckon
with from Marianne _in posse_, sained and assoilzied by an Act of
Parliament.
Did she, we may wonder, ask herself the question: If it were possible,
even at this eleventh hour, to get that knot officially tied, and be
ready to laugh at the "retrospective action" of the measure that would
be the Law of the Land in forty-eight hours, would she be ready to jump
at the opportunity? Or, was she not rather relieved at the turn things
had taken? However, there was this to be considered:--if the motor
accident had not happened, and the wedding had come off, she would
never have had to face that blank stare of oblivion, and Great Coram
Street! Some women won't marry a widower lest too many tender memories
should still be treasured in some secret corner of his heart. That is
unreasonable; because the source of them is supposed to be underground,
or in Heaven, or in Purgatory, according to the _façon-de-parler_ of
the moment. But ... Great Coram Street! And the Deceased Wife's Sister
still undeceased, and to be legalized retrospectively on Wednesday!
Be it noted, though, that this is only conjecture! The story has no
warrant for saying that any such thought crossed Judith's mind.
She made a clean breast of the whole matter to her father. She
told him all about that last interview of hers with Challis at
Trout Bend three or four weeks since; and of the arrangement they
had made, and confirmed by subsequent correspondence. Challis was
to reside for fifteen days at some place far enough from his or
her ordinary residence to insure practical secrecy, where there
was a parish-priest qualified to receive his affidavit and issue
an ordinary marriage-licence. "I forget what he called him," said
Judith. "Something like Harrogate." No doubt it was "surrogate." If
in Challis's judgment the passing of the Bill should be put beyond
reasonable doubt, he was at once to procure this licence, and make
every necessary arrangement, keeping her fully informed. He had at
first intended to procure a special licence, but had been deterred by
someone telling him that such a licence might be refused, or at least
delayed. He preferred the idea of dealing with a country parson with
whom he could make acquaintance, and to whose local charities he could
subscribe liberally. Besides, he could mesmerize that parson. You can't
mesmerize Doctor's Commons.
The young lady then narrated, almost more graphically than seemed quite
canny under her circumstances, her reception of a telegram the previous
evening, fixing the time and place of their meeting in accordance with
the terms of a letter of her own, which had told how her brother-in-law
had placed the automobile at her disposal. She described the meeting at
the Park Gate, minus its salutations; the rapid spin along the mile of
road, till they reached the curve; Challis's appeal to the chauffeur
for caution, and M. Rossier's contemptuous disregard; the sudden
appearance of Jim as the car whirled round the corner; and how Challis,
springing to his feet, was shot straight into the road at the very
moment when she knew well, although her eyes had left him, that Jim was
under the wheels; and then her own dazed condition, that almost grew
to stupor as she rode back; and her arrival at home, when her mother,
brought out by Elphinstone, simply ran back terrified. The Baronet
suspected a shade of exaggeration here, and headed off an indictment of
his wife for panic.
"But _why_ the motor-car at all?" said he.
"We turned it all over," said the young lady, "and could see no other
way. The railway was out of the question...."
"Why?"
"Well--picture me to yourself, meeting a swarm of locals on the
platform at Furnival. And fancy my asking for the carriage! Where
should I have said I was going? You've no idea, papa dear, what a poor
liar I am! Not because I'm truthful, but because I'm stupid. Anyhow,
we had taken the trains for granted; and when it came to Bradshaw,
we found that to get to this obscure place and back would mean eight
hours. And what was worst was that if there had been any accident or
delay I should have been stranded till next day--at the Hare and Hounds
I believe it would have been, as a matter of fact--and that wouldn't
have suited me at all...."
"Yes--yes--you were quite right. How long was it to take with the
motor?"
"Within five hours, all told. An hour and three-quarters of car each
way. If all had gone well...."
"Why did Sir Alfred Challis come to meet you?"
Judith didn't seem over-clear on this point. "He made believe," she
said, "that he thought we should lose the way. But I don't believe
that was it. I believe the fun of the ride had more to do with it than
anything."
The Baronet seemed a little _froissé_ by something in his daughter's
tone. "It has been a sorry piece of fun for him," said he. "And for
you, too, my girl." For he was almost vexed with himself for allowing
the inception of a thought of condemnation. See how much she _must_
have suffered, this fool of a daughter of his!
"Don't pity _me_!" said she. "But you are a dear, good papa always."
There was something in this of her old tone of contrasting her
experience with his simplicity. This belief in his pastoral character
was a tradition in the family.
Perhaps it was a part of this character that made him feel that a
blank was being left in their conversation that at least called for a
passing word to fill it in. "This poor fellow's death ..." he began,
taking for granted that Jim Coupland's share in the tragedy would be as
prominent in his daughter's mind as his own. But she stopped him with
an exclamation of alarm as he hesitated.
"Why should he die?" she cried. "There is no chance of his death. See
what the doctors said--both of them...."
He interrupted her. "I was not speaking of Sir Alfred. I was speaking
of Jim Coupland--the blind man, who was killed--is it possible you
do not know that he died?" For, to hear her speak, no one could have
dreamed she knew of that sombre background to a sad day's work, the man
lying dead near at hand.
"Jim Coupland!" she repeated; and the tone of her reply grated on her
father, to whom the thought of Jim's death was an ever-present burden.
Again she repeated, "Jim Coupland!" with a fuller stress on each
syllable that all but seemed contempt. "Yes--but what is Jim Coupland
... compared to...?" Then she qualified her words: "Oh, well, of
course, one feels all that I suppose one ought to feel, but...."
"What what?"
"But it's no use pretending...."
"My dear Judith, I _don't_ understand."
"My dear papa, do you mean to say that if you were in my place....
However, it really is no use talking about it." Her manner was excited
and resentful, till she suppressed it with an effort, and calmed down
to say: "Suppose we _don't_ talk about it!"
There was a symptom of indignation in her father's tone as he replied:
"We shall gain nothing by talking at all, Judith, if I am right about
your meaning. I may be wrong, my dear"--he softened rather--"but what
you _seem_ to me to mean, by the way you speak about this poor fellow's
shocking death, is ... well!--in short, is, that you are indifferent to
it."
"Is it so very surprising? Would you not think me a hypocrite if I were
to profess to be heart-broken about this--this wretched blind cripple,
who was the cause of it all?"
This took place in the garden, where the father and daughter had
walked apart, to be alone, away from the house. Judith had really
been as anxious to speak with him as he with her. But she was not in
love with this turn in the conversation. As she stood with bitten
lip and flashing eye in front of the wires of a cage containing a
sulphur-crested cockatoo--for they were close to the aviary where she
and Challis had talked about the parroquets--a hideous shriek from the
bird caught her last words, and almost seemed a vindictive endorsement
of their spirit.
Her father, to whom the death of the innocent man was a thing that
threw all other disquiets into the shade, suppressed whatever he felt
of resentment or disgust, and showed only wonderment. "My dear child,"
said he, "you are not yourself. If you were, you _could_ not say such
things. I can hardly believe that you realize that the man is _dead_
when you speak so." He stopped a moment, puzzled. "I suppose, though,
he must have been still alive when you last saw him?"
"Oh yes, he was shouting. But I knew he went under the wheel. I _felt
him_." Her father shuddered, but she seemed calm.
"Did you not see him again?"
"No--that was the last I saw of him. I never looked for him....
Well!--I thought Sir Alfred Challis was killed."
The Baronet felt apologetic. "I see, my dear, of course! Yes--yes--that
would be so. I suppose the poor fellow must have had life enough in him
to get off the road ... only ... well!--I don't understand...."
"What doesn't my papa understand?" There is again the shade of the old
family tradition of patronage in her voice. Disinclination to accept it
in this case may have roughened her father's reply a little:
"I don't understand what Taylor said. I'm sure--yes, I'm sure!--he
said he found him _lying in the road_. You must have passed him as you
returned?"
"Very likely."
"Judith!" This was sudden remonstrance, almost anger. But it softened
as it had done before. "Well--well--perhaps it was only natural ... of
course, I am forgetting...."
"Perhaps what was only natural?... Oh dear!--well, of course I know
what you mean--my not being able to go into hysterics over this man's
death. The circumstances are what I believe are called touching, no
doubt, but...."
The Baronet was flushed, and quite angry at this. "The circumstances
are what are rightly called touching," he said. "Poor Jim Coupland
was coming out to meet him--so I understood the Rector--in the full
expectation that he was bringing that dear little girl of his back
to him. And he was only bringing the news of her death.... What did
you say?..." For Judith had muttered _sotto voce_ that then it didn't
matter. But she did not repeat it, saying only, "I said nothing."
Her father did not believe this, and the end of his sentence hung fire,
he looking doubtful. So Judith repeated his last words, to start him
fresh. "'He was only bringing the news of the little girl's death' ...
you were saying?..."
"Yes!--the news of her death. And then this damnable motor-car of yours
comes tearing round the corner, with its damned hooting, and he's under
the wheels in a moment! I shall tell Frank I won't have the thing in
the house again, once he's taken it away. It's simply a horror and
an abomination...." And so on. He was in want of a safety-valve, and
here it was. The fact was that Judith's apathy about poor Jim had made
him feel thoroughly uncomfortable; it was so unlike his measure and
conception of what his family ought to be.
As for Judith, she may have felt that sort of alarm at this impetuous
utterance that a child will remain susceptible of in later years,
who would laugh at any like explosion of a non-parent. It is an
inheritance from the nursery. Impressed by her father's denunciation of
the motor-car, or possibly thinking to herself, "No more scenes, for
Heaven's sake!" she relaxed so far as to say, formally, "I'm sorry for
the little girl." But she spoiled whatever there was of graceful in a
grudging concession by adding, "Perhaps that will satisfy you?"
The old gentleman said nothing, but looked at her, puzzled and hurt
at what he shrank from thinking her heartlessness; trying to concoct
excuses for it that would make her seem less ungracious. For he loved
this daughter of his, so much so that even now he felt proud of her
rich beauty, none the worse for all her stress and trouble. Indeed, as
she stood there, caressing the great white bird that had shrieked--she
had taken it as she spoke from its cage, and was kissing its terrifying
beak with tenderness--her black mass of hair against its yellow crest;
her ivory-white skin against the driven snow of its feathers, each made
whiter in its own way by yet another white, the soft folds of a creamy
summer dress most late Augusts would have condemned; her beautiful
hand in the sun, with the bird's black claw upon its jewels--all these
might have said a word in arrest of judgment to a parent readier
to disbelieve in his daughter than Sir Murgatroyd. No doubt they
influenced him to think that he had succeeded in glossing over what he
would have condemned as callousness in one further away from him. But
she--as other father's daughters are--was his little girl of twenty
years ago grown up. She did not really mean this heartlessness, thought
he; it was a sort of _parti pris_--a parade, an affectation!
Was he right, after all? Is the story wrong in its estimate of her? Has
it laid too much stress on the hard side of this girl's character--its
vanity and love of power? Some moralist has said that no mortal should
be called heartless as long as he or she can fall in love. Judith
Arkroyd _must_ have been in love with Alfred Challis; for see what
risks she was running to secure him! Why--yes!--to secure him; that
was just it. She _wanted_ him, and took the only road to possession
that seemed open to her. Now if, when he lay insensible, that time
when there was none to see, she had only stooped to kiss the inanimate
hand, had even held it till the nurse returned! Should we not have felt
more sorrow for her after that, when his returning speech showed how
completely she had, for the moment, passed from his mind? No doubt she
was in love with him, in one manner of loving. But there are so many!
This story is not going to break its heart about her--to chant
dirges over the grave of her share of this _grande passion_. And its
commiseration for her grows no mellower from dwelling on the fact it
has to record: that exasperation against poor Jim Coupland, to whom
she thought proper to ascribe the whole miscarriage of the scheme, was
really a source of relief to her--a sort of counter-irritant. To her
father, Jim's death and his child's filled the whole horizon--a black
cloud. Challis's mishap he did not distress himself about; he would
be all right presently--had he not spoken? As for his loss of memory,
_that_ meant nothing. Did he not himself, when he came round after
_his_ mishap, ask whether "the trout" had been taken, meaning the fox?
Loss of memory was the rule, not the exception, in such cases. And as
for the future of Challis and Judith, that was a difficulty there must
be some legal way out of. It was incredible that Challis's wife should
go on holding him at arm's length, and yet bar his union with another
woman. Some solution of that problem could be found, Bill or no Bill!
As for opposing his daughter's wishes, if they were really deep-rooted,
that he would not do. All his opposition to Challis hitherto had been
to him as Marianne's husband. If their marriage could be legally
annulled or dissolved, he was not going to stand in the way of his
daughter's happiness.
But this anger of hers against Jim showed her as a new Judith, whom
he had never suspected the existence of. In her childhood she had
been proud and domineering with her brothers and sisters--two elder
brothers had died in the army, and a sister was married in India; none
of them have crossed this story--but not, so far as her father knew,
malignant or revengeful. It gave him a great discomfort at heart; set
him wondering which of her ancestors on either side she had harked back
to. Was it Josceline de Varennes, who, in one of those spirited middle
ages, hid a knife under her bridal pillow and gave her first husband
a warm reception to his couch, in order that she should marry Hugh
Arkroyd? There was the knife, to prove it, in the glass cabinet with
the green-dragon china service. But--as long ago as King Stephen! Oh
no!--it was that old fiend of a great-grandmother of Therèse's. Every
old family has an ancestral scapegoat, and a certain "Lady Sarah," of
the days of the second George, was very popular in this one.
But Sir Murgatroyd scarcely did more than seek for the scapegoat, in
case he should be forced to condemn this member of the congregation. He
did not pass sentence. He only said gently, "You will feel differently,
Judith dear, when you are yourself again. All this has upset you." In
reply to which the young lady said wearily, "We shall see, I suppose,
presently. I can't be very demonstrative about either now, though of
course it's very sad, and so on, about the little girl." And then she
talked to the parrot, kissing him and calling him her darling, and
saying now he must go back in his wicked cruel cage. All which her
father set down to mere bravado, and thought it best to say no more to
her in her present mood. But he had a very serious look on his face as
they walked towards the house together.
It was a relief to him to hear the robust musical voice of the Rector
in the large drawing-room that opened on the lawn, which was their most
natural way back into the house. But Judith paused on the terrace. "Oh
dear!" said she. "There's our Father Confessor! I can't stand sympathy,
and I don't want to be catechized, thank you! Be a dear good papa,
and say pretty things for me!" And then, in spite of an attempt at
remonstrance by her father, slipped away; going round by a side-terrace
that, ending at the house-corner in a vague architectural effort three
centuries old--a Nereid and a Triton and a sink, with an Ionic canopy
over all to keep the rain off--allowed of an approach to the main
_façade_ of the house, and the carriage-drive through the beech avenue
in the Park.
But she did not at once carry out her scheme of escape. The shadow of
the Ionic canopy was sweet on the base of the sink, and the seat it
made was tempting, and the cleanness of its moss and lichens acceptable
even to a skirt of _crêpe-de-Chine_. It was only an old dress, too,
according to Judith's ideas, so she spent a little time with the Triton
and the Nereid before going on into the house. She felt stunned and
bewildered, for all she had shown so bold a front, and was glad of rest.
Presently her desire to know that Challis was progressing got the
better of a terror that was on her that his oblivion might be lasting.
She could hear the voices of the party in the drawing-room still in
conversation, the Rector's very distinctly; so she decided that she
could slip indoors with safety, and rose to go.
A little diffident gate, that had shrunk away into the heart of a yew
hedge, led out to the drive and entrance to the house; and one could
see and not be seen there, even by visitors who had been over the
ground before. Judith stopped at this gate, not to be caught by an
early sample, unexplained. It was not yet twelve o'clock, and there
at the door was a vehicle with one horse, steaming. And a lady in
black was descending from it, and Samuel evidently meant to let her
in. Judith waited for her to vanish; gave her ample time, more than
enough, to be shown into the drawing-room, and then went straight on to
the house.
The vehicle was a hired fly from Furnival, whose driver Judith at once
recognized as an _habitué_ of the railway-station. He was mopping his
brow with his handkerchief, for the morning had become very hot; but
he put his hat on to touch it to Miss Arkroyd, who of course was very
familiar to him. Having done this, he took it off again, and went on
mopping. He referred to the dryness of this sort of day pointedly;
but Judith missed his sub-intent, and conceived that the position was
covered by the approach of Bullett the groom, with a pail of water for
the horse. The lady must have come straight from the train.
Judith looked through the glass door--as _she_ thought, carefully--to
make sure the great hall at the foot of the stairs was empty. She
was quite without conjecture or suspicion as to who the visitor was,
or she might not have contented herself so easily that the coast was
clear. Anyhow, there was no one visible from where she stood and looked
through. So she passed in and walked straight across to the stairs, and
so up to the first landing. As she turned the angle, she saw a lady in
black, whom she did not recognize, seated in the recess on the left,
who rose when their eyes met. Not a bad-looking woman, of a sort, but
not self-explanatory.
Count over the times Judith had met Marianne. They do not amount to
much--at least, until that evening at the theatre. Two dinners and a
visit in London a couple of years ago--consider how little that means
to a young lady who may be under an equal social obligation to remember
half-a-dozen new faces every day! Consider, too, that in this early
time Mr. Challis was in the eyes of this young lady nothing beyond a
popular author whose works she hadn't read; and as for his wife, why
should she notice her at all? "Which was she, Sib?" we can fancy her
asking. Was she, for instance, the underdressed one with the mole, or
the rawboned giggler? Then, as to that visit to the play a few months
later, think of the exciting pre-occupations! Is it certain that Miss
Arkroyd paid as much attention to her hostess as you and I might have
thought the circumstances demanded? Anyhow, there had been nothing
to fix Marianne in Judith's memory to such an extent that she should
recall at once the travel-worn--and trouble-worn--face she hardly
glanced at, and would have left without a second look had its owner not
risen, as though to speak. She might have done so, nevertheless, if it
had not been for something in the visitor's action which suggested a
lady kept outside the drawing-room rather than a person allowed inside
the house. You know the sort of difference--the difference between
subservient conciliation and conciliatory self-assertion.
What caught and retained Judith's second look was that this person
answered to neither description. Her manner was _sui generis_, and the
_genus_ had in it a touch of something odd that wasn't insanity. Was
it desperation? It was creditable to Judith's penetration that she
at once dismissed the only idea that suggested itself. An image shot
into her mind of Jim Coupland's sister, employed as cook by Challis,
humorously described by him more than once. Stuff and nonsense!--out of
the question!
"Are you ... being attended to?" She threw a slight smile of protest
into the question, to guard against the possibility of wrong form. If
she had mistaken the facts, her hearer would understand the implication
of courtesy--no fear of misunderstanding between _us_!
"The young man went in. I can wait." The speaker looked away from Miss
Arkroyd. Her manner was not conciliatory. But even then no idea crossed
Judith's mind of who she actually was. In fact, prohibitives were at
every point of the compass. How could the news have reached Marianne?
How could she have come so quick to Royd?
"Is it anything I can do?" This was bald civility on the face of it;
almost stipulated that it should be refused. The speaker's arrested
foot on the next stair waited to go up when the refusal should warrant
it. But it had to wait, long enough to make its owner wonder what was
coming.
"Yes!--you can, Miss Arkroyd." Judith's good breeding concealed her
surprise. She stood committed, and awaited the instruction. Was this
tiresome person going to give it, or be choked by it? It came at last.
"You can tell me whether my husband is dying or not."
And then Judith knew that she was face to face with Marianne Challis,
the woman she had injured.
* * * * *
Sir Murgatroyd found his wife talking with Athelstan Taylor, of course
about the current events. "This is good news about Challis," said the
Rector. "Lady Arkroyd tells me he has recovered consciousness."
The Baronet demurred slightly. "Ye-es. At least, he has spoken."
"And not incoherently?"
"N-no. Oh no--not _incoherently_." But the stress on this word had
reservation in it, and her ladyship exclaimed impatiently, "Oh, my
dear, you always make the worst of everything!" A pitying smile, aside
to the Rector, was quite a little essay on the unreasonableness of
husbands--that intractable class. Mr. Taylor looked from one to the
other. It would be early to take sides, but of course the prescribed
form in such a case is to help the wife to commiserate her mate's
shortcomings. It was safest to endorse the lady's view, provisionally.
"We mustn't expect too much at first," said he, deprecating the crude
judgment of inexperience, a quality common to all our family except
ourself. "The author won't be in trim for dictating copy for some days
to come, I'm afraid." He hesitated a moment, before adding, "You have
kept it from him, I suppose, for the present?"
"Mr. Taylor is referring to poor Coupland's death, my dear," said the
Baronet. Which his wife resented slightly, as suggesting that her
sympathies needed a stimulus. "_Do_ you suppose I don't understand
that, my dear?" said she _sotto voce_; a reply apart. But she might
just as well have left the matter to stand there, and not let herself
be betrayed into a candid admission that, in view of the sad end of
poor little Lizarann, her father's death almost assumed the form of a
Merciful Dispensation. We should be thankful, at least, that he had
been spared the hearing of it.
"The whole thing has been terribly sad," said Athelstan Taylor. Indeed,
he seemed as if he could hardly bear to speak of it. He turned from the
subject abruptly. When could he look forward to seeing Challis without
danger of his hurting himself by talking?
Sir Murgatroyd looked inquiry at his wife, and she at him. Then he
took the reply on himself, as she seemed very doubtful. "The fact is,
Rector," said he, "it isn't by any means certain that he would know
you. He can hardly be said to have come to himself yet. What he said
to...."
"What he said to the nurse was hardly sense," Lady Arkroyd struck
in abruptly. No doubt she wanted to keep Judith out of it. But Sir
Murgatroyd held to his purpose--would have no evasion or prevarication.
"I was not referring to what he said to the nurse, my dear Therèse. I
was going on to speak of what he said to Judith. What _did_ he say to
the nurse?"
"Oh, I don't know! Tell it your own way." Lady Arkroyd abdicates.
Her husband did not notice her impatience, but continued: "It happened
that my daughter was present when he showed consciousness, and he
did not recognize her, and asked for his wife. It was a very singular
thing, too, that when Judith told him we did not know where to write to
her, he gave the address he lived at several years ago. But I cannot
say that seems to me so strange as his non-recognition of Judith,
considering...."
"My _dear_!" from the lady, remonstratively.
But the Baronet sticks to his colours, though he speaks temperately.
"My dear Therèse, Mr. Taylor is so old a friend that I really do think
it would be absurd to make any secrets. After all, what does the whole
thing amount to?..." Here the Rector interrupted him.
"I think it's only fair of me, Lady Arkroyd, to say that I know all
about it already. This poor chap--I'm not going to say a word in
defence of him--took me into his confidence some weeks ago. That is to
say, he sketched as possible the scheme which I now see he and Judith
must have attempted to carry out. I tried to dissuade him from it,
and, indeed, fancied he had given it up.... No; I thought it best to
hold my tongue about it, in order to retain my influence with him. He
had been speaking freely to me, assuming that what he said would go no
farther, and I should only have lost my hold over him by talking to you
of it, without any corresponding gain." This was in answer to what was
evidently the beginning of a question: "Why was the knowledge of this
plan to be kept from _us_?"
However, the Baronet was ready with ungrudging admission that the
Rector had acted for the best; his wife with a rather more stinted
allowance of assent. Of course, Judith would have gone her own way in
any case ... but still!... "Are we not her parents? Should we not have
been told on principle?" seemed to be an implication lurking behind
lips that had shut it in, and leaking out through a stirring of the
eyebrows. Her husband, averse to reserves, and noting this one, said,
"What were you going to say, Therèse?"
But Therèse said, "_Do_ wait, my dear!" to him, and to the Rector,
"Would you excuse me one moment?... What is it, Samuel?" The last
was because Samuel was in the room with a card on a hand-tray, to
be dealt with furtively, if possible, its bearer's mission in life
being self-subordination. Being called on to state what it was, he
said it was a lady, and might she speak to her ladyship for a moment.
This was a metaphrasis, because it was palpably a card, on which her
ladyship read to herself the name "Mrs. M. Craik," and seemed none the
wiser. Then she handed it to Sir Murgatroyd, who took his glasses to
the reading of it, and said, "No, I don't know the name." Whereupon
her ladyship said, "I suppose I must see her. You'll excuse me, Mr.
Taylor?" and departed, after instructions to Samuel about the room the
lady was to be shown into.
Now, if she had read the name aloud, the chances are that Athelstan
Taylor, who had a lively enough recollection of his visit of
intercession to Marianne's mother a year ago, would have remembered it.
And then Lady Arkroyd would have known beforehand who it was she was on
her way to interview.
As it was, she continued quite in the dark about the identity of "Mrs.
M. Craik," until, following Samuel at what she thought a sufficient
interval to allow of his disposing of the stranger as arranged, she
came out upon a scene at the stairfoot in the entrance-hall that taxed
her presence of mind; with a result that was not an uncommon one with
her, that she could see no way of meeting the demand upon it, except by
an appeal to her husband to rescue her. For, ready as she always was to
set his judgment aside when doing so involved her in no difficulty, she
always looked to him to extricate her when she found herself in a bad
one.
"Oh, thank God if he is living ... if he is only living to speak to me
once ... just once! Oh, do say again that he is not dead. I will never
think ill of you again. Oh, do let me go to him where he is now...."
Thus far the poor soul had spoken through a deluge of tears, when Lady
Arkroyd came out from a side-door, and her mind said to her that if it
was to be hysterics, she did wish Sir Murgatroyd would come. But as
to exactly who this was, this female in black who was making a scene
gratuitously, the thing of all others her ladyship hated, she was for
the moment quite at a loss to guess. Of course, a moment's reflection
would have made it clear, but, you see, she was so totally unprepared.
Her first information as to whom she was speaking with--seeing that she
was as much at sea about Marianne's personal identity as Judith had
been at first--came from her daughter, standing handsome and impassive
on the stairs, above this excited woman; making her seem a suppliant by
her own unmoved placidity, and herself almost cruel by the severity of
the contrast.
"This is Lady Challis, mamma." Judith's speech quite ignores the
tension of the situation--passes it by. "She wishes to go to Sir
Alfred. Is there any objection?" What can it matter to the speaker?--is
the implication. _Let_ her go to Sir Alfred, by all means!
Her mother's breath is fairly taken away. "Lady Challis!" she repeats.
And then, as silence seems to wait for something else, the blankest
interjection: "Oh-h-h!" with the minimum of meaning sound can convey.
Then poor Marianne, with no Charlotte at hand to suggest possible ugly
interpretations, bursts out, "I am _not_ Lady Challis. I am nothing of
the sort. Dear Lady Arkroyd--you must remember me?--you came to see me
at home. Do let me go--let me go to my husband!"
Lady Arkroyd was puzzled. Perhaps, after all, there had been a mistake
at the outset, and there _had_ been all along "something against" this
impossible wife. Nothing suggested itself to her as a practicable
course. This lady had turned to her with a beseeching face, for
which she had "Why, of course!" ready in her heart, being quite a
good-natured woman, but there were such odd complications afoot she
could not utter it. Judith, from her security behind Marianne, was
endeavouring to telegraph without audible speech the words "Deceased
Wife's Sister"; and, indeed, after two or three repetitions, her mother
caught the clue. But she was little, if any, the wiser; and it was then
the prompting came to rush for succour to her husband, still talking to
the Rector in the drawing-room.
"_Do_ you mind my speaking to my husband for a moment first?" Marianne
minds nothing, so long as it is on a road that leads to her object, and
her ladyship goes quickly away.
"May I leave you alone for a few moments, Lady Challis?" says Judith,
going. "Please step in here till my mother returns, and sit down." That
is, into the little room off the landing. Judith goes upstairs quickly;
and Samuel, always on the watch, officiates as pilot.
Lady Arkroyd walked back into the drawing-room. She looked despair
before trusting herself to speech, and the action of her hands laid
an imaginary case for despair before the two gentlemen, who stopped
talking to hear its spoken particulars. Her husband encouraged
revelation by saying "Well?" interrogatively.
"Oh, my dear, what _is_ to be done? It's the Deceased Wife's Sister! I
wish you would come."
The Baronet gives the slightest of whistles. "Where have you got her?"
he asks.
"My dear, she's in hysterics!"
"Yes--but _where_?"
"In the front hall. And Judith is there _with_ her!"
"I say, we'd better go." Thus the Baronet to the Rector, who assents
without reserve. Observe that this colloquy has gone on in undertones.
Not that anyone could hear--they might have shouted, for that
matter--but to endorse the tension of the situation.
Arriving in the hall, and seeing first the place where Judith had
been standing, her mother felt a sense of relief. Her absence made
the position easier to deal with. But--where was the Deceased Wife's
Sister? Samuel explained. He had shown the lady into the _mezzanina_
room, as directed. Samuel felt proud of his Italian, over this.
Marianne had not been sorry to be alone again for a moment, after
her first effort of self-announcement. She looked out through the
window over the rounded slopes, thickly wooded enough to seem a
stretch of forest; with the little groups of roe-deer in the glades
the beech-woods grudged them, in their ambition to cover the whole
land. She saw the wide level lawns, clothed with the grass of
centuries, dreaming of the music of bygone scythes, before the days
of mowing-machines and their economies of power no man stinted then;
the peacocks walking with precision, and satisfied that they were
appreciated; the beds ablaze with asters and marigolds, and dahlias,
and standard roses still blooming, and proud of their little tickets
that told what variety they were. She saw all these, and out beyond
them the smoke-cloud of the great manufacturing centre, with its
confidence of one day gobbling up the park and its wood and warren,
vert and venison, and getting at its coal, and using it up to make
steel armour-plates, that shall send other armour-plates to the bottom
of the sea. Unless, indeed, civilization collapses; whereof it is not
proper form to say--the sooner the better!
All this has nothing to do with Marianne, except, perhaps, as showing
what a many things did not cross her mind that might have done so. The
whole thing was dim to her, and swam about. Now that the excitement
was less, she began to be afraid she might make a fool of herself and
faint off, as she did that time with Charlotte Eldridge. She was sorry
now that after travelling so far on a very poor breakfast in London,
she had not had the sense to get a biscuit or a sandwich at Furnival.
When Sir Murgatroyd and her ladyship came into the _mezzanina_ room,
they found her seated with closed eyes, and alarmingly white. But she
rallied at the sound of their voices. Oh no!--she was all right. Now
all she wanted was to know about her husband. Was he in danger? Had he
been in danger?
The Baronet, in a voice good to banish hysteria in any form,
justifiable or otherwise, rather outwent the truth in his testimony.
Sir Alfred had never been in any danger at all! Who had told Lady
Challis that story? The old gentleman's pooh-poohing laugh was pleasant
to Marianne's ears. Only she didn't feel quite sure she wasn't an
impostor. She had come on the distinct understanding--with whom, hard
to specify--that Titus was dying. Had she been imposed upon?
"It was in the Sunday paper yesterday," she said. "And I saw it on all
the posters at the stations, coming by rail."
"Those damnable newspapers--you'll excuse me, Lady Challis--I should
have all the editors hanged if I had my way. Yes, I would indeed! Why,
there never _was_ any danger! These things happen every day." He went
on to narrate how, when his mare Eurydice threw him at Stamford's
Croft, he had been carried home unconscious, and remained so over two
days. "But your mare had to be shot, my dear," said his wife, vaguely.
When Athelstan Taylor, who had hung back a moment to exchange a few
words with the nurse, whom he had met on the stairs coming from
Challis's bedside, followed his companions into the _mezzanina_
room, he was surprised and pleased to find the Baronet apparently on
the most comfortable and communicative terms with the embarrassing
lady-visitor. It was all just as if none of the events that made the
visit embarrassing had ever happened. Marianne might have been the
wife of any neighbour, the victim of a bad accident; who had come at a
summons to learn the worst, and was being assured that no bones were
badly broken, and the patient in perfect trim for inspection without a
shock to the feelings of the most sensitive. The escapade of Challis
and Judith might have been a dream, and the terms he had been on with
Marianne those of Philemon and Baucis. Ignoring was evidently the order
of the day, and the Rector made up his mind to comply with it.
"This is our Rector, Lady Challis," said the old gentleman, introducing
him. "The Rev. Athelstan Taylor. I think he will tell you he is just as
confident as I am that Sir Alfred will be himself again in the course
of a day or two--perhaps in a few hours. Eh, Rector?"
The voice of the big man with the fresh face, sun-tanned with a
pedestrian summer, was a new reassurance to the frightened, worn-out
woman. It said, filling the little room musically, "Every reason to
suppose it, at any rate! I hope we shall all be as lucky if we are ever
in as bad an accident, which Heaven forbid!" But an inflexion of his
tone contained reference to other injury done in this accident, and
made Marianne remember the details in the newspaper. "Was there not a
man killed?" she asked.
All looked very sad. "Yes, unhappily," was the joint reply. The
Rector began giving some particulars of Jim's death, but stopped.
"You were just going up to Sir Alfred," he said. For the general bias
of the party in the room, as he entered it, had seemed to be towards
migration. The visitor had half-risen from a sofa, but had fallen back
as the conversation showed signs of continuing.
Lady Arkroyd and her husband exchanged looks, and appeared to assent
to the move. Marianne began to rise again, but with such visible sign
of fatigued effort that the other three signalled to one another, so
to speak, that this would never do! Lady Arkroyd spoke, preferring to
indicate that her husband, with man's proverbial want of tact, was
inconsiderately overlooking a guest's comfort. "My dear, I'm sure
Lady Challis has had nothing to eat since she left London, and she
was travelling all night. She's completely worn out." She added a
corollary, "Men forget these things."
The Rev. Athelstan had a suggestion to make: "One minute," said he.
"Just let me say ... I spoke to the nurse just now. She said Sir
Alfred had not talked again, but had shown he wanted to get rid of the
bandage on his head. She was going to take it off, as she says it isn't
the least wanted. Lady Challis would just have time to get a little
refreshed while she does it. And then Sir Alfred will be looking quite
like himself. You know, there was no visible injury ever, except that
scratch on the forehead--just a bit of plaister!"
And thus it came about that Marianne Challis was taking a cup of black
coffee and a biscuit, but nothing else, thank you, in the house she had
refused to follow her husband to over a year ago, at the very moment
that his second return of consciousness prompted him to ask again for
Polly Anne.
* * * * *
Judith, barely pausing to see that Marianne was "shown in" to the
side-room--because it is not enough to know which door; you have to be
properly shown in by a servant--had gone quickly to the patient's room,
meeting the nurse by the way. She stopped her.
"Is Sir Alfred Challis conscious?"
"I think a little more so. He hasn't spoken, but he evidently wants
that bandage off his head. I thought it might be better to mention it
before taking it off. Not that I'm really afraid of the responsibility.
Only it's as well to be on the safe side. Is Lady Arkroyd downstairs?"
"I think she's just coming up. Sir Alfred's wife is here."
"Oh, indeed. I hope she won't upset him. I shall find Lady Arkroyd
downstairs.... Oh, by-the-bye, Miss Arkroyd, what did your mother say
was the name of the big parson--Reverend what?"
"Reverend Athelstan Taylor."
"I thought so." And the nurse, a well-defined and explicit person, went
downstairs as Judith passed on along the lobby.
The figure on the bed was moving slightly as she entered the room,
feeling how venturesome her conduct was; and was evidently fidgeting,
as the nurse had said, about the bandage. She went up and stood beside
him, hiding a kind of desperation under an immovable exterior. Should
she speak to him by name? If so, by what name? As his memory was
playing such tricks, might not his present style and title be strange
to him? Besides, she had never called him "Sir Alfred." And if she
called him "Scroop," as she had done almost throughout, and _still_ he
did not recognize her, how then? But surely he was speaking again!
"You're very good--but what am I being kept here for? I say!--I hope
Polly Anne's all right...."
"Please don't pull at that bandage; it shall be taken off as soon as
the nurse comes back. Why shouldn't 'Polly Anne' be all right?" She
couldn't help the inverted commas.
"Because she hasn't come. Did you send to the address I gave?"
Judith replied stonily, "Your wife is here. She will come directly....
Listen! Do you not know me?" For she knew how short their time must
be; how brief and abrupt the farewell that had to be packed into it,
whatever form it might take. She did not certainly know whether she
hoped he would say "Yes."
He kept her waiting, to turn his eyes full on her and consider the
point. "N-n-n-no!" said he, prolonging the first letter. "I don't
_think_ I do." His civil manner was heart-rending to the woman beside
him. Recollect that only three days before, though they would not have
become _de facto_ man and wife, their compact of marriage would have
been irrevocable! He kept his eyes still on her with a puzzled look,
adding immediately after, "Could you not tell me of something to remind
me?"
What to remind him of, and avoid all claim of tender memory for
the past, in view of the fact that he might disallow that past
altogether!--that was Judith's difficulty. She must keep to suggestions
prosaic and bald--just the colourless events of daily life. She tried
to speak with absolute calm indifference, tempered by good-will.
"Is it possible you do not remember this room--the room the German
Baroness saw the ghost in?" She made a not too successful attempt at a
laugh over this. "Why!--you slept here before!"
"Where is 'here'?"
"My father's house, Royd Hall. I am Judith Arkroyd."
Challis's voice and manner were like his old self again as he answered,
"I do feel so out of it!" and laughed a sort of apology. "I'm horribly
ashamed. I shall have to ask Polly Anne to jog my memory. Is she
coming?"
"Oh yes--she's coming." Judith had hard work to refrain from breaking
out "Have you forgotten Trout Bend and the convict's bridge; the
little Tophet garden and the letter, and all my shawl in a blaze?
Have you no memory of the play you wrote for me to play in; of your
fatuous declaration of a passion a man of your sobriety should have
been ashamed of; above all of our meeting of two days since, our
reckless race along the sunlit road, and its tragic ending?" But she
knew all this, that her tongue was itching to remind him of, was good
for oblivion only; knew it by a thousand tokens, most of all by the
revelation chance had given of the background of his mind. Even the
knowledge that all fruition of their crazy scheme was perforce at an
end was as nothing compared to that. Therefore she felt it safest to
say curtly that Marianne was coming, and to add that the nurse would be
back in a moment to remove the bandage.
Challis closed his eyes again with a tired sigh. "I can't trust myself
to talk," said he. "All sorts of things keep coming into my head, and
convincing me I must be out of my senses. But I'm clear about one
thing. Someone is being very kind to me. I have a general impression
that I don't deserve it, and I want to thank ... want to thank...." He
seemed to give it up as a bad job, and to relapse into half-stupor.
Judith was fast coming to the conclusion that the sooner she and
Challis saw the last of one another the better for both. But "to part
at last without a kiss!" The words of Morris's poem came into her mind.
Well--suppose in this case we were to say, "without a handshake"? That
would be quite enough. At least, that knight beside the Haystack in the
Floods would have known whom the kissed lips belonged to. Challis's
disordered head had constituted him a stranger to her. All the same, to
have the tale of their love end on a blank and vanish, and none write a
word of epilogue--not so much as a bare _finis_!--grated on her sense
of the fitness of things. She would just try to print the word herself,
without provoking an appendix. If he was insensible again and did not
hear her, what did it matter?
"The nurse will come directly," she repeated. "I have to go now.
Good-bye!"
He opened his eyes again, rousing himself. "Oh--good-bye--good-bye!"
said he. "I am sorry you have to go." He took her hand, shaking it
frankly and warmly. She was afraid the touch of her own hand might
bring back the past--the useless past--and almost stinted to return its
pressure.
She turned in the doorway, and said, referring to footsteps approaching
the room without, "Perhaps you will know this gentleman who is coming
now, and he will tell you who I am." A bitterness in her heart made the
last words come, and then she said to the nurse and Athelstan Taylor,
who was with her, "He's been talking again, quite like himself, only he
doesn't know me from Adam. But I fancy he'll soon be all right."
"That's good hearing," said the Rector cheerfully. "You'll find the
Duchess downstairs. She's asking for you, to take you to Thanes."
"Oh, is she? I think I shall put my things on at once, and go with
her." She went to her room and rang for her maid, whom she sent with a
message to the Duchess. She would be ready in five minutes, she said,
and meant to stop the night.
When the little handmaiden had finished her ministrations, and her
mistress and the Duchess had driven away, she was found in tears by a
fellow-servant, and explained them by saying Miss Judith was angry with
her. Because she had never once called her Cintilla, but only Clemency,
which was merely her proper name.
"My dear sir," said Challis to the Rector, standing by his bed,
"you say, 'Don't I know you?' And you say it so confidently that it
convinces me I _ought_ to know you. But I can't say I do. Honour
bright!"
"Never mind! Don't try to think about it. You'll come to rights
presently. Let this good lady get that thing off your head. The best
thing you can do is to lie still."
So Challis lay still and listened to the conversation. And this is what
he heard:
"I hadn't flattered myself you would remember your humble servant,
Mr. Taylor, but I felt pretty sure you wouldn't have forgotten the
incident."
"I wasn't likely to do that. Faugh!--I've got the flavour of the place
upon me still. That antiseptic sack and rubber gloves!--all the horror
of it! But apart from that, the story the creature told was such a
queer one."
"Seal of confession, I suppose?"
"Hardly that! But not, perhaps, to be repeated except to serve some
special end. I understood he left it to my discretion."
"I had no motive but curiosity. Don't tell me!"
"How came you to remember my name?"
"I didn't. Miss Arkroyd told it me. I remembered your look when I
showed you into the ward. But I ought to have remembered your name,
because I posted Dr. Crumpton's letter to you...."
"I remember. It was to ask which of his aliases this man had given me.
They didn't know what name to bury him under."
"Oh, I remember ... Thomas Essendean. No, it wasn't that. That was one
they rejected. What was it he told you?"
"Kay Thorne, or perhaps _Key_--_Key_ Thorne.... What?" For Challis,
by this time bandageless and ready to receive visitors, but evidently
glad to keep his head down on the pillow, had uttered an exclamation,
without opening his eyes. "What's 'hullo,' Challis?" said the Rector.
For a moment, he felt afraid that the patient's mind was wandering. But
only for a moment. For when Challis spoke again, it was quite quietly
and collectedly.
"Name of my first wife's first ... no!--I don't mean that. Name of
a friend of mine eight--ten--years ago. Not Kaith; _Keith_ Horne.
He wasn't a shining light. He came to awful grief in the end. Penal
servitude, I believe...."
"You mustn't tire yourself with talking," said the nurse. "We shall
have her ladyship up directly. You know she's coming?"
"Oh no!--might my wife come? Her ladyship can come afterwards."
The Rector understood. He glanced at the nurse indicatively. "Mrs.
Challis had better come first," he said. Then he said good-bye to
Challis, and went his way. In the passage was Lady Arkroyd, followed by
Marianne. "You'll find him immensely improved," said he. "I can't say
he remembered me, but he will next time."
Then, as he shook hands with the scared and bewildered lady in black,
he thought to himself, "Now, what a queer story I could tell you, if I
didn't feel that the right course is to keep a lock on my tongue!"
For it had just come home to him that Marianne was _not_ Challis's
Deceased Wife's Sister at all, because "poor Kate" had never been his
Deceased Wife. She was the late Mr. Keith Horne's! And as regarded the
"living in sin business," evidently _she_ was the real Simon Pure, and
Marianne a mere pretender!
CHAPTER LIII
A POSTSCRIPT. MR. AND MRS. ATHELSTAN TAYLOR. MR. AND MRS. BROWNRIGG.
ODDS AND ENDS OF SEQUELS. THE DREAM VANISHES, READABLE BITS AND ALL!
"It's a magnificent match, and she'll make a perfect Duchess," said
the Reverend Athelstan Taylor a twelvemonth later--only six months ago
at this present time of writing. "And Thyringia will make a perfect
dowager. But the old Duke may live to see a grandchild or two. Doesn't
do to count one's coronets before they're hatched--eh, Addie?"
"I do wish, Yorick dearest, you would be a little less secretive, and
tell me what she really said that time."
"I _have_ told you, sweetheart, all there was to tell. I haven't been
keeping anything back."
"Never mind! Tell it again."
"Well--it was just like this." He dropped his voice to sadness, as in
deference to something sad outside the matter of his speech. "I had
just come from reading the service over poor Jim and...."
"Darling little Lizarann! Oh, Yorick, I don't believe I shall ever love
my own child as...." The speaker could not utter another word; and,
indeed, her tears were not the only ones that had to be got clear of
before the Rector could proceed. In time he got on with his twice-told
tale; but their subjugation overlapped his words that followed:
"Well--it was _then_! I dare say the young woman didn't mean to be
supercilious and provoking, but she _was_. Why couldn't she leave the
funeral alone? She hadn't come to it, and no one had asked her to do
so...."
"I don't believe there were half-a-dozen people in the village that
didn't."
"Very likely not. But I wasn't going to take her to task for it. _She_
began. Talked of it as if it had been a public meeting! Had heard
there was quite a large gathering at Blind Jim's funeral. 'You were
not there,' said I, simply as a matter of fact. But I suppose she felt
there was a cap that fitted, for she said: 'I thought you would think
the family quite sufficiently represented by my father and mother.'
I answered--and I dare say my manner was rather irritable--'I wasn't
counting heads, Judith.' She said, with a disagreeable shrewdness: 'But
you noticed my absence?' 'If you ask me,' said I, 'I did notice it; and
of all your family, I think, under the circumstances, your presence was
the one most called for.' She replied, with that exasperating placidity
she is such a mistress of: 'Possibly some persons acquainted with the
whole story might have thought a parade of emotion uncalled for on my
part.' I said, rather angrily: 'No one expects a parade of emotion from
you, but only the common debt all are ready to pay to the memory of a
fellow-creature tragically killed--especially those who have had any
share, however indirect, in his death! She replied: 'I don't think we
need make any pretences. You know as well as I do what share this man
had in frustrating an object I had at heart; and at least you cannot
expect me to be grateful to him?'"
"You were alone, then?"
"Yes--her mother had gone on in front. My answer to her was
substantially that, if she knew what I knew, she would think poor
Jim a benefactor, instead of bearing a grudge against him. 'What do
you mean?' said she. 'Please don't be enigmatical.' I then told her
bluntly what her position would have been had her proposed marriage
with Challis been put into practice--been acted on. I told her of the
legalism under which the validity of Challis's marriage with Marianne
would stand or fall, according as his previous marriage was void or
otherwise; and that it _was_ void, as his first wife's husband was
living when he married her. I must say I admired her self-possession
when she heard what a precipice she had been on the edge of...."
"What did she say?"
"She paused in her walk with a sort of 'what-next-I-wonder?' look on
her face, and a slight 'oh--_really_!' movement of the head. Then she
walked on again, as before; merely saying, as coolly as if she were
talking of a new dress--more coolly--'The marriage laws are too funny
for words.'"
"What did you say?"
"I said they were; feeling free to do so with dear Gus at Tunis. But I
saw that she was perfectly well aware what a narrow escape she had had.
However, she'll forget all about it when she's a Duchess. It's a pity
he's so much younger than she is."
"Will the Challises ever know Marianne was his wife all along?"
"I hope not. It would break Marianne's heart. Her belief in her sister
would be shaken. Now they're so happy together again it would be a
grievous pity she should know anything about it. She's quite content
with the retrospective working of the new Statute. Enough is as good as
a feast...."
* * * * *
This was not the end of the conversation. But the story sees that it
was to blame for not telling some more of the antecedent circumstances
that had made it possible, and now hastens to make good the deficit.
The Rector can wait.
Bishop Barham had been as good as his word. He allowed a reasonable
time to elapse after the passing of the Act legalizing marriage with
a Deceased Wife's Sister, and then towards Christmas addressed a
letter of paternal remonstrance to the Rector of Royd, "pointing out"
some contingent effects of the Act which it was his duty, as that
reverend gentleman's Diocesan, to lay stress upon in the interests of
public decorum, as the slightest laxity in such a matter might have
an injurious influence on the morality of clergy and laity alike. He
was not suggesting for one moment that any infraction of moral law
whatever was contemplated, or was even conceivable, in the present
case. But a well-defined rule of life had to be observed by persons
on whose part the slightest deviation from the strict observance of
an enjoined conformity may act injuriously on the community. Here the
prelude ended, and the Bishop came to the scratch. He could not shut
his eyes to the fact that the Rev. Athelstan's household consisted
only--children apart--of himself and a lady, the sister of his deceased
wife. Since the recent lamentable decision of the Legislature to
remove all legal restriction on marriages of persons so related, thus
placing the Canon Law of the Church at variance with the Law of the
Land, there would be no doubt that Mr. Taylor's domestic arrangements
laid him open to censure, and might easily give rise to a serious
public scandal. There was no doubt they transgressed the general rule
which decides that persons marriageable but not married shall not be
domiciled alone together, however circumspect their conduct may be. The
Bishop contrived to hint that it was impossible to say where youth and
susceptibility ended, and a grouty and untempting elderliness began,
and that on this account especially his remarks applied in this case.
Aunt Bessy was palpably neither Lalage nor Doris, but the principle
held good all the same. He therefore, _et cetera_.
The Rev. Athelstan bit his lip and flushed angrily as he read the
gratuitous insult to Aunt Bessy, who, although prim and intensely
conservative, was not yet thirty-eight--for the two things _are_
compatible--and immediately wrote as follows in answer to the Bishop:
"MY LORD,
"I can only interpret your letter as enjoining upon me one of two
courses. Either my sister-in-law must reside elsewhere or become
my wife. But I understand that the Canon Law of the Church still
discountenances marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister; and, further,
that by a special clause of the recent Act nothing therein relieves a
clergyman from any ecclesiastical censure to which he would have been
liable previously for contracting such a marriage.
"If your Lordship will guarantee me against ecclesiastical censure
for so doing, I will (having first ascertained Miss Caldecott's views
on the subject) make arrangements for our marriage at an early date,
with a view to removing the scandal you complain of.
"If your Lordship can be prevailed on to officiate at the wedding, I
shall regard your doing so as the best security I can have against
ecclesiastical censure hereafter."
To which the Bishop's reply was:
"DEAR MR. TAYLOR,
"It is my Episcopal duty to point out to you that such a marriage
as you indicate, though legal, would be now, as always, contrary to
the Canon Law of the Church, and in my opinion repugnant to every
feeling of Christian morality. I refrain from using the adjective I
am tempted to apply to it.
"But as I hold it to be consistent with my conscience as a Churchman
to defer to public opinion when it coincides with my own, I am
inclined to accept as well-grounded the view that households such as
your present one may become the subjects of unfavourable comment, as
a consequence (although the least pernicious one) of the recent Act
of Parliament. I trust I have expressed clearly what I conceive to be
your obvious duty alike as a Christian pastor and a member of Society.
"With regard to the concluding paragraph of your letter, I make no
reply, except that in my opinion it calls for an apology.
"I am, etc.,
"Faithfully yours,
"IGNATIUS NOX."
The Rev. Athelstan showed both these letters of the Bishop to Adeline
Fossett, his adviser in difficulties from boyhood, when that lady
came to pay a visit to the Rectory a week before Christmas, when she
could not come, because of leaving her mother alone. Families cohere at
Christmas, as long as they are plural, and can. The cohesion of a unit
is involuntary and continuous.
Now, Miss Fossett's opinions had been much modified when the debate
in the Peers enlightened her about the views of the Roman Church,
which--she inferred--is quite willing to marry all the sisters of the
largest families successively to any _bona fide_ widower. Possibly the
Sacrament of Marriage might be refused to a man who had murdered his
last wife in connection with his suit for her sister's hand. But _Amor
omnia vincit_. Could the solemn rite be refused to him if he brought
the ring in his pocket to the scaffold, and the Registrar was in
attendance?
However, that has nothing to do with Adeline Fossett. She, to be brief,
laughed at the Bishop's letters. The story has told how delighted she
would have been to unite in marriage her two friends, whom she had
long ago destined for one another, only the well-laid scheme ganged
agee. And here she had the Pope and the Duke of Norfolk to back her, if
consanguinity cropped up again! Clearly Yorick's destiny was to marry
Aunt Bessy, and be happy. Unless he hated her, of course!
The Rector laughed his big laugh. "Oh no, I don't hate Bess!" said he.
"I'm very fond of Bess--I _am_." And then he laughed again, and seemed
immensely amused.
"Look here, Yorick! Don't be a goose. She's in the next room. Just you
go in and tell her your idea, and see what _she_ thinks. Do, dear boy!
Only you mustn't be as cold as Charity, you know!"
"All right. I'll do justice to the position."
"You will?--promise!... Very good. Now, Yorick--Yorick--_dear_ old
Yorick! See what I'll do! I'll give you my blessing and God-speed!"
And then she took him by both hands and kissed his face. He would have
liked to return the kiss; but, then, you see, it would have impaired
the elder-sister tone.
Was Adeline Fossett aware how she had put the last nail in the coffin
of that little scheme, when she presumed on their mock-fraternity
in that dangerous way? Why--she wasn't even his Deceased Wife's
half-Sister, Marianne's relation to Challis!
She sat and listened for what she expected to go on in the next room.
But it came not. As she waited there--a fair distance from the door,
not to be eavesdropping--she looked more than ever as if she might have
married. Her colour went and came as Hope rose and fell; and every
little chance that Yorick's voice was going to be less good-humoured
and genial, and come from his heart with a proper sound of love in it,
made her own heart pause on a beat. But, alas!--the voices only went on
as before. Oh dear!--would nothing come of it, after all?
It went on for a long time, that talk. And till half-way through that
time there was hope on the face of the listener, following its sounds
without distinguishing a syllable. Then the irritating _bonhomie_,
the equable fluency of the masculine tones, the vexatious household
dryness of the feminine ones, became maddening to ears that expected at
least cordial warmth. Oh, if she could only enter unseen, and prompt
the apathy of the speaker! She bit her lip with vexation, and found it
difficult to resist the temptation to listen outright. Surely Yorick
must have reached the crucial point by now! Or were they, after all,
talking of something else all the while?...
There, _that_ was emphasis, anyhow! And any evidence that the topic had
been fairly broached was welcome. Only, the warmth was on the wrong
side; it was Aunt Bessy's voice for one thing; and, for another, was
a good deal more like indignation than affection. Now, very likely
you know that, when something you cannot hear is repeated several
times, it becomes audible however honourably determined you may be not
to listen to it. At about the third repetition Miss Fossett, though
she sincerely believed she hadn't been listening, had become aware
that the phrase was, "Why can't you make her marry you herself?" and,
moreover, that her own self was the one referred to. Her heart went
with a bound, and her breath got caught in a gasp; and then, somehow
without sense or reason, her hair had got loose and come down, and she
was getting it arranged at the mirror over the chimney-piece, with the
bevelled edges and the ebony frame, and trying to make out she had
never begun to cry, when Yorick came back into the room, saying: "What
do you think Bess says, Addie? She says if I were to ask you, you would
marry me yourself." She didn't know precisely what reply she made. But
she certainly had no grounds for complaining of the coldness of the
Rector's reception of it.
When, five minutes later, Miss Caldecott followed her brother-in-law
into the room, the lady and gentleman were still before the
looking-glass, apparently very much pleased. And the latter, without
taking his arm from the waist of the former, said: "I say, Bess, what
a ghastly couple of fools we have been!" and broke into one of his big
laughs.
"Speak for yourself, Athel!" said Aunt Bessy, rather stiffly.
"I didn't mean you. I meant Addie."
"Speak for yourself, Yorick!" said Addie; and made believe to detach
herself, but did not insist. Then Aunt Bessy kissed her twice on each
side, and the two children, coming into the room from the garden,
off an excursion, said, "What's this faw?" and seemed to think some
new movement was afoot, which would probably be beneficial in the
main ultimately. They accepted partial explanation, however, fuller
particulars being promised in due course, and went away to have their
things off.
A day or two later Aunt Bessy, being alone with the bride-elect,
cleared her throat in an ominous way, as one does when one has
something of importance to communicate. Miss Fossett, who in the
previous twenty-four hours had twice said to the Rector, "What _is_ the
matter with Bess? I'm sure there's something brewing," became aware
that she was going to be enlightened about this mystery, and waited,
open-eyed. Revelation followed, conscious of importance, but sometimes
at a loss for phraseology.
"I think, my dear Adeline, I may speak freely to you on a subject which
nearly concerns my own happiness." Adeline pricked up her ears, and
the speaker, feeling she had made a good beginning, cleared her throat
again less poignantly, and continued: "When dear Athel talked that
silly nonsense to me the other day ... you know what I am referring to,
dear Addie?" Yes--Addie knew. "Well ... I did not then know with any
certainty the sentiments entertained towards myself by...."
"By?..." said Addie, and waited.
"By a gentleman who is very slightly known to you--so slightly that,
though no doubt you know him by name, you will hardly...."
Addie, suddenly apprehensive, thought in a hurry, clapping her hands
to help recollection. The moment she lighted on the name that was
eluding her, she pointed straight, as at a convicted delinquent. "Mr.
Brownrigg," said she firmly.
Miss Caldecott excused what no accusation had been brought against. "I
know," said she, "that the name is not a showy one; but the family is
old, and his scientific attainments indisputable. He has recently been
appointed to the Chair of Logic and Mental Philosophy in...."
"But, my dear Bess, his opinions! And why didn't you tell us?"
"His opinions, my dear, are generally misunderstood. And as to why I
did not tell you, how could I, when I did not know myself? I only wish
that when dear Athel...."
"Took my advice and made a goose of himself--I know. I plead guilty.
Yes...."
"Well--I wish I had then been able to speak with ... a ... certainty of
this ... a ... possible arrangement. But it was only when I referred to
the change in Athel's plans that Mr. Brownrigg...."
"But you haven't seen him since I ... since our engagement.... Oh,
Bess!--you wrote off to him at once."
"I did nothing of the sort." Dignity was manifest. "I was writing
to Mr. Brownrigg on _quite_ another subject, and referred to it
incidentally. It was only last night that I got his answer in reply,
and I think it need be no secret that it contained an offer of
marriage, very beautifully and clearly expressed. He pointed out that,
however painful it might be to me to relinquish the charge of my
sister's children, even to a step-mother who is already almost as much
a mother to them as myself...."
"Oh, Bess dear, I _will_ molly-cosset over Phoebe and Joan. I will,
indeed!"
"You'll spoil them, Addie. But that's neither here nor there. Mr.
Brownrigg went on to point out that I could now consult my own welfare
and his, without any detriment to the interests of the two children."
At this point Miss Caldecott became quite natural, saying: "He would
never have asked me, Addie, as long as he thought I was wanted here."
In which few words Miss Fossett saw more of the little drama that had
been going on in the last six months than in all the rest put together.
"But his opinions, my dear, his opinions!" said she. "However will you
get on with his opinions? I thought he was an Atheist, and all sorts of
things."
Miss Caldecott replied that whoever had said such a thing of Mr.
Brownrigg had libelled him grossly. The exact contrary was the case. No
one ever approached sacred subjects in a more reverential spirit than
Mr. Brownrigg. She was not qualified to repeat his elucidations of the
great German Philosopher he had such an admiration for. But he had been
able to point out even to her humble understanding that the question
whether there was or was not a supreme Being turned entirely on the
meaning of the verb to Be, which was at best a finite Human expression.
Miss Caldecott scarcely did justice to all her suitor's exponency of
the Identity of the Highest Atheism with the Highest Theism.
She had, however, been specially impressed with a chapter from
Graubosch's "Divagationes Indagatoris," of which he had read her his
translation. In this the following passage occurs: "The Thinker of
the Future will do well to turn his attention to the construction of
a language expressly adapted to deal with the Unknown and Infinite.
At present our vocabulary is based entirely, so far as we understand
it, on things within our comprehension, and even its meanings are not
invariably a subject of unanimity. Until we possess such a language
our efforts to grapple with the Essentially Incomprehensible must be
futile, of necessity. It would be a step in the right direction if
all schools of Thought could agree as to the nature of the Agency to
which the Known and the Unknown, the Finite and the Infinite, are
alike to be imputed. The selection of a name for this Agency has been
the subject of a good deal of crude and unphilosophical discussion
in ages less enlightened than the one the New School of Thought
proposes to inaugurate. So much so that many nomenclatures have used
more than one name for the same Person or Entity; one of the number
being occasionally kept secret, as being Unpronounceable; although in
this case difficulties must have arisen about divulging it. Pending
agreement among the various branches and affiliated Societies of the
New School as to the Nature and Extent of the Unknown; the original
promoter of Causation; and the terms on which his Instigator, if any,
had himself qualified for Existence, we should not discountenance,
but rather sanction, the use of the vulgar terminology, such as Gott,
God, Dieu, Deus, Zeus, and so on. No doubt within the near future
a Lexicon or Dictionary of words and phrases applicable to things
beyond our cognizance will be put in hand, and until the publication
of this Thesaurus Novus we may safely discourage heated argument on
subjects with which our present resources in language do not qualify
us to deal. Possibly an absolute silence, and a consciousness of our
own insignificance, may be the safest attitude to assume towards
the Infinite, pending the issue of the volume. And during this
interim, it would appear to be the safest policy to fall in with the
apparent scheme of the Visible Creation; and to comply, so far as our
information goes, with the Will of its Creator."
Had Miss Caldecott been able to repeat all that Mr. Brownrigg had
pointed out to her, Miss Fossett would no doubt have perceived that no
danger to religion or morality could possibly accrue from reasonings
that had such a happy faculty of landing in the _status quo_.
Towards the conservation of which Miss Caldecott, as she explained to
her friend, had been able to contribute. "I am sure, dear Addie," she
said, "that I may rely on your rejoicing with me that I have prevailed
upon Mr. Brownrigg to abstain, in the publication of this translation,
from the intention he had of spelling Him and He with a little H. I
mean, when reverence for established usage prohibits what he speaks of
as 'lower-case type.' He at once assented to my wishes, saying that in
view of the issues involved, to persist in his intention would be to
pursue a--what did he call it?--'a policy of pin-pricks.' That was it."
In the sequel Mrs. Brownrigg eventuated, in the place of Miss
Caldecott. And she and her husband are a happy couple at this date
of writing. They have discovered a _modus vivendi_, and are highly
satisfied with it.
* * * * *
That is how it was that the conversation with which this chapter opened
became possible. Let it proceed:
"Do _you_ think Sir Alfred's last book is so much worse than his
others, Yorick?"
"I can't say it struck me so. If it is, it's not because of his knock
on the head; because it was all written three years ago, and has been
lying in a drawer. But the reviewers--he was talking about it himself
yesterday evening--always take for granted that every book is the work
of the last twelvemonth. He read me some of what he has just written,
and it seemed all right to me. That Bob of his is a delightful boy,
only too sweeping in his views. It is not true that all reviewers are
asses, or that they never read the books they criticise. Bob came with
him to see me off."
"How do they like Sussex Terrace?"
"Very much. At least, they will when they are settled. It's a splendid
big house. I think he was glad to leave the Hermitage, for more reasons
than one...."
"I know one. What were the others?"
"Which is the one you know?"
"Mrs. Eldridge."
"Yes--she was one. But I suppose the chief one was _the_ one. Anything
to get rid of what brought the story back. He has never spoken of it
again to me."
"Not since that one time?"
"Yes--long ago now! When was it?--over a twelvemonth. He described
how it all came back to him." The Rector extemporized a sympathetic
shudder, and made an excruciated noise; both very expressive. "You see,
in his oblivion, he was simply hungering for the coming of this wife he
had quarrelled with, and remembering her as in her early days...."
"Oh, it was hideous! Just fancy the memory of Judith Arkroyd coming
back to him!"
"Yes--as he told me himself--with the arms of his wife round him whom
he had been longing for! He told me all about it--how he had said to
her: 'What for, Polly Anne? What am I to forgive you for?' Because,
don't you see, sweetheart?..."
"Oh yes--I see."
"... Don't you see, she was crying over him, and all contrition for
her own share of the business. She said to him--so he told me--'It was
all my fault, love. If only I had never posted that letter!' He said,
'What letter?' and she said, 'The letter with the postscript.' And then
all on a sudden he remembered everything, from the beginning. He could
hardly bear to speak of it.... I've told you all this."
"Little bits come out that you haven't told. Go on!"
"He said he was afraid he should go mad, and had an idea that clinging
to his wife would save him. 'I was simply,' said he, 'on fire with
shame and intense terror of what I might remember next. I felt
defenceless against what might be sprung on me out of the past.'"
"Did he say anything about Judith?"
"Neither of them mentioned her. That I understand. When they spoke of
the motor-car, they seem by common consent to have left it a blank who
was in it. He said to her: 'But the man in the road--Blind Jim--was he
hurt?' And then she had to tell him of Jim's death, and the dear little
thing, and he was so horror-struck that she was afraid he would slip
back, and went for help. He had a very bad time--a sort of attack of
delirium--and the doctor had to give him morphine."
"Did she tell him anything of Judith at the inquest--and all--and all
the share she had in it, you know?"
"The inquest was next day."
"So it was. Of course! But was he ever told about her? Did you tell
him?"
"Why--n-no! I rather shirked talking about it, that's the truth."
"But you told him that odd thing ... you know?"
The Rector's voice dropped. "I know what you mean. The child's voice,
and 'Pi-lot.' Yes, I told him."
"Was he impressed?"
"Ye-es--well!--perhaps not exactly in that way. But he thought it very
curious, and wanted me to send it to the Psychical Society."
"Shall you?"
"Hm!..."
"Shan't you?"
"I think perhaps not. I don't feel quite like having it publicly
discussed. I dislike being cross-examined. However, we might think
about that." He said this with the manner of one who adjourns his
subject, and then, as though to confirm the adjournment, went back on
a previous question--the last one easily to hand. "No--she's an odd
character, Judith. You know I shall always say there was something
magnificent about it."
"Something detestable," said his wife. A side comment, half _sotto
voce_.
"Well--not lovable, I admit. But fancy the girl saying what she did in
the face of all that crowded room full of people--in the face of their
indignation, mind you!--for no secret was made of it."
"She ought to have been ashamed of herself. What was it she said to the
coroner?"
"When he had stuttered through his remonstrance or reprimand, or
whatever he meant it for? Oh, she let him finish, and then said with
the most absolute tranquillity--not a ruffle!--'Possibly. But I should
do the same thing, under the same circumstances, I have no doubt,
another time.' The poor coroner hadn't a chance. It was just like a
respectable greengrocer trying to reprove Zenobia or Cleopatra."
"_I_ shouldn't have thought so."
"I suppose that means that I'm a man?"
"That was the idea."
"It proves what I say, then--that there should always be women on
juries. However, she and Rossier had a narrow escape. They might have
found themselves in a very unpleasant position."
"He wept, didn't he, and sheltered himself behind mademoiselle?"
"Well, he said, 'Qu'ai-je pu faire, moi, contre mademoiselle? Que
pouvez-vous faire, messieurs, vous-mêmes?' They didn't understand him,
of course, and Felixthorpe softened him down in the translating."
"Didn't the dear old Bart. try to apologize her away?"
"Yes--he tried to suggest that she saw me coming, and knew I should
attend to poor Jim. But when the jury went over the ground, they saw
that was utterly impossible.... Well!--she'll be a fizzing Duchess, as
Bob Challis would say."
A pause followed, and then the Rector showed signs of sleepiness after
a tiring day, asking whether it wasn't getting on for bedtime. And he
had a right to be tired, because he had risen suddenly from dinner
to go over to see old Mrs. Fox, at a summons conveyed by Jarge, the
bee-tender, who had made shower the old dame was doyin'. She wasn't,
and is still living, we believe. But the Rector had not got back till
near ten, when he was glad of his comfortable day's-end chat with his
wife. The news of Judith's engagement to the Duke's heir had come that
morning, and had met him on his return from a visit to London, which
he had left by an early train, after spending the previous evening at
Challis's, where he stayed the night.
He paused a moment over knocking the ashes from his meerschaum, and
began saying something. But he didn't get as far as a consonant. Then
his wife said: "What were you going to say?"
"Don't know whether I ought to tell you this!..." said he.
"You must, _now_!"
"Well--you must be very, _very_ careful not to repeat it. Challis
didn't bind me over, certainly; but I know he meant confidence, all the
same."
"I'll be very, very careful. Go on!"
"That old woman--the religious old horror...."
"Yorick--_dar_ling!"
"That devout old lady, then!... What about her? Why, there's some
reason to suppose, apparently, that she never was respectably married
at all to the first wife's father. I am speaking of the Deceased Wife's
Sister's sister--Marianne's sister...."
"What a horrid old hypocrite! And she making all that rumpus about
Marianne 'living in sin'!"
"Yes--but I wasn't thinking about that.... Don't you see?..."
"Don't I see what?"
"Don't you see that, if it's true, the Deceased Wife's Sister's sister
wasn't born in wedlock. So--legally, at any rate--she wasn't her sister
at all. Not so much as a half-sister. And she wasn't a Deceased Wife,
by hypothesis. Q. E. D. So what was Kate?" Mrs. Athelstan Taylor looked
perplexed--evidently thought Kate must have been hard put to it to be
there at all.
"Wouldn't Dr. Barham?..." she began.
The Rector filled out the question. "What my young friend Bob calls
'make a great ass of himself'?"
"Really, Yorick, he _is_ your Bishop! But I suppose that's the sort of
thing I meant."
"My dear, he can't!"
"Why not?"
"Because his Creator has anticipated him." The Rector seemed happy over
this. His wife did not feel quite certain she understood it. But she
was sure it was time to light her candle, and that, broadly speaking,
the curtain might fall.
"It _has_ been a strange story," said she, in a sort of generally
forgiving, conclusive way.
"It _has_!" repeated Athelstan Taylor. "And not a pleasant one! Anyhow,
it's one consolation, that it never can happen again."
FINIS
THE AUTHOR TO HIS READERS ONLY
_When, to my great surprise, I published four years since a novel
called "Joseph Vance" a statement was repeated more than once in some
journals that were kind enough to notice it, that its author was
seventy years of age. Why this made me feel like a centenarian I do not
know, especially as it was five years ahead of the facts. But that was
its moral effect. Its practical one was to make me endeavour to set it
right. I then learned for the first time how hopeless is the pursuit of
an error through the columns of the press, and soon gave up the chase._
_But in the course of my attempts to procure the reduction to which I
was entitled, I expressed a hope that the said author would live to
be seventy, and, further, that he would write four or five volumes as
long as his first in the interim. To my thinking, he has been as good
(or as bad) as his word, for this present volume is Vol. II.[A] of the
fourth story published since then, and the day of its publication will
be the author's seventieth birthday; or, if you consider the day of his
birth as a birthday, his seventy-first. I see nothing to be ashamed of
in the way this author has come to time, and can (so far) look with
complacency on the fact that we are each other._
[Footnote A: The English edition of this book is published in two
volumes.]
_At the risk of more Early Victorianism--I have a heavy score against
me!--may I use the rest of this fly-leaf, otherwise blank, to touch
on another point? I know that gossiping with one's readers is a
disreputable Early Victorian practice, and far from Modern, which
everything ought to be. But I will not detain mine long._
_I wish to protest against a misinterpretation that readers of fiction
will probably continue to make to the end of time, however strongly
authors may appeal against it._
_I refer to the practice of ascribing views--political, religious, or
otherwise--expressed by characters in a book to its author. It is as
unreasonable to do so as to impute every opinion spoken in a dream to
the dreamer himself. In this foregoing book, as in others, the author
has merely put on record what the characters he was dreaming of seemed
to him to say._
_I repudiate responsibility on his behalf. Hold a writer of pure
fiction answerable for the opinions of every one of his_ dramatis
personæ, _and he will be limited in the choice of them to folk who are
on all fours with everyone else--conformists of a venomous type--good
to be read about in bed by persons who suffer from insomnia, but good
for nothing else. Take the words of each character for what they are
worth, and if a character alleged by the tale to be sane says something
you don't agree with, condemn it as ill-drawn, if you like, but don't
call the author to account as if he had ventured to question the
validity of your own persuasions. Leave him a free hand, and he will_
verser comme si c'était pour soi, _and his books will be infinitely
more readable, even if some of his favourite characters utter incorrect
opinions_.
_I may add that if the readers of this novel want anything altered in
it, it shall be done in the second edition, provided that they are
unanimous and that it will leave the text consecutive._
W. DE MORGAN.
NOVELS OF EVA LATHBURY
"_Those weary of the banalities of current fiction will greatly enjoy
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THE LONG GALLERY
A romance dominated by the influence of dead ancestors whose pictures
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$1.50.
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"A story of unusual quality, written with uncommon distinction of
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with a strange mixture of innocence and sophistication ... Alva,
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gallery filled with portraits of the dead Southerns. Alva, Griselda
and Anthony feel their influence; it is symbolism of an unusual sort
... there is a soupcon of high comedy in the story; ... the dialogue
is keen and vivid.... The book will hold the discriminating reader as
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"Singularly enjoyable. A spontaneous wit, a fascinating play of idea
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"There are really three stories in 'The Long Gallery,' of which
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entangling them, and to save their souls alive.... 'The Long Gallery'
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THE SINKING SHIP
A notable new novel of theatrical life. "The Sinking Ship" is the title
of a play with which Vanda Conquest, a popular actress, endeavors to
buoy up her waning fortunes. She is a fascinating figure, standing
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of them also actresses. Vanda's placid actor-husband and the aggressive
young dramatist are other vital characters in vivid scenes of the
players' lives on and off the stage. $1.50.
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY.
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THE BUILDERS OF SPAIN
BY CLARA CRAWFORD PERKINS.
With photogravure frontispieces and 62 half-tone plates. 2 vols. 8vo.
$5.00 net, boxed, carriage extra.
A sumptuous and popular work similar to the author's "_French
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and architectural comment make this work an admirable guide to
intelligent sight-seeing.
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one which is much neglected by the average reader."--_Springfield
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"Written from ample knowledge and with much enthusiasm. They describe
what is charming and interesting in a manner that is usually
interesting and often charming."--_Chicago Post._
"Her work on Spain is especially to be commended. Everyone knows that
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writers are skilful enough to make that tangle clear, or, if they
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indulge in large generalisations. The very modesty with which Miss
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fulfilment. She does not try to tell too much, but in brief chapters
surveys the broad phases of her subject, glancing at the Romans, the
Vizigoths, Arabs and Moors, and finally the Christian kings.... The
different forces that have helped to build up the Spanish people are
justly and interestingly characterized."--_New York Tribune._
*** Uniform in style and price with the above the author's FRENCH
CATHEDRALS AND CHATEAUX.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
By R. M. Johnston, Assistant Professor in Harvard University 12mo. 278
pp., with special bibliographies following each chapter, and index.
$1.25 net, by mail, $1.37.
The narrative merges into that of the author's "Napoleon."
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Privilege, The Flight to Varennes, War Breaks Out, The Massacre, Ending
the Monarchy, The Fall of the Gironde, The Reign of Terror, Thermidor.
The Last Days of the Convention, the Directoire, Art and Literature.
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of that cardinal epoch in the history of France and of Europe is
conveyed to reader, many of whom will have been bewildered by the
anecdotal fulness or the rhetorical romancing of Professor Johnston's
most conspicuous predecessors."--_Churchman._
*** By the same author "NAPOLEON: A Short Biography" $1.25 net; by
mail, $1.37. LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS, $1.75 net; by mail, $1.88.
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MRS. R. S. GARNETT'S THE INFAMOUS JOHN FRIEND
$1.50.
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W. P. EATON AND ELISE M. UNDERHILL'S THE RUNAWAY PLACE
A May Idyl of Manhattan. Mr. Eaton is ex-dramatic critic of the _N. Y.
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THE AMERICAN NATURE SERIES
The primary object of this series is to answer questions which the
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unscientific intelligent person. But a collateral object will be to
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will be under the guarantee of American experts, and generally from
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(Prospectus on request). The following volumes are ready:
FISHES, by DAVID STARR JORDAN, President of the Leland Stanford
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AMERICAN INSECTS, by VERNON L. KELLOGG, Professor in the
Leland Stanford Junior University. 8vo. 694 pp. With 13 colored
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BIRDS OF THE WORLD. A popular account by FRANK H. KNOWLTON, M.S.,
Ph.D., Member American Ornithologists Union, President Biological
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by FREDERIC A. LUCAS, Chief Curator Brooklyn Museum of Arts and
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NORTH AMERICAN TREES, by N. L. BRITTON, Director of the New York
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FERNS, by CAMPBELL E. WATERS, of Johns Hopkins University. 8vo. 362
pp. Many illustrations; $3.00 net; by mail, $3.30.
THE BIRD: ITS FORM AND FUNCTION, by C. W. BEEBE, Curator of Birds in
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NATURE AND HEALTH, by EDWARD CURTIS, Professor Emeritus in the
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THE FRESHWATER AQUARIUM AND ITS INHABITANTS. A Guide for the Amateur
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pp. Illustrated. $2.00 net; by mail, $2.19.
THE LIFE OF A FOSSIL HUNTER, by CHARLES H. STERNBERG. large 12mo. 286
pp. Illustrated, $1.60 net; by mail, $1.72.
INSECT STORIES, by VERNON L. KELLOGG. Large 12mo. 298 pp. $1.50 net;
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FISH STORIES, by CHARLES F. HOLDER and DAVID STARR JORDAN. Large
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HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, New York
MELCHISEDEC
BY RAMSEY BENSON. $1.50.
A deeply felt story of a quarter blood Indian in the Northwest, who
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"May it not be that this wandering shepherd of the sheep, solely
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of a modern incarnation of Our Lord, and modestly asks readers to
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"A theme well out of the ordinary ... in many respects a noteworthy
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A LORD OF LANDS
BY RAMSEY BENSON. $1.50.
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utmost art."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
OVER AGAINST GREEN PEAK
BY ZEPHINE HUMPHREY. $1.25 net, by mail $1.33.
The homely experiences of a bright young woman and her Aunt Susan, not
to mention the "hired girl," in making a New England home.
"Verily it is a delicious piece of work and that last chapter
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book."--_George Cary Eggleston._
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WILSON VANCE'S BIG JOHN BALDWIN
The Romance of a Cromwellian soldier, big of heart and body, in England
and in Virginia ($1.50).
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"A book to read leisurely as one sips and enjoys good
wine."--_Detroit Free Press._
MRS. ALICE DUER MILLER'S LESS THAN KIN
The story of a likable youth, who returning to New York from South
America, is welcomed as a son by a family of strangers ($1.25).
"One of the best of the lighter novels of the season.... The
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In fact the young woman in the case comes pretty near being a very
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"It keeps the reader quietly chuckling even when matters of love and
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in such good taste that the reader's sense of propriety is never
shocked."--_Putnam's Magazine._
"Admirably written and full of interest.... The story is ingenious.
It has quick turns and surprises. It is very well done."--_New York
Sun._
"A delightful story ... romantic and capital reading."--_Baltimore
Sun._
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RICHARD BURTON'S MASTERS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
A study of principles and personalities by the Professor of English
Literature, University of Minnesota, author of "Literary Likings,"
"Forces in Fiction," "Rahab" (a Poetic Drama), etc. 12mo, 331 pp. and
index. $1.25 net.
_Contents_: Fiction and the Novel,--Eighteenth Century Beginnings:
Richardson,--Eighteenth Century Beginnings: Fielding,--Developments:
Smollett, Sterne and Others,--Realism: Jane Austen.--Modern
Romanticism: Scott,--French Influence, Dickens,--Thackeray,--George
Eliot,--Trollope and Others,--Hardy and Meredith,--Stevenson,--The
American Contribution,--Index.
RICHARD BURTON'S RAHAB, A DRAMA OF THE FALL OF JERICHO
119 pp., 12mo. $1.25 net; by mail, $1.33. With cast of characters for
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WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE'S THE GREATER ENGLISH POETS OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
383 pp., large 12mo. $2.00 net; by mail, $2.15. Studies of Keats,
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Arnold, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. Their outlook upon life rather
than their strictly literary achievement is kept mainly in view.
"The sound and mellow fruits of his long career as a critic....
There is not a rash, trivial, or dull line in the whole book....
Its charming sanity has seduced me into reading it to the end, and
anyone who does the same will feel that he has had an inspiring taste
of everything that is finest in nineteenth-century poetry. Ought to
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by those who have neglected English poetry, for here one finds its
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THE LADY OF THE DYNAMOS
By ADELE MARIE SHAW and CARMELITA BECKWITH
310 pp. 12mo. $1.50.
A very appealing love story dominates this tale of the heroic struggle
of a young American electrical engineer and an English girl, against
treachery, superstition and open opposition, to harness a great water
power and reclaim a wilderness in Ceylon. There is plenty of humor as
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exciting chapter being the last. The characters, principally American
and English, are so well defined that the effect is almost that of a
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verdict of praise."--_Chicago Record Herald._
"A vivid romance, combining marked virility with the most delicate play
of fancy and of sentiment ... holds the interest from beginning to end.
The surprise of the narrative is the consummate ease with which two
women writers handle the details of the great electrical power plant
and mammoth business enterprise."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
THE PILGRIM'S MARCH
By H. H. BASHFORD
320 pp. 12mo. Third Printing, $1.50.
A happily written English story with a theme of wide appeal. A likable
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the ways, and works, and daughter of a puritan family. The situation is
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"Extremely clever and charming."--_Prof. Wm. Lyon Phelps of Yale._
"A sureness of touch, a sympathetic understanding that deserve high
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too nice and wholesomely lovable to shut away with the memory of their
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"Those critics who have asserted that all possible plots have been used
will be compelled to retreat. A remarkable first novel."--_The Living
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(Complete notice on application.)
CHAPTERS OF OPERA
Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the
Lyric Drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time.
By HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
Musical critic of the New York Tribune, Author of "Music and Manners in
the Classical Period," "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "How to Listen
to Music," etc. With over 70 portraits and pictures of Opera Houses.
Second edition, revised.
$3.50 net; by mail $3.72. Illustrated circular on application.
This is perhaps Mr. Krehbiel's most important book. The first seven
chapters deal with the earliest operatic performances in New York.
Then follows a brilliant account of the first quarter-century of the
Metropolitan, 1883-1908. He tells how Abbey's first disastrous Italian
season was followed by seven seasons of German Opera under Leopold
Damrosch and Stanton, how this was temporarily eclipsed by French and
Italian, and then returned to dwell with them in harmony, thanks to
Walter Damrosch's brilliant crusade,--also of the burning of the opera
house, the vicissitudes of the American Opera Company, the coming
and passing of Grau and Conried, and finally the opening of Oscar
Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House and the first two seasons therein,
1906-08.
"Presented not only in a readable manner but without bias ...
extremely interesting and valuable."--_Nation._
"The illustrations are a true embellishment.... Mr. Krehbiel's style
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"A readable and valuable book, which no one who is interested in
the subject can afford to leave out of his library ... written in
entertaining manner, and it is comprehensive."--_Putnam._
"Invaluable for purpose of reference ... rich in critical passages
... all the great singers of the world have been heard here. Most
of the great conductors have come to our shores.... Memories of
them which serve to humanize, as it were, his analyses of their
work."--_New York Tribune._
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"_The most important biographic contribution to musical literature
since the beginning of the century, with the exception of Wagner's
Letters to Frau Wesendonck."_
--H. T. FINCK, IN THE NEW YORK EVENING POST.
(Circular with complete review and sample pages on application.)
Personal Recollections of Wagner
BY ANGELO NEUMANN
Translated from the fourth German edition by EDITH LIVERMORE.
Large 12mo. 318 pp., with portraits and one of Wagner's letters in
facsimile. $2.50 net; by mail $2.65.
Probably no man ever did more to make Wagner's music dramas known than
Angelo Neumann, who, with his famous "Wagner Travelling Theatre,"
carrying his artists, orchestra, scenery and elaborate mechanical
devices, toured Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Austria and Russia,
and with another organization gave "The Ring" in London. But the
account of this tour, interesting as it is, is not the main feature of
his book, which abounds in intimate glimpses of Wagner at rehearsals,
at Wahnfried and elsewhere, and tells much of the great conductor,
Anton Seidl, so beloved by Americans. Among other striking figures are
Nikisch and Muck, both conductors of the Boston Symphony orchestra,
Mottl, the Vogls, Von Bulow, Materna, Marianna Brandt, Klafsky, and
Reicher-Kindermann.
It is doubtful if any book gives a more vivid and truthful picture of
life and "politics" behind the scenes of various opera houses. Many of
the episodes, such as those of a bearded Brynhild, the comedy writer
and the horn player and the prince and the Rhinedaughter are decidedly
humorous.
The earlier portions of the book tell of the Leipsic negotiations and
performances, the great struggle with Von Hülsen, the royal intendant
at Berlin, Bayreuth and "Parsifal." Many of Wagner's letters appear
here for the first time.
_ILLUSTRATIONS._--RICHARD WAGNER: Bust by Anton zur Strassen in the
foyer of the Leipsic Stadttheater.--ANGELO NEUMANN: From a picture
in the Künstlerzimmer of the Leipsic Stadttheater.--ANTON SEIDL:
Bas-relief by Winifred Holt of New York. Replica commissioned by Herr
Direktor Neumann.--HEDWIG REICHER-KINDERMANN--Facsimile of letter from
Wagner to Neumann, received after the news of Wagner's death.
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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK (1774-1882)
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_Vol. III. (1861-1882). 561 pp., 8vo. $2.50 net_ (_carriage 28c. extra_)
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days of George Clinton, have drawn the attention of the nation to New
York. The astute methods and sources of power by which George Clinton,
Hamilton, Burr, DeWitt Clinton, Van Buren, Seymour and Thurlow Weed
each successively controlled the political destiny of the State are
clearly and picturesquely set forth. The third volume narrates, fully
and entertainingly, the futile efforts of Weed and Dean Richmond to
reorganize existing parties, the rise and fall of the Tweed Ring,
Conkling's punishment of Greeley and defeat of Fenton, Tilden's
defiance of Tammany and struggle with Kelly, and the overthrow of the
Stalwart régime by the crushing victory of Grover Cleveland. Throughout
it is characterized, too, with a fairness which must appeal to the
strongest partisan. (Circular with sample pages on application.)
"It meets a want widely felt and repeatedly expressed during the past
hundred years.... It would be impossible in a dozen notices to render
any sort of justice to the extensive scope of this work and to the
multiplicity of its interesting details."--From two leading articles,
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"Will undoubtedly take its place as the authoritative work upon the
subject."--_Boston Transcript._
"The most entertaining story of state politics in American
history."--_Review of Reviews._
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JOHN DAVIS' TRAVELS OF FOUR YEARS AND A HALF IN THE UNITED STATES OF
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Dedicated by permission to Thomas Jefferson. Esq. First Published,
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POE'S RAVEN IN AN ELEVATOR
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knowing how the present freight rate system has been evolved.
"An exceedingly important book.... Not only the best existing
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it will stand as the standard reference work for a good many years,
and from the standpoint of public policy we are exceedingly glad that
the book has been written. The country would be better governed if
the legislator, state and national, had to pass an examination upon
it before taking His oath of office."--_Railroad Age Gazette._
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McPherson's The Working of the Railroads
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12mo. $1.50 net; By mail $1.63.
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voter. Of exceeding value to the young and ambitious in railroad
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it gives the early history of the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the
Baltimore and Ohio, of the Vanderbuilt lines, the first Pacific
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"Invaluable. It gathers the floating fragments of railroad history,
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HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
All instances of the oe-ligature were transcribed as 'oe'.
Mismatched single and double quotation marks were corrected without
comment.
Typographical errors in the advertisements were corrected without
comment.
Spelling and word usage have been retained as they apear in the
original publication, except as follows:
Page From To
vi YOUKG YOUNG
64 had an orginal in had an original in
75 in them last nigt in them last night
90 the ivorycarver' shop the ivorycarvers' shop
91 If not ivory carvers If not ivorycarvers
not not anything not anything
206 Afred Challis Alfred Challis
227 Adeline Forsett's Adeline Fossett's
232 she was negletced she was neglected
249 the Art Coiffeur the Art Coiffure
272 arithmetic and caligraphy arithmetic and calligraphy
302 Tyepwriter. For the Typewriter. For the
321 compensation folllowed compensation followed
344 tone was puzzle tone was puzzled
418 She dimisses nuptial She dismisses nuptial
445 a dreadful hyprocite a dreadful hypocrite
475 reloaded her arbalast reloaded her arbalest
595 inclined to disappove inclined to disapprove
613 she have have thought she have thought
636 as hardly legititmate as hardly legitimate
645 quarrel with you wife quarrel with your wife
649 Sir Alfred Chalis Sir Alfred Challis
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