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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:38:11 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:38:11 -0700 |
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+ padding-left: 4em; + padding-right: 4em; } + + /* Table of Contents */ + + table { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } + + td.toc1 { margin-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; + text-align: justify; + width: auto; + font-size: 95%; + padding-top: 0; + padding-right: 0.5em; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; + padding-left: 2em; } + + td.toc2 { text-align: right; + width: 3em; + padding-top: 0.5em; + padding-right: 0.5em; + padding-bottom: 1em; + padding-left: 0.5em; } + + td.toccenter { text-align: center; + width: 100%; + padding-top: 0.5em; + padding-right: 0; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; + padding-left: 3.5em; } + + /* Images */ + + .figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + } + + /* Footnotes */ + + .footnote { margin-left: 7%; margin-right: 6%; font-size: 95%; padding-left: 1em; } + .footnote .label { position: absolute; left: 20%; text-align: right; font-size: 100%; } + + .fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: 0.7em; + text-decoration: none; + font-style: normal; + padding-left: 2px; + padding-right: 2px; + } + + /* Transcriber's Note and Corrections */ + + .tnote { border: dashed 1px; + padding: 1em; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: 10%; + page-break-after: always; } + + .tnote p { text-indent: 0; + margin-top: .5em; + font-size: 90%; } + + .tnote h3 { text-indent: 0; + text-align: left; + font-size: 100%; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: bold; + padding-top: 0; + letter-spacing: 0; } + + table.tntable { margin-left: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding-top: 0em; + padding-right: 1em; + padding-bottom: 1em; + padding-left: 1em; + font-size: 90%; } + + td.col1 { text-align: right; + width: 4em; + padding-top: 0; + padding-right: 0; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; + padding-left: 0; } + + td.col2 { text-align: left; + width: auto; + padding-top: 0; + padding-right: 1em; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; + padding-left: 1em; } + +--> +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Somehow Good, by William de Morgan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Somehow Good + +Author: William de Morgan + +Release Date: March 16, 2009 [EBook #28345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMEHOW GOOD *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, C. St. Charleskindt and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;"> +<img src="images/demorgan_cover.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="Cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h1>SOMEHOW GOOD</h1> + +<hr class="bigspacer" /> + +<div class="center"> + +BY +<hr class="spacer" /> +WILLIAM DE MORGAN +<br /> +<span class="size75">AUTHOR OF "JOSEPH VANCE"</span> +<br /> +<span class="size75">AND "ALICE-FOR-SHORT"</span> + +<hr class="bigspacer" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img src="images/hholt_pub.jpg" width="100" height="125" alt="Publisher's Device: Ou polla alla polu" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="spacer" /> + +<span class="size90">NEW YORK</span> +<br /> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +<br /> +1908 + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<span class="smcap size75">Copyright, 1908,</span> +<br /> +<span class="size60">BY</span> +<br /> +<span class="size90">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</span> + +<hr class="mini" /> + +<span class="size75"><i>Published February, 1908</i></span> + +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page iii --> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<table summary="Table of Contents"> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> + +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<span class="size75">PAGE</span> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER I.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +A RETURNED TRAVELLER. NEMESIS IN LIVERMORE'S RENTS, +1808. EXTRAVAGANCE, AND NO CASH. A PAWNED WATCH, AND A RESIDUUM OF +FOURPENCE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_1">1</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER II.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +A JOURNEY IN THE TWOPENNY TUBE. A VERY NICE GIRL, AND A NEGOTIATION. +AN EXPOSED WIRE, AND AN ELECTROCUTION +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_10">10</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER III.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +KRAKATOA VILLA, AND HOW THE ELECTROCUTED TRAVELLER WENT THERE IN A +CAB. A CURIOUS WELCOME TO A PERFECT STRANGER. THE STRANGER'S LABEL. +A CANCELLED MEMORY. BACK LIKE A BAD SHILLING +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_16">16</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER IV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW THE STRANGER STOPPED ON AT KRAKATOA VILLA. OF THE FREAKS OF AN +EXTINGUISHED MEMORY. OF HOW THE STRANGER GOT A GOOD APPOINTMENT, BUT +NONE COULD SAY WHO HE WAS, NOR WHENCE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_35">35</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER V.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +THE CHRISTMAS AFTER. OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SATISFAX, AND A YOUNG +IDIOT WHO CAME THERE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_44">44</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER VI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF BOXING DAY MORNING AT KRAKATOA VILLA, AND WHAT OBSERVANT +CREATURES FOSSILS ARE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_53">53</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER VII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +CONCERNING PEOPLE'S PASTS, AND THE SEPARATION OF THE SHEEP FROM THE +GOATS. OF YET ANOTHER MAJOR, AND HOW HE GOSSIPPED AT HURKARU CLUB. +SOME TRUSTWORTHY INFORMATION ABOUT AN ALLEGED DIVORCE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_60">60</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER VIII.</td> +<td> +<!-- Page iv --> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +THE ANTECEDENTS OF ROSALIND NIGHTINGALE, SALLY'S MOTHER. HOW BOTH +CAME FROM INDIA TO ENGLAND, AND TOOK A VILLA ON A REPAIRING LEASE. +SOMEWHAT OF SALLY'S UPBRINGING. SOME MORE ROPER GOSSIP, AND A CAT +LET OUT OF A BAG. A PIECE OF PRESENCE OF MIND +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_68">68</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER IX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW THOSE GIRLS DO CHATTER OVER THEIR MUSIC! MRS. NIGHTINGALE'S +RESOLUTION. BUT, THE RISK! A HARD PART TO PLAY. THERE WAS ONLY MAMMA +FOR THE GIRL! THE GARDEN OF LONG AGO +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_82">82</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER X.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +THE DANGERS OF AN UNKNOWN PAST. NETTLE-GRASPING, AND A RECURRENCE. +WHO AMONG US COURTS CATECHISM ABOUT HIMSELF? A UNIVERSALLY PROVIDED +YOUNG MAN. HOW ABOUT THE POOR OLD FURNITURE? +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_95">95</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +MORE GIRLS' CHATTER. SWEEPS AND DUSTMEN. HOW SALLY DISILLUSIONED +MR. BRADSHAW. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_105">105</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +WHAT FENWICK AND SALLY'S MOTHER HAD BEEN SAYING IN THE BACK +DRAWING-ROOM. OP. 999. BACK IN THAT OLD GARDEN AGAIN, AND HOW GERRY +COULD NOT SWIM. THE OLD TARTINI SONATA +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_113">113</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A SLEEPLESS NIGHT MRS. NIGHTINGALE HAD, AND HOW SALLY WOKE UP AND +TALKED +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_131">131</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XIV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW MILLAIS' "HUGUENOT" CAME OF A WALK IN THE BACK GARDEN. AND HOW +FENWICK VERY NEARLY KISSED SALLY +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +CONCERNING DR. VEREKER AND HIS MAMMA, WHO HAD KNOWN IT ALL ALONG. +HOW SALLY LUNCHED WITH THE SALES WILSONS, AND GOT SPECULATING ABOUT +HER FATHER. HOW TISHY LET OUT ABOUT MAJOR ROPER. HOW THERE WAS A +WEDDING +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_150">150</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XVI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A WEDDING-PARTY AND AN OLD MAN'S RETROSPECT. A HOPE OF +RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE HEREAFTER. CHARLEY'S AUNT, AND PYRAMUS + +<!-- Page v --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> +AND THISBE. HOW SALLY TRIED TO PUMP THE COLONEL AND GOT HALF A BUCKETFUL +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XVII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +SALLY'S LARK, AND HOW SHE TOOK HER MEDICAL ADVISER INTO HER +CONFIDENCE AFTER DIVINE SERVICE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_178">178</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XVIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A SWIMMING-BATH, "ET PRÆTEREA EXIGUUM" +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_186">186</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XIX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW FENWICK KNEW ALL ABOUT THE MASS. AND HOW BARON KREUTZKAMMER +RECOGNISED MR. HARRISSON. LONDON AGAIN! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_191">191</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +MERE DAILY LIFE AT KRAKATOA. BUT SALLY IS QUITE FENWICK'S DAUGHTER +BY NOW. OF HER VIEWS ABOUT DR. VEREKER, AND OF TISHY'S AUNT FRANCES +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_203">203</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF JULIUS BRADSHAW'S INNER SOUL. AND OF THE HABERDASHER BATTLE AT +LADBROKE GROVE ROAD. ON CARPET-STRETCHING, AND VACCINATION FROM THE +CALF. AN AFTER-DINNER INTERVIEW, AND GOOD RESOLUTIONS. EVASIVE +TRAPPISTS +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_217">217</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +IT WAS THAT MRS. NIGHTINGALE'S FAULT. A SATISFACTORY CHAP, GERRY! A +TELEGRAM AND A CLOUD. BRONCHITIS AND ASTHMA AND FOG. SALLY GOES TO +MAYFAIR. THE OLD SOLDIER HAS NOTICE TO QUIT +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_236">236</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A FOG THAT WAS UP-TO-DATE, AND HOW A FIRE-ENGINE RELIEVED SALLY +FROM A BOY. HOW SALLY GOT IN AT A GENTLEMEN'S CLUB, AND HOW VETERANS +COULD RECOLLECT HER FATHER. BUT THEY KNOW WHAT SHE CAN BE TOLD, AND +WHAT SHE CAN'T. HOW MAJOR ROPER WOULD GO OUT IN THE FOG +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_245">245</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXIV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW MAJOR ROPER MET THAT BOY, AND GOT UPSTAIRS AT BALL STREET. AN +INTERVIEW BETWEEN ASTHMA AND BRONCHITIS. HOW SALLY PINIONED THE +PURPLE VETERAN, AND THERE WAS NO BOY. HOW THE GOVERNOR DONE +HOARCKIN', AND GOT QUALIFIED FOR A SUBJECT OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_260">260</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXV.</td> +<td> +<!-- Page vi --> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +ABOUT SIX MONTHS, AND HOW A CABMAN SAW A GHOST. OF SALLY'S AND THE +DOCTOR'S "MODUS VIVENDI," AND THE SHOOSMITH FAMILY. HOW SALLY MADE +TEA FOR BUDDHA, AND HOW BUDDHA FORESAW A STEPDAUGHTER. DELIRIUM +TREMENS +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_283">283</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXVI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +MORNING AT LADBROKE GROVE ROAD, AND FAMILY DISSENSION. FACCIOLATI, +AND A LEGACY. THE LAST CONCERT THIS SEASON. THE GOODY WILL COME TO +IGGULDEN'S. BUT FANCY PROSY IN LOVE! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_300">300</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXVII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +ST. SENNANS-ON-SEA. MISS GWENDOLEN ARKWRIGHT. WOULD ANY OTHER CHILD +HAVE BEEN SALLY? HOW MRS. IGGULDEN'S COUSIN SOLOMON SURRENDERED HIS COUCH +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_310">310</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXVIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW SALLY PUT THE FINISHING TOUCH ON THE DOCTOR, WHO COULDN'T SLEEP. +OF THE GRAND DUKE OF HESSE-JUNKERSTADT. AND OF AN INTERVIEW +OVERHEARD +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_323">323</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXIX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A MARRIAGE BY SPECIAL LICENCE. ROSALIND'S COMPARISONS. OF THE +THREE BRIDESMAIDS, AND HOW THE BRIDE WAS A GOOD SAILOR +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_331">331</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW A FORTNIGHT PASSED, AND THE HONEYMOONERS RETURNED. OF A CHAT ON +THE BEACH, AND MISS ARKWRIGHT'S SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. ALMOST THE +LAST, LAST, LAST—MAN'S HEAD! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_337">337</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW SALLY DIDN'T CONFESS ABOUT THE DOCTOR, AND JEREMIAH CAME TO +ST. SENNANS ONCE MORE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_349">349</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW SALLY DIVED OFF THE BOAT, AND SHOCKED THE BEACH. OF THE +SENSITIVE DELICACY OF THE OCTOPUS. AND OF DR. EVERETT GAYLER'S +OPINIONS +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_357">357</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF AN INTERMITTENT CURRENT AT THE PIER-END, AND OF DOLLY'S +FORTITUDE. HOW FENWICK PUT HIS HEAD IN THE JAWS OF THE FUTURE +UNAWARES, AND PROSY DIDN'T COME. HOW SALLY AND HER STEP SAW PUNCH, +AND OF A THIN END OF A FATAL WEDGE. BUT ROSALIND SAW NO COMING CLOUD +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_366">366</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXIV.</td> +<td> +<!-- Page vii --> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF THE REV. SAMUEL HERRICK AND A SUNSET. THE WEDGE'S PROGRESS. THE +BARON AGAIN, AND THE FLY-WHEEL. HOW FENWICK KNEW HIS NAME RIGHT, AND +ROSALIND DIDN'T. HOW SALLY AND HER MEDICAL ADVISER WERE NOT QUITE +WET THROUGH. HOW HE HAD MADE HER THE CONFIDANTE OF A LOVE-AFFAIR. OF +A GOOD OPENING IN SPECIALISM. MORE PROGRESS OF THE WEDGE. HOW GERRY +NEARLY MADE DINNER LATE +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_377">377</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW A STONE THROWN DROVE THE WEDGE FURTHER YET. OF A TERRIBLE NIGHT +IN A BIG GALE, AND A DOOR THAT SLAMMED. THE WEDGE WELL IN +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_392">392</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXVI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW FENWICK AND VEREKER WENT FOR A WALK, AND MORE MEMORIES CAME +BACK. HOW FENWICK WAS A MILLIONAIRE, OR THEREABOUTS. OF A CLUE THAT +KILLED ITSELF. HARRISSON'S AFFAIR NOW! BOTHER THE MILLIONS! IS NOT +LOVE BETTER THAN MONEY? ONLY FENWICK'S NAME WASN'T HARRISSON NEITHER +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_399">399</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXVII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF THE DOCTOR'S CAUTIOUS RESERVE, AND MRS. FENWICK'S STRONG +COMMON-SENSE. AND OF A LADY AT BUDA-PESTH. HOW HARRISSON WAS ONLY +PAST FORGOTTEN NEWSPAPERS TO DR. VEREKER. OF THE OCTOPUS'S PULSE. +HOW THE HABERDASHER'S BRIDE WOULD TRY ON AT TWO GUAS. A WEEK, AND OF +A PLEASANT WALK BACK FROM THE RAILWAY STATION +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_416">416</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF AN EXPEDITION AGAINST A GOODY, AND THE WALK BACK TO LOBJOIT'S. +AND THE WALK BACK AGAIN TO IGGULDEN'S. HOW FENWICK TOOK VEREKER'S +CONFIDENCE BY STORM. OF A COLLIER THAT PUT TO SEA. SUCCESSFUL +AMBUSCADE OF THE OCTOPUS. PROVISIONAL EQUILIBRIUM OF FENWICK'S MIND. +WHY BOTHER ABOUT HORACE? WHY NOT ABOUT PICKWICK JUST AS MUCH? THE +KITTEN WASN'T THERE—CERTAINLY NOT! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_431">431</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XXXIX.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +HOW MEMORY CREPT BACK AND BACK, AND FENWICK KEPT HIS OWN COUNSEL. +ROSALIND NEED NEVER KNOW IT. OF A JOLLY BIG BLOB OF MELTED CANDLE, +AND SALLY'S HALF-BROTHER. OF FENWICK'S IMPROVED GOOD SPIRITS +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_448">448</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XL.</td> +<td> +<!-- Page viii --> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +BATHING WEATHER AGAIN, AND A LETTER FROM TISHY BRADSHAW. THE TRIUMPH +OF ORPHEUS. BUT WAS IT EURYDICE OR THE LITTLE BATTERY? THE +REV. MR. HERRICK. OF A REVERIE UNDER A BATHING-MACHINE, AND OF GWENDOLEN'S +MAMMA'S CONNECTING-LINK. OF DR. CONRAD'S MAMMA'S DONKEY-CHAIR, AND +HIS GREAT-AUNT ELIZA. HOW SALLY AND HE STARTED FOR THEIR LAST WALK +AT ST. SENNANS +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_457">457</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF LOVE, CONSIDERED AS A THUNDERSTORM, AND OF AGUR, THE SON OF JAKEH +(PROV. XXX.). OF A COUNTRY WALK AND A JUDICIOUSLY RESTORED CHURCH. +OF TWO CLASPED HANDS, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. NOTHING SO VERY +REMARKABLE AFTER ALL! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_471">471</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A RECURRENCE FROM "AS YOU LIKE IT," AND HOW FENWICK DIDN'T. WHY A +SAILOR WOULD NOT LEARN TO SWIM. THE BARON AGAIN. OF A CUTTLE-FISH +AND HIS SQUIRT. OF THE POWER OF <i>A PRIORI</i> REASONING. OF SALLY'S +CONFESSION, AND HOW FENWICK WENT TO A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_489">489</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLIII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF AN OBSERVANT AND THOUGHTFUL, BUT SNIFFY, WAITER; AND HOW HE +OPENED A NEW BOTTLE OF COGNAC. HOW THE BARON SAW FENWICK HOME, +WITHOUT HIS HAT. AN OLD MEMORY FROM ROSALIND'S PAST AND HIS. AND +THEN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WHOLE. SLEEP UPON IT! BUT WHAT BECAME OF +HIS HORRIBLE BABY? +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_498">498</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLIV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF A CONTRACT JOB FOR REPAIRS. HOW FENWICK HAD ANOTHER SLEEPLESS +NIGHT AFTER ALL. WHICH IS WHICH, NOW OR TWENTY ODD YEARS AGO? HOW +SALLY FOLLOWED JEREMIAH OUT. WHAT A LOT OF TALK ABOUT A LIFE-BELT! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_513">513</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLV.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +OF CONRAD VEREKER'S REVISION OF PARADISE, AND OF FENWICK'S HIGH +FEVER. OF AN ENGLISH OFFICER WHO WAVERED AT BOMBAY, AND OF FENWICK'S +SURPRISE-BATH IN THE BRITISH CHANNEL. WHY HE DID NOT SINK. THE +"ELLEN JANE" OF ST. SENNANS. ONLY SALLY IS IN THE WATER STILL. MORE +BOATS. FOUND! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_524">524</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLVI.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +AN ERRAND IN VAIN, AND HOW DR. CONRAD CAME TO KNOW. CONCERNING +LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE, AND THE BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN. MARSHALL HALL'S +SYSTEM AND SILVESTER'S. SOCIAL DISADVANTAGES. A CHAT WITH A +CENTENARIAN, AND HOW ROSALIND CAME TO KNOW. THOMAS LOCOCK OF +ROCHESTER. ONE O'CLOCK! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_531">531</a> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toccenter">CHAPTER XLVII.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="toc1"> +WAS IT THE LITTLE GALVANIC BATTERY? THE LAST CHAPTER RETOLD BY THE +PRESS. A PROPER RAILING. BUT THEY <i>WEREN'T</i> DROWNED. WHAT'S THE +FUSS? MASTER CHANCELLORSHIP APPEARS AND VANISHES. ELECTUARY OF +ST. SENNA. AT GEORGIANA TERRACE. A LETTER FROM SALLY. ANOTHER FROM +CONRAD. EVERYTHING VANISHES! +</td> +<td class="toc2"> +<a href="#Page_554">554</a> +</td> +</tr> + +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h1>SOMEHOW GOOD</h1> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 1 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +</div> + +<h1>SOMEHOW GOOD</h1> + +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="subhead">A RETURNED TRAVELLER. NEMESIS IN LIVERMORE'S RENTS, 1808. +EXTRAVAGANCE, AND NO CASH. A PAWNED WATCH, AND A RESIDUUM OF +FOURPENCE</p> + +<p>An exceptionally well-built man in a blue serge suit walked into a +bank in the City, and, handing his card across the counter, asked if +credit had been wired for him from New York. The clerk to whom he +spoke would inquire.</p> + +<p>As he leaned on the counter, waiting for the reply, his appearance +was that of a man just off a sea voyage, wearing a suit of clothes +well knocked about in a short time, but quite untainted by London +dirt. His get-up conveyed no information about his social position +or means. His garments had been made for him; that was all that +could be said. That is something to know. But it leaves the question +open whether their wearer is really only a person in decent +circumstances—<i>one</i> decent circumstance, at any rate—or a Duke.</p> + +<p>The trustworthy young gentleman in spectacles who came back from an +authority in the bush to tell him that no credit had been wired so +far, did not seem to find any difficulty in affecting confidence +that the ultimate advent of this wire was an intrinsic certainty, +like the post. Scarcely, perhaps, the respectable confidence he +would have shown to a real silk hat—for the applicant's was mere +soft felt, though it looked new, for that matter—and a real clean +shirt, one inclusive of its own collar and cuffs. Our friend's +answered this description; but then, it was blue. However, the +confidence would have wavered under an independent collar and +wristbands. Cohesiveness in such a garment means that its wearer may +be an original genius: compositeness may mean that he has to +economize, like us.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 2 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Did you expect it so early as this?" says the trustworthy young +gentleman, smiling sweetly through his spectacles. "It isn't ten +o'clock yet." But he only says this to show his confidence, don't +you see? Because his remark is in its nature meaningless, as there +is no time of day telegrams have a penchant for. No doubt there is a +time—perhaps even times and half-a-time—when you cannot send them. +But there is no time when they may not arrive. Except the smallest +hours of the morning, which are too small to count.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I did," replies the applicant. "I don't think I +thought about it. I wired them yesterday from Liverpool, when I left +the boat, say four o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then of course it's a little too early. It may not come till +late in the afternoon. It depends on the load on the wires. Could +you call in again—well, a little before our closing time?"</p> + +<p>"All right." The speaker took out a little purse or pocket-book, and +looked in it. "I thought so," said he; "that was my last card." But +the clerk had left it in the inner sanctum. He would get it, and +disappeared to do so. When he came back with it, however, he found +its owner had gone, saying never mind, it didn't matter.</p> + +<p>"Chap seems in a great hurry!" said he to his neighbour clerk. +"What's he got that great big ring on his thumb for?" And the other +replying: "Don't you know 'em—rheumatic rings?" he added: "Doesn't +look a rheumatic customer, anyhow!" And then both of them pinned up +cheques, and made double entries.</p> + +<p>The chap didn't seem in a great hurry as he sauntered away along +Cornhill, looking in at the shop-windows. He gave the idea of a chap +with a fine June day before him in London, with a plethora of +choices of what to do and where to go. Also of being keenly +interested in everything, like a chap that had not been in London +for a long time. After watching the action of a noiseless new +petroleum engine longer than its monotonous idea of life seemed to +warrant, he told a hansom to take him to the Tower, for which +service he paid a careless two shillings. The driver showed +discipline, and concealed his emotions. <i>He</i> wasn't going to let out +that it was a double fare, and impair a fountain of wealth for other +charioteers to come. Not he!</p> + +<p>The fare enjoyed himself evidently at the Tower. He saw everything + +<!-- Page 3 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +he could be admitted to—the Beauchamp Tower for sixpence, and the +Jewel-house for sixpence. And he gave uncalled-for gratuities. When +he had thoroughly enjoyed all the dungeons and all the +torture-relics, and all the memories of Harrison Ainsworth's +romance, read in youth and never forgotten, he told another hansom +to drive him across the Tower Bridge, and not go too fast.</p> + +<p>As he crossed the Bridge he looked at his watch. It was half-past +twelve. He would have time to get back before half-past one to a +restaurant he had made a mental note of near the Bank, and still to +allow the cabby to drive on a bit through the transpontine and +interesting regions of Rotherhithe and Cherry Garden Pier. It was so +unlike anything he had been seeing lately. None the worse for the +latter, in some respects. So, at least, thought the fare.</p> + +<p>For he had the good, or ill, fortune to strike on a rich vein of +so-called life in a London slum. Shrieks of fury, terror, pain were +coming out of an archway that led, said an inscription, into +Livermore's Rents, 1808. Public opinion, outside those Rents, +ascribed them to the fact that Salter had been drinking. He was on +to that pore wife of his again, like last week. Half killed her, he +did, then! But he was a bad man to deal with, and public opinion +wouldn't go down that court if I was you.</p> + +<p>"But you're not, you see!" said the fare, who had sought this +information. "You stop here, my lad, till I come back." This to the +cabman, who sees him, not without misgivings about a source of +income, plunge into the filthy and degraded throng that is filling +the court, and elbow his way to the scene of excitement.</p> + +<p>"<i>He's</i> all right!" said that cabby. "I'll put a tenner on him, any +Sunday morning"—a figure of speech we cannot explain.</p> + +<p>From his elevation above the crowd he can see a good deal of what +goes on, and guess the rest. Of what he hears, no phrase could be +written without blanks few readers could fill in, and for the +meaning of which no equivalent can even be hinted. The actual +substance of the occurrence, that filters through the cries of panic +and of some woman or child, or both, in agony, the brutal bellowings +and threats of a predominant drunken lout, presumably Mr. Salter, +the incessant appeals to God and Christ + +<!-- Page 4 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +by terrified women, and the +rhetorical use of the names of both by the men, with the frequent +suggestion that some one else should go for the police—this actual +substance may be drily stated thus: Mr. Salter, a plumber by trade, +but at present out of work, had given way to ennui, and to relieve +it had for two days past been beating and otherwise maltreating his +daughter, aged fourteen, and had threatened the life of her mother +for endeavouring to protect her. At the moment when he comes into +this story (as a mere passing event we shall soon forget without +regret) he is engaged in the fulfilment of a previous promise to his +unhappy wife—a promise we cannot transcribe literally, because of +the free employment of a popular adjective (supposed to be a +corruption of "by Our Lady") before or after any part of speech +whatever, as an expletive to drive home meaning to reluctant minds. +It is an expression unwelcome on the drawing-room table. But, +briefly, what Mr. Salter had so sworn to do was to twist his wife's +nose off with his finger and thumb. And he did not seem unlikely to +carry out his threat, as Livermore's tenantry lacked spirit or will +to interpose, and did nothing but shriek in panic when feminine, and +show discretion when masculine; mostly affecting indifference, and +saying they warn't any good, them Salters. The result seemed likely +to turn on whether the victim's back hair would endure the tension +as a fulcrum, or would come rippin' out like so much grarse.</p> + +<p>"Let go of her!" half bellows, half shrieks her legal possessor, in +answer to a peremptory summons. "Not for a swiney, soap-eatin' +Apoarstle—not for a rotten parson's egg, like you. Not for a...."</p> + +<p>But the defiance is cut short by a blow like the kick of a horse, +that lands fairly on the eye-socket with a cracking concussion that +can be heard above the tumult, and is followed by a roar of delight +from the male vermin, who see all the joys before them of battle +unshared and dangerless—the joys bystanders feel in foemen worthy +of each other's steel, and open to be made the subject of wagers.</p> + +<p>The fare rejects all offers to hold his coat, but throws his felt +hat to a boy to hold. Self-elected seconds make a kind of show of +getting a clear space. No idea of assisting in the suppression of a +dangerous drunken savage seems to suggest itself—nothing but + +<!-- Page 5 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +what is called "seeing fair." This is, to wit, letting him loose on even +terms on the only man who has had the courage to intervene between +him and his victim. Let us charitably suppose that this is done in +the hope that it means prompt and tremendous punishment before the +arrival of the police. The cabman sees enough from his raised perch +to justify his anticipating this with confidence. He can just +distinguish in the crowd Mr. Salter's first rush for revenge and its +consequences. "He's got it!" is his comment.</p> + +<p>Then he hears the voice of his fare ring out clear in a lull—such a +one as often comes in the tense excitement of a fight. "Give him a +minute.... Now stick him up again!" and then is aware that Mr. +Salter has been replaced on his legs, and is trying to get at his +antagonist, and cannot. "He's playin' with him!" is his comment this +time. But he does not play with him long, for a swift <i>finale</i> comes +to the performance, perhaps consequent on a cry that heralds a +policeman. It causes a splendid excitement in that cabman, who gets +as high as he can, to miss none of it. "That's your sort!" he +shouts, quite wild with delight. "That's the style! Foller on! +Foller on!" And then, subsiding into his seat with intense +satisfaction, "Done his job, anyhow! Hope he'll be out of bed in a +week!"—the last with an insincere affectation of sympathy for the +defeated combatant.</p> + +<p>The fare comes quickly along the court and out at the entry, whose +occupants the cabman flicks aside with his whip suggestively. "Let +the gentleman come, can't you!" he shouts at them. They let him +come. "Be off sharp!" he says to the cabby, who replies, "Right you +are, governor!" and is off, sharp. Only just in time to avoid three +policemen, who dive into Livermore's Rents, and possibly convey Mr. +Salter to the nearest hospital. Of all that this story knows no +more; Mr. Salter goes out of it.</p> + +<p>The fare, who seems very little discomposed, speaks through the +little trap to his Jehu. "I never got my new hat again," he says. +"You must drive back; there won't be any decent hatter here."</p> + +<p>"Ask your pardon, sir—the Bridge is histed. Vessel coming +through—string of vessels with a tug-boat."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, get back to the Bank—anywhere—the nearest way you + +<!-- Page 6 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +can." And after a mysterious short cut through narrow ways that +recall old London, some still paved with cobbles, past lofty wharves +or warehouses daring men lean from the floors of at dizzy heights, +and capture bales for, that seem afloat in the atmosphere till one +detects the thread that holds them to their crane above—under +unexplained rialtos and over inexplicable iron incidents in paving +that ring suddenly and waggle underfoot—the cab finds its way +across London Bridge, and back to a region where you can buy +anything, from penny puzzles to shares in the power of Niagara, if +you can pay for them.</p> + +<p>Our cab-fare, when he called out, "Hold hard here!" opposite to a +promising hat-shop, seemed to be in doubt of being able to pay for +something very much cheaper than Niagara. He took out his purse, +still sitting in the cab, and found in it only a sovereign, +apparently. He felt in his pockets. Nothing there beyond five +shillings and some coppers. He could manage well enough—so his face +and a slight nod seemed to say—till he went back to the Bank after +lunch. And so, no doubt, he would have done had he been content with +a common human billycock or bowler, like the former one, at +four-and-six. But man is born to give way to temptation in shops. No +doubt you have noticed the curious fact that when you go into a shop +you always spend more—more than you mean to, more than you want to, +more than you've got—one or other of them—but always <i>more</i>.</p> + +<p>Inside the shop, billycocks in tissue-paper came out of band-boxes, +and then out of tissue-paper. But, short of eight shillings, they +betrayed a plebeian nature, and lacked charm. Now, those beautiful +white real panamas, at twenty-two shillings, were exactly the thing +for this hot weather, especially the one the fare tried on. His rich +brown hair, that wanted cutting, told well against the warm +straw-white. He looked handsome in it, with those strong cheek-bones +and bronzed throat Mr. Salter would have been so glad to get at. He +paid for it, saying never mind the receipt, and then went out to pay +the cabby, who respectfully hoped he didn't see him any the worse +for that little affair over the water.</p> + +<p>"None the worse, thank you! Shan't be sorry for lunch, though." +Then, as he stands with three shillings in his hand, waiting for a +recipient hand to come down from above, he adds: "A + +<!-- Page 7 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +very one-sided affair! Did you hear what he said about his +daughter? That was why I finished him so thoroughly."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I did <i>not</i> hear it. But he was good for the gruel he's +got, Lord bless you! without that ... I ask your pardon, sir—no! +<i>Not</i> from a gentleman like you! Couldn't think of it! Couldn't +<i>think</i> of it!" And with a sudden whip-lash, and a curt hint to his +horse, that cabman drove off unpaid. The other took out a pencil, +and wrote the number of the cab on his blue wristband, close to a +little red spot—Mr. Salter's blood probably. When he had done this +he turned towards the restaurant he had taken note of. But he seemed +embarrassed about finances—at least, about the three shillings the +cabby had refused; for he kept them in his hand as if he didn't know +what to do with them. He walked on until he came to a hidden haven +of silence some plane-trees and a Church were enjoying unmolested, +and noticing there a box with a slot, and the word "Contributions" +on it, dropped the three shillings in without more ado, and passed +on. But he had no intention of lunching on the small sum he had +left.</p> + +<p>An inquiry of a City policeman guided him to a pawnbroker's shop. +What would the pawnbroker lend him on that—his watch? Fifteen +shillings would do quite well. That was his reply to an offer to +advance that sum, if he was going to leave the chain as well. It was +worth more, but it would be all safe till he came for it, at any +rate. "You'll find it here, any time up to twelve months," said the +pawnbroker, who also nodded after him knowingly as he left the shop. +"Coming back for it in a week, of course! All of 'em are. Name of +Smith, <i>as</i> usual! Most of 'em are." Yet this man's honouring Mr. +Smith with a comment looked as if he thought him unlike "most of +'em." <i>He</i> never indulged in reflections on the ruck—be sure of +that!</p> + +<p>Mr. Smith, if that was his name, didn't seem uneasy. He found his +way to his restaurant and ordered a very good lunch and a bottle of +Perrier-Jouet—not a half-bottle; he certainly was extravagant. He +took his time over both, also a nap; then, waking, felt for his +watch and remembered he had pawned it; looked at the clock and +stretched himself, and called for his bill and paid it. Most likely +the wire had come to the Bank by now; anyhow, there was no harm in +walking round to see. If it wasn't there he would go back to the +hotel at Kensington where he + +<!-- Page 8 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +had left his luggage, and come back +to-morrow. It was a bore. Perhaps they would let him have a +cheque-book, and save his having to come again. Much of this is +surmise, but a good deal was the substance of remarks made in +fragments of soliloquy. Their maker gave the waiter sixpence and +left the restaurant with three shillings in his pocket, lighting a +cigar as he walked out into the street.</p> + +<p>He kept to the narrow ways and little courts, wondering at the odd +corners Time seems to have forgotten about, and Change to have +deserted as unworthy of her notice; every door of every house an +extract from a commercial directory, mixed and made unalphabetical +by the extractor; every square foot of flooring wanted for +Negotiation to stand upon, and Transactions to be carried out over. +No room here for anything else, thought the smoker, as, after a +quarter of an hour's saunter, he threw away the end of his cigar. +But his conclusion was premature. For lo and behold!—there, in a +strange little wedge-shaped corner, of all things in the world, <i>a +barber's shop</i>; maybe a relic of the days of Ben Jonson or +earlier—how could a mere loafer tell? Anyhow, his hair wanted +cutting sufficiently to give him an excuse to see the old place +inside. He went in and had his hair cut—but under special +reservation; not too much! The hairdresser was compliant; but, said +he, regretfully: "You do your 'ed, sir, less than justice." Its +owner took his residuum of change from his pocket, and carelessly +spent all but a few coppers on professional remuneration and a large +bottle of eau-de-Cologne. Perhaps the reflection that he could cab +all the way back to the hotel had something to do with this +easy-going way of courting an empty pocket.</p> + +<p>When he got to the Bank another young gentleman, with no spectacles +this time, said <i>he</i> didn't know if any credit was wired. He was +very preoccupied, pinning up cheques and initialling some important +customer's paying-in book. But <i>he</i> would inquire in a moment, if +you would wait. And did so, with no result; merely expression of +abstract certainty that it was sure to come. There was still an +hour—over an hour—before closing time, said he to a bag with five +pounds of silver in it, unsympathetically. If you could make it +convenient to look in in an hour, probably we should have received +it. The person addressed + +<!-- Page 9 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +but not looked at might do so—wouldn't +commit himself—and went away.</p> + +<p>The question seemed to be how to while away that hour. Well!—there +was the Twopenny Tube. At that time it was new, and an excitement. +Our friend had exactly fourpence in his pocket. That would take him +to anywhere and back before the Bank closed. And also he could put +some of that eau-de-Cologne on his face and hands. He had on him +still a sense of the foulness of Livermore's Rents and wanted +something to counteract it. Eau-de-Cologne is a great sweetener.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 10 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="subhead">A JOURNEY IN THE TWOPENNY TUBE. A VERY NICE GIRL, AND A NEGOTIATION. +AN EXPOSED WIRE, AND AN ELECTROCUTION</p> + +<p>He took his fare in the Twopenny Tube. It was the last twopence but +one that he had in his pocket. Something fascinated him in the idea +of commanding, in exchange for that twopence, the power of alighting +at any point between Cheapside and Shepherd's Bush. Which should it +be?</p> + +<p>If he could only make up his mind to <i>not</i> alighting at Chancery +Lane, he would have two whole minutes for consideration. If British +Museum he would have four. If Tottenham Court Road, six—and so on. +For the time being he was a sort of monarch, in a small way, over +Time and Space. He would go on to the Museum, at any rate.</p> + +<p>What little things life hangs on, sometimes! If he had foolishly got +out at either Chancery Lane or British Museum, there either would +have been no reason for writing this story; or, if written, it would +have been quite different. For at the Museum Station a girl got into +the carriage; and, passing him on her way to a central haven of +rest, trod on his foot, with severity. It hurt, so palpably, that +the girl begged his pardon. She was a nice girl, and sorry.</p> + +<p>He forgave her because she was a nice girl, with beautiful rows of +teeth and merry eyebrows. He might have forgiven her if she had been +a dowdy. But he liked forgiving those teeth, and those eyebrows.</p> + +<p>So when she sat down in the haven, close to his left shoulder, he +wasn't sorry that his remark that <i>he</i> ought to beg <i>her</i> pardon, +because it was all his fault for sticking out, overlapped her coming +to an anchor. If it had been got through quicker, the incident would +have been regarded as closed. As it was, the fag-end of it was +unexhausted, and she didn't quite catch the whole. It was in no way +unnatural that she should turn her head slightly, + +<!-- Page 11 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +and say: "I beg +your pardon." Absolute silence would have been almost discourteous, +after plunging on to what might have been a bad corn.</p> + +<p>"I only meant it was my fault for jamming up the whole gangway."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—but it was my fault all the same—for—for——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—I beg your pardon? You were going to say—for——?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I mean—for standing on it so long, then! If you had called +out—but indeed I didn't think it was a foot. I thought it was +something in the electricity."</p> + +<p>Two things were evident. One was that it was perfectly impossible to +be stiff and stodgy over it, and not laugh out. The other, the +obvious absurdity of imputing any sort of motive to the serene +frankness and absolute candour of the speaker. Any sort of +motive—"of <i>that</i> sort"—said he to himself, without further +analysis. He threw himself into the laugh, without attempting any. +It disposed of the discussion of the subject, but left matters so +that stolid silence would have been priggish. It seemed to him that +not to say another word would almost have amounted to an insinuation +against the eyebrows and the teeth. He would say one—a most +impersonal one.</p> + +<p>"Do they stop at Bond Street?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want to stop at Bond Street?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I don't care where I stop. I think I meant—is there a +station at Bond Street?"</p> + +<p>"The station wasn't opened at first. But it's open now."</p> + +<p>What an irritating thing a conversation can be! Here was this one, +just as one of its constituents was beginning to wish it to go on, +must needs exhaust its subject and confess that artificial +nourishment was needed to sustain it. And she—(for it was she, not +he:—did you guess wrong?)—had begun to want to know, don't you +see, why the man with the hair on the back of his browned hand and +the big plain gold ring on his thumb did not care where he stopped. +If he had had a holiday look about him she might have concluded that +he was seeing London, and then what could be more natural than to +break loose, as it were, in the Twopenny Tube? But in spite of his +leisurely look, he had not in the least the seeming of a +holiday-maker. His clothes were not right for the part. What he was +could + +<!-- Page 12 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +not be guessed without a clue, and the conversation had +collapsed, clearly! It was irritating to be gravelled for lack of +matter—and he was such a perfect stranger! The girl was a reader of +Shakespeare, but she certainly didn't see her way to Rosalind's +little expedient. "Even though my own name <i>is</i> Rosalind," said she +to herself.</p> + +<p>It was the readiness and completeness with which the man dropped the +subject, and recoiled into himself, that gave the girl courage to +make an attempt to satisfy her curiosity. When a man harks back, +palpably, on some preoccupation, after exchanging a laugh and an +impersonal word or two with a girl who does not know him, it is the +best confirmation possible of his previous good faith in seeming +more fatherlike than manlike. Rosalind could risk it, surely. "Very +likely he has a daughter my age," said she to herself. Then she saw +an opening—the thumb-ring.</p> + +<p>"Do pray excuse me for asking, but do you find it does good? My +mother was recommended to try one."</p> + +<p>"This ring? It hasn't done <i>me</i> any good. But then, I have hardly +anything the matter. I don't know about other people. I'm sorry I +bought it, now. It cost four-and-sixpence, I think. I would sooner +have the four-and-sixpence.... Yes, decidedly! I would sooner have +the four-and-sixpence."</p> + +<p>"Can't you sell it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I could get sixpence for it."</p> + +<p>"Do please excuse me—I mean, excuse the liberty I take—but I +should so much like to—to...."</p> + +<p>"To buy it for sixpence? Certainly. Why not? Much better than paying +four-and-six for a new one. Your mother <i>may</i> find it do her good. I +don't care about it, and I really have nothing the matter."</p> + +<p>He drew the ring off his thumb, and Rosalind took it from him. She +slipped it on her finger, over her glove. Naturally it slipped +off—a man's thumb-ring! She passed it up inside the glove-palm, +through the little slot above the buttons. Then she got out her +purse, and looked in to see what its resources were.</p> + +<p>"I have only got half-a-crown," said she. The man flushed slightly. +Rosalind fancied he was angry, and had supposed she was + +<!-- Page 13 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +offering +beyond her bargain, which might have implied liberality, or +benevolence, or something equally offensive. But it wasn't that at +all.</p> + +<p>"I have no change," said he. "Never mind about the sixpence. Send me +stamps. I'll give you my card." And then he recollected he had no +card, and said so.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter being very exact," said she.</p> + +<p>"I have no money at all. Except twopence."</p> + +<p>Rosalind hesitated. This man must be very hard up, only he certainly +did not give that impression. Still, "no money at all, except +twopence!" Would it be safe to try to get the half-crown into his +pocket? That was what she wanted to do, but felt she might easily +blunder over it. If she was to achieve it, she must be quick, for +the public within hearing was already feeling in its pocket, in +order to oblige with change for half-a-crown. She <i>was</i> quick.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> send it <i>me</i> in stamps," she said, pressing the coin on him. +"Take it, and I'll get my card for the address. It will be +one-and-eleven exactly, because of the postage. It ought to be a +penny for stationery, too.... Oh, well! never mind, then...."</p> + +<p>She had got the card, and the man, demurring to the stationery +suggestion, and, indeed, hesitating whether to take the coin at all, +looked at the card with a little surprise on his face. He read it:</p> + +<div><br /></div> + +<div class="card"> +<hr class="spacer" /> + +<p class="center">MRS. NIGHTINGALE.</p> + +<p class="center">MISS ROSALIND NIGHTINGALE.</p> + +<hr class="spacer" /> + +<p>KRAKATOA, GLENMOIRA ROAD,</p> + +<p class="indl">SHEPHERD'S BUSH, W.</p> +</div> + +<div><br /></div> + +<p>"I'm not Mrs. Nightingale," said the girl. "That's my mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh no!" said he. "It wasn't that. It was only that I knew the name +once—years ago."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 14 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>The link in the dialogue here was that she had thought the surprise +was due to his crediting her with matrimony and a visiting-card +daughter. She was just thinking could she legitimately inquire into +the previous Nightingale, when he said some more of his own accord, +and saved her the trouble.</p> + +<p>"Rosalind Nightingale was the name," said he. "Do you know any +relation——"</p> + +<p>"Only my mother," answered the girl, surprised. "She's Rosalind, +too, like me. I mean, <i>I'm</i> Rosalind. I am always called Sally, +though."</p> + +<p>The man was going to answer when, as luck would have it, the card +slipped from his fingers and fluttered down. In pursuing it he +missed the half-crown, which the young lady released, fancying he +was about to take hold of it, and stooped to search for it where it +had rolled under the seat.</p> + +<p>"How idiotic of me!" said he.</p> + +<p>"Next station Uxbridge Road," thus the guard proclaimed; and then, +seeing the exploration that was going on after the half-crown, he +added: "I should let it go at that, mister, if I was you."</p> + +<p>The man asked why?</p> + +<p>"There was a party tried that game last week. He's in the horspital +now." This was portentous and enigmatical. The guard continued: "If +a party gets electrocuted, it's no concern of the employees on the +line. It lies between such parties and the Company. I shouldn't +myself, if I was you! But it's between you and the Company. I wash +<i>my</i> hands."</p> + +<p>"If the wires are properly insulated"—this was from an important +elderly gentleman, of a species invariable under the +circumstances—"<i>if</i> the wires are properly insulated, there is not +the slightest cause for apprehension of any sort or kind."</p> + +<p>"Very good!" said the guard gloomily. "Then all I say is, insoolate +'em yourselves. Don't try to put it on me! Or else keep your hands +well outside of the circuit." But the elderly gentleman was not +ready to acquiesce in the conditions pointed at.</p> + +<p>"I repeat," said he, "that the protection of the public is, or ought +to be, amply secured by the terms of the Company's charter. If any +loophole exists for the escape of the electric current, all + +<!-- Page 15 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +I can +say is, the circumstances call for public inquiry. The safety of the +public is the concern of the authorities."</p> + +<p>"Then," said the guard pointedly, "if I was the public, I should put +my hands in my pocket, and not go fishing about for ambiguous +property in corners. There!—what did I tell you? Now you'll say +that was me, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>The thing that hadn't been the guard was a sudden crackle that +leaped out in a blue flame under the seat where the man's hand was +exploring for the half-crown. It was either that, or another like +it, at the man's heel. Or both together. A little boy was intensely +delighted, and wanted more of the same sort. The elderly gentleman +turned purple with indignation, and would at once complain to the +authorities. They would take the matter up, he doubted not. It was a +disgrace, etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Rosalind, or Sally, Nightingale showed no alarm. Her merry eyebrows +were as merry as ever, and her smile was as unconscious a frame to +her pearly teeth as ever, when she turned to the mother of the +delighted little boy and spoke.</p> + +<p>"There now! It's exactly like that when I comb my hair in very dry +weather." And the good woman was able to confirm this from her own +experience, narrating (with needless details) the strange phenomena +attendant on the head of a young person in quite a good situation at +Woollamses, and really almost a lady, stating several times what she +had said to the young person, Miss Ada Taylor, and what answer she +had received. She treated the matter entirely with reference to the +bearings of the electric current on questions of social status.</p> + +<p>But the man did not move, remaining always with his arm under the +seat. Rosalind, or Sally, thought he had run the half-crown home, +but in some fixed corner from which detachment was for a moment +difficult. Wondering why the moment should last so long, she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Have you got it?" said she.</p> + +<p>But the man spoke never a word, and remained quite still.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 16 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="subhead">KRAKATOA VILLA, AND HOW THE ELECTROCUTED TRAVELLER WENT THERE IN A +CAB. A CURIOUS WELCOME TO A PERFECT STRANGER. THE STRANGER'S LABEL. +A CANCELLED MEMORY. BACK LIKE A BAD SHILLING</p> + +<p>Krakatoa was a semi-detached villa, a few minutes' walk from +Shepherd's Bush Station. It looked like a showily dressed wife of a +shabby husband; for the semi-detached other villa next door had been +standing to let for years, and its compo front was in a state of +decomposition from past frosts, and its paint was parched and thin +in the glare of the present June sun, and peeling and dripping +spiritlessly from the closed shutters among the dead flies behind +the cracked panes of glass that had quite forgotten the meaning of +whitening and water, and that wouldn't hack out easy by reason of +the putty having gone 'ard. One knew at a glance that if the +turncock was to come, see, and overcome the reluctance of the +allotted cock-to-be-turned, the water would burst out at every pore +of the service-pipes in that house, except the taps; and would know +also that the adept who came to soften their hearts and handles +would have to go back for his tools, and would be a very long time +away.</p> + +<p>Krakatoa, on the other hand, was resplendent with stone-colour, and +smelt strongly of it. And its door you could see through the glass +of into the hall, when its shutters were not thumb-screwed up over +the panes, was painted a green that staggered the reason, and smelt +even more strongly than the stone-colour. And all the paint was so +thick that the beadings on the door were dim memories, and all the +execution on the sculptured goblets on pedestals flanking the steps +in the front garden was as good as spoiled. And the paint simmered +in the sun, and here and there it blistered and altogether suggested +that Krakatoa, like St. Nicholas, might have halved its coats with +the beggar next door—given him, suppose, one flat and one round + +<!-- Page 17 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +coat. Also, that either the job had been 'urried, and not giv' +proper time to dry, or that the summer had come too soon, and we +should pay for it later on, you see if we didn't!</p> + +<p>The coatless and woe-begone villa next door had almost lost its +name, so faded was the lettering on the gate-post that was putting +out its bell-handle to the passer-by, even as the patient puts out +his tongue to the doctor. But experts in palimpsests, if they had +penetrated the superscriptions in chalk and pencil of idle +authorship, would have found that it was The Retreat. Probably this +would have been revealed even if the texts had been merely +Bowdlerised with Indian-rubber or a sponge, because there were a +good many objectionable passages.</p> + +<p>But The Retreat <i>was</i> a retreat, and smelt strong of the Hermits, +who were cats. Krakatoa was not a volcano, except so far as +eruptions on the paint went. But then it had become Krakatoa through +a mistake; for the four coats of paint at the end of the first seven +years, as per agreement, having completely hidden the first name, +Saratoga, and the builders' retention of it having been +feeble—possibly even affected by newspaper posters, for it was not +long after the date of the great eruption—the new name had crept in +in the absence of those who could have corrected it, but had gone to +Brighton to get out of the smell of the paint.</p> + +<p>When they returned, Mr. Prichard, the builder, though shocked and +hurt at the discovery that the wrong name had been put up, was +strongly opposed to any correction or alteration, especially as it +would always show if altered back. You couldn't make a job of it; +not to say a proper job. Besides, the names were morally the same, +and it was absurd to allow a variation in the letters to impose on +our imagination. The two names had been applied to very different +turns-out abroad, certainly; but then they did all sorts of things +abroad. If Saratoga, why not Krakatoa? Mr. Prichard was entrenched +in a stronghold of total ignorance of literary matters, and his +position, that mere differences of words ought not to tell upon a +healthy mind, was difficult to shake, especially as he had the coign +of vantage. He had only to remain inanimate, and what could a +(presumably) widow lady with one small daughter do against him? So +at the end of the first seven years, what had been Saratoga became +Krakatoa, and remained so.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 18 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>And it was in the back garden of the again newly painted villa, +seven years later, that the lady of the house, who was watering the +garden in the cool of the afternoon, asked her excited daughter, who +had just come home in a cab, what on earth could have prompted her +to do such a mad thing, such a perfectly <i>insane</i> thing! We shall +see what it was immediately.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sally, Sally!" exclaimed that young person's still young and +very handsome mother. "What <i>will</i> the child do next?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, mamma, mamma!" answers Sally, just on the edge of a burst of +tears; "what <i>was</i> I to do? What <i>could</i> I do? It was all my fault +from the beginning. You <i>know</i> I couldn't leave him to be taken to +the police-station, or the hospital, or——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course you could! Why not?"</p> + +<p>"And not know what became of him, or anything? Oh, mother!"</p> + +<p>"You silly child! Why on earth couldn't you leave him to the railway +people?"</p> + +<p>"And run away and leave him alone? Oh, <i>mother</i>!"</p> + +<p>"But you don't even know his name."</p> + +<p>"Mamma, dear, how <i>should</i> I know his name? Don't you see, it was +just like this." And then Miss Sally Nightingale repeats, briefly +and rapidly, for the second time, the circumstances of her interview +in the railway-carriage and its tragic ending. Also their sequel on +the railway platform, with the partial recovery of the stunned or +stupefied man, his inability to speak plainly, the unsuccessful +search in his pockets for something to identify him, and the final +decision to put him in a cab and take him to the workhouse +infirmary, pending discovery of his identity. The end of her story +has a note of relief in it:</p> + +<p>"And it was then I saw Dr. Vereker on the platform."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you saw Dr. Vereker?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I did, and he came with me. He's always so kind, you +know, and he knew the station people, so...."</p> + +<p>"Where is he now?"</p> + +<p>"Outside in the cab. He stopped to see after the man. We couldn't +both come away, so I came to tell you."</p> + +<p>"You stupid chit! why couldn't you tell me at first? There, don't +cry and be a goose!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 19 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>But Sally disclaims all intention of crying. Her mother discards the +watering-pot and an apron, and suppresses appearances of gardening; +then goes quickly through the house, passes down the steps between +the scarlet geraniums in the over-painted goblets, through the gate +on which Saratoga ought to be, and Krakatoa is, written, and finds a +four-wheeled cab awaiting developments. One of its occupants alights +and meets her on the pavement. A rapid colloquy ensues in +undertones, ending in the slightly raised voice of the young man, +who is clearly Dr. Vereker.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you're perfectly right—perfectly right. But you'll have +to make my peace with Miss Sally for me."</p> + +<p>"A chit of a girl like that! Fancy a responsible man like you +letting himself be twisted round the finger of a young monkey. But +you men are all alike."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, really, what Miss Sally said was quite true—that +it was only a step out of the way to call here. And she had got this +idea that it was all her fault."</p> + +<p>"Was it?"</p> + +<p>"I can only go by what she says." The girl comes into the +conversation through the gate. She may perhaps have stopped for a +word or two with cook and a house-and-parlourmaid, who are deeply +interested, in the rear.</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> my fault," she said. "If it hadn't been for me, it would +never have happened. Do see how he is now, Dr. Vereker."</p> + +<p>It is open to surmise that the first strong impulse of generosity +having died down under the corrective of a mother, our young lady is +gradually seeing her way to interposing Dr. Vereker as a buffer +between herself and the subject of the conversation, for she does +not go to the cab-door to look in at him. The doctor does. The +mother holds as aloof as possible, not to get entangled into any +obligations.</p> + +<p>"Get him away to the infirmary, or the station at once," she says. +"That's the best thing to be done. They'll take care of him till his +friends come to claim him. Of course, they'll come. They always do." +The doctor seems to share this confidence, or affects to do so.</p> + +<p>"Sure to. His friends or his servants," says he. "But he can't + +<!-- Page 20 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +give +any account of himself yet. Of course, I don't know what he'll be +able to do to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>He resumes his place in the cab beside its occupant, who, except for +an entire want of animation, looks much like what he did in the +railway-carriage—the same strong-looking man with well-marked +cheek-bones, very thick brown hair and bushy brows, a skin rather +tanned, and a scar on the bridge of the nose; very strong hands with +a tattoo-mark showing on the wrist and an abnormal crop of hair on +the back, running on to the fingers, but flawed by a scar or two. +Add to this the chief thing you would recollect him by, an +Elizabethan beard, and you will have all the particulars about him +that a navy-blue serge suit, with shirt to match, allows to be seen +of him. But you will have an impression that could you see his skin +beyond the sun-mark limit on his hands and neck, you would find it +also tattooed. Yet you would not at once conclude he was a sailor; +rather, your conclusion might go on other lines, but always +assigning to him a rough adventurous outdoor life.</p> + +<p>When the doctor got into the cab and shut the door himself, he took +too much for granted. He assumed the driver, without whom, if your +horse has no ambition at all beyond tranquillity and an empty +nosebag, your condition is that of one camping out; or as one in a +ship moored alongside in dock, the kerbstone playing the part of the +quay. Boys will then accumulate, and undervalue your appearance and +belongings. And impossible persons, with no previous or subsequent +existence, will endeavour to see their way to the establishment of a +claim on you. And you will be rather grateful than otherwise that a +policeman without active interests should accrue, and communicate to +them the virus of dispersal, however long its incubation may be. You +will then probably do as Dr. Vereker did, and resent the driver's +disappearance. The boys, mysteriously in his, each other's, and the +policeman's confidence (all to your exclusion), will be able to +quicken his movements, and he will come trooping from the horizon, +on or beyond which is Somebody's Entire.</p> + +<p>All this came to pass in due course, and the horse, deprived of his +nosebag, returned to his professional obligations. But it was a +shabby horse in a shabby cab, to which he imparted movement by +falling forwards and saving himself just before he reached + +<!-- Page 21 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +the +ground. His reins were visibly made good with stout pack-thread, and +he had a well-founded contempt for his whip, which seemed to come to +an end too soon, and always to hit something wooden before it +reached any sensitive part of his person. But he did get off at +last, and showed that, as Force is a mode of motion, so Weakness is +a mode of slowness, and one he took every advantage of.</p> + +<p>The mother and daughter stood looking after the vanishing label, +that stated that the complication of inefficiencies in front of it +was one of twelve thousand and odd—pray Heaven, more competent +ones!—in the Metropolis, and had nearly turned to go into the +house, when the very much younger sister (that might have been) +addressed the very much, but not impossibly, older one thus:</p> + +<p>"Mamma, he said he knew somebody of our name!"</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Fiddlestick!"—with an implication of what of that? Were +there not plenty of Nightingales in the world? Miss Sally is +perceptive about this.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but he said Rosalind."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't say where. That's all he said—Rosalind."</p> + +<p>As the two stand together watching the retreating cab we are able to +see that our first impression of them, derived perhaps from their +relative ages only, was an entirely false one as far as size went. +The daughter is nearly as tall as her mother, and may end by being +as big a woman when she has completely graduated, taken her degree, +in womanhood. But for all that we, who have looked at both faces, +know that when they turn round we shall see on the shoulders of the +one youth, inexperience, frankness, and expectation of things to +come; on those of the other a head that keeps all the mere physical +freshness of the twenties, if not quite the bloom of the teens, +but—expressed Heaven knows how!—experience, reserve, and +retrospect on things that have been once and are not, and that we +have no right to assume to be any concern of ours. Equally true of +all faces of forty, do we understand you to say? Well, we don't know +about that. It was all very strong in this face.</p> + +<p>We can look again, when they turn round. But they don't; for number +twelve thousand and odd has come to a standstill, and + +<!-- Page 22 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +its +energumenon has come down off its box, and is "fiddlin' at something +on the 'orse's 'ed." So cook says, evidently not impressed with that +cab. The doctor looks out and confers; then gets out and comes back +towards the house. The girl and her mother walk to meet him.</p> + +<p>"Never saw such a four-wheeler in my life! The harness is tied up +with string, and the rein's broken. The idiot says if he had a stout +bit of whipcord, he could make it square." No sooner have the words +passed the doctor's lips than Miss Sally is off on a whipcord quest.</p> + +<p>"I wish the child wouldn't always be in such a hurry," says her +mother. "Now she won't know where to get it."</p> + +<p>She calls after her ineffectually. The doctor suggests that he shall +follow with instructions. Yes, suppose he does? There is precisely +the thing wanted in the left-hand drawer of the table in the +hall—the drawer the handle comes off. This seems unpromising, but +the doctor goes, and transmission of messages ensues, heard within +the house.</p> + +<p>Left alone, Mrs. Nightingale, the elder Rosalind, seems reflective. +"A funny thing, too!" she says aloud to herself. She is thinking, +clearly, of how this man in the cab, who can't give any account of +himself, once knew a Rosalind Nightingale.</p> + +<p>Probably the handle has come off the drawer, for they are a long +time over that string. Curiosity has time to work, and has so much +effect that the lady seems to determine that, after all, she would +like to see the man. Now that the cab is so far from the door, even +if she spoke to him, she would not stand committed to anything. It +is all settled, arranged, ratified, that he shall go to the +police-station, or the infirmary, "or somewhere."</p> + +<p>When the string, and Dr. Vereker, and Sally the daughter come out of +the house, both exclaim. And the surprise they express is that the +mother of the latter should have walked all the way after the cab, +and should be talking to the man in it! It is not consistent with +her previous attitude.</p> + +<p>"Now, isn't that like mamma?" says Sally. If so, why be so +astonished at it?—is a question that suggests itself to her hearer. +But self-confutation is not a disorder for his treatment. Besides, +the doctor likes it, in this case. His own surprise at mamma's +conduct is unqualified by any intimate acquaintance with + +<!-- Page 23 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +her +character. She may be inconsistency itself, for anything he knows.</p> + +<p>"Is she going to turn the cab round and bring him to the house, +after all?" It looks like it.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad," Sally replies to the doctor.</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't repent it in sackcloth and ashes."</p> + +<p>"I shan't. Why do you think I shall?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know you won't?"</p> + +<p>"You'll see!" Sally pinches her red lips tight over her two rows of +pearls, and nods confirmation. Her dark eyes look merry under the +merry eyebrows, and the lip-pinch makes a dimple on her chin—a +dimple to remember her by. She is a taking young lady, there is no +doubt of it. At least, the doctor has none.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sally, it's all quite right." Thus her mother, arriving a +little ahead of the returning cab. "Now, don't dispute with me, +child, but do just as I tell you. We'll have him in the +breakfast-room; there's fewer steps." She seems to have made up her +mind so completely that neither of the others interposes a word. But +she replies, moved by a brain-wave, to a question that stirred in +the doctor's mind.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; he has spoken. He spoke to me just now. I'll tell you +presently. Now let's get him out. No, never mind calling cook. You +take him on that side, doctor.... That's right!"</p> + +<p>And then the man, whose name we still do not know, found himself +half supported, half standing alone, on the pavement in front of a +little white eligible residence smelling of new paint. He did not +the least know what had happened. He had only a vague impression +that if some one or something, he couldn't say what, would only give +up hindering him, he would find something he was looking for. But +how could he find it if he didn't know what it was? And that he was +quite in the dark about. The half-crown and the pretty girl who had +given it to him, the train-guard and his cowardice about +responsibility, the public-spirited gentleman, the railway-carriage +itself, to say nothing of all the exciting experiences of the +morning—all, all had vanished, leaving behind only the trace of the +impulse to search. Nothing else! He stood looking bewildered, then +spoke thickly.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 24 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I am giving trouble," said he. Then the two ladies and the +gentleman, whom he saw dimly and did not know, looked at one +another, each perhaps to see if one of the others would speak first. +In the end the lady who was a woman nodded to the gentleman to +speak, and then the lady who was a girl confirmed her by what was +little more than an intention to nod, not quite unmixed with a +mischievous enjoyment at the devolution of the duty of speech on the +gentleman. It twinkled in her closed lips. But the gentleman didn't +seem overwhelmed with embarrassment. He spoke as if he was used to +things.</p> + +<p>"You have had an accident, sir.... On the railway.... In the +Twopenny Tube.... Yes, you'll remember all about it presently.... +Yes, I'm a doctor.... Yes, we want you to come in and sit down and +rest till you're better.... No, it won't be a long job. <i>You'll</i> +soon come round.... What?... Oh no, no trouble at all! It's this +lady's house, and she wants you to come in." The speaker seems to +guess at the right meanings, as one guesses in the jaws of the +telephone, perhaps with more confidence. But there was but little +audible articulation on the other's part.</p> + +<p>He seemed not to want much support—chiefly guidance. He was taken +down the half-dozen steps that flanked a grass slope down to a stone +paving, and through a door under the more numerous steps he had +escaped climbing, and into a breakfast-room flush with the kitchen, +opening on a small garden at the back. There was the marriage of +Queen Victoria and Prince Albert over the chimney-piece, and a +tortoiseshell cat with a collar on the oilskin cover of a square +table, who rose as though half resenting strange visitors; then, +after stretching, decided on some haven less liable to disturbance, +and went through the window to it without effort, emotion, or sound. +There was a clock under a glass cover on the chimney-piece whose +works you could see through, with a fascinating ratchet movement of +perfect grace and punctuality. Also a vertical orange-yellow glass +vase, twisted to a spiral, and full of spills. Also the leaning +tower of Pisa, done small in alabaster. He could see all these +things quite plainly, and but that his tongue seemed to have struck +work, could have described them. But he could not make himself out, +nor how and why he came to be there at all. Where ought + +<!-- Page 25 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +he to have +been, he asked himself? And, to his horror, he could not make that +out either. Never mind. Patience was the word, clearly. Let him shut +his eyes as he sat there, in the little breakfast-room, with the +flies continually droning in the ceiling, and an especially large +bluebottle busy in the window, who might just as easily have gone +out and enjoyed the last hour of a long evening in a glorious +sunshine, but who mysteriously preferred to beat himself for ever +against a closed pane of glass, a self-constituted prisoner between +it and a gauze blind—let him shut his eyes, and try to think out +what it all meant, what it was all about.</p> + +<p>All that he was perfectly certain of, at that moment, was that he +was awake, with a contused pain all over, and a very stiff left hand +and foot. And that, knowing he had been insensible, he was striving +hard to remember what something was that had happened just before he +became insensible. He had nearly got it, once or twice. Yes, now he +<i>had</i> got it, surely! No, he hadn't. It was gone again.</p> + +<p>A mind that is struggling to remember some particular thing does not +deal with other possibilities of oblivion. We all know the painful +phenomenon of being perfectly aware what it is we are trying to +remember, feeling constantly close to it, but always failing to +grasp it. We know what it will sound like when we say it, what it +will mean, where it was on the page we read it on. Oh dear +yes!—quite plainly. The only thing we can't remember for the life +of us is—what it <i>was</i>!</p> + +<p>And while we are making stupendous efforts to recapture some such +thing, does it ever occur to any of us to ask if we may not be +mistaken in our tacit assumption that we are quite certain to +remember everything else as soon as we try? That, in fact, it may be +our memory-faculty itself that is in fault and that we are only +failing to recall one thing because at the moment it is that one +sole thing, and no other, that we are trying our brains against.</p> + +<p>It was so in the pause of a few minutes in which this man we write +of, left to himself and the ticking of the clock, and hearing, +through the activity of the bluebottle and the monotony of the +ceiling flies, the murmur of a distant conversation between his late +companions, who for the moment had left him alone, tried in + +<!-- Page 26 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +vain to +recover his particular thread of memory, without any uneasiness +about the innumerable skeins that made up the tissue of his record +of a lifetime.</p> + +<p>When the young doctor returned, he found him still seated where he +had left him, one hand over his eyes, the other on his knee. As he +sat—for the doctor watched him from the door for a moment—he moved +and replaced either hand at intervals, with implied distress in the +movements. They gave the impression of constant attempt constantly +baffled. The doctor, a shrewd-seeming young man with an attentive +pale eye, and very fair hair, seemed to understand.</p> + +<p>"Let me recommend you to be quiet and rest. Be quite quiet. You will +be all right when you have slept on it. Mrs. Nightingale—that's the +lady you saw just now; this is her house—will see that you are +properly taken care of."</p> + +<p>Then the man tried to speak; it was with an effort.</p> + +<p>"I wish to thank—I must thank——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind thanks yet. All in good time. Now, what do you think you +can take—to eat or drink?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—nothing to eat or drink."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know best. However, there's tea coming; perhaps you'll go +so far as a cup of tea? You would be the better for it."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Rosalind junior, or Sally, slept in the back bedroom on the +first-floor—that is to say, if we ignore the basement floor and +call the one flush with the street-door step the ground-floor. We +believe we are right in doing so. Rosalind senior, the mother, slept +in the front one. It wasn't too late for tea, they had decided, and +thereupon they had gone upstairs to revise and correct.</p> + +<p>After a certain amount of slopping and splashing in the back room, +uncorroborated by any in the front, Sally called out to her mother, +on the disjointed lines of talk in real life:</p> + +<p>"I like this soap! Have you a safety-pin?" Whereto her mother +replied, speaking rather drowsily and perfunctorily:</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you must come and get it."</p> + +<p>"It's so nice and oily. It's not from Cattley's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is."</p> + +<p>"I thought it was. Where's the pin?" At this point she came into her +mother's room, covering her slightly <i>retroussé</i> nose + +<!-- Page 27 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +with her +fresh-washed hands, to enjoy the aroma of Cattley's soap.</p> + +<p>"In the little pink saucer. Only don't mess my things about."</p> + +<p>"Headache, mammy dear?" For her mother was lying back on the bed, +with her eyes closed. The speaker left her hands over her nostrils +as she spoke, to do full justice to the soap, pausing an instant in +her safety-pin raid for the answer:</p> + +<p>"I've been feeling the heat. It's nothing. You go down, and I'll +come."</p> + +<p>"Have some eau-de-Cologne?" But, alas! there was no eau-de-Cologne.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. You go down, and I'll follow. I shall be all right +after a cup of tea." And Sally, after an intricate movement with a +safety-pin, an openwork lace cuff that has lost a button, and a +white wrist, goes down three accelerandos of stair-lengths, with +landing pauses, and ends with a dining-room door staccato. But she +isn't long gone, for in two minutes the door reopens, and she comes +upstairs as fast, nearly, as she went down. In her hand she carries, +visibly, Johann Maria Farina.</p> + +<p>"Where on earth did you find that?" says her mother.</p> + +<p>"The man had it. Wasn't it funny? He heard me say to Dr. Vereker +that I was so sorry I'd not been able to eau-de-Cologne your +forehead, and he began speaking and couldn't get his words. Then he +got this out of his pocket. I remember one of the men at the station +said something about his having a bottle, but I thought he meant a +pocket-flask. He looks the sort of man that would have a +pocket-flask and earrings."</p> + +<p>Her mother doesn't seem to find this inexplicable, nor to need +comment. Rather the contrary. Sally dabs her brow with +eau-de-Cologne, beneficially, for she seems better, and says now go; +she won't be above a couple of minutes. Nor is she, in the sense in +which her statement has been accepted, for she comes downstairs +within seven by the clock with the dutiful ratchet movement.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>When she came within hearing of those in the room below, she heard a +male voice that was not Dr. Vereker's. Yes, the man (whom we still +cannot speak of by a name) was saying something—slowly, +perhaps—but fairly articulately and intelligibly. + +<!-- Page 28 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +She went very +deliberately, and listened in the doorway. She looked very pale, and +very interested—a face of fixed attention, of absorption in +something she was irresolute about, rather than of doubt about what +she heard; an expression rather out of proportion to the concurrent +facts, as we know them.</p> + +<p>"What is so strange"—this is what the man was saying, in his slow +way—"is that I could find words to tell you, if I could remember +what it is I have to tell. But when I try to bring it back, my head +fails. Tell me again, mademoiselle, about the railway-carriage." +Sally wondered why she was mademoiselle, but recognised a tone of +deference in his use of the word. She did as he asked her, slightly +interrupting her narrative to make sure of getting the tea made +right as she did so.</p> + +<p>"I trod on your foot, you know. (One, two, three spoonfuls.) Surely +you must remember that? (Four, and a little one for the pot.)"</p> + +<p>"I have completely forgotten it."</p> + +<p>"Then I was sorry, and said I would have come off sooner if I had +known it was a foot. You <i>must</i> remember that?" The man half smiled +as he shook a slow-disclaiming head—one that would have remembered +so gladly, if it could. "Then," continues Sally, "I saw your +thumb-ring for rheumatism."</p> + +<p>"My thumb-ring!" He presses his fingers over his closed eyes, as +though to give Memory a better chance by shutting off the visible +present, then withdraws them. "No, I remember no ring at all."</p> + +<p>"How extraordinary!"</p> + +<p>"I remember a violent concussion <i>somewhere</i>—I can't say where—and +then finding myself in a cab, trying to speak to a lady whose face +seemed familiar to me, but who she could be I had not the slightest +idea. Then I tried to get out of the cab, and found I could not +move—or hardly."</p> + +<p>"Look at mamma again! Here she is, come." For Mrs. Nightingale has +come into the room, looking white. "Yes, mother dear, I have. Quite +full up to the brim. Only it isn't ready to pour yet." This last +concerns the tea.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale moves round behind the tea-maker, and comes +full-face in front of her guest. One might have fancied that the +hand that held the pocket-handkerchief that caused the smell + +<!-- Page 29 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +of +eau-de-Cologne that came in with her was tremulous. But then that +very eau-de-Cologne was eloquent about the recent effect of the +heat. Of course, she was a little upset. Nothing strikes either the +doctor or Mademoiselle Sally as abnormal or extraordinary. The +latter resumes:</p> + +<p>"Surely, sir! Oh, you must, you <i>must</i> remember about the name +Nightingale?"</p> + +<p>"This young gentleman said it just now. <i>Your</i> name, madame?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my name," says the lady addressed. But Sally +distinguishes:</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I didn't mean that. I meant when I took the ring from you, +and was to pay for it. Sixpence. And you had no change for +half-a-crown. And then I gave you my mother's card to send it to us +here. One-and-elevenpence, because of the postage. Why, surely you +can remember that!" She cannot bring herself to believe him. Dr. +Vereker does, though, and tells him not to try recollecting; he will +only put himself back. "Take the tea and wait a bit," is the +doctor's advice. For Miss Sally is transmitting a cup of tea with +studied equilibrium. He receives it absently, leaving it on the +table.</p> + +<p>"I do not know if you will know what I mean," he says, "but I have a +sort of feeling of—of being frightened; for I have been trying to +remember things, and I find I can remember almost nothing. Perhaps I +should say I cannot remember <i>at all</i>—can't do any recollecting, if +you understand." Every one can understand—at least, each says so. +Sally goes on, half <i>sotto voce</i>: "You can recollect your own name, +I suppose?" She speaks half-way between soliloquy and dialogue. The +doctor throws in counsel, aside, for precaution.</p> + +<p>"You'll only make matters worse, like that. Better leave him quite +alone."</p> + +<p>But the man's hearing doesn't seem to have suffered, for he catches +the remark about his name.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell," he says. "I am not so sure. Of course, I can't have +forgotten my own name, because that's impossible. I will tell it you +in a minute.... Oh dear!..."</p> + +<p>The young doctor seemed to disapprove highly of these efforts, and +to wish to change the conversation. "Let it alone now," said + +<!-- Page 30 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +he. +"Only for a little. Would you kindly allow me to see your arm +again?"</p> + +<p>"Let him drink his tea first." This is from Miss Sally, the +tea-priestess. "Another cup?" But no; he won't take another cup, +thanks.</p> + +<p>"Now let's have the coat off, and get another look at the arm; never +mind apologizing." But the patient had not contemplated apology. It +was the stiffness made him slow. However, he got his coat off, and +drew the blue shirt off his left arm. He had a fine hand and arm, +but the hand hung inanimate, and the fingers looked scorched. Dr. +Vereker began feeling the arm at intervals all the way up, and +asking each time questions about the degree of sensibility.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't say whether it's normal or not up there." So the patient +testified. And Mrs. Nightingale, who was watching the examination +intently, suggested trying the other arm in the same place for +comparison.</p> + +<p>"You didn't see the other arm at the station, doctor?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"I was asking."</p> + +<p>"Well, no. Now I come to think of it, I don't think I did. We'll +have a look now, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"<i>You're</i> a nice doctor!" This is from Miss Sally; a little +confidential fling at the profession. She is no respecter of +persons. Her mother would, no doubt, check her—a pert little +monkey!—only she is absorbed in the examination.</p> + +<p>The doctor, as he ran back the right-arm sleeve, uttered an +exclamation. "Why, my dear sir," cried he, "here we have it! What +more can we want?"—and pointed at the arm. And Sally said, as +though relieved: "He's got his name written on him plain enough, +anyhow!" Her mother gave a sigh of relief, or something like it, and +said, "Yes." The patient himself seemed quite as much perplexed as +pleased at the discovery, saying only, in a subdued way: "It <i>must</i> +be my name." But he did not seem to accept at all readily the name +tattooed on his arm: "A. Fenwick, 1878."</p> + +<p>"Whose name can it be if it is not yours?" said Mrs. Nightingale. +She fixed her eyes on his face, as though to watch his effort + +<!-- Page 31 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +of +memory. "Try and think." But the doctor protested.</p> + +<p>"Don't do anything of the sort," said he. "It's very bad for him, +Mrs. Nightingale. He <i>mustn't</i> think. Just let him rest."</p> + +<p>The patient, however, could not resign himself without a struggle to +this state of anonymous ambiguity. His bewilderment was painful to +witness. "If it were my name," he said, speaking slowly and not very +clearly, "surely it would bring back the first name. I try to recall +the word, and the effort is painful, and doesn't succeed." His +hostess seemed much interested, even to the extent of ignoring the +doctor's injunctions.</p> + +<p>"Very curious! If you heard the name now, would you recollect it?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>wish</i> you wouldn't try these experiments," says the doctor. +"They won't do him <i>any</i> good. <i>Rest's</i> the thing."</p> + +<p>"I think I would rather try," says Fenwick, as we may now call him. +"I will be quiet if I can get this right."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale begins repeating names that begin with A. "Alfred, +Augustus, Arthur, Andrew, Algernon——"</p> + +<p>Fenwick's face brightens. "That's it!" says he. "Algernon. I knew it +quite well all the time, of course. But I couldn't—couldn't.... +However, I don't feel that I shall make myself understood."</p> + +<p>"I can't make out," said Sally, "how you came to remember the bottle +of eau-de-Cologne."</p> + +<p>"I did not remember it. I do not now. I mean, how it came to be in +the pocket. I can remember nothing else that was there—would have +been, that is. There is nothing else there now, except my cigar-case +and a pocket-book with nothing much in it. I can tell nothing about +my watch. A watch ought to be there."</p> + +<p>"There, there!" says the doctor; "you will remember it all +presently. Do take my advice and be quiet, and sit still and don't +talk."</p> + +<p>But half an hour or more after, although he had taken this advice, +Fenwick remembered nothing, or professed to have remembered nothing. +He seemed, however, much more collected, and except on the +memory-point nearly normal.</p> + +<p>When the doctor, looking at his watch, referred to his obligation + +<!-- Page 32 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +to keep another engagement, Fenwick rose, saying that he was now +perfectly well able to walk, and he would intrude no longer on his +hostesses' hospitality. This would have been perfectly reasonable, +but for one thing. It had come out that his pockets were empty, and +he was evidently quite without any definite plan as to what he +should do next, or where he should go. He was only anxious to +relieve his new friends of an encumbrance. He was evidently the sort +of person on whom the character sat ill; one who would always be +most at ease when shifting for himself; such a one as would reply to +any doubt thrown on his power of doing so, that he had been in many +a worse plight than this before. Yet you would hardly have classed +him on that account as an adventurer, because that term implies +unscrupulousness in the way one shifts for oneself. His face was a +perfectly honourable one. It was a face whose strength did not +interfere with its refinement, and there was a pleasant candour in +the smile that covered it as he finally made ready to depart with +the doctor. He should never, he said, know how to be grateful enough +to madame and her daughter for their kindness to him. But when +pressed on the point of where he intended to go, and how they should +hear what had become of him, he answered vaguely. He was undecided, +but, of course, he would write and tell them as they so kindly +wished to hear of him. Would mademoiselle give him the address +written down?</p> + +<p>They found themselves—at least, the doctor and Sally +did—inferring, from his refreshed manner and his confidence about +departing, that his memory was coming back, or would come back. It +might have seemed needless inquisitiveness to press him with further +questions. They left the point alone. After all, they had no more +right to catechize him about himself than if he had been knocked +down by a cart outside the door, and brought into the house +unconscious—a thing which might quite well have happened.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale seemed very anxious he should not go away quite +unprovided with money. She asked Dr. Vereker to pass him on a loan +from her before he parted with him. He could post it back when it +was quite convenient, so the doctor was to tell him. The doctor +asked, Wasn't a sovereign a large order? But she seemed to think +not. "Besides," said she, "it makes it certain + +<!-- Page 33 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +we shall not lose +sight of him. I'm not sure we ought to let him go at all," added +she. She seemed very uneasy about it—almost exaggeratedly so, the +doctor thought. But he was reassuring and confident, and she allowed +his judgment to overrule hers. But he must bring him back without +scruple if he saw reason to do so. He promised, and the two departed +together, the gait and manner of Fenwick giving rise to no immediate +apprehension.</p> + +<p>"How rum!" said Sally, when they had gone. "I never thought I should +live to see a man electrocuted."</p> + +<p>"A man what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, half-electrocuted, then. I say, mother——"</p> + +<p>"What, dear?" She is looking very tired, and speaks absently. Sally +makes the heat responsible again in her mind, and continues:</p> + +<p>"I don't believe his name's Algernon at all! It's Arthur, or Andrew, +or something of that sort."</p> + +<p>"You're very wise, poppet. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you stopped such a long time after Algernon. It was like +cheating at Spiritualism. You <i>must</i> say the alphabet quite +steady—A—B—C—D——" Sally sketches out the proper attitude for +the impartial inquirer. "Or else you're an accomplice."</p> + +<p>"You're a puss! No, <i>his</i> name's Algernon, right enough.... I mean, +I've no doubt it's Algernon. Why shouldn't it be?"</p> + +<p>"No reason at all. Dr. Vereker's is Conrad, so, of course, there's +no reason why his shouldn't be Algernon." Satisfactory and +convincing! At least, the speaker thinks so, and is perfectly +satisfied. Her mother doesn't quarrel with the decision.</p> + +<p>"Kitten!" she says suddenly. And then in reply to her daughter's, +"What's up, mammy dear?" she suggests that they shall walk out in +front—it is a quiet, retired sort of cul-de-sac road, ending in a +fence done over with tar, with nails along the top like the letter +<i>L</i> upside down—in the cool. "It's quite delicious now the sun's +gone down, and Martha can make supper another half-hour late." +Agreed.</p> + +<p>The mother pauses as they reach the gate. "Who's that talking?" she +asks, and listens.</p> + +<p>"Nobody. It's only the sparrows going to bed."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 34 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"No, no; not that! Shish! be quiet! I'm sure I heard Dr. Vereker's +voice——"</p> + +<p>"How could you? He's home by now."</p> + +<p>"Do be quiet, child!" She continues listening.</p> + +<p>"Why not look round the corner and see if it isn't him?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was going to; only you and the sparrows make such a +chattering.... There, I knew it would be that! Why doesn't he bring +him back here, at once?" For at the end of the short road are Dr. +Vereker and Fenwick, the latter with his hand on the top of a post, +as though resting. They must have been there some minutes.</p> + +<p>"Fancy their having got no further than the fire-alarm!" says Sally, +who takes account of her surroundings.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I ought never to have let him go." Thus her mother, with +decision in her voice. "Come on, child!"</p> + +<p>She seems greatly relieved at the matter having settled itself—so +Sally thinks, at least.</p> + +<p>"We got as far as this," Dr. Vereker says—rather meaninglessly, if +you come to think of it. It is so very obvious.</p> + +<p>"And now," says Mrs. Nightingale, "how is he to be got back again? +That's the question!" She seems not to have the smallest doubt about +the question, but much about the answer. It is answered, however, +with the assistance of the previous police-constable, who reappears +like a ghost. And Mr. Fenwick is back again within the little white +villa, much embarrassed at the trouble he is giving, but unable to +indicate any other course. Clearly, it would never do to accept the +only one he can suggest—that he should be left to himself, leaning +on the fire-alarm, till the full use of his limbs should come back +to him.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale, who is the person principally involved, seems +quite content with the arrangement. The doctor, in his own mind, is +rather puzzled at her ready acquiescence; but, then, the only +suggestion he could make would be that he should do precisely the +same good office himself to this victim of an electric current of a +good deal too many volts—too many for private consumption—or cab +him off to the police-station or the workhouse. For Mr. Fenwick +continues quite unable to give any account of his past or his +belongings, and can only look forward to recollecting himself, as it +were, to-morrow morning.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 35 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW THE STRANGER STOPPED ON AT KRAKATOA VILLA. OF THE FREAKS OF AN +EXTINGUISHED MEMORY. OF HOW THE STRANGER GOT A GOOD APPOINTMENT, BUT +NONE COULD SAY WHO HE WAS, NOR WHENCE</p> + +<p>We must suppose that the personal impression produced by the man so +strangely thrown on the hands of Mrs. Nightingale and her daughter +was a pleasant one. For had the reverse been the case, the resources +of civilisation for disposing of him elsewhere had not been +exhausted when the decision was come to that he should remain where +he was; till next morning, at any rate. The lady of the house—of +course the principal factor in the solution of the +problem—appeared, as we have seen, to have made up her mind on the +subject. And probably her daughter had been enough influenced by the +stranger's manner and appearance, even in the short period of the +interview we have just described, to get rid of a feeling she had of +self-reproach for her own rashness. We don't understand girls, but +we ask this question of those who do: Is it possible that Miss Sally +was impressed by the splendid arm with the name tattooed on it—an +arm in which every muscle told as in a Greek statue, without +infringing on its roundness—the arm of Theseus or Ilissus? Or was +it the tone of his voice—a musical one enough? Or merely his +generally handsome face and courteous manner?</p> + +<p>He remained that night at the house, but next day still remembered +nothing. He wished to go on his way—destination not known; but +<i>somewhere</i>—and would have done so had it not been for Mrs. +Nightingale, whose opposition to his going was, thought Dr. Vereker, +almost more decisive than the case called for. So he remained on, +that day and the next, slowly regaining the use of his right hand. +But his memory continued a blank; and though he was not unable to +converse about passing events, he could not fix his attention, or +only with a great effort. What was very annoying to Sally was that +he was absolutely unable to account + +<!-- Page 36 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +for his remark about her name +and her mother's in the railway-carriage. He could not even remember +making this. He could recall no reason why he should have made it, +from any of the few things that came back to his mind now—hazily, +like ghosts. Was he speaking the truth? Why not? Mrs. Nightingale +asked. Why not forget that as readily as anything else?</p> + +<p>His distress at this inability to remember, to account for himself, +to himself or any one else, was almost painful to witness. The only +consolatory circumstance was that his use and knowledge of words +remained intact; it was his memory of actual incidents and people in +the past that was in fault. Definite effort to follow slight clues +remaining in his mind ended in failure, or only served to show that +their origin was traceable to literary fiction. But his +language-faculty seemed perfectly in order. It came out that he +spoke French fluently, and a little Spanish, but he was just as +ready with German. It seemed as if he had been recently among French +people, if one could judge from such things as his calling his +hostess "Madame" when he recovered. These facts came to light in the +course of next day, the second of his stay in the house. The +favourable impression he had produced on Miss Sally did not +diminish, and it seemed much easier and more natural to acquiesce in +his remaining than to cast about for a new whereabouts to transfer +him to. So his departure was deferred—for a day, at least, or +perhaps until the room he occupied should be wanted for other +purposes. The postponements on the days that followed were a natural +sequence so long as there remained any doubt of his ability to shift +for himself.</p> + +<p>But in about a month's time the effects of the nervous shock had +nearly disappeared, and he had almost recovered the use of his +hand—could, in fact, write easily. Besides, as long as he remained, +it would be impossible for an old friend of Mrs. Nightingale's, who +frequently stayed the night, when he came on an evening visit, to +follow a custom which was in the winter almost invariable. In the +summer it was less important; and as soon as this friend, an old +military gentleman spoken of as "the Major," could be got to +understand exactly what had taken place, he readily gave up his +quarters at Krakatoa Villa, and returned to his own, at the top of a +house in Ball Street, Mayfair.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 37 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Nevertheless, the inevitable time came for looking Fenwick's future +in the face. It was difficult, as he was unable to contribute a +solution of the question, except by his readiness to go out and find +work for himself, promising not to come back till he found it.</p> + +<p>"You'll see I shall come back to dinner," said he. "I shan't make +you late."</p> + +<p>Sally asked him what sort of work he should look for.</p> + +<p>"I have a sort of inner conviction," he replied, "that I could do +almost anything I turned my hand to. Probably it is only a diseased +confidence bred of what you might call my artificial inexperience. +Every sharp young man's <i>bona fide</i> inexperience lands him in that +delusion."</p> + +<p>"But you must have <i>some</i> kind of preference for <i>something</i>, +however much you forget."</p> + +<p>"If I were to choose, I think I should like horse-training.... Oh +no, of course I can't recall the training of any specific horse. But +I know I know all about it, for all that. I can feel the knowledge +of it itching in my finger-ends. Yes—I could train horses. +Fruit-farming would require capital."</p> + +<p>"Who said anything about fruit-farming?"</p> + +<p>Fenwick laughed aloud. It was a great big laugh, that made Rosalind, +who was giving directions in the kitchen, just across the passage, +call out to know what they were laughing at.</p> + +<p>"I'll be hanged if I know," said he, "<i>why</i> I said fruit-farming—I +must have had something to do with it. It's all very odd."</p> + +<p>"But the horses—the horses," said Sally, who did not want him to +wander from the point. "How should you go about it? Should you walk +into Tattersall's without a character, and ask for a place?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it! I should saunter into Tat's' like a swell, and ask +them if they couldn't find me a raw colt to try my hand on for a +wager. Say I had laid a hundred I would quiet down the most vicious +quadruped they could find in an hour."</p> + +<p>"But that would be fibs."</p> + +<p>"Oh no! I could do it. But I don't know why I know...."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that. I meant you wouldn't have laid the wager."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 38 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Yes, I should. I lay it you now! Come, Miss Sally!—a hundred +pounds to a brass farthing I knock all the vice out of the worst +beast they can find in an hour. I shouldn't say the wager had been +accepted, you know."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyhow, I shan't accept it. You haven't got a hundred pounds +to pay with. To be sure, I haven't got a brass farthing that I know +of. It's as broad as it is long."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's that," he replied musingly—"as broad as it is long. I +<i>haven't</i> got a hundred pounds, that I know of." He repeated this +twice, becoming very absent and thoughtful.</p> + +<p>Sally felt apologetic for reminding him of his position, and +immediately said so. She was evidently a girl quite incapable of any +reserves or concealments. But she had mistaken his meaning.</p> + +<p>"No, no, dear Miss Sally," said he. "Not that—not that at all! I +spoke like that because it all seemed so strange to me. Do you +know?—of all the things I can't recollect, the one I can't +recollect <i>most</i>—can you understand?—is ever being in want of +money. I <i>must</i> have had plenty. I am sure of it."</p> + +<p>"I dare say you had. You'll recollect it all presently, and what a +lark that will be!" Sally's ingenious optimism made matters very +pleasant. She did not like to press the conversation on these lines, +lest Mr. Fenwick should refer to a loan she knew her mother had made +him; indeed, had it not been for this the poor man would have been +hard put to it for clothes and other necessaries. All such little +matters, which hardly concern the story, had been landed on a +comfortable footing at the date of this conversation.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Fenwick did not lend himself to the agreeable anticipation +of Sally's "lark." There was a pained distraction on his handsome +face as he gave his head a great shake, tossing about the mass of +brown hair, which was still something of a lion's mane, in spite of +the recent ministrations of a hairdresser. He walked to the +window-bay that looked out on the little garden, shaking and rubbing +his head, and then came back to where he had been sitting—always as +one wrestling with some painful half-memory he could not trace. Then +he spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Whether the sort of flash that comes in my mind of writing my name +in a cheque-book is really a recollection of doing so, or merely + +<!-- Page 39 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +the knowledge that I <i>must</i> have done so, I cannot tell. But it is +disagreeable—thoroughly disagreeable—and <i>strange</i> to the last +degree. I cannot tell you how—how torturing it is, always to be +compelled to stop on the threshold of an uncompleted recollection."</p> + +<p>"I have the idea, though, quite!" said Sally. "But of course one +never remembers signing one's name, any particular time. One does it +mechanically. So I don't wonder."</p> + +<p>"Yes! But the nasty part of the flash is that I always know that it +is not <i>my</i> name. Last time it came—just now this minute—it was a +name like Harrington or Carrington. Oh dear!" He shook and rubbed +his head again, with the old action.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps your name isn't Fenwick, but Harrington or Carrington?"</p> + +<p>"No! That cock won't fight. In a flash, I know it's not my <i>own</i> +name as I write it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I see!" Sally is triumphant. "You signed for a firm you +belonged to, of course. People <i>do</i> sign for firms, don't they?" +added she, with misgivings about her own business capacity. But Mr. +Fenwick did not accept this solution, and continued silent and +depressed.</p> + +<p>The foregoing is one of many similar conversations between Fenwick +and Sally, or her mother, or all three, during the term of his stay +at Krakatoa Villa. They were less encouraged by the older lady, who +counselled Fenwick to accept his oblivion passively, and await the +natural return of his mental powers. They would all come in time, +she said; and young Dr. Vereker, though his studious and responsible +face grew still more studious and responsible as time went on, and +the mind of this case continued a blank, still encouraged passivity, +and spoke confidently—whatever he thought—of an early and complete +recovery.</p> + +<p>When, in Fenwick's absence, Sally reported to Dr. Vereker and her +mother the scheme for applying to "Tat's" for a wild horse to break +in, the latter opposed and denounced it so strongly, on the ground +of the danger of the experiment, that both Sally and the doctor +promised to support her if Fenwick should broach the idea again. But +when he did so, it was so clear that the disfavour Mrs. Nightingale +showed for such a risky business would be sufficient to deter him +from trying it that neither thought it necessary + +<!-- Page 40 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +to say a word in +her support; and the conversation went off into a discussion of how +it came about that Fenwick should remember Tattersall's. But, said +he, he did not remember Tattersall's even now. And yet hearing the +name, he had automatically called it "Tat's." Many other instances +showed that his power of imagery, in relation to the past, was +paralysed, while his language-faculty remained intact, just as many +fluent speakers and writers spell badly. Only it was an extreme +case.</p> + +<p>A fortunate occurrence that happened at this time gave its quietus +to the unpopular horse-breaking speculation. It happened that, as +Mrs. Nightingale was shopping at a big "universal providing" stores +not far away, one of the clerks had some difficulty in interpreting +a French phrase in a letter just received from abroad. No one near +him looked more likely to help than Mrs. Nightingale, but she could +do nothing when applied to; although, she said, she had been taught +French in her youth. But she felt certain Mr. Fenwick could be of +use—at her house. French idiom was evidently unfamiliar in the +neighbourhood, for the young gentleman from the office jumped at the +opportunity. He went away with Mrs. Nightingale's card, inscribed +with a message, and came back before she had done shopping (not that +that means such a very short time), not only with an interpretation, +but with an exhaustive draft of an answer in French, which she saw +to be both skilful and scholarly. It was so much so that a fortnight +later an inquiry came to know if Mr. Fenwick's services would be +available for a firm in the City, which had applied to be +universally provided with a man having exactly his attainments and +no others. In less than a month he was installed in a responsible +position as their foreign correspondent and in receipt of a very +respectable salary. The rapidity of phrasing in this movement was +abnormal—<i>prestissimo</i>, in fact, if we indulge our musical +vocabulary. But the instrumentation would have seemed less +surprising to Sally had she known the lengths her mother had gone in +the proffer of a substantial guarantee for Fenwick's personal +honesty. This seeming rashness did not transpire at the time; had it +done so, it might have appeared unintelligible—to Sally, at any +rate. She would not have been surprised at herself for backing the +interests + +<!-- Page 41 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +of a man nearly electrocuted over her half-crown, but why +should her mother endorse her <i>protégé</i> so enthusiastically?</p> + +<p>It is perhaps hardly necessary for us to dwell on the unsuccessful +attempts that were made to recover touch with other actors on the +stage of Fenwick's vanished past. Advertisement—variously +worded—in the second column of the "Times," three times a week for +a month, produced no effect. Miss Sally frequently referred with +satisfaction to the case of John Williams, reported among the +Psychical Researches of the past years, in which a man who vanished +in England was found years after carrying on a goods-store in +Chicago under another name, with a new wife and family, having +utterly forgotten the first half of his life and all his belongings. +Her mother seemed only languidly interested in this illustration, +and left the active discussion of the subject chiefly to Sally, who +speculated endlessly on the whole of the story; without, however, +throwing any fresh light on it—unless indeed, the Chicago man could +be considered one. And the question naturally arose, as long as his +case continued to hold out hopes of a sudden return of memory, and +until we were certain his condition was chronic, why go to expense +and court publicity? By the time he was safely installed in his +situation at the wine-merchant's, the idea of a police-inquiry, +application to the magistrates, and so forth, had become distasteful +to all concerned, and to none more so than Fenwick himself.</p> + +<p>When Dr. Vereker, acting on his own account, and unknown to Mrs. +Nightingale and Fenwick, made confidential reference to Scotland +Yard, that Yard smiled cynically over the Chicago storekeeper, and +expressed the opinion that probably Fenwick's game was a similar +game, and that things of this sort were usually some game. The +doctor observed that he knew without being told that nine such cases +out of ten had human rascality at the bottom of them, but that he +had consulted that Yard in the belief that this might be a tenth +case. The Yard said very proper, and it would do its best, and no +doubt did, but nothing was elucidated.</p> + +<p>It is just possible that had Mr. Fenwick communicated <i>every</i> clue +he found, down to the smallest trifle, Dr. Vereker might have been +able to get at something through the Criminal Investigation + +<!-- Page 42 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +Department. But it wasn't fair to Sherlock Holmes to keep anything +back. Fenwick, knowing nothing of Vereker's inquiry, did so; for he +had decided to say nothing about a certain pawn-ticket that was in +the pocket of an otherwise empty purse or pocket-book, evidently +just bought. He would, however, investigate it himself, and did so.</p> + +<p>It was quite three weeks, though, before he felt safe to go about +alone to any place distant from the house, more especially when he +did not know what the expedition would lead to. When at last he got +to the pawnbroker's, he found that that gentleman at the counter did +not recognise him, or said he did not. Fenwick, of course, could not +ask the question: "Did I pawn this watch?" It would have seemed +lunacy. But he framed a question that answered as well, to his +thinking.</p> + +<p>"Would you very kindly tell me," he asked, dropping his voice, +"whether the person that pawned this watch was at all like me—like +a brother of mine, for instance?" Perhaps he was not a good hand at +pretences, and the pawnbroker outclassed him easily.</p> + +<p>"No, sir," replied he, without looking to see; "that I most +certainly can <i>not</i> tell you." Fenwick was not convinced that this +was true, but had to admit to himself that it might be. This man's +life was one long record of an infinity of short loans, and its +problem was the advancing of the smallest conceivable sums on the +largest obtainable security. Why <i>should</i> he recollect one drop in +the ocean of needy applicants? The only answer Fenwick could give to +this was based on his belief that he looked quite unlike the other +customers. More knowledge would have shown him that there was not +one of those customers, scarcely, but had a like belief. It is the +common form of human thought among those who seek to have pawns +broked. They are a class made up entirely of exceptions.</p> + +<p>Fenwick came away from the shop with the watch that <i>must have been</i> +his. That was how he thought of it. As soon as he wore it again, it +became <i>his</i> watch, naturally. But he could remember nothing about +it. And its recovery from the pawnbroker's he could not remember +leaving it at became an absurd dream. Perhaps in Sherlock Holmes's +hands it would have provided a valuable clue. Fenwick said nothing +further about it; put + +<!-- Page 43 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +it in a drawer until all inquiries about him +had died into the past.</p> + +<p>Another little thing that might have helped was the cabman's number +written on his wristband. But here Fate threw investigation off her +guard. The ciphers were, as it chanced, 3,600; and an unfortunate +shrewdness of Scotland Yard, when Dr. Vereker communicated this +clue, spotted the date in it—the third day of the sixth month of +1900. So no one dreamed of the cabby, who could at least have shown +where the hat was lost that might have had a name or address inside +it, and where he left its owner in the end. And there was absolutely +no clue to anything elsewhere among his clothes. The Panama hat +might have been bought anywhere; the suit of blue serge was +ticketless inside the collar, and the shirt unmarked—probably +bought for the voyage only. Fenwick had succeeded in forgetting +himself just at a moment when he was absolutely without a reminder. +And it seemed there was nothing for it but to wait for the revival +of memory.</p> + +<p>This, then, is how it came about that, within three months of his +extraordinary accident, Mr. Fenwick was comfortably settled in an +apartment within a few minutes' walk of Krakatoa Villa; and all the +incidents of his original appearance were getting merged in the +insoluble, and would soon, no doubt, under the influence of a steady +ever-present new routine of life, be completely absorbed in the +actual past.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 44 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="subhead">THE CHRISTMAS AFTER. OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SATISFAX, AND A YOUNG +IDIOT WHO CAME THERE</p> + +<p>When one is called away in the middle of a street-fight, and misses +seeing the end of it, how embittered one's existence is, and +continues for some time after! Think what our friend the cabman +would have felt had he missed the <i>dénouement</i>! And when one finds +oneself again on its site—if that is the correct expression—how +one wishes one was not ashamed to inquire about its result from the +permanent officials on the spot—the waterman attached to the +cab-rank, the crossing-sweeper at the corner, the neolithographic +artist who didn't really draw that half-mackerel himself, but is +there all day long, for all that; or even the apothecary's shop over +the way, on the chance that the casualties went or were taken there +for treatment after the battle. One never does ask, because one is +so proud; but if one did ask, one would probably find that oblivion +had drawn a veil over the event, and that none of one's catechumens +had heard speak of any such an occurrence, and that it must have +been another street. Because, if it had 'a been there, they would +have seen to a certainty. And the monotonous traffic rolls on, on, +on; and the two counter-streams of creatures, each with a story, +divide and subdivide over the spot where the underneath man's head +sounded on the kerbstone, which took no notice at the time, and now +seems to know less than ever about it.</p> + +<p>Are we, in thus moralising, merely taking the mean advantage the +author is apt to imagine he has established over his reader when he +ends off a chapter with a snap, and hopes the said reader will not +dare to skip? No, we are not. We really mean something, and shall +get to it in time. Let us only be clear what it is ourselves.</p> + +<p>It refers, at any rate, to the way in which the contents of Chapters +I. and II. had become records of the past six months later, + +<!-- Page 45 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +when +the snow was on the ground four inches thick on Christmas +morning—two inches, at least, having been last night's +contribution—and made it all sweet and smooth all over so that +there need be no unpleasantness. As Sally looked out of her mother's +bedroom window towards the front through the Venetian blind, she saw +the footprints of cats alone on the snow in the road, and of the +milk alone along the pavement. For the milk had preferred to come by +hand, rather than plough its tricycle through the unknown depths and +drifts of Glenmoira Road, W., to which it had found its way over +tracks already palliated by the courage of the early 'bus—not +plying for hire at that hour, but only seeking its equivalent of the +<i>carceres</i> of the Roman Coliseum, to inaugurate the carriage of +twelve inside and fourteen out to many kinds of Divine Service early +in the day, and one kind only of dinner-service late—the one folk +eat too much pudding and mince-pie at, and have to take a dose +after. During this early introductory movement of the 'bus its +conductor sits inside like a lord, and classifies documents. But he +has nothing to do with our story. Let us thank him for facilitating +the milk, and dismiss him.</p> + +<p>"My gracious goodness me!" said Sally, when she saw the snow. She +did not say it quite from the bottom of her heart, and as her own +form of expression; but in inverted commas, as it were, the primary +responsibility being cook's or Jane's. "You mustn't think of getting +up, mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense! I shall get up the minute the hot water comes."</p> + +<p>"You won't do any good by getting up. You had much better lie in +bed. <i>I</i> shouldn't get up, if I was you," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>"Oh, stuff! My rheumatism's better. Do you know, I really think the +ring <i>has</i> done it good. Dr. Vereker may laugh as much as he +likes——"</p> + +<p>"Well, the proof of the pudding's in the eating. But wait till you +see how thick the snow is. <i>Come—in!</i>" This is very staccato. Jane +was knocking at the door with cans of really hot water this time. "I +said come in before. Merry Christmas and happy New Year, Jane!... +Oh, I say! What a dear little robin! He's such a little duck, I hope +that cat won't get him!" And Sally, who is huddled up in a thick +dressing-gown and + +<!-- Page 46 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +is shivering, is so excited that she goes on +looking through the blind, and the peep-hole she has had to make to +see clear through the frosted pane, in spite of the deadly cold on +the finger-tip she rubbed it with. Her mother felt interested, too, +in the fate of the robin, but not to the extent of impairing her +last two minutes in bed by admitting the slightest breath of cold +air inside a well-considered fortress. She was really going to get +up, though, that was flat! The fire would blaze directly, although +at this moment it was blowing wood-smoke down Jane's throat, and +making her choke.</p> + +<p>Directly was five or six minutes, but the fire did blaze up royally +in the end. You see, it wasn't a slow-combustion-grate, and it +burned too much fuel, and flared away the coal, and did all sorts of +comfortable, uneconomical things. So did Jane, who had put in a +whole bundle of wood.</p> + +<p>But now that the wood was past praying for, and Jane had departed, +after thawing the hearts of two sponges, it was just as well to take +advantage of the blaze while it lasted. And Mrs. Nightingale and her +daughter, in the thickest available dressing-gowns, and pretending +they were not taking baths only because the bath-room was thrown out +of gear by the frost, took advantage of the said blaze to their +heart's content and harked back—a good way back—on the +conversation.</p> + +<p>"You never said 'Come in,' chick."</p> + +<p>"I <i>did</i>, mother! Well, if I didn't, at any rate, I always tell her +not to knock. She is the stupidest girl. She <i>will</i> knock!" Her +mother doesn't press the point. There is no bad blood anywhere. Did +not Sally wish the handmaiden a merry Christmas?</p> + +<p>"The cat didn't get the robin, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"Not he! The robin was too sharp by half. Such a little darling! But +I was sorry for the cat."</p> + +<p>"Poor pussy! Not our pussy, was it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; it was that piebald Tom that lives in at the empty house +next door."</p> + +<p>"I know. Horrible beast!"</p> + +<p>"Well, but just think of being out in the cold in this weather, with +nothing to eat! Oo—oo—oogh!" Sally illustrates, with an +intentional shudder. "I wonder who that is!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 47 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I didn't hear any one."</p> + +<p>"You'll see, he'll ring directly. I know who it is; it's Mr. Fenwick +come to say he can't come to-night. I heard the click of his skates. +They've a sort of twinkly click, skates have, when they're swung by +a strap. He'll go out and skate all day. He'll go to Wimbledon."</p> + +<p>The girl's hearing was quite correct. A ring came at the +bell—Krakatoa had no knocker—and a short colloquy followed between +Jane and the ringer. Then he departed, with his twinkly click and +noiseless footstep on the snow, slamming the front gate. Jane was +able to include a card he had left in a recrudescence or +reinforcement of hot water. Sally takes the card and looks at it, +and her mother says, "Well, Sally?" with a slight remonstrance +against the unfairness of keeping back information after you have +satisfied your own curiosity—a thing people are odious about, as we +all know.</p> + +<p>"<i>He's</i> coming all right," says Sally, looking at both sides of the +card, and passing it on when she has quite done with it. Sally, we +may mention, as it occurs to us at this moment,—though <i>why</i> we +have no idea,—means to have a double chin when she is five years +older than her mother is now. At present it—the chin—is merely so +much youthful roundness and softness, very white underneath. Her +mother is quite of a different type. Her daughter's father must have +had black hair, for Sally can make huge shining coils, or close +plaits, very wide, out of her inheritance. Or it will assume the +form of a bush, if indulged, till Sally is almost hidden under it, +as the Bosjesman under his version of Birnam Wood, that he shoots +his assegai from. But the mother's is brown, with a tinge of +chestnut; going well with her eyes, which have a claret tone, or +what is so called; but we believe people really mean pale old port +when they say so. She has had—still has, we might say—a remarkably +fine figure, and we don't feel the same faith in Miss Sally's. That +young lassie will get described as plump some day, if she doesn't +take care.</p> + +<p>But really it is a breach of confidence to get behind the scenes and +describe two ladies in this way, when they are so very much in +<i>déshabille</i>—have not even washed! We will look at them again when +they have got their things on. However, they may go + +<!-- Page 48 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +on talking now. +The blaze has lost its splendour, and dressing cannot be +indefinitely delayed. But they can and do talk from room to room, +confident that cook and Jane are in the basement out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"We shall do nicely, kitten! Six at table. I'm glad Mr. Fenwick can +come. Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Rather! Fancy having Dr. and Mrs. Vereker and the dear old fossil +and nobody to help out!"</p> + +<p>"My dear! You say 'Dr. and Mrs. Vereker' as if he was a married +man!"</p> + +<p>"Well—him and his mammy, then! He's good—but he's professional. Oh +dear—his professional manner! You have to be forming square to +receive cavalry every five minutes to prevent his writing you a +prescription."</p> + +<p>"Ungrateful little monkey! You know the last he wrote you did you no +end of good."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I didn't ask him for it. He wrote it by force. I hate +being hectored over and bullied. I say, mother!"</p> + +<p>"What, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"I hope, as Mr. Fenwick's coming, you'll wear your wedding-ring."</p> + +<p>"Wear <i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Wear your wedding-ring. <i>His</i> ring, you know! You know what I +mean—the rheumatic one."</p> + +<p>"Of course I know perfectly well what you mean," says her mother, +with a shade of impatience in her voice. "But why?"</p> + +<p>"Why? Because it gives him pleasure always to see it on your +finger—he fancies it's doing good to the neuritis."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then; why not wear it?"</p> + +<p>"Because it's so big, and comes off in the soup, and is a nuisance. +And, then, he didn't give it to me, either. He was to have had a +shilling for it."</p> + +<p>"But he never <i>did</i> have it. And it wasn't a shilling. It was +sixpence. And he says it's the only little return he's ever been +able to make for what he calls our kindness."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't shovel him out into the street."</p> + +<p>"Put his wedding-ring on, mammy, to oblige me!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 49 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Very well, chick—I don't mind." And so that point is settled. But +something makes the daughter repeat, as she comes into her mother's +room dry-towelling herself, "You're sure you don't mind, mammy?" to +which the reply is, "No, no! <i>Why</i> should I mind? It's all quite +right," with a forced decision, equivalent to wavering, about it. +Sally looks at her a moment in a pause of dry-towelling, and goes +back to her room not quite convinced. Persons of the same blood, +living constantly together, are sometimes quite embarrassed by their +own brain-waves, and very often misled.</p> + +<p>Exigencies of teeth and hair cut the talk short about Mr. Fenwick. +But he gets renewed at breakfast, and, in fact, goes on more or less +until brought up short by the early service at St. Satisfax, when he +is extinguished by a preliminary hymn. But not before his whole +story, so far as is known, has been passed in review. So that an +attentive listener might have gathered from their disjointed chat +most of the particulars of his strange appearance on the scene, and +of the incidents of the next few weeks, and their result in the +foundation of what seemed likely to be a permanent friendship +between himself and Krakatoa Villa, and what certainly was (all +things considered) that most lucrative and lucky post in a good +wine-merchant's house in the City. For Mr. Fenwick had nothing to +recommend him but his address and capacity, brought into notice by +an accidental concurrence of circumstances.</p> + +<p>It had been difficult to talk much about him to himself without +seeming to wish to probe into his past life; and as Mrs. Nightingale +impressed on Sally for the twentieth time, just as they arrived at +St. Satisfax, they really knew nothing of it. How could they even +know that this oblivion was altogether genuine? It might easily have +been so at first, but who could say how much of his past had come +back to him during the last six months? An unwelcome past, perhaps, +and one he was glad to help Oblivion in extinguishing.</p> + +<p>As this was on the semi-circular path in front of the Saint's +shrine, between two ramparts of swept-up snow, and on a corrective +of cinder-grit, Sally ascribed this speculation to a disposition on +her mother's part to preach, she having come, as it were, within the +scope and atmosphere of a pending decalogue. Also, she + +<!-- Page 50 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +thought the +ostentatious way in which Mr. Fenwick had gone away to skate had +something to do with it.</p> + +<p>But she was at all times conscious of a certain access of severity +in her mother as she approached altars—rather beyond the common +attitude of mind one ascribes to the bearer of a prayer-book when +one doesn't mean to go to church oneself. (We are indebted for this +piece of information to an intermittent church-goer; it is on a +subject on which our own impressions have little value.) In the +present case Sally <i>was</i> going to church, so she had to account to +herself for a <i>nuance</i> in her mother's manner—after dwelling on the +needlessness and inadvisability of pressing Mr. Fenwick as to his +recollections—by ascribing it to the consciousness of some +secularism elsewhere; and he was the nearest case of ungodliness to +hand.</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether he believes anything at all!" said Sally, assuming +the consecutiveness of her remark.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why he shouldn't.... Why should he disbelieve more +than...? All I mean is, I don't know." The speaker ended abruptly; +but then that may have been because they were at the church door. +Possibly as a protest against having carried chat almost into the +precinct, Mrs. Nightingale's preliminary burial of her face in her +hands lasted a long time—in fact, Sally almost thought she had gone +to sleep, and told her so afterwards. "Perhaps, though," she added, +"it was me came up from under the bedclothes too soon." Then she +thought her levity displeased her mother, and kissed her. But it +wasn't that. She was thoughtful over something else.</p> + +<p>This time, in the church, it may be Sally noticed her mother's +abstraction (or was it, perhaps, devotional tension?) less than she +had done when her attention had been caught once or twice lately by +a similar strained look. For Miss Sally had her eyes on a little +gratifying incident of her own—a trifle that would already have +appeared as an incident in her diary, had she kept one, somewhat +thus:—"Saw that young idiot from Cattley's Stores again in church +to-day, in a new scarlet necktie. I wonder whether it's me, or Miss +Peplow that gollops, or the large Miss Baker." Which would have +shown that she was not always a nun breathless with adoration during +religious exercises. The fact is, Sally would have made a very poor +St. Teresa indeed.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 51 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>The young idiot was the same young man who had brought the difficult +French idiom to Krakatoa, while Mr. Fenwick was still without an +anchorage of his own. Martha the cook, who admitted him, not feeling +equal to the negotiation, had merely said—would he mind steppin' in +the parlour, and she would send Miss Sally up? and had departed +bearing Mrs. Nightingale's credential-card in a hand as free from +grease as an apron so deeply committed could make it, and brought +Miss Nightingale in from the garden, where she was +gardening—possibly effectually, but what do we know? When you are +gardening on a summer afternoon, you may look very fetching, if you +are nineteen, and the right sex for the adjective. Miss Sally did, +being both, and for our own part we think it was inconsiderate and +thoughtless of cook. Sally was sprung upon that young man like a +torpedo on a ship with no guards out, saying with fascinating +geniality through a smile (as one interests oneself in a civility +that means nothing) that Mr. Fenwick had just gone out, and she +didn't know when he would be back. But why not ask Mrs. Prince at +the school, opposite St. Satisfax, where we went to church; she was +French, and would be sure to know what it meant. <i>She</i> wouldn't +mind! "Say I sent you." And the youth, whom the torpedo had struck +amidships, was just departing, conscious of reluctance, when Mr. +Fenwick appeared, having come back for his umbrella.</p> + +<p>Sally played quite fair. She didn't hang about as she might have +done, to rub her pearly teeth and merry eyebrows into her victim. +She went back and gardened honourably, while Mr. Fenwick solved the +riddle and supplied the letter. But for all that, the young man +appeared next Sunday at St. Satisfax's, with an extremely new +prayer-book that looked as if his religious convictions were recent, +and never took his eyes off Sally all through the service—that is, +if he did as she supposed, and peeped all the while that his head +ought to have been, as she metaphorically expressed it, "under the +clothes."</p> + +<p>Now, this was naturally a little unaccountable to Sally, after such +a very short interview; and on the part, too, of a young gentleman +who passed all the working hours of the day among working houris, as +it were soaked and saturated in their fascinations, and not at +liberty to squeeze their hands or ask them for one + +<!-- Page 52 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +little lock of +hair all through shop-time. Sally did not realise the force of +sameness, nor the amount of contempt familiarity will breed. Perhaps +the houris got tired and snappish, poor things! and used up their +artificial smiles on the customers. Perhaps it had leaked out that +the trying-on hands contributed only length, personally, to the +loveliness of the trying-on figures. All sorts of things might have +happened to influence this young man towards St. Satisfax; and how +did Sally know how often he had seen the other young lady +communicants she had speculated about? Her mind had certainly thrown +in the large Miss Baker with something of derision. But that Sylvia +Peplow was just the sort of girl men run after, like a big pale +gloire-de-Dijon rose all on one side, with pale golden wavy hair, +and great big goggly blue eyes, looking as if she couldn't help it! +Now that we have given you details, from Sally's inner +consciousness, of Miss Peplow's appearance, we hope you will +perceive why she said she "golloped." We don't, exactly.</p> + +<p>However, on this Christmas morning it was made clear whom this young +donkey was hankering after—this is Sally's way of putting it—as +Miss Peplow failed to get her usual place through being late, and +had to sit in a side-aisle, instead of the opposite of her to the +idiot—we are again borrowing from Sally—and now the Idiot would +have to glare round over his shoulder at her or go without! It was +soon evident that he was quite content to go without, and that Sally +herself had been his lode-star. The certainty of this was what +prevented her taking so much notice of her mother as she might +otherwise have done.</p> + +<p>Had she done so closely, she would hardly have put down her +preoccupation, or tension, or whatever it was, to displeasure at Mr. +Fenwick's going to skate on Christmas morning instead of going to +church. What concern was it of theirs what Mr. Fenwick did?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 53 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF BOXING DAY MORNING AT KRAKATOA VILLA, AND WHAT OBSERVANT +CREATURES FOSSILS ARE</p> + +<p>The "dear old fossil" referred to by Miss Sally was one of those +occurrences—auxiliaries or encumbrances, as may be—whom one is +liable to meet with in almost any family, who are so forcibly taken +for granted by all its members that the infection of their +acceptance catches on, and no new-comer ever asks that they should +be explained. If they were relatives, they would be easy of +explanation; but the only direct information you ever get about them +is that they are not. This seems to block all avenues of +investigation, and presently you find yourself taking them as a +matter of course, like the Lion and Unicorn, or the image on a +stamp.</p> + +<p>Fenwick accepted "the Major," as the old fossil was called, so +frankly and completely under that name that he was still uncertain +about his real designation at the current moment of the story. +Nobody ever called him anything but "the Major," and he would as +soon have asked "Major what?" as called in question the title of the +King of Hearts instead of playing him on the Queen, and taking the +trick. So far as he could conjecture, the Major had accepted him in +the same way. When the railway adventure was detailed to him, the +fossil said many times, "How <i>per</i>fectly extraordinary!" "God bless +my soul!" "You don't mean <i>that</i>!" and so on; but his astonishment +always knocked his double eyeglass off, and, when he couldn't find +it, it had to be recovered before he could say, "Eh—eh—what was +that?" and get in line again; so he made a disjointed listener.</p> + +<p>But these fossils see more than they hear sometimes; and this old +Major, for all he was so silent, must have noticed many little +things that Christmas evening to cause him to say what he did next +day to Sally. For, of course, the Major couldn't go back to his +lodgings in Ball Street in weather like this; so he + +<!-- Page 54 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +stayed the +night in the spare room, where Mr. Fenwick had been put up tempory, +cook said—a room which was, in fact, usually spoken of as "the +Major's room."</p> + +<p>Of course, Sally was the sort of girl who would never see anything +of that sort—you'll see what sort directly—though she was as sharp +as a razor in a general way. What made her blind in this case was +that, in certain things, aspects, relations of life, she had ruled +mother out of court as an intrinsically grown-up person—one to whom +some speculations would not apply. So she saw nothing in the fact +that when Mr. Fenwick's knock came at the door, her mother said, +"There he is," and went out to meet him; nor even in her stopping +with him outside on the landing, chatting confidentially and +laughing. Why shouldn't she?</p> + +<p>She saw nothing—nothing whatever—in Mr. Fenwick's bringing her +mother a beautiful sealskin jacket as a Christmas present. Why +shouldn't he? The only thing that puzzled Sally was, where on earth +did he get the money to buy it? But then, of course, he was "in the +City," and the City is a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground. Sally found +that enough, on reflection.</p> + +<p>She saw nothing, either, in her mother's carrying her present away +upstairs, and saying nothing about it till afterwards. Nor did she +notice any abnormal satisfaction on Mr. Fenwick's countenance as he +came into the drawing-room by himself, such as one might discern in +a hen—if hens had countenances—after a special egg. Nor did she +attach any particular meaning to an expression on the elderly face +of the doctor's mother that any student of Lavater would at once +have seen to mean that <i>we</i> saw what was going on, but were going to +be maternally discreet about it, and only mention it to every one we +met in the very strictest confidence. This lady, who had rather +reluctantly joined the party—for she was a martyr to ailments—was +somewhat grudgingly admitted by Sally to be a comfortable sort of +old thing enough, if only she didn't "goozle" over you so. She had +no <i>locus standi</i> for goozling, whatever it was; for had not Sally +as good as told her son that she didn't want to marry him or anybody +else? If you ask us what would be the connecting link between +Sally's attitude towards the doctor and the goozlings of a third +party, we have no answer ready.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 55 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>No; Sally went to bed as wise as ever—so she afterwards told the +fossil Major—at the end of the evening. She had enjoyed herself +immensely, though the simple material for rapture was only +foursquare Halma played by the four acuter intelligences of the six, +and draughts for the goozler and the fossil. But then Sally had a +rare faculty for enjoying herself, and she was perfectly contented +with only one admirer to torment, though he was only old Prosy, as +she called him, but not to his face. She was jolly glad mother had +put on her maroon-coloured watered silk with velvet facings, because +you couldn't deny that she looked lovely in it. And as for Mr. +Fenwick, he looked just like Hercules and Sir Walter Raleigh, after +being out skating all day long in the cold. And Sally's wisdom had +not been in the least increased by what was, after all, only a +scientific experiment on poor Mr. Fenwick's mental torpor when her +mother, the goozler and old Prosy having departed, got out her music +to sing that very old song of hers to him that he had thought the +other day seemed to bring back a sort of memory of something. Was it +not possible that if he heard it often enough his past might revive +slowly? You never could tell!</p> + +<p>So when, on Boxing Day morning, Sally's mother, who had got down +early and hurried her breakfast to make a dash for early prayer at +St. Satisfax, looked in at her backward daughter and reproached her, +and said there was the Major coming down, and no one to get him his +chocolate, she spoke to a young lady who was serenely unprepared for +any revelations of a startling nature, or, indeed, any revelations +at all. Nor did getting the Major his chocolate excite any +suspicions.</p> + +<p>So Sally was truly taken aback when the old gentleman, having drunk +his chocolate, broke a silence which had lasted since a brief and +fossil-like good-morning, with, "Well, missy, and what do <i>you</i> say +to the idea of a stepfather?" But not immediately, for at first she +didn't understand him, and answered placidly: "It depends on who."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Fenwick, for instance!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but who for? And stepfather to step-what? Stepdaughter or +stepson?"</p> + +<p>"Yourself, little goose! <i>You</i> would be the stepdaughter."</p> + +<p>Sally was then so taken aback that she could make nothing of it, + +<!-- Page 56 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +but stood in a cloud of mystification. The major had to help her. +"How would you like your mother to marry Mr. Fenwick?" He was one of +those useful people who never <i>finesse</i>, who let you know +point-blank where you are, and to whom you feel so grateful for +being unfeeling. While others there be who keep you dancing about in +suspense, while they break things gently, and all the while are +scoring up a little account against you for considerateness.</p> + +<p>Sally's bewilderment, however, recognised one thing distinctly—that +the Major's inquiry was not to get, but to give, information. He +didn't the least want to know what <i>she</i> thought; he was only +working to give her a useful tip. So she would take her time about +answering. She took it, looking as grave as a little downy owl-tot. +Meanwhile, to show there was no bad feeling, she went and sat +candidly on the fossil's knee, and attended to his old whiskers and +moustache.</p> + +<p>"Major dear!" said she presently.</p> + +<p>"What, my child?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't they make an awfully handsome couple?" The Major replied, +"Handsome is as handsome does," and seemed to suggest that questions +of this sort belonged to a pre-fossilised condition of existence.</p> + +<p>"Now, Major dear, why not admit it when you know it's true? You know +quite well they would make a lovely couple. Just fancy them going up +the aisle at St. Satisfax! It would be like mediæval Kings and +Queens." For Sally was still in that happy phase of girlhood in +which a marriage is a wedding, <i>et præterea aliquid</i>, but not much. +"But," she continued, "I couldn't give up any of mamma—no, not so +much as <i>that</i>—if she was to marry twenty Mr. Fenwicks." As the +quantity indicated was the smallest little finger-end that could be +checked off with a thumb-nail, the twenty husbands would have come +in for a very poor allowance of matrimony. The Major didn't seem to +think the method of estimation supplied a safe ground for +discussion, and allowed it to lapse.</p> + +<p>"I may be quite wrong, you know, my dear," said he. "I dare say I'm +only an old fool. So we won't say anything to mamma, will us, little +woman?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Major dear. I'll promise not to say anything to + +<!-- Page 57 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +her +<i>because</i> of what you've said to me. But if I suspect it myself on +my account later on, of course I shall."</p> + +<p>"What shall you say to her?"</p> + +<p>"Ask her if it's true! Why not? But what was it made <i>you</i> think +so?" Whereon the Major gave in detail his impressions of the little +incidents recorded above, which Sally had seen nothing in. He laid a +good deal of stress on the fact that her mother had suppressed the +Christmas present until after Dr. Vereker and his mother had +departed. She wouldn't have minded the doctor, he said, but she +would naturally want to keep the old bird out of the swim. Besides, +there was Fenwick himself—one could see what <i>he</i> thought of it! +She could perfectly well stop him if she chose, and she didn't +choose.</p> + +<p>"Stop his whatting?" asked Sally perplexingly. But she admitted the +possibility of an answer by not pressing the question home. Then she +went on to say that all these things had happened exactly under her +nose, and she had never seen anything in them. The only concession +she was inclined to make was in respect of the impression her mother +evidently made on Mr. Fenwick. But that was nothing wonderful. +Anything else would have been very surprising. Only it didn't follow +from that that mother wanted to marry Mr. Fenwick, or Mr. Anybody. +As far as he himself went, she liked him awfully—but then he +couldn't recollect who he was, poor fellow! It was most pathetic +sometimes to see him trying. If only he could have remembered that +he hadn't been a pirate, or a forger, or a wicked Marquis! But to +know absolutely nothing at all about himself! Why, the only thing +that was known now about his past life was that he once knew a +Rosalind Nightingale—what he said to her in the railway-carriage. +And now he had forgotten that, too, like everything else.</p> + +<p>"I say, Major dear"—Sally has an influx of a new idea—"it ought to +be possible to find out something about that Rosalind Nightingale he +knew. Mamma says it's nonsense her being any relation, because she'd +know."</p> + +<p>"And suppose we did find out who she was?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, if we could get at her, we might get her to tell us who +he was. And then we could tell him."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is only his fossil-like way of treating the subject, but + +<!-- Page 58 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +certainly the Major shows a very slack interest, Sally thinks, in +the identity of this namesake of hers. He does, however, ask +absently, what sort of way did he speak of her in the train?</p> + +<p>"Why—he said so little——"</p> + +<p>"But he gave you some impression?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. He spoke as if she was a person—not a female you +know—a person!"</p> + +<p>"A person isn't a female—when? Eh, missy?" This requires a little +consideration, and gets it. The result, when it comes, seems good in +its author's eyes.</p> + +<p>"When they sit down. When you ask them to, you know. In the parlour, +I mean—not the hall. They might be a female then."</p> + +<p>"Did he mean a lady?"</p> + +<p>"And take milk and no sugar? And pull her gloves on to go? And leave +cards turned up at the corner? Oh no—not a lady, certainly!"</p> + +<p>As she makes these instructive distinctions, Miss Sally is kneeling +on a hassock before a mature fire, which will tumble down and spoil +presently. When it does it will be time to resort to that +hearth-broom, and restrict combustion with collected caput-mortuum +of Derby-Brights, selected, twenty-seven shillings. Till then, +Sally, who deserted the Major's knee just as she asked what Mr. +Fenwick was to stop in, is at liberty to roast, and does so with +undisturbed gravity. The Major is becoming conscious of a smell like +Joan of Arc at the beginning of the entertainment, when her mother +comes in on a high moral platform, and taxes her with singeing, and +dissolves the parliament, and rings to take away breakfast, and +forecasts an open window the minute the Major has gone.</p> + +<p>Sally doesn't wait for the open window, but as one recalled to the +active duties of life from liquefaction in a Turkish bath, takes a +cold plunge as far as the front gate without so much as a hat on—to +see if the post is coming, which is absurd—and comes back braced. +But though she only wonders what can have put such an idea as her +mother marrying Mr. Fenwick in the Major's dear silly old head, she +keeps on a steady current of speculation about who that Rosalind +Nightingale he knew could possibly have been; and whether she +couldn't be got at even now. It was + +<!-- Page 59 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +such a pity he couldn't have a +tip given about him who he was. If he were once started, he would +soon run; she was sure of that. But did he want to run?—that was a +point to consider. Did he really forget as much as he said he did? +How came he not to have forgotten his languages he was so fluent +with? And how about his book-keeping? And that curious way he had of +knowing about places, and then looking puzzled when asked when he +had been there. When they talked about Klondyke the other day, for +instance, and he seemed to know so much about it.... But, then, see +how he grasped his head, and ruffled his hair, and shut his eyes, +and clenched his teeth over his efforts to recollect whether he had +really been there himself, or only read it all in the "Century" or +"Atlantic Monthly"! Surely he was in earnest then.</p> + +<p>Sally's speculations lasted her all the way to No. 260, Ladbroke +Grove Road, where she was going to a music-lesson, or rather +music-practice, with a friend who played the violin; for Sally was +learning the viola—to be useful.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 60 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">CONCERNING PEOPLE'S PASTS, AND THE SEPARATION OF THE SHEEP FROM THE +GOATS. OF YET ANOTHER MAJOR, AND HOW HE GOSSIPPED AT THE HURKARU +CLUB. SOME TRUSTWORTHY INFORMATION ABOUT AN ALLEGED DIVORCE</p> + +<p>You who read this may have met with some cross-chance such as we are +going to try to describe to you; possibly with the same effect upon +yourself as the one we have to confess to in our own case—namely, +that you have been left face to face with a problem to which you +have never been able to supply a solution. You have given up a +conundrum in despair, and no one has told you the answer.</p> + +<p>Here are the particulars of an imaginary case of the sort. You have +made acquaintance—made friends—years ago with some man or woman +without any special introduction, and without feeling any particular +curiosity about his or her antecedents. No inquiry seemed to be +called for; all concomitants were so very usual. You may have felt a +misgiving as to whether the easy-going ways of your old papa, or the +innocent Bohemianisms of his sons and daughters will be welcome to +your new friend, whom you credit with being a little old-fashioned +and strait-laced, if anything. But it never occurs to you to doubt +or investigate; why should you, when no question is raised of any +great intimacy between you and the So-and-sos, which may stand for +the name of his or her family. They ask no certificate from you, of +whom they know just as little. Why should you demand credentials of +a passer-by because he is so obliging as to offer to lend you a +Chinese vocabulary or Whitaker? Why should your wife try to go +behind the cheque-book and the prayer-book of a married couple when +all she has had to do with the lady was, suppose, to borrow a square +bottle of her, marked off in half-inch lengths, to be shaken before +taken? Why not accept her unimpeachable Sunday morning as sufficient +warranty for + +<!-- Page 61 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +talking to her on the beach next day, and finding what +a very nice person she is? Because it would very likely be at the +seaside. But suppose any sort of introduction of this sort—you know +what we mean!</p> + +<p>Well, the So-and-sos have slipped gradually into your life; let this +be granted. We need not imagine, for our purpose, any extreme +approaches of family intimacy, any love affairs or deadly quarrels. +A tranquil intercourse of some twenty years is all we need, every +year of which has added to your conviction of the thorough +trustworthiness and respectability of the So-and-sos, of their +readiness to help you in any little difficulty, and of the high +opinion which the rest of the world has of Mr. and Mrs. +So-and-so—the world which knew them when it was a boy, and all +their connexions and antecedents, which, you admit, you didn't....</p> + +<p>And then, after all these years, it is suddenly burst upon you that +there was a shady story about So-and-so that never was cleared +up—something about money, perhaps; or, worse still, one of those +stories your informant really doesn't like to be responsible for the +particulars of; you must ask Smith yourself. Or your wife comes to +you in fury and indignation that such a scandalous falsehood should +have got about as that Clara So-and-so was never married to +So-and-so at all till ever so long after Fluffy or Toppy or Croppy +or Poppy was born! We take any names at random of this sort, merely +to dwell on your good lady's familiarity with the So-and-so family.</p> + +<p>Well, then—there you are! And what can you make of it? There you +are face to face with the fact that a man who was a black sheep +twenty or thirty years ago has been all this time making believe to +be a white sheep so successfully as never was. Or, stranger still, +that a woman who has brought up a family of model +daughters—daughters whom it would be no exaggeration to speak of as +on all fours with your own, and who is quite one of the nicest and +most sympathetic people your wife has to go to in trouble—this +woman actually—<i>actually</i>—if this tale is true, was guilty in her +youth ... there—that will do! Suppose we say she was no better than +she should be. She hadn't even the decency to be a married woman +before she did it, which always makes it so much easier to talk to +strange ladies and girls about + +<!-- Page 62 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +it. You can say all the way down a +full dinner-table that Lady Polly Andrews got into the Divorce Court +without doing violence to any propriety at all. But the story of +Mrs. So-and-so's indiscretion while still Miss Such-and-such must be +talked of more guardedly.</p> + +<p>And all the while behold the subjects of these stories, in whom, but +for this sudden revelation of a shady past, you can detect no moral +difference from your amiable and respectable self! They puzzle you, +as they puzzle us, with a doubt whether they really are the same +people; whether they have not changed their identity since the days +of their delinquency. If they really are the same, it almost throws +a doubt on how far the permanent unforgiveness of sins is expedient. +We of course refer to Human Expediency only—the construction of a +working hypothesis of Life, that would favour peace on earth and +good-will towards men; that would establish a <i>modus vivendi</i>, and +enable us to be jolly with these reprobates—at any rate, as soon as +they had served their time and picked their oakum. We are not +intruding on the province of the Theologian—merely discussing the +problem of how we can make ourselves pleasant to one another all +round, until that final separation of the sheep from the goats, +when, however carefully they may have patched up their own little +quarrels, they will have to bid each other farewell reluctantly, and +make up their minds to the permanent endurance of Heaven and Hell +respectively.</p> + +<p>We confess that we ourselves think there ought to be a Statute of +Limitations, and that after a certain lapse of time any offence, +however bad, against morality might be held not to have been +committed. If we feel this about culprits who tempted us, at the +time of their enormity, to put in every honest hand a whip to lash +the rascal naked the length of a couple of lamp-posts, how much more +when the offence has been one which our own sense of moral law (a +perverted one, we admit) scarcely recognises as any offence at all. +And how much more yet, when we find it hard to believe that +they—actually <i>they themselves</i>, that we know now—can have done +the things imputed to them. If the stories are really true, were +they not possessed by evil spirits? Or have they since come to be +possessed by better ones than their normal stock-in-trade?</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 63 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>What is all this prosy speculation about? Well, it's about our +friend in the last chapter, Sally's mother. At least, it is +suggested by her. She is one of those perplexing cases we have +hinted at, and we acknowledge ourselves unable to account for her at +the date of the story, knowing what we do of her twenty years +previously. It's little enough, mind, and much of it inferential. +Suppose, instead of giving you our inferences, we content ourselves +with passing on to you the data on which we found them. Maybe you +will see your way to some different life-history for Sally's mother.</p> + +<p>The first insight we had into her past was supplied by a friend of +Sally's "old fossil," who was himself a Major, but with a +difference. For he was really a Major, whereas the fossil was only +called so by Krakatoa Villa, being in truth a Colonel. This one was +Major Roper, of the Hurkaru Club, an old schoolfellow of ours, who +was giving us a cup of coffee and a cigar at the said Club, and +talking himself hoarse about Society. When the Major gets hoarse his +voice rises to a squeak, and his eyes start out of his head, and he +appears to swell. I forget how Mrs. Nightingale came into the +conversation, but she did, somehow.</p> + +<p>"She's a very charming woman, that," squeaked the Major—"a <i>very</i> +charming woman! I don't mind tellin' <i>you</i>, you know, that I knew +her at Madras—ah! before the divorce. I wouldn't tell Horrocks, nor +that dam young fool Silcox, but I don't mind tellin' <i>you</i>! Only, +look here, my dear boy, don't you go puttin' it about that <i>I</i> told +you anythin'. You know I make it a rule—a guidin' rule—<i>never to +say anythin'</i>. You follow that rule through life, my boy! Take the +word of an old chap that's seen a deal of service, and just you +<i>hold your tongue</i>! You make a point—you'll find it pay——" An +asthmatic cough came in here.</p> + +<p>"There was a divorce, then?" we said. Terms had to be made with the +cough, but speech came in the end.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, of course—of course! Don't mind repeatin' that—thing was +in the papers at the time. What I was suggestin' holdin' your tongue +about was that story about Penderfield and her.... Well, as I said +just now, I don't mind repeatin' it to you; you ain't Horrocks nor +little Silcox—you can keep your tongue in your head. Remember, <i>I</i> +know nothing; I'm only tellin' + +<!-- Page 64 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +what was said at the time.... Now, +whatever was her name? Was it Rayner, or was it Verschoyle? +Pelloo!... Pelloo!..." The Major tried to call the attention of a +man who was deep in an Oriental newspaper at the far end of the next +room. But when the Major overstrains his voice, it misses fire like +a costermonger's, and only a falsetto note comes on a high register. +When this happens he is wroth.</p> + +<p>"It's that dam noise they're all makin'," he says, as soon as he has +become articulate. "That's the man I want, behind the 'Daily +Sunderbund.' If it wasn't for this dam toe, I'd go across and ask +him. No, don't you go. Send one of these dam jumpin' frogs—idlin' +about!" He requisitions a passing waiter, gripping him by the arm to +give him instructions. "Just—you—touch the General's arm, and +ketch his attention. Say Major Roper." And he liquidates his +obligations to a great deal of asthmatic cough, while the jumping +frog does his bidding.</p> + +<p>The General (who is now Lord Pellew of Cutch, by-the-bye) came with +an amiable smile from behind the journal, and ended a succession of +good-evening nods to newcomers by casting an anchor opposite the +Major. The latter, having by now taken the surest steps towards +bringing the whole room into his confidence, stated the case he +sought confirmation for.</p> + +<p>Oh yes, certainly; the General was in Umballa in '80; remembered the +young lady quite well, and the row between Penderfield and his wife +about her. As for Penderfield, everybody remembered <i>him</i>! <i>De +mortuis nil</i>, etc.—of course, of course. For all that, he was one +of the damnedest scoundrels that ever deserved to be turned out of +the service. Ought to have been cashiered long ago. Good job he's +gone to the devil! Yes, he was quite sure he was remembering the +right girl. No, no, he wasn't thinking of Daisy Neversedge—no, nor +of little Miss Wrennick: same sort of story, but he wasn't thinking +of them at all. Only the name wasn't either Rayner or Verschoyle. +General Pellew stood thoughtfully feeling about in a memory at +fault, and looking at an unlighted cigar he rolled in his fingers, +as though it might help if caressed. Then he had a flash of +illumination. "Rosalind Graythorpe," he said.</p> + +<p>There we had it, sure enough! The Major see-sawed in the air with a +finger of sudden corroboration. "Rosalind Graythorpe," + +<!-- Page 65 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +he repeated +triumphantly, and then again, "Ros-a-lind Graythorpe," dwelling on +the syllables, and driving the name home, as it were, to the +apprehension of all within hearing. It was so necessary to a +complete confidence that every one should know whom he was holding +his tongue about. Where would be the merit of discretion else? But +the enjoyment of details should be <i>sotto voce</i>. The General dropped +his voice to a good sample, suggesting a like course to the more +demonstrative secrecy of the Major.</p> + +<p>"I remember the whole story quite well," said he. "The girl was +going out by herself to marry a young fellow up the country at +Umballa, I think. They were <i>fiancés</i>, and on the way the news came +of the outbreak of cholera. So she got hung up for a while at +Penderfield's—sort of cousin, I believe, him or his wife—till the +district was sanitary again. Bad job for her, as it turned out! +Nobody there to warn her what sort of fellow Penderfield was—and if +there had been she wouldn't have believed 'em. She was a madcap sort +of a girl, and regularly in the hands of about as bad a couple as +you'll meet with in a long spell—India or anywhere! They used to +say out there that the she Penderfield winked at all her husband's +affairs as long as he didn't cut across <i>her</i> little +arrangements—did more than wink, in fact—lent a helping hand; but +only as long as she could rely on his remaining detached, as you +might say. The moment she suspected an <i>entichement</i> on her +husband's part she was up in arms. And he was just the same about +her. I remember Lady Sharp saying that if Penderfield had suspected +his wife of caring about any of her co-respondents he would have +divorced her at once. They were a rum couple, but their attitude to +one another was the only good thing about them." The General lighted +his cigar, and seemed to consider this was chapter one. The Major +appended a foot-note, for our benefit.</p> + +<p>"<i>Leave be</i> was the word—the word for Penderfield. <i>You'll</i> +understand that, sir. No <i>meddlin'</i>! A good-lookin' Colonel's wife +in garrison has her choice, good Lard! Why, she's only got to hold +her finger up!" We entirely appreciated the position, and that a +siren has a much easier task in the entanglement of a confiding +dragoon than falls to the lot of Don Giovanni in the reverse case. +But we were more interested in the particular + +<!-- Page 66 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +story of Mrs. +Nightingale than in the general ethics of profligacy.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," we suggested, "that the young woman threatened to be a +formidable rival, as there was a row?" Each of the officers nodded +at the other, and said that was about it. The Major then started on +a little private curriculum of nods on his own account, backed by a +half-closed eye of superhuman subtlety, and added once or twice that +that <i>was</i> about it. We inferred from this that the row had been +volcanic in character. The Major then added, repeating the +air-sawing action of his forefinger admonitorily, "But mind you, <i>I</i> +say nothin'. And my recommendation to you is to say nothin' +neither."</p> + +<p>"The rest of the story's soon told," said the General, answering our +look of inquiry. "Miss Graythorpe went away to Umballa to be +married. It was all gossip, mind you, about herself and Penderfield. +But gossip always went one way about any girl he was seen with. I +have my own belief; so has Jack Roper." The Major underwent a +perfect convulsion of nods, winks, and acquiescence. "Well, she went +away, and was married to this young shaver, who was very little over +twenty. He wasn't in the service—civil appointment, I think. How +long was it, Major, before they parted? Do you recollect?"</p> + +<p>"Week—ten days—month—six weeks! Couldn't say. They didn't part at +the church door; that's all I could say for certain. Tell him the +rest."</p> + +<p>"They certainly parted very soon, and people told all sorts of +stories. The stories got fewer and clearer when it came out that the +young woman was in the family way. No one had any right <i>then</i> to +ascribe the child that was on its road to any father except the +young man she had fallen out with. But they did—it was laid at +Colonel Penderfield's door, before there was any sufficient warrant. +However, it was all clear enough when the child was born."</p> + +<p>"When was the divorce?"</p> + +<p>"He applied for a divorce a twelvemonth after the marriage. The +child was then spoken of as being four months old. My impression is +he did not succeed in getting a divorce."</p> + +<p>"Not he," said the Major, overtopping the General's quiet, +restrained voice with his falsetto. "I recollect <i>that</i>, bless you! +The + +<!-- Page 67 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +Court commiserated him, but couldn't give him any relief. So he +made a bolt of it. And he's never been heard of since, as far as I +know."</p> + +<p>"What did the mother do? Where did she go?" we asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, she might have been hard put to it to know what to do. But +she met with old Lund—Carrington Lund, you know, not Beauchamp; +he'd a civil appointment at Umritsur—comes here sometimes. You know +him? She's his Rosey he talks about. He was an old friend of her +father, and took her in and protected her—saw her through it. She +came with him to England. I was with them on the boat, part of the +way. Then she took the name of Macnaghten, I believe. The young +husband's name I can't remember the least. But it wasn't +Macnaghten."</p> + +<p>The Major squeaked in again:</p> + +<p>"No—nor hers neither! Nightingale, General—that's the name she +goes by. Friend of this gentleman. Very charmin' person indeed! +Introdooce you? And a very charmin' little daughter, goin' +nineteen." The two officers interchanged glances over our young +friend Sally. "She was a nice baby on the boat," said the General; +and the Major chuckled wheezily, and hoped she didn't take after her +father.</p> + +<p>We left him to the tender mercies of gout and asthma, and the +enjoyment of a sherry-cobbler through a straw, looking rather too +fat for his snuff-coloured trousers with a cord outside, and his +flowered silk waistcoat; but very much too fat for the straw, the +slenderness of which was almost painful by contrast.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Perhaps you will see from this why we hinted at the outset of this +chapter why Mrs. Nightingale was a conundrum we had given up in +despair, of which no one had told us the answer. We wanted your +sympathy, you see, and to get it have given you an insight into the +way our information was gleaned. Having given you this sample, we +will now return to simple narrative of what we know of the true +story, and trouble you with no further details of how we came by it.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 68 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">THE ANTECEDENTS OF ROSALIND NIGHTINGALE, SALLY'S MOTHER. HOW BOTH +CAME FROM INDIA TO ENGLAND, AND TOOK A VILLA ON A REPAIRING LEASE. +SOMEWHAT OF SALLY'S UPBRINGING. SOME MORE ROPER GOSSIP, AND A CAT +LET OUT OF A BAG. A PIECE OF PRESENCE OF MIND</p> + +<p>Sally Graythorpe (our Mrs. Nightingale) was the daughter of a +widowed mother, also called Sally, the name in both cases being (as +in that of her daughter whom we know) Rosalind, not Sarah. This +mother married <i>en secondes noces</i> a former sweetheart; it had been +a case of a match opposed by parents on the ground of the apparent +hopelessness of the young man's prospects. Mr. Paul Nightingale, +however, falsified the doleful predictions about his future by +becoming a successful leader-writer and war correspondent. It was +after the close of the American Civil War, in which he had gained a +good deal of distinction, that he met at Saratoga his old flame, +Mrs. Graythorpe, then a widow with a little daughter five or six +years old. Having then no wishes to consult but their own, and no +reason to the contrary appearing, they were married.</p> + +<p>They did not find the States a pleasant domicile in the early days +following the great war, and came to England. The little daughter +soon became like his own child to Mr. Paul Nightingale, and had his +wish been complied with she would have taken his name during his +life. But her mother saw no reason, apparently, for extinguishing +Mr. Graythorpe <i>in toto</i>, and she remained Sally Graythorpe.</p> + +<p>Miss Graythorpe was, at a guess, about fifteen when her stepfather +died. Her mother, now for the second time a widow, must have been +very comfortably off, as she had an income of her own as well as a +life-interest in her late husband's invested savings, which was +unfettered by any conditions as to her marrying again, or otherwise. +She was not long in availing herself of + +<!-- Page 69 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +this liberty; for about the +time when her daughter was of an age to be engaged on her own +account, she accepted a third offer of marriage—this time from a +clergyman, who, like herself, had already stood by the death-beds of +two former mates, and was qualified to sympathize with her in every +way, including comfortable inheritances.</p> + +<p>But the young Sally Graythorpe kicked furiously against this new +arrangement. It was an insult to papa (she referred to Mr. +Nightingale; her real papa was a negligible factor), and she +wouldn't live in the same house with that canting old hypocrite. She +would go away straight to India, and marry Gerry—<i>he</i> would be glad +enough to have her—see how constant the dear good boy had been! Not +a week passed but she got a letter. She asked her mother flatly what +could she want to marry again for at her time of life? And such a +withered old sow-thistle as that! Sub-dean, indeed! She would +<i>sub-dean</i> him! In fact, there were words, and the words almost went +the length of taking the form known as "language" <i>par excellence</i>. +The fact is, this Sally and her mother never <i>did</i> get on together +well; it wasn't the least like her subsequent relation with our +special Sally—Sally number three—who trod on Mr. Fenwick in the +Twopenny Tube.</p> + +<p>The end of the "words" was a letter to Gerry, a liberal trousseau, +and a first-class passage out by P. and O. The young lady's luggage +for the baggage-room was beautifully stencilled "Care of Sir +Oughtred Penderfield, The Residency, Khopal." Perfectly safe in his +keeping no doubt it would have been. But, then, that might have been +true also of luggage if consigned to the Devil. If the tale hinted +at in our last chapter <i>was</i> true, its poor little headstrong, +inexperienced heroine would have been about as safe with the latter.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, this club gossip supplies all the broad outline of the +story; and it is a story we need not dwell on. It gives us no means +of reconciling the like of the Mrs. Nightingale we know now with the +amount of dissimulation, if not treachery, she must have practised +on an unsuspicious boy, assuming that she did, as a matter of +course, conceal her relation with Penderfield. One timid conjecture +we have is, that the girl, having to deal with a subject every +accepted phrase relating to which is an equivocation or an +hypocrisy, really found it impossible to make her position + +<!-- Page 70 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +understood by a lover who simply idolized the ground she trod on. +Under such circumstances, she may either have given up the attempt +in despair, or jumped too quickly to the conclusion that she had +succeeded in communicating the facts, and had been met half-way by +forgiveness. Put yourself in her position, and resolve in your mind +exactly how you would have gone about it—how you would have got a +story of that sort forced into the mind of a welcoming lover; wedged +into the heart of his unsuspicious rapture. Or, if you fancied he +understood you, and no storm of despairing indignation came, think +how easy it would be to persuade yourself you had done your duty by +the facts, and might let the matter lapse! Why should not one woman +once take advantage of the obscurities of decorum so many a man has +found comforting to his soul during confession of sin, when pouring +his revelations into an ear whose owner's experience of life has not +qualified her to understand them. Think of the difficulty you +yourself have encountered in getting at the absolute facts in some +delicate concurrence of circumstances in this connexion, because of +the fundamental impossibility of getting any one, man or woman, to +speak direct truth!</p> + +<p>Let us find out, or construct, all the excuses we can for poor Miss +Graythorpe. Let us imagine the last counsel she had from the only +one of her own sex who would be likely to know anything of the +matter—the nefarious partner (if the Major's surmise was true) in +the crime of her betrayer. "You are making a fuss about nothing. Men +are not so immaculate themselves; your Gerry is no Joseph! If he +rides the high horse with you, just you ask him what <i>he</i> had to say +to Potiphar's wife! Oh, we're not so strait-laced out here—bless us +alive!—as we are in England, or pretend to be." We can fancy the +elegant brute saying it.</p> + +<p>All our surmises bring us very little light, though. It is not that +we are at such a loss to forgive poor Sally Graythorpe as a mere +human creature we know nothing about. The difficulty is to reconcile +what she seems to have been then with what she is now. We give it +up.</p> + +<p>Only, we wish to remark that it is her offence against her <i>fiancé</i> +alone that we find it hard to stomach. As to her relations with +Colonel Penderfield, we can say nothing without full particulars. + +<!-- Page 71 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +And even if we had them, and they bore hard upon Miss Graythorpe, +our mind would go back to the Temple in Jerusalem, and a morning +nearly two thousand years ago. The voice that said who was to cast +the first stone is heard no more, or has merged in ritual. But the +Scribes and Pharisees are with us still, and quite ready to do the +pelting. We should be harder on the Colonel, no doubt, with our +prejudices; only, observe! he isn't brought up for judgment. He +never is, any more than the other party was that day in Jerusalem. +But, then, the Scribes and Pharisees were male! And they had the +courage of their convictions—their previous convictions!—and acted +on them in their selection of the culprit.</p> + +<p>Without further apology for retailing conjecture as certainty, the +following may be taken as substantially the story of this lady—we +do not know whether to call her a divorced or a deserted wife—and +her little encumbrance.</p> + +<p>She found a resource in her trouble in the person of this old friend +of her stepfather Paul Nightingale, Colonel (at that time Major) +Lund. This officer had remained on in harness to the unusual age of +fifty-eight, but it was a civil appointment he held; he had retired +from active service in the ordinary course of things. It was +probably not only because of his old friendship for her stepfather, +but because the poor girl told him her unvarnished tale in full and +he believed it, that he helped and protected her through the +critical period that followed her parting from her husband; found +her a domicile and seclusion, and enlisted on her behalf the +sympathies of more than one officer's wife at our Sally's +birth-place—Umritsur, if Major Roper was right. He corresponded +with her mother as intercessor and mediator, but that good lady was +in no mood for mercy: had her daughter not told her that she was too +old to think of marriage? Too old! And had she not called her +venerable sub-dean a withered old sow-thistle? She could forgive, +under guarantees of the sinner's repentance; for had not her Lord +enjoined forgiveness where the bail tendered was sufficient? Only, +so many reservations and qualifications occurred in her +interpretations of the Gospel narrative that forgiveness, diluted +out of all knowledge, left its perpetrator free to refuse ever to +see its victim again. But she would pray for her. A subdiaconal +application would + +<!-- Page 72 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +receive attention; that was the suggestion +between the lines.</p> + +<p>The kind-hearted old soldier pooh-poohed her first letters. She +would come round in time. Her natural good-feeling would get the +better of her when she had had her religious fling. He didn't put it +so—a strict old Puritan of the old school—but that was Miss +Graythorpe's gloss in her own mind on what he did say. However, her +mother never did come round. She cherished her condemnation of her +daughter to the end, forgiving her again <i>morê suo</i>, if anything +with increased asperity, on her death-bed.</p> + +<p>This Colonel Lund is (have we mentioned this before?) the "old +fossil" whom we have seen at Krakatoa Villa. He was usually called +"the Major" there, from early association. He continued to foster +and shelter his <i>protégée</i> during the year following the arrival of +our own particular young Sally on the scene, saw her safely through +her divorce proceedings, and then, when he finally retired from his +post as deputy commissioner for the Umritsur district, arranged that +she herself, with her encumbrance and an ayah, should accompany him +to England. His companion travelled as Mrs. Graythorpe, and Sally +junior as Mrs. Graythorpe's baby. She was excessively popular on the +voyage; Sally was not suffering from sea-sickness, or feeling +apparently the least embarrassed by the recent bar-sinister in her +family. She courted Society, seizing it by its whiskers or its +curls, and holding on like grim death. She endeavoured successively +to get into the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the +Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, but failed in every attempt, and +was finally landed at Southampton in safety, after a resolute effort +to drag the captain, who was six feet three high and weighed twenty +stone, ashore by his beard. She was greatly missed on the remainder +of the voyage (to Bremen—the boat was a German boat) by a family of +Vons, who fortunately never guessed at the flaw in Sally's +extraction, or there's no knowing what might not have happened.</p> + +<p>But the arrival was too late for her poor mother to utilise her +services towards a reconciliation with her own offended parent. A +sudden attack of influenza, followed by low diet on high principles, +and uncombated by timely port wine and tonics, had been followed by +heart-failure, and the sub-dean was left free + +<!-- Page 73 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +to marry again, +again. Whether he did so or not doesn't matter to us. The scheme +Mrs. Graythorpe had been dwelling on with pleasure through the +voyage of simply dropping her offspring on its grandmother, and +leaving it to drive a coach and six through the latter's Christian +forgiveness, was not to come to pass. She found herself after a year +and a half of Oriental life back in her native land, an orphan with +a small—but it must be admitted a very charming—illegitimate +family. It was hard upon her, for she had been building on the +success of this manœuvre, in which she had, perhaps, an +unreasonable confidence. If she could only rely on Sally not being +inopportunely sick over mamma just at the critical moment—that was +the only misgiving that crossed her mind. Otherwise, such creases +and such a hilarious laugh would be too much for starch itself. Poor +lady! she had thought to herself more than once, since Sally had +begun to mature and consolidate, that if Gerry had only waited a +little—just long enough to see what a little duck was going to come +of it all—and not lost his temper, all might have been made +comfortable, and Sally might have had a little legitimate +half-brother by now. What <i>had</i> become—what would become of Gerry? +That she did not know, might never know.</p> + +<p>One little pleasant surprise awaited her. It came to her knowledge +for the first time that she was sole heir to the estate of her late +stepfather, Paul Nightingale. The singular practice that we believe +to exist in many families of keeping back all information about +testamentary dispositions as long as possible from the persons they +concern, especially minors, had been observed in her case; and her +mother, perhaps resenting the idea that her daughter—a young +chit!—should presume to outlive her, had kept her in ignorance of +the contents of her stepfather's will. It did not really matter +much. Had the sum been large, and a certainty, it might have +procured for her a safer position when a temporary guest at the +Residency at Khopal, or even caused her indignant young bridegroom +to think twice before he took steps to rid himself of her. But, +after all, it was only some three hundred and fifty pounds a year, +and depended on the life of a lady of forty-odd, who might live to +be a hundred. A girl with no more than that is nearly as defenceless +as she is without it.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 74 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>A condition was attached to the bequest—not an unwelcome one. She +was to take her stepfather's name, Nightingale. She was really very +glad to do this. There was a <i>faux air</i> of a real married name about +Mrs. Nightingale that was lacking in Mrs. Graythorpe. Besides, all +troublesome questions about who Sally's father was would get lost +sight of in the fact that her mother had changed her name in +connexion with that sacred and glorious thing, an inheritance. A +trust-fund would always be a splendid red-herring to draw across the +path of Mrs. Grundy's sleuth-hounds—a quarry more savoury to their +nostrils even than a reputation. And nothing soothes the sceptical +more than being asked now and again to witness a transfer of stock, +especially if it is money held in trust. It has all the force of a +pleasant alterative pill on the circulation of +Respectability—removes obstructions and promotes appetite—is a +certain remedy for sleeplessness, and so forth. So though there +wasn't a particle of reason why Mrs. Nightingale's money should be +held by any one but herself, as she had no intention whatever of +marrying, Colonel Lund consented to become her trustee; and both +felt that something truly respectable had been done—something that +if it didn't establish a birthright and a correct extraction for +Miss Sally, at any rate went a long way towards it.</p> + +<p>By the time Mrs. Nightingale had got settled in the little house at +Shepherd's Bush, that she took on a twenty-one years' lease five or +six years after her return to England, and had christened it +Saratoga, after her early recollection of the place where she first +saw her stepfather, whose name she took when she came into the money +he left her—by this time she, with the assistance of Colonel Lund, +had quite assumed the appearance of a rather comfortably off young +widow-lady, who did not make a great parade of her widowhood, but +whose circumstances seemed reasonable enough, and challenged no +inquiry. Inquisitiveness would have seemed needless +impertinence—just as much so as yours would have been in the case +of the hypothetical So-and-sos at the beginning of our last chapter. +A vague impression got in the air that Sally's father had not been +altogether satisfactory—well, wasn't it true? It may have leaked +out from something in "the Major's" manner. But it never produced +any effect + +<!-- Page 75 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +on friends, except that they saw in it a reason why Mrs. +Nightingale never mentioned her husband. He had been a black sheep. +Silence about him showed good feeling on her part. <i>De mortuis</i>, +etc....</p> + +<p>Of one thing we feel quite certain—that if, at the time we made +this lady's acquaintance, any chance friend of hers or her +daughter's—say, for instance, Lætitia Wilson, Sally's old +school-friend and present music-colleague—had been told that Mrs. +Nightingale, of Krakatoa Villa, No. 7, Glenmoira Road, Shepherd's +Bush, W., had been the heroine of divorce proceedings under queer +circumstances, that her husband wasn't dead at all, and that that +dear little puss Sally was Goodness-knows-who's child, we feel +certain that the information would have been cross-countered with a +blank stare of incredulity. Why, the mere fact that Mrs. Nightingale +had refused so many offers of marriage was surely sufficient to +refute such a nonsensical idea! Who ever heard of a lady with a +soiled record refusing a good offer of marriage?</p> + +<p>But while we are showing our respect for what the man in the street +says or thinks, and the woman in the street thinks and says, are we +not losing sight of a leading phrase of the symphony, sonata, +cantata—whatever you like to call it—of Mrs. Nightingale's life? A +phrase that steals in, just audibly—no more, in the most +<i>strepitoso</i> passage of the stormy second movement—a movement, +however, in which the proceedings of the Divorce Court are scarcely +more audible, <i>pianissimo legato</i>, a chorus with closed lips, all +the stringed instruments <i>sordini</i>. But it grows and grows, and in +<i>allegro con fuoco</i> on the voyage home, and only leaves a bar or two +blank, when the thing it metaphorically represents is asleep and +isn't suffering from the wind. It breaks out again <i>vivacissimo +accelerando</i> when Miss Sally (whom we allude to) wakes up, and +doesn't appreciate Nestlé's milk. But it always grows, and in due +course may be said to become the music itself.</p> + +<p>More intelligibly, Mrs. Nightingale became so wrapped up in her +baby, that had seemed to her at first a cruel embarrassment—a thing +to be concealed and ignored—that very soon she really had no time +to think about where she broke her molasses-jug, as Uncle Remus +says. The new life that it had become hers to guard + +<!-- Page 76 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +took her out of +herself, made her quite another being from the reckless and +thoughtless girl of two years ago.</p> + +<p>As time went on she felt more and more the value of the newcomer's +indifference to her extraction and the tragedy that had attended it. +A living creature, with a stupendous capacity for ignoring the past, +and, indeed, everything except a monotonous diet, naturally gave her +mind a bias towards the future, and hope grew in her heart +unconsciously, without reminding her that it might have been +despair. A bad alarm, when the creature was six months old, that an +enteric attack might end fatally, had revealed to its mother how +completely it had taken possession of her own life, and what a power +for compensation there was even in its most imperious and tyrannical +habits. As it gradually became articulate—however unreasonable it +continued—her interest in its future extinguished her memories of +her own past, and she found herself devising games for baby before +the little character was old enough to play them, and costumes +before she was big enough to wear them. By the time Saratoga Villa +had become Krakatoa, Miss Sally had had time to benefit by a +reasonable allowance of the many schemes her mother had developed +for her during her infancy. Had all the projects which were mooted +for her further education at this date been successfully carried +out, she would have been an admirable female Crichton, if her reason +had survived the curriculum. Luckily for her, she had a happy +faculty for being plucked at examinations, and her education was +consequently kept within reasonable bounds.</p> + +<p>There was, however, one department of culture in which Sally outshot +all competitors. This was swimming. She would give a bath's length +at the Paddington Baths to the next strongest swimmer in the Ladies' +Club, and come in triumphant in a race of ten lengths. It was a +grand sight to see Sally rushing stem on, cleaving the water with +her head almost as if breath were an affectation, and doubling back +at the end while the other starters were scarcely half-way. Or +shooting through the air in her little blue costume straight for the +deepest water, and then making believe to be a fish on the shiny +tiles at the bottom.</p> + +<p>Her mother always said she was certain that if that little monkey +had managed to wriggle through some hole into the sea, on + +<!-- Page 77 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +her +voyage home, she would have swum after the ship and climbed up the +rudder chains. Possibly, but she was only twelve months old! If, +however, she had met with an early death, her mother's lot would +have lacked its redemption. The joint life of the two supplies a +possible answer to the conundrum that has puzzled us. For in a +certain sense the absorption of her own existence in that of another +than herself had made of Rosalind the woman, at the date of our +introduction to her, quite another person from Rosalind the +hot-headed and thoughtless girl that had quarrelled with her natural +guardian for doing what she had a perfect right to do, and had +steered alone into unknown seas, a ship without a rudder or a +compass, and very little knowledge of the stars of heaven for her +guide. We can see what she is now much better than we can judge what +she was then.</p> + +<p>It need not be supposed that this poor lady never felt any interest, +never made any inquiry, about the sequel of the life she had so +completely <i>bouleversé</i>; for, whatever blame we feel bound to +express, or whatever exculpation we contrive to concoct for her, +there can be no doubt what the result was to the young man who has +come into the story, so far, only under the name of Gerry. We simply +record his designation as it has reached us in the data we are now +making use of. It is all hearsay about a past. We add what we have +been able to gather, merely noting that what it seems to point to +recommends itself to us as probable.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knoo, nobody cared," was our friend Major Roper's brief +reply to an inquiry what became of this young man. "Why, good Lard, +sir!" he went on, "if one was to begin fussin' about all the +Johnnies that shy off when there's a row of that sort, one would +never get a dam night's rest! Not but what if I could recollect his +name. Now, what <i>was</i> his confounded name? Thought I'd got it—but +no—it wasn't Messiter. Fancy his Christian name was Jeremiah.... I +recollect Messiter I'm thinkin' of—character that looked as if he +had a pain in his stomach—came into forty thousand pounds. Stop a +bit—was it Indermaur? No, it wasn't Indermaur. No use +guessin'—give it up."</p> + +<p>Besides, the Major was getting purple with suppressed coughing. + +<!-- Page 78 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +When he had given it up, he surrendered unconditionally to the +cough, but was presently anxious to transmit, through its +subsidence, an idea that he found it impossible to shake across the +table between us out of an inarticulate forefinger end. It assumed +form in time. Why not ask the lady herself? We demurred, and the old +soldier explained.</p> + +<p>"Not rushin' at her, you know, and sayin', 'Who the dooce was it +married you, ma'am?' I'm not a dam fool. Showin' tact, you +know—puttin' it easy and accidental. 'Who was that young beggar +now?—inspector—surveyor—something of the sort—up at Umballa in +seventy-nine? Burrumpooter Irrigation—that's what <i>he</i> was on.' +And, Lard bless you, my dear sir, you don't suppose she'll up and +say, 'I suppose you mean that dam husband of mine.' Not she! +Sensible woman that, sir—seen the world—knows a thing or two. +You'll see she'll only say, 'That was Foodle or Parker or Stebbins +or Jephson,' as may be, accordin' to the name."</p> + +<p>We did not see our way to this enterprise, and said so. We drew a +line; said there were things you could do, and things you couldn't +do. The Major chuckled, and admitted this might be so; his old +governor used to say, "Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique +fines." The last two words remained behind in the cough, unless, +indeed, they were shaken out off the Major's forefinger into a +squeezed lemon that was awaiting its Seltzer.</p> + +<p>"But I can tell you thing, Mr.," said he, forgetting our name, as +soon as he felt soothed by the lemon-squash. "He didn't keep his +name, that young man didn't. You may bet he didn't safely! Only, +it's no use askin' me why, nor what he changed it to. If it <i>was</i> +him that was lost in the Bush in New South Wales, when I was at +Sydney, why, of course that chap's <i>name</i> was the same. I remember +that much. Can't get hold of the name, though." He appeared to +consult the pattern on his silk pocket-handkerchief as an oracle, +and to await its answer with a thoughtful eye. Presently he blew his +nose on the oracle, and returned it to his pocket, adding: "But it's +a speculation—little speculation of my own. Don't <i>ask me</i>!" We +saw, however, that more would come, without asking. And it came.</p> + +<p>"It made a talk out there at the time. But <i>that</i> didn't bring him +to life. You may talk till you're hoarse, but you won't bring + +<!-- Page 79 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +a +dead man to—not when he's twenty miles off in a forest of +gum-trees, as like as tallow-candles.... Oh yes, they had the +natives put on the scent—black trackers, they call 'em—but, Lard! +it was all no use. They only followed the scent of his horse, and +the horse came back a fortnight after with them on his heels, an +hour or so behind.... He'd only just left his party a moment, and +meant to come back into the open. I suppose he thought he was sure +to cross a cutting, and got trapped in the solid woodland."</p> + +<p>"But what was the speculation? You said just now...."</p> + +<p>"Not much to go by," said the Major, shaking a discouraging head. +"Another joker with another name, who turned up a hundred miles off! +Harrisson, I fancy—yes, Harrisson. It was only my idea they were +the same. I came away, and don't know how they settled it."</p> + +<p>"But something, Major Roper, must have made you think this man the +same—the same as Jeremiah Indermaur, or whatever his name was—Mrs. +Nightingale's man?"</p> + +<p>"Somethin' must! What it was is another pair of shoes." He cogitated +and reflected, but seemed to get no nearer. "You ask Pelloo," he +said. "He might give you a tip." Then he called for a small glass of +cognac, because the Seltzer was such dam chilly stuff, and the dry +sherry was no use at all. We left him arranging the oracle over his +face, with a view to a serious nap.</p> + +<p>We got a few words shortly after with General Pellew, who seemed a +little surprised at the Major's having referred to him for +information.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said he, "why our friend Roper shouldn't recollect +as much about it as I do. However, I do certainly remember that when +this young gentleman, whatever his name was, left the station, he +did go to Sydney or Melbourne, and I have some hazy recollection of +some one saying that he was lost in the Bush. But why old Jack +fancies he was found again or changed his name to Harrisson I +haven't the slightest idea."</p> + +<p>So that all we ourselves succeeded in getting at about Gerry may be +said to have been the trap-door he vanished through. Whether Mrs. +Nightingale got at other sources of information we cannot + +<!-- Page 80 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +say. +Whatever she learned she would be sure to keep her own counsel +about. She may have concluded that the bones of the husband who had +in a fit of anger deserted her had been picked by white ants, twenty +years ago, in an Australian forest; or she may have come to know, by +some means, of his resuscitation from the Bush, and his successes or +failures in a later life elsewhere. We have had our own reasons for +doubting that she ever knew that he took the name of Harrisson—if +he really did—a point which seemed to us very uncertain, so far as +the Major's narrative went. If she did get a scrap of tidings, a +flying word, about him now and again, it was most likely all she +got. And when she got it she would feel the danger of further +inquiry—the difficulty of laying the reasons for her curiosity +before her informant. You can't easily say to a stranger: "Oh, do +tell us about Mrs. Jones or Mr. Smith. She or he is our divorced or +separated wife or husband." A German might, but Mrs. Nightingale was +not a German.</p> + +<p>However, she <i>may</i> have heard something about that Gerry, we grant +you, in all those twenty long years. But if you ask us our +opinion—our private opinion—it is that she scarcely heard of him, +if she heard at all, and certainly never set eyes on him, until one +day her madcap little daughter brought him home, half-killed by an +electric shock, in a cab we were at some pains to describe +accurately a few pages ago. And even then, had it not been for the +individualities of that cab, she might have missed seeing him, and +let him go away to the infirmary or the police-station, and probably +never been near him again.</p> + +<p>As it was, the face she saw when a freak of chance led to her +following that cab, and looking in out of mere curiosity at its +occupant, was the face of her old lover—of her husband. +Eighteen—twenty—years had made a man of one who was then little +more than a boy. The mark of the world he had lived in was on him; +and it was the mark of a rough, strong world where one fights, and, +if one is a man of this sort, maybe wins. But she never doubted his +identity for a moment. And the way in which she grasped the +situation—above all, the fact that he had not recognised her and +would not recognise her—quite justified, to our thinking, Major +Roper's opinion of her powers of self-command.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 81 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Nevertheless, these were not so absolute that her demeanour escaped +comment from the cabby, the only witness of her first sight of the +"electrocuted" man. He spoke of her afterwards as that squealing +party down that sanguinary little turning off Shepherd's Bush Road +he took that sanguinary galvanic shock to.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 82 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW THOSE GIRLS DO CHATTER OVER THEIR MUSIC! MRS. NIGHTINGALE'S +RESOLUTION. BUT, THE RISK! A HARD PART TO PLAY. THERE WAS ONLY MAMMA +FOR THE GIRL! THE GARDEN OF LONG AGO</p> + +<p>Two parts in a sestet, played alone, may be a maddening torture to a +person whose musical imagination is not equal to supplying the other +four. Perhaps you have heard Haydn, Op. 1704, and rejoiced in the +logical consecutiveness of its fugues, the indisputableness of its +well-classified statements, the swift pertinence of the repartees of +the first violin to the second, the apt <i>résumé</i> and orderly +reorganization of their epigrammatic interchanges by the 'cello and +the double-bass, the steady typewritten report and summary of the +whole by the pianoforte, and the regretful exception to so many +points taken by the clarionet. If so, you have no doubt felt, as we +have, a sense of perfect satisfaction at faultless musical +structure, without having to surrender your soul unconditionally to +the passionate appeal of a Beethoven, or to split your musical +brains in conjectures about what Volkanikoffsky is driving at. You +will find at the end that you have passed an hour or so of tranquil +enjoyment, and are mighty content with yourself, the performers, and +every one else.</p> + +<p>But if you only hear the two parts, played alone, and your mental +image of all the other parts is not strong enough to prevent your +hearing the two performers count the bars while the non-performers +don't do anything at all, you will probably go away and come back +presently, or go mad.</p> + +<p>Nobody else was there when Sally and Lætitia Wilson were counting +four, and beginning too soon, and having to go back and begin all +over again, and missing a bar, and knocking down their music-stands +when they had to turn over quick. So nobody went mad. Mamma had gone +to an anti-vaccination meeting, and Athene had gone to stay over +Bank Holiday at Leighton Buzzard, and the boys had gone to skate, +and papa was in his study + +<!-- Page 83 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +and didn't matter, and they had the +drawing-room to themselves. Oh dear, how very often they did count +four, to be sure!</p> + +<p>Sally was <i>distraite</i>, and wasn't paying proper attention to the +music. Whenever a string had to be tightened by either, Sally +introduced foreign matter. Lætitia was firm and stern (she was +twenty-four, if you please!), and wouldn't respond. As thus, in a +tightening-up pause:</p> + +<p>"I like him awfully, you know, Tishy. In fact, I love him. It's a +pleasure to hear him come into the house. Only—one's <i>mother</i>, you +know! It's the <i>oddity</i> of it!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear. <i>Now</i>, are you ready?... It only clickets down because +you will <i>not</i> screw in; it's no use turning and leaving the key +sloppy...."</p> + +<p>"I know, Tishy dear—teach your granny! There, I think that's right +now. But it <i>is</i> funny when it's one's mother, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"One—two—three—four! There—you didn't begin! Remember, you've +got to begin on the demisemiquaver at the end of the bar—only not +too staccato, remember—and allow for the pause. Now—one, two, +three, four, and you begin—in the <i>middle</i> of four—<i>not</i> the end. +Oh dear! Now once more...." etc.</p> + +<p>You will at once see from this that Sally had lost no time in +finding a confidante for the fossil's communication.</p> + +<p>An hour and a half of resolute practising makes you not at all sorry +for an oasis in the counting, which you inaugurate (or whatever you +do when it's an oasis) by smashing the top coal and making a great +blaze. And then you go ever so close, and can talk.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure it isn't Colonel Lund's mistake? Old gentlemen get +very fanciful." Thus Miss Wilson. But it seems Sally hasn't much +doubt. Rather the other way round, if anything!</p> + +<p>"I thought it might be, all the way to Norland Square. Then I +changed my mind coming up the hill. Of course, I don't know about +mamma till I ask her. But I expect the Major's right about Mr. +Fenwick."</p> + +<p>"But how does <i>he</i> know? How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." Sally tastes the points of a holly-leaf with her + +<!-- Page 84 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +tongue-tip, discreetly, to see how sharp they are, and cogitates. +"At least," she continues, "I <i>do</i> know. He never takes his eyes off +mamma from the minute he comes into the house."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Besides—lots of things! Oh no; as far as that goes, I should say +<i>he</i> was spooney."</p> + +<p>"I see. You're a vulgar child, all the same! But about your +mother—that's the point."</p> + +<p>The vulgar child cogitates still more gravely.</p> + +<p>"I should say <i>now</i>," she says, after thinking it over, "that—only +I never noticed it at the time, you know——"</p> + +<p>"That what?"</p> + +<p>"That mamma knows Mr. Fenwick is spooney, and looks up at times to +see that he's going on."</p> + +<p>Lætitia seems to receive this idea with some hesitation or reserve. +"Looks up at times to see if he's going on?" she repeats +inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course—like we should. Only I didn't say 'see if.' I said +'see that.' It makes all the difference."</p> + +<p>Miss Wilson breaks into a laugh. "And there you are all the time +looking as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, and as grave as a +judge."</p> + +<p>Sally has to acquiesce in being kissed by her friend at this point; +but she curls up a little as one who protests against being +patronised. "We-e-e-ell!" she says, lengthening out the word, "why +not? I don't see anything in <i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, dear—<i>that's</i> all right! Why shouldn't it be?"</p> + +<p>But this isn't candid of Lætitia, whose speech and kiss had +certainly appeared to impute suppressed insight, or penetration, or +sly-pussness, or something of that sort to her young friend. But +with an implied claim to rights of insight, on her own account, from +seniority. Sally is <i>froissée</i> at this, but not beyond jerking the +topic into a new light.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it's their being grown up that makes one stare so. If it +wasn't for that...." But this gives away her case, surrenders all +claim to her equality with Lætitia's twenty-four years. The +advantage is caught at meanly.</p> + +<p>"That's only because you're a baby, dear. Wait till you're ten + +<!-- Page 85 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +years older, and thirty-eight won't seem so old. I suppose your +mother's about that?"</p> + +<p>"Mother? Why, she's nearly thirty-nine!"</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Fenwick?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>he's</i> forty-one. <i>Quite!</i> Because we talked it all over, and +made out they were over eighty between them."</p> + +<p>"Who talked it over?"</p> + +<p>"Why, him and her and me, of course. Last night."</p> + +<p>"Who did you have, Sally dear?"</p> + +<p>"Only ourselves, and Dr. Prosy and his Goody mother."</p> + +<p>"I thought Mr. Fenwick——"</p> + +<p>"I counted him in with us—mother and me and the Major."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you counted him in?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I count him in, if I like?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? And you do like?" There is an appearance of irritating +sagacity about Sally's friend. "What did Dr. Vereker say, Sally +dear?"</p> + +<p>"Doc-tor Vereker! Dr. Prosy. Prosy's not a referee—it was no +concern of his! Besides—they'd gone."</p> + +<p>"Who'd gone?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Prosy and his old hen of a mother. Well, Tishy dear, she <i>is</i> +like that. Comes wobbling down on you as if you were a chicken! I +hope you don't think mother and I and Mr. Fenwick would talk about +how old we were added together, with old Goody Prosy in it!"</p> + +<p>"Of course not, dear!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tishy dear, how aggravating you are! Now do please don't be +penetrating. You know you're trying to get at something; and there's +nothing to get at. It was perfectly natural. Only, of course, we +should never dream of talking about how old before people and their +gossipy old mothers."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, dear!"</p> + +<p>"There, now! You're being imperturbable! I knew you would. But you +may say what you like—there really was nothing in it. Nothing +whatever that time! However, of course mother does like Mr. Fenwick +very much—everybody knows that."</p> + +<p>Lætitia says time will show, and Sally says, "Show what?" For the +remark connects with nothing in the conversation. Its maker + +<!-- Page 86 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +does +not reply, but retires into the fastnesses of a higher philosophy, +unknown to the teens, but somehow attainable in the early twenties. +She comes down, however, to ask after Dr. Vereker. Sally has as good +as held her tongue about him. Have they quarrelled?</p> + +<p>"My dear Tishy! The idea! A <i>perfect stranger</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I thought you were such good friends."</p> + +<p>"I've nothing against Dr. Vereker. But fancy quarrelling with him! +Like bosom friends. Kissing and making it up. What next!" Lætitia +seems to have discovered that Sally, subjected to a fixed amused +look, is sure to develop, and maintains one; and Sally follows on:</p> + +<p>"One has to be on an intimate footing to fall out. Besides, people +shouldn't be hen's sons. Not if they expect that sort of thing!"</p> + +<p>"Which sort?"</p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well, Tishy dear! And they shouldn't be worthy, +either, people shouldn't. I'm not at all sure it isn't his +worthiness, just as much as his mother. I <i>could</i> swallow his +mother, if it came to that!"</p> + +<p>Lætitia, without relaxing the magnetism of her look, is replacing a +defective string. But a stimulating word will keep Sally up to the +mark. It would be a pity she should die down, having got so far.</p> + +<p>"Not at all sure <i>what</i> isn't his worthiness!"</p> + +<p>"Now, Tishy dear, what nonsense! As if you didn't understand! You +may just as well be penetrating outright, if you're going to go on +like that. All I know is that, worthiness or no, if Dr. Vereker +expects I'm going to put him on a quarrelling footing, he's +mistaken, and the sooner he gives up the idea the better. I suppose +he'll be wanting me to cherish him next."</p> + +<p>And then what does that irritating Lætitia Wilson do but say +suddenly, "I'm quite ready for the scherzo, dear, if you are." Just +as if Sally had been talking all this for her own private +satisfaction and amusement! And she knew perfectly well, Lætitia +did, that she had been eliciting, and that she meant to wait a day +or two, and begin again ever so far on, and make believe Sally had +said heaps of things. And Sally had really said nothing—<i>nothing</i>!</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 87 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>However, Miss Wilson was certainly a very fine violin figure, and +really striking in long sostenuto notes, with a fine throat and +handsome fingers on her left hand with broad bones, and a handsome +wrist on her bowing-arm where it was wanted. Only now, of course, +she hadn't got her Egyptian bracelet that looked so well, and her +hair wasn't done in a coronet, but only just twisted up anyhow. +Besides, when it's a difficult scherzo and you take it quick, your +appearance of having the concentration of Bonaparte and Julius +Cæsar, and the alacrity of a wild cat, doesn't bring out your good +points. Give us an <i>andante maestoso</i> movement, or a <i>diminuendo +rallentando</i> that reaches the very climax and acme of slowness +itself just before the applause comes! It was rather as a meditation +in contrasts, though, that Sally thought thus to herself; for +detached musical jerks of diabolical rapidity, that have to be +snapped at with the punctuality of the mosquito slayer, don't show +your rounded lines to advantage, and make you clench your teeth and +glare horribly.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Our story is like the scherzo in one respect: it has to be given in +detached jerks—literary, not musical—and these jerks don't come at +any stated intervals at all. The music was bad enough—so Sally and +Lætitia thought—but the chronicle is more spasmodic still. However, +if you want to know its remaining particulars, you will have to +brace yourself up to tolerating an intermittent style. It is the +only one our means of collecting information admits of.</p> + +<p>This little musical interlude, and the accidental chat of our two +young performers, gives us a kind of idea of what was the position +of things at Krakatoa Villa six months after Fenwick made his +singular reappearance in the life of Mrs. Nightingale. We shall rely +on your drawing all our inferences. There is only one belief of ours +we need to lay stress upon; it is that the lady's scheme to do all +she could to recapture and hold this man who had been her husband +was no mere slow suggestion of the course of events in that six +months, but a swift and decisive resolution—one that, if not +absolutely made at once, paused only in the making until she was +quite satisfied that the disappearance of Fenwick's past was an +accomplished fact. Once satisfied of that, he became to her simply +the man she had loved twenty years ago—the + +<!-- Page 88 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +man who did not, could +not, forgive her what seemed so atrocious a wrong, but whom she +could forgive the unforgiveness of; and this all the more if she had +come to know of the ruinous effect her betrayal of him had had—must +have had—upon his after-life. He was this man—this very man—to +all appearance with a mysterious veil drawn, perhaps for ever, over +the terrible close of their brief linked life and its hideous +cause—over all that she would have asked and prayed should be +forgotten. If only this oblivion could be maintained!—that was her +fear. If it could, what task could be sweeter to her than to make +him such amends as lay in her power for the wrong she had done +him—how faultfully, who shall say? And if, in late old age, no dawn +of memory having gleamed in his ruined mind, she came to be able to +speak to him and tell him his own story—the tale of the wreck of +his early years—would not that almost, <i>almost</i>, carry with it a +kind of compensation for what she had undergone?</p> + +<p>But her terror of seeing a return of memory now was a haunting +nightmare to her. She could only soothe and alleviate her anxiety by +suggesting efforts at recollection to Fenwick, and observing with +concealed satisfaction how utterly useless they all were. She felt +guilty at heart in being so happy at his ill-success, and had to +practise an excusable hypocrisy, an affectation of disappointment at +his repeated failures. On one particular occasion a shudder of +apprehension passed through her; she thought he had got a clue. If +he did, what was to prevent his following it up? She found it hard +to say to him how sorry she was this clue led to nothing, and to +forecast from it encouragement for the future. But she said to +herself after that, that she was a good actress, and had played her +part well. The part was a hard one.</p> + +<p>For what came about was this. It chanced one evening, some three +months after the railway adventure, when Fenwick had become an +accepted and constant visitor at Krakatoa Villa, that as he took a +very late leave of Sally and her mother, the latter came out with +him into the always quiet road, while Sally ran back into the house +to direct a letter he was to post, but which had been forgotten for +the moment, just as he was departing.</p> + +<p>They had talked a great deal, and with a closer familiarity than + +<!-- Page 89 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +ever before, of the problem of Fenwick's oblivion. Both ladies had +gone on the lines of suggesting clues, trying to recall to him the +things that <i>must</i> have been in his life as in others. How about his +parents? Well, he remembered that, as a fact, he had a father and +mother. It was <i>themselves</i> he could not recollect. How about his +schooldays? No, that was a blank. He could not even remember having +been flogged. Yet the idea of school was not unfamiliar; how, +otherwise, could he laugh as he did at the absurdity of forgetting +all about it, especially being flogged? But his brothers, his +sisters, how <i>could</i> he forget <i>them</i>? He <i>did</i>, although in their +case, as in that of his parents, he somehow knew that some definite +identities had existed that he had forgotten. But any effort to +recall any specific person came to nothing, or else he only +succeeded in reviving images manifestly confused with characters in +fiction or history. Then Sally, who was rather incredulous about +this complete vacuity of mind, had said to him: "But come now, Mr. +Fenwick, you don't mean to say you don't know if you ever had a +sweetheart?" And he had replied with a laugh: "My dear Miss Sally, +I'm sure I must have had plenty of sweethearts. Perhaps it's because +I had so many that I have forgotten them all—all—all! They are all +gone with the rest. I can do sums, and can speak French, but what +school I learned to keep accounts at I can't tell you; and as to +where I lived (as I must have done) among French people to speak +French, I can tell no more than Adam." And then he had become rather +reserved and silent till he got up to go, and they had not liked to +press him for more. The pained look they had often been distressed +to see came on his face, and he pressed his fingers on his eyelids +as though shutting out the present world might help him to recall +the past; then with a rough head-shake of his thick hair, like a big +dog, and a brushing of it about with both hands, as though he would +rouse this useless head of his to some sort of action, he put the +whole thing aside, and talked of other matters till he left the +house.</p> + +<p>But when he and Mrs. Nightingale found themselves alone in the road, +enjoying the delicious west wind that meant before the morning to +become an equinoctial gale, and blow down chimney-pots and sink +ships, he turned to her and went back to what they had been talking +of. She could see the fine strong markings of his face + +<!-- Page 90 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +in the +moonlight, the great jaw and firm lips, the handsome nose damaged by +a scar that lay true across the bridge of it, and looked white in +the gleam of the moon, the sad large eyelids and the grave eyes that +had retaken the look he had shaken off. She could note and measure +every change maturity had stamped upon him, and could see behind it +the boy that had come to meet her at the station at Umballa twenty +years before—had met her full of hope, met her to claim his reward +after the long delay through the hideous days of the pestilence, to +inaugurate the anticipated hours of happiness he had trembled to +dream of. And the worst of the cholera wards that had filled the +last months of his life with horror had held nothing for him so bad +as the tale she had to tell or conceal. She could see back upon it +as they stood there in the moonlight. Do not say she was not a +strong woman.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Mrs. Nightingale," Fenwick said, "it's always a night +of this sort that brings back one's youth? You know what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"I think I understand what you mean, Mr. Fenwick. You mean if"—she +hesitated a moment—"if you <i>could</i> recollect."</p> + +<p>He nodded a complete yes.</p> + +<p>"Just that," said he. "I don't know if it's the millions of dry +leaves sweeping about, or the moon scudding so quick through the +clouds, or the smell of the Atlantic, or the bark coming off the +plane-trees, or the wind blowing the roads into smooth dust-drifts +and hard clear-ups you could eat your dinner off—I don't know what +it is, but something or another on a night of this sort does always +seem to bring old times back, when, as you say, they can be got back +on any terms." He half-laughed, not in earnest. She found something +to say, also not very much in earnest.</p> + +<p>"Because we remember nights of the sort when we were small, and that +brings them back."</p> + +<p>"Come, I say now, Mrs. Nightingale! As if we couldn't remember all +sorts of nights, and nothing comes back about them. It's this +particular sort of night does the job."</p> + +<p>"Did you think you remembered something, Mr. Fenwick?" There was +anxiety in her voice, but no need to conceal it. It would as readily +pass muster for anxiety that he <i>should</i> have remembered something +as that he shouldn't.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 91 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I can hardly go so far as that. But that joke of your little +pussycat about the sweethearts got mixed with the smell of the wind +and the chrysanthemums and dahlias and sunflowers." He pressed his +fingers hard on his eyes again. "Do you know, there's pain in +it—worse than you'd think! The half-idea that comes is not painful +in itself—rather the contrary—but it gives my brain a twist at the +point at which I can recall no more. Yes, it's painful!"</p> + +<p>"But there <i>was</i> a half-idea? Forgive me if it gives you pain, and +don't try. Only I'm not sure you ought not to try when the chance +comes, for your own sake."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't mind trying. This time it was something about a front +garden and a girl and a dog-cart." He had not taken his hands from +his eyes. Now he did so, brushing them on his hair and forehead as +before. "I get no nearer," said he.</p> + +<p>"A front garden and a girl and a dog-cart," thus Miss Sally saucily, +coming out with the letter. "Did you have a very touching parting, +Mr. Fenwick? Now, mind you don't forget to post it. I wouldn't trust +you!" He took the letter from her, but seemed too <i>distrait</i> to +notice her little piece of levity; then, still speaking as if in +distress or pain, he said:</p> + +<p>"It must have been some front garden, long ago. This one brought it +back—this and the leaves. Only there was nothing for the dog-cart."</p> + +<p>"And only mamma for the girl"—thus Sally the irrepressible. And +then mamma laughed, but not Mr. Fenwick at all. Only Sally thought +her mother's laugh came hard, and said to herself, now she should +catch it for chaffing! However, she didn't catch it, although the +abruptness with which her mother said good-night and went back into +the house half confirmed her impression that she should.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, when she followed her a few minutes later, having +accompanied Fenwick to near the road end, and scampered back to the +house, turning to throw Parthian good-nights after him, she found +her mother pale and thoughtful, and surely the lips and hands she +used to kiss her with were cold. She wasn't even sure that wasn't a +tear. Perhaps it was.</p> + +<p>For mamma had had a bad ten minutes—scarcely a <i>mauvais quart +d'heure</i>—and even that short interim had given her time to + +<!-- Page 92 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +see +that this kind of thing would be incessant with her recovered +husband, granting that she could recover him. Only of that she felt +nearly secure—unaccountably, perhaps; certainly not warrantably. +But how to bear this kind of thing through a life?—that was the +question.</p> + +<p>What was this kind of thing, this bad ten minutes, that had made her +tremble, and turn white, and glad to get away, and be alone a minute +before Sally came up jubilant? But oh, how glad, for all that, to +get at her daughter's lips to kiss!—only not too hard, so as to +suggest reflection and analysis.</p> + +<p>What had upset Mrs. Nightingale was a counter-memory of twenty years +ago, a clear and full and vivid recollection of the garden and the +girl and the dog-cart. And then also there "had only been mamma for +the girl." But oh, the relation the lassie who said those words bore +to those past days, her place in the drama that filled them out! +Little wonder her mother's brain reeled.</p> + +<p>She could see it all vividly now, all over again. A glorious night +like this; a dazzling full moon sailing in the blue beyond the +tumbled chaos of loose cloud so near the earth; the riot of the +wind-swept trees fighting to keep a shred of their old green on +their bareness, making new concessions to the blast, and beating +their stripped limbs together in their despair; the endless swirl of +leaves at liberty, free now at last to enjoy a short and merry life +before becoming food for worms. She could see the face she had just +parted from, but twenty years younger—the same bone-structure with +its unscarred youth upon it, only a lesser beard with a sunnier +tinge, but all the thickness of the hair. She could remember the +voices in the house, the farewells to the young man who was just +starting for India, and how she slipped down to say a last good-bye +on her own account, and felt grateful to that old Dean Ireson (the +only time in her life) for begging her mother (who, of course, was +the Rosalind Nightingale Fenwick spoke of in the train) on no +account to expose herself to the night-air. Why, she might have come +down, too, into the garden, and spoiled it all! And then she could +remember—oh, how well!—their last words in the windy garden, and +the horse in the dog-cart, fresh from his stall, and officiously +anxious to catch the train—as good as saying so, with flings and +stamps. And + +<!-- Page 93 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +how little she cared if the groom <i>did</i> hear him call +her Rosey, for that was his name for her.</p> + +<p>"Now, Gerry, remember, I've made you <i>no</i> promises; but I'll play +fair. If I change my mind, I'll write and tell you. And you may +write to me."</p> + +<p>"Every day?"</p> + +<p>"Silly boy, be reasonable! Once a month! You'll see, you'll get +tired of it."</p> + +<p>"Come, Rosey, I say! The idea!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will! Now go! You'll lose the train."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Rosey dearest!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, what?—you'll lose the train."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dearest, I <i>can't</i>! Just think—I may never see you again!"</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> go, Gerry dear! And there's that blockhead of a boy +outside there."</p> + +<p>"Never mind him; he's nobody! Only one more.... Yes, <i>dearest love</i>, +I'm really going.... Good-bye! good-bye! God bless you!"</p> + +<p>And then how she stood there with the memory of his lips dying on +hers, alone by the gate, in the wild wind, and heard the sharp +regular trot of the horse lessen on the hard road and die away, and +then the running of a train she thought was his, and how he would +surely miss it, and have to come back. And it <i>would</i> be nice just +to see him again! But he was gone, for all that, and he was a dear +good boy. And she recollected going to her bedroom to do up her +hair, which had all come down, and hiding her face on her pillow in +a big burst of tears.</p> + +<p>Her mind harked back on all this as he himself, the same but +changed, stood there in the moonlight striving to recollect it all, +and mysteriously failing. But at least, he <i>did</i> fail, and that was +something. But oh, what a wrench it gave to life, thought, reason, +to all her heart and being, to have that unconscious chit cut in +with "only mamma for the girl!" What and whence was this little +malaprop? Her overwrought mind shut away this question—almost in +the asking it—with "Dearer to me, at least, than anything else in +this world, unless——" and then shut away the rest of the answer.</p> + +<p>But she was glad to get at Sally, and feel her there, though she + +<!-- Page 94 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +could not speak freely to her—nor, indeed, speak at all. And as +soon as the tension died down, she went back as to a source of peace +to the failure of his powers of memory, obvious, complete. All her +hopes lay in that. Where would they be if the whole past were +suddenly sprung on him? He <i>might</i> be ready to bury bygones, but——</p> + +<p>She woke next day fairly at ease in her mind, but feeling as one +does after any near-run escape. And then it was she said to herself +that she was a good actress. But the part <i>was</i> hard to act.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The relations between Fenwick and the Nightingales, mother and +daughter, seem to us to have been acquiring cohesion at the time of +the foregoing interview. It is rather difficult to say why. But it +serves to pave the way to the state of things that Sally accepted as +the "spooneyness" of Fenwick, and her mother's observation of his +"going on," without the dimmest idea of the underlying motives of +the drama. Another three months, bringing us on to these +discriminations of Sally's, may also have brought about appearances +that justified them.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 95 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="subhead">THE DANGERS OF AN UNKNOWN PAST. NETTLE-GRASPING, AND A RECURRENCE. +WHO AMONG US COURTS CATECHISM ABOUT HIMSELF? A UNIVERSALLY PROVIDED +YOUNG MAN. HOW ABOUT THE POOR OLD FURNITURE?</p> + +<p>We defy the acutest of psychologists to estimate precisely the hold +love has on a man who is diagnosed, in the language of the vulgar +child Sally, as "spooney." Probably no patient has ever succeeded in +doing this himself. It is quite another matter when the eruption has +broken out, when the crater is vomiting flames and the lava is +pouring down on the little homesteads at the mountain's base, that +may stand in the metaphor for all that man's duties and obligations. +By that time he <i>knows</i>. But, while still within the "spooney" zone +he knows no more than you or I (or that most important <i>she</i>) what +the morrow means to bring. Will it be a step on or a step back? An +altogether new <i>she</i>, or the fires of the volcano, let loose beyond +recall?</p> + +<p>Fenwick was certainly not in a position to gauge his own feelings +towards Mrs. Nightingale. All previous experience was cut away from +him, or seemed so. He might have been, for anything he knew, a +married man with a family, a devoted husband. He might have been +recently wedded to an adoring bride, and she might now be +heart-broken in her loneliness. How could he tell? The only thing +that gave him courage about this was that he <i>could</i> remember the +fact that he had had parents, brothers, sisters. He could not +recollect <i>anything whatever</i> about sweetheart, wife, or child. +Unearthly gusts of half-ideas came to him at times, like that of the +girl and the dog-cart. But they only gave him pain, and went away +unsolved, leaving him sick and dizzy.</p> + +<p>His situation was an acutely distressing one. He was shackled and +embarrassed, so to speak, by what he knew of his relations to +existence. At any moment a past might be sprung on him, bringing + +<!-- Page 96 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +him suddenly face to face with God knows what. So strongly did he +feel this that he often said to himself that the greatest boon that +could be granted to him would be an assurance of continued oblivion. +He was especially afflicted by memories of an atrocious clearness +that would come to him in dreams, the horror of which would remain +on into his waking time. They were not necessarily horrible things +at all, but their clearness in the dream, and their total, if slow, +disappearance as the actual world came back, became sometimes an +excruciating torment. Who could say that they, or some equivalents, +might not reach him out of the past to-day or to-morrow—any time?</p> + +<p>For instance, he had one morning waked up in a perfect agony—a cold +perspiration as of the worst nightmares—because of a dream harmless +enough in itself. He had suddenly remembered, in the dream-street he +could identify the houses of so plainly, a first-floor he had +occupied where he had left all his furniture locked up years ago. +And he had found the house and the first-floor quite easily, and had +not seen anything strange in the landlord saying that he and his old +woman often wondered when Mr. Fenwick would come for his things. It +was not the accumulation of rent unpaid, nor that of the dirt he +knew he should find on the furniture (all of which he could +recollect in the dream perfectly well), but the fact that he had +forgotten it all, and left it unclaimed all those years, that +excruciated him. Even his having to negotiate for its removal in his +shirt did not afflict him so much as his forgetfulness for so long +of the actual furniture; his conviction of the reality of which +lasted on after his discovery about his costume had made him +suspect, in his dream, that he was dreaming.</p> + +<p>To a man whose memory is sound, who feels sure he looks back on an +actual past in security, such a dream is only a curiosity of sleep. +To Fenwick it was, like many others of the same sort, a possible +herald of an analogous revelation in waking hours, with a sequel of +dreadful verification from some abysm of an utterly forgotten past.</p> + +<p>His worst terror, far and away, was the fear that he was married and +a father. It might have been supposed that this arose from a +provisional sense of pity for the wife and children he must have +left; that his mind would conceive hypothetical poverty for + +<!-- Page 97 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +them, +or sorrow, disease, or death, the result direct or indirect of his +disappearance. But this was scarcely the case. They themselves were +too intensely hypothetical. In this respect the blank in his +intellect was so unqualified that it might never have occurred to +him to ask himself the question if they existed had it not been +suggested to him by Mrs. Nightingale herself. It was, in fact, a +question she almost always recurred to when Miss Sally was out of +the way. It was no use trying to talk seriously when that little +monkey was there. She turned everything to a joke. But the Major was +quite another thing. He would back her up in anything reasonable.</p> + +<p>"I wish more could be done to find out," said she for the twentieth +time to Fenwick one evening, shortly after the musical recital of +last chapter. "I don't feel as if it was right to give up +advertising. Suppose the poor thing is in Australia or America."</p> + +<p>"The poor thing is my hypothetical wife?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly so. Well, suppose she is. Some people never see any +newspapers at all. And all the while she may have been advertising +for <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; we should have been sure to see or hear."</p> + +<p>"But why? Now I ask you, Mr. Fenwick, suppose she advertised half a +dozen times in the 'Melbourne Argus' or the 'New York Sun,' <i>would</i> +you have seen it, necessarily?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> should not, because I never see the 'Melbourne Argus' or the +'New York Sun.' But those agents we paid to look out go steadily +through the agony columns—the personal advertisements—of the whole +world's press; they would have found it if it had ever been +published."</p> + +<p>"I dare say they only pocketed the money."</p> + +<p>"That they did, no doubt. But they gave me something for it. A +hundred and twenty-three advertisements addressed to Fenwicks—none +of them to me!"</p> + +<p>"But have we advertised enough?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, heavens, yes. Think of the answers we've had! I've just +received the hundred and forty-second. From a lady in distressed +circumstances who bought a piano ten years ago from a party of my +name and initials—thought I might be inclined to buy it back at +half-price. She proposes to call on me early next week."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 98 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Poor Mr. Fenwick! It <i>is</i> discouraging, I admit. But, oh dear! +fancy if there's some poor thing breaking her heart somewhere! It's +easy enough for you—<i>you</i> don't believe in her."</p> + +<p>"That's it; I don't!" He dropped a tone of pleasantry, and spoke +more seriously. "Dear Mrs. Nightingale, if my absence of conviction +of the existence of this lady did not rise to the height of a +definite disbelief in her altogether—well, I should be wretched. +But I feel very strongly that I need not make myself a poor +miserable about her. I <i>don't</i> believe in her, that's the truth!"</p> + +<p>"You don't believe a man could forget his wife?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>can't</i> believe it, try how I may! Anything—anybody else—but +his wife, no!"</p> + +<p>Fenwick had come in late in the evening, as he was in the habit of +doing, often three or four times in the week. He looked across from +his side of the hearthrug, where he had been standing watching the +fire, but could not see the face opposite to him. Mrs. Nightingale +was sitting with her back to the light sheltering her eyes from the +blaze with a fire-screen. So Fenwick saw only the aureole the lamp +made in her hair—it was a fine halo with a golden tinge. Sally was +very proud of mamma's hair; it was much better fun to do than her +own, said the vulgar child. But even had she not been hidden by the +screen, the expression on her face might have meant nothing to +him—that is, nothing more than the ready sympathy he was so well +accustomed to. A little anxiety of eye, a tremor in the lip, the +birth of a frown without a sequel—these might have meant anything +or nothing. She might even have turned whiter than she did, and yet +not be said to show the cross-fire of torments in her heart. She +was, as we told you, a strong woman, either by nature, or else her +life had made her one.</p> + +<p>For, think of what the recesses of her memory held; think of the +past she looked back on, and knew to be nothing but a blank to him. +Think of what <i>she</i> was, and <i>he</i> was, as he stood there and said, +"Anybody else, but his wife;" and then rather shaped the "No" that +followed with his lips than said it; but shook an emphasis into the +word with his head.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to get your hair cut, Mr. Fenwick?" said she; +and he did think she changed the subject abruptly, without + +<!-- Page 99 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +apparent +cause. "It's just like a lion's mane when you shake it like that."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, if you think it too disreputable."</p> + +<p>"I like it. Sally wants to cut it...."</p> + +<p>The last few words showed the completeness of Fenwick's <i>tame +cattitude</i> in the family. It had developed in an amazingly short +time. Was it due to the old attachment of this man and woman—an +attachment, mind you, that was sound and strong till it died a +violent death? We do not find this so very incredible; perhaps, +because that memory of their old parting in the garden went nearer +to an actual revival than any other stirring in his mind. But, of +course, there may have been others equally strong, only we chance to +hear of this one.</p> + +<p>That was not our purpose, however, in recording such seeming trivial +chat. It was not trivial on Mrs. Nightingale's part. She had made up +her mind to flinch from nothing, always to grasp her nettle. Here +was a nettle, and she seized it firmly. If she identified as clearly +as she did that shaken lion-mane of Fenwick's with that of Gerry, +the young man of twenty years ago, and seeing its identity was +silent, that would be flinching. She would and did say the self-same +thing she could recall saying to Gerry. And she asked Fenwick when +he was going to get his hair cut with a smile, that was like that of +the Indian brave under torture. A knife was through her heart. But +it was well done, so she thought to herself. If she could be as +intrepid as that, she could go on and live. She tried experiments of +this sort when the watchful merry eyes of her daughter were not upon +her, and even felt glad, this time, that the Major was having a doze +underneath a "Daily Telegraph." Fenwick took it all as a matter of +course, mere chaff....</p> + +<p>Did he? If so, why, after a few words more of chat, did he press his +hands on his eyes and shake a puzzled head; then, after an abrupt +turn up and down the room, come back to where he stood at first and +draw a long breath?</p> + +<p>"Was that a recurrence, Mr. Fenwick?" she asked. They had come to +speak of these mental discomforts as <i>recurrences</i>. They would +afflict him, not seldom, without bringing to his mind any definite +image. And this was the worst sort. When an image came, his mind +felt eased.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 100 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"A sort of one."</p> + +<p>"Can you tell when it came on?" All this was nettle-grasping. She +was getting used to it. "Was it before or after I said that about +your hair?"</p> + +<p>"After. No, before. Perhaps just about then." Mrs. Nightingale +decided that she would not tempt Providence any further. +Self-discipline was good, but not carried to danger-point.</p> + +<p>"Now sit down and be quiet," she said. "We won't talk any more about +unpleasant things. Only the worst of it is," she added, smiling, +"that one's topics—yours and mine, I mean—are so limited by the +conditions. I should ask any other man who had been about the world, +as you <i>must</i> have done, all sorts of questions about all sorts of +places—where he had been, whom he had seen. You can't answer +questions, though I hope you will some day...."</p> + +<p>She paused, and he saw the reason. "You see," said he, with a +good-humoured laugh, "one gets back directly to the unpleasant +subject, whether one will or no. But if I could remember all about +my precious self, I might not court catechism about it...."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> should not about mine." This was said in a low tone, with a +silent look on the unraised eyes that was almost an invitation not +to hear, and her lips hardly moved to say it, either. He missed it +for the moment, but finished his speech with the thought in his +mind.</p> + +<p>"Still, it's an ill-wind that blows nobody good. See what a clear +conscience I have! But what was that <i>you</i> said?"</p> + +<p>She dropped the fire-screen and raised her eyes—fine eyes they +were, which we might have likened to those of Juno had the eyes of +oxen been blue—turning them full on him. "When?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Just this minute. I ought to have apologized for interrupting you."</p> + +<p>"I said I should not court catechism about myself. I should not." +Fenwick felt he could not assign this speech its proper place in the +dialogue without thinking. He thought gravely, looking to all +seeming into the fire for enlightenment; then turned round and +spoke.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 101 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Surely that is true, in a sense, of all mankind—mankind and +womankind. Nobody wants to be seen through. But one's past would +need to be a very shaky one to make one wish for an oblivion like +mine to extinguish it."</p> + +<p>"I should not dislike it. I have now all that I wish to keep out of +the past. I have Sally. There is nothing I could not afford to +forget in the past, no one thing the loss of which could alter her +in the least, that little monkey of a daughter of mine! And there +are many, many things I should like to see the last of." From which +speech Fenwick derived an impression that the little monkey, the +vulgar child, had come back warm and living and welcome to the +speaker's mind, and had driven away some mists of night, some +uglinesses that hung about it. How he wished he could ask: "Was one +of them her father?" That was not practicable. But it was something +of that sort, clearly. His mind could not admit the idea of a +haunting remorse, a guilty conscience of an action of her own, in +the memory of the woman who spoke to him. He was too loyal to her +for that. Besides, the wording of her speech made no such +supposition necessary. Fenwick's answer to it fell back on +abstractions—the consolation a daughter must be, and so forth.</p> + +<p>"There she is!" said her mother; and then added, as perturbation +without heralded Miss Sally's approach: "I will tell you what I +meant some other time." For there she was, no doubt of it, wild with +excitement to report the splendid success of the great sestet, the +production of which had been the event of the musical gathering she +had come from. And you know as well as we do how it is when youth +and high spirits burst in upon the sober stay-at-homes, intoxicated +with music and lights and supper and too many people talking at +once. Sally's eyebrows and teeth alone would have been enough to set +all the birds singing in the dullest coppices decorum ever planted, +let alone the tales she had to tell of all the strange and wonderful +things that had come to pass at the Erskine Peels', who were the +givers of the party, and always did things on such a scale.</p> + +<p>"And where do you think, mother, Mrs. Erskine Peel gets all those +good-looking young men from that come to her parties? Why, from the +Stores, of course. Just fancy!... How do I know? Why, because I +talked to one of them for ever so long, and + +<!-- Page 102 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +made him tell me all +about it. I detected him, and told him so straight off. How did I +recognise him? Why, of course, because he's that young man that came +here about the letter. Oh, <i>you</i> know, Mr. Fenwick! Gracious me, how +slow you are! The young man that brought you the letter to +translate. Rather tall, dark eyes."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, certainly. I remember him quite well. Well, I expect he +made a very good young man for a small tea-party."</p> + +<p>"Of course he did, and it's quite ridiculous." By which the vulgar +child meant that class distinctions were ridiculous. She had this +way of rushing subjects, eliding the obvious, and relying on her +hearers. "He told me all about it. He'd been universally provided, +he said; and I promised not to tell. Miss Erskine Peel—that's +Orange, you know, the soprano—went to the manager and said her +mother said they <i>must</i> get more men, though it wasn't dancing, or +the rooms looked so bad; only they mustn't be fools, and must be +able to say Wagner and Liszt and things. And he hoped I didn't think +he was a fool."</p> + +<p>"What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Said I couldn't say—didn't know him well enough. He might be, to +look at. Or not, accordingly. I didn't say <i>that</i>, you know, mamma."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know, darling. You're very rude sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Well, he said he could certainly say Wagner and Liszt, and even +more, because—it was rather sad, you know, mamma dear——"</p> + +<p>"Sally, you've told that young man he may call; you know you have!"</p> + +<p>"Well, mamma dear, and if I have, I don't see that anybody's mare's +dead. Because, do listen!" Fenwick interposed a parenthesis.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you need to be apprehensive, Mrs. Nightingale. He was +an educated young man enough. His not knowing a French phrase like +that implies nothing. Not one in a hundred would." The way in which +the Major, who, of course, had come out of his doze on the inrush of +Miss Sally, looked across at Fenwick as he said this, implied an +acquired faith in the judgment of the latter. Sally resumed.</p> + +<p>"Just let me tell you. His name's Bradshaw. Only he's no relation + +<!-- Page 103 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +to <i>the</i> Bradshaw—in a yellow cover, you know. We-e-ell, I don't +see anything in that!" Sally is defending her position against a +smile her mother and Fenwick have exchanged. They concede that there +is nothing in it, and Sally continues. "Where was I? Oh, Bradshaw; +yes. He was an awfully promising violinist—awfully promising! And +what do you think happened? Why, the nerves of his head gave way, +and he couldn't stand the vibration! So it came to being Cattley's +or nothing." Sally certainly had the faculty of cutting a long story +short.</p> + +<p>She thought the story, so cut, one that her mother and Mr. Fenwick +might have shown a more active interest in, instead of saying it was +time for all of us to be in bed. She did not, however, ascribe to +them any external preoccupation—merely an abstract love of Truth; +for was it not nearly one o'clock in the morning?</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, a little incident of Mr. Fenwick's departure, not +noticed at the moment, suddenly assumed vitality just as Sally was +"going off," and woke her up. What was it she overheard her mother +say to him, just as he was leaving the house, about something she +had promised to tell him some time? However, reflection on it with +waking faculties dissipated the importance it seemed to have +half-way to dreamland, and Sally went contentedly to sleep again.</p> + +<p>Fenwick, as he walked to his lodgings through the dull February +night, did not regard this something, whatever it was, as a thing of +slight importance at all. He may have been only "spooney," but it +was in a sense that left him no pretence for thinking that anything +connected with this beautiful young widow-lady could be unimportant +to him. On the contrary, she was more and more filling all his +waking thoughts, and becoming the pivot on which all things turned. +It is true, he "dismissed from his mind"—whatever that means—every +presumptuous suggestion that in some precious time to come she might +be willing to throw in her lot with his own, and asked himself what +sort of thing was he that he should allow such an idea to come even +as far as contradiction-point? He, a poor inexplicable wreck! What +was the Self he had to offer, and what else had he? But, indeed, the +speculation rarely got even to this maturity, so promptly was it +nipped in the bud. Only, there were so + +<!-- Page 104 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +many buds to nip. He became +aware that he was giving a good deal of attention to this sort of +gardening.</p> + +<p>Also, he had a consciousness that he was growing morbidly anxious +for the maintenance of his own oblivion. That which was at first +only a misgiving about what a return of memory might bring to light, +was rapidly becoming a definite desire that nothing should come to +light at all. How <i>could</i> he look forward to that "hypothetical" +wife whom he did not in the least believe in, but who might be +somewhere, for all that! He knew perfectly well that his relations +with Krakatoa Villa would <i>not</i> remain the same, say what you might! +Of course, he also knew that he had no relations there that <i>need</i> +change—most certainly not! At this point an effort would be made +against the outcrop of his thoughts. Those confounded buds were +always bursting. It was impossible to be even with them.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was on this evening, or rather early morning, as he +walked home to his lodgings, that Fenwick began to recognise more +fully than he had done before Mrs. Nightingale's share in what was, +if not an absolute repugnance to a revival of the unknown past, at +least a very ready acquiescence in his ignorance of it. But surely, +he reasoned with himself, if this cause is making me contented with +my darkness, it is the more reason that it should be penetrated.</p> + +<p>An uncomfortable variation of his dream of the resurrected +first-floor crossed his mind. Suppose he had forgotten the +furniture, but remembered the place, and gone back to tenant it with +a van-load of new chairs and tables. What would he have done with +the poor old furniture?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 105 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">MORE GIRLS' CHATTER. SWEEPS AND DUSTMEN. HOW SALLY DISILLUSIONED +MR. BRADSHAW. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN</p> + +<p>It is impossible to make Gluck's music anything but a foretaste of +heaven, as long as there is any show of accuracy in the way it is +rendered. But, then, you must go straight on, and not go over a +difficult phrase until you know it. You must play fair. Orpheus +would probably only have provoked Cerberus—certainly wouldn't have +put him to sleep—if he had practised, and counted, and gone back +six bars and done it again.</p> + +<p>But Cerberus wasn't at 260, Ladbroke Grove Road, on the Tuesday +following Mrs. Erskine Peel's musical party, which was the next time +Sally went to Lætitia Wilson. And it was as well that he wasn't, for +Sally stuck in a passage at the end of one page and the beginning of +the next, so that you had to turn over in the middle; and it was bad +enough, goodness knew, without that! It might really have been the +north-west passage, so insuperable did it seem.</p> + +<p>"I shall never get it right, I know, Tishy," said the viola.</p> + +<p>And the violin replied: "Because you never pay any attention to the +arpeggio, dear. It doesn't begin on the chord. It begins on the G +flat. Look here, now. One—two—three. One—two—three."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's all very well. Who's going to turn over the leaf, I +should like to know? I know I shall never do it. Not because the +nerves of my head are giving way, but because I'm a duffer."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know what that young man is, dear?" Sally accepts +this quite contentedly, and immediately skips a great deal of +unnecessary conversation.</p> + +<p>"I'm not in love with him, Tishy dear."</p> + +<p>"Didn't say you were, dear. But I suppose you don't know what he is, +all the same." Which certainly seems inconsecutive, but we really +cannot be responsible for the way girls talk.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 106 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Don't know, and don't want to know. What is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's from Cattley's." This throws a light on the conversation. It +shows that Sally had told Lætitia who she was going to meet at her +mother's next evening. Sally is not surprised.</p> + +<p>"As if I didn't know all about this! As if he didn't tell me his +story!"</p> + +<p>"Like the mock-turtle in Alice?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Tishy dear, is that an insinuation, or isn't it? Do be +candid!"</p> + +<p>"The mock-turtle told his story. Once, he was a real turtle."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Tishy dear. That's as much as to say Julius Bradshaw is +mock. I can't see where the mockness comes in myself. He told <i>me</i> +all about it, plain enough."</p> + +<p>"Yes—and you know what a rage Mrs. Erskine Peel is in, and says it +was an <i>éclaircissement</i>."</p> + +<p>"Why can't she be satisfied with English?... What! Of course, there +are <i>hundreds</i> of English equivalents for <i>éclaircissement</i>. There's +bust-up."</p> + +<p>"That's only one."</p> + +<p>"Tishy dear, don't be aggravating! Keep to the point. Why mustn't I +have Julius Bradshaw to play with if I like because he's at +Cattley's?"</p> + +<p>"You may, if you <i>like</i>, dear! As long as you're satisfied, it's all +right."</p> + +<p>"What fault have you to find with him?"</p> + +<p>"I! None at all. It's all perfectly right."</p> + +<p>"You are <i>the</i> most irritating girl."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we take the <i>adagio</i> now—if you're rested."</p> + +<p>But Sally's back was up. "Not until you tell me what you really mean +about Julius Bradshaw."</p> + +<p>So Lætitia had her choice between an explicit statement of her +meaning, and an unsupported incursion into the <i>adagio</i>.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you'll admit there <i>are</i> such things as social +distinctions?"</p> + +<p>Sally wouldn't admit anything whatever. If sociometry was to be a +science, it must be worked out without axioms or postulates. Lætitia +immediately pointed out that if there were no such things as social +distinctions of course there was no reason why Mr. Julius Bradshaw +shouldn't take his violin to Krakatoa Villa. + +<!-- Page 107 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +"Or here, or +anywhere," concluded Lætitia, with a touch of pride in the status of +Ladbroke Grove Road. Whereupon Sally surrendered as much of her case +as she had left.</p> + +<p>"You talk as if he was a sweep or a dustman," said she.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why you should mind if I do, dear. Because, if there +are to be no social distinctions, there's no reason why all the +sweeps and dustmen in Christendom shouldn't come and play the violin +at Krakatoa Villa.... Now, not <i>too</i> slow, you know. +One—two—three—four—that'll do." Perhaps Sally felt it would be a +feeble line of defence to dwell on the scarcity of good violinists +among sweeps and dustmen, and that was why she fell into rank +without comment.</p> + +<p>This short conversation, some weeks on in the story, lets in one or +two gleams of side-light. It shows that Sally's permission to the +young man Bradshaw to call at her mother's had been promptly taken +advantage of—jumped at is the right expression. Also that Miss +Wilson had stuck-up ideas. Also that Sally was a disciple of what +used to be called Socialism; only really nowadays such a lot of +things get called Socialism that the word has lost all the +discriminative force one values so much in nouns substantive. Also +(only we knew it already) that Sally was no lawyer. We do not love +her the less, for our part.</p> + +<p>But nothing in this interchange of shots between Sally and her +friend, nor in anything she said to her mother about Mr. Bradshaw, +gives its due prominence to the fact that, though that young +gentleman was a devout worshipper at the shrine of St. Satisfax, he +had only become so on the Sunday after Miss Sally had casually +mentioned the latter as a saint she frequented. Perhaps she +"dismissed it from her mind," and it was obliging enough to go. +Perhaps she considered she had done her duty by it when she put on +record, in soliloquy, her opinion that if people chose to be gaping +idiots they might, and she couldn't help it. She had a happy faculty +for doing what she called putting young whippersnappers in their +proper places. This only meant that she managed to convey to them +that the lines they might elect to whippersnap on were not to be +those of sentimental nonsense. And perhaps she really dealt in the +wisest way with Mr. Bradshaw's romantic adoration of her at a +distance when he fished for leave to call upon her. The line he made +his application + +<!-- Page 108 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +on was that he should so like to play her a rapid +movement by an unpronounceable Slav. She said directly, why not come +and bring his violin on Wednesday evening at nine? That was her +mother's address on the card on the fiddle-case. He must recollect +it—which he did unequivocally.</p> + +<p>Now, if this young lady had had a fan, she might have tittered with +it, or blushed slightly, and said, "Oh, Mr. Bradshaw!" or, "Oh, +sir!" like in an old novel—one by Fanny Burney, or the like. But +she did nothing of the sort, and the consequence was that he had, as +it were, to change the <i>venue</i> of his adoration—to make it a little +less romantic, in fact. Her frank and breezy treatment of the +subject had let in a gust of fresh air, and blown away all +imagination. For there naturally was a good deal of that in a +passion based on a single interview and nourished by weekly +stimulants at morning services. In fact, when he presented himself +at Krakatoa Villa on Wednesday evening as invited—the day after +Lætitia's remarks about his social position—he was quite prepared +to be introduced to the young woman's <i>fiancé</i>, if.... Only, when he +got as far as the <i>if</i>, he dropped the subject. As soon as he found +there was no such person he came to believe he would not have been +much disconcerted if there had been. How far this was true, who can +say?</p> + +<p>He was personally one of those young men about whom you may easily +produce a false impression if you describe them at all. This is +because your reader will take the bit in his teeth, and run away +with an idea. If you say a nose has a bridge to it, this directly +produces in some minds an image like Blackfriars Bridge; that it is +straight, the Æginetan marbles; that it is <i>retroussé</i>, the dog in +that Hogarth portrait. Suggest a cheerful countenance, and you stamp +your subject for ever as a Shakespearian clown. So you must be +content to know that Mr. Bradshaw was a good-looking young man, of +dark complexion, and of rather over medium height and good manners. +If he had not been, he would never, as an article of universal +provision for parties, have passed muster at Cattley's. He was like +many other young men such as one sees in shops; but then, what very +nice-looking young men one sometimes sees there! Sally had classed +him as a young whippersnapper, but this was unjust, if it + +<!-- Page 109 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +impugned +his stature. She repeated the disparaging epithet when, in further +justification to Miss Wilson of her asking him to her mother's +house, she sketched a policy of conduct to guide inexperienced girls +in their demeanour towards new male friends. "You let 'em come close +to, and have a good look," said the vulgar child. "Half of 'em will +be disgusted, and go away in a huff."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale had known Mr. Bradshaw for a long time as a +customer at a shop knows the staff in the background, mere office +secretions, who only ooze out at intervals. For Bradshaw was not +strictly a counter-jumper, although Miss Wilson more than once spoke +of him so, adding, when it was pointed out to her that theoretically +he never went behind counters, by jumping or otherwise, that that +didn't make the slightest difference: the principle was the same.</p> + +<p>Sally's mother did not share her friend's fancies. But she had not +confidence enough in the stability of the earth's crust to give way +freely to her liberalism, drive a coach-and-six through the Classes, +and talk to him freely about the shop. She did not know what a +Social Seismologist would say on the point. So she contented herself +with treating him as a matter of course, as a slight acquaintance +whom she saw often, merely asking him if that was he. To which the +reply was in the affirmative, like question-time in the Commons.</p> + +<p>"Is this the Strad? Let's have it out," says Sally. For Mr. Bradshaw +possessed a Strad. He brought it out of its coffin with something of +the solicitude Petrarch might have shown to the remains of Laura, +and when he had rough-sketched its condition of discord and +corrected the drawing, danced a Hungarian dance on it, and +apologized for his presumption in doing so. He played so very well +that it certainly did seem rather a cruel trick of fate that gave +him nerves in his head. Sally then said, might she look at it? and +played chords and runs, just to feel what it was like. Her comment +was that she wished her viola was a Strad.</p> + +<p>We record all this to show what, perhaps, is hardly worth the +showing—a wavering in a man's mind, and that man a young one. Are +they not at it all day long, all of them? Do they do anything but +waver?</p> + +<p>When Sally said she wished her viola was a Strad, Mr. Bradshaw's + +<!-- Page 110 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +mind shortly became conscious that some passing spook, of a low +nature, had murmured almost inaudibly that it was a good job <i>his</i> +Strad wasn't a viola. "Because, you see," added the spook, "that +quashes all speculation whether you, Mr. Bradshaw, are glad or sorry +you needn't lay your instrument at this young lady's feet. Now, if +immediately after you first had that overwhelming impression of +her—got metaphorically torpedoed, don't you know?—such a wish as +hers had been expressed, you probably would have laid both your +Strad and your heart at her feet, and said take my all!" But now +that he had been so far disillusioned by Sally's robust and breezy +treatment of the position, he was not quite sure the spook had not +something to say for himself. Mr. Bradshaw was content to come down +off his high horse, and to plod along the dull path of a mere +musical evening visitor at a very nice house. Pleasant, certainly, +but not the aim of his aspirations from afar at St. Satisfax's. His +<i>amour propre</i> was a little wounded by that spook, too. Nothing +keeps it up to the mark better than a belief in one's stability—in +love-matters, especially.</p> + +<p>He was not quite sure of the exact moment the spook intruded his +opinion, so <i>we</i> can't be expected to know. Perhaps about the time +Miss Wilson came in (just as he was showing how carefully he had +listened to Joachim) and said could <i>he</i> play those? She wished +<i>she</i> could. She was thrown off her guard by the finished execution, +and for the moment quite forgot Cattley's and the classitudes. Sally +instantly perceived her opening. She would enjoy catching Tishy out +in any sort of way. So she said: "Mr. Bradshaw will show you how, +Tishy dear; of course he will. Only, not now, because if we don't +begin, we shan't have time for the long quartet." If you say this +sort of thing about strangers in Society, you really ought to give +them a chance. So thought Lætitia to herself, and resolved to blow +Sally up at the first opportunity.</p> + +<p>As for that culprit, she completed her work, from her own position +of perfect security, with complacency at least. And she felt at the +end of her evening (which we needn't dwell on, as it was all +crotchets, minims, and F sharps and G flats) that her entrenchments +had become spontaneously stronger without exertion on her part. For +there were Tishy and Mr. Bradshaw, between + +<!-- Page 111 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +whom Sally had certainly +understood there was a great gulf fixed, sitting on the very same +sofa and talking about a Stradivarius. She concluded that, broadly +speaking, Debrett's bark is worse than his bite, and that he is, at +heart, a very accommodating character.</p> + +<p>"I hope you saw Tishy, mamma dear." So spoke Sally to her mother, +after the musicians first, and then Fenwick, had dispersed their +several ways. Mrs. Nightingale seemed very <i>distraite</i> and +preoccupied.</p> + +<p>"Saw Tishy what, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"Tishy and Mr. Bradshaw on that sofa."</p> + +<p>"No, darling. Oh yes, I did. What about them?"</p> + +<p>"After all that rumpus about shop-boys!" But her mother's attention +is not easy to engage this evening, somehow. Her mind seems +somewhere else altogether. But from where it is, it sees the vulgar +child very plainly indeed, as she puts up her face to be kissed with +all its animation on it. She kisses it, animation and all, caressing +the rich black hair with a hand that seems thoughtful. A hand can. +Then she makes a little effort to shake off something that draws her +away, and comes back rather perfunctorily to her daughter's sphere +of interest and the life of town.</p> + +<p>"Did Lætitia call Mr. Bradshaw a shop-boy, chick?"</p> + +<p>"Very nearly—at least, I don't know what you call not calling +anybody shop-boy if she didn't." Her mother makes a further +effort—comes back a little more.</p> + +<p>"What did she say, child?"</p> + +<p>"Said you could always tell, and it was no use my talking, and the +negro couldn't change his spots."</p> + +<p>"She has some old-fashioned ideas. But how about calling him a +shop-boy?"</p> + +<p>"Not in words, but worse. Tishy always goes round and round. I wish +she'd <i>say</i>! However, Dr. Vereker quite agrees with me. <i>We</i> think +it <i>dishonest</i>!"</p> + +<p>"What did Dr. Vereker think of Mr. Bradshaw?" We have failed to note +that the doctor was the 'cello in the quartet.</p> + +<p>"Now, mamma darling, fancy asking Dr. Prosy what he thinks! I wasn't +going to. Besides, as if it mattered what they think of each +other!... Who? Why, men, of course!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 112 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Mr. Fenwick's a man, and you asked him."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Fenwick's a man on other lines—absolutely other. He doesn't +come in really." Her mother repeats the last four words, not exactly +derisively—rather, if anything, her accent and her smile may be +said to caress her daughter's words as she says them. She is such a +silly, but such a dear little goose—that seems the implication.</p> + +<p>"We-e-ll," says Sally, as she has said before, and we have tried to +spell her. "I don't see anything in that, because, look how +reasonable! Mr. Fenwick's ... Mr. Fenwick's ... why, of course, +entirely different. I say, mother dearest...."</p> + +<p>"What, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"What were you and Mr. Fenwick talking about so seriously in the +back drawing-room?" The two are upstairs in the front bedroom at +this minute, by-the-bye.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear us, darling?"</p> + +<p>"No, because of the row. But one could tell, for all that." Then +Sally sees in an instant that it is something her mother is not +going to tell her about, and makes immediate concession. "Where was +the Major going that he couldn't come?" she asks. "He generally +makes a point of coming when it's music."</p> + +<p>"I fancy he's dining at the Hurkaru," says her mother. But she has +gone back into her preoccupation, and from within it externalises an +opinion that we should be better in bed, or we shall never be up in +the morning.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 113 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">WHAT FENWICK AND SALLY'S MOTHER HAD BEEN SAYING IN THE BACK +DRAWING-ROOM. OP. 999. BACK IN THAT OLD GARDEN AGAIN, AND HOW GERRY +COULD NOT SWIM. THE OLD TARTINI SONATA</p> + +<p>As soon as ever Mr. Bradshaw touched his violin, and before ever he +began to play his Hungarian Dance on all four strings at once, Mrs. +Nightingale and Mr. Fenwick went away into the back drawing-room, +not to be too near the music. Because there was a fire in both +rooms.</p> + +<p>In the interval of time that had passed since Christmas Sally had +contrived to "dismiss from her mind" Colonel Lund's previsions about +her mother and Mr. Fenwick. Or they had given warning, and gone of +their own accord. For by now she had again fallen into the frame of +mind which classified her mother and Fenwick as semi-elderly people, +and, so to speak, out of it all. So her mind assented readily to +distance from the music as a sufficient reason for a secession to +the back room. Non-combatants are just as well off the field of +battle.</p> + +<p>But a closer observer than Sally at this moment would have noticed +that chat in an undertone had already set in in the back +drawing-room even before the Hungarians had stopped dancing. Also +that the applause that came therefrom, when they did stop, had a +certain perfunctory air, as of plaudits something else makes room +for, and comes back again after. Not that she would have "seen +anything in it" if she had, because, whatever her mother said or did +was, in Sally's eyes, right and normal. Abnormal and bad things were +conceived and executed outside the family. Nor, in spite of the +<i>sotto voce</i>, was there anything Sally could not have participated +in, whatever exception she might have taken to something of a +patronising tone, inexcusable towards our own generation even in the +most semi-elderly people on record.</p> + +<p>Her mother, at Sally's latest observation point, had taken the + +<!-- Page 114 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +large armchair quite on the other side of the rug, to be as far off +the music as possible. Mr. Fenwick, in reply to a flying remark of +her own, she being at the moment a music-book seeker, wouldn't bring +the other large armchair in front of the fire and be comfortable, +thank you. He liked this just as well. Sally had then commented on +Mr. Fenwick's unnatural love of uncomfortable chairs "when he wasn't +walking about the room." She fancied, as she passed on, that she +heard her mother address him as "Fenwick," without the "Mr." So she +did.</p> + +<p>"You are a restless man, Fenwick! I wonder were you so before the +accident? Oh dear! there I am on that topic again!" But he only +laughed.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't hurt <i>me</i>," he said. "That reminds me that I wanted to +remind <i>you</i> of something you said you would tell me. You know—that +evening the kitten went to the music-party—something you would tell +me some time."</p> + +<p>"I know; I'll tell you when they've got to their music, if there +isn't too much row. Don't let's talk while this new young man's +playing; it seems unkind. It won't matter when they're all at it +together." But in spite of good resolutions silence was not properly +observed, and the perfunctory pause came awkwardly on the top of a +lapse. Fenwick then said, as one who avails himself of an +opportunity:</p> + +<p>"No need to wait for the music; they can't hear a word we say in +there. We can't hear a word <i>they</i> say."</p> + +<p>"Because they're making such a racket." Mrs. Nightingale paused with +a listening eye, trying to disprove their inaudibility. The +examination confirmed Fenwick. "I like it," she continued—"a lot of +young voices. It's much better when you don't make out what they +say. When you can't hear a word, you fancy some sense in it." And +then went on listening, and Fenwick waited, too. He couldn't well +fidget her to keep her promise; she would do it of herself in time. +It might be she preferred talking under cover of the music. She +certainly remained silent till it came; then she spoke.</p> + +<p>"What was it made me say that to you about something I would tell +you? Oh, I know. You said, perhaps if you knew your past, you would +not court catechism about it. And I said that, knowing mine, <i>I</i> +should not either. Wasn't that it?" She + +<!-- Page 115 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +fixed her eyes on him as +though to hold him to the truth. Perhaps she wanted his verbal +recognition of the possibility that she, too, like others, might +have left things in the past she would like to forget on their +merits—cast-off garments on the road of life. It may have been +painful to her to feel his faith in herself an obstacle to what she +wished at least to hint to him, even if she could not tell him +outright. She did not want too much divine worship at her shrine—a +ready recognition of her position of mortal frailty would be so much +more sympathetic, really. A feeling perhaps traceably akin to what +many of us have felt, that if our father the devil—"auld Nickie +Ben"—would only tak' a thought and mend, as he aiblins might, he +would be the very king of father confessors. If details had to be +gone into, we should be sure of <i>his</i> sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was it. And I suppose I looked incredulous." Thus +Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"You looked incredulous. I would sooner you should believe me. Would +you hand me down that fire-screen off the chimney-piece? Thank you." +She was hardening herself to the task she had before her. He gave +her the screen, and as he resumed his seat drew it nearer to her. +Mozart's Op. 999 had just started, and it was a little doubtful if +voices could be heard unless, in Sally's phrase, they were close to.</p> + +<p>"I shall believe you. Does what you were going to tell me relate +to——"</p> + +<p>"Go on."</p> + +<p>"To your husband?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." The task had become easier suddenly. She breathed more freely +about what was to come. "I wish you to know that he may be still +living. I have heard nothing to the contrary. But I ought to speak +of him as the man who was my husband. He is no longer that." Fenwick +interposed on her hesitation.</p> + +<p>"You have divorced him?" But she shook her head—shook a long +negative. And Fenwick looked up quickly, and uttered a little sharp +"Ah!" as though something had struck him. The slow head-shake said +as plain as words could have said it, "I wish I could say yes." So +expressive was it that Fenwick did not even speculate on the third +alternative—a separation without + +<!-- Page 116 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +a divorce. He saw at once he +could make it easier for her if he spoke out plain, treating the +bygone as a thing that <i>could</i> be spoken of plainly.</p> + +<p>"He divorced you?" She was very white, but kept her eyes steadily +fixed on him over the fire-screen, and her voice remained perfectly +firm and collected. The music went on intricately all the while. She +spoke next.</p> + +<p>"To all intents and purposes. There was a technical obstacle to a +legal divorce, but he tried for one. We parted sorely against my +will, for I loved him, and now it is over nineteen years since I saw +him last, or heard of him or from him. But he was absolutely +blameless. Unless, indeed, it is to be counted blame to him that he +could not bear what no other man could have borne. I cannot possibly +give you all details. But I wish you to hear this that I have to +tell you from myself. It is painful to me to tell, but it would be +far worse that you should hear it from any one else. I feel sure it +is safe to tell you; that you will not talk of it to others—least +of all to that little chick of mine."</p> + +<p>"You may trust me—indeed, you may—without reserve. I see you wish +to tell me no more, so I will not ask it."</p> + +<p>"And blame me as little as possible?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot blame you."</p> + +<p>"Before you say that, listen to as much as I can tell you of the +story. I was a young girl when I went out alone to be married to him +in India. We had parted in England eight months before, and he had +remained unchanged—his letters all told the same tale. I quarrelled +with my mother—as I now see most unreasonably—merely because she +wished to marry again. Perhaps she was a little to blame not to be +more patient with a headstrong, ill-regulated girl. I was both. It +ended in my writing out to him in India that I should come out and +marry him at once. My mother made no opposition." She remained +silent for a little, and her eyes fell. Then she spoke with more +effort, rather as one who answers her own thoughts. "No, I need say +nothing of the time between. It was no excuse for the wrong I did +<i>him</i>. I can tell you what that was...." It did not seem easy, +though, when it came to actual words. Fenwick spoke into the pause.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 117 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Why tell me now? Tell me another time."</p> + +<p>"I prefer now. It was this way: I kept something back from him till +after we were married—something I should have told him before. Had +I done so, I believe to this moment we should never have parted. But +my concealment threw doubt on all else I said.... I am telling more +than I meant to tell." She hesitated again, and then went on. "That +was my wrong to him—the concealment. But, of course, it was not the +ground of the divorce proceedings." Fenwick stopped her again.</p> + +<p>"Why tell me any more? You are being led on—are leading yourself +on—to say more than you wish."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will leave it there. Only, Fenwick, understand this: my +husband was young and generous and noble-hearted. Had I trusted him, +I believe all might have gone well, even though he...." She +hesitated again, and then cancelled something unsaid. "The +concealment was my fault—the mistrust. That was all. Nothing else +was my <i>fault</i>." As she says the words in praise of her husband she +finds it a pleasure to let her eyes rest on the grave, handsome, +puzzled face that, after all, really is <i>his</i>. She catches herself +wondering—so oddly do the undercurrents of mind course about—where +he got that sharp white scar across his nose. It was not there in +the old days.</p> + +<p>She looks at him until he, too, looks up, and their eyes meet. +"Well, then," she says, "I will tell you no more. Blame me as little +as possible." And to this repetition of her previous words he says +again, "I cannot blame you," very emphatically.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Nightingale felt perplexed at his evident sincerity; would +rather he should have indulged in truisms, we were not all of us +perfect, and so forth. When she spoke again, some bars of the music +later, she took for granted that his mind, like hers, was still +dwelling on his last words. She felt half sorry she had, so to +speak, switched off the current of the conversation.</p> + +<p>"If you will think over what I have told you, Fenwick, you will see +that you cannot help doing so."</p> + +<p>"How can that be?"</p> + +<p>"Surely! My husband sought to divorce me, and was himself absolutely +blameless. How can you do otherwise than blame me?"</p> + +<p>"Partly—only partly—because I see you are keeping back +something—something + +<!-- Page 118 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +that would exonerate you. I cannot believe you +were to blame."</p> + +<p>"Listen, Fenwick! As I said, I cannot tell you the whole; and the +Major, who is the only man alive who knows all the story, will, I +know, refuse to tell you anything, even if you ask him, and that I +wish you not to do."</p> + +<p>"I should not dream of asking him."</p> + +<p>"Well, he would refuse. I know it. But I want you to know all I can +tell you. I do not want any groundless excuses made for me. I will +not accept any absolution from any one on a false pretence. You see +what I mean."</p> + +<p>"I see perfectly. I am not sure, though, that you see my meaning. +But never mind that. Is there anything further you would really like +me to know?"</p> + +<p>She waited a little, and then answered, keeping her eyes always +fixed on Fenwick: "Yes, there is."</p> + +<p>But at this moment the first movement of Op. 999 came to a perfect +and well thought out conclusion, bearing in mind everything that had +been said on six pages of ideas faultlessly interchanged by four +instruments, and making due allowance for all exceptions each had +courteously taken to the other. But Op. 999 was going on to the +second movement directly, and only tolerated a pause for a few +string-tightenings and trial-squeaks, to get in tune, and the +removal of a deceased fly from a piano-candle. The remark from the +back-room that we could hear beautifully in here seemed to fall +flat, the second violin merely replying "All right!" passionlessly. +The instruments then asked each other if they were ready, and +answered yes. Then some one counted four suggestively, for a start, +and life went on again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale and Fenwick sat well on into the music before +either spoke. He, resolved not to seem to seek or urge any +information at all; all was to come spontaneously from her. She, +feeling the difficulty of telling what she had to tell, and always +oppressed with the recollection of what it had cost her to make her +revelation to this selfsame man nineteen years ago. She wished he +would give the conversation some lift, as he had done before, when +he asked if what she had to tell referred to her husband. But, +although he would gladly have repeated his assistance, he could see +his way to nothing, this time, that seemed + +<!-- Page 119 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +altogether free from +risk. How if he were to blunder into ascribing to her something more +culpable than her actual share in the past? She half guessed this; +then, seeing that speech must come from herself in the end, took +heart and faced the position resolutely. She always did.</p> + +<p>"You know this, Fenwick, do you not, that when there is a divorce, +the husband takes the children from their mother—always, when she +is in the wrong; too often, when she is blameless. I have told you I +was the one to blame, and I tell you now that though my husband's +application for a divorce failed, from a technical point of law, all +things came about just as though he had succeeded. Don't analyse it +now; take it all for granted—you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I understand. Suppose it so! And then?"</p> + +<p>"And then this. That little monkey of mine—that little unconscious +fiddling thing in there"—and as Mrs. Nightingale speaks, the sound +of a caress mixes with the laugh in her voice; but the pain comes +back as she goes on—"My Sallykin has been mine, all her life! My +poor husband never saw her in her childhood." As she says the word +<i>husband</i> she has again a vivid <i>éclat</i> of the consciousness that it +is he—himself—sitting there beside her. And the odd thought that +mixes itself into this, strange to say, is—"The pity of it! To +think how little he has had of Sally in all these years!"</p> + +<p>He, for his part, can for the moment make nothing of this part of +the story. He can give his head the lion-mane shake she knows him by +so well, but it brings him no light. He is reduced to mere slow +repetition of her data; his hand before his eyes to keep his brain, +that has to think, clear of distractions from without.</p> + +<p>"Your husband never saw her. She has been yours all her life. Had +she been your husband's child, he would have exercised his so-called +rights—his <i>legal</i> rights—and taken her away. Are those the +facts—so far?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—go on. No—stop; I will tell you. At the beginning of this +year I should have been married exactly twenty years. Sally is +nineteen—you remember her birthday?"</p> + +<p>"Nineteen in August. Now, let me think!" Just at this moment the +second movement of Op. 999 came to an end, and gave + +<!-- Page 120 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +an added +plausibility to the blank he needed to ponder in. The viola in the +next room looked round across her chair-back, and said, "I say, +mother"—to a repetition of which Mrs. Nightingale replied what did +her daughter say? What she said was that her mother and Mr. Fenwick +were exactly like the canaries. They talked as hard as they could +all through the music, and when it stopped they shut up. Wasn't that +true? To which her mother answered affirmatively, adding, "You'll +have to put a cloth over us, chick, and squash us out."</p> + +<p>Fenwick was absorbed in thought, and did not notice this interlude. +He did not speak until the music began again. Then he said abruptly:</p> + +<p>"I see the story now. Sally's father was not...."</p> + +<p>"Was not my husband." There is not a trace of cowardice or +hesitation in her filling out the sentence. There is pain, but that +again dies away in her voice as she goes on to speak of her +daughter. "I do not connect him with her now. She is—a thing of +itself—a thing of herself! She is—she is Sally. Well, you see what +she is."</p> + +<p>"I see she is a very dear little person." Then he seems to want to +say something and to pause on the edge of it; then, in answer to a +"yes" of encouragement from her, continues, "I was going to say that +she must be very like him—like her father."</p> + +<p>"Very like?" she asks—"or very unlike? Which did you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean very like as to looks. Because she is so unlike you."</p> + +<p>"She is like enough to him, as far as looks go. It's her only fault, +poor chick, and <i>she</i> can't help it. Besides, I mind it less now +that I have more than half forgiven him, for her sake." The tone of +her voice mixes a sob and a laugh, although she utters neither, and +is quite collected. "But she is quite unlike him in character. Sally +is not an angel—oh dear, no!" The laugh predominates. "But——"</p> + +<p>"But what?"</p> + +<p>"She is not a devil." And as she said this the pain was all back +again in the dropped half-whisper in which she said it. And in that +moment Fenwick made his guess of the whole story, which maybe went +nearer than we shall do with the information we + +<!-- Page 121 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +have to go upon. In +this narrative, as we tell it now, that story is <i>known</i> only to its +chief actor, and to her old friend who is now dining at the Hurkaru +Club.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The third movement of Op. 999 was not a very long one, and, coming +to an end at this point, seemed to supply a reason for silence that +was not unwelcome in the back drawing-room. The end of a trying +conversation had been attained. Both speakers could now affect +attention to what was going on in the front. This had taken the form +of a discussion between Mr. Julius Bradshaw and Miss Lætitia Wilson, +who was anxious to transfer her position of first violin to that +young gentleman. We regret to have to report that Miss Sally's +agreement with her friend about the desirability had been <i>sotto +voce</i>'d in these terms: "Yes, Tishy dear! Do make the shop-boy play +the last movement." And Miss Wilson had then suggested it, saying +there was a bit she knew she couldn't play. "And you expect <i>me</i> +to!" said the owner of the Strad, "when I haven't so much as looked +at it for three years past." To which Miss Sally appended a marginal +note, "Stuff and nonsense! Don't be affected, Mr. Bradshaw." +However, after compliments, and more protestations from its owner, +the Strad was brought into hotchpot, and Lætitia abdicated.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come and sit in here, to be away from the music?" said +the back-drawing-room. But Lætitia wanted to see Mr. Bradshaw's +fingering of that passage. We are more interested in the back +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Like many other athletic men—and we have seen how strongly this +character was maintained in Fenwick—he hated armchairs. Even in the +uncomfortable ones—by which we mean the ones <i>we</i> dislike—his +restless strength would not remain quiet for any length of time. At +intervals he would get up and walk about the room, exasperating the +sedate, and then making good-humoured concession to their weakness. +Mrs. Nightingale could remember all this in Gerry the boy, twenty +years ago.</p> + +<p>If it had not been for that music, probably he would have walked +about the room over that stiff problem in dates he had just grappled +with. As it was, he remained in his chair to solve it—that is, if +he did solve it. Possibly, the moment he saw something + +<!-- Page 122 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +important +turned on the date of Sally's birth, he jumped across the solution +to the conclusion it was to lead to. Given the conclusion, the +calculation had no interest for him.</p> + +<p>But the story his mind constructed to fit that conclusion stunned +him. It knitted his brows and clenched his teeth for him. It made +the hand that had been hanging loose over the uncomfortable +chair-back close savagely on something—a throat, perhaps, that his +imagination supplied? How like he looked, thought his companion, to +himself on one occasion twenty years ago! But his anger now was on +her behalf alone; it was not so in that dreadful time she hoped he +might never recollect. If only his memory of all the past might +remain as now, a book with a locked clasp and a lost key!</p> + +<p>She watched him as he sat there, and saw a calmer mood come back +upon him. Each wanted a <i>raison d'être</i> for a silent pause, and +neither was sorry for the desire each might ascribe to the other of +hearing the last movement of the music undisturbed. Op. 999 was +prospering, there was no doubt of it! Lætitia Wilson was a very fair +example of a creditable career at the R.A.M. But she was not quite +equal to this unfortunate victim of a too nervous system, who could +play like an angel for half an hour, mind you—not more. This was +his half-hour; and it was quite reasonable for Fenwick to take for +granted that his hostess would like to pay attention to it, or +<i>vice-versa</i>. So both sat silent.</p> + +<p>But as she sat listening to Op. 999, and watching wonderingly the +strange victim of oblivion, of whom she knew—scarcely acknowledging +it always, though—that she had once for a short time called him +husband, her mind went back to an old time when he and she were +young: before the tragic memory that she sometimes thought might +have been lived down had come into her life and his. And a scene +rose up before her out of that old time—a scene of young men, +almost boys, and girls who but the other day were in the nursery, +playing lawn-tennis in a happy garden, with never a thought for +anything in this wide world but themselves, and each other, and the +scoring, and how jolly it would be in the house-boat at Henley +to-morrow. And then this garden-scene a little later in the +moonrise, and herself and one of the players, who was Gerry—this +very man—left + +<!-- Page 123 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +by the other two to themselves, on a garden-seat his +arm hung over, just as it did now over that chair-back. How exactly +he sat then as he sat now, his other hand in charge of the foot he +had crossed on his knee, just as now, to keep it from a slip along +his lawn-tennis flannels! How well she could remember the +tennis-shoe, with its ribbed rubber sole, in place of that +highly-polished calf thing! And she could remember every word they +said, there in the warm moonlight.</p> + +<p>"What a silly boy you are!"</p> + +<p>"I don't care. I shall always say exactly the same. I can't help +it."</p> + +<p>"All silly boys say that sort of thing. Then they change their +minds."</p> + +<p>"I never said it to any girl in my life but you, Rosey. I never +thought it. I shall never say it again to any one but you."</p> + +<p>"Don't be nonsensical!"</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>not</i>! It's <i>true</i>."</p> + +<p>"Wait till you've been six months in India, Gerry."</p> + +<p>And then the recollection of what followed made it seem infinitely +strange to her that Fenwick should remain, as he had remained, +immovable. If the hand she could remember so well, for all it had +grown so scarred and service-worn and hairy, were to take hers as it +did then, as they sat together on the garden-seat, would it shake +now as formerly? If his great strong arm her memory still felt round +her were to come again now, would she feel in it the tremor of the +passion he was shaken by then; and in caresses such as she half +reproved him for, but had no heart to resist, the reality of a love +then young and strong and full of promise for the days to come? And +now—what? The perished trunk of an uprooted tree: the shadow of a +half-forgotten dream.</p> + +<p>As he sat silent, only now and then by some slight sign, some new +knitting of the brow or closing of the hand, showing the tension of +the feeling produced by the version his mind had made of the story +half told to him—as he sat thus, under a kind of feint of listening +to the music, the world grew stranger and stranger to his companion. +She had fancied herself strong enough to tell the story, but had +hardly reckoned with his possible likeness to himself. She had +thought that she could keep + +<!-- Page 124 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +the twenty years that had passed +clearly in her mind; could deal with the position from a good, +sensible, matter-of-fact standpoint.</p> + +<p>The past was past, and happily forgotten by him. The present had +still its possibilities, if only the past might remain forgotten. +Surely she could rely on herself to find the nerve to go through +what was, after all, a mere act of duty. Knowing, or rather feeling, +that Fenwick would ask her to marry him as soon as he dared—it was +merely a question of time—her duty was plainly to forewarn him—to +make sure that he was alive to the antecedents of the woman he was +offering himself to. She knew <i>his</i> antecedents; as many as she +wished to know. If the twenty years of oblivion concealed +irregularity, immorality—well, was she not to blame for it? Was +ever a better boy than Gerry, as she knew him, to the day they +parted? It was her fault or misfortune that had cast him all adrift. +As to that troublesome question of a possible wife elsewhere, in the +land of his oblivion, she had quite made up her mind about that. +Every effort had been made to find such a one, and failed. If she +reappeared, it would be her own duty to surrender Fenwick—if he +wished to go back. If he did not, and his other wife wished to be +free, surely in the <i>chicane</i> of the law-courts there must be some +shuffle that could be for once made useful to a good end.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale had reasoned it all out in cold blood, and she was, +as we have told you, a strong woman. But had she really taken her +own measure? Could she sit there much longer; with him beside her, +and his words of twenty years ago sounding in her ears; almost the +feeling of the kisses she had so dutifully pointed out the +lawlessness, and allowed the repetition of, in that old forgotten +time—forgotten by him, never by her! Was it possible to bear, +without crying out, the bewilderment of a mixed existence such as +that his presence and identity forced upon her, wrenching her this +way and that, interweaving the woof of <i>then</i> with the weft of +<i>now</i>, even as in that labyrinth of musical themes and phrases in +the other room they crossed and recrossed one another at the bidding +of each instrument as its turn came to tell its tale? Her brain +reeled and her heart ached under the intolerable stress. Could she +still hold on, or would she be, after all, driven to make some +excuse, and run for the solitude + +<!-- Page 125 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +of her own room to live down the +tension as best she might alone?</p> + +<p>The music itself came to her assistance. Its triumphant strength, in +an indescribable outburst of hope or joy or mastery of Fate, as it +drew near to its final close, spoke to her of the great ocean that +lies beyond the crabbed limits of our stinted lives, the boundless +sea our rivulets of life steal down to, to be lost in; and while it +lasted made it possible for her to be still. She took her eyes from +Fenwick, and waited. When she raised them again, in the silence Op. +999 came to an end in, she saw that he had moved. His face had gone +into his hands; and as she looked up, his old action of rubbing them +into his loose hair, and shaking it, had come back, and his strong +identity with his boyhood, dependent on the chance of a moment, had +disappeared. He got up suddenly, and after a turn across the room he +was in, walked into the other one, and contributed his share to the +babble of felicitation or comment that followed what was clearly +thought an achievement in musical rendering.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Lætitia Wilson. "Was ever a poor girl so +sat upon? I feel quite flat!" This was not meant to be taken too +much <i>au pied de la lettre</i>. It was merely a method of praise of Mr. +Bradshaw.</p> + +<p>"But what a jolly shame you had to give it up!" This was Sally in +undisguised admiration. But in Mr. Julius Bradshaw's eyes, Sally's +identity had undergone a change. Her breezy frankness had made hay +of a <i>grande passion</i>, and was blowing the hay all over the field. +He had come close to, and had a good look; but he will hardly go +away in a huff, although he feels a little silly over his public +worship of these past weeks. Just at this moment of the story, +however, he is very apologetic towards Miss Wilson; on whom, if she +reports correctly, he has sat. He tries no pretences with a view to +her reinstatement, even on a par with himself. He knows, and every +one knows, they would be seen through immediately. It is no use +assuring her she is a capital player, of her years. Much better let +it alone!</p> + +<p>"Are you any the worse, Mr. Bradshaw?" says Dr. Vereker. Obviously, +as a medical authority, it is his duty to "voice" this inquiry. So +he voices it.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 126 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"N—no; but that's about as much as I can do, with safety. It won't +do to spoil my night's rest, and be late at the shop." It was easy +to talk about the shop with perfect unreserve after such a +performance as that.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! we are so sorry for you!" Thus the two girls. And +concurrence comes in various forms from Vereker, Fenwick, and the +pianist, whom we haven't mentioned before. He was a cousin of Miss +Wilson's, and was one of those unfortunate young men who have no +individuality whatever. But pianists have to be human unless you can +afford a pianola. You may speak of them as Mr. What's-his-name, or +Miss Thingummy, but you must give them tea or coffee or cake or +sandwiches, or whatever is brought in on a tray. This young man's +name, we believe, was Elsley—Nobody Elsley, Miss Sally in her +frivolity had thought fit to christen him. You know how in your own +life people come in and go out, and you never know anything about +them. Even so this young man in this story.</p> + +<p>"I was very sorry for myself, I assure you"—it is Bradshaw who +speaks—"when I had to make up my mind to give it up. But it +couldn't be helped!" He speaks without reserve, but as of an +unbearable subject; in fact, Sally said afterwards to Tishy, "it +seemed as if he was going to cry." He doesn't cry, though, but goes +on: "At one time I really thought I should have gone and jumped into +the river."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you?" asks Sally. "I should have."</p> + +<p>"Yes, silly Sally!" says Lætitia; "and then you would have swum like +a fish. And the police would have pulled you out. And you would have +looked ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>But Sally is off on a visit to her mother in the next room.</p> + +<p>"Tired, mammy darling?"</p> + +<p>She kisses her, and her mother answers: "Yes, love, a little," and +kisses her back.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he play <i>beautifully</i>, mother?" says Sally.</p> + +<p>But her mother says "Yes" absently. Her attention is taken off by +something else. What is wrong with Mr. Fenwick? Sally doesn't think +anything is. It's only his way.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure there's something wrong," says Mrs. Nightingale, and gets +up to go into the front-room rather wearily. "I shall go + +<!-- Page 127 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +to bed +soon, poppet," she says, "and leave you to do the honours. Is +anything wrong, doctor?" She speaks under her voice to Vereker, +looking very slightly round at Fenwick, who, after the movement that +alarmed her—a rather unusually marked head-shake and pressure of +his hands on his eyes—is standing looking down at the fire, on the +rug with his back to her, as she speaks to Vereker.</p> + +<p>"I fancy he's had what he calls a recurrence," says the doctor. +"Nothing to hurt. These half-recollections will go on until the +memory comes back in earnest. It may some time."</p> + +<p>"Are you talking about me, doctor?" His attention may have been +caught by a reflection in a glass before him. "Yes, it was a very +queer recurrence. Something about lawn-tennis. Only it had to do +with what Miss Wilson said about the police fishing Sally out of the +water." He looks round for Miss Wilson, but she is at the other end +of the room on a sofa talking to Bradshaw about the Strad, as +recorded once before. Sally testifies:</p> + +<p>"Tishy said it wouldn't work—trying to drown yourself if you could +swim. No more it would."</p> + +<p>"But why should that make me think of lawn-tennis? It did." He looks +seriously distressed by it—can make nothing out.</p> + +<p>"Kitten," says Sally's mother to her suddenly, "I think I shall go +away to bed. I'm feeling very tired."</p> + +<p>She says good-night comprehensively, and departs. But she is so +clearly the worse for something that her daughter follows her to see +that the something is not serious. Outside she reassures Sally, who +returns. Oh no, she is only tired; really nothing else.</p> + +<p>But what drove her out of the room was a feeling that she must be +alone and silent. Could her position be borne at all? Yes, with +patience and self-control. But that "why should it make me think of +lawn-tennis?" was trying. Not only the pain of still more revived +association, but the fear that his memory might travel still further +into the past. It was living on the edge of the volcano.</p> + +<p>Her own memory had followed on, too, taking up the thread of that +old interview in the garden of twenty years ago. She had + +<!-- Page 128 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +felt again +the clasp of his arm, the touch of his hand; had heard his voice of +passionate protest—protest against the idea that he could ever +forget. And she had then pretended to make a half-joke of his +earnestness. What would he do now, really, if she were to tell him +she preferred his great friend Arthur Fenwick to him? That was +nonsense, he said. She knew she didn't. Besides, Arthur wanted +Jessie Nairn. Why, didn't they waltz all the waltzes at the party +last week?... Well, so did we, for that matter, all-but.... And just +look how they had run away together! Wasn't that them coming back? +Yes, it was; and artificial calm ensued, and more self-contained +manners. But then, before the other two young lovers could rejoin +them, she had time for a word more.</p> + +<p>"No, dear Gerry, seriously. If I were to write out <i>no</i> to you in +India—a great big final <span class="smcap">no</span>—then +what do you think you would do?"</p> + +<p>"I know what I <i>think</i> I should do. I should throw myself into the +Hooghly or the Ganges."</p> + +<p>"You silly boy! You would swim about, whether you liked or no. And +then Jemadars, or Shastras, or Sudras, or something would come and +pull you out. And then how ridiculous you would look!"</p> + +<p>"No, Rosey, because I can't swim. Isn't it funny?"</p> + +<p>Then she recollected <i>his</i> friend's voice striking in with: "What's +that? Gerry Palliser swim! Of course he can't. He can wrestle, or +run, or ride, or jump; and he's the best man I know with the gloves +on. But swim he <i>can't</i>! That's flat!" Also how Gerry had then told +eagerly how he was nearly drowned once, and Arthur fished him up +from the bottom of Abingdon Lock. The latter went on:</p> + +<p>"It was after that we tattooed each other, his name on my arm, my +name on his, so as not to quarrel. You know, I suppose, that men who +tattoo each other's arms can't quarrel if they try?" Arthur showed +"A. Palliser," tattooed blue on his arm. Both young men were very +grave and earnest about the safeguard. And then she remembered a +question she asked, and how both replied with perfect gravity: "Of +course, sure to!" The question had been:—Was it invariable that all +men quarrelled if one saved the other from drowning?</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 129 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>She sits upstairs alone by the fire in her bedroom, and dreams again +through all the past, except the nightmare of her life—<i>that</i> she +always shudders away from. Sally will come up presently, and then +she will feel ease again. Now, it is a struggle against fever.</p> + +<p>She can hear plainly enough—for the house is but a London suburban +villa—the strains from the drawing-room of what is possibly the +most hackneyed violin music in the world—the Tartini (so-called) +Devil Sonata—every phrase, every run, every chord an enthralling +mystery still, an utterance none can explain, an inexhaustible thing +no age can wither, and no custom stale. It is so soothing to her +that it matters little if it makes them late. But that young man +will destroy his nerves to a certainty outright.</p> + +<p>Then comes the chaos of dispersal—the broken fragments of the +intelligible a watchful ear may pick out. Dr. Vereker won't have a +cab; he will leave the 'cello till next time, and walk. Mr. Bradshaw +wants to get to Bayswater. Of course, that's all in our way—we +being Miss Wilson and the cousin, the nonentity. We can give Mr. +Bradshaw a lift as far as he goes, and then he can take the growler +on. Then more good-nights are wished than the nature of things will +admit of before to-morrow, Fenwick and Vereker light something to +smoke, with a preposterous solicitude to use only one tandsticker +between them, and walk away umbrella-less. From which we see that +"it" is holding up. Then comes silence, and a consciousness of a +policeman musing, and suspecting doors have been left stood open.</p> + +<p>And it was then Sally went upstairs and indited her friend for +sitting on that sofa after calling him a shop-boy. And she didn't +forget it, either, for after she and her mother were in bed, and +presumably better, she called out to her.</p> + +<p>"I say, mammy!"</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't that St. John's Church?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't which St. John's Church?"</p> + +<p>"Where Tishy goes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ladbroke Grove Road. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because now Mr. Bradshaw will go there—public worship!"</p> + +<p>"Will he, dear? Suppose we go to sleep." But she really meant + +<!-- Page 130 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +"you," not "we"; for it was a long time before she went to sleep +herself. She had plenty to think of, and wanted to be quiet, +conscious of Sally in the neighbourhood.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>We hope our reader was not misled, as we ourselves were, when Mrs. +Nightingale first saw the name on Fenwick's arm, into supposing that +she accepted it as his real name. She knew better. But then, how was +she to tell him his name was Palliser? Think it over.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 131 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A SLEEPLESS NIGHT MRS. NIGHTINGALE HAD, AND HOW SALLY WOKE UP AND +TALKED</p> + +<p>Was it possible, thought Rosalind in the sleepless night that +followed, that the recurrence of the tennis-garden in Fenwick's mind +might grow and grow, and be a nucleus round which the whole memory +of his life might re-form? Even so she had seen, at a chemical +lecture, a supersaturated solution, translucent and spotless, +suddenly fill with innumerable ramifications from one tiny crystal +dropped into it. Might not this shred of memory chance to be a +crystal of the right salt in the solvent of his mind, and set going +a swift arborescence to penetrate the whole? Might not one branch of +that tree be a terrible branch—one whose leaves and fruit were +poisoned and whose stem was clothed with thorns? A hideous metaphor +of the moment—call it the worst in her life—when her young +husband, driven mad with the knowledge that had just forced its way +into his reluctant mind, had almost struck her away from him, and +with angry words, of which the least was traitress, had broken +through the effort of her hands to hold him, and left her speechless +in her despair.</p> + +<p>It was such a nightmare idea, this anticipation that next time she +met Gerry's eyes she might see again the anger that was in them on +that blackest of her few married days, might see him again vanish +from her, this time never to return. And it spread an ever growing +horror, greater and greater in the silence and the darkness of the +night, till it filled all space and became a power that thrilled +through every nerve, and denied the right of any other thing in the +infinite void to be known or thought of. Which of us has not been +left, with no protection but our own weak resolutions, to the mercy +of a dominant idea in the still + +<!-- Page 132 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +hours when others were near us +sleeping whom we might not wake to say one word to save us?</p> + +<p>What would his face be like—how would his voice sound—when she saw +him next? Or would some short and cruel letter come to say he had +remembered all, and now—for all the gratitude he owed her—he could +not bear to look upon her face again, hers who had done him such a +wrong! If so, what should she—what could she do?</p> + +<p>There was only one counter-thought to this that brought with it a +momentary balm. She would send Sally to him to beg, beseech, implore +him not to repeat his headstrong error of the old years, to swear to +him that if only he could know all he would forgive—nay, more, that +if he could know quite all—the very whole of the sad story—not +only would he forgive, but rather seek forgiveness for himself for +the too harsh judgment he so rashly formed.</p> + +<p>What should she say to Sally? how should she instruct her to plead +for her? Never mind that now. All she wanted in her lonely, nervous +delirium was the ease the thought gave her, the mere thought of the +force of Sally's fixed, immovable belief—<i>that</i> she was certain +of—that whatsoever her mother had done was right. Never mind the +exact amount of revelation she would have to make to Sally. She +might surely indulge the idea, just to get at peace somehow, +till—as pray Heaven it might turn out—she should know that Gerry's +mind was still unconscious of its past. The chances were, so she +thought mechanically to herself, that all her alarms were +groundless.</p> + +<p>And at the first—strange as it is to tell—Sally's identity was +only that of the daughter she had now, that filled her life, and +gave her the heart to live. She was the Sally space was full of for +her. <i>What</i> she was, and <i>why</i> she was, merged, as it usually did, +in the broad fact of her existence. But there was always the chance +that this <i>what</i> and <i>why</i>—two bewildering imps—should flaunt +their unsolved conundrum through her mother's baffled mind. There +they were, sure enough in the end, enjoying her inability to answer, +dragging all she prayed daily to be better able to forget out into +the light of the memory they had kindled. There they were, chuckling +over her misery, and hiding—so Rosalind feared—a worse question +than any, keeping it back for a + +<!-- Page 133 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +final stroke to bring her mental +fever to its height—how could Sally be the daughter of a devil and +her soul be free from the taint of his damnation?</p> + +<p>If Rosalind had only been well read in the mediæval classics, and +had known that story of Merlin's birth—the Nativity that was to +rewrite the Galilean story in letters of Hell, and give mankind for +ever to be the thrall of the fallen angel his father! And now the +babe at its birth was snatched away to the waters of baptism, and +poor Satan—alas!—obliged to cast about for some new plan of +campaign; which, to say truth, he must have found, and practised +with some success. But Rosalind had never read this story. Had she +done so she might have felt, as we do, that the tears of an +absolutely blameless mother might serve to cleanse the inherited sin +from a babe unborn as surely as the sacramental fount itself.</p> + +<p>And it may be that some such thought had woven itself into the story +Fenwick's imagination framed for Rosalind the evening before—that +time that she said of Sally, "She is not a devil!" The exact truth, +the ever-present record that was in her mind as she said this, must +remain unknown to us.</p> + +<p>But to return to her as she is now, racked by a twofold mental +fever, an apprehension of a return of Fenwick's memory, and a +stimulated recrudescence of her own; with the pain of all the scars +burnt in twenty years ago revived now by her talk with him of a few +hours since. She could bear it no longer, there alone in the +darkness of the night. She <i>must</i> get at Sally, if only to look at +her. Why, that child never could be got to wake unless shaken when +she was wanted. Ten to one she wouldn't this time. And it would make +all the difference just to see her there, alive and leagues away in +dreamland. If her sleep lasted through the crackle of a match to +light her candle, heard through the open door between their rooms, +the light of the candle itself wouldn't wake her. Rosalind +remembered as she lit the candle and found her dressing-gown—for +the night air struck cold—how once, when a ten-year-old, Sally had +locked herself in, and no noise or knocking would rouse her; how she +herself, alarmed for the child, had thereon summoned help, and the +door was broken open, but only to be greeted by the sleeper, after +explanation, with, "Why didn't you knock?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 134 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>She was right in her forecast, and perhaps it was as well the girl +did not wake. She would only have had a needless fright, to see her +mother, haggard with self-torment, by her bedside at that hour. So +Rosalind got her full look at the rich coils of black hair that +framed up the unconscious face, that for all its unconsciousness had +on it the contentment of an amused dreamer, at the white ivory skin +it set off so well, at the one visible ear that heard nothing, or if +it did, translated it into dream, and the faint rhythmic movement +that vouched for soundless breath. She looked as long as she dared, +then moved away. But she had barely got her head back on her pillow +when "Was that you, mother?" came from the next room. Her mother +always said of Sally that nothing was certain but the <i>imprévu</i>, and +ascribed to her a monstrous perversity. It was this that caused her +to sleep profoundly through that most awakening of incidents, a +person determined not to disturb you, and then to wake up short into +that person's self-congratulations on success.</p> + +<p>"Of course it was, darling. Who else could it have been?"</p> + +<p>Sally's reply, "I thought it was," seems less reasonable—mere +conversation making—and a sequel as of one reviewing new and more +comfortable positions in bed follows naturally. A decision on the +point does not prohibit conversation, rather facilitates it.</p> + +<p>"What did you come for, mammy?"</p> + +<p>"Eau-de-Cologne." The voice has a fell intention of instant sleep in +it which Sally takes no notice of.</p> + +<p>"Have you got it?"</p> + +<p>"Got it? Yes. Go to sleep, chatterbox."</p> + +<p>It was true about the eau-de-Cologne, for Rosalind, with a +self-acting instinct that explanation might be called for, had +picked up the bottle on her return journey. You see, she was always +practising wicked deceits and falsehoods, all to save that little +chit being made miserable on her account. But the chit wasn't going +to sleep again. She was going to enjoy her new attitude awake. Who +woke her up? Answer that.</p> + +<p>"I say, mother!"</p> + +<p>"What, kitten? Go to sleep."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 135 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"All right—in a minute. Do you remember Mr. Fenwick's bottle of +eau-de-Cologne?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. Go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Just going. But wasn't it funny?"</p> + +<p>"What funny?—Oh, the eau-de-Cologne!"</p> + +<p>Rosalind isn't really sleepy, and may as well talk. "Yes, that was +very funny. I wonder where he got it." She seems roused, and her +daughter is repentant.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! What a shame! I've just spoiled your go-off. Poor mother!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, chick! I like to talk a little. It <i>was</i> funny that he +should have a big bottle of eau-de-Cologne, of all things, in his +pocket."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it was rummer still about Rosalind Nightingale—<i>his</i> +Rosalind Nightingale, the one he knew." This is dangerous ground, +and Rosalind knows it. But a plea of half-sleep will cover mistakes, +and conversation about the pre-electrocution period is the nearest +approach to taking Sally into her confidence that she can hope for. +She is so weary with her hours of wakefulness that she becomes a +little reckless, foreseeing a resource in such uncertainty of speech +as may easily be ascribed to a premature dream.</p> + +<p>"It's not <i>impossible</i> that it should have been your grandmother, +kitten. But we can't find out now. And it wouldn't do us any good +that I can see."</p> + +<p>"It would be nice to know for curiosity. Couldn't anything be fished +out in the granny connexion? No documents?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing will ever be fished out by me in that connexion, Sally +darling." Sally knows from her mother's tone of voice that they are +approaching an <i>impasse</i>. She means to give up the point the moment +it comes fully in view. But she will go on until that happens. She +has to think out what was the name of the Sub-Dean before she speaks +again.</p> + +<p>"Didn't the Reverend Decimus Ireson grab all the belongings?"</p> + +<p>"They were left to him, child. It was all fair, as far as that goes. +I didn't grudge him the things—indeed, I felt rather grateful to +him for taking them. It would only have been painful, + +<!-- Page 136 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +going over +them. Different people feel differently about these things. I didn't +want old recollections."</p> + +<p>"Hadn't the Reverend Decimus a swarm of brats?"</p> + +<p>"Sal—ly <i>dar</i>ling!... Well, yes, he had. There were two families. +One of six daughters, I forget which."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't they be got at, to see if they wouldn't recollect +something?"</p> + +<p>"Of course they could. They've married a lawyer—at least, one of +them has. And all the rest, I believe, live with them." At another +time Sally would have examined this case in relation to the Deceased +Wife's Sister Bill. She was too interested now to stop her mother +continuing: "But what a silly chick you are! Why should <i>they</i> know +anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't they?"</p> + +<p>Her mother's reply is emphasized. "My dear, do consider! I was with +your grandmother till within a month of her marriage with the +Reverend, as you call him, and I should have been ten times more +likely to hear about Mr. Fenwick than ever they would afterwards. +Your grandmother had never even seen them when I went away to India +to be married."</p> + +<p>"What's the lawyer's name?"</p> + +<p>"Bearman, I think, or Dearman. But why?—Oh, no, by-the-bye, I think +it's Beazley."</p> + +<p>"Because I could write and ask, or call. Sure to hear something."</p> + +<p>"My dear, you'll hear nothing, and they'll only think you mad." +Rosalind was beginning to feel that she had made a mistake. She did +not feel so sure Sally would hear nothing. A recollection crossed +her mind of how one of the few incidents there was time for in her +short married life had been the writing of a letter by her husband +to his friend, the real Fenwick, and of much chaff therein about the +eldest of these very daughters, and her powerful rivalry to Jessie +Nairn. It came back to her now. Sally alarmed her still further.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother. I shall just get Mr. Fenwick to hunt up the address, +and go and call on the Beazleys." This sudden assumption of a +concrete form by the family was due to a vivid image that filled +Sally's active brain immediately of a household of parched women +presided over by a dried man who owned a wig on + +<!-- Page 137 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +a stand and knew +what chaff-wax meant, which she didn't. A shop window near Lincoln's +Inn was responsible. But to Rosalind it really seemed that Sally +must have had other means of studying this family, and she was +frightened.</p> + +<p>"You don't know them, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"Not the least. Don't want to." This reflection suggests caution. +"Perhaps I'd better write...."</p> + +<p>"Better do nothing of the sort, child. Better go to sleep...."</p> + +<p>"All right." But Sally does not like quitting the subject so +abruptly, and enlarges on it a little more. She sketches out a +letter to be written to the lady who is at present a buffer-state +between the dried man and the parched women. "Dear madam," she +recites, "you may perhaps recall—or will perhaps recall—which is +right, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Either, dear. Go to sleep." But just at this moment Rosalind +recollects with satisfaction that the name was neither Beazley nor +Dearman, but Tressilian Tredgold. She has been thinking of falling +back on affectation of sleep to avoid more alarms, but this makes it +needless.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I've got the name wrong," she says, with revived +wakefulness in her voice.</p> + +<p>But Sally is murmuring to herself—"Perhaps recall my mother, Mrs. +Rosalind Nightingale—Rosalind in brackets—by her maiden name +of—by the same name—who married the late Mr. Graythorpe in +India—I say, mother...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, little goose."</p> + +<p>"How am I to put all that?"</p> + +<p>"Go to sleep! I don't think you'll find that family very—coming. My +impression is you had much better leave it alone. What good would it +do you to find out who Mr. Fenwick was? And perhaps have him go away +to Australia!"</p> + +<p>"Why Australia?"</p> + +<p>Oh dear, what mistakes Rosalind did make! Why on earth need she name +the place she knew Gerry did go to? America would have done just as +well.</p> + +<p>"Australia—New Zealand—America—anywhere!" But Sally doesn't +mind—has fallen back on her letter-sketch.</p> + +<p>"Apologizing for troubling you, believe me, dear madam, yours +faithfully—or very faithfully, or truly—Rosalind Nightingale.... + +<!-- Page 138 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +No; I should not like Mr. Fenwick to go away anywhere. No more would +you. I want him here, for us. So do you!"</p> + +<p>"I should be very sorry indeed for Mr. Fenwick to go away. We should +miss him badly. But fancy what his wife must be feeling, if he has +one. I can sympathize with her." It really was a relief to say +anything so intensely true.</p> + +<p>Did the reality with which she spoke impress Sally more than the +mere words, which were no more than "common form" of conversation? +Probably, for something in them brought back her conference with the +Major on Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was +that she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving +his whiskers?—that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his +suspicions true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And +here she was with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of +the Major. And see how dark it was in both rooms! One could say +anything. Besides, if her mother didn't want to answer, she could +pretend to be asleep. She wouldn't ask too loud, to give her a +chance.</p> + +<p>"Mother darling, if Mr. Fenwick was to make you an offer, how should +you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! <i>What's</i> the child saying? What is it, Sallykin? I was +just going off."</p> + +<p>Now, obviously, you can ask a lady Sally's question in the easy +course of flowing chat, but you can't drag her from the golden gates +of sleep to ask it. It gets too official. So Sally backed out, and +said she had said nothing, which wasn't the case. The excessive +readiness with which her mother accepted the statement looks, to us, +as if she had really been awake and heard.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 139 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW MILLAIS' "HUGUENOT" CAME OF A WALK IN THE BACK GARDEN. AND HOW +FENWICK VERY NEARLY KISSED SALLY</p> + +<p>In spite of Colonel Lund's having been so betimes in his +forecastings about Mrs. Nightingale and Fenwick (as we must go on +calling him for the present), still, when one day that lady came, +about six weeks after the nocturne in our last chapter, and told him +she must have his consent to a step she was contemplating before she +took it, he felt a little shock in his heart—one of those shocks +one so often feels when one hears that a thing he has anticipated +without pain, even with pleasure, is to become actual.</p> + +<p>But he replied at once, "My dear! Of course!" without hearing any +particulars; and added: "You will be happier, I am sure. Why should +I refuse my consent to your marrying Fenwick? Because that's it, I +suppose?" That was it. The Major had guessed right.</p> + +<p>"He asked me to marry him, last night," she said, with simple +equanimity and directness. "I told him yes, as far as my own wishes +went. But I said I wouldn't, if either you or the kitten forbade the +banns."</p> + +<p>"I don't think we shall, either of us." It was a daughter's +marriage-warrant he was being asked to sign; a document seldom +signed without a heartache, more or less, for him who holds the pen. +But his <i>cœur navré</i> had to be concealed, for the sake of the +applicant; no wet blanket should be cast on her new happiness. He +kissed her affectionately. To him, for all her thirty-nine or forty +birthdays, she was still the young girl he had helped and shielded +in her despair, twenty years ago, he himself being then a widower, +near forty years her senior. "No, Rosa dear," continued the Major. +"As far as I can see, there can be no objection but one—<i>you</i> +know!"</p> + +<p>"<i>The</i> one?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 140 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Yes. It is all a <i>terra incognita</i>. He <i>may</i> have a wife elsewhere, +seeking for him. Who can tell?"</p> + +<p>"It is a risk to be run. But I am prepared to run it"—she was going +to add "for his sake," but remembered that her real meaning for +these words would be, "for the sake of the man I wronged," and that +the Major knew nothing of Fenwick's identity. She had not been able +to persuade herself to make even her old friend her confidant. +Danger lay that way. She <i>knew</i> silence would be safe against +anything but Fenwick's own memory.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is a risk, no doubt," the Major said. "But I am like him. I +cannot conceive a man forgetting that he had a wife. It seems an +impossibility. He has talked about you to me, you know."</p> + +<p>"In connexion with his intention about me?"</p> + +<p>"Almost. Not quite definitely, but almost. He knew I understood what +he meant. It seemed to me he was fidgeting more about his having so +little to offer in the way of worldly goods than about any possible +wife in the clouds."</p> + +<p>"Dear fellow! Just fancy! Why, those people in the City would take +him into partnership to-morrow if he had a little capital to bring +in. They told him so themselves."</p> + +<p>"And you would finance him? Is that the idea? Well, I suppose as I'm +your trustee, if the money was all lost, I should have to make it +up, so it wouldn't matter."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Major dear! is <i>that</i> what being a trustee means?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, my dear Rosa! What did you think it meant?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I don't know what I <i>did</i> think; at least, I thought +it would be very nice if you were my trustee."</p> + +<p>The conversation has gone off on a siding, but the Major shunts the +train back. "That was what you and little fiddle-stick's-end were +talking about till three in the morning, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Major dear, did you hear us? And we kept you awake? What a +<i>shame</i>!"</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>For on the previous evening, Sally being out musicking and expected +home late, Fenwick and Mrs. Nightingale had gone out in the +back-garden to enjoy the sweet air of that rare phenomenon—a really +fine spring night in England—leaving the Major indoors + +<!-- Page 141 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +because of +his bronchial tubes. The late seventies shrink from night air, even +when one means to be a healthy octogenarian. Also, they go away to +bed, secretively, when no one is looking—at least, the Major did in +this case. Of course, he was staying the night, as usual.</p> + +<p>So, in the interim between the Major's good-night and Sally's +cab-wheels, this elderly couple of lovers (as they would have worded +their own description) had the summer night to themselves. As the +Major closed his bedroom window, he saw, before drawing down the +blind, that the two were walking slowly up and down the gravel path, +talking earnestly. No impression of mature years came to the Major +from that gravel path. A well-made, handsome man, with a bush of +brown hair and a Raleigh beard, and a graceful woman suggesting her +beauty through the clear moonlight—that was the implication of as +much as he could see, as he drew the inference a word of soliloquy +hinted at, "Not Millais' Huguenot, so far!" But he evidently +expected that grouping very soon. Only he was too sleepy to watch +for it, and went to bed. Besides, would it have been honourable?</p> + +<p>"It's no use, Fenwick," she said to him in the garden, "trying to +keep off the forbidden subject, so I won't try."</p> + +<p>"It's not forbidden by me. Nothing could be, that <i>you</i> would like +to say."</p> + +<p>Was that, she thought, only what so many men say every day to so +many women, and mean so little by? Or was it more? She could not be +sure yet. She glanced at him as they turned at the path-end, and her +misgivings all but vanished, so serious and resolved was his quiet +face in the moonlight. She was half-minded to say to him, "Do you +mean that you love me, Fenwick?" But, then, was it safe to presume +on the peculiarity of her position, of which he, remember, knew +absolutely nothing.</p> + +<p>For with her it was not as with another woman, who expects what is +briefly called "an offer." In <i>her</i> case, the man beside her was her +husband, to whose exorcism of her love from his life her heart had +never assented. While, in his eyes, she differed in no way in her +relation to him from any woman, to whom a man, placed as he was, +longs to say that she is what he wants most of all mortal things, +but stickles in the telling of it, from sheer cowardice; who dares +not risk the loss of what share he has in her + +<!-- Page 142 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +in the attempt to get +the whole. <i>She</i> grasped the whole position, <i>he</i> only part of it.</p> + +<p>"I am glad it is so," she decided to say. "Because each time I see +you, I want to ask if nothing has come back—no trace of memory?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing! It is all gone. Nothing comes back."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that about the tennis-court? Did it go any further, +or die out completely?"</p> + +<p>He stopped a moment in his walk, and flicked the ash from his cigar; +then, after a moment's thought, replied:</p> + +<p>"I am not sure. It seemed to get mixed with my name—on my arm. I +think it was only because tennis and Fenwick are a little alike." +His companion thought how near the edge of a volcano both were, and +resolved to try a crucial experiment. Better an eruption, after all, +or a plunge in the crater, than a life of incessant doubt.</p> + +<p>"You remembered the name Algernon clearly?"</p> + +<p>"Not <i>clearly</i>. But it was the only name with an 'A' that felt +right. Unless it was Arthur, but I'm sure my name never was Arthur!"</p> + +<p>"Sally thought it was hypnotic suggestion—thought I had laid an +unfair stress upon it. I easily might have."</p> + +<p>"Why? Did you know an Algernon?"</p> + +<p>"My husband's name was Algernon." She herself wondered how any voice +that spoke so near a heart that beat as hers did at this moment +could keep its secret. Yet it betrayed nothing, and so supreme was +her self-control that she could say to herself, even while she knew +she would pay for this effort later, that the pallor of her face +would betray nothing either; he would put that down to the +moonlight. She <i>was</i> a strong woman. For she went steadily on, to +convince herself of her own self-command: "I knew him very little by +that name, though. I always called him Gerry."</p> + +<p>He merely repeated the name thrice, but it gave her a moment of keen +apprehension. Any stirring of memory over it might be the thin end +of a very big wedge. But if there was any, it was an end so thin +that it broke off. Fenwick looked round at her.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," he said, "I rather favour the hypnotic suggestion +theory. For the moment you said the name Gerry, I fancied I + +<!-- Page 143 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +too +knew it as the short for Algernon. Now, that's absurd! No two people +ever made Gerry out of Algernon. It's always Algy."</p> + +<p>"Always. Certainly, it would be odd."</p> + +<p>"I am rather inclined to think," said Fenwick, after a short +silence, "that I can understand how it happened. Only then, perhaps, +my name may not be Algernon at all. And here I have been using it, +signing with it, and so on."</p> + +<p>"What do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suspect this. I suspect that you did lay some kind of +stress, naturally, on your husband's name, and also on its +abbreviation. It affected me somehow with a sense of familiarity."</p> + +<p>"Is it so <i>very</i> improbable that you were familiar with the name +Gerry too? It might be——"</p> + +<p>"Anything might be. But surely we almost know that two accidental +adoptions of Gerry as a short for Algernon would not come across +each other by chance, as yours and mine have done."</p> + +<p>"What is 'almost knowing'? But tell me this. When I call you +Gerry—Gerry ... there!—does the association or impression repeat +itself?" She repeated the name once and again, to try. There was a +good deal of nettle-grasping in all this. Also a wish to clinch +matters, to drive the sword to the hilt; to put an end, once and for +all, to the state of tension she lived in. For surely, if anything +could prove his memory was really gone, it would be this. That she +should call him by his name of twenty years ago—should utter it to +him, as she could not help doing, in the tone in which she spoke to +him then, and that her doing so should arouse no memory of the +past—surely this would show, if anything could show it, that that +past had been finally erased from the scroll of his life. She had a +moment only of suspense after speaking, and then, as his voice came +in answer, she breathed again freely. Nothing could have shown a +more complete unconsciousness than his reply, after another moment +of reflection:</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Mrs. Nightingale, that convinces me that the name +Algernon <i>was</i> produced by your way of saying it. It <i>was</i> hypnotic +suggestion! I assure you that, however strange you may think it, +every time you repeat the name Gerry, it seems more familiar to me. +If you said it often enough, I have no doubt I should soon be +believing in the diminutive as devoutly as + +<!-- Page 144 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +I believe in the name +itself. Because I am quite convinced of Algernon Fenwick. +Continually signing <i>per-pro</i>'s has driven it home." He didn't seem +quite in earnest over his conviction, though—seemed to laugh a +little about it.</p> + +<p>But a sadder tone came into his voice after an interval in which his +companion, frightened at her own temerity, resolved that she would +not call him Gerry again. It was sailing too near the wind. She was +glad he went back from this side-channel of their talk to the main +subject.</p> + +<p>"No, I have no hope of getting to the past through my own mind. I +feel it is silence. And that being so, I should be sorry that any +illumination should come to me out of the past, throwing light on +records my mind could not read—I mean, any proof positive of what +my crippled memory could not confirm. I would rather remain quite in +the dark—unless, indeed——"</p> + +<p>"Unless what?"</p> + +<p>"Unless the well-being of some others, forgotten with my forgotten +world, is involved in—dependent on—my return to it. That would be +shocking—the hungry nestlings in the deserted nest. But I am so +convinced that I have only forgotten a restless life of rapid +change—that I <i>could</i> not forget love and home, if I ever had +them—that my misgivings about this are misgivings of the reason +only, not of the heart. Do you understand me?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. At least, I think so. Go on."</p> + +<p>"I cannot help thinking, too, that a sense of a strong link with a +forgotten yesterday would survive the complete effacement of all its +details in the form of a wish to return to it. I have none. My +to-day is too happy for me to wish to go back to that yesterday, +even if I could, without a wrench. I feel a sort of shame in saying +I should be sorry to return to it. It seems a sort of ... a sort of +disloyalty to the unknown."</p> + +<p>"You might long to be back, if you could know. Think if you could +see before you now, and recognise the woman who was once your wife." +There was nettle-grasping in this.</p> + +<p>"It is a mere abstract idea," he replied, "unaccompanied by any +image of an individual. I perceive that it is dutiful to recognise +the fact that I should welcome her <i>if</i> she appeared as a reality. +But it is a large <i>if</i>. I am content to go on without an +hypothesis—that is really all she is now. And my belief that, if + +<!-- Page 145 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +she had ever existed, I should not be <i>able</i> to disbelieve in her, +underlies my acceptance of her in that character."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale laughed. "We are mighty metaphysical," said she. +"Wouldn't it depend entirely on what she was like, when all's said +and done? I believe I'm right. We women are more practical than men, +after all."</p> + +<p>"You make game of my metaphysics, as you call them. Well, I'll drop +the metaphysics and speak the honest truth." He stopped and faced +round towards her, standing on the garden path. "Only, you must make +me one promise."</p> + +<p>She stopped also, and stood looking full at him.</p> + +<p>"What promise?"</p> + +<p>"If I tell you all I think in my heart, you will not allow it to +come between me and you, to undermine the only strong friendship I +have in the world, the only one I know of."</p> + +<p>"It shall make no difference between us. You may trust me."</p> + +<p>They turned and walked again slowly, once up and down. Then +Fenwick's voice, when he next spoke, had an added earnestness, a +growing tension, with an echo in it, for her, of the years gone +by—a ring of his young enthusiasm, of his passionate outburst in +the lawn-tennis garden twenty years ago. He made no more ado of what +he had to say.</p> + +<p>"I can form no image in my mind, try how I may, of any woman for +whose sake I would give up one hour of the precious privilege I now +enjoy. I have no right to—to assess it, to make a definition of it. +But I <i>have</i> it now. I could not resume my place as the husband of a +now unknown wife—you know what I mean—and not lose the privilege +of being near <i>you</i>. It may be—it is conceivable, I mean; no +more—that a revelation to me of myself, a light thrown on what I +am, would bring me what would palliate the wrench of losing what I +have of you. It <i>may</i> be so—it <i>may</i> be! All I know is—all I can +say is—that I can now <i>imagine</i> nothing, no treasure of love of +wife or daughter, that would be a make-weight for what I should lose +if I had to part from you." He paused a moment, as though he thought +he was going beyond his rights of speech, then added more quietly: +"No; I can imagine <i>no</i> hypothetical wife. And as for my +hypothetical daughter, I find I am always utilising Sally for her."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 146 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Nightingale murmured in an undertone the word "Sallykin," as +she so often did when her daughter was mentioned, with that sort of +caress in her voice. This time it was caught by a sort of gasp, and +she remained silent. What Sally <i>was</i> had crossed her mind—the +strange relation in which she stood to Fenwick, born in <i>his</i> +wedlock, but no daughter of his. And there he was, as fond of the +child as he could be.</p> + +<p>Fenwick may have half misunderstood something in her manner, for +when he spoke again his words had a certain aspect of recoil from +what he had said, at least of consideration of it in some new light.</p> + +<p>"When I speak to you as freely as this, remember the nature of the +claim I have to do so—the only apology I can make for taking an +exceptional licence."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean I do not count myself as a man—only a sort of inexplicable +waif, a kind of cancelled man. A man without a past is like a child, +or an idiot from birth, suddenly endowed with faculties."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense, Fenwick! You have brooded and speculated over your +condition until you have become morbid. Do now, as Sally would say, +chuck the metaphysics."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I was getting too sententious over it. I'm sorry, and +please I won't do so any more."</p> + +<p>"Don't then. And now you'll see what will happen. You will remember +everything quite suddenly. It will all come back in a flash, and oh, +how glad you will be! And think of the joy of your wife and +children!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and suppose all the while I am hating them for dragging me +away from you——"</p> + +<p>"From me and Sally?"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't going to say Sally, but I don't want to keep her out. You +and Sally, if you like. All I know is, if their reappearance were to +bring with it a pleasure I cannot imagine—because I cannot imagine +<i>them</i>—it would cut across my life, as it is now, in a way that +would drive me <i>mad</i>. Indeed it would. How could I say to myself—as +I say now, as I dare to say to you, knowing what I am—that to be +here with you now is the greatest happiness of which I am capable."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 147 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"All that would change if you recovered them."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—maybe! But I shrink from it; I shrink from <i>them</i>! They +are strangers—nonentities. You are—you are—oh, it's no use——" +He stopped suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What am I?"</p> + +<p>"It's no use beating about the bush. You are the centre of my life +as it is, you are what I—all that is left of me—love best in the +world! I cannot <i>now</i> conceive the possibility of anything but +hatred for what might come between us, for what might sever the +existing link, whatever it may be—I care little what it is called, +so long as I may keep it unbroken...."</p> + +<p>"And I care nothing!" It was her eyes meeting his that stopped him. +He could read the meaning of her words in them before they were +spoken. Then he replied in a voice less firm than before:</p> + +<p>"Dare we—knowing what I am, knowing what may come suddenly, any +hour of the day, out of the unknown—<i>dare</i> we call it love?" +Perhaps in Fenwick's mind at this moment the predominant feeling was +terror of the consequences to her that marriage with him might +betray her into. It was much stronger than any misgiving (although a +little remained) of her feelings toward himself.</p> + +<p>"What else can we call it? It is a good old word." She said this +quite calmly, with a very happy face one could see the flush of +pleasure and success on even in the moonlight, and there was no +reluctance, no shrinking in her, from her share of the outcome the +Major had not waited to see. "Millais' Huguenot" was complete. +Rosalind Graythorpe, or Palliser, stood there again with her +husband's arm round her—her husband of twenty years ago! And in +that fact was the keynote of what there was of unusual—of +unconventional, one might almost phrase it—in her way of receiving +and requiting his declaration. It hardly need be said that <i>he</i> was +unconscious of any such thing. A man whose soul is reeling with the +intoxication of a new-found happiness is not overcritical about the +exact movement of the hand that has put the cup to his lips.</p> + +<p>The Huguenot arrangement might have gone on in the undisturbed +moonlight till the chill of the morning came to break it up if a +cab-wheel <i>crescendo</i> and a <i>strepitoso</i> peal at the bell had not + +<!-- Page 148 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +announced Sally, who burst into the house and rushed into the +drawing-room tumultuously, to be corrected back by a serious word +from Ann, the door-opener, that Missis and Mr. Fenwick had stepped +out in the garden. Ann's parade of her conviction that this was <i>en +règle</i>, when no one said it wasn't, was suggestive in the highest +degree. Professional perjury in a law-court could not have been more +self-conscious. Probably Ann knew all about it, as well as cook. +Sally saw nothing. She was too full of great events at Ladbroke +Grove Road—the sort of events that are announced with a +preliminary, What <i>do</i> you think, N or M? And then develop the +engagement of O to P, or the jilting of Q by R.</p> + +<p>There was just time for a dozen words between the components of the +Millais group in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Shall we tell Sally?" It was the Huguenot that asked the question.</p> + +<p>"Not just this minute. Wait till I can think. Perhaps I'll tell her +upstairs. Now say good-bye before the chick comes, and go." And the +chick came on the scene just too late to criticise the <i>pose</i>.</p> + +<p>"I say, mother!" this with the greatest <i>empressement</i> of which +humanity and youth are capable. "I've got something I <i>must</i> tell +you!"</p> + +<p>"What is it, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"Tishy's head-over-ears in love with the shop-boy!"</p> + +<p>"Sh-sh-sh-shish! You noisy little monkey, do consider! The +neighbours will hear every word you say." So they will, probably, as +Miss Sally's voice is very penetrating, and rings musically clear in +the summer night. Her attitude is that she doesn't care if they do.</p> + +<p>"Besides they're only cats! And <i>nobody</i> knows who Tishy is, or the +shop-boy. I'll come down and tell you all about it."</p> + +<p>"We're coming up, darling!" You see, Sally had manifestoed down into +the garden from the landing of the stair, which was made of iron +openwork you knocked flower-pots down and broke, and you have had to +have a new one—that, at least, is how Ann put it. On the stair-top +Mrs. Nightingale stems the torrent of her daughter's revelation +because it's so late and Mr. Fenwick must get away.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 149 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"You must tell him all about it another time."</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether it's any concern of his."</p> + +<p>"Taken scrupulous, are we, all of a sudden?" says Fenwick, laughing. +"That cock won't fight, Miss Pussy! You'll have to tell me all about +it when I come to-morrow. Good-night, Mrs. Nightingale." A sort of +humorous formality in his voice makes Sally look from one to the +other, but it leads to nothing. Sally goes to see Fenwick depart, +and her mother goes upstairs with a candle. In a minute or so Sally +pelts up the stairs, leaving Ann and the cook to thumbscrew on the +shutter-panels of the street door, and make sure that +housebreaker-baffling bells are susceptible.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, mamma, I really <i>did</i> think—what do you think I +thought?"</p> + +<p>"What, darling?"</p> + +<p>"I thought Mr. Fenwick was going to kiss me!" In fact, Fenwick had +only just remembered in time that family privileges must stand over +till after the revelation.</p> + +<p>"Should you have minded if he had?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Not a bit!</i> Why should <i>anybody</i> mind Mr. Fenwick kissing them? +You wouldn't yourself—you know you wouldn't! Come now, mother!"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't distress myself, poppet!" But words are mere wind; the +manner of them is everything, and the foreground of her mother's +manner suggests a background to Sally. She has smelt a rat, and +suddenly fixes her eyes on a tell-tale countenance fraught with +mysterious reserves.</p> + +<p>"Mother, you <i>are</i> going to marry Mr. Fenwick!" No change of type +could do justice to the emphasis with which Sally goes straight to +the point. Italics throughout would be weak. Her mother smiles as +she fondles her daughter's excited face.</p> + +<p>"I am, darling. So you may kiss him yourself when he comes to-morrow +evening."</p> + +<p>And Tishy's passion for the shop-boy had to stand over. But, as the +Major had said, the mother and daughter talked till three in the +morning—well, past two, anyhow!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 150 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">CONCERNING DR. VEREKER AND HIS MAMMA, WHO HAD KNOWN IT ALL ALONG. +HOW SALLY LUNCHED WITH THE SALES WILSONS, AND GOT SPECULATING ABOUT +HER FATHER. HOW TISHY LET OUT ABOUT MAJOR ROPER. HOW THERE WAS A +WEDDING</p> + +<p>The segment of a circle of Society that did duty for a sphere, in +the case of Mrs. Nightingale and Sally, was collectively surprised +when it heard of the intended marriage of the former, having settled +in its own mind that the latter was the magnet to Mr. Fenwick's +lodestone. But each several individual that composed it had, it +seemed, foreseen exactly what was going to happen, and had predicted +it in language that could only have been wilfully mistaken by +persons interested in proving that the speaker was not a prophet. +Exceptional insight had been epidemic. The only wonder was (to the +individual speaker) that Mrs. Nightingale had remained single so +long, and the only other wonder was that none of the other cases had +seen it. They had evidently only taken seership mildly.</p> + +<p>Dr. Vereker had a good opportunity of studying omniscience of a +malignant type in the very well marked case of his own mother. You +may remember Sally's denunciation of her as an old hen that came +wobbling down on you. When her son (in the simplicity of his heart) +announced to her as a great and curious piece of news that Mr. +Fenwick was going to marry Mrs. Nightingale, she did not even look +up from her knitting to reply: "What did I say to you, Conny?" For +his name was Conrad, as Sally had reported. His discretion was not +on the alert on this occasion, for he incautiously asked, "When?"</p> + +<p>The good lady laid down her knitting on her knees, and folded her +hands, interlacing her fingers, which were fat, as far as they would +go, and leaning back with closed eyes—eyes intended to remain +closed during anticipated patience.</p> + +<p>"Fancy asking me that!" said she.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 151 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, but—hang it!—<i>when?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Do not use profane language, Conrad, in your mother's presence. Can +you really ask me, 'When?' Try and recollect!"</p> + +<p>Conrad appeared to consider; but as he had to contend with the +problem of finding out when a thing had been said, the only clue to +the nature of which was the date of its utterance, it was no great +wonder that his cogitations ended in a shake of the head subdivided +into its elements—shakes taken a brace at a time—and an expression +of face as of one who whistles <i>sotto voce</i>. His questioner must +have been looking between her eyelids, which wasn't playing fair; +for she indicted him on the spot, and pushed him, as it were, into +the dock.</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i>, I suppose, means that I speak untruth. Very well, my dear!" +Resignation set in.</p> + +<p>"Come, mother, I say, now! Be a reasonable maternal parent. When did +I say anybody spoke untruth?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, you <i>said</i> nothing. But if your father could have heard +what you did <i>not</i> say, you know perfectly well, my dear Conrad, +what he would have <i>thought</i>. Was he likely to sit by and hear me +insulted? Did he ever do so?"</p> + +<p>The doctor was writing letters at a desk-table that he used for +miscellaneous correspondence as much as possible, in order that this +very same mother of his should be left alone as little as possible. +He ended a responsible letter, and directed it, and made it a thing +of the past with a stamp on it in a little basket on the hall-table +outside. Then he came back to his mother, and bestowed on her the +kiss, or peck, of peace. It always made him uncomfortable when he +had to go away to the hospital under the shadow of dissension at +home.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother dear, what was it you really did say about the Fenwick +engagement?"</p> + +<p>"It would be more proper, my dear, to speak of it as the Nightingale +engagement. You will say it is a matter of form, but...."</p> + +<p>"All right. The Nightingale engagement...."</p> + +<p>"My dear! So abrupt! To your mother!"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear mammy, what was it, really now?" This cajolery took +effect, and the Widow Vereker's soul softened. She resumed her +knitting.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 152 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"If you don't remember what it was, dear, it doesn't matter." The +doctor saw that nothing short of complete concession would procure a +tranquil sea.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I remember perfectly well," he said mendaciously. He +knew that, left alone, his mother would supply a summary of what he +remembered. She did so, with a bound.</p> + +<p>"I said, my dear (and I am glad you recollect it, Conrad)—I said +from the very first, when Mr. Fenwick was living at Krakatoa—(it +was all <i>quite</i> right, my dear. Do you think I don't know? A +grown-up daughter and two servants!)—I said that any one with eyes +in their head could see. And has it turned out exactly as I +expected, or has it not?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"Very well, dear. I'm glad you say so. Now, don't contradict me +another time."</p> + +<p>The close observer of the actual (whom we lay claim to be) has +occasionally to report the apparently impossible. We do not suppose +we shall be believed when we say that Mrs. Vereker added: "Besides, +there was the Major."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Professor Sales Wilson, Lætitia's father, was <i>the</i> Professor Sales +Wilson. Only, if you had seen that eminent scholar when he got +outside his library by accident and wanted to get back, you wouldn't +have thought he was <i>the</i> anybody, and would probably have likened +him to a disestablished hermit-crab—in respect, that is, of such a +one's desire to disappear into his shell, and that respect only. For +no hermit-crab would ever cause an acquaintance to wonder why he +should shave at all if he could do it no better than that; nor what +he was talking to himself about so frequently; nor whether he +polished his spectacles so long at a time to give the deep groove +they were making across his nose a chance of filling up; nor whether +he would be less bald if he rubbed his head less; nor what he had +really got inside that overpowering phrenology of brow, and behind +that aspect of chronic concentration. But about the retiring habits +of both there could be no doubt.</p> + +<p>He lived in his library, attired by nature in a dressing-gown and +skull-cap. But from its secret recesses he issued manifestoes which +shook classical Europe. He corrected versions, excerpted passages + +<!-- Page 153 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>, +disallowed authenticities, ascribed works to their true authors, and +exposed the pretensions of sciolists with a vigour which ought to +have finally dispersed that unhallowed class. Only it didn't, +because they are a class incapable of shame, and will go on madly, +even when they have been proved to be <i>mere</i>, beyond the shadow of a +doubt. Perhaps they had secret information about the domestic +circumstances of their destroyer, and didn't care. If Yamen had had +private means of knowing that Vishnu was on uncomfortable terms with +his wife, a corrected version of the whole Hindu mythology might +have been necessary.</p> + +<p>However, so far as can be conjectured, the image the world formed of +the Professor was a sort of aggregate of Dr. Johnson, Bentley, +Grotius, Mezzofanti, and a slight touch of, say Conington, to bring +him well up to date. But so much of the first that whenever the +<i>raconteur</i> repeated one of the Professor's moderately bon-mots, he +always put "sir" in—as, for instance, "A punster, sir, is a man who +demoralises two meanings in one word;" or, "Should you call that +fast life, sir? <i>I</i> should call it slow death." The <i>raconteur</i> was +rather given to making use of him, and assigning to him <i>mots</i> which +were not at all <i>bons</i>, because they only had the "sir" in them, and +were otherwise meaningless. He was distressed, not without reason, +when he heard that he had said to Max Müller, or some one of that +calibre, "There is no such thing, sir, as the English language!" But +he very seldom heard anything about himself, or any one else; as he +passed his life, as aforesaid, in his library, buried in the +Phœnician Dictionary he hoped he might live to bring out. He had +begun the fourth letter; but <i>we</i> don't know the Phœnician +alphabet. Perhaps it has only four letters in it.</p> + +<p>He came out of the library for meals, of course. But he took very +little notice of anything that passed at the family board, and read +nearly the whole time, occasionally saying something forcible to +himself. Indeed, he never conversed with his family unless deprived +of his book. This occurred on the occasion when Sally carried the +momentous news of her mother's intended marriage to Ladbroke Grove +Road, the second day after they had talked till two in the morning. +Matrimony was canvassed and discussed in all its aspects, and the +particular case riddled and sifted, and elucidated from every point +of the compass, without the + +<!-- Page 154 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +Professor being the least aware that +anything unusual was afoot, until Grotefend got in the mayonnaise +sauce.</p> + +<p>"Take your master's book away, Jenkins," said the lady of the house. +And Jenkins, the tender-hearted parlourmaid, allowed master to keep +hold just to the end of the sentence. "Take it away, as I told you, +and wipe that sauce off!"</p> + +<p>Sally did so want to box that woman's ears—at least, she said so +after. She was a great horny, overbearing woman, was Mrs. Sales +Wilson, and Sally was frightened lest Lætitia should grow like her. +Only, Tishy's teeth never <i>could</i> get as big as that! Nor wiggle.</p> + +<p>The Professor, being deprived of his volume, seemed to awake +compulsorily, and come out into a cold, unlearned world. But he +smiled amiably, and rubbed his hands round themselves rhythmically.</p> + +<p>"Well, then!" said he. "Say it all again."</p> + +<p>"Say what, papa?"</p> + +<p>"All the chatter, of course."</p> + +<p>"What for, papa?"</p> + +<p>"For me to hear. Off we go! <i>Who's</i> going to be married?"</p> + +<p>"You see, he was listening all the time. <i>I</i> shouldn't tell him, if +I were you. Your father is really unendurable. And he gets worse." +Thus the lady of the house.</p> + +<p>"What does your mother say?" There is a shade of asperity in the +Professor's voice.</p> + +<p>"Says you were listening all the time, papa. So you were!" This is +from Lætitia's younger sister, Theeny. Her name was Athene. Her +brother Egerton called her "Gallows Athene"—an offensive perversion +of the name of the lady she was called after. Her mother had +carefully taught all her children contempt for their father from +earliest childhood. But toleration of his weaknesses—etymology, and +so on—had taken root in spite of her motherly care, and the +Professor was on very good terms with his offspring. He negatived +Theeny amiably.</p> + +<p>"No, my dear, I was like Mrs. Cluppins. The voices were loud, and +forced themselves upon my ear. But as you all spoke at once, I have +no idea what anybody said. My question was conjectural—purely +conjectural. <i>Is</i> anybody going to marry anybody? <i>I</i> don't know."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 155 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"What is your father talking about over there? <i>Is</i> he going to help +that tongue or not? Ask him." For a peculiarity in this family was +that the two heads of it always spoke to one another through an +agent. So clearly was this understood that direct speech between +them, on its rare occasions, was always ascribed by distant hearers +to an outbreak of hostilities. If either speaker had addressed the +other by name, the advent of the Sergeant-at-Arms would have been +the next thing looked for. On this occasion Lætitia's literal +transmission of "<i>Are</i> you going to help the tongue or not, papa?" +recalled his wandering mind to his responsibilities. Sally's +liver-wing—she was the visitor—was pleading at his elbow for its +complement of tongue.</p> + +<p>But soon a four-inch space intervened between the lonely tongue-tip +on the dish and what had once been, in military language, its base +of operations. Everybody that took tongue had got tongue.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, how about who's married whom?" Thus the Professor, +resuming his hand-rubbing, and neglecting the leg of a fowl.</p> + +<p>"Make your father eat his lunch, Lætitia. We <i>cannot</i> be late again +this afternoon." Whereon every one ate too fast; and Sally felt very +glad the Professor had given her such a big slice of tongue, as she +knew she wouldn't have the courage to have a second supply, if +offered, much less ask for it.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear, papa? I'm to make you eat your lunch," says Lætitia; +and her mother murmurs "That's right; make him," as though he were +an anaconda in the snake-house, and her daughter a keeper who could +go inside the cage. Lætitia then adds briefly that Mrs. Nightingale +is going to marry Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"Ha! Mercy on us!" says the Professor quite vaguely, and, even more +so, adds: "Chicken—chicken—chicken—chicken—chicken!" Though what +he says next is more intelligible, it is unfortunate and ill-chosen: +"And who <i>is</i> Mrs. Nightingale?"</p> + +<p>The sphinx is mobility itself compared with Mrs. Wilson's intense +preservation of her <i>status quo</i>. The import of which is that the +Professor's blunders are things of everyday occurrence—every +minute, rather. She merely says to Europe, "You see," and leaves +that continent to deal with the position. Sally, who always gets +impatient with the Wilson family, except the Professor himself + +<!-- Page 156 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +and +Lætitia—though <i>she</i> is trying sometimes—now ignores Europe, and +gets the offender into order on her own account.</p> + +<p>"Why, Professor dear, don't you know Mrs. Nightingale's my mother? +I'm Sally Nightingale, you know!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not at all sure that I did, my dear. I think I thought you were +Sally Something-else. My mind is very absent sometimes. You must +forgive me. Sally Nightingale! To be sure!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Professor dear!" But the Professor still looks vexed at +his blunder. So Sally says in confirmation, "I've forgiven you. +Shake hands!" And doesn't make matters much better, for her action +seems unaccountable to the absent-minded one, who says, "Why?" +first, and then, "Oh, ah, yes—I see. Shake hands, certainly!" On +which the Sphinx, at the far end of the table, wondered whether the +ancient Phœnicians were rude, under her breath.</p> + +<p>"I'm so absent, Sally Nightingale, that I didn't even know your +father wasn't living." Lætitia looks uncomfortable, and when Sally +merely says, "I never saw my father," thinks to herself what a very +discreet girl Sally is. Naturally she supposes Sally to be a wise +enough child to know something about her own father. But the Wilson +family were not completely in the dark about an unsatisfactory +"something queer" in Sally's extraction; so that she credits that +unconscious young person with having steered herself skilfully out +of shoal-waters; but she is not sure whether to class her +achievement as intrepidity or cheek. She is wanted in the +intelligence department before she can decide this point.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, if you try, Lætitia, you'll be able to make out whether +your father is or is not going to eat his lunch."</p> + +<p>But as this appeal of necessity causes the Professor to run the risk +of choking himself before Lætitia has time to formulate an inquiry, +she can fairly allow the matter to lapse, as far as she is +concerned. The dragon, her mother—for that was how Sally spoke of +the horny one—kept an eye firmly fixed on the unhappy honorary +member of most learned societies, and gave the word of command, +"Take away!" with such promptitude that Jenkins nearly carried off +the plate from under his knife and fork as he placed them on it.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 157 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>A citation from the Odyssey was received in stony silence by the +Dragon, who, however, remarked to her younger daughter that it was +no use talking about Phineus and the Harpies, because they had to be +at St. Pancras at 3.10, or lose the train. And perhaps, if the +servants were to be called Harpies, your father would engage the +next one himself. They were trouble enough now, without that.</p> + +<p>Owing to all which, the reference to Sally's father got lost sight +of; and she wasn't sorry, because Theeny, at any rate, wasn't wanted +to know anything about him, whatever Lætitia and her mother knew or +suspected.</p> + +<p>But, as a matter of fact, Sally's declaration that she "never saw" +him was neither discretion, nor intrepidity, nor cheek. It was +simple Nature. She had always regarded her father as having been +accessory to herself before the fact; also as having been, for some +mysterious reason, unpopular—perhaps a <i>mauvais sujet</i>. But he was +Ancient History now—had joined the Phœnicians. Why should <i>she</i> +want to know? Her attitude of uninquiring acquiescence had been +cultivated by her mother, and it is wonderful what a dominant +influence from early babyhood can do. Sally seldom spoke of this +mysterious father of hers in any other terms than those she had just +used. She had never had an opportunity of making his +acquaintance—that was all. In some way, undefined, he had not +behaved well to her mother; and naturally she sided with the latter. +Once, and once only, her mother had said to her, "Sally darling, I +don't wish to talk about your father, but to forget him. I have +forgiven him, because of you. Because—how could I have done without +you, kitten?" And thereafter, as Sally's curiosity was a feeble +force when set against the possibility that its gratification might +cause pain to her mother, she suppressed it easily.</p> + +<p>But now and again little things would be said in her presence that +would set her a-thinking—little things such as what the Professor +has just said. She may easily have been abnormally sensitive on the +point—made more prone to reflection than usual—by last night's +momentous announcement. Anyhow, she resolved to talk to Tishy about +her parentage as soon as they should get back to the drawing-room, +where they were practising. All the two hours they ought to have +played in the morning Tishy would + +<!-- Page 158 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +talk about nothing but Julius +Bradshaw. And look how ridiculous it all was! Because she <i>did</i> call +him "shop-boy"—you know she did—only six weeks ago. Sally didn't +see why <i>her</i> affairs shouldn't have a turn now; and although she +was quite aware that her friend wanted her to begin again where they +had left off before lunch, she held out no helping hand, but gave +the preference to her own thoughts.</p> + +<p>"I suppose my father drank," said Sally to Tishy.</p> + +<p>"If you don't know, dear, how should I?" said Tishy to Sally. And +that did seem plausible, and made Sally the more reflective.</p> + +<p>The holly-leaves were gone now that had been conducive to thought at +Christmas in this same room when we heard the two girls count four +so often, but Sally could pull an azalea flower to pieces over her +cogitations, and did so, instead of tuning up forthwith. Lætitia was +preoccupied—couldn't take an interest in other people's fathers, +nor her own for that matter. She tuned up, though, and told Sally to +look alive. But while Sally looks alive she backs into a +conversation of the forenoon, and out of the pending discussion of +Sally's paternity. Their two preoccupations pull in opposite +directions.</p> + +<p>"You <i>will</i> remember not to say anything, won't you, Sally dear? Do +promise."</p> + +<p>"Say anything? Oh no; <i>I</i> shan't say anything. I never do say +things. What about?"</p> + +<p>"You know as well as I do, dear—about Julius Bradshaw."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shan't, Tishy. Except mother; she doesn't count. I say, +Tishy!"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear. Do look alive. I'm all ready."</p> + +<p>"All right. Don't be in a hurry. I want to know whether you really +think my father drank."</p> + +<p>"Why should I, dear? I never heard anything about him—at least, I +never heard anything myself. Mamma heard something. Only I wasn't to +repeat it. Besides, it was nothing whatever to do with drink." The +moment Lætitia said this, she knew that she had lost her hold on her +only resource against cross-examination. When the difficulty of +concealing anything is thrown into the same scale with the pleasure +of telling it, the featherweights of duty and previous resolutions +kick the beam. Then you are sorry when it's too late. Lætitia was, +and could see + +<!-- Page 159 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +her way to nothing but obeying the direction on her +music, which was <i>attacca</i>. To her satisfaction, Sally came in +promptly in the right place, and a first movement in B sharp went +steadily through without a back-lash. There seemed a chance that +Sally hadn't caught the last remark, but, alas! it vanished.</p> + +<p>"What was it, then, if it wasn't drink?" said she, exactly as if +there had been no music at all. Lætitia once said of Sally that she +was a horribly direct little Turk. She was very often—in this +instance certainly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was the usual thing." Twenty-four, of course, knew +more than nineteen, and could speak to the point of what was and +wasn't usual in matters of this kind. But if Lætitia hoped that +vagueness would shake hands with delicacy and that details could be +lubricated away, she was reckoning without her Turk.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> the usual thing?"</p> + +<p>"Hadn't we better go on to the fugue? I don't care for the next +movement, and it's easy——"</p> + +<p>"Not till you say what you mean by 'the usual thing.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I suppose you know what half the divorce-cases are +about?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Tishy!</i>"</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"There was <i>no</i> divorce!"</p> + +<p>"How do you know, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>should</i> have known of it."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"You might go on for ever that way. Now, Tishy dear, do be kind and +tell me what you heard and who said it. <i>I</i> should tell <i>you</i>. You +<i>know</i> I should." This appeal produces concession.</p> + +<p>"It was old Major Roper told mamma—with blue pockets under his eyes +and red all over, creeks and wheezes when he speaks—do you know +him?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't, and I don't want to. At least, I've just seen him at a +distance. I could see he was purple. <i>Our</i> Major—Colonel Lund, you +know—says he's a horrible old gossip, and you can't rely on a word +he says. But what <i>did</i> he say?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, I oughtn't to tell you this, because I promised + +<!-- Page 160 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +not. What he <i>said</i> was that your mother went out to be married to +your father in India, and the year after he got a divorce because he +was jealous of some man your mother had met on the way out."</p> + +<p>"How old was I?"</p> + +<p>"Gracious me, child! how should <i>I</i> know. He only said you were a +baby in arms. Of course, you must have been, if you think of it." +Lætitia here feels that possible calculations may be embarrassing, +and tries to avert them. "Do let's get on to the third movement. We +shall spend all the afternoon talking."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Tishy, fire away! Oh, no; it's me." And the third +movement is got under way, till we reach a <i>pizzicato</i> passage which +Sally begins playing with the bow by mistake.</p> + +<p>"That's <i>pits</i>!" says the first violin, and we have to begin again +at the top of the page, and the Professor in his library wonders why +on earth those girls can't play straight on. The Ancient +Phœnicians are fidgeted by the jerks in the music.</p> + +<p>But it comes to an end in time, and then Sally begins again:</p> + +<p>"I <i>know</i> that story's all nonsense now, Tishy."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because mother told me once that my father never saw me, so come +now! Because the new-bornest baby that ever was couldn't be too +small for its father to see." Sally pauses reflectively, then adds: +"Unless he was blind. And mother would have said if he'd been +blind."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't have been blind, because——"</p> + +<p>"Now, Tishy, you see! You're keeping back lots of things that old +wheezy squeaker said. And you <i>ought</i> to tell me—you know you +ought. Why couldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"You're in such a hurry, dear. I was going to tell you. Major Roper +said he never saw him but once, and it was out shooting tigers, and +he was the best shot for a civilian he'd ever seen. There was a +tiger was just going to lay hold of a man and carry him off when +your father shot him from two hundred yards off——"</p> + +<p>"The man or the tiger? I'm on the tiger's side. I always am."</p> + +<p>"The tiger, stupid! You wouldn't want your own father to aim at a +tiger and hit a man?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 161 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Sally reflects. "I don't think I should. But, I say, Tishy, do you +mean to say that Major Roper meant to say that he was out shooting +with my father and didn't know what his name was?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. He said his name, of course. It was Palliser ... that was +right, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, no; it was Graythorpe. Palliser indeed!"</p> + +<p>"It was true about the tiger though, because Major Roper says he's +got the skin himself now."</p> + +<p>"Only it wasn't my father that shot it. That's quite clear." Sally +was feeling greatly relieved, and showed it in the way she added: +"Now, doesn't that just show what a parcel of nonsense the whole +story is?"</p> + +<p>Sally had never told her friend about her mother's name before she +took that of Nightingale. Very slight hints had sufficed to make her +reticent about Graythorpe. Colonel Lund had once said to her: "Of +course, your mother was Mrs. Graythorpe when she came to England; +that was before she changed her name to Nightingale, you know?" She +knew that her mother's money had come to her from a "grandfather +Nightingale," whose name had somehow accompanied it, and had been +(very properly, as it seemed to her) bestowed on herself as well as +her mother. They were part and parcel of each other obviously. In +fact, she had never more than just known of the existence of the +name Graythorpe in her family at all, and it had been imputed by her +to this unpopular father of hers, and put aside, as it were, on a +shelf with him. Even if her mother had not suggested a desire that +the name should lapse, she herself would have accepted its +extinction on her own account.</p> + +<p>But now this name came out of the past as a consolation. Palliser +indeed! How could mamma have been Mrs. Graythorpe if her husband's +name had been Palliser? Sally was not wise enough in worldly matters +to know that divorced ladies commonly fall back on their maiden +names. And she had been kept, or left, so much in the dark that she +had taken for granted that her mother's had been Nightingale—that, +in fact, she had retaken her maiden name at her father's wish, +possibly as a censure on the misbehaviour of a husband who drank or +gambled or was otherwise reprobate. Her young mind had been +manipulated all + +<!-- Page 162 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +one way—had been in contact only with its +manipulators. Had she had a sister or brother, they would have +canvassed the subject, speculated, run conclusions to earth, and +demanded enlightenment. She had none but her mother to go to, unless +it were Colonel Lund; and the painful but inevitable task of both +was to keep her in the dark about her parentage at all hazards. "If +ever," said the former to the latter, "my darling girl has a child +of her own, I may be able to tell her her mother's story." Till +then, it would be impossible.</p> + +<p>Sally had had a narrow escape of knowing more about this story when +the veteran Sub-Dean qualified himself for an obituary in the +"Times," which she chanced upon and read before her mother had time +to detect and suppress it. Luckily, a reasonable economy of type had +restricted the names and designations of all the wives he had driven +tandem, and no more was said of his third than that she was +Rosalind, the widow of Paul Nightingale. So, as soon as Sally's +mother had read the text herself, she was able to say to the Major, +quite undisturbedly, that the old Sub-Dean had gone at last, leaving +thirteen children. The name Graythorpe had not crept in.</p> + +<p>But we left Sally with a question unanswered. Didn't that show what +nonsense old Major Roper's story was? Lætitia was rather glad to +assent, and get the story quashed, or at least prorogued <i>sine die</i>.</p> + +<p>"It did seem rather nonsense, Sally dear. Major Roper was a stupid +old man, and evidently took more than was good for him." Intoxicants +are often of great service in conversation.</p> + +<p>In this case they contributed to the reinstatement of Mr. Bradshaw. +Dear me, it did seem so funny to Sally! Only the other day this +young man had been known to her on no other lines than as an +established fool, who came to stare at <i>her</i> out of the corners of +his dark eyes all through the morning service at St. Satisfax. And +now it was St. John's, Ladbroke Grove Road, and, what was more, he +was being tolerated as a semi-visitor at the Wilsons'—a visitor +with explanations in an undertone. This was the burden of Lætitia, +as soon as she had contrived to get Sally's troublesome parent +shelved.</p> + +<p>"Why mamma needs always to be in such a furious fuss to drag in his +violin, I do <i>not</i> know. As if he needed to be accounted for + +<!-- Page 163 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>! Of +course, if you ask a Hottentot to evenings, you have to explain him. +But the office-staff at Cattley's (which is really one of the +largest firms in the country) are none of them Hottentots, but the +contrary.... Now I know, dear, you're going to say what's the +contrary of a Hottentot, and all the while you know perfectly well +what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Cut away, Tishy! What next?"</p> + +<p>"Well—next, don't you think it very dignified of Mr. Bradshaw to be +<i>able</i> to be condescended to and explained in corners under people's +breaths and not to show it?"</p> + +<p>"He's got to lump it, if he doesn't like it." Sally, you see, has +given up her admirer readily enough, but, as she herself afterwards +said, it's quite another pair of shoes when you're called on to give +three cheers for what's really no merit at all! What does the young +man expect?</p> + +<p>"Now, that's unkind, Sally dear. You wouldn't like <i>me</i> to. Anyhow, +that's what mamma <i>does</i>. Takes ladies of a certain position or with +expectations into corners, and says she hates the expression +gentleman and lady, but <i>they</i> know what she means...."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know. And they goozle comfortably at her, like Goody Vereker."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it make one's flesh creep to have a mother like that? I do +get to hate the very sight of shot silk and binoculars on a leg when +she goes on so. But I suppose we never shall get on together—mamma +and I."</p> + +<p>"What does the Professor think about him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—papa? Of course, papa's <i>perfectly hopeless</i>! It's the only +true thing mamma ever says—that he's <i>perfectly hopeless</i>. What do +you suppose he did that Sunday afternoon when Julius Bradshaw came +and had tea and brought the Strad—the first time, I mean?... Why, +he actually fancied he had come from the shop with a parcel, and +never found out he couldn't have when he had tea in the +drawing-room, and only suspected something when he played Rode's +'Air with Variations for Violin and Piano.' Just fancy! He wanted to +know why he shouldn't have tea when every one else did, and offered +him cake! And Sunday afternoon and a Stradivarius! <i>Do</i> say you +think my parents trying, Sally dear!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 164 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Sally assented to everything in an absent way; but that didn't +matter as long as she did it. Lætitia only wanted to talk. She +seemed, thought Sally, improved by the existing combination of +events. She had had to climb down off the high stilts about +Bradshaw, and had only worked in one or two slight <i>Grundulations</i> +(a word of Dr. Vereker's) into her talk this morning. Tishy wasn't a +bad fellow at all (Sally's expression), only, if she hadn't been +taught to strut, she wouldn't have been any the worse. It was all +that overpowering mother of hers!</p> + +<p>Before she parted with her friend that afternoon Sally had a sudden +access of Turkish directness:</p> + +<p>"Tishy dear, <i>are</i> you going to accept Julius Bradshaw if he asks +you, or <i>not</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, you know we must look at it from the point of view of +what he would have been if it hadn't been for that unfortunate +nervous system of his. The poor fellow couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>"But are you, or not? That's what <i>I</i> want an answer to."</p> + +<p>"Sally dear! Really—you're just like so much dynamite. What would +you do yourself if you were me? I ask you."</p> + +<p>"I should do exactly whatever you settle to do if I were you. It +stands to reason. But what's it going to be? That's the point."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't proposed yet."</p> + +<p>"That has nothing whatever to do with it. What you've got to do is +to make—up—your—mind." These last four words are very <i>staccato</i> +indeed. Tishy recovers a dignity she has rather been allowing to +lapse.</p> + +<p>"By the time you're my age, Sally dear, you'll see there are ways +and ways of looking at things. Everything can't be wrapped up in a +nutshell. We're not Ancient Phœnicians nowadays, whatever papa +may say. But you're a dear, impulsive little puss."</p> + +<p>The protest was feeble in form and substance, and quite unworthy of +Miss Sales Wilson, the daughter of <i>the</i> Professor Sales Wilson. No +wonder Sally briefly responded, "Stuff and nonsense!" and presently +went home.</p> + +<p>Of course, the outer circle of Mrs. Nightingale's society (for in +this matter we are all like Regents Park) had their say about her + +<!-- Page 165 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +proposed marriage. But they don't come into our story; and besides, +they had too few data for their opinions to be of any value. What a +difference it would have made if old Major Roper had met Fenwick and +recalled the face of the dead shot who, it seemed, had somehow ceded +his tiger-skin to him. But no such thing happened, nor did anything +else come about either to revive the story of the divorce or to +throw a light on the identity of Palliser and Fenwick. Eight weeks +after the latter (or the former?) had for the second time disclosed +his passion to the same woman, the couple were married at the church +of St. Satisfax, and, having started for the Continent the same +afternoon, found themselves, quite unreasonably happy, wandering +about in France with hardly a thought beyond the day at most, so +long as a letter came from Sally at the <i>postes-restantes</i> when +expected. And he had remembered nothing!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 166 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A WEDDING PARTY AND AN OLD MAN'S RETROSPECT. A HOPE OF +RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE HEREAFTER. CHARLEY'S AUNT, AND PYRAMUS AND +THISBE. HOW SALLY TRIED TO PUMP THE COLONEL AND GOT HALF A BUCKETFUL</p> + +<p>And thus it came about that Rosalind Palliser (<i>née</i> Graythorpe) +stood for the second time at the altar of matrimony with the same +bridegroom under another name. The absence of bridesmaids pronounced +and accented the fact that the bride was a widow, though, as there +were very few of the congregation of St. Satisfax who did not know +her as such, the announcement was hardly necessary. Discussion of +who her late husband was, or was not, had long since given way to a +belief that he was a bad lot, and that the less that was said about +him the better. If any one who was present at the wedding was still +constructing theories about his identity—whether he had divorced +his wife, was divorced himself, or was dead—certainly none of those +theories connected themselves with the present bridegroom. As for +Sally, her only feeling, over and above her ordinary curiosity about +her father, was a sort of paradoxical indignation that his intrusion +into her mother's life should have prevented her daughter figuring +as a bridesmaid. It would have been so jolly! But Sally was +perfectly well aware that widows, strong-nerved from experience, +stand in no need of official help in getting their "things" on, and +acquiesced perforce in her position of a mere unqualified daughter.</p> + +<p>The Major—that is to say, Colonel Lund—stayed on after the +wedding, under a sort of imputation of guardianship necessary for +Sally—an imputation accepted by her in order that the old boy +should not feel lonesome, far more than for any advantage to +herself. She wasn't sure it did him any good though, after all, for +the wedding-party (if it could be called one, it was so + +<!-- Page 167 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +small), +having decided that its afternoon had been completely broken into, +gave itself up to dissipation, and went to see "Charley's Aunt." The +old gentleman did not feel equal to this, but said if Sally told him +all about it afterwards it would be just as good, and insisted on +her going. He said he would be all right, and she kissed him and +left him reading "Harry Lorrequer," or pretending to.</p> + +<p>The wedding-party seemed to have grown, thought the Major, in +contact with the theatrical world when, on its return, it filled the +summer night with sound, and made the one-eyed piebald cat who lived +at The Retreat foreclose an interview with a peevish friend +acrimoniously. Perhaps it was only because the laughter and the +jests, the good-nights mixed with echoes of "Charley's Aunt," and +reminders of appointments for the morrow, broke in so suddenly on a +long seclusion that the Major seemed to hear so many voices beyond +his expectation.</p> + +<p>The time had not hung heavy on his hands though—at least, no +heavier than time always hangs on hands that wore gloves with no +fingers near upon eighty years ago. The specific gravity of the +hours varies less and less with loneliness and companionship as we +draw nearer to the last one of all—the heaviest or lightest, which +will it be? The old boy had been canvassing this point with another +old boy, a real Major, our friend Roper, at the Hurkaru Club not +long before, and, after he had read a few pages of "Harry Lorrequer" +he put his spectacles in to keep the place, and fell back into a +maze of recurrence and reflection.</p> + +<p>Was he honest, or was it affectation, when he said to that pursy and +purple old warrior that if the doctor were to tell him he had but an +hour to live he should feel greatly relieved and happy? Was his +heart only pretending to laugh at the panic his old friend was +stricken with at the mere mention of the word "death"—he who had in +his time faced death a hundred times without a qualm? But then that +was military death, and was his <i>business</i>. Death the civilian, with +paragraphs in the newspapers to say "the worst" was feared, and the +fever being kept down, and the system being kept up, and smells of +carbolic acid and hourly bulletins—that was the thing he shrank +from. Why, the Major could remember old Jack Roper at Delhi, in the +Mutiny, going out in the darkness to capture those Sepoy + +<!-- Page 168 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +guns—what +was that place called—Ludlow Castle?—and now!...</p> + +<p>"Oh dammy, Colonel! Why, good Lard! who's dyin' or goin' to die? +Time enough to talk about dyin' when the cap fits. You take my +advice, and try a couple of Cockle's anti-bilious. My word for it, +it's liver!..." And then old Jack followed this with an +earthquake-attack of coughing that looked very much as if the cap +was going to fit. But came out of it incorrigible, and as soon as he +could speak endorsed his advice with an admonitory forefinger: "You +do as I tell you, and try 'em."</p> + +<p>But the fossil, who was ten years his senior, answered his own +question to himself in the affirmative as he sat there listening to +the distant murmur of wheels on the Uxbridge Road and the music of +the cats without. Yes, he was quite honest about it. He had no +complaint to make of life, for the last twenty years at any rate. +His dear little <i>protégée</i>—that was how he thought of Sally's +mother—had taken good care of that. But he had some harsh +indictments against earlier years—or rather <i>had</i> had. For he had +dismissed the culprits with a caution, and put the records on a +back-shelf.</p> + +<p>He could take them down now and look at them without flinching. +After all, he was so near the end! What did it matter?</p> + +<p>There they all were, the neglected chronicles, each in its corner of +his mind. Of his school-days, a record with all the blots and errors +worked into the text and made to do duty for ornaments. Not a +blemish unforgiven. It is even so with us, with you; we all forgive +our schools. Of his first uniform and his first love, two records +with a soil on each. For a chemical brother spilt sulphuric acid +over the first, and the second married a custom-house officer. Of +his first great cloud—for, if he did not quite forget his first +love, he soon got a second and even a third—a cloud that came out +of a letter that reached him in camp at Rawal Pindi, and told him +that his father, a solicitor of unblemished character till then, had +been indicted for fraudulent practices, and would have to stand his +trial for misdemeanour. Of a later letter, even worse, that told of +his acquittal on the score of insanity, and of how, when he went +back two years after + +<!-- Page 169 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +on his first leave, he went to see his father +in an asylum; who did not know him and called him "my lord," and +asked him to "bring his case before the house." Then of a marriage, +like a dream now, with a wife who left him and a child that died; +and then of many colourless years of mere official routine, which +might have gone on till he fell down in harness, but for the chance +that threw in his way the daughter of an old friend in sore trouble +and alone. Not until her loneliness and want of a protector on her +voyage home suggested it did the harness come off the old horse. And +then, as we have seen, followed the happiest fourth part of his +life, as he accounted it, throughout which he had never felt so +willing to die as he had done before. Rosalind Graythorpe grew into +it as a kind of adopted daughter, and brought with her the morsel of +new humanity that had become Sally—that would be back in an hour +from "Charley's Aunt."</p> + +<p>And now Rosey had found a guardian, and was provided for. It would +be no way amiss now for the Major to take advantage of death. There +is so much to be said for it when the world has left one aching!</p> + +<p>His confidence that his <i>protégée</i> had really found a haven was no +small compliment to Fenwick. For the latter, with his strange +unknown past, had nothing but his personality to rely on; and the +verdict of the Major, after knowing him twelve months, was as +decisive on this point as if he had known him twelve years. "He may +be a bit hot-tempered and impulsive," said he to Sally. "But I +really couldn't say, if I were asked, <i>why</i> I think so. It's a mere +idea. Otherwise, it's simply impossible to help liking him." To +which Sally replied, borrowing an expression from Ann the housemaid, +that Fenwick was a cup of tea. It was metaphorical and descriptive +of invigoration.</p> + +<p>But the Major's feeling that he was now at liberty to try Death +after Life, to make for port after stormy seas, had scarcely a trace +in it of dethronement or exclusion from privileges once possessed. +It was not his smallest tribute to Fenwick that he should admit the +idea to his mind at all—that he might have gained a son rather than +lost a daughter. At least, he need not reject that view of the case, +but it would not do to build on it. <i>Unberufen!</i> + +<!-- Page 170 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +The Major tapped +three times on the little table where the lamp stood and "Harry +Lorrequer" lay neglected. He pulled out his watch, and decided that +they would not be very long now. He would not go to bed till he had +seen the kitten—he usually spoke of her so to her mother. He had to +disturb the kitten's cat, who was asleep on him, to get at the +watch; who, being selfish, made a grievance of it, and went away +piqued after stretching. Well, he was sorry of course, but it would +have had to come, some time. And he hadn't moved for ever so long!</p> + +<p>"I wonder," half said, half thought he to himself, "I wonder who or +what he really is?... If only we could have known!... Was I right +not to urge delay?... Only Rosey was so confident.... <i>Could</i> a +woman of her age feel so sure and be misled?"</p> + +<p>It was <i>her</i> certainty that had dragged his judgment along a path it +might otherwise have shrunk from. He could not know her reasons, but +he felt their force in her presence. Now she was gone, he doubted. +Had he been a fool after all?</p> + +<p>"Well—well; it can't be altered now. And she would have done it +just the same whatever I said.... I suppose she was like that when +she was a girl.... I wish I had even seen that husband of hers.... +So odd they should both be Algernon! Does he know, I wonder, that +the other was Algernon?" For the Major had religiously adhered to +his promise not to say anything to Fenwick about the old story. He +knew she had told it, or would tell it in her own time.</p> + +<p>Then his thoughts turned to revival of how and where he found her +first, and, as it all came back to him, you could have guessed, had +you seen his face, that they had lighted on the man who was the evil +cause of all, and the woman who had abetted him. The old hand on the +table that had little more strength in it than when it wore a +hedger's glove near eighty years ago, closed with the grip of all +the force it had, and the lamp-globe rang as the tremor of his arm +shook the table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I pray God there is a hell," came audibly from as kind a heart +as ever beat. "<i>How</i> I pray God there is a hell!" Then the stress of +his anger seemed to have exhausted him, for he lay back in his +armchair with his eyes closed. In a few moments he + +<!-- Page 171 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +drew a long +breath, and as he wiped the drops from his brow, said aloud to +himself: "I wish the kitten would come." He seemed happier only from +speaking of her. And then sat on and waited—waited as for a +rescue—for Sally to come and fill up the house with her voice and +her indispensable self.</p> + +<p>Something of an inconsistency in the attitude of his mind may have +struck across the current of his reflections—something connected +with what this indispensable thing actually was and whence—for his +thoughts relented as the image of her came back to him. Where would +those eyes be, conspirators with the lids above them and the merry +fluctuations of the brows; where would those lips be, from which the +laughter never quite vanished, even as the ripple of the ocean's +edge tries how small it can get but never dies outright; where the +great coils of black hair that would not go inside any ordinary +oilskin swimming-cap; where the incorrigible impertinence and +flippancy be we never liked to miss a word of; where, in short, +would Sally be if she had never emerged from that black shadow in +the past?</p> + +<p>Easy enough to say that, had she not done so, something else quite +as good might have been. Very likely. How can we limit the possible +to the conditional-præter-pluperfect tense? But then, you see, it +wouldn't have been Sally! That's the point.</p> + +<p>Sally's mother had followed such thoughts to the length of almost +forgiving the author of her troubles. But she could not forgive him +considered also as the author of her husband's. The Major could not +find any forgiveness at all, though the thought of Sally just +sufficed to modify the severity of his condemnation. Leniency +dawned.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes; I was wrong to say that. But I couldn't help it." So said +the old man to himself, but quite as though he spoke to some one +else. He paused a little, then said again: "Yes; I was wrong. But +oh, what a damned scoundrel! And <i>what</i> a woman!" Then, as though he +feared a return of his old line of thought, "I wish Sally would +come." And a dreadful half-thought came to him, "Suppose there were +a fire at the theatre, and I had to wire ... why—that would be +worst of all!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 172 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>So, almost without a pause between, he had prayed for a hell to +punish a crime, and for the safety of the treasured thing that was +its surviving record—a creature that but for that crime would never +have drawn breath.</p> + +<p>His reading-lamp had burned out its young enthusiasm, and was making +up its mind to go out, only not in any hurry. It would expire with +dignity and leave a rich inheritance of stench. Meanwhile, its +decadence was marked enough to frank the Major in neglecting "Harry +Lorrequer" for the rest of the time, and also served to persuade him +that he had really been reading. Abstention from a book under +compulsion has something of the character of perusal. Gibbon could +not have collected his materials on those lines, certainly. But the +Major felt his conscience clearer from believing that he meant to go +on where he had been obliged to stop. He cancelled "Harry +Lorrequer," put him back in the bookcase to make an incident, then +began actively waiting for the return of the playgoers. Reference to +his watch at short intervals intensified their duration, added gall +to their tediousness. But so convinced was he that they "would be +here directly" that it was at least half-an-hour before he +reconsidered this insane policy and resumed his chair with a view to +keeping awake in it. He was convinced he was succeeding, had not +noticed he was dozing, when he was suddenly wrenched out of the jaws +of sleep by the merry voices of the home-comers and the loss of the +piebald cat's temper as aforesaid.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Major dear, you haven't gone to bed! You will be so tired! Why +didn't you go?"</p> + +<p>"I've been very happy, chick. I've been reading 'Harry Lorrequer.' I +like Charles Lever, because I read him when I was a boy. What's +o'clock?" He pulled out his watch with a pretence, easy of +detection, that he had not just done so ten minutes before. It was a +lie about "Harry Lorrequer," you see, so a little extra didn't +matter.</p> + +<p>"It's awfully late!" Sally testified. "Very nearly as late as it's +possible to be. But now we're in for it, we may as well make it a +nocturnal dissipation. Ann!—don't go to bed; at least, not before +you've brought some more fresh water. This will take years to hot +up. Oh, Major, Major, why <i>didn't</i> you make + +<!-- Page 173 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +yourself some toddy? I +never go out for five minutes but you don't make yourself any +toddy!"</p> + +<p>"I don't want it, dear child. I've been drinking all day—however, +of course, it was a wedding...."</p> + +<p>"But you must have some now, anyhow. Stop a minute, there's some one +coming up the doorsteps and Ann's fastened up.... No, it's not the +policeman. <i>I</i> know who it is. Stop a minute." And then presently +the Major hears Sally's half of an interview, apparently through a +keyhole. "I shan't open the door ... two bolts and a key and a +chain—the idea! What is it?... My pocky-anky?... Keep it, it won't +bite you ... send it to the wash!... No, really, do keep it if you +don't mind—keep it till Brahms on Thursday. Remember! Good-night." +But it isn't quite good-night, for Sally arrests departure. "Stop! +What a couple of idiots we are!... What for?—why—because you might +have stuffed it in the letter-box all along." And the incident +closes on the line indicated.</p> + +<p>"It was only my medical adviser," Sally says, returning with +explanations. "Found my wipe in the cab."</p> + +<p>"Dr. Vereker?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Dr. Him. Exactly! We bawled at each other through the keyhole +like Pyramus and Trilby——" She becomes so absorbed in the details +of the toddy that she has to stand a mere emendation over until it +is ready. Then she completes: "I mean Thisbe. I wonder where they've +got to?"</p> + +<p>"Pyramus and Thisbe?"</p> + +<p>"No, mother and her young man.... No, I won't sit on you. I'll sit +here; down alongside—so! Then I shan't shake the toddy overboard."</p> + +<p>Her white soft hand is so comforting as it lies on the Major's on +the chair-arm that he is fain to enjoy it a little, however +reproachful the clock-face may be looking. You can pretend your +toddy is too hot, almost any length of time, as long as no one else +touches the tumbler; also you can drink as slow as you like. No need +to hurry. Weddings don't come every day.</p> + +<p>"Was it very funny, chick?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, wasn't it! But didn't mamma look <i>lovely</i>?... I've seen it +twice before, you know." This last is by way of apology for giving +the conversation a wrench. But the Major didn't want + +<!-- Page 174 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +to talk over +the wedding—seemed to prefer "Charley's Aunt."</p> + +<p>"He dresses up like his aunt, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—it's glorious fun! But <i>do</i> say you thought mamma looked +lovely."</p> + +<p>"Of course she did. She always does. But had the others seen +'Charley's Aunt' before?"</p> + +<p>"Tishy and her Bradshaw? Oh yes—at least, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"And Dr. Vereker?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course <i>he</i> had—twice at least. The times we saw it, mother +and I. He went too.... We-e-e-ell, there's nothing in that!" (We can +only hope again our spelling conveys the way the word <i>well</i> was +prolonged.)</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all. Why should there be? What a nice fellow Vereker +is!"</p> + +<p>"My medical adviser? Oh, <i>he's</i> all right. Never mind him; talk +about mother."</p> + +<p>"They must be very nearly at Rheims by now." This is mere obedience +to orders on the Major's part. He feels no real interest in what he +is saying.</p> + +<p>"How rum it must be!" says Sally, with grave consideration. And the +Major's "What?" evolves that "it" means marrying a second husband.</p> + +<p>"Going through it all over again when you've done it once before," +continues this young philosopher. The Major thinks of asking why it +should be rummer the second time than the first, but decides not to, +and sips his toddy, and pats the hand that is under his. In a hazy, +fossil-like way he perceives that to a young girl's mind the +"rumness" of a second husband is exactly proportionate to the +readiness of its acceptance of the first. Unity is just as intrinsic +a quality of a first husband as the colour of his eyes or hair. +Moreover, he is expected to outlive you. Above all, he is perfectly +natural and a matter of course. We discern in all this a sneaking +tribute to an idea of a hereafter; but the Major didn't go so far as +that.</p> + +<p>"She looked very jolly over it," said he, retreating on +generalities. "So did he."</p> + +<p>"Gaffer Fenwick? I should think so indeed! Well he might!" Then, +after a moment's consideration: "He looked like my idea of + +<!-- Page 175 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +Sir +Richard Grenville. It's only an idea. I forget what he did. +Elizabethan johnny."</p> + +<p>"What do you call him? Gaffer Fenwick? You're a nice, respectable +young monkey! Well, he's not half a bad-looking fellow; well set +up." But none of this, though good in itself, is what Sally sat down +to talk about. A sudden change in her manner, a new earnestness, +makes the Major stop an incipient yawn he is utilising as an +exordium to a hint that we ought to go to bed, and become quite +wakeful to say: "I will tell you all I can, my child." For Sally has +thrust aside talk of the day's events, making no more of the wedding +ceremony than of "Charley's Aunt," with: "<i>Why</i> did my father and +mother part? You <i>will</i> tell me now, won't you, Major dear?"</p> + +<p>Lying was necessary—inevitable. But he would minimise it. There was +always the resource of the legal fiction; all babes born in +matrimony are legally the children of their mother's husband, +<i>quand-même</i>. He must make that his sheet-anchor.</p> + +<p>"You know, Sallykin, your father and mother fell out before you were +born. And the first time I saw your mother—why, bless my soul, my +dear! you were quite a growing girl—yes, able to get a +staff-officer's thumb in your mouth, and bite it. Indeed, you did! +It was General Pellew; they say he's going to be made a peer." The +Major thinks he sees his way out of the fire by sinking catechism in +reminiscences. "I can recollect it all as if it were yesterday. I +said to him, 'Who's the poor pretty little mother, General?' Because +he knew your mother, and I didn't. 'Don't you know?' said he. 'She's +Mrs. Graythorpe.' I asked about her husband, but Pellew had known +nothing except that there was a row, and they had parted." The +Major's only fiction here was that he substituted the name +Graythorpe for Palliser. "Next time I saw her we picked up some +acquaintance, and she asked if I was a Lincolnshire Lund, because +her father always used to talk of how he went to Lund's father's, +near Crowland, when he was a boy. 'Stop a bit,' said I; 'what was +your father's name?' 'Paul Nightingale,' says she." Observe that +nothing was untrue in this, because Rosey always spoke and thought +of Paul Nightingale as her father.</p> + +<p>"That was my grandfather?" Sally was intent on accumulating +facts—would save up analysis till after. The Major took advantage + +<!-- Page 176 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +of a slight choke over his whiskey to mix a brief nod into it; it +was a lie—but, then, he himself couldn't have said which was nod +and which was choke; so it hardly counted. He continued, availing +himself at times of the remains of the choke to help him to slur +over difficult passages.</p> + +<p>"He was the young brother of a sort of sweetheart of mine—a silly +boyish business—a sort of calf-love. She married and died. But he +was her great pet, a favourite younger brother. One keeps a +recollection of this sort of thing."—The Major makes a parade of +his powers of oblivion, and his failure to carry it out sits well +upon him.—"Of course, my romantic memories"—the Major smiles +derision of Love's young dream—"had something to do with my +interest in your mother, but I hope I should have done the same if +there had been no such thing. Well, the mere fact of your father's +behaviour to your mother...." He stopped short, with misgivings that +his policy of talking himself out of his difficulties was not such a +very safe one, after all. Here he was, getting into a fresh mess, +gratuitously!</p> + +<p>"Mamma won't talk about that," says Sally, "so I suppose I'm not to +ask <i>you</i>." The Major must make a stand upon this, or the enemy will +swarm over his entrenchments. Merely looking at his watch and saying +it's time for us to be in bed will only bring a moment's respite. +There is nothing for it but decision.</p> + +<p>"Sally dear, your mother does not tell you because she wishes the +whole thing buried and forgotten. Her wishes must be my wishes...."</p> + +<p>He would like to stop here—to cut it short at that, at once and for +good. But the pathetic anxiety of the face from which all memories +of "Charley's Aunt" have utterly vanished is too much for his +fortitude; and, at the risk of more semi-fibs, he extenuates the +sentence.</p> + +<p>"One day your mother may tell you all about it. She is the proper +person to tell it—not me. Neither do I think I know it all to +tell."</p> + +<p>"You know if there was or wasn't a divorce?" The Major feels very +sorry he didn't let it alone.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you that, you inquisitive chick, if you'll promise on +honour not to ask any more questions."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 177 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I promise."</p> + +<p>"Honour bright?"</p> + +<p>"Honest Injun!"</p> + +<p>"That's right. Now I'll tell you. There was no divorce, but there +was a suit for a divorce, instituted by him. He failed to make out a +case." Note that the expression "your father" was carefully +excluded. "She was absolutely blameless—to my thinking, at least. +Now that's plenty for a little girl to know. And it's high time we +were both in bed and asleep."</p> + +<p>He kisses the grave, sad young face that is yearning to hear more, +but is too honourable to break its compact. "They'll be at Rheims by +now," says he, to lighten off the conversation.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 178 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">SALLY'S LARK. AND HOW SHE TOOK HER MEDICAL ADVISER INTO HER +CONFIDENCE AFTER DIVINE SERVICE</p> + +<p>Though Sally cried herself to sleep after her interview with her +beloved but reticent old fossil, nevertheless, when she awoke next +morning and found herself mistress of the house and the situation, +she became suddenly alive to the advantages of complete +independence. She was an optimist constitutionally; for it <i>is</i> +optimism to decide that it is "rather a lark" to breakfast by +yourself when you have just dried the tears you have been shedding +over the loss of your morning companion. Sally came to this +conclusion as she poured out her tea, after despatching his toast +and coffee to the Major in his own room. He sometimes came down to +breakfast, but such a dissipation as yesterday put it out of the +question on this particular morning.</p> + +<p>The lark continued an unalloyed, unqualified lark quite to the end +of the second cup of tea, when it seemed to undergo a slight +clouding over—a something we should rather indicate by saying that +it slowed down passing through a station, than that it was modulated +into a minor key. Of course, we are handicapped in our metaphors by +an imperfect understanding of the exact force of the word "lark" +used in this connexion.</p> + +<p>The day before does not come back to us during our first cup at +breakfast, whether it be tea or coffee. A happy disposition lets +what we have slept on sleep, till at least it has glanced at the +weather, and knows that it is going to be cooler, some rain. Then +memory revives, and all the chill inheritance of overnight. We pick +up the thread of our existence, and draw our finger over the last +knots, and then go on where we left off. We remember that we have to +see about this, and we mustn't be late at that, and that there's an +order got to be made out for the stores. There wasn't in Sally's +case, certainly, because it was Sunday; but there was tribulation +awaiting her as soon as she could recollect + +<!-- Page 179 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +her overdue analysis of +the Major's concealed facts. She had put it off till leisure should +come; and now that she was only looking at a microcosm of the garden +seen through the window, and reflected upside down in the tea-urn, +she had surely met with leisure. Her mind went back tentatively on +the points of the old man's reminiscences, as she looked at her own +thoughtful face in the convex of the urn opposite, nursed in two +miniature hands whose elbows were already becoming unreasonably +magnified, though really they were next to nothing nearer.</p> + +<p>Just to think! The Major had actually been in love when he was +young. More than once he must have been, because Sally knew he was a +widower. She touched the shiny urn with her finger, to see how +hideously it swelled in the mirror. You know what fun that is! But +she took her finger back, because it was too hot, though off the +boil.</p> + +<p>There was a bluebottle between the blind and the window-pane, as +usual; if he was the same bluebottle that was there when Fenwick was +first brought into this room, he had learned nothing and forgotten +nothing, like the old <i>régime</i> in France. He only knew how to butt +and blunder resonantly at the glass; but he could do it as well as +ever, and he seemed to have made up his mind to persevere. Sally +listened to his monotone, and watched her image in the urn.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't promised not to ask more," she thought to herself. +"Anyhow, Tishy's wrong. Nobody ever was named Palliser—that's flat! +And if there was a divorce-suit ever so, <i>I</i> don't care!..." She had +to stop thinking for a moment, to make terms with the cat, who +otherwise would have got her claws in the beautiful white damask, +and ripped.</p> + +<p>"Besides, if my precious father behaved so badly to mamma, how could +it be <i>her</i> fault? I don't <i>believe</i> in mother being the <i>least</i> +wrong in anything, so it's no use!" This last filled out a response +to an imaginary indictment of an officious Crown-Prosecutor. "I know +what I should like! I should like to get at that old Scroope, or +whatever his name is, and get it all out of him. I'd give him a +piece of my mind, gossipy old humbug!" It then occurred to Sally +that she was being unfair. No, she wouldn't castigate old Major +Roper for tattling, and at the same time cross-examine him for her +own purposes. It would be underhand. + +<!-- Page 180 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +But it would be very easy, if +she could get at him, to make him talk about it. She rehearsed ways +and means that might be employed to that end. For instance, nothing +more natural than to recur to the legend of how she bit General +Pellew's finger; that would set him off! She recited the form of +speech to be employed. "Do you know, Major Roper, I'm told I once +bit a staff-officer's finger off," etc. Or would it be better not to +approach the matter with circumspection, but go straight to the +point—"You must have met my father, Major Roper, etc.," and then +follow on with explanations? Oh dear, how difficult it was to +settle! If only there were any one she could trust to talk to about +it! Really, Tishy was quite out of the question, even if she could +take her mind off her Bradshaw for five minutes, which she couldn't.</p> + +<p>"Of course, there's Prosy, if you come to that," was the conclusion +reached at the end of a long avenue of consideration, on each side +of which referees who might have been accepted, but had been +rejected, were supposed to be left to their disappointment. "Only, +fancy making a confidant of old Prosy! Why, he'd feel your pulse and +look at your tongue, just as likely as not."</p> + +<p>But Dr. Vereker, thus dismissed to the rejected referees, seemed not +to care for their companionship, and to be able to come back. At any +rate, Miss Sally ended up a long cogitation with, "I've a great mind +to go and talk to Prosy about it, after all! Perhaps he would be at +church."</p> + +<p>Now, if this had been conversation instead of soliloquy, Sally's +constitutional frankness would have entered some protest against the +assumption that she intended to go to church as a matter of course. +As she was her only audience, and one that knew all about the +speaker already, she slurred a little over the fact that her +decision to attend church was influenced by a belief that probably +Dr. Vereker would be there. If she chose, she should deceive +herself, and consult nobody else. She looked at her watch, as the +open-work clock with the punctual ratchet-movement had stopped, and +was surprised to find how late she was. "Comes of weddings!" was her +comment. However, she had time to wind the clock up and set it going +when she came downstairs again ready for church.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 181 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>St. Satisfax's Revd. Vicar prided himself on the appropriateness of +his sermons; so, this time, as he had yesterday united a +distinguished and beautiful widow to her second husband, he selected +for his text the parable of the widow's son. True, Mrs. Nightingale +had no son, and her daughter wasn't dead, and there is not a hint in +the text that the widow of Nain married again, or had any intention +of doing so. On the other hand, the latter had no daughter, +presumably, and her son was alive. And as to marrying again, why, +there was the very gist and essence of the comparison, if you chose +to accept the cryptic suggestions of the Revd. Vicar, and make it +for yourself. The lesson we had to learn from this parable was +obviously that nowadays widows, however good and solvent, were +mundane, and married again; while in the City of Nain, nineteen +hundred years ago, they (being in Holy Writ) were, as it were, +Sundane, and didn't. The delicacy of the reverend suggestion to this +effect, without formal indictment of any offender, passes our powers +of description. So subtle was it that Sally felt she had nothing to +lay hold of.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when the last of the group that included herself and +the doctor, and walked from St. Satisfax towards its atomic +elements' respective homes, had vanished down her turning—it was +the large Miss Baker, as a matter of fact—then Sally referred to +the sermon and its text, jumping straight to her own indictment of +the preacher.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't my mother marry again if she likes, Dr. +Vereker—especially Mr. Fenwick?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it possible, Miss Sally, that the parson didn't +mean anything about your mother—didn't connect her in his mind +with——"</p> + +<p>"With the real widow in the parable? Oh yes, he did, though! As if +mother was a real widow!"</p> + +<p>Now, the doctor had heard from his own widowed mother the heads of +the gossip about the supposed divorce. He had pooh-poohed this as +mere tattle—asked for evidence, and so on. But, having heard it, it +was not to be wondered at that he put a false interpretation on +Sally's last words. They seemed to acknowledge the divorce story. He +felt very unsafe, and could only repeat them half interrogatively, +"As if Mrs. Nightingale was + +<!-- Page 182 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +a real widow?" But with the effect that +Sally immediately saw clean through him, and knew what was passing +in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, Dr. Vereker! I wasn't thinking of <i>that</i>." She faced round +to disclaim it, turning her eyes full on the embarrassed doctor. +Then she suddenly remembered it was the very thing she had come out +to talk about, and felt ashamed. The slightest possible flush, that +framed up her smile and her eyes, made her at this moment a bad +companion for a man who was under an obligation not to fall in love +with her—for that was how the doctor thought of himself. Sally +continued: "But I wish I had been, because it would have done +instead."</p> + +<p>The young man was really, at the moment, conscious of very little +beyond the girl's fascination, and his reply, "Instead of what?" was +a little mechanical.</p> + +<p>"I mean instead of explaining what I wanted you to talk about +special. But when I spoke, you know, just now about a real widow, I +meant a real widow that—that <i>wids</i>—you know what I mean. Don't +laugh!"</p> + +<p>"All right, Miss Sally. I'm serious." The doctor composes a +professional face. "I know perfectly what you mean." He waits for +the next symptom.</p> + +<p>"Now, mother never did wid, and never will wid, I hope. She hasn't +got it in her bones." And then Miss Sally stopped short, and a +little extra flush got time to assert itself. But a moment after she +rushed the position without a single casualty. "I want to know what +people say, when I'm not there, about who my father was, and why he +and mother parted. And I'm sure you can tell me, and will. It's no +use asking Tishy Wilson any more about it." Observe the transparency +of this young lady. She wasn't going to conceal that she had talked +of it to Tishy Wilson—not she!</p> + +<p>Dr. Vereker, usually reserved, but candid withal, becomes, under the +infection of Sally's frankness, candid and unreserved.</p> + +<p>"People haven't talked any nonsense to <i>me</i>; I never let them. But +my mother has repeated to me things that have been said to her.... +She doesn't like gossip, you know!" And the young man really +believes what he says. Because his mother has been his +religion—just consider!</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 183 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I know she doesn't." Sally analyses the position, and decides on +the fib in the twinkling of an eye. She is going to make a son break +a promise to his mother, and she knows it. So she gives him this as +a set-off. "But people <i>will</i> talk to her, of course! Shall I get +<i>her</i> to tell <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>The doctor considers, then answers:</p> + +<p>"I think, Miss Sally—unless you particularly wish the contrary—I +would almost rather not. Mother believed the story all nonsense, and +was very much concerned that people should repeat such silly tattle. +She would be very unhappy if she thought it had come to your ears +through her repeating it in confidence to me."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would really rather not tell it, doctor." +Disappointment is on Sally's face.</p> + +<p>"No. As you have asked me, I prefer to tell it. Only you won't speak +to her at all, will you?"</p> + +<p>"I really won't. You may trust me."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it's really very little when all's said and done. +Somebody told her—I won't say who it was—you don't mind?" Sally +didn't—"told her that your father behaved very badly to your +mother, and that he tried to get a divorce from her and failed, and +that after that they parted by mutual consent, and he went away to +New Zealand when you were quite a small baby."</p> + +<p>"Was that quite all?"</p> + +<p>"That was all mother told me. I'm afraid I rather cut her short by +saying I thought it was most likely all unfounded gossip. Was any of +it true? But I've no right to ask questions...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dr. Vereker—no! That wouldn't be fair. Of course, when you are +asked to tell, you are allowed to ask. Every one always is. Besides, +I don't mind a bit telling you all I know. Only you'll be surprised +at my knowing so very little."</p> + +<p>And then Sally, with a clearness that did her credit, repeated all +the information she had had—all that her mother had told her—what +she had extracted from Colonel Lund with difficulty—and lastly, but +as the merest untrustworthy hearsay, the story that had reached her +through her friend Lætitia. In fact, she went the length of +discrediting it altogether, as "Only Goody Wilson, + +<!-- Page 184 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +when all was +said and done." The fact that her mother had told her so little +never seemed to strike her as strange or to call for comment. It was +right that it should be so, because it was in her mother's +jurisdiction, and what she did or said was right. Cannot most of us +recall things unquestioned in our youth that we have marvelled at +our passive acceptance of since? Sally's mother's silence about her +father was ingrained in the nature of things, and she had never +speculated about him so much as she had done since Professor +Wilson's remark across the table had led to Lætitia's tale about +Major Roper and the tiger-shooting.</p> + +<p>Sally's version of her mother's history was comforting to her hearer +on one point: it contained no hint that the fugitive to Australia +was not her father. Now, the fact is that the doctor, in repeating +what his mother had said to him, had passed over some speculations +of hers about Sally's paternity. No wonder the two records confirmed +each other, seeing that the point suppressed by the doctor had been +studiously kept from Sally by all her informants. He, for his part, +felt that the bargain did not include speculations of his mother's.</p> + +<p>"Well, doctor?" Thus Sally, at the end of a very short pause for +consideration. Vereker does not seem to need a longer one. "You +mean, Miss Sally, do I think people talk spitefully of Mrs. +Nightingale—I suppose I must say Mrs. Fenwick now—behind her back? +Isn't that the sort of question?" Sally, for response, looks a +little short nod at the doctor, instead of words. He goes on: "Well, +then, I don't think they do. And I don't think you need fret about +it. People will talk about the story of the quarrel and separation, +of course, but it doesn't follow that anything will be said against +either your father or mother. Things of this sort happen every day, +with fault on neither side."</p> + +<p>"You think it was just a row?"</p> + +<p>"Most likely. The only thing that seems to me to tell against your +father is what you said your mother said just now—something about +having forgiven him for your sake." Sally repeats her nod. "Well, +even that might be accounted for by supposing that he had been very +hot-tempered and unjust and violent. He was quite a young chap, you +see...."</p> + +<p>"You mean like—like supposing Jeremiah were to go into a tantrum + +<!-- Page 185 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +now and flare up—he does sometimes—and then they were both to miff +off?"</p> + +<p>"Something of that sort. Very likely they would have understood each +other better if they had been a little older and wiser...."</p> + +<p>"Like us?" says Sally, with perfect unconsciousness of one aspect of +the remark. "And then they might have gone on till now." Regret that +they did not do so is on her face, till she suddenly sees a new +contingency. "But then we shouldn't have had Jeremiah. I shouldn't +have fancied that at all." She doesn't really see why the doctor +smiled at this, but adds a grave explanation: "I mean, if I'd tried +both, I might have preferred my step." But there they were at +Glenmoira Road, and must say good-bye till Brahms on Thursday.</p> + +<p>Only, the doctor did (as a matter of history) walk down that road +with Sally as far as the gate with Krakatoa Villa on it, and got +home late for his mid-day Sunday dinner, and was told by his mother +that he might have considered the servants. She herself was, meekly, +out of it.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 186 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A SWIMMING-BATH, "ET PRÆTEREA EXIGUUM"</p> + +<p>This was the best of the swimming-bath season, and Sally rarely +passed a day without a turn at her favourite exercise. If her +swimming-bath had been open on Sunday, she wouldn't have gone to +church yesterday, not even to meet Dr. Vereker and talk about her +father to him. As it was, she very nearly came away from Krakatoa +Villa next morning without waiting to see the letter from Rheims, +the post being late. Why <i>is</i> everything late on Monday?</p> + +<p>However, she was intercepted by the postman and the foreign +postmark—a dozen words on a card, but she read them several times, +and put the card in her pocket to show to Lætitia Wilson. She was +pretty sure to be there. And so she was, and by ten o'clock had seen +the card and exhausted its contents. And by five-minutes-past Sally +was impending over the sparkling water of Paddington swimming-bath. +She was dry so far, and her blue bathing-dress could stick out. But +it was not to be for long, for her two hands went together after a +preliminary stretch to make a cutwater, and down went Sally with a +mighty splash into the deep—into the moderately deep, suppose we +say—at any rate into ten thousand gallons of properly filtered +Thames water, which had been (no doubt) sterilised and disinfected +and examined under powerful microscopes until it hadn't got a +microbe to bless itself with. When she came up at the other end, to +taunt Lætitia Wilson with her cowardice for not doing likewise, she +was a smooth and shiny Sally, like a deep blue seal above water, but +with modifications towards floating fins below.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me about the row last night," said she, after reproaches +met by Lætitia with, "It's no use, dear. I wasn't born a herring +like you."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 187 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Sally must have heard there had been some family dissension at +Ladbroke Grove Road as she came into the bath with Lætitia, whom she +met at the towel-yielding <i>guichet</i>. However, the latter wasn't +disposed to discuss family matters in an open swimming-bath in the +hearing of the custodian, to say nothing of possible concealed +dressers in horse-boxes alongside.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, <i>is</i> this the place to talk about things in? <i>Do</i> be +a little discreet sometimes," is her reply to Sally's request.</p> + +<p>"There's nobody here but us. Cut away, Tishy!" But Miss Wilson will +<i>not</i> talk about the row, whatever it was, with the chance of +goodness-knows-who coming in any minute. For one thing, she wants to +enjoy the telling, and not to be interrupted. So it is deferred to a +more fitting season and place.</p> + +<p>Goodness-knows-who (presumably) came in in the shape of Henriette +Prince, who was, after Sally, the next best swimmer in the Ladies' +Club. After a short race or two, won by Sally in spite of heavy odds +against her, the two girls turned their attention to the art of +rescuing drowning persons. A very amusing game was played, each +alternately committing suicide off the edge of the bath while the +other took a header to her rescue from the elevation which we just +now saw Sally on ready to plunge. The rules were clear. The suicide +was to do her best to drag the rescuer under water and to avoid +being dragged into the shallow end of the bath.</p> + +<p>"I know you'll both get drowned if you play those tricks," says +Lætitia nervously.</p> + +<p>"No—we <i>shan't</i>," vociferates Sally from the brink. "Now, are you +ready, Miss Prince? Very well. Tishy, count ten!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish you wouldn't! One—two—three...." And Lætitia, all +whose dignity and force of character go when she is bathing, does as +she is bidden, and, at the "ten," the suicide, with a cry of +despair, hurls herself madly into the water, and the rescuer flies +to her succour. What she has to do is to grasp the struggling quarry +by the elbows from behind and keep out of the reach of her hands. +But the tussle that ensues in the water is a short one, for the +rescuer is no match for the supposed involuntary resistance of the +convulsed suicide, who eludes the coming grasp of her hand with +eel-like dexterity, and has her round + +<!-- Page 188 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +the waist and drags her under +water in a couple of seconds.</p> + +<p>"There now!" says Sally triumphantly, as they stand spluttering and +choking in the shallow water to recover breath. "Didn't I do that +beautifully?"</p> + +<p>"Well, but <i>anybody</i> could like that. When real people are drowning +they don't do it like that." Miss Prince is rather rueful about it. +But Sally is exultant.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't they!" she says. "They're worse when it's real +drowning—heaps worse!" Whereon both the other girls affirm in +chorus that then nobody can be saved without the Humane Society's +drags—unless, indeed, you wait till they are insensible.</p> + +<p>"Can't they?" says Sally, with supreme contempt. "We were both of us +drowned that time fair. But now you go and drown yourself, and see +if I don't fish you out. Fire away!"</p> + +<p>They fire away, and the determined suicide plays her part with +spirit. But she is no match for the submarine tactics of her +rescuer, who seems just as happy under water as on land, and rising +under her at the end of a resolute deep plunge, makes a successful +grasp at the head of her prey, who is ignominiously towed into +safety, doing her best to drown herself to the last.</p> + +<p>This little incident is so amusing and exciting that the three young +ladies, who walk home together westward, can talk of nothing but +rescues all the way to Notting Hill. Then Miss Henriette Prince goes +on alone, and as Lætitia and Sally turn off the main road towards +the home of the former, the latter says: "Now tell me about the +row."</p> + +<p>It wasn't exactly a row, it seemed; but it came to the same thing. +Mamma had made up her mind to be detestable about Julius +Bradshaw—that was the long and short of it. And Sally knew, said +Lætitia, how detestable mamma could be when she tried. If it wasn't +for papa, Julius Bradshaw would simply be said not-at-home to, and +have to leave a card and go. But she was going to go her own way and +not be dictated to, maternal authority or no. Perhaps the speaker +felt that Sally was mentally taking exception to universal revolt, +for a flavour of excuse or justification crept in.</p> + +<p>"Well!—I can't help it. I <i>am</i> twenty-four, after all. I shouldn't +say so if there was anything against him. But no man + +<!-- Page 189 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +can be blamed +for a cruel conjunction of circumstances, and mamma may say what she +likes, but being in the office really makes all the difference. And +look how he's supporting his mother and sister, who were left badly +off. <i>I</i> call it noble."</p> + +<p>"But you know, Tishy, you did say the negro couldn't change his +spots, and that I must admit there were such things as social +distinctions—and you talked about sweeps and dustmen, you know you +did. Come, Tishy, did you, or didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"If I said anything it was leopard, not negro. And as for sweeps and +dustmen, they were merely parallel cases used as illustrations; and +I don't think I deserve to have them raked up...." Miss Wilson is +rather injured over this grievance, and Sally appeases her. "She +shan't have them raked up, she shan't! But what was this row really +about, that's the point? It was yesterday morning, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"How often am I to tell you, Sally dear, that there was really no +<i>row</i>, property speaking. If you were to say there had been comments +at breakfast yesterday, then recrimination overnight, and a +stiffness at breakfast again this morning, you would be doing more +than justice to it. You'll see now if mamma isn't cold and firm and +disinherity and generally detestable about it."</p> + +<p>"But what <i>was</i> it? That's what <i>I</i> want to know."</p> + +<p>"My dear—it was—absolutely nothing! Why should it be stranger for +Mr. Bradshaw to drive me home to save two hansoms than for you and +Dr. Vereker and the Voyseys to go all in one growler?"</p> + +<p>"Because the Voyseys live just round the corner, quite close. It +came to three shillings because it's outside the radius." The +irrelevancy of this detail gives Lætitia an excuse for waiving the +cab-question, on which her position is untenable. She dilutes it +with extraneous matter, and it is lost sight of.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter whether it's cabs or what it is. Mamma's just the +same about everything. Even walking up Holland Park Lane after the +concert at Kensington Town Hall. I am sure if ever anything was +reasonable, that was." She pauses for confirmation—is, in fact, +wavering about the correctness of her own position, and weakly +seeking reassurance. She is made happier by a nod of assent from +Miss Sally. "Awfully reasonable!" is the verdict of the latter. +Whatever there is lacking seriousness + +<!-- Page 190 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +in the judge's face is too +slight to call for notice—a mere twinkle to be ignored. Very little +self-deception is necessary, and in this department success is +invariable.</p> + +<p>"I knew you would say so, dear," Tishy continues. "And I'm sure you +would about the other things too ... well, I was thinking about tea +in Kensington Gardens on Sunday. We have both of us a perfect right +to have tea independently, and the only question is about separate +tables."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I come—to make it square."</p> + +<p>"Suppose you do, dear." And the proposal is a relief evidently.</p> + +<p>A very slight insight into the little drama that is going on at +Ladbroke Grove Road is all that is wanted for the purposes of this +story. The foregoing dialogue, ending at the point at which the two +young women disappear into the door of No. 287, will be sufficient +to give a fairly clear idea of the plot of the performance, and to +point to its <i>dénouement</i>. The exact details may unfold themselves +as the story proceeds. The usual thing is a stand-up fight over the +love-affair, both parties to which have made up their +minds—becoming more and more obdurate as they encounter opposition +from without—followed by reconciliations more or less real. Let us +hope for the former in the present case, and that Miss Wilson and +Mr. Bradshaw's lot may not be crossed by one of those developments +of strange inexplicable fury which so often break out in families +over the schemes of two young people to do precisely what their +parents did before them; and most ungovernably, sometimes, on the +part of members who have absolutely no suggestion to make of any +alternative scheme for the happiness of either.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 191 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW FENWICK KNEW ALL ABOUT THE MASS. AND HOW BARON KREUTZKAMMER +RECOGNISED MR. HARRISSON. LONDON AGAIN!</p> + +<p>"Why do they call it the <i>messe des paresseux</i>?" The question must +have been asked just as Sally looked at her watch because she saw +the clock had stopped. But the nave of the Cathedral of Rheims was +very unlike that of St. Satisfax as the bride and bridegroom +lingered in out of the sunshine, and the former took the +unwarrantable liberty, for a heretic, of crossing herself from the +Holy Water at the foot of the column near the door. But she made up +for it by the amount of <i>sous</i> she gave to the old blind woman, who +must have been knitting there since the days of Napoleon at least, +if she began in her teens.</p> + +<p>"You haven't done it right, dearest. I knew you wouldn't. Look +here." And Fenwick crosses himself <i>secundum artem</i>, dipping his +finger first to make it valid.</p> + +<p>"But how came you to know?" His wife does not say this; she only +thinks it. And how came he to know about the <i>messe des paresseux</i>? +She repeats her question aloud.</p> + +<p>"Because the lazy people don't come to Mass till ten," he replies. +They are talking under their breath, as English folk do in foreign +churches, heedless of the loud gabble and resonant results of too +much snuff on the part of ecclesiastics off duty. Their own +salvation has been cultivated under a list slipper, cocoanut +matting, secretive pew-opener policy; and if they are new to it all, +they are shocked to see the snuff taken over the heads and wooden +<i>sabots</i> of the devout country-folk, whose ancestors knelt on the +same hard stone centuries ago, and prayed for great harvests that +never came, and to avert lean years that very often did. The +Anglican cannot understand the real aboriginal Papist. Sally's +mother was puzzled when she saw an old, old kneeling figure, +toothless and parchment-skinned, on whose rosary a pinch of snuff +<i>ut supra</i> descended, shake it off + +<!-- Page 192 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +the bead in evidence, and get on +to the next <i>Ave</i>, even as one who has business before her—so many +pounds of oakum to pick, so many bushels of peas to shell. It was a +reality to her; and there was the Blessed Virgin herself, a visible +certainty, who would see to the recognition of it at headquarters.</p> + +<p>Fenwick passed up the aisle, dreamily happy in the smell of the +incense, beside his bride of yesterday's making—she intensely happy +too, but in another way, for was not her bridegroom of yesterday her +husband of twenty years ago—cruelly wrenched away, but her husband +for all that. Still, there was always that little rift within the +lute that made the music—pray Heaven not to widen! Always that +thought!—that he might recollect. How could he remember the <i>messe +des paresseux</i>, and keep his mind a blank about how he came to know +of it? It was the first discomfort that had crossed her married +mind—put it away!</p> + +<p>It was easy to put it all away and forget it in the hush and gloom +of the great church, filled with the strange intonation from +Heaven-knows-where—some side-chapel unseen—of a Psalm it would +have puzzled David to be told was his, and a scented vapour Solomon +would have known at once; for neither myrrh nor frankincense have +changed one whit since his day. It was easy enough so long as both +sat listening to <i>Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax</i>. Carried +<i>nem. con.</i> by all sorts and conditions of Creeds. But when the +little bobs and tokens and skirt-adjustments of the fat priest and +his handsome abettor (a young fellow some girl might have been the +wife of, with advantage to both) came to a pause, and the +congregation were to be taken into confidence, how came Gerry to +know beforehand what the fat one was going to say, with that +stupendous voice of his?</p> + +<p>"<i>Hoc est corpus meum, et hic est calix sanguinis mei.</i> We all +kneel, I think." Thus the bridegroom under his breath. And his +companion heard, almost with a shudder, the selfsame words from the +priest, as the kneeling of the congregation subsided.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Gerry—darling fellow! How <i>can</i> you know that, and not +know...."</p> + +<p>"How I came by it? It's very funny, but I <i>can't</i>, and that's the + +<!-- Page 193 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +truth. I don't feel as if I ever <i>could</i> know, what's more. But it +all seems a matter of course."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're a Catholic all the while, without knowing it?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I am. But I should like to know, because of going to the +other place with you. I shouldn't care about purgatory without you, +Rosey dearest. No—not even with a reversionary interest in heaven."</p> + +<p>And then the plot thickened at the altar, and the odour of myrrh and +frankincense, and little bells rang to a climax, and the handsome +young priest, let us hope, felt he had got value for the loss of +that hypothetical girl.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>That little incident in the great church at Rheims was the first +anxiety of Rosalind Fenwick's married life—the first resumption of +the conditions she had been so often unnerved by during the period +of their betrothal. She was destined to be crossed by many such. But +she was, as we have said, a strong woman, and had made up her mind +to take these anxieties as part of the day's work—a charge upon her +happiness that had to be paid. It was a great consolation to her +that she could speak to her husband about the tension caused by her +misgivings without assigning any special reasons for anxiety that +would not be his as much as hers. She had to show uneasiness in +order to get the relief his sympathy gave her; but there were +unknown possibilities in the Bush enough to warrant it without going +outside what was known to both. No need at all that he should know +of her separate unseen burden, for that!</p> + +<p>But some of the jolts on the road, as we might call them, were to be +sore trials to Rosalind. One came in the fourth week of their +honeymoon, and quite spoiled for her the last three days of her +holiday. However, Fenwick himself laughed about it—that was one +comfort.</p> + +<p>It was at Sonnenberg. You know the Great Hotel, or Pension, near the +Seelisberg, that looks down on Lucerne Lake, straight over to where +Tell shot the arrow? If you do not, it does not matter. Mr. and Mrs. +Fenwick had never been there before, and have never been there +since. And what happened might + +<!-- Page 194 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +just as easily have happened +anywhere else. But it was there, as a matter of fact; and if you +know the place, you will be able to imagine the two of them leaning +on the parapet of the terrace that overlooks the lake, watching the +steamer from Lucerne creeping slowly to the landing-place at the +head of a white comet it has churned the indescribable blue of the +lake to, and discussing whether it is nearest to Oriental sapphire +or to green jasper at its bluest.</p> + +<p>Rosalind had got used to continual wonderment as to when and where +Fenwick had come to know so well this thing and that thing he spoke +of so familiarly; so she passed by the strange positiveness of his +speech about the shades of jasper, the scarcity of really blue +examples, and his verdict that the bluest possible one would be just +the colour of that water below them. She was not going to ask him +how he came to be so mighty wise about chalcedony and chrysoprase +and sardonyx, about which she herself either never knew or had +forgotten. She took it all as a matter of course, and asked if the +Baron's cigar was a good one.</p> + +<p>"Magnificent!" Fenwick replied, puffing at it. "How shall we return +his civility?"</p> + +<p>"Give <i>him</i> a cigar next time you get a chance."</p> + +<p>Fenwick laughs, in derision of his own cigars.</p> + +<p>"God bless me, my dearest love! Why, one of the Baron's is worth my +whole box. We must discover something better than that." Both ponder +over possible reciprocities in silence, but discover nothing, and +seem to give up the quest by mutual consent. Then he says: "I wonder +why he cosseted up to us last night in the garden so!" And she +repeats: "I wonder why!"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he even knows our name," she continues; and then he +repeats: "<i>I</i> don't believe he knows our name. I'm sure he doesn't."</p> + +<p>"And it was so dark, he couldn't have seen much of us. But his +cigar's quite beautiful. Blow the smoke in my face, Gerry!" She +shuts her eyes to receive it. How handsome Sally would think mamma +was looking if she could see her now in the light of the sunset! Her +husband thinks much to that effect, as he turns to blow the smoke on +order into the face that is so close to his, as they lean arm-in-arm +on the parapet the sun has left his warmth + +<!-- Page 195 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +on, and means to take +his eyes off in half an hour. They really look quite a young couple, +and the frivolity of their conduct adds to the effect. Nobody would +believe in her grown-up daughter, to see that young Mrs. Algernon +Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"I am ferry root, Mrs. Harrisson. If I introot, you shall say I +introot." It is the Baron, manifestly. His form—or rather his bulk, +for he cannot be said to have a form; he is amorphous—is baronial +in the highest degree. His stupendous chest seems to be a huge +cavern for the secretion of gutturals, which are discharged as heavy +artillery at a hint from some unseen percussion-cap within.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fenwick starts, a little taken aback at the Baron's +thunderclap; for he had approached unawares, and her closed eyes +helped on the effect. When they opened, they looked round, as for a +third person. But the Baron was alone.</p> + +<p>"Where is Mrs. Harrisson?" She asks the question with the most +absolute unconsciousness that she was herself the person addressed. +The Baron, still believing, presumably, that Fenwick is <i>Mr.</i> +Harrisson, is not a person to be trusted with the position created. +He develops an offensive waggery, shakes the forefinger that has +detected an escapade, and makes of his lips the round <i>O</i> of shocked +propriety, at heart in sympathy with the transgressor. His little +grey eyes glare through his gold-rimmed spectacles, and his huge +chest shakes with a substratum of laughter, only just loud enough to +put in the text.</p> + +<p>"O-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! No, do not be afraight. She is not here. We +unterzdant. It is all unterzdoot. We shall be ferry tizgreet...." +And then the Baron pats space with his fingers only, not moving his +hand, as a general indication of secrecy to the universe.</p> + +<p>Probably the slight flush that mantles the face he speaks to is less +due to any offence at his fat, good-humoured German raillery than to +some vague apprehension of the real nature of the position about to +develop. But Fenwick imputes it to the former. If Rosey was inclined +to treat the thing as a harmless joke, he would follow suit; but she +looks hurt, and her husband, sensitive about every word that is said +to her, blazes out:</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you mean? What the devil do you mean? How dare you +speak to my wife like that?" He makes a half-step + +<!-- Page 196 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +towards the burly +mass of flesh, still shaking with laughter. But his wife stops him.</p> + +<p>"Do be patient, Gerry darling! Don't flare up like that. I'll have a +divorce. I'll tell Sally...." a threat which seems to have a +softening effect. "Can't you see, dear, that there is some +misunderstanding?" Fenwick looks from her to the Baron, puzzled. The +latter drops his jocular rallying.</p> + +<p>"I saw last night you did not know me, Mr. Harrisson. That is +straintch! Have you forgotten Diedrich Kreutzkammer?" He says his +name with a sort of quiet confidence of immediate recognition. But +Fenwick only looks blankly at him.</p> + +<p>"He does not know me!" cries the German, with an astonished voice. +"'Frisco—the Klondyke—Chicago—the bridge at Brooklyn—why, it is +not two years ago...." He pauses between the names of the places, +enforcing each as a reminder with an active forefinger.</p> + +<p>Fenwick seems suddenly to breathe the fresh air of a solution of the +problem. He breaks into a sunny smile, to his wife's great relief.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, Baron Kreutzkammer, <i>my</i> name is not Harrisson. <i>My</i> name +is Fenwick, and this lady is my wife—Mrs. Fenwick. I have never +been in any of the places you mention." For the moment he forgot his +own state of oblivion: a thing he was getting more and more in the +habit of doing. The Baron looked intently at him, and looked again. +He slapped his forehead, not lightly at all, but as if good hard +slaps would really correct his misapprehensions and put him right +with the world.</p> + +<p>"I am all <i>wronck</i>" he said, borrowing extra force from an indurated +<i>g</i>. "But it is ferry bustling—I am bustled!" By this he meant +puzzled. Fenwick felt apologetic.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to thank you for the cigar Mr. Harrisson ought to +have had," said he. He felt really ashamed of having smoked it under +false pretences.</p> + +<p>"You shall throw it away, and I giff you one for yourself. That is +eacey! But I am bustled."</p> + +<p>He continued puzzled. Mrs. Fenwick felt that he was only keeping +further comment and inquiry in check because it would have been a +doubt thrown on her husband's word to make any. Her uneasiness would +have been visible if her power of concealing + +<!-- Page 197 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +it had not been +fortified by her belief that his happiness as well as hers depended +(for the present, at any rate) on his ignorance of his own past. +Perhaps she was wrong; with that we have nothing to do; we are +telling of things as they happened. Only we wish to record our +conviction that Rosalind Fenwick was acting for her husband's sake +as well as her own—not from a vulgar instinct of self-preservation.</p> + +<p>The Baron made conversation, and polished his little powerful +spectacle-lenses. He blew his nose like a salute of one gun in the +course of his polishing. When <i>we</i> blow <i>our</i> nose, we hush our +pocket-handkerchief back into its home, and ignore it a little. The +Baron didn't. He continued polishing on an unalloyed corner through +the whole of a very perceptible amount of chat about the tricks +memory plays us, and the probable depth of the blue water below. +Rosalind's uneasiness continued. It grew worse, when the Baron, +suddenly replacing his spectacles and fixing his eyes firmly on her +husband, said sternly, "Yes, it is a bustle!" but was relieved when +equally suddenly, he shouted in a stentorian voice, "We shall meed +lader," and took his leave.</p> + +<p>"He's a jolly fellow, the Baron, anyhow!" said Fenwick. "I wonder +whether they heard him at Altdorf?"</p> + +<p>"Every word, I should think. But how I should like to see the Mr. +Harrisson he took you for!"</p> + +<p>This was really part of a policy of nettle-grasping, which +continued. She always felt happier after defying a difficulty than +after flinching. After all, if Gerry's happiness and her own were +not motive enough, consider Sally's. If she should really come to +know her mother's story, Sally might die of it.</p> + +<p>Fenwick went on to the ending of the cigar, dreamily wondering, +evidently "bustled" like the Baron. As he blew the last smoke away, +and threw the smoking end down the slope, he repeated her words +spoken a minute before, "<i>I</i> should like to see the Mr. Harrisson he +took me for."</p> + +<p>"It would be funny to see oneself as ithers see one. Some power +might gie you the giftie, Gerry. If only we could meet that Mr. +Harrisson!"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember how we saw our profiles in a glass, and you said, +'I'm sure those are somebody else'? Illogical female!"</p> + +<p>"Why was I illogical? I knew they were going to turn out us in + +<!-- Page 198 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +the +end. But I was sure I shouldn't be convinced at once." And the talk +wandered away into a sort of paradoxical metaphysics.</p> + +<p>But when, later in the evening, this lady was described by +confidential chat at the far end of the salon as that handsome young +Mrs. Algernon Fenwick who was only just married, and whose husband +was playing chess in the smoking-room, and what a pity it was they +were not going to stop over Monday, she thus described, accurately +enough, was rather rejoicing that that handsome Mr. Fenwick, who +looked like a Holbein portrait, was being kept quiet for half an +hour, because she wanted to get a chance for a little chat with that +dreadful noisy Prussian Von, who made all the glasses ring at table +when he shouted so. Rosalind had her own share of feminine +curiosity, don't you see? and she was not by any means satisfied +about Mr. Harrisson. She did not acknowledge the nature of her +suspicions to herself, but she would very much like to know, for all +that! She got her opportunity.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't the least mind myself if smoking <i>were</i> allowed in the +salon, Baron. You saw to-day that I really liked the smoke?"</p> + +<p>"Ja! when I make that chogue. It was a root chogue. But I am +forgiffen?"</p> + +<p>"It was Gerry who had to be forgiven, breaking out like that. I hope +he has promised not to do so any more?"</p> + +<p>"He has bromiss to be goot. I have bromiss to be goot. We shall be +<i>sages enfants</i>, as the French say. But I will tell you, Madame +Fenwick, about my vrent Harrisson your Cherry is so ligue...."</p> + +<p>"Let's go out on the terrace, then you can light a cigar and be +comfortable.... Yes, I'll have my wrap ... no, that's wrong-side-out +... that's right now.... Well, perhaps it will be a little cool for +sitting down. We can walk about."</p> + +<p>"Now I can tell you about my vrent in America that your hussband is +so ligue. He could speague French—ferry well indeed." Rosalind +looked up. "It was when I heard your hussband speaguing French to +that grosse Grafin Pobzodonoff that I think to myself that was +Alchernon Harrisson that I knew in California."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 199 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Suppose we sit down. I don't think it's too cold.... Yes, this +place will do nicely. It's sheltered from the wind." If she does +look a little pale—and she feels she does—it will be quite +invisible in this dark corner, for the night is dark under a canopy +of blazing stars. "What were you saying about French?"</p> + +<p>"Alchernon Harrisson—that was his name—he could speague it well. +He spogue id ligue a nadiff. Better than I speague English. I +speague English so well because I have a knees at Ganderbury." This +meant a niece at Canterbury. Baron Kreutzkammer speaks English so +well that it is almost a shame to lay stress on his pronunciation of +consonants. The spelling is difficult too, so we will give the +substance of what he told Rosalind without his articulation. By this +time she, for her part, was feeling thoroughly uneasy. It seemed to +her—but it may be she exaggerated—that nothing stood between her +husband and the establishment of his identity with this Harrisson +except the difference of name. And how could she know that he had +not changed his name? Had she not changed hers?</p> + +<p>The Baron's account of Harrisson was that he made his acquaintance +about three years since at San Francisco, where he had come to +choose gold-mining plant to work a property he had purchased at +Klondyke. Rosalind found it a little difficult to understand the +account of how the acquaintance began, from want of knowledge of +mining machinery. But the gist of it was that the Baron, at that +time a partner in a firm that constructed stamping-mills, was +explaining the mechanism of one to Harrisson, who was standing close +to a small vertical pugmill, or mixer of some sort, just at the +moment the driving-engine had stopped and the fly-wheel had nearly +slowed down. He went carelessly too near the still revolving +machinery, and his coat-flap was caught and wound into the helix of +the pugmill. "It would have crowned me badly," said the Baron. But +he remained unground, for Harrisson, who was standing close to the +moribund fly-wheel, suddenly flung himself on it, and with +incredible strength actually cut short the rotation before the Baron +could be entangled in a remorseless residuum of crushing power, +which, for all it looked so gentle, would have made short work of a +horse's thigh-bone. The Baron's coat was spoiled, though + +<!-- Page 200 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +he was +intact. But Harrisson's right arm had done more than a human arm's +fair share of work, and had to rest and be nursed. They had become +intimate friends, and the Baron had gone constantly to inquire after +the swelled arm. It took time to become quite strong again, he said. +It was a fine strong arm, and burned all over with gunpowder, "what +you call daddooed in English."</p> + +<p>"Did it get quite well?"</p> + +<p>"Ferry nearly. There was a little blaze in the choint here"—the +Baron touched his thumb—"where the bane remained—a roomadic bane. +He burgessed a gopper ring for it. It did him no goot." Luckily +Rosalind had discarded the magic ring long since, or it might have +come into court awkwardly.</p> + +<p>If she still entertained any doubts about the identity of her +husband and Harrisson, the Baron's next words removed them. They +came in answer to an expression of wonder of hers that he should so +readily accept her husband's word for his identity in the face of +the evidence of his own senses. "I really think," she had said, +"that if I were in your place I should think he was telling fibs." +This was nettle-grasping.</p> + +<p>"Ach, ach! No—no—no!" shouted the Baron, so loud that she was +afraid it would reach the chess-players in the smoking-room, "I +arrife at it by logic, by reasson. Giff me your attention." He held +up one finger firmly, as an act of hypnotism, to procure it. "Either +I am ride or I am wronck. I cannot be neither."</p> + +<p>"You might be mistaken."</p> + +<p>The Baron's finger waved this remark aside impatiently. "I will +fairy the syllogism," he shouted. "Either your husband <i>is</i> Mr. +Harrisson, or he is <i>not</i>. He cannot be neither." This was granted. +"Ferry well, then. If he is Mr. Harrisson, Mr. Harrisson has doled +fips. But I know Mr. Harrisson would not dell fips. Imbossible!"</p> + +<p>"And if he is not?" The Baron points out that in this case his +statement is true by hypothesis, to say nothing of the intrinsic +probability of truthfulness on the part of any one so like Mr. +Harrisson. He is careful to dwell on the fact that this +consideration of the matter is purely analysis of a metaphysical +crux, indulged in for scientific illumination. He then goes on to + +<!-- Page 201 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +apologize for having been so very positive. But no doubt one or two +minor circumstances had so affected his imagination that he saw a +very strong likeness where only a very slight one existed. "I shall +look again. I shall be wicer next time." But what were the minor +circumstances, Rosalind asked.</p> + +<p>"There was the French—the lankwitch—that was one. But there was +another—his <i>noce</i>! I will tell you. When my frent Harrisson gribe +holt of that wheel, his head go down etchwice." The Baron tried to +hint at this with his own head, but his neck, which was like a +prize-bull's, would not lend itself to the illustration. "That wheel +was ferry smooth—with a sharp gorner. <i>His noce touch that +corner.</i>" The Baron said no more in words, but pantomimic action and +a whistle showed plainly how the wheel-rim had glided on the bridge +of Mr. Harrisson's nose. "It took off the gewdiggle, and made a +sgar. Your hussband's noce has that ferry sgar. That affected my +imatchination. It is easy to unterzdant."</p> + +<p>But the subject was frightening Rosalind. She would have liked to +hear much more about Mr. Harrisson; might ever have ended by taking +the fat Baron, whom she thoroughly liked, into her confidence. The +difficulty, however, was about decision in immediate action, which +would be irrevocable. Silence was safer—or, sleep on it at least. +For now, she must change the conversation.</p> + +<p>"How sweet the singing sounds under the starlight!" But the Baron +will not tolerate any such loose inaccuracy.</p> + +<p>"It would sount the same in the taydime. The fibrations are the +same." But he more than makes up for his harsh prosaism by singing, +in unison with the singers unseen:</p> + +<p class="song"> +"Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten<br /> +Dass ich so traurig bin...." +</p> + +<p>No one could ever have imagined that such heavenly sounds could come +from anything so fat and noisy. Mrs. Fenwick shuts her eyes to +listen.</p> + +<p>When she opens them again, jerked back from a temporary +dream-paradise by the Baron remarking with the voice of Stentor or +Boanerges that it is a "ferry broody lied," her husband is standing +there. He has been listening to the music. The Baron adds + +<!-- Page 202 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +that his +friend Mr. Harrisson was "ferry vond of that lied."</p> + +<p>But when the two of them have said a cordial good-night to the +unwieldy nightingale, who goes away to bed, as he has to leave early +in the morning, Fenwick is very silent, and once and again brushes +his hair about, and shakes his head in his old way. His wife sees +what it is. The music has gone as near touching the torpid memory as +the wild autumn night and the cloud-race round the moon had done in +the little front garden at home a year ago.</p> + +<p>"A recurrence, Gerry?" she asks.</p> + +<p>"Something of the sort, Rosey love," he says. "Something quite mad +this time. There was a steam-engine in it, of all things in the +world!" But it has been painful, evidently—a discomfort at +least—as these things always are.</p> + +<p>Rosalind's apprehension of untimely revelations dictated a feeling +of satisfaction that the Baron was going away next day; her regret +at losing the choice of further investigation admitted one of +dissatisfaction that he had gone. The net result was unsettlement +and discomfort, which lasted through the remainder of Sonnenberg, +and did not lift altogether until the normallest of normal life came +back in a typical London four-wheeler, which dutifully obeyed the +injunction to "go slowly," not only through the arch that injunction +brooded over, but even to the end of the furlong outside the radius +which commanded an extra sixpence and got more. But what did that +matter when Sally was found watching at the gate for its advent, and +received her stepfather with an undisguised hug as soon as she found +it in her heart to relinquish her mother?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 203 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">MERE DAILY LIFE AT KRAKATOA. BUT SALLY IS QUITE FENWICK'S DAUGHTER +BY NOW. OF HER VIEWS ABOUT DR. VEREKER, AND OF TISHY'S AUNT FRANCES</p> + +<p>When you come back from a holiday to a sodden and monstrous London, +it is best to be welcomed by something young—by a creature that is +convinced that it has been enjoying itself, and that convinces you +as well, although you can't for the life of you understand the +details. Why should anything enjoy itself or anything else in this +Cimmerian gloom, while away over there the great Alpine peaks are +white against the blue, and otherwhere the music of a hundred seas +mixes with their thunder on a thousand shores? Why come home?</p> + +<p>But when we do and find that nothing particular has happened, and +that there's a card for us on the mantelpiece, how stuffy are our +welcomers, and how well they tone into the surrounding grey when +they are elderly and respectable? It is different when we find that, +from their point of view, it is we that have been the losers by our +absence from all the great and glorious fun the days have been made +of while we were away on a mistaken and deluded continent, far from +this delectable human ant-hill—this centre and climax of Life with +a capital letter. But then, when this is so, they have to be young, +as Sally was.</p> + +<p>The ex-honeymooners came back to jubilant records of that young +lady's experience during the five weeks of separation. She listened +with impatience to counter records of adventures abroad, much +preferring to tell of her own at home. Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick +acquiesced in the <i>rôle</i> of listeners, and left the rostrum to Sally +after they had been revived with soup, and declined cutlets, because +they really had had plenty to eat on the way. The rostrum happened +to be a hassock on the hearthrug, before + +<!-- Page 204 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +the little bit of fire +that wasn't at all unwelcome, because September had set in quite +cold already, and there was certain to be a warm Christmas if it +went on like this, and it would be very unhealthy.</p> + +<p>"And oh, do you know"—thus Sally, after many other matters had been +disposed of—"there has been such an awful row between Tishy and her +mother about Julius Bradshaw?" Sally is serious and impressed; +doesn't see the comic side, if there is one. Her mother felt that if +there was to be a volley of indignation discharged at Mrs. Wilson +for her share in the row, she herself, as belonging to the class +mother, might feel called on to support her, and was reserved +accordingly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose Lætitia wants to marry Mr. Bradshaw. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course that's it! He hasn't proposed, because he's promised not +to; but he will any time Tishy gives a hint. Meanwhile Goody Wilson +has refused to sanction his visits at the house, and Lætitia has +said she will go into lodgings."</p> + +<p>"Sally darling, I do wish you wouldn't call all the married ladies +of your acquaintance <i>Goody</i>. You'll do it some day to their faces."</p> + +<p>"It's only the middle-aged bouncers."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear chick, do try and not call them Goody. What did +Goo—there! I was going to do it myself. What did Mrs. Wilson say to +that?"</p> + +<p>"Said Tishy's allowance wouldn't cover lodgings, and she had nothing +else to fall back on. So we go into the Park instead."</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. Fenwick's habituation to her daughter's incisive method is +no proof against this. She breaks into an affectionate laugh, and +kisses its provoker, who protests.</p> + +<p>"We-e-ell! There's nothing in <i>that</i>. We have tea in the shilling +places under the trees in Kensington Gardens. <i>That's</i> all right."</p> + +<p>"Of course that's all right—with a <i>chaperon</i> like you! Who <i>could</i> +say anything? But do tell me, Sally darling, does Mrs. Wilson +dislike this young man on his own account, or is it only the shop?"</p> + +<p>"Only the shop, I do believe. And Tishy's twenty-four! What + +<!-- Page 205 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +<i>is</i> my +stepfather sitting smiling at there in that contented way? Is that a +Mossoo cigar? It smells very nice."</p> + +<p>"I was smiling at you, Sarah. No, it's not a Mossoo that I know of. +A German Baron gave it me.... No, dearest! It really <i>was</i> all +right.... No—I really can't exactly say how; but it <i>was</i> all right +for all that...." This was in answer to a comment of his wife.</p> + +<p>"Never mind the German Baron," Sally interrupts. "What business have +you to smile at me, Jeremiah?" They had christened each other +Jeremiah and Sarah for working purposes.</p> + +<p>"Because I chose—because you're such a funny little article." He +comes a little nearer to her, and putting his arm round her neck, +pinches her off-cheek. She gives him a very short kiss—hardly a +real one—just an acknowledgment. He remains with her little white +hand in his great hairy one, and she leans against him and accepts +the position. But that cigar is on her mother's mind.</p> + +<p>"How many did he give you, Gerry? Now tell the truth."</p> + +<p>"He gave me a lot. I smuggled them. I can't tell you <i>why</i> it seemed +all right I should accept them. But it <i>did</i>."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know best, dear. Men are men, and I'm a female. But +he was such a perfect stranger." She, of course, knew quite well +that he was not, but there was nettle-grasping in it on her part.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was. But somehow he didn't seem so. Perhaps it was because +I flew into such a rage with him about what he called his 'crade +chogue.' But it wasn't <i>only</i> that. Something about the chap +himself—I can't tell what." And Fenwick becomes <i>distrait</i>, with a +sort of restless searching on his face. He sits on, silent, patting +Sally's little white hand in his, and letting the prized cigar take +care of itself, and remains silent until, after a few more +interesting details about the "great row" at Ladbroke Grove Road, +all three agree that sleep is overdue, and depart to receive +payment.</p> + +<p>Rosalind knows the meaning of it all perfectly. Some tiny trace of +memory of the fat Kreutzkammer lingered in her husband's crippled +mind—something as confused as the revolving engine's connexion with +the German volkslied. But enough to prevent his feeling the ten +francs' worth of cigars an oppressive + +<!-- Page 206 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +benevolence. It was very +strange to her that it should so happen, but, having happened, it +did not seem unnatural. What was stranger still was that Gerry +should be there, loving Sally like a father—just as her own +stepfather Paul Nightingale had come to love <i>her</i>—caressing her, +and never dreaming for a moment how that funny little article came +about. Yes, come what might, she would do her best to protect these +two from that knowledge, however many lies she had to tell. She was +far too good and honourable a woman to care a particle about +truthfulness as a means to an easy conscience; she did not mind the +least how much hers suffered if it was necessary to the happiness of +others that it should do so. And in her judgment—though we admit +she may have been wrong—a revelation of the past would have taken +all the warmth and light out of the happy and contented little world +of Krakatoa Villa. So long as she had the cloud to herself, and saw +the others out in the sunshine, she felt safe, and that all was +well.</p> + +<p>She would have liked companionship inside the cloud, for all that. +It was a cruel disappointment to find, when she came to reflect on +it, that she could not carry out a first intention of taking Colonel +Lund into her confidence about the Baron, and the undoubted insight +he had given into some portion of Fenwick's previous life. Obviously +it would have involved telling her husband's whole story. Her belief +that he was Harrisson involved her knowledge that he was not +Fenwick. The Major would have said at once: "Why not tell him all +this Baron told you, and see if it wouldn't bring all his life back +to him?" And then she would have to tell the Major who he really +was, to show him the need of keeping silence about the story. No, +no! Danger lay that way. Too much finessing would be wanted; too +many reserves.</p> + +<p>So she bore her secret knowledge alone, for their sakes feeling all +the while like the scapegoat in the wilderness. But it was a happy +wilderness for her, as time proved. Her husband's temper and +disposition were well described by Sally, when she told Dr. Vereker +in confidence one day that when he boiled he blew the lid off, but +that he was a practical lamb, and was wax in her mother's hands. A +good fizz did good, whatever people said. And the doctor agreed +cordially. For he had a mother whose temper + +<!-- Page 207 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +was notoriously +sweetness itself, but was manipulated by its owner with a dexterity +that secured all the effects of discomfort to its beneficiaries, +without compromising her own claims to canonization.</p> + +<p>Fenwick's temper—this expression always means want of temper, or +absence of temper—was of the opposite sort. It occasioned no +inconvenience to any one, and every one detected and classed it +after knowing him for twenty-four hours. The married couple had not +existed for three months in that form before this trivial +individuality was defined by Ann and Cook as "only master." Sally +became so callous after a slight passing alarm at one or two +explosions that she would, for instance, address her stepfather, +after hearing his volleys at some offender in the distance, with, +"Who did I hear you calling a confounded idiot, Jeremiah?" To which +he would reply, softening into a genial smile: "Lost my temper, I +did, Sarah dear. Lost my temper with the Wash. The Wash sticks in +pins and the heads are too small to get hold of"; or, "People +shouldn't lick their envelopes up to the hilt, and spoil one's +ripping-corner, unless they want a fellow to swear"; or something +similar belonging to the familiar trials of daily life.</p> + +<p>But really safety-valve tempers are so common that Fenwick's would +scarcely have called for notice if it had not been that, on one +occasion, a remark of Sally's about a rather more vigorous <i>émeute</i> +than usual led her mother, accidentally thrown off her guard, to +reply: "Yes! But you have no idea how much better he is——" and +then to stop suddenly, seeing the mistake she was making. She had no +time to see a way out of the difficulty before Sally, puzzled, +looked at her with: "Better than when? I've known him longer than +you have, mother." For Sally always boasted of her earlier +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"No <i>when</i> at all, kitten! How much better he is when we are alone! +He never flares up then—that's what I meant." But she knew quite +well that her sentence, if finished, would have stood, "how much +better he is than he used to be!" She was too candid a witness in +the court of her own conscience to make any pretence that this +wasn't a lie. Of course it was; but if she never had to tell a worse +one than that for Sally's sake, she would be fortunate indeed.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 208 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>She was much more happy in the court of her conscience than she was +in that of St. Satisfax—if we may ascribe a judicial status to him, +to help us through with our analysis of her frame of mind. His was a +court which, if not identical at all points with the analogous +exponents of things Divine in her youth, was fraught with the same +jurisdiction; was vocal with resonances that proclaimed the same +consequences to the unredeemed that the mumblings of a pastor of her +early days, remembered with little gratitude, had been inarticulate +with. Her babyhood had received the idea that liars would be sent +unequivocally to hell, and her maturity could not get rid of it. +Outside the precinct of the saint, the brief working morality that +considers other folk first was enough for her; within it, the +theologism of an offended deity still held a traditional sway. +Outside, her whole soul recoiled from the idea of her child knowing +a story that would eat into her heart like a cancer; within, a +reserve-corner of that soul, inoculated when it was new and +susceptible, shuddered at her unselfish adhesion to the only means +by which that child could be kept in ignorance.</p> + +<p>However, she was clear about one thing. She would apologize in +prayer; but she would go to hell rather than have Sally made +miserable. Thus it came about that Mrs. Fenwick continued a very +devout church-goer, and, as her husband never left her side when he +had a choice, he, too, became a frequent guest of St. Satisfax, whom +he seemed to regard as a harmless though fantastic person who lived +in some century or other, only you always forgot which.</p> + +<p>His familiarity with the usages of the reformed St. Satisfax, and +his power of discriminating the lapses of that saint towards the +vices of his early unregenerate days—he being all the while +perfectly unconscious how he came to know anything of +either—continued to perplex his wife, and was a source of lasting +bewilderment to Sally. A particular incident growing out of this was +always associated in Rosalind's mind with an epithet he then applied +to Sally for the first time, but which afterwards grew to be +habitual with him.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it's the Communion-table," he said in connexion with +some discussion of church furniture. "We have no altars in our +church nowadays. You're a Papist, Sarah!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 209 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I thought Communion-tables were an Evangelical start," said Sally +irreverently. "A Low Church turn-out. Our Mr. Prince is a +Tractarian, and a Ritualist, and a Puseyite, and an Anglican. That's +his game! The Bishop of London won't let him perform High Mass, and +<i>I</i> think it a shame! Don't you?... But I say, Jeremiah!" And +Jeremiah refrained from expressing whatever indignation he felt with +the Bishop of London, to find what Sally said. It was to the effect +that it was incredible that he should know absolutely nothing about +the original source of his information.</p> + +<p>"I can only tell you, Sarah dear," he said, with the ring of sadness +in his voice that always came on this topic, "that I <i>do</i> remember +nothing of the people who taught me, or the place I learned in. Yet +I know about Tract No. 90, and Pusey and Newman, for all that. How I +remember things that were information, and forget things that were +things, is more than I can tell you. But can't you think of bits of +history you know quite well, without ever recalling where you got +them from?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I can. At least, I could if I knew some history. Only I +don't. Oh yes, I do. Perkin Warbeck and Anne of Cleves. I've +forgotten about them now, only I know I knew them both. I've +answered about them in examinations. They're history all right +enough. As to who taught me about them, couldn't say!"</p> + +<p>"Very well, Sarah. Now put a good deal of side into your stroke, and +you'll arrive at me."</p> + +<p>But the revival of the old question had dug up discomfort his mind +had done its best to inter; and he went silent and sat with a +half-made cigarette in his fingers thinking gravely. Rosalind, at a +writing-table behind him, moved her lips at Sally to convey an +injunction. Sally, quickly apprehensive, understood it as "Let him +alone! Don't rake up the electrocution!" But Sally's native +directness betrayed her, and before she had time to think, she had +said, "All right; I won't." The consequence of which was that +Fenwick—being, as Sally afterwards phrased it, "too sharp by +half"—looked up suddenly from his reverie, and said, as he finished +rolling his cigarette, "What won't our daughter?"</p> + +<p>The pleasure that struck through his wife's heart was audible in + +<!-- Page 210 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +her voice as she caught it up. "Our daughter won't be a silly +inquisitive little puss-cat, darling. It only worries you, and does +no good." And he replied to her, as she came behind him and stood +with an appreciative side-face against his, with a semi-apology for +the phrase "daughter," and allowed the rest of what they were +speaking of to lapse.</p> + +<p>"I called her it for the pleasure of saying it," said he. "It +sounded so nice!" And then he knew that her kiss was approval, but +of course had no conception of its thoroughness. For her part, she +hardly dared to think of the strangeness of the position; she could +only rejoice at its outcome.</p> + +<p>After that it became so natural to him to speak of Sally as "our +daughter" that often enough new acquaintances misconceived her +relation to him, and had a shrewd insight that Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick +must have been married very young. Once some visitors—a lady with +one married daughter and two single ones—were so powerfully +impressed with Sally's resemblance to her supposed parent that +three-fourths of them went unconvinced away, in spite of the efforts +of the whole household to remove the error. The odd fourth was +supposed to have carried away corrective information. "I got the +flat one, with the elbows, in a quiet corner," said Sally, "and told +her Jeremiah was only step. Because they all shouted at once, so it +was impossible to make them hear in a lump."</p> + +<p>Mistakes of this sort, occurring frequently, reacted on Mr. and Mrs. +Fenwick, who found in them a constant support and justification for +the theory that Sally was really the daughter of both, while +admitting intellectual rejection of it to be plausible to +commonplace minds. They themselves got on a higher level, where +<i>ex-post-facto</i> parentages were possible. Causes might have +miscarried, but results having turned out all right, it would never +do to be too critical about antecedents. Anyhow, Sally was <i>going to +be</i> our daughter, whether she <i>was</i> or not.</p> + +<p>Rosalind always found a curious consolation in the reflection that, +however bewildering the position might be, she had it all to +herself. This was entirely apart from her desire to keep Fenwick in +ignorance of his past; that was merely a necessity for his own sake +and Sally's, while this related to the painfulness of standing face +to face with an incredible conjunction of surroundings. + +<!-- Page 211 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +She, if +alone, could take refuge in wonder-struck silence. If her knowledge +were shared with another, how could examination and analysis be +avoided? And these would involve the resurrection of what she could +keep underground as long as she was by herself; backed by a thought, +if needed, of the merry eyebrows and pearly teeth, and sweet, soft +youth, of its unconscious result. But to be obliged to review and +speculate over what she desired to forget, and was helped to forget +by gratitude for its consequences, would have been a needless +addition to the burden she had already to bear.</p> + +<p>The only person she could get any consolation from talking with was +the Major, who already knew, or nearly knew, the particulars of the +nightmare of twenty years ago. But, then—we feel that we are +repeating this <i>ad nauseam</i>—he was quite in the dark about +Fenwick's identity, and was to be kept there. Rosalind had decided +it so, and she may have been right.</p> + +<p>Would she have done better by forcing on her husband the knowledge +of his own identity, and risking the shock to her daughter of +hearing the story of her outsider father's sin against her mother? +Her decision against this course was always emphasized by—may even +have been unconsciously due to—her prevision of the difficulty of +the communication to Sally. How should she set about it? She +pictured various forms of the attempt to herself, and found none she +did not shudder at.</p> + +<p>The knowledge that such things could be would spoil the whole world +for the girl. She had to confess to herself that the customary +paltering with the meaning of words that enables modern novels to be +written about the damnedest things in the universe would either +leave her mind uninformed, or call for a commentary—a rubric in the +reddest of red letters. Even a resort to the brutal force of +Oriental speech done into Jacobean English would be of little avail. +For hypocrisy is at work all through juvenile reception of Holy +Writ, and brings out as a result the idea that that writ is holy +because it uses coarse language about things that hardly call for +it. It Bowdlerises Potiphar's wife, and favours the impression that +in Sodom and Gomorrah the inhabitants were dissipated and sat up +late. This sort of thing wouldn't work with Sally. If the story were +to be told at all, her thunderbolt directness would have it all out, +down to the ground. + +<!-- Page 212 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +Her mother went through the <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i> +again and again, and always came to the same conclusion—silence.</p> + +<p>But for all that, Rosalind had a background belief that a time would +come when a complete revelation would be possible. Her mind +stipulated for a wider experience for Sally before then. It would be +so infinitely easier to tell her tale to one who had herself arrived +at the goal of motherhood, utterly unlike as (so she took for +granted) was to be the way of her arrival, sunlit and soft to tread, +from the black precipice and thorny wastes that had brought her to +her own.</p> + +<p>Any possible marriage of Sally's, however, was a vague abstraction +of an indistinct future. Perhaps we should say <i>had been</i>, and admit +that since her own marriage Mrs. Fenwick had begun to be more +distinctly aware that her little daughter was now within a +negligible period of the age when her own tree of happiness in life +had been so curtly broken off short, and no new leafage suffered to +sprout upon the broken stem. This identity of age could not but +cause comparison of lots. "Suppose it had been Sally!" was the +thought that would sometimes spring on her mother's mind; and then +the girl would wonder what mamma was thinking of that she should +make her arm that was round her tighten as though she feared to lose +her, or bring her an irrelevant, unanticipated kiss.</p> + +<p>This landmark-period bristled with suggested questions of what was +to follow it. Sally would marry—that seemed inevitable; and her +mother, now that she was herself married again, did not shrink from +the idea as she had done, in spite of her protests against her own +selfishness.</p> + +<p>Miss Sally's attitude toward the tender passion did not at present +give any grounds for supposing that she was secretly its victim, or +ever would be. Intense amusement at the perturbation she occasioned +to sensitive young gentlemen seemed to be the nearest approach to +reciprocating their sentiments that she held out any hopes of. She +admitted as a pure abstraction that it was possible to be in love, +but regarded applicants as obstacles that stood in their own way.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure his adoration does him great credit," she said to Lætitia +one day about a new devotee—for there was no lack of them. "But +it's his eyes, and his nose, and his mouth, and his chin, + +<!-- Page 213 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +and his +ears, and his hair, and his hands and his feet, and his altogether +that——"</p> + +<p>"That what?" asked her friend.</p> + +<p>"That you can't expect a girl to then, if you insist upon it."</p> + +<p>"Some girl will, you'll see, one of these days."</p> + +<p>"What!—even that man with teeth!" This was some chance +acquaintance, useful for illustration, but not in the story. Lætitia +knew enough of him to give a testimonial.</p> + +<p>"He's a very good fellow, whatever you may say!" said she.</p> + +<p>"My dear Tishy! Goodness is the distinguishing feature of the +opposite sex. I speak as a person of my own. Men's moral qualities +are always high. If it wasn't for their appearance, and their +manners, and their defective intelligences, they would make the most +charming husbands."</p> + +<p>"How very young you are!" Miss Wilson said, superior experience +oozing out at every pore. Sally might have passed this by, but when +it came to patting you on the cheek, she drew a line.</p> + +<p>"Tishy dear, do you mean to go on like that, when I'm a hundred and +you are a hundred and five?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear. At least, I can't say. Anything may have happened by +then."</p> + +<p>"What sort of thing? Come, Tishy, don't be enigmatical. For +instance?"</p> + +<p>"You'll change your mind and be wiser—you'll see." Which might have +been consecutive in another conversation. But it was insufferably +patronizing in Lætitia to evade the centenarian forecast that should +have come in naturally, and retreat into a vague abstraction, +managing to make it appear (Sally couldn't say how or why) that her +own general remarks about man, which meant nothing, were a formal +proclamation of celibacy on her part. It is odd how little the mere +wording of a conversation may convey, especially girl's +conversation. What <i>is</i> there in the above to warrant what came next +from Sally?</p> + +<p>"If you mean Dr. Vereker, that's ridiculous."</p> + +<p>"I never mentioned his name, dear."</p> + +<p>"Of course you didn't; you couldn't have, and wouldn't have. But +anybody could tell what you meant, just the same, by leaving your +mouth open when you'd done speaking." We confess + +<!-- Page 214 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +freely that we +should not have known, but what are we? Why <i>should</i> Lætitia's +having left her lips slightly ajar, instead of closing them, have +"meant Dr. Vereker"?</p> + +<p>But the fact is—to quote an expression of Sally's own—brain-waves +were the rule and not the exception with her. And hypnotic +suggestion raged as between her and Miss Lætitia Wilson, +interrupting practice, and involving the performers in wide-ranging, +irrelevant discussion. It was on a musical occasion at Ladbroke +Grove Road that this conversation took place.</p> + +<p>Lætitia wasn't going to deny Dr. Vereker, evidently, or else there +really was something very engrossing about her G string. Sally went +on, while she dog's-eared her music, which was new, to get good +turning-over advantages when it came to playing.</p> + +<p>"My medical adviser's not bad, taken as an aunt. I don't quite know +what I should do without poor Prosy. But as for anything, of course +that's absurd. Why, half the fun is that there <i>isn't</i> anything!"</p> + +<p>Lætitia knew as well as possible that her young friend, once +started, would develop the subject on her own lines without further +help from her. She furnished her face with a faint expression of +amused waiting, not strong enough to be indictable, but operative, +and said never a word.</p> + +<p>"Foolery would spoil it all," pursued Sally; "in fact, I put my foot +down at the first go-off. I pointed out that I stipulated to be +considered a chap. Prosy showed tact—I must say that for +Prosy—distinctly tact. You see, if I had had to say a single word +to him on the subject, it would have been all up." Then possibly, in +response to a threat of an inflexion in her friend's waiting +countenance, "I should say, when I make use of the expression +'pointed out,' perhaps I ought to say 'conveyed to him.'" Sally gets +the viola in place for a start, and asks is her friend ready? +Waiting, it seems; so she merely adds, "Yes, I should say conveyed +it to him." And off they go with the new piece of music in B flat, +and are soon involved in terrifying complications which have to be +done all over again. At the end, they are ungrateful to B flat, and +say they don't care much for it; it will be better when they can +play it, however. Then Lætitia schemes to wind Sally up a little.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 215 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Doesn't the Goody goozle at you about him, though? You said she did."</p> + +<p>"The Goody—oh yes! (By-the-bye, mother says I mustn't call your ma +Goody Wilson, or I shall do it to her face, and there'll be a pretty +how-do-you-do.) Prosy's parent broods over one, and gloats as if one +was crumpets; but Prosy himself is very good about her—aware of her +shortcomings."</p> + +<p>"I don't care what you call <i>my</i> mother. Call her any name you like. +But what does Dr. Vereker say?"</p> + +<p>"About his'n? Says she's a dear good mother, and I mustn't mind her. +I say, Tishy!"</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> the present position of the row? You said your mother. +You know you did—coming from the bath—after Henriette went away."</p> + +<p>"I did say my mother, dear. But I wish it were otherwise. I've told +Mr. Bradshaw so."</p> + +<p>"You'd be much nicer if you said Julius. Told him what?"</p> + +<p>"Told him a girl can't run counter to the wishes of her family in +practice. Of course, M—well, then, Julius, if you will have it—is +ready to wait. But it's really ridiculous to talk in this way, when, +after all, nothing's been said."</p> + +<p>"<i>Has</i> nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Not <i>to</i> anybody. Only him and me."</p> + +<p>"At Riverfordhook?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, what I told you. We needn't go over it again."</p> + +<p>"In the avenue. And moonrise and things. What o'clock was it, +please, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"About ten-fifteen, dear. We were in by eleven." This was a faint +attempt to help dignity by a parade of accuracy in figures, and an +affectation of effrontery. "But really we needn't go over it again. +You know what a nice letter he wrote Aunt Frances?" And instead of +waiting for an answer, Tishy, perhaps to avoid catechism about the +moonrise and things, ploughs straight on into a recitation of her +lover's letter to her aunt: "Dear Lady Sales—Of course it will +(quite literally) give me the <i>greatest possible</i> pleasure to come. +I will bring the Strad"; and then afterwards he said: "I hope your +niece will give a full account of me, and not draw any veils over my +social position. However, + +<!-- Page 216 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +this being written at my desk here on the +shop-paper will prevent any misunderstanding."</p> + +<p>"Your Aunt Frances has been hatching you—you two!" says Sally, +ignoring the letter.</p> + +<p>"She is a dear good woman, if ever there was one. I wish mamma was +my aunt-by-marriage, and she her!" And then Lætitia went on to tell +many things about the present position of the "row" between herself +and her mother, concerning which it can only be said that nothing +transpired that justified its existence. Seeing that no recognition +was asked for of any formal engagement either by the "young +haberdasher" himself—for that was the epithet applied to him +(behind his back, of course) by the older lady—or by the object of +his ambitious aspirations, it might have been more politic, as well +as more graceful, on her part, to leave the affair to die down, as +love-affairs unopposed are so very apt to do. Instead of which she +needs must begin endeavouring to frustrate what at the time of her +first interference was the merest flirtation between a Romeo who was +tied to a desk all day, and a Juliet who was constantly coming into +contact with other potential Romeos—plenty of them. Our own private +opinion is that if the Montagus and Capulets had tried to bury the +hatchet at a public betrothal of the two young people, the latter +would have quarrelled on the spot. Setting their family circles by +the ears again would almost have been as much fun as a secret +wedding by a friar. You doubt it? Well, we may be wrong. But we are +quite certain that the events which followed shortly after the chat +between the two girls recorded above either would never have come to +pass, or would have taken an entirely different form, if it had not +been for the uncompromising character of Mrs. Sales Wilson's +attitude towards her daughter's Romeo.</p> + +<p>We will give this collateral incident in our history a chapter to +itself, for your convenience more than our own. You can skip it, you +see, if you want to get back to Krakatoa Villa.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 217 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF JULIUS BRADSHAW'S INNER SOUL. AND OF THE HABERDASHER'S BATTLE AT +LADBROKE GROVE ROAD. ON CARPET STRETCHING, AND VACCINATION FROM THE +CALF. AN AFTER-DINNER INTERVIEW, AND GOOD RESOLUTIONS. EVASIVE +TRAPPISTS</p> + +<p>You can remember, if you are male and middle-aged, or worse, some +little incident in your own early life more or less like that +effervescence of unreal passion which made us first acquainted with +Mr. Julius Bradshaw and his violin. Do you shake your head, and deny +it? Are you prepared to look us in the face, and swear you never, +when a young man, had a sleepless night because of some girl whom +you had scarcely spoken to, and who would not have known who you +were if you had been able to master your trepidation and claim +acquaintance; and who, in the sequel, changed her identity, and +became what the greatest word-coiner of our time called a +"speech-friend" of yours, without a scrap of romance or tenderness +in the friendship?</p> + +<p>Sally's sudden change of identity from the bewitching little +gardener who had fascinated this susceptible youth, to a merely +uncommonly nice girl, was no doubt assisted by his introduction just +at that moment to the present Mrs. Julius Bradshaw. For it would be +the merest affectation to conceal the ultimate outcome of their +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>When Julius came to Krakatoa Villa, he came already half +disillusioned about Sally. What sort of an <i>accolade</i> he expected on +arriving to keep his passion on its legs, Heaven only knows! He +certainly had been chilled by her easy-going invitation to her +mother's. A definite declaration of callous indifference would not +have been half so effective. Sally had the most extraordinary power +of pointing out that she stipulated to be considered as a chap; or +conveying it, which came to the same thing. On the other hand, +Lætitia, who had been freely spoken of by Sally as "making a great +ass of herself about social tommy-rot and + +<!-- Page 218 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +people's positions," and +who was aware of the justice of the accusation, had been completely +jerked out of the region of Grundy by Julius's splendid rendering of +Tartini, and had felt disconcerted and ashamed; for Tishy was a +thorough musician at heart. The consequence was an <i>amende +honorable</i> to the young man, on whom—he having no idea whatever of +its provoking cause—it produced the effect that might have been +anticipated. Any young lady who wishes to enslave a young man will +really do better work by showing an interest in himself than by any +amount of fascination and allurement, on the lines of Greuze. We are +by no means sure that it is safe to reveal this secret, so do not +let it go any farther. Young women are formidable enough, as it is, +without getting tips from the camp of the enemy.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, Sally became a totally different identity to Mr. Julius +Bradshaw. He, for his part, underwent a complete transformation in +hers—so much so that the vulgar child was on one occasion quite +taken aback at a sudden recollection of his <i>début</i>, and said to her +stepfather: "Only think, Jeremiah! Tishy's Julius is really that +young idiot that came philandering after me Sundays, and I had quite +forgotten it!"</p> + +<p>The young idiot had settled down to a reasonable personality; if not +to a manifestation of his actual self, at any rate as near as he was +likely to go to it for some time to come; for none of us ever +succeeds in really showing himself to his fellow-creatures outright. +That's impossible.</p> + +<p>Sally had never said very much to her friend of this +pre-introduction phase of Julius—had, in fact, thought little +enough about it. Perhaps her taking care to say nothing at all of it +in his later phase was her most definite acknowledgment of its +existence at any time. It was only a laughable incident. She saw at +once, when she took note of that sofa <i>séance</i>, which way the cat +was going to jump; and we are bound to say it was a cat that soon +made up its mind, and jumped with decision.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sales Wilson's endeavour to intercept that cat had been prompt +and injudicious. She destroyed whatever chance there was of a sudden +<i>volte-face</i> on its part—and oh, the glorious uncertainty of this +class of cat!—first by taking no notice of it aggressively, next by +catching hold of its tail, too late. In the art + +<!-- Page 219 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +of ignoring +bystanders, she was no match for the cat. And detention seemed only +to communicate impetus.</p> + +<p>Julius Bradshaw's first receptions at the Ladbroke Grove House had +been based mainly on his Stradivarius. The Dragon may be said to +have admitted the instrument, but only to have tolerated its owner, +as one might tolerate an organman who owned a distinguished monkey. +Still, the position was an ambiguous one. The Dragon felt she had +made a mistake in not shutting the door against this lion at first. +She had "let him in, to see if she could turn him out again," and +the crisis of the campaign had come over the question whether Mr. +Bradshaw might, or should, or could be received into the inner bosom +of the household—that is to say, the dinner-bosom. The Dragon said +no—she drew the line at that. Tea, yes—dinner, no!</p> + +<p>After many small engagements over the question in the abstract, the +plot thickened with reference to the arrangements of a particular +Thursday evening. The Dragon felt that a decisive battle must be +fought; the more so that her son Egerton, whom she had relied on to +back her against a haberdasher, though he might have been useless +against a jockey or a professional cricketer, had gone over to the +enemy, and announced (for the Professor had failed to communicate +the virus of scholarship to this young man) that he was unanimous +that Mr. Bradshaw should be forthwith invited to dinner.</p> + +<p>His mother resorted to the head of the household as to a Court of +Appeal, but not, as we think, in a manner likely to be effective. +Her natural desire to avenge herself on that magazine of learning +for marrying her produced an unconciliatory tone, even in her +preamble.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said, abruptly entering his library in the vital +centre of a delectable refutation of an ignoramus—"I suppose it's +no use looking to you for sympathy in a matter of this sort, +but——"</p> + +<p>"I'm busy," said the Professor; "wouldn't some other time do as +well?"</p> + +<p>"I knew what I had to expect!" said the lady, at once allowing her +desire to embitter her relations with her husband to get the better +of her interest in the measure she desired to pass through +Parliament. + +<!-- Page 220 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +She left the room, closing the door after her with +venomous quietness.</p> + +<p>The refutation would have to stand over; it was spoiled now, and the +delicious sarcasm that was on his pen's tip was lost irrevocably. He +blotted a sentence in the middle, put his pen in a wet sponge, and +opened his door. He jerked it savagely open to express his attitude +of mind towards interruption. His "<i>What</i> is it?" as he did so was +in keeping with the door-jerk.</p> + +<p>"I can speak of nothing to you if you are so <i>tetchy</i>"—a word said +spitefully, with a jerk explanatory of its meaning. "Another time +will do better, now. I prefer to wait."</p> + +<p>When these two played at the domestic game of +exasperate-my-neighbour, the temper lost by the one was picked up by +the other, and added to his or her pack. It was so often her pack +that there must have been an unfair allotment of knaves in it when +dealt—you know what that means in beggar-my-neighbour? On this +occasion Mrs. Wilson won heavily. It was not every day that she had +a chance of showing her great forbearance and self-restraint, on the +stairs to an audience of a man in leather kneecaps who was laying a +new drugget in the passage, and a model of discretion with a +dustpan, whose self-subordination was beyond praise; her daughter +Athene in the passage below inditing her son Egerton for a +misappropriation of three-and-fivepence; and a faint suspicion of +Lætitia's bedroom door on the jar, for her to listen through, above.</p> + +<p>It wasn't fair on the Professor, though; for even before he +exploded, his lady-wife had had ample opportunity of reconnoitring +the battle-field, and, as it were, negotiating with auxiliaries, by +a show of gentle sweetness which had the force of announcement that +she was being misunderstood elsewhere. But she would bear it, +conscious of rectitude. Now, the Professor didn't know there was any +one within hearing; so he snapped, and she bit him <i>sotto voce</i>, but +raised a meek voice to follow:</p> + +<p>"Another time will be better. I prefer to wait." This was all the +public heard of her speech. But she went into the library.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to speak to me about?" Thus the Professor, +remaining standing to enjoin the temporary character of the +interview; to countercheck which the lady sank in an armchair + +<!-- Page 221 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +with +her back to the light. Both she and Lætitia conveyed majesty in +swoops—filled up <i>fauteuils</i>—could motion humbler people to take a +seat beside them. "Tishy's Goody runs into skirts—so does <i>she</i> if +you come to that!" was Sally's marginal note on this point. The +countercheck was effectual, and from her position of vantage the +lady fired her first shot.</p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well what I want to speak about." The awkward +part of this was that the Professor did know.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I do; go on!" This only improved his position very +slightly, but it compelled the bill to be read a first time.</p> + +<p>"Do you wish your daughter to marry a haberdasher?"</p> + +<p>"I do not. If I did, I should take her round to some of the shops."</p> + +<p>But his wife is in no humour to be jested with. "If you cannot be +serious, Mr. Wilson, about a serious matter, which concerns the +lifelong well-being of your eldest daughter, I am only wasting my +time in talking to you." She threatens an adjournment with a slight +move. Her husband selects another attitude, and comes to business.</p> + +<p>"You may just as well say what you have come to say, Roberta. It's +about Lætitia and this young musician fellow, I suppose. Why can't +you leave them alone?" Now, you see, here was a little triumph for +Roberta—she had actually succeeded in getting the subject into the +realm of discussion without committing herself to any definite +statement, or, in fact, really saying what it was. She could +prosecute it now indirectly, on the lines of congenial contradiction +of her husband.</p> + +<p>"I fully expected to be accused of interfering with what does not +concern me. I am not surprised. My daughter's welfare is, it +appears, to be of as little interest to me as it is to her father. +Very well."</p> + +<p>"What do you wish me to do? Will you oblige me by telling me what it +is you understand we are talking about?" A gathering storm of +determination must be met, the Dragon decides, by a corresponding +access of asperity on her part. She rises to the occasion.</p> + +<p>"I will tell you about what I do <i>not</i> understand. But I do not +expect to be listened to. I do <i>not</i> understand how any father can +remain in his library, engaged in work which cannot possibly be + +<!-- Page 222 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +remunerative, while his eldest daughter contracts a disgraceful +marriage with a social inferior." The irrelevance about remuneration +was ill-judged.</p> + +<p>"I can postpone the Dictionary—if that will satisfy you—and go on +with some articles for the Encyclopædia, which pay very well, until +after the ceremony. Is the date fixed?"</p> + +<p>"It is easy for you to affect stupidity, and to answer me with +would-be witty evasions. But if you think to deter me from my +duty—a mother's duty—by such pitiful expedients you are making a +great mistake. You make my task harder to me, Septimus, but you do +not discourage me. You know as well as I do—although you choose to +affect the contrary—that what I am saying does not relate to any +existing circumstances, but only to what may come about if you +persist in neglecting your duty to your family. I came into this +room to ask you to exercise your authority with your daughter +Lætitia, or if not your authority—for she is over twenty-one—your +influence. But I see that I shall get no help. It is, however, what +I expected—no more and no less." And the skirts rustle with an +intention of getting up and going away injured.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wilson had a case against her husband, if not a strong one. His +ideas of the duties of a male parent were that he might incur +paternity of an indefinite number of sons and daughters, and +discharge all his obligations to them by providing their food and +education. Having paid quittance, he was at liberty to be absorbed +in his books. Had his payments been large enough to make his wife's +administration of the household easy, he might have been justified, +especially as she, for her part, was not disposed to allow him any +voice in any matter. Nevertheless, she castigated him frightfully at +intervals for not exercising an authority she was not prepared to +permit. He was nothing but a ninepin, set up to be knocked down, an +Aunt Sally who was never allowed to keep her pipe in her mouth for +ten consecutive seconds. The natural consequence of which was that +his children despised him, but to a certain extent loved him; while, +on the other hand, they somewhat disliked their mother, but (to a +certain extent) respected her. It is very hard on the historian and +the dramatist that every one is not quite good or quite bad. It +would make their work so much easier. But + +<!-- Page 223 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +it would not be nearly so +interesting, especially in the case of the last-named.</p> + +<p>The Professor may have had some feeling on these lines when he +stopped the skirts from rustling out of the apartment by a change in +his manner.</p> + +<p>"Tell me seriously what you wish me to do, Roberta."</p> + +<p>"I wish you to give attention, if not to the affairs—<i>that</i> I +cannot expect—of your household, at least to this—you may call it +foolish and pooh-pooh it—business of Lætitia and this young man—I +really cannot say young gentleman, for it is mere equivocation not +to call him a haberdasher."</p> + +<p>The Professor resisted the temptation to criticize some points of +literary structure, and accepted the obvious meaning of this.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what he really is."</p> + +<p>"I have told you repeatedly. He is nothing—unless we palter with +the meaning of words—but a clerk in the office at the stores where +we pay a deposit and order goods on a form. They were originally +haberdashers, so I don't see how you can escape from what I have +said. But I have no doubt you will try to do so."</p> + +<p>"How comes he to be such a magnificent violinist? Are they all...?"</p> + +<p>"I know what you are going to say, and it's foolish. No, they are +not all magnificent violinists. But you know the story quite well."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I do. But now listen. I want to make out one thing. This +young man talked quite freely to me and Egerton about his place, his +position, salary—everything. And yet you say he isn't a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Of course he isn't a gentleman. I don't the least understand what +you mean. It's some prevarication or paradox." Mrs. Wilson taps the +chair-arm impatiently.</p> + +<p>"I mean this—if he isn't a gentleman, how comes it that he isn't +ashamed of being a haberdasher? Because he <i>isn't</i>. Seemed to take +it all as a matter of course."</p> + +<p>"I cannot follow your meaning at all. And I will not trouble you to +explain it. The question now is—will you, or will you not, <i>do</i> +something?"</p> + +<p>"Has the young gentleman?"—Mrs. Wilson snorted audibly—"Well, + +<!-- Page 224 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +has +this young haberdasher made any sort of definite declaration to +Lætitia?"</p> + +<p>"I understand not. But it's impossible not to see."</p> + +<p>"Would it not be a little premature for me to say anything to him?"</p> + +<p>"Have I asked you to do so?"</p> + +<p>"I am a little uncertain what it is you have asked me to do."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wilson contrived, by pantomime before she spoke, to express her +perfect patience under extremest trial, inflicted on her by an +impudent suggestion that she hadn't made her position clear. She +would, however, state her case once more with incisive distinctness. +To that end she separated her syllables, and accented selections +from them, even as a resolute hammer accents the head of a nail.</p> + +<p>"Have I not told you dis<i>tinct</i>ly"—the middle syllable of this word +was a sample nailhead—"a <i>thou</i>sand times that what I wish you to +do—however much you may shirk doing it—is to <i>speak</i> to +Lætitia—to remonstrate with her about the encouragement she is +giving to this young man, and to <i>point out</i> to her that a girl in +her position—in short, the duties of a girl in her position?" Mrs. +Wilson's come-down at this point was an example of a solemn warning +to the elocutionist who breaks out of bounds. She was obliged to +fall back arbitrarily on her key-note in the middle of the +performance. "Have I said this to you, Mr. Wilson, or have I not?"</p> + +<p>"Speaking from memory I should say <i>not</i>. Yes—certainly <i>not</i>. But +I can raise no reasonable objection to speaking to Lætitia, provided +I am at liberty to say what I like. I understand that to be part of +the bargain."</p> + +<p>"If you mean," says the lady, whose temper had not been improved by +the first part of the speech; "if you mean that you consider +yourself at liberty to encourage a rebellious daughter against her +mother, I know too well from old experience that that is the case. +But I trust that for once your right feeling will show you that it +is your <i>plain duty</i> to tell her that the course she is pursuing can +only lead to the loss of her position in society, and probably to +poverty and unhappiness."</p> + +<p>"I can tell her you think so, of course," says the Professor, drily.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 225 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I will say no more"—very freezingly. "You know as well as I do +what it is your <i>duty</i> to say to your daughter. What you will +<i>decide</i> to say, I do <i>not</i> know." And premonitory rustles end in a +move to the door.</p> + +<p>"You can tell her to come in now—if you like." The Professor won't +show too vivid an interest. It isn't as if the matter related to a +Scythian war-chariot, or a gold ornament from a prehistoric tomb, or +<i>variæ lectiones</i>.</p> + +<p>"At least, Septimus," says the apex of the departing skirts, "you +will remember what is due to yourself and your family—<i>I</i> am +nobody—so far as not to encourage the girl in resisting her +mother's authority." And, receiving no reply, departs, and is heard +on the landing rejecting insufficient reasons why the drugget will +not lay flat. And presently issuing a mandate to an upper landing:</p> + +<p>"Your father wishes to speak to you in his library. <i>I</i> wish you to +go." The last words not to seem to abdicate as Queen Consort.</p> + +<p>Lætitia isn't a girl whom we find new charms in after making her +mother's acquaintance. You know how some young people would be +passable enough if it were not for a lurid light thrown upon their +identity by other members of their family. You know the sister you +thought was a beauty and dear, until you met her sister, who was +gristly and a jade. But it's a great shame in Tishy's case, because +we do honestly believe her seeming <i>da capo</i> of her mother is more +skirts than anything else. We credit their respective <i>apices</i> with +different dispositions, although (yes, it's quite true what you say) +we don't see exactly from what corner of the Professor's his +daughter got her better one. He's all very well, but....</p> + +<p>Anyhow, we are sorry for Tishy now, as she comes uneasily into the +library to be "spoken to." She comes in buttoning a glove and +saying, "Yes, papa." She was evidently just going out—probably +arrested by the voices in the library.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, your mother wishes me to speak to you.... H'm! h'm! +By-the-bye," he interrupts himself, "it really is a very +extraordinary thing, but it's just like work-people. A man spends +all his life laying carpets, and the minute he lays mine it's too +big or too small."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 226 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"The man outside? He's very tiresome. He says the passage is an +unusual size."</p> + +<p>"I should have taken that point when I measured it. It seems to me +late in the day now the carpet's made up. However, that's neither +here nor there. Your mother wishes me to—a—to speak to you, my +dear."</p> + +<p>"What does she want you to say, papa?"</p> + +<p>"H'm—well!—it's sometimes not easy to understand your mother. I +cannot say that I have gathered precisely what it is she wishes me +to say. Nor am I certain that I should be prepared to say it if I +knew what it was."—Tishy brightened perceptibly.—"But I am this +far in sympathy with what I suppose to be her meaning"—Tishy's face +fell—"that I should be very sorry to hear that you had made any +binding promises to any young gentleman without knowing more of his +antecedents and connexions than I suppose you do at the present +about this—a—musical friend of yours—without consulting me." The +perfunctory tone in which he added, "and your mother," made the +words hardly worth recording.</p> + +<p>But perhaps the way they, in a sense, put the good lady out of +court, helped to make her daughter brighten up again. "Dear papa," +she said, "I should never dream for one moment of doing such a +thing. Nor would Mr. Bradshaw dream of asking me to do so."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right, my dear—quite enough. Don't say anything more. +I am not going to catechize you." And Tishy was not sorry to hear +this, because her disclaimer of a binding promise was only true in +the letter. In fact, our direct Sally had only the day before +pounced upon her friend with, "You know perfectly well he's kissed +you heaps of times!" And Tishy had only been able to begin an +apology she was not to be allowed to finish with, "And suppose he +has...?"</p> + +<p>However, her sense of an untruthfulness that was more than merely +technical was based not so much on the bare fact of a +kissing-relation having come about, as upon a particular example. +She knew it was the merest hypocrisy to make believe that the climax +of that interview at Riverfordhook, where there were the moonrise +and things, did not constitute a pledge on the part of both. +However, Tishy is not the first young lady, let me tell you—if + +<!-- Page 227 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +you +don't know already—who has been guilty of equivocation on those +lines. It is even possible that her father was conniving at it, was +intentionally accepting what he knew to be untrue, to avoid the +trouble of further investigation, and to be able to give his mind to +the demolition of that ignoramus. A certain amount of fuss was his +duty; but the sooner he could find an excuse to wash his hands of +these human botherations and get back to his inner life the better.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was a sense of chill at the suspicion that her father was +not concerned enough about her welfare that made Lætitia try to +arrest his retirement into his inner life. Or it may have been that +she was sensitive, as young folk are, at her new and strange +experience of Real Love, and at the same time grated on—scraped the +wrong way—in her harsh collision with her mother, who was showing +Cupid no quarter, and was only withheld from overt acts of hostility +to Julius Bradshaw by the knowledge that excess on her part would +precipitate what she sought to avert.</p> + +<p>Whatever the cause was, her momentary sense of relief that her +father was not going to catechize her was followed by a feeling that +she almost wished he would. It would be so nice to have a natural +parent that was really interested in his daughter's affairs. Poor +Tishy felt lonely, and as if she was going to cry. She must unpack +her heart, even if it bored papa, who she knew wanted to turn her +out and write. She broke down over it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, papa—papa! Indeed, I want to do everything you wish—whatever +you tell me. I <i>will</i> be good, as we used to say." A sob grew in her +throat over this little nursery recollection. "Only—only—only—it +isn't really quite true about no promises. We haven't made them, you +know, but they're <i>there</i> all the same." Tishy stops suddenly to +avoid a sob she knows is coming. A pocket-handkerchief is called in +to remove tears surreptitiously, under a covering pretence of a less +elegant function. The Professor hates scenes worse than poison, and +Tishy knows it.</p> + +<p>"There, there! Well, well! Nothing to cry about. <i>That's</i> right." +This is approval of the disappearance of the +pocket-handkerchief—some confusion between cause and effect, +perhaps. "Come, my child—come, Lætitia—suppose now you tell me all +about it."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 228 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Tishy acknowledges to herself that she desires nothing better. Yes, +papa dear, she will, indeed she will, tell him everything. And then +makes a very fair revelation of her love-affair—a little dry and +stilted in the actual phrasing, perhaps, but then, what can you +expect when one's father is inclined to be stiff and awkward in such +a matter, to approach it formally, and consider it an interview? It +was all mamma's fault, of course. Why should she be summoned before +the bar of the house? Why couldn't her father find his way into her +confidence in the natural current of events? However, this was +better than nothing.</p> + +<p>Besides, we softened gradually as we developed the subject. One of +us, who was Mr. Bradshaw at first, became Julius later, with a +strong lubricating effect. We began with sincere attachment, but we +loved each other dearly before we had done. We didn't know when "it" +began exactly—which was a fib, for we were perfectly well aware +that "it" began that evening at Krakatoa Villa, which has been +chronicled herein—but for a long time past Julius had been asking +to be allowed to memorialise the Professor on the subject.</p> + +<p>"But you know, papa dear, I couldn't say he was to speak to you +until I was quite certain of myself. Besides, I did want him to be +on better terms with mamma first."</p> + +<p>Professor Wilson flushed angrily, and began with a knitted brow, "I +wish your mother would——" but stopped abruptly. Then, calming +down: "But you are quite certain <i>now</i>, my dear Lætitia?" Oh dear, +yes; no doubt of that. And how about Julius? The confident ring of +the girl's laugh, and her "Why, you should hear him!" showed that +she, at least, was well satisfied of her lover's earnestness.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear child," said the Professor, who was beginning to feel +that it was time to go back to his unfinished ignoramus, tyro, or +sciolist; "I tell you what I shall do. When's he coming next? +Thursday, to dinner. Very well. I shall make a little opportunity +for a quiet talk with him, and we shall see."</p> + +<p>The young lady came out of the library on the whole comfortabler +then she had entered it, and finished buttoning that glove in the +passage. As she stood reflecting that papa would really be very nice +if he would shave more carefully—for the remains of his adieu was +still rasping her cheek—she was aware of + +<!-- Page 229 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +the voice of the carpet; +she heard it complain, through the medium of its layer, or +stretcher, who seemed to mean to pass the remainder of his days +scratching the head of perplexity on the scene of his recent failure +to add to his professional achievements.</p> + +<p>"It's what I say to the guv'nor"—thus ran his Jeremiad—"in dealin' +with these here irregular settin's out, where nothin's not to say +parallel with anything else, nor dimensions lendin' theirselves to +accommodation. 'Just you let me orfer it in,' I says 'afore the +final stitchin' to, or even a paper template in extra cases is a +savin' in the end,' Because it stands to reason there goes more +expense with an ill-cut squint or obtoose angle, involvin' work to +rectify, than cut ackerate in the first go-off. Not but what ruckles +may disappear under the tread, only there's no reliance to be +placed. You may depend on it, to make a job there's nothin' like +careful plannin', and foresight in the manner of speakin'. And, as I +say to the guv'nor, there's no need for a stout brown-paper template +to go to waste, seein' it works in with the under-packin'." And much +more which Tishy could still hear murmuring on in the distance as +she closed the street door and fled to an overdue appointment with +Sally, into whose sympathetic ear she could pour all her new records +of the progress of the row.</p> + +<p>To tell the whole of the prolonged pitched battle that ensued would +take too much ink and paper. The Dragon fought magnificently, so +long as she had the powerful backing of her married daughter, Mrs. +Sowerby Bagster, and the skirmishing help of Athene. This latter +was, however, not to be relied on—might go over to the enemy any +moment. Mrs. Bagster, or Clarissa, who was an elder sister of +Lætitia's, became lukewarm, too, on a side-issue being raised. It +did not appear to connect itself logically with the bone of +contention, having reference entirely to vaccination from the calf. +But it led to an exaggerated sensitiveness on her part as to the +responsibility we incurred by interference with what might (after +all) be the Will of Providence. If this should prove so, it would be +our duty not to repine. Clarissa contrived to surround the subject +with an unprovoked halo of religious meekness, and to work round to +the conclusion that it would be presumptuous not to ask Mr. +Bradshaw + +<!-- Page 230 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +to dinner. Only this resulted absolutely and entirely from +her refusing to have her three children all vaccinated from the calf +forthwith, because their grandmother thought it necessary. The +latter, finding herself deserted in her hour of need by a powerful +ally—for three whole children had given Clarissa a deep insight +into social ethics, and a weighty authority—surrendered grudgingly. +She tried her best to make her invitation to dinner take the form of +leave to come to dinner, and partly succeeded. Her suggestions that +she hoped Mr. Bradshaw would understand the rules of the game at the +table of Society caused the defection of her remaining confederate, +Athene, who turned against her, exclaiming: "He won't eat with his +knife, at any rate!" However, it was too late to influence current +events. The battle was fought and over.</p> + +<p>The obnoxious young man didn't eat with his knife when he came, with +docility, a day after he received the invitation. Remember, he +appears originally in this story as a chosen of Cattley's, one +warranted to defy detection by the best-informed genteelologist. He +went through his ordeal very well, on the whole, considering that +Egerton (from friendship) was always on the alert to give him tips +about civilised conduct, and that Mrs. Wilson called him nearly +every known dissyllabic name with <i>A</i>'s in it—Brathwaite, Palgrave, +Bradlaugh, Playfair, and so on, but not Bradshaw. She did this the +more as she never addressed him directly, treating him without +disguise as the third-person singular in a concrete form. This was +short-sighted, because it stimulated her husband to a tone of +civility which would probably have risen to deference if the good +lady had not just stopped short of insult.</p> + +<p>Egerton and the only other male guest (who was the negative young +pianist known to Sally as Somebody Elsley) having found it +convenient to go away at smoking-time to inspect the latter's +bicycle, the Professor seized his opportunity for conversation with +the third-person-singular. He approached the subject abruptly:</p> + +<p>"Well, it's Lætitia, I understand, that we're making up to, eh?" +Perhaps it was this sudden conversion to the first person plural +that made the young man blush up to the roots of his hair.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 231 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"What can I say?" he asked hesitatingly. "You see, Professor Wilson, +if I say yes, it will mean that I have been p-paying my addresses, +as the phrase is...."</p> + +<p>"And taking receipts?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly—and taking receipts, without first asking her father's +leave. And if I say no——"</p> + +<p>"If you say no, my dear young man, her father will merely ask you to +help yourself and pass the port (decanter with the little brass +ticket—yes, that one. Thank you!). Well, I see what you mean, and +we needn't construct enigmas. We really get to the point. Now tell +me all about it." We don't feel at all sure the Professor's way of +getting to the point was not a good one. You see, he had had a good +deal to do with young men in early academical phases of +existence—tutorships and the like—and had no idea of humming and +hawing and stuttering over their affairs. Besides, it was best for +Bradshaw, as was shown by the greater ease with which he went on +speaking, and began telling the Professor all about it.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be speaking truthfully, sir, if I were to pretend +things haven't gone a little beyond—a little beyond—the exact +rules. But you've no idea how easily one can deceive oneself."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I?" The Professor's mind went back to his own youth. He +knew very well how easily he had done it. A swift dream of his past +shot through his brain in the little space before Bradshaw resumed.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was only a phrase. Of course you know. I mean it has all +crept on so imperceptibly. And I have had no real chance of talking +about it—to <i>you</i>, sir—without asking for a formal interview. And +until very lately nothing Læt—Miss Wilson...."</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut! Lætitia—Lætitia. What's the use of being prigs about it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing Lætitia has said would have warranted me in doing this. I +<i>could</i> have introduced the subject to Mrs. Wilson once or twice, +but...."</p> + +<p>"All right. I understand. Well, now, what's the exact state of +things between you and Lætitia?"</p> + +<p>"You will guess what our wishes are. But we know quite well + +<!-- Page 232 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +that +their fulfilment is at present impossible. It may remain so. I have +no means at present except a small salary. And my mother and +sister——"</p> + +<p>"Have a claim on you—is that it?" The Professor's voice seems to +forestall a forbidding sound. But he won't be in too great a hurry. +He continues: "You must have some possibility in view, some sort of +expectation."</p> + +<p>Bradshaw's reply hesitated a good deal.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I have—I am afraid—allowed myself to fancy—that, in +short, I might be able to—outgrow this unhappy nervous affection."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean, Professor Wilson. You mean that a violinist's +position, however successful, would be less than you have a right to +expect for your daughter's husband. Of course that is so, but——"</p> + +<p>"But I mean nothing of the sort." The Professor is abrupt and +decisive, as one who repudiates. "I know nothing about positions. +However, Mr. Bradshaw, you are quite right this far—that is what +Mrs. Wilson would have meant. <i>She</i> knows about positions. What <i>I</i> +meant was that you wouldn't have enough to live upon at the best, in +any comfort, and that I shouldn't be able to help you. Suppose you +had a large family, and the nervous affection came back?" His hearer +quakes at this crude, unfeeling forecast of real matrimonial facts. +He and Lætitia fully recognise in theory that people who marry incur +families; but, like every other young couple, would prefer a veil +drawn over their particular case. The young man flinches visibly at +the Professor's needlessly savage hypothesis of disasters. Had he +been a rapid and skilful counsel in his own behalf, he would have at +once pounced on a weak point, and asked how many couples would ever +get married at all, if we were to beg and borrow every trouble the +proper people (whoever they are) are ready to give away and lend. He +can only look crestfallen, and feel about in his mind for some way +of saying, "If I wanted Lætitia to promise to marry me, that would +apply. As matters stand, it is not to the purpose," without seeming +to indite the Professor for prematureness. Of course, the position +had been created entirely by the Dragon. Why could she not have + +<!-- Page 233 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +let +them alone, as her husband had said to her? Why not, indeed?</p> + +<p>But Master Julius has to see his way out into the open, and he is +merely looking puzzled, and letting a very fair cigar out—and, you +know, they are never the same thing relighted. Perhaps what he does +is as good as anything else.</p> + +<p>"I see you are right, sir, and I am afraid I am to blame—I must +be—because my selfish thoughtlessness, or whatever it ought to be +called, has placed us in a position out of which no happiness can +result for either?" He looks interrogatively into the Professor's +gold spectacles, but sees no relaxation in the slightly knitted brow +above them. Their owner merely nods.</p> + +<p>"But you needn't take all the blame to yourself," he says. "I've no +doubt my daughter is entitled to her share of it"—to which Bradshaw +tries to interpose a denial—"only it really doesn't matter whose +fault it is."</p> + +<p>The disconcerted lover, who felt all raw, public, and uncomfortable, +wondered a little what the precise "it" was that could be said to be +any one's fault. After all, he and Lætitia were just two persons +going on existing, and how could it be any concern of any one else's +what each thought of or felt for the other? It is true he lacked +absolution for the kissing transgressions; they were blots on a +clean sheet of mere friendship. But would the Dragon be content that +he and Lætitia should continue to see each other if they signed a +solemn agreement that there was to be no kissing? You see, he was +afraid he was going to be cut off from his lady-love, and he didn't +like the looks of the Professor. But he didn't propose the drawing +up of any such compact. Perhaps he didn't feel prepared to sign it. +However, he was to be relieved from any immediate anxiety. The +Professor had never meant to take any responsibility, and now that +he had said his say, he only wanted to wash his hands of it.</p> + +<p>"Now, understand me, Bradshaw," said he—and there was leniency and +hope in the dropped "Mr."—"I do not propose to do more than advise; +nor do I know, as my daughter is twenty-four, what I can do except +advise. We won't bring authority into court.... Oh yes, no doubt +Lætitia believes she will never act against my wishes. Many girls +have thought that sort of thing. But——" He stopped dead, with a +little side-twist of the + +<!-- Page 234 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +head, and a lip-pinch, expressing doubt, +then resumed: "So I'll give you my advice, and you can think it +over. It is that you young people just keep out of each other's way, +and let the thing die out. You've no idea till you try what a +magical effect absence has; poetry is all gammon. Take my advice, +and try it. Have some more port? No—thank me! Then let's go +upstairs."</p> + +<p>Upstairs were to be found all the materials for an uncomfortable +evening. A sort of wireless telegraphy that passed between Bradshaw +and Lætitia left both in low spirits. They did not rise (the +spirits) when the Professor said, to the public generally, "Well, I +must say good-night, but <i>you</i> needn't go," and went away to his +study; nor when his Dragon followed him, with a strong flavour of +discipline on her. For thereupon it became necessary to ignore +conflict in the hinterland of some folding-doors, accompanied by +sounds of forbearance and a high moral attitude. There was no remedy +but music, and as soon as Bradshaw got at his Stradivarius the mists +seemed to disperse. The <i>adagio</i> of Somebody's quartette No. 101 +seemed to drive a coach-and-six through mortal bramble-labyrinths. +But as soon as it ceased, the mists came back all the thicker for +being kept waiting. And the outcome of a winding-up interview +between the sweethearts was the conclusion that after what had been +said by the father of one of them, it was necessary that all should +be forgotten, and be as though it had never been. And the gentleman +next day, when he showed himself at his desk at Cattley's, provoked +the remark that Paganini had got the hump this morning—which shows +that his genius as a violinist was recognised at Cattley's.</p> + +<p>As for the lady, we rather think she made up her mind in the course +of the night that if her family were going to interfere with her +love-affairs, she would let them know what it was to have people +yearning for other people in the house. For she refused boiled eggs, +eggs and bacon, cold salmon-trout, and potted tongue at breakfast +next day, and left half a piece of toast and half a cup of tea as a +visible record that she had started pining, and meant to do it in +earnest.</p> + +<p>What Lætitia and Julius suffered during their self-inflicted +separation, Heaven only knows! This saying must be interpreted as +meaning that nobody else did. They were like evasive Trappist + +<!-- Page 235 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +monks, who profess mortification of the flesh, but when it comes to +the scratch, don't flog fair. Whatever they lost in the cessation of +uncomfortable communion at the eyrie, or lair, of the Dragon was +more than made up for by the sub-rosaceous, or semi-clandestine, +character of the intercourse that was left. Stolen kisses are +notoriously sweetest, but when, in addition to this, every one is +actually the very last the shareholders intend to subscribe for, +their fascination is increased tenfold. And every accidental or +purely unintentionally arranged meeting of these two had always the +character of an interview between people who never meet—which, like +most truths, was only false in exceptional cases; and in this +instance these were numerous. Factitious absence of this sort will +often make the heart grow fonder, where the real thing would make it +look about for another; and another is generally to be found.</p> + +<p>It might have been unsafe to indulge in speculation, based on the +then <i>status quo</i>, as to when the inevitable was going to happen. We +know all about it now, but that doesn't count. Stories, true or +false, should be told consecutively.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 236 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">IT WAS THAT MRS. NIGHTINGALE'S FAULT. A SATISFACTORY CHAP, GERRY! A +TELEGRAM AND A CLOUD. BRONCHITIS AND ASTHMA AND FOG. SALLY GOES TO +MAYFAIR. THE OLD SOLDIER HAS NOTICE TO QUIT</p> + +<p>The most deeply-rooted instinct of mankind is the one that prompts +it to lay the blame on some one else. Mankind includes womankind, +and woman includes (for we believe she is still living) the Dragon +of the last chapter. As it did not occur to this good lady that her +own attitude of estrangement from Lætitia had anything to answer for +in the rash and premature development of the latter's love-affair, +she cast about for a scapegoat, and found one in the person of +Rosalind Fenwick. Some one had schemed the whole business, clearly, +and who else could it be but that woman? Of course, Lætitia herself +was simply the victim of a plot—she was young and inexperienced; +people's daughters are.</p> + +<p>But nothing in the nefarious business had escaped the watchful eye +of the Dragon. At the time of the very first appearance of "that +Mrs. Nightingale" on the scene she had pointed out her insidious +character, and forewarned North and North-west Kensington of what +was to be expected from a person of her antecedents. It was true no +one knew anything about these latter; but, then, that was exactly +the point.</p> + +<p>"It's useless attempting to find excuses for that woman. Clarissa," +she had said. "It's always the same story with people of that sort. +Whenever they have no proper introduction, they always turn out +schemers and matchmakers. I detected her, and said so at once. It is +easy for your father to pretend he has forgotten. He always does. My +consolation is that I did my duty. And then, of course, it all turns +out as I said. Anybody could have known what sort of person she was +with half an eye!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 237 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"And what sort of person is she?" asked Clarissa coldly. She had not +forgotten the vaccination from the calf.</p> + +<p>"The sort of person you would expect. Unless, Clarissa, you are +going to take a leaf out of your father's book, and make believe you +do not understand what is transparently on the surface. What +interest can Major Roper have in inventing the story, I should like +to know?"</p> + +<p>"How does he come to know so much about it? Who told him?"</p> + +<p>"Who <i>told</i> him? Why, of course that very old gentleman—what's his +name?—<i>you</i> know——" Mrs. Wilson tries if she can't recollect with +a quick vibration of a couple of fingers to back up her brain. +"Colonel Dunn!"</p> + +<p>"Major Lund?"</p> + +<p>"Lunn or Dunn. Yes, I remember now; it's Lunn, because the girl said +when she was a child she thought Sally Lunns had something to do +with both. You may depend on it, I'm right. Well, Major Roper's his +most intimate friend. They belong to the same club."</p> + +<p>The ladies then lost sight of their topic, which lapsed into a +rather heated discussion of whether the very old gentleman was a +Colonel or a Major. As we don't want to hear them on this point, we +may let them lapse too.</p> + +<p>It may have been because of some home anxieties—notably about the +Major, whose bronchitis had been bad—that Rosalind Fenwick +continued happily unconscious of having incurred any blame or taken +any responsibility on herself in connexion with the Ladbroke Grove +row, as Sally called it. If she <i>had</i> known of it, very likely it +would not have troubled her, for she was really too contented with +her own condition and surroundings to be concerned about externals. +Whatever troubles she had were connected with the possibility, which +always seemed to grow fainter, of a revival of her husband's powers +of memory. Sometimes whole weeks would pass without an alarm. +Sometimes some little stirring of the mind would occur twice in the +same day; still, the tendency seemed to be, on the whole, towards a +more and more complete oblivion.</p> + +<p>But the fact is that so long as she had the Major invalided at +Krakatoa Villa (for he was taken ill there, and remained on her +hands + +<!-- Page 238 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +many weeks before he could return to his lodgings) she had the +haziest impressions of the outside world. Sally talked about "the +row" while they were nursing the old boy, but really she heeded her +very little. Then, when the invalid was so far reinstated that he +was fit to be moved safely, Sally went away too, for a change.</p> + +<p>The respite to old Colonel Lund was not to be for long. But the +rest, alone with her husband, was not unwelcome to Rosalind.</p> + +<p>"I can never have been one-tenth as happy, Rosey darling," said he +to her one day, "as I have been in the last six months. I should +recollect all about it if I had."</p> + +<p>"You're a satisfactory chap to deal with, Gerry—I must say that for +you. You always beam, come what may. Even when you fly out—which +you do, you know—it's more like a big dog than a wasp. You were +always...." Now, Rosalind was going to say "always like that"; it +was a mistake she was constantly in danger of. But she stopped in +time, and changed her speech to "You're not without your faults, you +know! You never can come to an anchor, and be quiet. You sit on the +arms of chairs, and your hands are too big and strong. No; you +needn't stop. Go on!" We like leaving the words to elucidate the +concurrent action. "And you don't smell much of tobacco."</p> + +<p>Fenwick, however, had noticed the kink in the thread, and must needs +wind it back to get a clear line. "I was always what?" said he. His +wife saw a way out.</p> + +<p>"Always good when your daughter was here to manage you." It wasn't +so satisfactory as it might have been, but answered in dealing with +a mind so unsuspicious. Sally's having spent Christmas and stayed on +a little at a friend's in the country lent plausibility to a past +tense which might else have jarred.</p> + +<p>"I don't want the kitten all to myself, you know," said Fenwick. "It +wouldn't be fair. After all, she <i>was</i> yours before she was mine."</p> + +<p>There was not a tremor in the hand that lay in his, the one that was +not caressing her cheek; not a sign of flinching in the eyes that +turned round on him; not a trace of hesitation in the voice that +said, with concession to a laugh in it: "Yes, she <i>was</i> mine before +she was yours." Such skill had grown in this life of +nettle-grasping!—indeed, she hardly felt the sting now. This time + +<!-- Page 239 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +she was able to go on placidly, in the unconnected way of talk books +know not, and life well knows:</p> + +<p>"Do you know what the kitten will be next August?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; twenty-one."</p> + +<p>"It's rather awful, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Which way do you mean? It's awful because she isn't <i>fiancée</i>, or +awful because she might be at any minute?"</p> + +<p>"You've picked up her way of going to the point, Gerry. I never said +anything about her being <i>fiancée</i>."</p> + +<p>"No, but you meant it."</p> + +<p>"Of course I did! Well, then, because she might be any minute. I'm +very glad she <i>isn't</i>. Why, you know I <i>must</i> be!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> am, anyhow!"</p> + +<p>"Just think what the house would be without her!"</p> + +<p>"The best place in the world still for me." She acknowledges this by +a kiss on his hairy hand, which he returns <i>via</i> her forehead; then +goes on: "All the same, I'll be hanged if I know what we should do +without our kitten. But has anything made you afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no; nothing at all! Certainly; no, nothing. Have <i>you</i> noticed +anything?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, no! For anything I can see, she may continue a—a sort of +mer-pussy to the end of time." Both laugh in a way at the name he +has made for her; then he adds: "Only...."</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing I could lay hold of."</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether you're thinking of the same thing as I am?" Very +singularly, it does not seem necessary to elucidate the point. They +merely look at each other, and continue looking as Fenwick says:</p> + +<p>"They <i>are</i> a funny couple, if that's it!"</p> + +<p>"They certainly <i>are</i>," she replies. "But I <i>have</i> thought so, for +all that!" And then both look at the fire as before, this being, of +course, in the depth of winter. Rosalind speaks next.</p> + +<p>"There's no doubt about <i>him</i>, of course! But the chick would have +told me at once if...."</p> + +<p>"If there had been anything to tell. No doubt she would."</p> + +<p>"Of course, it's absurd to suppose he could see so much of her as he +does, and not...."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 240 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Perfectly absurd! But then, you know, that young fiddler was very +bad, indeed, about the chick until he made her acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"So he was." Thoughtfully, as one who weighs.</p> + +<p>"The kitten met him with a sort of stony geniality that would have +knocked the heart out of a Romeo. If Juliet had known the method, +she could have nipped Shakespeare in the bud."</p> + +<p>"She <i>didn't</i> want to. Sally <i>did</i>."</p> + +<p>"But then Shakespeare might have gone on and written a dry +respectable story—not a love-story; an esteem story—about how +Juliet took an interest in Romeo's welfare, and Romeo posted her +letters for her, and presented her with a photograph album, and so +on. And how the families left cards."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't exactly stony geniality. It's another method +altogether with the doctor—a method the child's invented for +herself."</p> + +<p>Fenwick repeats, "A method she's invented for herself. Exactly. +Well, we shall have her back to-morrow. What time does she come?" +And then her mother says, interrupting the conversation: "What's +that?"</p> + +<p>"What's what?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard the gate go."</p> + +<p>"Not at this time of night." But Fenwick is wrong, for in a moment +comes an imperious peal at the bell. A pair of boots, manifestly on +a telegraph-boy's cold feet, play a devil's tattoo on the sheltered +doorstep. They have been inaudible till now, as the snow is on the +ground again at Moira Villas. In three minutes the boots are +released, and they and their wearer depart, callously uninterested +in the contents of the telegram they have brought. If we were a +telegraph-boy, we should always be yearning to know and share the +joys and sorrows of our employers. This boy doesn't, to judge by the +way he sings that he is "Only the Ghost of a Mother-in-law," showing +that he goes to the music-halls.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Less than ten minutes after the telegraph-boy has died away in the +distance Rosalind and her husband are telling a cab to take them to +174, Ball Street, Mayfair.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 241 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>It does so grudgingly, because of the state of the roads. It wants +three-and-sixpence, and gets it, for the same reason. But it doesn't +appear to be drawn by a logical horse who can deal with inferences, +because it is anxious to know when its clients are going back, that +it may call round for them.</p> + +<p>For the telegram was that there was "no cause immediate +apprehension; perhaps better come—Major." As might have been +expected from such a telegram about a man of his age, just after +seeming recovery from an attack of bronchitis, the hours on earth of +its subject were numbered. Fever may abate, temperature may be +brought down to the normal, the most nourishing possible nourishment +may be given at the shortest possible intervals, but the recoil of +exhaustion will have its way when there is little or nothing left to +exhaust. Colonel Lund had possibly two or three years of natural +life before him, disease apart, when a fierce return of the old +enemy, backed by the severity of a London winter, and even more +effectually by its fog, stopped the old heart a few thousand beats +too soon, and ended a record its subject had ceased to take an +interest in a few paragraphs short of the normal <i>finis</i>.</p> + +<p>We allow our words to overtake our story in this way because we know +that you know—you who read—exactly what follows telegrams like the +one that came to Mrs. Fenwick. If you are new and young, and do not +know it yet, you will soon. However, we can now go back.</p> + +<p>When the economical landlady (a rather superior person) who had +opened the street-door was preceding Rosalind up the narrow stairs, +and turning up gas-jets from their reserve of darkness-point, she +surprised her by saying she thought there was the Major coming +downstairs. "Yes, madam; the Major—Major Roper," she continued, in +reply to an expression of astonishment. Rosalind had forgotten that +Colonel Lund was, outside her own family, "the Colonel."</p> + +<p>It was Major Roper whom we have seen at the Hurkaru Club, as purple +as ever and more asthmatic—in fact, the noise that was the Major +coming downstairs was also the noise of the Major choking in the +fog. It came slowly down, and tried hard to stop, in order that its +source might speak intelligibly to the visitors. What time the +superior person stood and grudged the gas. + +<!-- Page 242 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +In the end, speech of a +sort was squeezed out slowly, as the landlady, stung to action by +the needless gas-waste, plucked the words out of the speaker's mouth +at intervals, and finished them up for him. The information came +piecemeal; but in substance it was that he had the day before found +his old friend coughing his liver up in this dam fog, and had taken +on himself to fetch the medical man and a nurse; that these latter, +though therapeutically useless, as is the manner of doctors and +nurses, had common-sense enough to back him (Roper) in his view that +Mrs. Fenwick ought to be sent for, although the patient opposed +their doing so. So he took upon himself to wire. There wasn't any +occasion whatever for alarm, ma'am! Not the slightest. "You hear me, +and mark what I say—an old stager, ma'am! Ever such a little +common-sense, and half the patients would recover!" A few details of +the rapid increase of the fever, of the patient's resistance to the +sending of his message, and an indication of a curious feeling on +the old Colonel's part that it wouldn't be correct form to go back +to be nursed through a second attack when he had so lately got safe +out of the first one. All this landed the speaker in something near +suffocation, and made his hearers protest, quite uselessly, against +his again exposing himself to the fog. Whereon the landlady, with a +finger on the gas-tap, nodded toward the convulsed old officer to +supply her speech with a nominative, and spoke. What she said was +merely: "Hasn't been to bed." And then waited for Rosalind to go +upstairs with such aggressive patience that the latter could only +say a word or two of thanks to Major Roper and pass up. He, for his +part, went quicker downstairs to avoid the thanks, and the gas-tap +vigil came to a sudden end the moment Rosalind turned the handle of +the door above.... Now, what is the object of all this endless +detail of what might have been easily told in three words—well, in +thirty, certainly?</p> + +<p>Simply this: to show you why Fenwick, following on after some +discussion with the cab below, was practically invisible to the +asthmatic one, who passed him on the stairs just as the light above +vanished. So he had no chance of recognizing the donor of his +tiger's skin, which he might easily have done in open day, in spite +of the twenty years between, for the old chap was + +<!-- Page 243 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +as sharp as a +razor about people. He passed Fenwick with a good-evening, and Mr. +Fenwick, he presumed, and his good lady was on ahead, as indicated +by the speaker's thumb across his shoulder. Fenwick made all +acknowledgments, and felt his way upstairs in the dark till the +nurse with a hand-lamp looked over the banisters for him.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>When Sally came back to Krakatoa Villa early next day she found an +empty house, and a note signed Jeremiah that explained its +emptiness. We had been sent for to the Major, and Sally wasn't to be +frightened. He had had a better night than last night, the doctor +and nurse said; and Sally might come on as soon as she had had a +good lunch. Only she was on no account to fidget.</p> + +<p>So she didn't fidget. She had the good lunch very early, left Ann to +put back her things in the drawers, and found her way through the +thickening fog to the Tube, only just anxious enough about the Major +to feel, until the next station was Marble Arch, that London had +changed and got cruder and more cold-hearted since she went away, +and that the guard was chilly and callous about her, and didn't care +how jolly a house-party she had left behind her at Riverfordhook. +For it was that nice aunt of Tishy's that had asked her down for a +few days, and the few days had caught on to their successors as they +came, and become a fortnight. But he appeared to show a human heart, +at least, by a certain cordiality with which he announced the +prospect of Marble Arch, which might have been because it was +Sally's station. Now, he had said Lancaster Gate snappishly, and +Queen's Road with misgiving, as though he would have fain added D.V. +if the printed regulations had permitted it. Also, Sally thought +there was good feeling in the reluctance he showed to let her out, +based entirely on nervousness lest she should slip (colloquially) +between the platform.</p> + +<p>You don't save anything by taking the pink 'bus, nor any 'bus for +that matter, down Park Lane when the traffic tumbles down every +half-minute, in spite of cinders lavished by the authority, and +can't really see its way to locomotion when it gets up. So you may +just as well walk. Sally did so, and in ten minutes reached the +queer little purlieu teeming with the well-connected, + +<!-- Page 244 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +and named +after the great Mysteries they are connected with, that lies in the +angle of Park Lane and Piccadilly. Persons of exaggerated sense of +locality or mature hereditary experience can make short cuts through +this district, but the wayfarer (broadly speaking) had better not +try, lest he be found dead in a mews by the Coroner, and made the +subject of a verdict according to the evidence. Sally knew all about +it of old, and went as straight through the fog as the ground-plan +of the streets permitted to the house where her mother and a nurse +were doing what might be done to prolong the tenancy of the +top-floor. But both knew the occupant had received notice to quit. +Only, it did seem so purposeless, this writ of ejectment and violent +expulsion, when he was quite ready to go, and wanted nothing but +permission.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 245 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A FOG THAT WAS UP-TO-DATE, AND HOW A FIRE-ENGINE RELIEVED SALLY +FROM A BOY. HOW SALLY GOT IN AT A GENTLEMEN'S CLUB, AND HOW VETERANS +COULD RECOLLECT HER FATHER. BUT THEY KNOW WHAT SHE CAN BE TOLD, AND +WHAT SHE CAN'T. HOW MAJOR ROPER WOULD GO OUT IN THE FOG</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fenwick was not sorry to break down a little, now that her +daughter had come to break down on. She soon pulled together, +however. Breaking down was not a favourite relaxation of hers, as we +have seen. Her husband had, of course, left her to go to his place +of business, not materially the worse for a night spent without +closed eyes and in the anxiety of a sick-chamber.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother darling! you are quite worn out. How is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's quiet now, kitten; but we thought the cough would have killed +him in the night. He's only so quiet now because of the opiates. +Only at his age——" Mrs. Fenwick stopped and looked at the nurse, +whose shake of the head was an assent to the impossibility of +keeping a patient of eighty alive on opiates. Then, having gone thus +far in indicating the grim probabilities of the case, Sally's mother +added, as alleviation to a first collision with Death: "But Dr. +Mildmay says the inflammation and fever may subside, and then, if he +can take nourishment——" but got no further, for incredulity of +this sort of thing is in the air of the establishment.</p> + +<p>Not, perhaps, on Sally's part. Young people who have not seen Death +face-to-face have little real conception of his horrible unasked +intrusion into the house of Life. That house is to them almost as +inviolable as the home of our babyhood was to the most of us, a +sacred fane under the protection of an omnipotent high-priest and +priestess—papa and mamma. Almost as inviolable, that is, when those +who live in it are our friends. Of course, the people in the +newspapers go dying—are even killed in railway accidents. This +frame of mind will change for Sally when she + +<!-- Page 246 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +has seen this patient +die. For the time being, she is half insensible—can think of other +things.</p> + +<p>"What did the party mean that let me in, mother darling? The fusty +party? She said she thought it was the Major. I didn't take any +notice till now. I wanted to get up."</p> + +<p>"It was the other Major, dear—Major Roper. Don't you know? <i>He</i> +used to talk of him, and say he was an old gossip." In the dropped +voice and the stress on the pronoun one can hear how the speaker's +mind knows that the old Colonel is almost part of the past. "But +they were very old friends. They were together through the Mutiny. +<i>He</i> was his commanding officer." Sally's eyes rest on the old sabre +that hangs on its hook in the wall, where she has often seen it, +ranking it prosaically with the other furnishings of "the Major's" +apartment. Now, a new light is on it, and it becomes a reality in a +lurid past, long, long before there was any Sally. A past of +muzzle-loading guns and Minié rifles, of forced marches through a +furnace-heat to distant forts that hardly owned the name, all too +late to save the remnant of their defenders; a past of a hundred +massacres and a thousand heroisms; a past that clings still, Sally +dear, about the memory of us oldsters that had to know it, as we +would fain that no things that are, or are to be, should ever cling +about yours. But you have read the story often, and the tale of it +grows and lives round the old sabre on the wall.</p> + +<p>Except as an explanation of the fusty party's reference to a Major, +Old Jack—that was Sally's Major's name for him—got very little +foothold in her mind, until a recollection of her mother's allusion +to him as an old gossip having made her look for a suitable image to +place there, she suddenly recalled that it was he that had actually +seen her father; talked to him in India twenty years ago; could, and +no doubt would, tell her all about the divorce. But there!—she +couldn't speak to him about it here and now. It was impossible.</p> + +<p>Still, she was curious to see him, and the fusty but genteel one had +evidently expected him. So, during the remainder of what seemed to +Sally the darkest day, morally and atmospherically, that she had +ever spent—all but the bright morning when she ran into the fog +somewhere near Surbiton, full of tales to tell of the house-party +that now seemed a happy dream—during this gloomy + +<!-- Page 247 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +remainder Sally +wondered what could have happened that the other Major should not +have turned up. The fog would have been more than enough to account +for any ordinary non-appearance; hardly for this one.</p> + +<p>For it turned out, as soon as it got full powers to assert itself, +the densest fog on record. The Londoner was in his element. He told +the dissatisfied outsider with pride of how at midday it had been +impossible to read large pica on Ludgate Hill; he didn't say why he +tried to do so. He retailed frightful stories—but always with a +sense of distinction—of folk crushed under hoofs and cart-wheels. +If one half were true, some main thoroughfares must have been paved +with flattened pedestrians. The satisfaction he derived from the +huge extra profits of the gas-companies made his hearer think he +must be a shareholder, until <i>pari passu</i> reasoning proved him to +have invested in fog-signals. His legends of hooligans preying on +the carcasses of strangled earls undisturbed had a set-off in others +of marauders who had rushed into the arms of the police and thought +them bosom friends; while that of an ex-Prime Minister who walked +round and round for an hour, and then rang at a house to ask where +he was, ended in consolation, as the door was opened by his own +footman, who told him he wasn't at home. Exact estimates were +current, most unreasonably, of the loss to commerce; so much so that +the other Londoner corrected him positively with, "Nearer +three-quarters of a million, they say," and felt proud of his higher +knowledge. But neither felt the least ashamed, nor the least afraid +of the hideous, inevitable future fog, when a suffocated population +shall find, as it surely will, that it is at the bottom of a sea of +unbreathable air, instead of one that merely makes it choke its +stomach up and kills an old invalid or two. On the contrary, both +regarded it as the will of a judicious Providence, a developer of +their own high moral qualities and a destroyer of their germs.</p> + +<p>Bronchitis and asthma are kittle-cattle to shoe behind, even where +the sweet Mediterranean air blows pure upon Rapallo and Nervi, but +what manner of cattle are they in a London fog? Can they be shoed at +all? As Mrs. Fenwick sits and waits in terror to hear the first +inevitable cough as the old man wakes, and talks in whispers to her +daughter in the growing darkness, she + +<!-- Page 248 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +feels how her own breath +drags at the tough air, and how her throat resents the sting of the +large percentage of sulphur monoxide it contains. The gas-jet is on +at the full—or rather the tap is, for the fish-tail burner doesn't +realise its ideal. It sputters in its lurid nimbus—gets bronchitis +on its own account, tries to cough its tubes clear and fails. Sally +and her mother sit on in the darkness, and talk about it, shirking +the coming suffocation of their old friend, and praying that his +sleep may last till the deadly air lightens, be it ever so little. +Sally's animated face shows that she is on a line of cogitation, and +presently it fructifies.</p> + +<p>"Suppose every one let their fires out, wouldn't the fog go? It +couldn't go on by itself."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, chick. I suppose it's been all thought out by +committees and scientific people. Besides, we should all be frozen."</p> + +<p>"Not if we went to bed."</p> + +<p>"What! In the daytime?"</p> + +<p>"Better do nothing in bed than be choked up."</p> + +<p>"I dare say the fog wouldn't go away. You see, it's due to +atmospheric conditions, so they say."</p> + +<p>"That's only because nobody's there to stop 'em talking nonsense. +Look at all that smoke going up our chimney." So it was, and a jolly +blaze there was going to be when the three shovelfuls Sally had +enthusiastically heaped on had incubated, and the time was ripe for +the poker.</p> + +<p>Had you been there you would have seen in Sally's face as it caught +the firelight-flicker and pondered on the cause of the fog, that +<i>she</i> had not heard a choking fit of the poor old sleeper in the +next room. And in her mother's that she <i>had</i>, and all the memory of +the dreadful hours just passed. Her manner, too, was absent as she +talked, and she listened constantly. Sally was to know what it was +like soon. The opium sleep would end.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that him?" The mother's sharp ear of apprehension makes her +say this; the daughter has not heard the buried efforts of the lung +that cannot cough. It will succeed directly, if the patient is +raised up, so. Both have gone quickly and quietly into the +sick-chamber, and it is the nurse who speaks. Her prediction + +<!-- Page 249 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +is +fulfilled, and the silent struggle of suffocation becomes a tearing +convulsion, that means to last some while and does it. How the old, +thin tenement of life can go on living unkilled is a problem to +solve. But it survives this time. Perhaps the new cough-mixture will +make the job easier next time. We shall see.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, this attack—bad as it was—has not been so bad as the one +he had at three this morning. Rosalind and Nurse Emilia invent a +paroxysm of diabolical severity, partly for the establishment of a +pinnacle for themselves to look down on Sally from, partly for her +consolation. He wasn't able to speak for ever so long after that, +and this time he is trying to say something.... "What is it, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we have a window open to let a little air in?"</p> + +<p>Well!—we could have a window open. We could let a little air +in—but only a very little. And that very little would bring with it +copious percentages of moisture saturated with finely subdivided +carbonaceous matter, of carbon dioxide, and sulphur dioxide, and +traces of hydric chloride, who is an old friend of our youth, known +to us then as muriatic acid.</p> + +<p>"It's such a thick fog, Major dear. As soon as it clears a little +we'll open the window. Won't we, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"Is Sally there?... Come and touch my hand, kitten.... That's +right...." What is left of the Major can still enjoy the plump +little white hand that takes the old fingers that once could grasp +the sword that hangs on the wall. It will not be for very long now. +A newspaper paragraph will soon give a short record of all the +battles that sword left its scabbard to see, and will tell of its +owner's service in his later days as deputy Commissioner at +Umritsur, and of the record of long residence in India it +established, exceeding that of his next competitor by many years. +Not a few old warriors that were in those battles, and many that +knew his later time, will follow him beyond it very soon. But he is +not gone yet, and his hand can just give back its pressure to +Sally's, as she sits by him, keeping her heart in and her tears +back. The actual collapse of vital forces has not come—will not +come for a few days. He can speak a little as she stoops to hear +him.</p> + +<p>"Young people like you ought to be in bed, chick, getting +beauty-sleep. + +<!-- Page 250 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +You must go home, and make your mother go.... <i>You</i> +go. <i>I</i> shall be all right...."</p> + +<p>"It isn't night, Major dear"—Sally makes a paltry attempt to +laugh—"it's three in the afternoon. It's the fog." But she cannot +hear what he says in answer to this, go close as she may. After a +pause of rest he tries again, with raised voice:</p> + +<p>"Roper—Roper—Old Jack ... mustn't come ... asthma in the fog ... +somebody go to stop him." He is quite clear-headed, and when Sally +says she will go at once, he spots the only risk she would run, +being young and healthy:</p> + +<p>"Sure you can find your way? Over the club-house—Hurkaru Club——" +And then is stopped by a threat of returning cough.</p> + +<p>But Sally knows all about it, and can find her way anywhere—so she +says. She is off in a twinkling, leaving her mother and the nurse to +wait for the terrible attack that means to come, in due course, as +soon as the new cough-mixture gets tired.</p> + +<p>Sally is a true Londoner. <i>She</i> won't admit, whoever else does, that +a fog is a real evil. On the contrary, she inclines to Prussian +tactics—flies in the face of adverse criticism with the decision +that a fog is rather a lark when you're out in it. Actually face to +face with a human creature choking, Sally's optimism had wavered. It +recovers itself in the bracing atmosphere of a main-thoroughfare +charged to bursting with lines of vehicles, any one of which would +go slowly alone, but the collective slowness of which finds a vent +in a deadlock a mile away—an hour before we can move, we here.</p> + +<p>By what human agency it comes about that any wheeled vehicle drawn +of horses can thunder at a hand-gallop through the matrix of such a +deadlock, Heaven only knows! But the glare of the lamps of the +fire-brigade, hot upon the wild excitement of their war-cry, shows +that this particular agglomeration of brass and copper, fraught with +suppressed energy of steam well up, means to try for it—seems to +have had some success already, in fact. It quite puts Sally in +spirits—the rapid <i>crescendo</i> of the hissing steam, the gleaming +boiler-dome that might be the fruitful mother of all the helmets +that hang about her skirts, the sudden leaping of the whole from the +turgid opacity behind and equally sudden disappearance into the void +beyond, the vanishing "Fire!" cry from which all consonants have +gone, leaving only a sound + +<!-- Page 251 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +of terror, all confirm her view of the +fog as a lark. For, you see, Sally believed the Major might pull +through even now.</p> + +<p>Also the coming of the engine relieved her from what threatened to +become a permanent embarrassment. A boy, who may have been a good +boy or may not, had attached himself to her, under pretext of either +a strong organ of locality or an extensive knowledge of town.</p> + +<p>"Take yer 'most anywhere for fourpence! Anywhere yer like to name. +'Ammersmith, 'Ackney Wick, Noo Cross, Covent Garden Market, Regency +Park. Come, I say, missis!"</p> + +<p>Sally shouldn't have shaken her head as she did. She ought to have +ignored his existence. He continued:</p> + +<p>"I don't mind makin' it thruppence to the Regency Park. Come, +missis, I say! Think what a little money for the distance. How would +<i>you</i> like to do it yourself?" Sally rashly allowed herself to be +led into controversy.</p> + +<p>"I tell you I don't want to go to Regents Park." But the boy passed +this protest by—ignored it.</p> + +<p>"You won't get no better oarfer. You ask any of the boys. They'll +tell you all alike. Regency Park for thruppence. Or, lookey here +now, missis! You make it acrorst Westminster Bridge, and I'll say +twopence-'a'penny. Come now! Acrorst a bridge!" This boy had quite +lost sight of the importance of selecting a destination with +reference to its chooser's life-purposes, in his contemplation of +the advantages of being professionally conducted to it. Sally was +not sorry when the coming of the fire-engine distracted his +attention, and led to his disappearance in the fog.</p> + +<p>Pedestrians must have been stopping at home to get a breath of fresh +air indoors, as the spectres that shot out of the fog, to become +partly solid and vanish again in an instant, seemed to come always +one at a time.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me, sir"—Sally is addressing a promising spectre, an +old gentleman of sweet aspect—"have I passed the Hurkaru Club?" The +spectre helps an imperfect hearing with an ear-covering outspread +hand, and Sally repeats her question.</p> + +<p>"I hope so, my dear," he says, "I hope so. Because if you haven't, I +have. I wonder where we are. What's this?" He pats a building at its +reachable point—a stone balustrade at a step + +<!-- Page 252 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +corner. "Why, here we +are! This is the Club. Can I do anything for you?"</p> + +<p>"I want Major Roper"—and then, thinking more explanation asked for, +adds—"who wheezes." It is the only identification she can recall +from Tishy's conversation and her mother's description. She herself +had certainly seen their subject once from a distance, but she had +only an impression of something purple. She could hardly offer that +as identification.</p> + +<p>"Old Jack! He lives in a kennel at the top. Mulberry, tell Major +Roper lady for him. Yes, better send your card up, my dear; that's +right!"</p> + +<p>By this time they are in a lobby full of fog, in which electric +light spots are showing their spiritless nature. Mulberry, who is +like Gibbon the historian painted in carmine (a colour which clashes +with his vermilion lappets), incites a youth to look sharp; also, to +take that card up to Major Roper. As the boy goes upstairs with it +two steps at a time Sally follows the old gentleman into a great +saloon with standing desks to read skewered journals on and is +talking to him on the hearthrug. She thinks she knows who he is.</p> + +<p>"I came to stop Major Roper coming round to see <i>our</i> Major—Colonel +Lund, I mean. It isn't fit for him to come out in the fog."</p> + +<p>"Of course, it isn't. And Lund mustn't come out at his age. Why, +he's older than I am.... What? Very ill with bronchitis? I heard +he'd been ailing, but they said he was all right again. Are you his +Rosey?"</p> + +<p>"No, no; mamma's that! She's more the age, you know. I'm only +twenty."</p> + +<p>"Ah dear! how one forgets! Of course, but he's bad, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"He's very bad. Oh, General Pellew—because I know it's you—his +cough is so dreadful, and there's no air for him because of this +nasty fog! Poor mamma's there, and the nurse. I ought to hurry back; +but he wanted to prevent Major Roper coming round and getting worse +himself; so we agreed for me to come. I'll just give my message and +get back."</p> + +<p>"Your mamma was Mrs. Graythorpe. I remember her at Umballa years +ago. I know; she changed her name to Nightingale. + +<!-- Page 253 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +She is now +Mrs...?" Sally supplied her mother's married name. "And you," +continued Lord Pellew, "were Baby Graythorpe on the boat."</p> + +<p>"Of course. You came home with Colonel Lund; he's told me about +that. Wasn't I a handful?" Sally is keenly interested.</p> + +<p>"A small handful. You see, you made an impression. I knew you +before, though. You had bitten me at Umballa."</p> + +<p>"He's told me about that, too. Isn't that Major Roper coming now?" +If it is not, it must be some one exactly like him, who stops to +swear at somebody or something at every landing. He comes down by +instalments. Till the end of the last one, conversation may +continue. Sally wants to know more about her <i>trajet</i> from India—to +take the testimony of an eyewitness. "Mamma says always I was in a +great rage because they wouldn't let me go overboard and swim."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't speak to that point. It seems likely, though. I always +want to jump overboard now, but reason restrains me. You were not +reasonable at that date."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> funny, though, that I have got so fond of swimming since. +I'm quite a good swimmer."</p> + +<p>Major Roper is by this time manifest volcanically at the bottom of +the staircase, but before he comes in Lord Pellew has time to say so +is his nasturtium granddaughter a good swimmer. He has thirteen, and +has christened each of them after a flower. He hopes thirteen isn't +unlucky, and then Major Roper comes in apologetic. Sally can just +recollect having seen him before, and thinks him as purple as ever.</p> + +<p>"Lund—er!—Lund—er!—Lund—er!—Lund," he begins; each time he +says the name being baffled by a gasp, but holding tight to Sally's +hand, as though to make sure of her staying till he gets a chance. +He gets none, apparently, for he gives it up, whatever he was going +to say, with the hand, and says instead, in a lucky scrap of +intermediate breath: "I was comin' round—just comin'—only no +gettin' those dam boots on!" And then becomes convulsively involved +in an apology for swearing before a young lady. She, for her part, +has no objection to his damning his boots if he will take them off, +and not go out. This she partly conveys, and then, after a too +favourable brief report of the patient's state—inevitable under the +circumstances—she continues:</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 254 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"That's what I came on purpose to say, Major Roper. You're not to +come out on any account in the fog. Colonel Lund wouldn't be any +better for your coming, because he'll think of you going back +through the fog, and he'll fret. Please do give up the idea of +coming until it clears. Besides, he isn't my grandfather." An +inconsecutive finish to correct a mistake of Old Jack's. She resumes +the chair she had risen from when he came in, and thereupon he, +suffering fearfully from having no breathing-apparatus and nothing +to use it on, makes concession to a chair himself, but all the while +waves a stumpy finger to keep Sally's last remark alive till his +voice comes. The other old soldier remains standing, but somewhat on +Sally's other side, so that she does not see both at once. A little +voice, to be used cautiously, comes to the Major in time.</p> + +<p>"Good Lard, my dear—excuse—old chap, you know!—why, good Lard, +what a fool I am! Why, I knoo your father in India."</p> + +<p>But he stops suddenly, to Sally inexplicably. She does not see that +General Pellew has laid a finger of admonition on his lips.</p> + +<p>"I never saw my father," she says. It is a kind of formula of hers +which covers all contingencies with most people. This time she does +not want it to deadlock the conversation, which is what it usually +serves for, so she adds: "You really knew him?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly knoo," is the reply. "Put it I met him two or three times, +and you'll about toe the line for a start. Goin' off at that, we +soon come up to my knowin' the Colonel's not your grandfather." +Major Roper does not get through the whole of the last word—asthma +forbids it—but his meaning is clear. Only, Sally is a direct Turk, +as we have seen, and likes clearing up things.</p> + +<p>"You know my friend Lætitia Wilson's mother, Major Roper?" The Major +expresses not only that he does, but that his respectful homage is +due to her as a fine woman—even a queenly one—by kissing his +finger-tips and raising his eyes to heaven. "Well, Lætitia (Tishy, I +call her) says you told her mother you knew my father in India, and +went out tiger-hunting with him, and he shot a tiger two hundred +yards off and gave you the skin." Sally lays + +<!-- Page 255 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +stress on the two +hundred yards as a means of identification of the case. No doubt the +Major owned many skins, but shot at all sorts of distances.</p> + +<p>It is embarrassing for the old boy, because he cannot ignore General +Pellew's intimations over Sally's head, which she does not see. He +is to hold his tongue—that is their meaning. Yes, but when you have +made a mistake, it may be difficult to begin holding it in the +middle. Perhaps it would have been safer to lose sight of the +subject in the desert of asthma, instead of reviving it the moment +he got to an oasis.</p> + +<p>"Some misunderstanding'," said he, when he could speak. "I've got a +tiger-skin the man who shot it gave me out near Nagpore, but he +wasn't your father." How true that was!</p> + +<p>"Do you remember his name?" Sally wants him to say it was Palliser +again, to prove it all nonsense, but a warning finger of the old +General makes him desperate, and he selects, as partially true, the +supposed alias which—do you remember all this?—he had ascribed to +the tiger-shooter in his subsequent life in Australia.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly well. His name was Harrisson. A fine shot. He went away +to Australia after that."</p> + +<p>Sally laughs out. "How very absurd of Tishy!" she says. "She hadn't +even got the name you said right. <i>She</i> said it was Palliser. It +sounds like Harrisson." She stopped to think a minute. "But even if +she had said it right it wouldn't be my father, because his name, +you know, was Graythorpe—like mine before we both changed to +Nightingale—mother and I. We did, you know."</p> + +<p>Old Jack assents to this with an expenditure of breath not warranted +where breath is so scarce. He cannot say "of course," and that he +recollects, too often. Perhaps he is glad to get on a line of +veracity. The General says "of course," also. "Your mother, my dear, +was Mrs. Graythorpe when I knew her at Umballa and on the boat." +Both these veterans call Sally "my dear," and she doesn't resent it.</p> + +<p>But her message is really given, and she ought to get back. She +succeeds in finally overruling Major Roper's scheme of coming out +into the fog, which has contrived to get blacker still during this +conversation; but has more trouble with the other old soldier. + +<!-- Page 256 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +She +only overcomes that victor in so many battle-fields by representing +that if he does see her safe to Ball Street <i>she</i> will be miserable +if she doesn't see <i>him</i> safe back to the club. "And then," she +adds, "we shall go on till doomsday. Besides, I <i>am</i> young and +sharp!" At which the old General laughs, and says isn't <i>he</i>? Ask +his granddaughters! Sally says no, he isn't, and she can't have him +run over to please anybody. However, he will come out to see her +off, though Old Jack must do as he's told, and stop indoors. He +watches the little figure vanish in the fog, with a sense of the +merry eyebrows in the pretty shoulders, like the number of a cab +fixed on behind.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>When General Pellew had seen Sally out, to the great relief of +Gibbon of the various reds in the lobby, he returned and drew a +chair for himself beside Major Roper, who still sat, wrestling with +the fog, where he had left him.</p> + +<p>"What a dear child!... Oh yes; she'll be all right. Take better care +of herself than I should of her. She would only have been looking +after me, to see that I didn't get run over." He glanced round and +dropped his voice, leaning forward to the Major. "She must never be +told."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Pelloo! Dam mistake of mine to say! I'm a dam +mutton-headed old gobblestick! No better!" We give up trying to +indicate the Major's painful interruptions and struggles. Of course, +he might have saved himself a good deal by saying no more than was +necessary. General Pellew was much more concise and to the purpose.</p> + +<p>"<i>Never</i> be told. I see one thing. Her mother has told her little or +nothing of the separation."</p> + +<p>"No! Dam bad business! Keep it snug's the word."</p> + +<p>"You saw she had no idea of the name. It <i>was</i> Palliser, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Unless it was Verschoyle." Major Roper only says this to convince +himself that he might have forgotten the name—a sort of washy +palliation of his Harrisson invention. It brings him within a +measurable distance of a clear conscience.</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't Verschoyle. I remember the Verschoyle case." By this +time Old Jack is feeling quite truthful. "It <i>was</i> Palliser, and +it's not for me to blame him. He only did what you or + +<!-- Page 257 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +I might have +done—any man. A bit hot-headed, perhaps. But look here, Roper...."</p> + +<p>The General dropped his voice, and went on speaking almost in a +whisper, but earnestly, for more than a minute. Then he raised it +again.</p> + +<p>"It was that point. If you say a word to the girl, or begin giving +her any information, and she gets the idea you can tell her more, +she'll just go straight for you and say she must be told the whole. +I can see it in her eyes. And <i>you can't tell her the whole</i>. You +know you can't!"</p> + +<p>The Major fidgeted visibly. He knew he should go round to learn +about his old friend (it was barely a quarter of a mile) as soon as +the least diminution of the fog gave him an excuse. And he was sure +to see Sally. He exaggerated her age. "The gyairl's twenty-two," +said he weakly. The General continued:</p> + +<p>"I'm only speaking, mind you, on the hypothesis.... I'm supposing +the case to have been what I told you just now. Otherwise, you could +work the telling of it on the usual lines—unfaithfulness, estranged +affections, desertion—all the respectable produceable phrases. But +as for making that little Miss Nightingale <i>understand</i>—that is, +without making her life unbearable to her—it can't be done, Major. +It can't be done, old chap!"</p> + +<p>"I see your game. I'll tell her to ask her mother."</p> + +<p>"It can't be done that way. I hope the child's safe in the fog." The +General embarked on a long pause. There was plenty of time—more +time than he had (so his thought ran) when his rear-guard was cut +off by the Afridis in the Khyber Pass. But then the problem was not +so difficult as telling this live girl how she came to be +one—telling her, that is, without poisoning her life and shrouding +her heart in a fog as dense as the one that was going to make the +street-lamps outside futile when night should come to help +it—telling her without dashing the irresistible glee of those +eyebrows and quenching the smile that opened the casket of pearls +that all who knew her thought of her by.</p> + +<p>Both old soldiers sat on to think it out. The older one first +recognised the insolubility of the problem. "It can't be done," said +he. "Girls are not alike. She's too much like my nasturtium +granddaughter now...."</p> + +<p>"I shall have to tell her dam lies."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 258 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"That won't hurt you, Old Jack."</p> + +<p>"I'm not complainin'."</p> + +<p>"Besides, I shall have to tell 'em, too, as likely as not. You must +tell me what you've told, so as to agree. I should go round to ask +after Lund, only I promised to meet an old thirty-fifth man here at +five. It's gone half-past. He's lost in the fog. But I can't go away +till he comes." Old Jack is seized with an unreasoning sanguineness.</p> + +<p>"The fog's clearin'," he says. "You'll see, it'll be quite bright in +half-an-hour. Nothin' near so bad as it was, now. Just you look at +that window."</p> + +<p>The window in question, when looked at, was not encouraging. So far +as could be seen at all through the turgid atmosphere of the room, +it was a parallelogram of solid opacity crossed by a window-frame, +with a hopeless tinge of Roman ochre. But Old Jack was working up to +a fiction to serve a purpose. By the time he had succeeded in +believing the fog was lifting he would be absolved from his promise +not to go out in it. It was a trial of strength between credulity +and the actual. The General looked at the window and asked a +bystander what he thought, sir? Who felt bound to testify that he +thought the prospect hopeless.</p> + +<p>"You're allowin' nothin' for the time of day," said Major Roper, and +his motive was transparent. Sure enough, after the General's friend +had come for him, an hour late, the Major took advantage of the +doubt whether absolute darkness was caused by fog or mere night, and +in spite of all remonstrances, began pulling on his overcoat to go +out. He even had the effrontery to appeal to the hall-porter to +confirm his views about the state of things out of doors. Mr. +Mulberry added his dissuasions with all the impressiveness of his +official uniform and the cubic area of its contents. But even his +powerful influence carried no weight in this case. It was useless to +argue with the infatuated old boy, who was evidently very uneasy +about Major Lund, and suspected also that Miss Nightingale had not +reported fair, in order to prevent him coming. He made himself into +a perfect bolster with wraps, and put on a respirator. This damned +thing, however, he took off again, as it impeded respiration, and +then went out into the all but solid fog, gasping and choking +frightfully, to feel his way + +<!-- Page 259 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +to Hill Street and satisfy himself the +best thing was being done to his old friend's bronchitis.</p> + +<p>"They'll kill him with their dam nostrums," said he to the last +member of the Club he spoke to, a chance ex-Secretary of State for +India, whom he took into his confidence on the doorstep. "A little +common-sense, sir—that's what's wanted in these cases. It's all +very fine, sir, when the patient's young and can stand it...." His +cough interrupted him, but he was understood to express that medical +attendance was fraught with danger to persons of advanced years, and +that in such cases his advice should be taken in preference to that +of the profession. He recovered enough to tell Mulberry's +subordinate to stop blowin' that dam whistle. There were cabs enough +and to spare, he said, but they were affecting non-existence from +malicious motives, and as a stepping-stone to ultimate rapacity. +Then he vanished in the darkness, and was heard coughing till he +turned a corner.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 260 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW MAJOR ROPER MET THAT BOY, AND GOT UPSTAIRS AT BALL STREET. AN +INTERVIEW BETWEEN ASTHMA AND BRONCHITIS. HOW SALLY PINIONED THE +PURPLE VETERAN, AND THERE WAS NO BOY. HOW THE GOVERNOR DONE +HOARCKIN', AND GOT QUALIFIED FOR A SUBJECT OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH</p> + +<p>Old Jack's powers of self-delusion were great indeed if, when he +started on his short journey, he really believed the fog had mended. +At least, it was so dense that he might never have found his way +without assistance. This he met with in the shape of a boy with a +link, whom Sally at once identified from his description, given when +the Major had succeeded in getting up the stairs and was resting in +the sitting-room near the old sabre on the wall, wiping his eyes +after his effort. Colonel Lund was half-unconscious after a bad +attack, and it was best not to disturb him. Fenwick had not +returned, and no one was very easy about him. But every one affirmed +the reverse, and joined in a sort of Creed to the effect that the +fog was clearing. It wasn't and didn't mean to for some time. But +the unanimity of the creed fortified the congregation, as in other +cases. No two believers doubted it at once, just as no two Alpine +climbers, strung together on the moraine of a glacier, lose their +foothold at the same time.</p> + +<p>"I know that boy," said Sally. "His nose twists, and gives him a +presumptuous expression, and he has a front tooth out and puts his +tongue through. Also his trousers are tied on with strings."</p> + +<p>"Everlastin' young beggar, if ever there was one," says the old +soldier, in a lucid interval when speech is articulate. But he is +allowing colloquialism to run riot over meaning. No everlasting +person can ever have become part of the past if you think of it. He +goes on to say that the boy has had twopence and is to come back for +fourpence in an hour, or threepence if you can see + +<!-- Page 261 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +the gas-lamps, +because then a link will be superfluous. Sally recognises the boy +more than ever.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she says, "if he's waiting outside. Because the party of +the house might allow him inside. Do you think I could ask, mother?"</p> + +<p>"You might <i>try</i>, kitten," is the reply, not given sanguinely. And +Sally goes off, benevolent. "Even when your trousers are tied up +with string, a fog's a fog," says she to herself.</p> + +<p>"I knoo our friend Lund first of all...." Thus the Major, nodding +towards the bedroom door.... "Why, God bless my soul, ma'am, I knew +Lund first of all, forty-six years ago in Delhi. Forty—six—years! +And all that time, if you believe me, he's been the same obstinate +moole. Never takin' a precaution about anythin', nor listening to a +word of advice!" This is about as far as he can go without a choke. +Rosalind goes into the next room to get a tumbler of water. The +nurse, who is sitting by the fire, nods towards the bed, and +Rosalind goes close to it to hear. "What is it, dear?" She speaks to +the invalid as to a little child.</p> + +<p>"Isn't that Old Jack choking? I know his choke. What does he come +out for in weather like this? What does he mean? Send him back.... +No, send him in here." The nurse puts in a headshake as protest. But +for all that, Sally finds, when she returns, that the two veterans +are contending together against their two enemies, bronchitis and +asthma, with the Intelligence Department sadly interrupted, and the +enemy in possession of all the advantageous points.</p> + +<p>"He oughtn't to try to talk," says Rosalind. "But he will." She and +Sally and the nurse sit on in the fog-bound front room. The +gas-lights have no heart in them, and each wears a nimbus. Rosalind +wishes Gerry would return, aloud. Sally is buoyant about him; <i>he's</i> +all right, trust <i>him</i>! What about the everlasting young beggar?</p> + +<p>"I persuaded Mrs. Kindred," says Sally. "And we looked outside for +him, and he'd gone."</p> + +<p>"Fancy a woman being named Kindred!"</p> + +<p>"When people are so genteel one can believe anything! But what do +you think the boy's name is?... Chancellorship! Isn't that queer? +She knows him—says he's always about in the + +<!-- Page 262 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +neighbourhood. He +sleeps in the mews behind Great Toff House."</p> + +<p>Her mother isn't listening. She rises for a moment to hear what she +may of how the talk in the next room goes on; and then, coming back, +says again she wishes Gerry was safe indoors, and Sally again says, +"Oh, <i>he's</i> all right!" The confidence these two have in one another +makes them a couple apart—a sort of league.</p> + +<p>What Mrs. Fenwick heard a scrap of in the next room would have been, +but for the alarums and excursions of the two enemies +aforementioned, a consecutive conversation as follows:</p> + +<p>"You're gettin' round, Colonel?"</p> + +<p>"A deal better, Major. I want to speak to <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Fire away, old Cockywax! You remember Hopkins?—Cartwright +Hopkins—man with a squint—at Mooltan—expression of his, 'Old +Cockywax.'"</p> + +<p>"I remember him. Died of typhoid at Burrampore. Now you listen to +me, old chap, and don't talk—you only make yourself cough."</p> + +<p>"It's only the dam fog. <i>I'm</i> all right."</p> + +<p>"Well, shut up. That child in the next room—it's her I want to talk +about. You're the only man, as far as I know, that knows the story. +She doesn't. She's not to be told."</p> + +<p>"Mum's the word, sir. Always say nothin', that's my motto. +Penderfield's daughter at Khopal—at least, he was her father. One +dam father's as good as another, as long as he goes to the devil." +This may be a kind of disclaimer of inheritance as a factor to be +reckoned with, an obscure suggestion that human parentage is without +influence on character. It is not well expressed.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Roper. You know the story. That's the only man I +can't say God forgive him to. God forgive <i>me</i>, but I can't."</p> + +<p>"Devil take me if I can!... Yes, it's all right. They're all in the +next room...."</p> + +<p>"But the woman was worse. She's living, you know...."</p> + +<p>"I know—shinin' light—purifying society—that's her game! I'd +purify <i>her</i>, if I had my way."</p> + +<p>"Come a bit nearer—my voice goes. I've thought it all out. If the +girl, who supposes herself to be the daughter of her mother's + +<!-- Page 263 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +husband, tries to run you into a corner—you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I understand."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you undeceive her. Her mother has never told her +<i>anything</i>. She doesn't suppose she had any hand in the divorce. She +thinks his name was Graythorpe, and doesn't know he wasn't her +father. Don't you undeceive her—promise."</p> + +<p>But the speaker is so near the end of his tether that the Major has +barely time to say, "Honour bright, Colonel," when the bronchial +storm bursts. It may be that the last new anodyne, which is +warranted to have all the virtues and none of the ill-effects of +opium, had also come to the end of <i>its</i> tether. Mrs. Fenwick came +quickly in, saying he had talked too much; and Sally, following her, +got Major Roper away, leaving the patient to her mother and the +nurse. The latter knew what it would be with all this talking—now +the temperature would go up, and he would have a bad night, and what +would Dr. Mildmay say?</p> + +<p>Till the storm had subsided and a new dose of the sedative had been +given, Sally and Old Jack stood waiting in sympathetic pain—you +know what it is when you can do nothing. The latter derived some +insignificant comfort from suggestions through his own choking that +all this was due to neglect of his advice. When only moans and heavy +breathing were left, Sally went back into the bedroom. Her mother +was nursing the poor old racked head on her bosom, with the +sword-hand of the days gone by in her own. She said without speaking +that he would sleep presently, and the fewer in the room the better, +and Sally left them so, and went back.</p> + +<p>Yes, the Major would take some toddy before he started for home. And +it was all ready, lemons and all, in the black polished wood +cellaret, with eagles' claws for feet. Sally got the ingredients out +and began to make it. But first she gently closed the door between +the rooms, to keep the sound of their voices in.</p> + +<p>"You really did see my father, though, Major?" There seemed to be a +good deal of consideration before the answer came, not all to be +accounted for by asthma.</p> + +<p>"Yes—certainly—oh yes. I saw Mr. Graythorpe once or twice. Another +spoonful—that's plenty." A pause.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 264 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Now, don't spill it. Take care, it's very hot. That's right." +Another pause. "Major Roper...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear. What?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> tell me what he was like."</p> + +<p>"Have you never seen his portrait?"</p> + +<p>"Mother burnt it while I was small. She told me. Do tell me what you +recollect him like."</p> + +<p>"Fine handsome feller—well set up. Fine shot, too! Gad! that was a +neat thing! A bullet through a tiger two hundred yards off just +behind the ear."</p> + +<p>"But I thought <i>his</i> name was Harrisson." The Major has got out of +his depth entirely through his own rashness. Why couldn't he leave +that tiger alone? Now he has to get into safe water again.</p> + +<p>A good long choke is almost welcome at this moment. While it goes on +he can herald, by a chronic movement of a raised finger, his +readiness to explain all as soon as it stops. He catches at his +first articulation, so that not a moment may be lost. There were +<i>two</i> tigers—that's the explanation. Harrisson shot one, and +Graythorpe the other. The cross-examiner is dissatisfied.</p> + +<p>"Which was the one that shot the tiger two hundred yards off, just +behind the ear?"</p> + +<p>The old gentleman responds with a spirited decision: "Your father, +my dear, your father. That tiger round at my rooms—show it you if +you like—that skin was given me by a feller named Harrisson, in the +Commissariat—quite another sort of Johnny. He was down with the +Central Indian Horse—quite another place!" He dwells on the +inferiority of this shot, the smallness of the skin, the close +contiguity of its owner. A very inferior affair!</p> + +<p>But, being desperately afraid of blundering again, he makes the fact +he admits, that he had confoozed between the two cases, a reason for +a close analysis of the merits of each. This has no interest for +Sally, who, indeed, had only regarded the conversation, so far, as a +stepping-stone she now wanted to leap to the mainland from. After +all, here she is face-to-face with a man who actually knows the +story of the separation, and can talk of it without pain. Why should +she not get something from him, however little? You see, the idea of +a something that could + +<!-- Page 265 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +not be told was necessarily foreign to a +mind some somethings could not be told to. But she felt it would be +difficult to account to Major Roper for her own position. The fact +that she knew nothing proved that her mother and Colonel Lund had +been anxious she should know nothing. She could not refer to an +outsider over their heads. Still, she hoped, as Major Roper was +deemed on all hands an arrant old gossip, that he might accidentally +say something to enlighten her. She prolonged the conversation in +this hope.</p> + +<p>"Was that before I was born?"</p> + +<p>"The tiger-shootin'? Well, reely, my dear, I shouldn't like to say. +It's twenty years ago, you see. No, I couldn't say—couldn't say +when it was." He is beginning to pack himself in a long woollen +scarf an overcoat with fur facings will shortly cover in, and is, in +fact, preparing to evacuate a position he finds untenable. "I must +be thinkin' of gettin' home," he says. Sally tries for a word more.</p> + +<p>"Was it before he and mother fell out?" It is on the Major's lips to +say, "Before the proceedings?" but he changes the expression.</p> + +<p>"Before the split? Well, no; I should say after the split. +Yes—probably after the split." But an unfortunate garrulity prompts +him to say more. "After the split, I should say, and before +the——"—and then he feels he is in a quagmire, and flounders to +the nearest land—"before your father went away to Australia." Then +he discerns his own feebleness, recognising the platitude of this +last remark. For nobody could shoot tigers in an Indian jungle after +he had gone off to Australia. Clearly the sooner he gets away the +better.</p> + +<p>A timely choking-fit interposes to preserve its victim from further +questioning. The patient in the next room is asleep or torpid, so he +omits farewells. Sally's mother comes out to say good-night, and +Sally goes down the staircase with him and his asthma, feeling that +it is horrible and barbarous to turn him out alone in the dense +blackness. Perhaps, however, the peculiar boy with the strange name +will be there. That would be better than nothing. Sally feels there +is something indomitable about that boy, and that fog nourishes and +stimulates it.</p> + +<p>But, alas!—there is no boy. And yet it certainly would be +fourpence + +<!-- Page 266 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +if he came back. For, though it may be possible to see the +street gas-lamps without getting inside the glass, you can't see +them from the pavement. Nevertheless, the faith that "it" is +clearing having been once founded, lives on itself in the face of +evidence, even as other faiths have done before now. So the creed is +briefly recited, and the Major disappears with the word good-night +still on his lips, and his cough, gasp, or choke dies away in the +fog as he vanishes.</p> + +<p>Somebody is whistling "Arr-hyd-y-nos" as he comes from the other +side in the darkness—somebody who walks with a swinging step and a +resonant foot-beat, some one who cares nothing for fogs. Fenwick's +voice is defiant of it, exhilarated and exhilarating, as he ceases +to be a cloud and assumes an outline. Sally gives a kiss to frozen +hair that crackles.</p> + +<p>"What's the kitten after, out in the cold? How's the Major?"</p> + +<p>"Which? <i>Our</i> Major? He's a bit better, and the temperature's +lower." Sally believed this; a little thermometer thing was being +wielded as an implement of optimism, and had lent itself to +delusions.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how scrunchy you are, your hands are all ice! Mamma's been +getting in a stew about <i>you</i>, squire." On which Fenwick, with the +slightest of whistles, passes Sally quickly and goes four steps at a +time up the stairs, still illuminated by Sally's gas-waste. For she +had left the lights at full cock all the way up.</p> + +<p>"My dearest, you never got my telegram?" This is to Rosalind, who +has come out on the landing to meet him. But the failure of the +telegram—lost in the fog, no doubt—is a small matter. What shelves +it is the patient grief on the tired, handsome face Fenwick finds +tears on as he kisses it. Sally has the optimism all to herself now. +Her mother knows that her old friend and protector will not be here +long—that, of course, has been true some time. But there's the +suffering, present and to come.</p> + +<p>"We needn't stop the chick hoping a little still if she likes." She +says it in a whisper. Sally is on the landing below; she hears the +whispering, and half guesses its meaning. Then she suppresses the +last gas-tap, and follows on into the front room, where the three +sit talking in undertones for perhaps an hour.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 267 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Yes, that monotonous sound is the breathing of the patient in the +next room, under the new narcotic which has none of the bad effects +of opium. The nurse is there watching him, and wondering whether it +will be a week, or twenty-four hours. She derives an impression from +something that the fog really is clearing at last, and goes to the +window to see. She is right, for at a window opposite are dimly +visible, from the candles on either side of the mirror, two white +arms that are "doing" the hair of a girl whose stays are much too +tight. She is dressing for late dinner or an early party. Then the +nurse, listening, understands that the traffic has been roused from +its long lethargy. "I thought I heard the wheels," she says to +herself. Then Sally also becomes aware of the sound in the traffic, +and goes to <i>her</i> window in the front room.</p> + +<p>"You see I'm right," she says. "The people are letting their fires +out, and the fog's giving. Now I'm going to take you home, +Jeremiah." For the understanding is that these two shall return to +Krakatoa Villa, leaving Rosalind to watch with the nurse. She will +get a chop in half an hour's time. She can sleep on the sofa in the +front room if she feels inclined. All which is duty carried out or +arranged for.</p> + +<p>After her supper Rosalind sat on by herself before the fire in the +front room. She did not want to be unsociable with the nurse; but +she wanted to think, alone. A weight was on her mind; the thought +that the dear old friend, who had been her father and refuge, should +never know that she again possessed her recovered husband on terms +almost as good as if that deadly passage in her early life had never +blasted the happiness of both. He would die, and it would have made +him so happy to know it. Was she right in keeping it back now? Had +she ever been right?</p> + +<p>But if she told him now, the shock of the news might hasten his +collapse. Sudden news need not be bad to cause sudden death. And, +maybe the story would be too strange for him to grasp. Better be +silent. But oh! if he might have shared her happiness!</p> + +<p>Drowsiness was upon her before she knew it. Better perhaps sleep a +little now, while he was sleeping. She looked in at him, and spoke +to the nurse. He lay there like a lifeless waxwork—blown through, +like an apparatus out of order, to simulate breath, + +<!-- Page 268 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +and doing it +badly. How could he sleep when now and then it jerked him so? He +could, and she left him and lay down, and went suddenly to sleep. +After a time that was a journey through a desert, without landmarks, +she was as suddenly waked.</p> + +<p>"What?... I thought you spoke...." And so some one had spoken, but +not to her. She started up, and went to where the nurse was +conversing through the open window with an inarticulate person in +the street below, behind the thick window-curtain she had kept +overlapped, to check the freezing air.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's a boy. I can't make out what he says."</p> + +<p>"Let me come!" But Rosalind gets no nearer his meaning. She ends up +with, "I'll come down," and goes. The nurse closes the window and +goes back to the bedroom.</p> + +<p>The street door opens easily, the Chubb lock being the only +fastening. The moment Rosalind sees the boy near she recognises him. +There is no doubt about the presumptuous expression, or the cause of +it. Also the ostentatious absence of the front tooth, clearly +accounting for inaudibility at a distance.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" asks Rosalind.</p> + +<p>"Nothin' at all for myself. I come gratis, I did. There's a many +wouldn't." He is not too audible, even now; but he would be better +if he did not suck the cross-rail of the area paling.</p> + +<p>"Why did you come?"</p> + +<p>"To bring you the nooze. The old bloke's a friend of yours, missis. +Or p'r'aps he ain't! I can mizzle, you know, and no harm done."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, don't mizzle on any account. Tell me about the old bloke. Do +you mean Major Roper?"</p> + +<p>"Supposin' I do, why shouldn't I?" This singular boy seems to have +no way of communicating with his species except through defiances +and refutations. Rosalind accepts his question as an ordinary +assent, and does not make the mistake of entering into argument.</p> + +<p>"Is he ill?" The boy nods. "Is he worse?" Another nod. "Has he gone +home to his club?" The boy evidently has a revelation to make, but +would consider it undignified to make it except as a denial of +something to the contrary. He sees his way after a brief +reflection.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 269 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"He ain't gone. He's been took."</p> + +<p>"He's been taken? How has he been taken?"</p> + +<p>"On a perambulance. Goin' easy! But he didn't say nothin'. Not harf +a word!"</p> + +<p>"Had he fainted?" But this boy has another characteristic—when he +cannot understand he will not admit it. He keeps silence, and goes +on absorbing the railing. Rosalind asks further: "Was he dead?"</p> + +<p>"It'd take a lawyer to tell that, missis."</p> + +<p>"I can't stand here in the cold, my boy. Come in, and come up and +tell us." So he comes up, and Rosalind speaks to the nurse in the +other room, who comes; and then they turn seriously to getting the +boy's story.</p> + +<p>He is all the easier for examination from the fact that he is +impressed, if not awed, by his surroundings. All the bounce is +knocked out of him, now that his foot is no longer on his native +heath, the street. Witness that the subject of his narrative, who +would certainly have been the old bloke where there was a paling to +suck, has become a simple pronoun, and no more!</p> + +<p>"I see him afore, missis," he says. "That time wot I lighted him +round for twopence. And he says to come again in three-quarters of +an hour. And I says yes, I says. And he says not to be late. Nor yet +I shouldn't, only the water run so slow off the main, and I was +kep.... Yes, missis—a drorin' of it off in their own pails at the +balkny house by the mooze, where the supply is froze...."</p> + +<p>"I see, you got a job to carry up pails of water from that thing +that sticks up in the road?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, missis; by means of the turncock. Sim'lar I got wet. But I +didn't go to be late. It warn't much, in the manner of speakin'. I +was on his 'eels, clost."</p> + +<p>"You caught him?"</p> + +<p>"Heard him hoarckin' in the fog, and I says to my mate—boy by the +name of 'Ucklebridge, only chiefly called Slimy, to distinguish +him—I says—I says that was my guv'nor, safe and square, by the +token of the sound of it. And then I catches him up in the fog, +follerin' by the sound. My word, missis, he <i>was</i> bad! Wanted to +holler me over the coals, he did, for behind my + +<!-- Page 270 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +time. I could hear +him wantin' to do it. But he couldn't come by the breath."</p> + +<p>Poor Old Jack! The two women look at each other, and then say to the +boy: "Go on."</p> + +<p>"Holdin' by the palins, he was, and goin' slow. Then he choked it +off like, and got a chanst for a word, and he says: 'Now, you young +see-saw'—that's what he said, missis, 'see-saw'—'just you stir +your stumps and cut along to the clubbus: and tell that dam +red-faced fool Mulberry to look sharp and send one of the young +fellers to lend an arm, and not to come hisself.' And then he got +out a little flat bottle of something short, and went for a nip; but +the cough took him, and it sprouted over his wropper and was +wasted."</p> + +<p>The women look at each other again. The nurse sees well into the +story, and says quickly under her breath to Rosalind: "He'd been +told what to do if he felt it coming. A drop of brandy might have +made the difference." The boy goes on as soon as he is waited for.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mulberry he comes runnin' hisself, and a couple more on 'em! +And then they all calls me a young varmint by reason of the guv'nor +having got lost. But a gentleman what comes up, he says all go +opposite ways, he says, and you'll hear him in the fog. So I runs up +a parsage, and in the middle of the parsage I tumbles over the +guv'nor lyin' acrost the parsage. Then I hollers, and then they +come."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" says Rosalind; for this boy had that terrible power of +vivid description which flinches at no realism—<i>seems</i> to enjoy the +horror of it; does not really. Probably it was only his intense +anxiety to communicate <i>all</i>, struggling with his sense of his lack +of language—a privilege enjoyed by guv'nors. But Rosalind feels the +earnestness of his brief epic. He winds it up:</p> + +<p>"But the guv'nor, he'd done hoarckin'. Nor he never spoke. The +gentleman I told you, he says leave him lyin' a minute, he says, and +he runs. Then back he comes with the apoarthecary—him with the red +light—and they rips the guv'nor's sleeves up, spilin' his coat. And +they prokes into his arm with a packin'-needle. Much use it done! +And then they says, it warn't the fog, and I called 'em a liar. 'Cos +it's a clearin' off, they says. It warn't, not much. I see the +perambulance come, and they shoved + +<!-- Page 271 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +him in, and I hooked it off, and +heard 'em saying where's that young shaver, they says; he'll be +wanted for his testament. So I hooked it off."</p> + +<p>"And where did you go?"</p> + +<p>"To a wisit on a friend, I did. Me and Slimy—him I mentioned afore. +And he says, he says, to come on here—on'y later. So then I come on +here."</p> + +<p>Rosalind finds herself, in the face of what she feels must mean Old +Jack's sudden death, thinking how sorry she is she can command no +pair of trousers of a reasonable size to replace this boy's drenched +ones—a pair that would need no string. A crude brew of hot toddy, +and most of the cake that had appealed to Major Roper in vain, and +never gone back to the cellaret, were the only consolations +possible. They seemed welcome, but under protest.</p> + +<p>"Shan't I carry of 'em outside, missis?"</p> + +<p>"On the stairs, then." This assent is really because both women +believe he will be comfortabler there than in the room. "Where are +you going to sleep?" Rosalind asks, as he takes the cake and tumbler +away to the stairs. She puts a gas-jet on half-cock.</p> + +<p>"Twopenny doss in Spur Street, off of 'Orseferry Road, Westminster." +This identification is to help Rosalind, as she may not be able to +spot this particular doss-house among all she knows.</p> + +<p>"Do you always sleep there?"</p> + +<p>"No, missis! Weather permitting, in our mooze—on the 'eap. The +'orse-keeper gives a sack in return for a bit of cleanin', early, +before comin' away."</p> + +<p>"What are you?" says Rosalind. She is thinking aloud more than +asking a question. But the boy answers:</p> + +<p>"I'm a wife, I am. Never learned no tride, ye see!... Oh yes; I've +been to school—board-school scollard. But they don't learn you no +tride. You parses your standards and chucks 'em." This incredible +boy, who deliberately called himself a waif (that was his meaning), +was it possible that he had passed through a board-school? Well, +perhaps he was the highest type of competitive examinee, who can +learn everything and forget everything.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 272 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"But you have a father?"</p> + +<p>"I could show him you. But he don't hold with teachin' his sons +trides, by reason of their gettin' some of his wiges. He's in the +sanitary engineering himself, but he don't do no work." Rosalind +looks puzzled. "That's his tride—sanitary engineering, lavatries, +plumbin', and fittin'. Been out of work better than three years. He +can jint you off puppies' tails, though, at a shillin'. But he don't +only get a light job now and again, 'cos the tride ain't wot it was. +They've been shearin' of 'em off of late years. Thank you, missis." +The refreshments have vanished as by magic, and Rosalind gives the +boy the rest of the cake and a coin, and he goes away presumably to +the doss-house he smells so strong of, having been warmed, that a +flavour of the heap in the mews would have been welcome in exchange. +So Rosalind thinks as she opens the window a moment and looks out. +She can quite see the houses opposite. The fog has cleared till the +morning.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is the relenting of the atmospheric conditions, or +perhaps it is the oxygen that the patient has been inhaling off and +on, that has slightly revived him. Or perhaps it is the champagne +that comes up through a tap in the cork, and reminds Rosalind's +ill-slept brain of something heard very lately—what on earth +exactly was it? Oh, she knows! Of course, the thing in the street +the sanitary engineer's son drew the pails of water at for the house +with the balcony. It is pleasanter to know; might have fidgeted her +if she had not found out. But she is badly in want of sleep, that's +the truth!</p> + +<p>"I thought Major Roper was gone, Rosey." He can talk through his +heavy breathing. It must be the purer air.</p> + +<p>"So he is, dear. He went two hours ago." She sits by him, taking his +hand as before. The nurse is, by arrangement, to take her spell of +sleep now.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it's my head. I thought he was here just now—just this +minute."</p> + +<p>"No, dear; you've mixed him up with Gerry, when he came in to say +good-night. Major Roper went away first. It wasn't seven o'clock." +But there is something excited and puzzled in the patient's voice as +he answers—something that makes her feel creepy.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 273 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Are you <i>sure</i>? I mean, when he came back into the room with his +coat on."</p> + +<p>"You are dreaming, dear! He never came back. He went straight away."</p> + +<p>"Dreaming! Not a bit of it. You weren't here." He is so positive +that Rosalind thinks best to humour him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I was speaking to Mrs. Kindred. What did he come back to +say, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing! At least, I had told him not to chatter to Sallykin +about the old story, and he came back, I suppose, to say he +wouldn't." He seemed to think the incident, as an incident, closed; +but presently goes on talking about things that arise from it.</p> + +<p>"Old Jack's the only one of them all that knew anything about +it—that Sallykin is likely to come across. Pellew knew, of course; +but he's not an old chatterbox like Roper."</p> + +<p>Ought not Rosalind to tell the news that has just reached her? She +asks herself the question, and answers it: "Not till he rallies, +certainly. If he does not rally, why then——!" Why then he either +will know or won't want to.</p> + +<p>She has far less desire to tell him this than she has to talk of the +identity of her husband. She would almost be glad, as he is to +die—her old friend—that she should have some certainty beforehand +of the exact time of his death, so that she might, only for an hour, +have a companion in her secrecy. If only he and she might have borne +the burden of it together! She reproached herself, now that it was +too late, with her mistrust of his powers of retaining a secret. See +how keenly alive he was to the need of keeping Sally's parentage in +the dark! And <i>that</i> was what the whole thing turned on. Gerry's +continued ignorance might be desirable, but was a mere flea-bite by +comparison. In her strained, sleepless, overwrought state the wish +that "the Major" should know of her happiness while they could still +speak of it together grew from a passing thought of how nice it +might have been, that could not be, to a dumb dominant longing that +it should be. Still, after all, the only fear was that he should +talk to Gerry; and how easy to keep Gerry out of the room! And +suppose he did talk! Would Gerry believe him? There was risky ground +there, though.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 274 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>She was not sorry when no more speech came through the heavy +breathing of the invalid. He had talked a good deal, and a +semi-stupor followed, relieving her from the strong temptation she +had felt to lead him back to their past memories, and feel for some +means of putting him in possession of the truth. As the tension of +her mind grew less, she became aware this would have been no easy +thing to do. Then, as she sat holding the old hand, and wondering +that anything so frail could still keep in bond a spirit weary of +its prison, drowsiness crept over her once more, all the sooner for +the monotonous rhythm of the heavy breath. Consciousness gave place +to a state of mysterious discomfort, complicated with intersecting +strings and a grave sense of responsibility, and then to oblivion. +After a few thousand years, probably minutes on the clock, a jerk +woke her.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! I was asleep."</p> + +<p>"You might give me another nip of the champagne, Rosey dear. And +then you must go and lie down. I shall be all right. Is it late?"</p> + +<p>"Not very. About twelve. I'll look at my watch." She does so, and it +is past one. Then the invalid, being raised up towards his +champagne, has a sudden attack of coughing, which brings in the +nurse as a reserve. Presently he is reinstated in semi-comfort, half +a tone weaker, but with something to say. And so little voice to say +it with! Rosalind puts her ear close, and repeats what she catches.</p> + +<p>"Why did Major Roper come back? He didn't, dear. He went away about +seven, and has not been here since."</p> + +<p>"He was in the room just this minute." The voice is barely audible, +the conviction of the speaker absolute. He is wandering. The nurse's +mind decides, in an innermost recess, that it won't be very long +now.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Rosalind looked out through a spot she had rubbed clean on the +frozen window-pane, and saw that it was bright starlight. The fog +had gone. That boy—he was asleep at the twopenny doss, and the +trousers were drying. What a good thing that he should be totally +insensitive to atmosphere, as no doubt he was.</p> + +<p>The hardest hours for the watcher by a sick-bed are those that + +<!-- Page 275 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +cannot be convinced that they belong to the previous day. One +o'clock may be coaxed or bribed easily enough into winking at a +pretence that it is only a corollary of twelve; two o'clock protests +against it audibly, and every quarter-chime endorses its claim to be +to-morrow; three o'clock makes short work of an imposture only a +depraved effrontery can endeavour to foist upon it. Rosalind was +aware of her unfitness to sit up all night—all this next night—but +nursed the pretext that it had not come, and that it was still +to-day, until a sense of the morning chill, and something in the way +the sound of each belated cab confessed to its own scarcity, +convinced her of the uselessness of further effort. Then she +surrendered the point, short of the stroke of three, and exchanged +posts with the nurse, who promised to call her at once should it +seem necessary to do so. Sleep came with a rush, and dreamless +oblivion. Then, immediately, the hand of the nurse on her shoulder, +and her voice, a sudden shock in the absolute stillness:</p> + +<p>"I thought it better to wake you, Mrs. Nightingale. I am <i>so</i> +sorry...."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! how long have I slept?" Rosalind's mind leaped through a +second of unconsciousness of where she is and what it's all about to +a state of intense wakefulness. "What o'clock is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's half-past six. I should have left you to have your sleep out, +only he wanted you.... Yes, he woke up and asked for you, and then +asked again. He's hardly coughed."</p> + +<p>"I'll come." Rosalind tried for alacrity, but found she was quite +stiff. The fire was only a remnant of red glow that collapsed feebly +as the nurse touched it with the poker. It was a case for a couple +of little gluey wheels, and a good contribution to the day's fog, +already in course of formation, with every grate in London panting +to take shares. Rosalind did not wait to see the black column of +smoke start for its chimney-pot, but went straight to the patient's +bedside.</p> + +<p>"Is that Rosey? I can't see very well. Come and sit beside me. I +want you." He was speaking more easily than before, so his hearer +thought. Could it be a change for the better? She put her finger on +the pulse, but it was hard to find. The fever had left him for the +time being, but its work was done. It was + +<!-- Page 276 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +wonderful, though, that +he should have so much life in him for speech.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Major dear?... Let's get the pillow right.... There, +that's better! Yes, dear; what is it?"</p> + +<p>"I've got my marching orders, Rosey. I shall be all right. Shan't be +sorry ... when it's over.... Rosey girl, I want you to do something +for me.... Is my watch there, with the keys?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear; the two little keys."</p> + +<p>"The little one opens my desk ... with the brass corners.... Yes, +that one.... Open the top flap, and look in the little left-hand +drawer. Got it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; you want the letters out? There's only one packet."</p> + +<p>"That's the lot. Read what's written on them."</p> + +<p>"Only 'Emily, 1837.'"</p> + +<p>"Quite right! That was your aunt, you know—your father's sister. +Don't cry, darling. Nothing to cry about! I'm only an old chap. +There, there!" Rosalind sat down again by the bed, keeping the +packet of letters in her hand. Presently the old man, who had closed +his eyes as though dozing, opened them and said: "Have you put them +on the fire?"</p> + +<p>"No. Was I to?"</p> + +<p>"That was what I meant. I thought I said so.... Yes; pop 'em on." +Rosalind went to the fireside and stood hesitating, till the old man +repeated his last words; then threw the love-letters of sixty years +ago in a good hot place in the burning coal. A flare, and they were +white ash trying to escape from a valley of burning rocks; then even +that was free to rise. Maybe the only one who ever read them would +be soon—would be a mere attenuated ash, at least, as far as what +lay on that bed went, so pale and evanescent even now.</p> + +<p>"A fool of a boy, Rosey dear," said the old voice, as she took her +place by the bed again. "Just a fool of a boy, to keep them all +those years. And <i>she</i> married to another fellow, and a +great-grandmother. Ah, well!... don't you cry about it, Rosey.... +All done now!" She may have heard him wrong, for his voice went to a +whisper. She wondered at the way the cough was sparing him.</p> + +<p>Then she thought he was falling asleep again; but presently he + +<!-- Page 277 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +spoke. "I shall do very well now.... Nothing but a little rest ... +that's all I want now. Only there's something I wanted to say about +... about...."</p> + +<p>"About Sally?" Rosalind guessed quickly, and certainly.</p> + +<p>"Ah ... about the baby. <i>Your</i> baby, Rosey.... That man that was her +father ... he's on my mind...."</p> + +<p>"Oh me, forget him, dear—forget him! Leave him to God!" Rosalind +repeated a phrase used twenty years ago by herself in answer to the +old soldier's first uncontrollable outburst of anger against the man +who had made her his victim. His voice rose again above a whisper as +he answered:</p> + +<p>"I heard you say so, dear child ... then ... that time. You were +right, and I was wrong. But what I've said—many a time, God forgive +me!—that I prayed he was in hell. I would be glad now to think I +had not said it."</p> + +<p>"Don't think of it. Oh, my dear, don't think of it! You never meant +it...."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I did, though; and would again, mind you, Rosey! Only—not +now! Better let him go, for Sallykin's sake.... The child's the +puzzle of it...."</p> + +<p>Rosalind thought she saw what he was trying to say, and herself +tried to supplement it. "You mean, why isn't Sally like him?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, to be sure! Like father like son, they say. His son's a chip of +the old block. But then—he's his mother's son, too. Two such!—and +then see what comes of 'em. Sallykin's your daughter ... Rosey's +daughter. Sallykin...." He seemed to be drowsing off from mere +weakness; but he had something to say, and his mind made for speech +and found it:</p> + +<p>"Yes, Rosey; it's the end of the story. Soon off—I shall be! Not +very long now. Wasn't it foggy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear; it was. But it's clear now. It's snowing."</p> + +<p>"Then you could send for Jack Roper. Old Jack! He can tell me +something I want to know.... I know he can...."</p> + +<p>"But it's the middle of the night, dear. We can't send for him now. +Sally shall go for him again when she comes in the morning. What is +it you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"What became of poor Algernon Palliser.... I know Old Jack + +<!-- Page 278 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +knows.... Something he heard.... I forget things ... my head's not +good. Ah, Rosey darling! if I'd been there in the first of it ... I +could have got speech of him. I might have ... might have...."</p> + +<p>As the old man's mind wandered back to the terrible time it dragged +his hearer's with it. Rosalind tried to bear it by thinking of what +Sally was like in those days, crumpled, violent, vociferous, +altogether <i>intransigeante</i>. But it was only a moment's salve to a +reeling of the reason she knew must come if this went on. If he +slept it might be averted. She thought he was dropping off, but he +roused himself again to say: "What became of poor Palliser—your +husband?"</p> + +<p>Then Rosalind, whose head was swimming, let the fact slip from her +that the dying man had never seen or known her husband in the old +days; only he had always spoken of him as one to be pitied, not +blamed, even as she herself thought of him. Incautiously she now +said, "Poor Gerry!" forgetting that Colonel Lund had never known him +by that name, or so slightly that it did not connect itself. Yet his +mind was marvellously clear, too; for he immediately replied: "I did +not mean Fenwick. I meant your first husband. Poor boy! poor fellow! +What became of him?"</p> + +<p>"<i>His</i> name was Algernon, too," was all the answer she could think +of. It was a sort of forlorn hope in nettle-grasping. Then she saw +it had little meaning in it for her listener. His voice went on, +almost whispering:</p> + +<p>"Many a time I've thought ... if we could have found the poor boy +... and shown him Sally ... he might have ... might have...."</p> + +<p>Rosalind could bear it no longer. Whoever reads this story +carelessly may see little excuse for her that she should lose her +head at the bedside of a dying man. It was really no matter for +surprise that she should do so. Consider the perpetual tension of +her life, the broken insufficient sleep of the last two days, the +shock of "Old Jack's" sudden death a few hours since! Small blame to +her, to our thinking, if she did give way! To some it may even seem, +as to us, that the course she took was best in the end. And, indeed, +her self-control stood by her to the last; it was a retreat in +perfect order, not a flight. Nor did she, + +<!-- Page 279 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +perhaps, fully measure +how near her old friend was to his end, or release—a better name, +perhaps.</p> + +<p>"Major dear, I have something I must tell you." The old eyelids +opened, and his eyes turned to her, though he remained +motionless—quite as one who caught the appeal in the tension of her +voice and guessed its meaning.</p> + +<p>"Rosey darling—yes; tell me now." His voice tried to rise above a +whisper; an effort seemed to be in it to say: "Don't keep anything +back on my account."</p> + +<p>"So I will, dear. Shut your eyes and lie quiet and listen. I want to +tell you that I know that my first husband is not dead.... Yes, +dear; don't try to speak. You'll see when I tell you.... Algernon +Palliser is not dead, though we thought he must be. He went away +from Lahore after the proceedings, and he did go to Australia, no +doubt, as we heard at the time; but after that he went to America, +and was there till two years ago ... and then he came to England." +The old man tried to speak, but this time his voice failed, and +Rosalind thought it best to go straight on. "He came to England, +dear, and met with a bad accident, and lost his memory...."</p> + +<p>"<i>What!</i>" The word came so suddenly and clearly that it gave her new +courage to go on. She <i>must</i> tell it all now, and she felt sure he +was hearing and understanding all she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear; it's all true. Let me tell it all. He lost his memory +completely, so that he did not know his own name...."</p> + +<p>"My God!"</p> + +<p>"Did not know his own name, dear—did not know his own name—did not +know the face of the wife he lost twenty years ago—all, all a +blank!... Yes, yes; it was he himself, and I took him and kept him, +and I have him now ... and oh, my dear, my dear, he does not know +it—knows <i>nothing</i>! He does not know who I am, nor who he was, nor +that Sally is the baby; but he loves her dearly, as he never could +have loved her if ... if...."</p> + +<p>She could say no more. The torrent of tears that was the first +actual relief to the weight upon her heart of two years of secrecy +grew and grew till speech was overwhelmed. But she knew that her +story, however scantily told, had reached her listener's + +<!-- Page 280 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +mind, +though she could not have said precisely at what moment he came to +know it. The tone of his exclamation, "My God!" perhaps had made her +take his knowledge for granted. Of one thing, however, she felt +certain—that details were needless, would add nothing to the main +fact, which she was quite convinced her old friend had grasped with +a mind still capable of holding it, although it might be in death. +Even so one tells a child the outcome only of what one tells in full +to older ears. Then quick on the heels of the relief of sharing her +burden with another followed the thought of how soon the sympathy +she had gained must be lost, buried—so runs the code of current +speech—in her old friend's grave. All her heart poured out in tears +on the hand that could still close fitfully upon her own as she +knelt by the bed on which he would so soon lie dying.</p> + +<p>Presently his voice came again—a faint whisper she could just +catch: "Tell it me again, Rosey ... what you told me just now ... +just now." And she felt his cold hand close on hers as he spoke. +Then she repeated what she had said before, adding only: "But he may +never come to know his own story, and Sally must not know it." The +old whisper came back, and she caught the words: "Then it is true! +My God!"</p> + +<p>She remained kneeling motionless beside him. His breath, weak and +intermittent, but seeming more free than when she left him four +hours since, was less audible than the heavy sleep of the overtaxed +nurse in the next room, heard through the unclosed door. The +familiar early noises of the street, the life outside that cares so +little for the death within, the daily bread and daily milk that +wake us too soon in the morning, the cynical interchanges of +cheerful early risers about the comfort of the weather—all grew and +gathered towards the coming day. But the old Colonel heard none of +them. What thought he still had could say to him that this was good +and that was good, hard though it might be to hold it in mind. But +one bright golden thread ran clear through all the tangled +skeins—he would leave Rosey happy at last, for all the bitterness +her cup of life had held before.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The nurse had slept profoundly, but she was one of those fortunate +people who can do so at will, and then wake up at an appointed + +<!-- Page 281 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +time, as many great soldiers have been able to do. As the clock +struck eight she sat up in the chair she had been sleeping in and +listened a moment. No sound came from the next room. She rose and +pushed the door open cautiously and looked in. Mrs. Fenwick was +still kneeling by the bed, her face hidden, still holding the old +man's hand. The nurse thought surely the still white face she saw in +the intermittent gleams of a lamp-flame flickering out was the face +of a dead man. Need she rouse or disturb the watcher by his side? +Not yet, certainly. She pulled the door very gently back, not +closing it.</p> + +<p>A sound came of footsteps on the stairs—footsteps without voices. +It was Fenwick and Sally, who had passed through the street door, +open for a negotiation for removal of the snow—for the last two +hours had made a white world outside. Sally was on a stairflight in +the rear. She had paused for a word with the boy Chancellorship, who +was a candidate for snow-removal. He seemed relieved by the snow. It +was a tidy lot better morning than last night, missis. He had +breakfasted—yes—off of corfy, and paid for it, and buttered 'arf +slices and no stintin', for twopence. Sally had a fellow-feeling for +this boy's optimism. But he had something on his mind, for when +Sally asked him if Major Roper had got home safe last night, his +cheerfulness clouded over, and he said first, "Couldn't say, +missis;" and then, "He's been got home, you may place your +dependence on that;" adding, inexplicably to Sally, "He won't care +about this weather; it won't be no odds!" She couldn't wait to find +out his meaning, but told him he might go on clearing away the snow, +and when Mrs. Kindred came he was to say Miss Rosalind Nightingale +told him he might. She said she would be answerable, and then ran to +catch up Fenwick.</p> + +<p>The nurse came out to meet them on the landing, and in answer to +Fenwick's half-inquiry or look of inquiry—Sally did not gather +which—said: "Yes—at least, I think so—just now." Sally made up +her mind it was death. But it was not, quite; for as the nurse, +preceding them, pushed the door of the sickroom gently open, the +voice of the man she believed dead came out almost strong and clear +in the silence: "Evil has turned to good. God be praised!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 282 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>But they were the last words Colonel Lund spoke. He died so quietly +that the exact moment of dissolution was not distinguishable. +Fenwick and Sally found Rosalind so overstrained with grief and +watching that they asked for no explanation of the words. Indeed, +they may not have ascribed any special meaning to them.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 283 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">ABOUT SIX MONTHS, AND HOW A CABMAN SAW A GHOST. OF SALLY'S AND THE +DOCTOR'S "MODUS VIVENDI," AND THE SHOOSMITH FAMILY. HOW SALLY MADE +TEA FOR BUDDHA, AND HOW BUDDHA FORESAW A STEPDAUGHTER. DELIRIUM +TREMENS</p> + +<p>It may make this story easier to read at this point if we tell our +reader that this twenty-fifth chapter contains little of vital +import—is, in fact, only a passing reference to one or two +by-incidents that came about in the half-year that followed. He +cannot complain that they are superfluous if we give him fair +warning of their triviality, and enable him to skip them without +remorse. But they register, to our thinking, what little progress +events made in six very nice months—a period Time may be said to +have skipped. And whoso will may follow his example, and lose but +little in the doing of it.</p> + +<p>Very nice months they were—only one cloud worth mention in the +blue; only one phrase in a minor key. The old familiar figure of +"the Major"—intermittent, certainly, but none the less invariable; +making the house his own, or letting it appropriate him, hard to say +which—was no longer to be seen; but the old sword had been hung in +a place of honour near a portrait of Paul Nightingale, Mrs. +Fenwick's stepfather—its old owner's school-friend of seventy years +ago. At her death it was to be offered to the school; no surviving +relative was named in the will, if any existed. Everything was left +unconditionally "to my dear daughter by adoption, Rosalind +Nightingale."</p> + +<p>Some redistributions of furniture were involved in the importation +of the movables from the two rooms in Ball Street. The black +cabinet, or cellaret, with the eagle-talons, found a place in the +dining-room in the basement into which Fenwick—only it seems so odd +to go back to it now—was brought on the afternoon of his +electrocution. Sally always thought of this cabinet as "Major +Roper's cabinet," because she got the whiskey from it for him + +<!-- Page 284 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> +before he went off in the fog. If only she had made him drunk that +evening! Who knows but it might have enabled him to fight against +that terrible heart-failure that was not the result of atmospheric +conditions. She never looked at this cabinet but the thought passed +through her mind.</p> + +<p>Her mother certainly told her nothing at this time about her last +conversation with the Colonel, or almost nothing. Certainly she +mentioned more than once what she thought a curious +circumstance—that the invalid, who was utterly ignorant of Old +Jack's death, had persisted so strongly that he was present in the +room when he must have been dead some hours. Every one of us has his +little bit of Psychical Research, which he demands respect for from +others, whose own cherished private instances he dismisses without +investigation. This example became Mrs. Fenwick's; who, to be just, +had not set herself up with one previously, in spite of the +temptation the Anglo-Indian is always under to espouse Mahatmas and +buried Faquirs and the like. There seemed a good prospect that it +would become an article of faith with her; her first verdict—that +it was an hallucination—having been undermined by a certain +contradictiousness, produced in her by an undeserved discredit +poured on it by pretenders to a superior ghost-insight; who, after +all, tried to utilise it afterward as a peg to hang their own +particular ghosts on. Which wasn't researching fair.</p> + +<p>Sally was no better than the rest of them; if anything, she was a +little worse. And Rosalind was far from sure that her husband +wouldn't have been much more reasonable if he hadn't had Sally there +to encourage him. As it was, the league became, <i>pro hac vice</i>, a +league of Incredulity, a syndicate of Materialists. Rosalind got no +quarter for the half-belief she had in what the old Colonel had said +on his death-bed. Her report of his evident earnestness and the +self-possession of his voice carried no weight; failing powers, +delirium, effects of opiates, and ten degrees above normal had it +all their own way. Besides, her superstition was weak-kneed. It only +went the length of suggesting that it really was very curious when +you came to think of it, and she couldn't make it out.</p> + +<p>That the incident received such very superficial recognition must be +accounted for by the fact that Krakatoa Villa was not a + +<!-- Page 285 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +villa of +the speculative-thinker class. We have known such villas elsewhere, +but we are bound to say we have known none where speculative thought +has tackled the troublesome questions of death-bed appearances, +haunted houses, <i>et id genus omne</i>, with the result of coming to any +but very speculative conclusions. The male head of this household +may have felt that he himself, as a problem for the Psychical +Researcher, was ill-fitted to discuss the subject. He certainly +shied off expressing any decided opinions.</p> + +<p>"What do you really think about ghosts?" said his wife to him one +day, when Sally wasn't there to come in with her chaff.</p> + +<p>"Ghosts belong in titled families. Middle-class ghosts are a poor +lot. Those in the army and navy cut the best figure, on the +whole—Junior United Service ghosts...."</p> + +<p>"Gerry, be serious, or I'll have a divorce!" This was a powerful +grip on a stinging-nettle. Rosalind felt braced by the effort. "Did +you ever see a ghost, old man?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the present era, sweetheart. I can't say about B.C." He used +to speak of his life in this way, but his wife always felt sorry +when he alluded to it. It seldom happened. "No, I have never seen +one to my knowledge. I've been seen as a ghost, though, which is +very unpleasant, I assure you."</p> + +<p>Rosalind's mind went back to the fat Baron at Sonnenberg. She +supposed this to be another case of the same sort. "When was that?" +she said.</p> + +<p>"Monday. I took a hansom from Cornhill to our bonded warehouse. It's +under a mile, and I asked the driver to change half-a-crown; I +hadn't a shilling. He got out a handful of silver, and when he had +picked out the two shillings and sixpence he looked at me for the +first time, and started and stared as if I was a ghost in good +earnest."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Gerry, he must have seen you before—before it happened!" +Remember that this was, in the spirit of it, a fib, seeing that the +tone of voice was that of welcome to a possible revelation. To our +thinking, the more honour to her who spoke it, considering the +motives. Gerry continued:</p> + +<p>"So I thought at first. But listen to what followed. As soon as his +surprise, whatever caused it, had toned down to mere recognition +point, he spoke with equanimity. 'I've driven you afore + +<!-- Page 286 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +now, +mister,' said he. 'You won't call me to mind. Parties don't, not +when fares; when drivers, quite otherwise. I'm by way of taking +notice myself. You'll excuse <i>me</i>?' Then he said, 'War-r-r-p,' to +the horse, who was trying to eat himself and dig the road up. When +they were friends again, I asked, Where had he seen me? Might I +happen to call to mind Livermore's Rents, and that turn-up?—that +was his reply. I said I mightn't; or didn't, at any rate. I had +never been near Livermore's Rents, nor any one else's rents, that I +could recall the name of. 'Try again, guv'nor,' said he. 'You'll +recall if you try hard enough. <i>He</i> recollects it, <i>I'll</i> go bail. +My Goard! you <i>did</i> let him have it!' Was it a fight? I asked. Well, +do you know, darling, that cabby addressed me seriously; took me to +task for want of candour. 'That ain't worthy of a guv'nor like you,' +he said. 'Why make any concealments? Why not treat me open?' I gave +him my most solemn honour that I was utterly at a loss to guess what +he was talking about, on which he put me through a sort of +retrospective catechism, broken by reminders to the horse. '<i>You</i> +don't rec'lect goin' easy over the bridge for to see the shipping? +Nor yet the little narrer court right-hand side of the road, with an +iron post under an arch and parties hollerin' murder at the far end? +Nor yet the way you held him in hand and played him? Nor yet what +you sampled him out at the finish? My Goard!' He slapped the top of +the cab in a sort of ecstasy. 'Never saw a neater thing in my life. +<i>No</i> unnecessary violence, <i>no</i> agitation! And him carried off the +ground as good as dead! Ah! I made inquiry after, and that was +<i>so</i>.' I then said it must have been some one else very like me, and +held out my half-crown. He slipped back his change into his own +pocket, and when he had buttoned it over ostentatiously addressed me +again with what seemed a last appeal. 'I take it, guv'nor,' said he, +'you may have such a powerful list of fighting fixtures in the week +that you don't easy recollect one out from the other. But <i>now</i>, +<i>do</i>, <i>you</i>, <i>mean</i> to say your memory don't serve you in this?—I +drove you over to Bishopsgate, 'cross London Bridge. Very well! Then +you bought a hat—white Panama—and took change, seein' your own was +lost. And you was going to pay me, and I drove off, refusin' to +accept a farden under the circumstances. Don't you rec'lect that?' I +said I didn't. + +<!-- Page 287 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +'Well, I <i>did</i>,' said he. 'And, with your leave, +I'll do the same thing now. I'll drive you most anywhere you'd like +to name in reason, but I won't take a farden.' And, do you know, he +was off before my surprise allowed me to say a word."</p> + +<p>"Now, Gerry, was it that made you so glum on Monday when you came +back? I recollect quite well. So would Sally."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; it was uncomfortable at first, but I soon forgot all about +it. I recollect what it was put me in the dumps quite well. It was a +long time after the cabby."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was as I walked to the station. I went a little way round, +and passed through an anonymous sort of a churchyard. I saw a box in +a wall with 'Contributions' on it, and remembering that I really had +no right to the cabby's shilling or eighteenpence, I dropped a +florin in. And then, Rosey dear, I had the most horrible recurrence +I've had for a long time—something about the same place and the +same box, and some one else putting three shillings in it. And it +was all mixed up with a bottle of champagne and a bank. I can't +explain why these things are so painful, but they are. <i>You</i> know, +Rosey!"</p> + +<p>"I know, dear." His wife's knowledge seemed to make her quite silent +and absent. She may have seen that the recovery of this cabman would +supply a clue to her husband's story. Had he taken the number of the +cab? No, he hadn't. Very stupid of him! But he had no pencil, or he +could have written it on his shirt-sleeve. He couldn't trust his +memory. Rosalind didn't feel very sorry the clue was lost. As for +him, did he, we wonder, really exert himself to remember the cab's +number?</p> + +<p>But when the story was told afterwards to Sally, the moment the +Panama hat came on the tapis, she struck in with, "Jeremiah! you +know quite well you had a Panama hat on the day you were +electrocuted. And, what's more, it was brand new! And, what's more, +it's outside in the hall!"</p> + +<p>It was brought in, and produced a spurious sense of being detectives +on the way to a discovery. But nothing came of it.</p> + +<p>All through the discussion of this odd cab-incident the fact that +Fenwick "would have written down the cab-driver's number on his +shirt-sleeve," was on the watch for a recollection by one of the +three that a something had been found written on the shirt-cuff + +<!-- Page 288 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +Fenwick was electrocuted in. The ill-starred shrewdness of Scotland +Yard, by detecting a mere date in that something, had quite thrown +it out of gear as an item of evidence. By the way, did no one ever +ask why should any man, being of sound mind, write the current date +on his shirt-sleeve? It really is a thing that can look after its +own interests for twenty-four hours. The fact is that, no sooner do +coincidences come into court, than sane investigation flies out at +the skylight.</p> + +<p>There was much discussion of this incident, you may be sure; but +that is all we need to know about it.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Our other chance gleanings of the half-year are in quite another +part of the field. They relate to Sally and Dr. Vereker's relation +to one another. If this relation had anything lover-like in it, they +certainly were not taking Europe into their confidence on the +subject. Whether their attitude was a spontaneous expression of +respectful indifference, or a <i>parti-pris</i> to mislead and hoodwink +her, of course Europe couldn't tell. All that that continent, or the +subdivision of it known as Shepherd's Bush, could see was a parade +of callousness and studied civility on the part of both. The only +circumstance that impaired its integrity or made the bystander doubt +the good faith of its performers was the fact that one of them was a +girl, and an attractive one—so attractive that elderly ladies +jumped meanly at the supposed privileges of their age and sex, and +kissed her a great deal more than was at all fair or honourable.</p> + +<p>The ostentatious exclusion of Cupid from the relationship of these +two demanded a certain mechanism. Every meeting had to be accounted +for, or there was no knowing what match-making busybodies wouldn't +say; or, rather, what they would say would be easily guessable by +the lowest human insight. Not that either of them ever mentioned +precaution to the other; all its advantages would have vanished with +open acknowledgment of its necessity. These arrangements were +instinctive on the part of both, and each credited the other with a +mole-like blindness to their existence.</p> + +<p>For instance, each was graciously pleased to believe—or, at least, +to believe that the other believed—in a certain institution that +called for a vast amount of checking of totals, comparisons of +counterfoils, inspection of certificates, verification of +data—everything, + +<!-- Page 289 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +in short, of which an institute is capable that +could make incessant correspondence necessary and frequent personal +interviews advisable. It could boast of Heaven knows how many titled +Patrons and Patronesses, Committees and Sub-committees, Referees and +Auditors. No doubt the mere mention of such an institution was +enough to render gossip speechless about any single lady and +gentleman whom it accidentally made known one to another. Its firm +of Solicitors alone, with a line all to itself in its prospectuses, +was enough to put a host of Loves to flight.</p> + +<p>On which account Ann, at Krakatoa Villa, when she announced, "A +person for you, Miss Sally," was able to add, "from Dr. Vereker, I +think, miss," without the faintest shade of humorous reserve, as of +one who sees, and does not need to be told.</p> + +<p>And when Sally had interviewed a hopeless and lopsided female, who +appeared to be precariously held together by pins, and to have an +almost superhuman power of evading practical issues, she (fortified +by this institution) was able to return to the drawing-room and say, +without a particle of shame, that she supposed she should have to go +and see Old Prosy about Mrs. Shoosmith to-morrow afternoon. And when +she called at the doctor's at teatime—because that didn't take him +from his patients, as he made a point of his tea, because of his +mother, if it was only ten minutes—both he and she believed +religiously in Mrs. Shoosmith, and Dr. Vereker filled out her form +(we believe we have the phrase right) with the most business-like +gravity at the little table where he wrote his letters.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Shoosmith's form called for filling out in more senses than +one. The doctor's mother's form would not have borne anything +further in that direction; except, indeed, she had been provided +with hooks to go over her chair back, and keep her from rolling +along the floor, as a sphere might if asked to sit down.</p> + +<p>A suggestion of the exceptional character of all visits from Sally +to Dr. Vereker, and <i>vice-versa</i>, was fostered by the domestics at +his house as well as at Krakatoa Villa. The maid Craddock, who +responded to Sally's knock on this Shoosmith occasion, threw doubt +on the possibility of the doctor ever being visible again, and kept +the door mentally on the jar while she spoke through a moral gap an +inch wide. Of course, that is only our nonsense. Sally was really in +the house when Craddock heroically, + +<!-- Page 290 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +as a forlorn hope in a lost +cause, offered to "go and see"; and going, said, "Miss Nightingale; +and is Dr. Vereker expected in to tea?" without varnish of style, or +redundance of wording. But Sally lent herself to this insincere +performance, and remained in the hall until she was called on to +decide whether she would mind coming in and waiting, and Dr. Vereker +would perhaps be back in a few minutes. All this was part of the +system of insincerity we have hinted at.</p> + +<p>So was the tenor of Sally's remarks, while she waited the few +minutes, to the effect that it was a burning shame that she should +take up Mrs. Vereker's time, a crying scandal that she should +interrupt her knitting, and a matter of penitential reflection that +she hadn't written instead of coming, which would have done just as +well. To which Mrs. Vereker, with a certain parade of pretended +insincerity (to make the real article underneath seem <i>bona fides</i>), +replied with mock-incredible statements about the pleasure she +always had in seeing Sally, and the rare good fortune which had +prompted a visit at this time, when, in addition to being unable to +knit, owing to her eyes, she had been absorbed in longing for news +of a current event that Sally was sure to know about. She +particularised it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it isn't <i>true</i>, Mrs. Vereker! You don't mean to say you +believed <i>that</i> nonsense? The idea! Tishy—just fancy!" Goody +Vereker (the name Sally thought of her by) couldn't shake her head, +the fulness at the neck forbade it; but she moved it cosily from +side to side continuously, much as a practicable image of Buddha +might have done.</p> + +<p>"My child, I've quite given up believing and disbelieving things. I +wait to be told, and then I ask if it's true. Now you've told me. It +isn't true, and that settles the matter."</p> + +<p>"But whoever could tell you such <i>nonsense</i>, Mrs. Vereker?"</p> + +<p>"A little bird, my dear." The image of Buddha left off the movement +of incredulity, and began a very gentle, slow nod. "A little bird +tells me these things—all sorts of things. But now I <i>know</i> this +one's untrue I should never <i>dream</i> of believing it. Not for one +moment."</p> + +<p>Sally felt inclined to pinch, bite, or otherwise maltreat the +speaker, so very worthless did her offer of optional disbelief seem, +and, indeed, so very offensive. But her inclination only went the + +<!-- Page 291 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +length of wondering how she could get at a vulnerable point through +so much fat.</p> + +<p>"Tishy quarrels with her mother, I <i>know</i>," said she. "But as to her +doing anything like <i>that</i>! Besides, she never told me. Besides, I +should have been asked to the wedding. Besides," etcetera.</p> + +<p>For, you see, what this elderly lady had asked the truth about was, +had or had not Lætitia Wilson and Julius Bradshaw been privately +married six months ago? Probably, during æons and epochs of +knitting, she had dreamed that some one had told her this. Or, even +more probably, she had invented it on the spot, to see what change +she could get out of Sally. She knew that Sally, prudently +exasperated, would give tongue; whereas conciliatory, cosy +inquisition—the right way to approach the elderly gossip—would +only make her reticent. Now it was only necessary to knit, and Sally +would be sure to develop the subject. The line she appeared to take +was that it was a horrible shame of people to say such things, in +view of the fact that it was only yesterday that Tishy had quite +settled that rash matrimony in defiance of her parents would not +only be inexcusable but wrong. Sally laid a fiery emphasis on the +only-ness of yesterday, and seemed to imply that, had it been a week +ago, there would have been much more plausibility in the story of +this secret nuptial of six months back.</p> + +<p>"Besides," she went on, accumulating items of refutation, "Julius +has only his salary, and Tishy has nothing—though, of course, she +could teach. Besides, Julius has his mother and sister, and they +have only a hundred and fifty a year. It does as long as they all +live together. But it wouldn't do if Julius married." On which the +old Goody (Sally told her mother after) embarked on a long analysis +of how joint housekeeping could be managed if Tishy would consent to +be absorbed into the Bradshaw household. She made rather a grievance +of it that Sally could not supply data of the sleeping accommodation +at Georgiana Terrace, Bayswater. If she had known that, she could +have got them all billeted on different rooms. As it was, she had to +be content to enlarge on the many economies the family could achieve +if they consented to be guided by a person of experience—<i>e.g.</i>, +herself.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 292 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Of course, dinner would have to be late," she said, "because of Mr. +Bradshaw not getting home till nearly eight. They would have to make +it supper. And it might be cold; it's a great saving, and makes it +so easy where there's one servant." Sally shuddered with horror at +this implied British household. Poor Tishy!</p> + +<p>"But they're <i>not going</i> to marry till they see their way," she +exclaimed in despair. She felt that Tishy and Julius were being +involved, entangled, immeshed by an old matrimonial octopus in +gilt-rimmed spectacles—like Professor Wilson's—who could knit +tranquilly all the while, while she herself could do nothing to save +them. "It might be cold!!" Every evening, perhaps—who knows?</p> + +<p>"Very proper, my dear." Thus the Octopus. "I felt sure such a nice, +sensible girl as Miss Wilson never would. That is Conrad." It really +was a sound of a latch-key, but speech is no mere slave to fact.</p> + +<p>"And I was really quite glad when Dr. Prosy came in—the way the +Goody was going on about Tishy!" So Sally said to her mother when +she had completed her report of the portion of this visit she chose +to tell about. On which her mother said, "What a dear little humbug +you are, kitten," and she replied, as we have heard her reply +before, "We-e-ell, there's nothing in that!" and posed as one who +has been misrepresented. But her mother stuck to her point, which +was that Sally knew she was quite glad when Dr. Vereker came in, +Tishy or no.</p> + +<p>Whatever the reason was that Sally was quite glad at the appearance +of Dr. Prosy, there could be no doubt about the fact. Her laugh +reached the cook in the kitchen, who denounced Craddock the +parlourmaid for not telling her it was Miss Nightingale, when it +might have been a visitor, seeing no noise come of it. Cook remarked +she knew how it would be—there was the doctor picking up like—and +hadn't she told Craddock so? But Craddock said no!</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Shoosmith again—the everlasting Mrs. Shoosmith!" exclaimed +the doctor. It was very unfeeling of them to laugh so over this +unhappy woman, who was the survivor of two husbands and the +proprietor of one, and the mother of seven daughters and five sons, +each of whom was a typical "case," and all + +<!-- Page 293 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +of whom sought admission +to Institutes on their merits. The lives of the whole family were +passed in applications for testimonials and certificates, alike +bearing witness to their chronic qualifications for it. Sally was +mysteriously hardhearted about them, while fully admitting their +claims on the public.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Dr. Conrad"—Sally had inaugurated this name for +herself—"Honoria Purvis Shoosmith. Mind you put in the Purvis +right. Now write down lots of diseases for her to have." Sally is +leaning over the doctor's chair to see him write as she says this. +There is something in the atmosphere of the situation that seems to +clash with the actual business in hand. The doctor endeavours, not +seriously enough, perhaps, to infuse a flavour of responsibility.</p> + +<p>"My professional dignity, Miss Nightingale, will not permit of the +scheme of diagnosis you indicate. If any disorders entirely without +symptoms were known to exist, I should be delighted to ascribe the +whole of them to Mrs. Shoosmith...."</p> + +<p>"Don't be prosy, Dr. Conrad. Fire away! You told me lots—you know +you did! Rheumatic arthritis—gout—pyæmia...."</p> + +<p>"Come, I say, Miss Sally, draw it mild. I never said pyæmia. +<i>An</i>æmia, perhaps...."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Anne, then! We can let it go at that. Fire away!" The +doctor looks round his own corner at the rows of pearls and the +laugh that frames them, the merry eyebrows and the scintillating +eyes they accentuate. A perilous intoxication, not to be too freely +indulged in by a serious professional man at any time—in business +hours certainly not. But if the doctor were quite in earnest over a +sort of Spartan declaration of policy his heart feels the prudence +of, would that responsive twinkle flutter in his face behind its +mock gravity? He is all but head over ears in love with Sally—so +why pretend? Really, we don't know—and that's the truth.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be a good way to consider what it is that is really the +matter, and make out the statement accordingly?" He goes on looking +at Sally, scratches himself under the chin with his pen, and waits +for an answer.</p> + +<p>"Good, sensible, general practitioner! See how practical he is! Now, +I should never have thought of that!"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 294 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, what shall we put her down as? Chronic arthritis—spinal +curvature—tuberculosis of the cervical vertebræ?"</p> + +<p>"Those all sound very nice. But I don't think it matters which you +choose. If she hasn't got it now, she'll develop it if I describe +it. When I told her mother couldn't get rid of her neuritis, she +immediately asked to know the symptoms, and forthwith claimed them +as her own. 'Well, there now, and to think what I was just a-sayin' +to Shoosmith, this very morning! Just in the crick of the +thumb-joint, you can't 'ardly abear yourself!' And then she told how +she said to Shoosmith frequent, where was the use of his getting +impatient, and exclaimin' the worst expressions? Because his +language went beyond a quart, and no reasonable excuse."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Shoosmith doesn't seem a very promising sort? He's a tailor, +isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"No; he's a messenger. He runs on errands and does odd jobs. But he +can't run—I've seen him!—he can only shamble. And his voice is +hoarse and inaudible. And he has a drawback—two drawbacks, in fact. +He is no sooner giv' coppers on a job than he drinks them."</p> + +<p>"What's the other?"</p> + +<p>"His susceptibility to intoxicants. His 'ed is that weak that 'most +anythink upsets him. So you see."</p> + +<p>"Poor chap! He's handicapped in the race of life. As for his wife, +when I saw her she was suffering with acute rheumatism and bad +feeling—and, I may add, defective reasoning power. However...." The +doctor fills in blanks, adds a signature, says "There we are!" and +Mrs. Shoosmith is disposed of as an applicant to the institution, +and will no doubt reap some benefits we need not know the +particulars of. But she remains as a subject for the student of +human life—also, tea comes—also, which is interesting, Sally +proceeds to make it.</p> + +<p>Now, if the reserves this young lady had made about this visit, if +her pretence that it was a necessity arising from a charitable +organization, if the colour that was given to that pretence by her +interview with the servant Craddock—if any of these things had been +more or less than the grossest hypocrisy, would it, we ask you, have +been accepted as a matter of course that she should pull off her +gloves and sit down to make tea with a mature knowledge + +<!-- Page 295 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +of how to +get the little lynch-pin out of the spirit-lamp, and of how many +spoonfuls? No; the fact is, Sally was a more frequent visitor to the +image of Buddha than she chose to admit; and as for the doctor, he +seized every legitimate opportunity of 'cello practice at Krakatoa +Villa. But G.P.'s cannot call their time their own.</p> + +<p>"The funny part of Mrs. Shoosmith," said Sally, when the pot was +full up and the lid shut, "is that the moment she is brought into +contact with warm soapy water and scrubbing-brushes, she seems to +renew her youth. She brings large pins out of her mouth and secures +her apron. And then she scrubs. Now you may blow the methylated out +and make yourself useful, Dr. Conrad."</p> + +<p>"Does she put back the pins when she's done scrubbing?" the doctor +asks, when he has made himself useful.</p> + +<p>"She puts them back against another time, so I have understood. I +suppose they live in her mouth. That's yours with two lumps. That is +your mother's—no, I won't pour it yet. She's asleep."</p> + +<p>For the fact is that the Goody, anxious to invest herself with an +appearance of forbearance towards the frivolities of youth, +readiness to forego (from amiability) any share in the conversation, +insight into the <i>rapports</i> of others (especially male and female +<i>rapports</i>), and general superiority to human weakness, had +endeavoured to express all these things by laying down her knitting, +folding her hands on her circumference, and looking as if she knew +and could speak if she chose. But if you do this, even the +maintenance of an attentive hypodermic smile is not enough to keep +you awake—and off you go! The Goody did, and the smile died slowly +off into a snore. Never mind! She was in want of rest, so she said. +It was curious, too, for she seldom got anything else.</p> + +<p>It would have been unfeeling to wake her, so Dr. Vereker went and +sat a good deal nearer Sally, not to make more noise than was +necessary. This reacted, an outsider might have inferred, on the +subject-matter of the conversation, making it more serious in tone. +And as Sally put the little Turk's cap over the pot to keep it warm, +and the doctor knew perfectly well that the blacker the tea was the +better his mother liked it, this lasted until that lady + +<!-- Page 296 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +woke up +with a start a long time after, and said she must have been asleep. +Then, as Cook was aware in the kitchen, some more noise came of it, +and Sally carried off Mrs. Shoosmith's certificate.</p> + +<p>"You know, Dr. Conrad, it makes you look like a real medical man," +she said at the gate, referring to the detention of the doctor's +pill-box, which awaited him, and he replied that it didn't matter. +King, the driver, looked as if he thought it <i>did</i>, and appeared +morose. Is it because coachmen always keep their appointments with +society and society never keeps its appointments with coachmen that +a settled melancholy seems to brood over them, and their souls seem +cankered with misanthropy?</p> + +<p>The doctor had rather a rough time that evening. For among the +patients he was going to try to see and get back to dinner (thus ran +current speech of those concerned) there was a young man from the +West Indies, who had come into something considerable. But he was +afflicted with a disorder he called the "jumps," and the doctor's +diagnosis, if correct, showed that the <i>vera causa</i> of this +aptly-named disease was alcohol of sp. gr. something, to which the +patient was in the habit of adding very few atoms of water indeed. +The doctor was doing all he could to change the regimen, but only +succeeded on making his patient weak and promise amendment. On this +particular evening the latter quite unexpectedly went for the +doctor's throat, shouting, "I see your plans!" and King had to be +summoned from his box to help restrain him. So Dr. Vereker was tired +when he got home late to dinner, and would have felt miserable, only +he could always shut his eyes and think of Sally's hands that had +come over his shoulder to discriminate points in Mrs. Shoosmith's +magna-charta. They had come so near him that he could smell the +fresh sweet dressing of the new kid gloves—six and a half, we +believe.</p> + +<p>But although he liked his Goody mother to talk to him about the girl +who had christened her so, he was tired enough this evening to wish +that her talk had flowed in a less pebbly channel. For she chose +this opportunity to enlarge upon the duties of young married women +towards their husbands' parents, their mothers especially. Her +conclusion was a little unexpected:</p> + +<p>"I have said nothing throughout, my dear. I should not dream of + +<!-- Page 297 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +doing so. But if I had I trust I should have made it clearly +understood how I regarded Miss Lætitia Wilson's conduct."</p> + +<p>"But there wasn't any. Nobody contracted a private marriage."</p> + +<p>"My dear Conrad! Have I said that any one has done so? Have I used +the expression 'private marriage'?"</p> + +<p>"Why—no. I don't think you have. Not to-day, at least."</p> + +<p>"When have I done so? Have I not, on the contrary, from the very +beginning told you I should take the first opportunity of +disbelieving so absurd and mischievous a story? And have I lost a +moment? Was it not the first word I said to Sally Nightingale before +you came in, and without a soul in the room to hear? I only ask for +justice. But if my son misrepresents me, what can I expect from +others?" At this point patient toleration only.</p> + +<p>"But, mother dear, I don't <i>want</i> to misrepresent you. Only I'll be +hanged if I see why Tishy Wilson is to be hauled over the coals?"</p> + +<p>A suggestion of a proper spirit showed itself. "I am accustomed to +your language, and will say nothing. But, my dear Conrad, for you +are always my son, and will remain so, whatever your language may +be, do you, my dear Conrad, do you really sanction the attitude of a +young lady who refuses to marry—public and private don't come into +the matter—because of a groundless antipathy? For it is admitted on +all hands that Mrs. Julius Bradshaw is a person of rather superior +class."</p> + +<p>"She's Mrs. Bradshaw—not Mrs. Julius. But what makes you suppose +Tishy Wilson objects to her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Conrad, you know as well as I do that is a mere +prevarication. Why evade the point? But in my opinion you do wisely +not to attempt any defence of Lætitia Wilson. It may be true that +she has not laid herself open to misconstruction in this case, but +the lack of good feeling is to all intents and purposes the same as +if she had; and I must say, my dear Conrad, I am surprised that a +professional man with your qualifications should undertake to +justify her."</p> + +<p>"But Miss Wilson hasn't <i>done</i> anything! What are you wigging away +at her for, mother dear?"</p> + +<p>"Have I not expressly said that she has done nothing whatever? Of + +<!-- Page 298 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +course she has not, and, I hope, never will. But it is easy for you, +Conrad, to take refuge in a fact which I have been scrupulously +careful to admit from the very beginning. And 'wigging away!' What +language!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind the language, mother darling! Tell me what it's all +about." Tired as he is, he gets up from the chair he has not been +smoking in (because this is the drawing-room) to go round and kiss +what is probably the fatty integument of a very selfish old woman, +but which he believes to be that of an affectionate mother. "What's +it all about?" he repeats.</p> + +<p>"My dear Conrad! Is it not a little unfeeling to ask me what it is +all about when you know?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>don't</i> know, mother dear. I can do any amount of guessing, but I +don't <i>know</i>."</p> + +<p>"I think, my dear, if you will light my candle and ring for Craddock +to shut up, that I had better go to bed." Which her son does, but +perversely abstains from giving the old lady any assistance to +saying what is in her mind to say.</p> + +<p>But she did not intend to be baffled. For when he had piloted her to +her state apartment, carrying her candle, under injunctions on no +account to spill the grease, and a magazine of wraps and wools and +unintelligible sundries, she contrived to invest an elucidation of +her ideas with an appearance of benevolence by working in a +readiness to sacrifice herself to her son's selfish longing for +tobacco.</p> + +<p>"Only just hear me to the end, my dear, and then you can get away to +your pipe. What I did <i>not</i> say—for you interrupted me—did not +relate so much to Miss Lætitia Wilson as to Sally Nightingale. She, +I am sure, would never come between any man she married and his +mother. I am making no reference to any one whatever, although, +however old I am, I have eyes in my head and can see. But I can read +character, and that is my interpretation of Sally Nightingale's."</p> + +<p>"Sally Nightingale and I are not going to make it up, if that's what +you mean, mother. She wouldn't have me, for one thing——"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I am not going to argue the point. It is nearly eleven, +and unless I get to bed I shan't sleep. Now go away to your pipe, +and think of what I have said. And don't slam your door + +<!-- Page 299 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +and wake me +when you come up." She offered him a selection to kiss, shutting her +eyes tight. And he gave place to Craddock, and went away to his +unwholesome, smelly habit, as his mamma had more than once called +it. His face was perplexed and uncomfortable; however, it got ease +after a few puffs of pale returns and a welcome minute of memory of +the bouquet of those sixes.</p> + +<p>But his little happy oasis was a very small one. For a messenger +came with a furious pull at the night-bell and a summons for the +doctor. His delirium-tremens case had very nearly qualified its +brain for a P.M.—at least, if there were any of it left—by getting +at a pistol and taking a bad aim at it. The unhappy dipsomaniac was +half-shot, and prompt medical attendance was necessary to prevent +the something considerable being claimed by his heir-at-law.</p> + +<p>Whether this came to pass or not does not concern us. This much is +certain, that at the end of six months which this chapter +represents, and which you have probably skipped, he was as much +forgotten by the doctor as the pipe his patient's suicidal escapade +had interrupted, or the semi-vexation with his mother he was using +it as an anodyne for.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 300 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">MORNING AT LADBROKE GROVE ROAD, AND FAMILY DISSENSION. FACCIOLATI, +AND A LEGACY. THE LAST CONCERT THIS SEASON. THE GOODY WILL COME TO +IGGULDEN'S. BUT FANCY PROSY IN LOVE!</p> + +<p>Towards the end of the July that very quickly followed Rosalind +noticed an intensification of what might be called the Ladbroke +Grove Road Row Chronicle—a record transmitted by Sally to her real +and adopted parent in the instalments in which she received it from +Tishy.</p> + +<p>This record on one occasion depicted a battle-royal at breakfast, +"over the marmalade," Sally said. She added that the Dragon might +just as well have let the Professor alone. "He was reading," she +said, "'The Classification of Roots in Prehistoric Dialects,' +because I saw the back; and Tacitus was on the butter. But the +Dragon likes the grease to spoil the bindings, and she knows it."</p> + +<p>A vision of priceless Groliers soaking passed through Rosalind's +mind. "Wasn't that what this row was about, then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," said Sally, who had gone home to breakfast with +Tishy after an early swim. "It's difficult to say what it was about. +Really, the Professor had hardly said <i>anything at all</i>, and the +Dragon said she thought he was forgetting the servants. Fossett +wasn't even in the room. And then the Dragon said, 'Yes, shut it,' +to Athene. Fancy saying 'Yes, shut it,' in a confidential semitone! +Really, I can't see that it was so very wrong of Egerton, although +he <i>is</i> a booby, to say there was no fun in having a row before +breakfast. He didn't mean them to think he meant them to hear."</p> + +<p>"But how did it get from the marmalade to Tishy's haberdasher?" +asked Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"Can't say, Jeremiah. It all came in a buzz, like a wopses nest. And +then Egerton said it was rows, rows, rows all day long, + +<!-- Page 301 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +and he +should hook it off and get a situation. It <i>is</i> rows, rows, rows, so +it's no use pretending it isn't. But it always comes round to the +haberdasher grievance in the end. This time Tishy went to her father +in the library, and confessed up about Kensington Gardens."</p> + +<p>Both hearers said, "Oh, I see!" and then Sally transmitted the +report of this interview. It had not been stormy, and may be looked +at by the light of the Professor's last remark. "The upshot is, +Tish, that you can marry Julius against your mother's consent right +off, and never lose a penny of your aunt's legacy."</p> + +<p>"Legacy is good, very excellent good," said Fenwick. "How much was +it, Sarah?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Lots—a good lot—a thousand pounds! The Dragon +wanted to make out that it was conditional on her consent to Tishy's +marriage. That was fibs. But what I don't see is that Gaffer Wilson +ever said a word to Tishy about his own objections to her marrying +Julius, if he has any!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Rosalind suggested, "she hasn't told you all he said." +But to this Sally replied that Tishy had told her over and over and +over again, only she said <i>over</i> so often that her adopted parent +said for Heaven's sake stop, or he should write the word into his +letters. However, the end of the last despatch was at hand, and he +himself took up the conversation on signing it.</p> + +<p>"Yours faithfully, Algernon Fenwick. That's the lot! I agree with +the kitten."</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"About if he has any. I believe he'd be glad if Miss Wilson took the +bit in her teeth and bolted."</p> + +<p>"You agree with Prosy?" As Sally says this, without a thought in a +thoughtful face but what belongs to the subject, her mother is +conscious that she herself is quite prepared to infer that Prosy +already knows all about it. She has got into the habit of hearing +that he knows about things.</p> + +<p>"What does Vereker say?" Thus Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"He'll be here in a minute, and you can ask him. That's him! I mean +that's his ring."</p> + +<p>"It's just like any other ring, chick." It is her mother who speaks. +But Sally says: "Nonsense! as if I didn't know Prosy's ring!" + +<!-- Page 302 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +And +Dr. Vereker appears, quartet bound, for this was the weekly musical +evening at Krakatoa Villa.</p> + +<p>"Jeremiah wants to know whether you don't think Tishy's male parent +would be jolly glad if she and Julius took the bit in their teeth +and bolted?" "I shouldn't be the least surprised if they did," is +the doctor's reply. But it does not strike Sally as rising to the +height of her Draconic summary.</p> + +<p>"You're not shining, Dr. Conrad," she says; "you're evading the +point. What do <i>you</i> think Gaffer Bristles thinks, that's the +point?" Dr. Conrad appears greatly exhilarated and refreshed by +Sally, whose mother seems to share his feeling, but she enjoins +caution, for all that.</p> + +<p>"Do take care, kitten," she says. "They're on the stairs." But Sally +considers "they" are miles off, and will take ages getting upstairs. +"They've only just met at the door," is her explanatory comment, +showing appreciation of one human weakness.</p> + +<p>"Suppose we were to get it put in more official form!" Fenwick +suggests. "Would Professor Sales Wilson be very much shocked if his +daughter and Paganini made a runaway match of it?" The name Paganini +has somehow leaked out of Cattley's counting-house, and become +common property.</p> + +<p>"I think, if you ask me," says Vereker, speaking to Fenwick, but +never taking his eyes off Sally, on whom they feed, "that Professor +Sales Wilson would be very much relieved."</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> right!" says Sally, speaking as to a pupil who has +profited. "Now you're being a good little General Practitioner." And +then, the ages having elapsed with some alacrity, the door opens and +the two subjects of discussion make their appearance.</p> + +<p>The anomalous cousin did not come with them, having subsided. Mrs. +Fenwick herself had taken the pianoforte parts lately. She had +always been a fair pianist, and application had made her passable—a +good make-shift, anyhow. So you may fill out the programme to your +liking—it really doesn't matter what they played—and consider that +this musical evening was one of their best that season. It was just +as well it should be so, as it was their last till the autumn. Sally +and her mother were going to the seaside all August and some of +September, and Fenwick was coming with them for a week at first, and +after that for short week-end + +<!-- Page 303 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +spells. He had become a partner in +the wine-business, and was not so much tied to the desk.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"Well, then, it's good-bye, I suppose?" The speaker is Rosalind +herself, as the Stradivarius is being put to bed. But she hasn't the +heart to let the verdict stand—at least, as far as the doctor is +concerned. She softens it, adds a recommendation to mercy. "Unless +you'll come down and pay us a visit. We'll put you up somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it isn't possible," is the answer. But the doctor can't +get his eyes really off Sally. Even as a small boy might strain at +the leash to get back to a source of cake against the grasp of an +iron nurse, even so Dr. Conrad rebels against the grip of +professional engagements, which is the name of his cold, remorseless +tyrant. But Sally is harnessing up a coach-and-six to drive through +human obligations. Her manner of addressing the doctor suggests +previous talk on the subject.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> get the locum, and come. You know you can, and it's all +nonsense about can't." What would be effrontery in another character +makes Sally speak through and across the company. A secret +confidence between herself and the doctor, that you are welcome to +the full knowledge of, and be hanged to you! is what the manner of +the two implies.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to Neckitt about it, and he can't manage it," says the +doctor in the same manner. But the first and second violin are +waiting to take leave.</p> + +<p>"We'll say good-night, then—or good-bye, if it's for six weeks." +Tishy is perfectly unblushing about the <i>we</i>. She might be conveying +Mr. Tishy away. They go, and get away from Dr. Vereker, by-the-bye. +An awkward third isn't wanted.</p> + +<p>"There's plenty more Neckitts where he comes from," pursues Sally, +as the "other two"—for that is how Fenwick thinks of them—get +themselves and their instruments out of the house. "So don't be +nonsensical, Dr. Conrad.... Stop a moment. I <i>must</i> speak to Tishy." +And Sally gives chase, and overtakes the other two just by the +fire-alarm, where Fenwick came to a standstill. Do you remember? It +certainly has been a record effort to "get away first." You know +this experience yourself at parties? Sally speaks to Tishy in the +glorious summer night, and + +<!-- Page 304 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +the three talk together earnestly under +innumerable constellations, and one gas-lamp that elbows the starry +heavens out of the way—a self-asserting, cheeky gas-lamp.</p> + +<p>The doctor organizes tactics rapidly. He can hear that Sally's step +goes up the street, and then the voices at a distance. If he can say +good-bye and rush away just as Sally does the same, why then they +will meet outside, don't you see?</p> + +<p>Rosalind and her husband seem to have wireless telegrams passing. +For when Sally vanishes there is a ring as of instruction received +in the tone of Fenwick's voice as he addresses the doctor:</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you manage to get your mother to come too, Vereker? She +must be terribly in want of a change."</p> + +<p>"So I tell her; but she's so difficult to move."</p> + +<p>"Have a sedan-chair thing——"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean that—not physically difficult. I mean she's got so +anchored no one can persuade her to move. She hasn't been away for +ages."</p> + +<p>"Sally must go and persuade her." It is Rosalind who says this. "I'm +sure Sally will manage it."</p> + +<p>"She will if any one can," says the doctor. "Of course, I could soon +get a locum if there was a chance of mother." And then the +conversation supports itself on the possible impossibility of +finding a lodging at St. Sennans-on-Sea, and consoles itself with +its intense improbability till the doctor finds it necessary to +depart with the promptitude of a fire-engine suddenly rung up.</p> + +<p>He had calculated his time to a nicety, for he met Sally just as +"the other two" got safe round the corner.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"Oh no," said Fenwick, replying to a query; "he doesn't mean to +carry it all the way. He'll pick up a cab at the corner." The query +was about the violoncello, and Fenwick was coming back to the room +where his wife was closing the piano in anticipation of Ann. He had +discreetly launched the instrument and its owner under the stars, +and left the street door standing wide open—a shallow pretence that +he believed Sally already in touch with it.</p> + +<p>"They <i>are</i> a funny couple," Rosalind said. "Just fancy! They've +known each other two years, and there they are! But I + +<!-- Page 305 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> +do like him. +It's all his mother, you know ... what is?... why, goose—of course +I mean he would speak at once if it wasn't for that obese mother of +his."</p> + +<p>"But she's so fond of Sally." In reply to this his wife kisses his +cheeks, forehead, and chin consecutively, and he says it was right +that time, only the other way round. This refers to a system founded +on the crossing incident at Rheims.</p> + +<p>"Of course she is, darling; or pretends she is. But he can neither +divorce his mamma nor ask the kitten to marry her. You see?"</p> + +<p>"I see—in fact, I've thought so myself. In confidence, you know. +But is no compromise possible?" Rosalind shakes a slow, regretful, +negative head, and her lips form a silent "No!"</p> + +<p>"Not with her. The woman has her own share of selfishness, and her +son's, too. <i>He</i> has none."</p> + +<p>"But Sally."</p> + +<p>"I see what you mean. Sally goes to the wall one way if she doesn't +the other. So he works out selfish, poor dear fellow! in the end. +But, Gerry darling, let me tell you this: you have no idea how +impossible that young man thinks it that a girl should love <i>him</i>. +If he thought it possible the kitten really cared about, or could +care about him, he'd go clean off his head. Indeed, I am right."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you are. There she is."</p> + +<p>Sally ran straight upstairs, leaving Ann to close the door. She at +once discharged her mind of its burden, <i>more suo</i>.</p> + +<p>"Prosy thinks so, too!"</p> + +<p>"Thinks what?"</p> + +<p>"Thinks they'll go and get married one fine morning, whether or no!"</p> + +<p>But she seemed to be the only one much excited about this. Something +was preoccupying the other two minds, and our Sally had not the +remotest notion what.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Nevertheless, it came about that before the next Monday—the day of +Sally's departure with her mother to St. Sennans-on-Sea—that young +person paid a farewell visit to the obese mother of her medical +adviser, and found her knitting.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 306 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"That, my dear, is what I am constantly saying to Conrad," was her +reply to a suggestion of Sally's that she wanted change and rest. +"Only this very morning, when he came into my room to see that I had +fresh-made toast—because you know, my dear, how tiresome servants +are about toast—they make it overnight, and warm it up in the +morning. Cook is no exception, and I have complained till I'm tired. +I should be sorry to change, she's been here so long, but I did hear +the other day of such a nice respectable person...."</p> + +<p>Sally interrupted, catching at a slight pause: "But when Dr. Conrad +came into your room, what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I was going to tell you." She paused, with closed eyes and +folded hands of aggressive patience, for all trace of human +interruption to die down; then resumed: "I said to Conrad: 'I think +you might have thought of that before.' And then he was sorry. I +will do him that justice. My dear boy has his faults, as I know too +well, but he is always ready to admit he is wrong."</p> + +<p>"We can get you lodgings, you know," said Sally, from sheer +intuition, for she had not a particle of information, so far, about +what passed over the toast. The old lady seemed to think the +conversation had been sufficiently well filled out, for she merely +said, "Facing the sea," and went on knitting.</p> + +<p>Sally and her mother knew St. Sennan well—had been at his +watering-place twice before—so she was able, as it were, to +forecast lodgings on the spot. "I dare say Mrs. Iggulden's is +vacant," she said. "I wish you could have hers, she's such a nice +old body. Her husband was a pilot, and she has one son a coastguard +and another in the navy. And one daughter has no legs, but can do +shell-work; and the other's married a tax-collector."</p> + +<p>But Goody Vereker was not going to be beguiled into making herself +agreeable. She took up the attitude that Sally was young, and easily +deceived. She threw a wet blanket over her narrative of the Iggulden +family, and ignored any murmurs that came from beneath it. +"Sea-faring folk are all alike," so she said. "When I was your age, +my dear, I simply worshipped them. My father and all his brothers +were devoted to the sea, and my Uncle David published an account of +his visit to the Brazils. But you will learn by experience. At any +rate, I trust there are no vermin. That + +<!-- Page 307 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> +is always my terror in +these lodging-houses, and ill-aired beds."</p> + +<p>Was it fair, Sally thought to herself, to expose that dear old Mrs. +Iggulden, who lived in a wooden dwelling covered with tar, between +two houses built of black shiny bricks, but consisting chiefly of +bay-windows with elderly visitors in them looking through telescopes +at the shipping, and telling the credulous it was brigs or +schooners—was it fair to expose Mrs. Iggulden to this +gilt-spectacled lob-worm? Sally didn't know that Mrs. Iggulden could +show a proper spirit, because in her own case the conditions had +never been favourable. They had practised no incantations.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, Mrs. Vereker. As soon as ever mamma and I have +shaken down, we'll see about Iggulden's; and if they can't take you +somebody else will."</p> + +<p>"I am in your hands," said the Goody, smiling faintly and +submissively. She leaned back with her eyes closed, and was afraid +she had done too much. She used to have periodical convictions to +that effect.</p> + +<p>Sally had an appointment with Lætitia Wilson at the swimming bath, +so the Goody, in an access of altruism, perceived that she mustn't +keep her. She herself would try to rest a little.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>All people, as we suppose, lead two lives, more or less—their outer +life, that of the world and action, and an inner life they have all +to themselves. But how different is the proportion of the two lives +in different subjects! And how much less painful the latter life is +when we feel we could tell it all if we chose. Only we don't choose, +because it's no concern of yours or any one else's.</p> + +<p>This was Sally's frame of mind. She would not have felt the ghost of +a reserve of an inmost thought (from her mother, for instance) in +the face of questions asked, though she kept her own counsel about +many points whose elucidation was not called for. It may easily be +that Rosalind asked no questions about some things, because she had +no wish that her daughter should formulate their answers too +decisively. Her relation with Conrad Vereker, for example. Was it +love, or what? If there was to be marrying, and families, and that +sort of thing, and possible interference + +<!-- Page 308 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +with swimming-matches and +athletics, and so on, would she as soon choose this man for her +accomplice as any other she knew? Suppose she was to hear to-morrow +that Dr. Vereker was engaged to Sylvia Peplow, would she be glad or +sorry?</p> + +<p>Rosalind certainly did ask no such questions. If she had, the +answers to the first two would have been, we surmise, very clear and +decisive. What nonsense! Fancy Prosy being in love with anybody, or +anybody being in love with Prosy! And as for marrying, the great +beauty of it all was that there was to be no marrying. Did he +understand that? Oh dear, yes! Prosy understood quite well. But we +wonder, is the image our mind forms of Sally's answer to the third +question correct or incorrect? It presents her to us as answering +rather petulantly: "Why <i>shouldn't</i> Dr. Conrad marry Miss Peplow, if +he likes, and <i>she</i> likes? I dare say <i>she'd</i> be ready enough, +though!" and then pretending to look out of the window. And shortly +afterwards: "I suppose Prosy has a right to his private affairs, as +much as I have to mine." But with lips that tighten over her speech, +without a smile. Note that this is all pure hypothesis.</p> + +<p>But she had nothing to conceal that she knew of, had Sally. What a +difference there was between her inner world and her mother's, who +could not breathe a syllable of that world's history to any living +soul!</p> + +<p>Rosalind acknowledged to herself now how great the relief had been +when, during the few hours that passed between her communication to +her old friend on his deathbed and the last state of insensibility +from which he never rallied, there had actually been on this earth +one other than herself who knew all her story and its strange +outcome. For those few hours she had not been alone, and the memory +of it helped her to bear her present loneliness. She could hear +again, when she woke in the stillness of the night, the voice of the +old man, a whisper struggling through his half-choked respiration, +that said again and again: "Oh, Rosey darling! can it be true? Thank +God! thank God!" And the fact that what she had then feared had +never come to pass—the fact that, contrary to her expectations, he +had been strangely able to look the wonder in the face, and never +flinch from it, seeing nothing in it but a priceless boon—this fact +seemed to give her now the fortitude to bear without help the burden +of her knowledge—the + +<!-- Page 309 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +knowledge of who he was, this man that was +beside her in the stillness, this man whose steady breathing she +could hear, whose heart-beats she could count. And her heart dwelt +on the old soldier's last words, strangely, almost incredibly, +resonant, a hard-won victory in his dying fight for speech, "Evil +has turned to good. God be praised!" It had almost seemed as if the +parting soul, on the verge of the strangest chance man has to face, +lost all measure of the strangeness of any earthly thing, and was +sensible of nothing but the wonderment of the great cause of all.</p> + +<p>But one thing that she knew (and could not explain) was that this +secret knowledge, burdensome in itself, relieved the oppression of +one still more burdensome, and helped her to drive it from her +thoughts. We speak of the collision of the record in her mind of +what her daughter was, and whence, with the fact that Sally was +winding herself more and more, daughterwise, round the heart of the +man whose bond with her mother she, small and unconscious, had had +so large a share in rending asunder twenty years ago. It was to her, +in its victory over crude physical fact, even while it oppressed +her, a bewildering triumph of spirit over matter, of soul over +sense, this firm consolidating growth of an affection such as Nature +means, but often fails to reach, between child and parent. And as it +grew and grew, her child's actual paternity shrank and dwindled, +until it might easily have been held a matter for laughter, but for +the black cloud of Devildom that hung about it, and stamped her as +the infant of a Nativity in the Venusberg, whose growing after-life +had gone far to shroud the horror of its lurid caverns with a veil +of oblivion.</p> + +<p>We say all these things quite seriously of our Sally, in spite of +her incorrigible slanginess and vulgarity. We can now go on to St. +Sennans-on-Sea, where we shall find her in full blow, but very +sticky with the salt water she passes really too much of her time +in, even for a merpussy.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 310 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">ST. SENNANS-ON-SEA. MISS GWENDOLEN ARKWRIGHT. WOULD ANY OTHER CHILD +HAVE BEEN SALLY? HOW MRS. IGGULDEN'S COUSIN SOLOMON SURRENDERED HIS COUCH</p> + +<p>St. Sennans-on-Sea consists of two parts—the new and the old. The +old part is a dear little old place, and the new part is beastly. So +Sally says, and she must know, because this is her third visit.</p> + +<p>The old part consists of Mrs. Iggulden's and the houses we have +described on either side of her, and maybe two dozen more wooden or +black-brick dwellings of the same sort; also of the beach and its +interesting lines of breakwater that are so very jolly to jump off +or to lie down and read novels under in the sea smell. Only not too +near the drains, if you know it. If you don't know it, it doesn't +matter so much, because the smell reminds you of the seaside, and +seems right and fitting. You must take care how you jump, though, +off these breakwaters, because where they are not washed +inconceivably clean, and all their edges smoothed away beyond belief +by the tides that come and go for ever, they are slippery with green +sea-ribbons that cling close to them, and green sea-fringes that +cling closer still, and brown sea-ramifications that are studded +with pods that pop if you tread on them, but are not quite so +slippery; only you may just as well be careful, even with them. And +we should recommend you, before you jump, to be sure you are not +hooked over a bolt, not merely because you may get caught, and fall +over a secluded reading-public on the other side, but because the +red rust comes off on you and soils your white petticoat.</p> + +<p>If you don't mind jumping off these breakwaters—and it really is +rather a lark—you may tramp along the sea front quite near up to +where the fishing-luggers lie, each with a capstan all to itself, +under the little extra old town the red-tanned fishing-nets live in, +in houses that are like sailless windmill-tops whose plank + +<!-- Page 311 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> +walls +have almost merged their outlines in innumerable coats of tar, laid +by long generations back of the forefathers of the men in oil-cloth +head-and-shoulder hats who repair their nets for ever in the Channel +wind, unless you want a boat to-day, in which case they will scull +you about, while you absolutely ache sympathetically with their +efforts, of which they themselves remain serenely unaware, till +you've been out long enough. Then they beach you cleverly on the top +of a wave, and their family circle seizes you, boat and all, and +runs you up the shingle before the following wave can catch you and +splash you, which it wants to do.</p> + +<p>There is an aroma of the Norman Conquest and of Domesday Book about +the old town. Research will soon find out, if she looks sharp, that +there is nothing Norman in the place except the old arch in the +amorphous church-tower, and a castle at a distance on the flats. But +the flavour of the past is stronger in the scattered memories of +bygone sea-battles not a century ago, and the names of streets that +do not antedate the Georges, than in these mere scraps that are +always open to the reproach of mediævalism, and are separated from +us by a great gulf. And it doesn't much matter to us whether the +memories are of victory or defeat, or the names those of sweeps or +heroes. All's one to us—we glow; perhaps rashly, for, you see, we +really know very little about them. And he who has read no history +to speak of, if he glows about the past on the strength of his +imperfect data, may easily break his molasses-jug.</p> + +<p>So, whether our blood is stirred by Nelson and Trafalgar, whereof we +have read, or by the Duke of York and Walcheren, whereof we +haven't—or mighty little—we feel in touch with both these heroes, +for they are modern. Both have columns, anyhow; and we can dwell +upon their triumph or defeat almost as if it wasn't history at all, +but something that really happened, without running any risk of +being accused of archaism or of deciphering musty tomes. And we can +enjoy our expedition all the same to the ruined keep in the level +pastures, where the long-horned black cattle stand and think and +flap their tails still, just as they did in the days when the +basement dungeons, now choked up, held real prisoners with real +broken hearts.</p> + +<p>But there is modern life, too, at St. Sennans—institutions that +keep + +<!-- Page 312 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +abreast of the century. Half the previous century ago, when we +went there first, the Circulating Library consisted, so far as we +can recollect it, of a net containing bright leather balls, a +collection of wooden spades and wheelbarrows, a glass jar with +powder-puffs, another with tooth-brushes, a rocking-horse—rashly +stocked in the first heated impulse of an over-confident founder—a +few other trifles, and, most important of all, a book-case that +supplied the title-rôle to the performance. That book-case contained +(we are confident) <i>editiones principes</i> of Mrs. Ratcliff, Sir +Walter Scott, Bulwer Lytton, Currer Bell ... well, even Fanny +Burney, if you come to that. There certainly was a copy of +"Frankenstein," and fifty years ago our flesh was so compliant as to +creep during its perusal. It wouldn't now.</p> + +<p>But even fifty years ago there was never a volume that had not been +defaced out of all knowledge by crooked marks of the most +inquisitive interrogation, and straight marks of the most indignant +astonishment, by the reading-public in the shadows of the +breakwaters. It really read, that public did; and, what's more, it +often tore out the interesting bits to take away. I remember great +exasperation when a sudden veil was drawn over the future of two +lovers just as the young gentleman had flung himself into the arms +of the young lady. An unhallowed fiend had cut off the sequel with +scissors and boned it!</p> + +<p>That was done, or much of it, when the books were new, and the +railway-station was miles away; when the church wasn't new, but old, +which was better. It has been made new since, and has chairs in it, +and memorial windows by Stick and Co. In those days its Sunday-folk +were fisherfolk mostly, and a few local magnates or +parvates—squirophants, they might be called—and a percentage of +the visitors.</p> + +<p>Was St. Sennan glad or sorry, we wonder, when the last two sorts +subscribed and restored him? If we had been he, one of us would have +had to have the temper of a saint to keep cool about it. Anyhow, +it's done now, and can't be undone.</p> + +<p>But the bathing-machines are not restored, at any rate. Those +indescribables yonder, half rabbit-hutch, half dry-dock—a long row +for ladies and a short one for gentlemen, three hundred yards +apart—couldn't trust 'em any nearer, bless you!—these +superannuated God-knows-whats, struggling against disintegration +from + +<!-- Page 313 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +automatic plunges down a rugged beach, and creaking journeys +back you are asked to hold on through—it's no use going on +drying!—these tributes to public decorum you can find no room in, +and probably swear at—no sacrilegious restorer has laid his hand on +these. They evidently contemplate going on for ever; for though +their axes grow more and more oblique every day, their +self-confidence remains unshaken. But then they think they <i>are</i> St. +Sennans, and that the wooden houses are subordinate accidents, and +the church a mere tributary that was a little premature—got there +first, in its hurry to show respect for <i>them</i>. And no great wonder, +seeing what a figure they cut, seen from a boat when you have a row! +Or, rather, used to cut; for now the new town (which is beastly) has +come on the cliff above, and looks for all the world as if <i>it</i> was +St. Sennans, and speaks contemptuously of the real town as the Beach +Houses.</p> + +<p>The new town can only be described as a tidy nightmare; yet it is a +successful creation of the brains that conceived it—a successful +creation of ground-rents. As a development of land ripe for +building, with more yards of frontage to the main-road than at first +sight geometry seems able to accommodate, it has been taking +advantage of unrivalled opportunities for a quarter of a century, +backed by advances on mortgage. It is the envy of the neighbouring +proprietors east and west along the coast, who have developed their +own eligible sites past all remedy and our endurance, and now have +to drain their purses to meet the obligations to the professional +mortgagee, who is biding his hour in peace, waiting for the fruit to +fall into his mouth and murderously sure of his prey. But at St. +Sennans a mysterious silence reigns behind a local office that +yields keys on application, and answers all inquiries, and asks +ridiculous rents. And this silence, or its keeper, is said to have +become enormously rich over the new town.</p> + +<p>The shareholders in the St. Sennans Hotel, Limited, cannot have +become rich. If they had, surely they would provide something better +for a hungry paying supplicant than a scorched greasy chop, inflamed +at the core, and glass bottles containing a little pellucid liquid +that parts with its carbon dioxide before you can effect a +compromise with the cork, which pushes in, but not so as to attain +its ideal. So your Seltzer water doesn't pour + +<!-- Page 314 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> +fast enough to fizz +outside the bottle, and your heart is sad. Of course, you can have +wine, if you come to that, for look at the wine-list! Only the +company's ideas of the value of wine are not limited, and if you +decide not to be sordid, and order a three-shilling bottle of Médoc, +you will find its contents to be very limited indeed. But why say +more than that it is an enormous hotel at the seaside? You know all +about them, and what it feels like in rainy weather, when the fat +gentleman has got to-day's "Times," and means to read all through +the advertisement-column before he gives up the leaders, and you +have to spend your time turning over thick and shiny snap-shot +journals with a surfeit of pictures in them; or the Real Lady, or +the Ladylike Lady, or the Titled Lady, the portraits of whom—one or +other of them—sweep in curves about their folio pages; and, while +they fascinate you, make you feel that you would falter on the +threshold of matrimony if only because they couldn't possibly take +nourishment. Would not the discomfort of meals eaten with a +companion who could swallow nothing justify a divorce <i>a mensa</i>?</p> + +<p>A six-shilling volume might be written about the New Hotel, with an +execration on every page. Don't let us have anything to do with it, +but keep as much as possible at the Sea Houses under the cliff, +which constitute the only St. Sennans necessary to this story. We +shall be able to do so, because when Mrs. and Mr. Fenwick and their +daughter went for a walk they always went up the cliff-pathway, +which had steps cut in the chalk, past the boat upside down, where +new-laid eggs could be bought from a coastguard's wife. And this +path avoided the New Town altogether, and took them straight to the +cliff-track that skirted growing wheat and blazing poppies till you +began to climb the smooth hill-pasture the foolish wheat had +encroached upon in the Protection days, when it was worth more than +South Down mutton. And now every ear of it would have been repenting +in sackcloth and ashes if it had been qualified by Nature to know +how little it would fetch per bushel. But it wasn't. And when, the +day after their arrival, Rosalind and her husband were on the beach +talking of taking a walk up that way when Sally came out, it could +have heard, if it would only have stood still, the sheep-bells on +the slopes above reproaching it, and taunting it + +<!-- Page 315 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +with its +usurpation and its fruitless end. Perhaps it was because it felt +ashamed that it stooped before the wind that carried the reproachful +music, and drowned it in a silvery rustle. The barley succeeded the +best. You listen to the next July barley-field you happen on, and +hear what it can do when a breeze comes with no noise of its own.</p> + +<p>Down below on the shingle the sun was hot, and the tide was high, +and the water was clear and green close to the shore, and jelly-fish +abounded. You could look down into the green from the last steep +ridge at high-water mark, and if you looked sharp you might see one +abound. Only you had to be on the alert to jump back if a heave of +the green transparency surged across the little pebbles that could +gobble it up before it was all over your feet—but didn't this time. +Oh dear!—how hot it was! Sally had the best of it. For the allusion +to Sally's "coming out" referred to her coming out of the water, and +she was staying in a long time.</p> + +<p>"That child's been twenty-four minutes already," said her mother, +consulting her watch. "Just look at her out there on the horizon. +What on earth <i>are</i> they doing?"</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> a little inexplicable. At that moment Sally and her +friend—it was one Fräulein Braun, who had learned swimming in the +baths on the Rhone at Geneva and in Paris—appeared to be nothing +but two heads, one close behind the other, moving slowly on the +water. Then the heads parted company, and apparently their owners +lay on their backs in the water, and kicked up the British Channel.</p> + +<p>"They're saving each other's lives," said Gerry. He got up from a +nice intaglio he had made to lie in, and after shaking off a good +bushel of small pebbles a new-made beach-acquaintance of four had +heaped upon him, resorted to a double opera-glass to see them +better. "The kitten wanted me to get out of my depth for her to tow +me in. But I didn't fancy it. Besides, a sensitive British public +would have been scandalised."</p> + +<p>"You never learned to swim, then, Gerry——?" She just stopped +herself in time. The words "after all" were on her lips. Without +them her speech was mere chat; with them it would have been a match +to a mine. She sometimes wished in these days that the mine might +explode of itself, and give her peace.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 316 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I suppose I never did," replied her husband, as a matter of course. +"At least, I couldn't do it when I tried in the water just now. I +should imagine I must have tried B.C., or I shouldn't have known how +to try. It's not a thing one forgets, so they say." He paused a few +seconds, and then added: "Anyhow, it's quite certain I couldn't do +it." There was not a trace of consciousness on his part of anything +in <i>her</i> mind beyond what her words implied. But she felt in peril +of fire, so close to him, with a resurrection of an image in it—a +vivid one—of the lawn-tennis garden of twenty years ago, and the +speech of his friend, the real Fenwick, about his inability to swim.</p> + +<p>This sense of peril did not diminish as he continued: "I've found +out a lot of things I <i>can</i> do in the way of athletics, though; I +seem to know how to wrestle, which is very funny. I wonder where I +learned. And you saw how I could ride at Sir Mountmassingham's last +month?" This referred to a country visit, which has not come into +our story. "And that was very funny about the boxing. Such a +peaceful old fogey as your husband! Wasn't it, Rosey darling?"</p> + +<p>"Why won't you call the Bart. by his proper name, Gerry? Wasn't +what?"</p> + +<p>"Funny about the gloves. You know that square fellow? He was a +well-known prizefighter that young Sales Wilson had picked up and +brought down to teach the boys. You remember him? He went to church, +and was very devout...."</p> + +<p>"I remember."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was in the billiard-room, after dinner. He said quite +suddenly, 'This gentleman now can make use of his daddles. I can see +it in him'—meaning me. 'What makes you think that, Mr. +Macmorrough?' said I. 'We of the fancy, sir,' says he, 'see these +things, without referrin' to no books, by the light of Nature.' And +next day we had a set-to with the gloves, and his verdict was 'Only +just short of professional.' Those boys were delighted. I wonder how +and when I became such a dab at it?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder!" Rosalind doesn't seem keen on the subject. "I wish those +crazy girls would begin to think of coming in. If it's going to be +like this every day I shall go home to London, Gerry."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 317 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Perhaps when Vereker comes down on Monday he'll be able to +influence. Medical authority!"</p> + +<p>Here the beach-acquaintance, who had kept up a musical undercurrent +of disjointed comment, perceived an opportunity for joining more +actively in the conversation.</p> + +<p>"My mummar says—my mummar says—my mummar says...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—little pet—what does she say?" Thus Rosalind.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Miss Gwendolen Arkwright—what does she say?" Thus Fenwick, on +whom Miss Arkwright is seated.</p> + +<p>"My mummar says se wissus us not to paggle Tundy when the tideses +goed out. But my mummar says—my mummar says...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling."</p> + +<p>"My mummar says we must paggle Monday up to here." Miss Arkwright +indicates the exact high-water mark sanctioned, candidly. "Wiv no +sooze, and no stottins!" She then becomes diffuse. "And my bid +sister Totey's doll came out in my bed, and Dane dusted her out wiv +a duster. And I can do thums. And they make free...." At this point +Miss Arkwright's copy runs short, and she seizes the opportunity for +a sort of seated dance of satisfaction at her own eloquence—a kind +of subjective horsemanship.</p> + +<p>"I wish I never had to do any sums that made more than three," is +the putative horse's comment. "But there are only two possible, +alas! And the totals are stale, as you might say."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid my little girl's being troublesome." Thus the mamma, +looking round a huge groin of breakwater a few yards off.</p> + +<p>"Troublesome, madame?" exclaims Fenwick, using French unexpectedly. +"She's the best company in Sussex." But Miss Arkwright's nurse Jane +domineers into the peaceful circle with a clairvoyance that Miss +Gwendolen is giving trouble, and bears her away rebellious.</p> + +<p>"What a shame!" says Gerry <i>sotto voce</i>. "But I wonder why I said +'madame'!"</p> + +<p>"I remember you said it once before." And she means to add "the +first time you saw me," but dubs it, in thought, a needless lie, and +substitutes, "that day when you were electrocuted." And then + +<!-- Page 318 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +imagines she has flinched, and adds her original text boldly. She +isn't sorry when her husband merely says, "That was queer too!" and +remains looking through his telescope at the swimmers.</p> + +<p>"They're coming at last—a couple of young monkeys!" is her comment. +And, sure enough, after a very short spell of stylish sidestrokes +Sally's voice and laugh are within hearing ahead of her companion's +more guttural intonation. Her mother draws a long breath of relief +as the merpussy vanishes under her awning, and is shouted and tapped +at to hold tight, while capstan-power tugs and strains to bring her +dressing-room up a sharp slope out of reach of the sea.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jeremiah, and what have <i>you</i> got to say for yourself?" said +the merpussy soon after, just out of her machine, with a huge mass +of briny black hair spread out to dry. The tails had to be split and +sorted and shaken out at intervals to give the air a chance. Sally +was blue and sticky all over, and her finger-tips and nails all one +colour. But her spirits were boisterous.</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"What about, indeed? About not coming into the water to be pulled +out. You promised you would, you know you did!"</p> + +<p>"I did; but subject to a reasonable interpretation of the compact. I +should have been out of my depth ever so long before you could reach +me. Why didn't you come closer?"</p> + +<p>"How could I, with a fat, pink party drying himself next door? <i>You</i> +wouldn't have, if it had been you, and him Goody Vereker...."</p> + +<p>"Sal-ly! Darling!" Her mother remonstrates.</p> + +<p>"We-ell, there's nothing in that! As if we didn't all know what the +Goody would look like...."</p> + +<p>Rosalind is really afraid that the strict mamma of her husband's +recent incubus will overhear, and sit at another breakwater next +day. "<i>Come</i> along!" she says, dispersively and emphatically. "We +shall have the shoulder of mutton spoiled."</p> + +<p>"No, we shan't! Shall we, Jeremiah? We've talked it over, me and +Jeremiah. Haven't we, Gaffer Fenwick?" She is splitting up the salt +congestions of his mane as she sits by him on the shingle. He +confirms her statement.</p> + +<p>"We have. And we have decided that if we are two hours late + +<!-- Page 319 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> +it may +be done enough. But that in any case the so-called gravy will be +grey hot water."</p> + +<p>"Get up and come along, and don't be a mad kitten! I shall go and +leave you two behind. So now you know." And Rosalind goes away up +the shingle.</p> + +<p>"What makes mother look so serious sometimes, kitten? She did just +now."</p> + +<p>"She's jealous of you and me flirting like we do. Don't put your hat +on; let the sun dry you up a bit. Does she really look serious +though? Do you mean it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I mean it. It comes and goes. But when I ask her she only +laughs at me." A painful thought crosses Sally's mind. Is it +possible that some of her reckless escapades have <i>froissé</i>'d her +mother? She goes off into a moment's contemplation, then suddenly +jumps up with, "Come along, Jeremiah," and follows her up the beach.</p> + +<p>But the gravity on the face of the latter, by now half-way to the +house, had nothing to do with any of Sally's shocking vulgarities +and outrageous utterances. No, nor even with the green-eyed monster +Jealousy her unscrupulous effrontery had not hesitated to impute. +She allowed it to dominate her expression, as there was no one there +to see, until the girl overtook her. Then she wrenched her face and +her thoughts apart with a smile. "You <i>are</i> a mad little goose," +said she.</p> + +<p>But the thing that weighted her mind—oppressed or puzzled her, as +might be—what was it?</p> + +<p>Had she been obliged to answer the question off-hand she herself +might have been at a loss to word it, though she knew quite well +what it was. It was the old clash between the cause of Sally and its +result. It was the thought that, but for a memory that every year +seemed to call for a stronger forgetfulness, a more effective +oblivion, this little warm star that had shone upon and thawed a +frozen life, this salve for the wound it sprang from, would have +remained unborn—a nonentity! Yes, she might have had another +child—true! But would that child have been Sally?</p> + +<p>She was so engrossed with her husband, and he with her, that she +felt she could, as it were, have trusted him with his own identity. +But, then, how about Sally? Though she might with time + +<!-- Page 320 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> +show him the +need for concealment, how be sure that nothing should come out in +the very confusion of the springing of the mine? She could trust him +with his identity—yes! Not Sally with hers. Her great surpassing +terror was—do you see?—not the effect on <i>him</i> of learning about +Sally's strange <i>provenance</i>, but for Sally herself. The terrible +knowledge she could not grasp the facts without would cast a shadow +over her whole life.</p> + +<p>So she thought and turned and looked down on the beach. There below +her was this unsolved mystery sitting in the sun beside the man +whose life it had rent asunder from its mother's twenty years ago. +And as Rosalind looked at her she saw her capture and detain his +hat. "To let his mane dry, I suppose," said Rosalind. "I hope he +won't get a sunstroke." She watched them coming up the shingle, and +decided that they were going on like a couple of school-children. +They were, rather.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Perhaps the image in Sally's profane mind of "hers affectionately, +Rebecca Vereker," before or after an elderly bathe, would not have +appeared there if she had not received that morning a letter so +signed, announcing that, subject to a variety of fulfilments—among +which the Will of God had quite a conspicuous place—she and her son +would make their appearance next Monday, as our text has already +hinted. On which day the immature legs of Miss Gwendolen Arkwright +were to be released from a seclusion by which some religious object, +undefined, had been attained the day before.</p> + +<p>But the conditions which had to be complied with by the lodgings it +would be possible for this lady to occupy were such as have rarely +been complied with, even in houses built specially to meet their +requirements. Each window had to confront, not a particular quarter, +but a particular ninetieth, of the compass. A full view of the sea +had to be achieved from a sitting-room not exposed to its glare, an +attribute destructive of human eyesight, and fraught with curious +effects on the nerves. But the bedrooms had to look in directions +foreign to human experience—directions from which no wind ever came +at night. A house of which every story rotated on an independent +vertical axis might have answered—nothing else would. Even then +space would have + +<!-- Page 321 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +called for modification, and astronomy and +meteorology would have had to be patched up. Then with regard to the +different levels of the floors, concession was implied to "a flat"; +but, stairways granted, the risers were to be at zero, and the +treads at boiling-point—a strained simile! As to cookery, the +services of a <i>chef</i> with great powers of self-subordination seemed +to be pointed at, a <i>cordon-bleu</i> ready to work in harness. Hygienic +precautions, such as might have been insisted on by an Athanasian +sanitary inspector on the premises of an Arian householder, were +made a <i>sine qua non</i>. Freedom from vibration from vehicles was so +firmly stipulated for that nothing short of a balloon from +Shepherd's Bush could possibly have met the case. The only +relaxation in favour of the possible was a diseased readiness to +accept shakedowns, sandwiches standing, cuts off the cold mutton, +and snacks generally on behalf of her son.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Iggulden, who was empty both sets on Monday, didn't answer in +any one particular to any of these requisitions. But a spirit of +overgrown compromise crept in, making a sufficient number of reasons +why no one of them could be complied with an equivalent of +compliance itself. Only in respect of certain racks and tortures for +the doctor was Mrs. Iggulden induced to lend herself to dangerous +innovation. "I can't have poor Prosy put to sleep in a bed like +this," said Sally, punching in the centre of one, and finding a +hideous cross-bar. Either Mrs. Iggulden's nephew must saw it out, +and tighten up the sacking from end to end, or she must get a +Christian bed. Poor Prosy! Whereon Mrs. Iggulden explained that her +nephew had by an act of self-sacrifice surrendered this bed as a +luxury for lodgers in the season, having himself a strong congenital +love of bisection. He hadn't slept nigh so sound two months past, +and the crossbar would soothe his slumbers.</p> + +<p>So it was finally settled that the Goody and her son should come to +Iggulden's. The question of which set she should occupy being left +open until she should have inspected the stairs. Thereon Mrs. +Iggulden's nephew, whose name was Solomon, contrived a chair to +carry the good lady up them; which she, though faint, declined to +avail herself of when she arrived, perhaps seeing her way to greater +embarrassment for her species by being supported slowly upstairs +with a gasp at each step, and a moan at intervals. + +<!-- Page 322 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +However, she was +got up in the end, and thought she could take a little milk with a +teaspoonful of brandy in it.</p> + +<p>But as to giving any conception of the difficulties that arose at +this point in determining the choice between above and below, that +must be left to your imagination. A conclusion <i>was</i> arrived at in +time—in a great deal of it—and the Goody was actually settled on +the ground floor at Mrs. Iggulden's, and contriving to battle +against collapse from exhaustion with an implication that she had no +personal interest in reviving, but would do it for the sake of +others.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 323 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW SALLY PUT THE FINISHING TOUCH ON THE DOCTOR, WHO COULDN'T SLEEP. +OF THE GRAND DUKE OF HESSE-JUNKERSTADT. AND OF AN INTERVIEW +OVERHEARD</p> + +<p>Fenwick was not a witness of this advent, as the Monday on which it +happened had seen his return to town. He had had his preliminary +week, and his desk was crying aloud for him. He departed, renewing a +solemn promise to write every day as the train came into the little +station at Egbert's Road, for St. Sennans and Growborough. It is +only a single line, even now, to St. Sennans from here, but as soon +as it was done it was good-bye to all peace and quiet for St. +Sennan.</p> + +<p>Rosalind and her daughter came back in the omnibus—not the one for +the hotel, but the one usually spoken of as Padlock's—the one that +lived at the Admiral Collingwood, the nearest approach to an inn in +the old town. The word "omnibus" applied to it was not meant +literally by Padlock, but only as a declaration of his indifference +as to which four of the planet's teeming millions rode in it. This +time there was no one else except a nice old farmer's wife, who +spoke <i>to</i> each of the ladies as "my dear," and <i>of</i> each of them as +"your sister." Rosalind was looking wonderfully young and handsome, +certainly. They secured all the old lady's new-laid eggs, because +there would be Mrs. Vereker in the evening. We like adhering to +these ellipses of daily life.</p> + +<p>Next morning Sally took Dr. Vereker for a walk round to show him the +place. Try to fancy the condition of a young man of about thirty, +who had scarcely taken his hand from the plough of general practice +for four years—for his holidays had been mighty +insignificant—suddenly inaugurating three weeks of paradise in +<i>the</i> society man most covets—of delicious seclusion remote from +patients, a happy valley where stethoscopes might be forgotten, and +carbolic acid was unknown, where diagnosis ceased + +<!-- Page 324 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> +from troubling, +and prognosis was at rest. He got so intoxicated with Sally that he +quite forgot to care if the cases he had left to Mr. Neckitt (who +had been secured as a substitute after all) survived or got +terminated fatally. Bother them and their moist <i>râles</i> and cardiac +symptoms, and effusions of blood on the brain!</p> + +<p>Dr. Conrad was a young man of an honest and credulous nature, with a +turn for music naturally, and an artificial bias towards medicine +infused into him by his father, who had died while he was yet a boy. +His honesty had shown itself in the loyalty with which he carried +out his father's wishes, and his credulity in the readiness with +which he accepted his mother's self-interested versions of his duty +towards herself. She had given him to understand from his earliest +years that she was an unselfish person, and entitled to be +ministered unto, and that it was the business of every one else to +see that she did not become the victim of her own self-sacrifice. At +the date of this writing her son was passing through a stage of +perplexity about his duty to her in its relation to his possible +duty to a wife undefined. That he might not be embarrassed by too +many puzzles at once, he waived the question of who this wife was to +be, and ignored the fact that would have been palpable to any true +reading of his mind, that if it had not been for Miss Sally +Nightingale this perplexity might never have existed. He satisfied +his conscience on the point by a pretext that Sally was a thing on a +pinnacle out of his reach—not for the likes of him! He made believe +that he was at a loss to find a foothold on his greasy pole, but was +seeking one in complete ignorance of what would be found at the top +of it.</p> + +<p>This shallow piece of self-deception was ripe for disillusionment +when Sally took its victim out for a walk round to show him the +place. It had the feeblest hold on existence during the remainder of +the day, throughout which our medical friend went on dram-drinking, +knowing the dangers of his nectar-draughts, but as helpless against +them as any other dram-drinker. It broke down completely and finally +between moonrise and midnight—a period that began with Sally +calling under Iggulden's window, "Come out, Dr. Conrad, and see the +phosphorescence in the water; it's going to be quite bright +presently," and ended with, "Good gracious, + +<!-- Page 325 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> +how late it is! Shan't +we catch it?" an exclamation both contributed to. For it was +certainly past eleven o'clock.</p> + +<p>But in that little space it had broken down, that delusion; and the +doctor knew perfectly well, before ten o'clock, certainly, that all +the abstract possible wives of his perplexity meant Sally, and Sally +only. And, further, that Sally was at every point of the +compass—that she was in the phosphorescence of the sea, and the +still golden colour of the rising moon. That space was full of her, +and that each little wave-splash at their feet said "Sally," and +then gave place to another that said "Sally" again. Poor Prosy!</p> + +<p>But what did they <i>say</i>, the two of them? Little enough—mere merry +chat. But on his part so rigid a self-constraint underlying it that +we are not sure some of the little waves didn't say—not Sally at +all, but—Miss Nightingale! And a persistent sense of a thought that +was only waiting to be thought as soon as he should be alone—that +was going to run somewhat thus: "How could it come about? That this +girl, whom I idolize till my idolatry is almost pain; this girl who +has been my universe this year past, though I would not confess it; +this wonder whom I judge no man worthy of, myself least of all—that +she should be cancelled, made naught of, hushed down, to be the mate +of a poor G.P.; to visit his patients and leave cards, make up his +little accounts, perhaps! Certainly to live with his mother...." But +he knew under the skin that he would be even with that disloyal +thought, and would stop it off at this point in time to believe he +hadn't thought it.</p> + +<p>Still, for all that this disturbing serpent would creep into his +Eden, for all that he would have given worlds to dare a little +more—that moment in the moonlight, with a glow-flecked water at his +feet and hers, and the musical shingle below, and a sense of Christy +Minstrels singing about Billy Pattison somewhere in the warm +night-air above, and the flash of the great revolving light along +the coast answering the French lights across the great, dark silent +sea—that moment was the record moment of his life till then. It +would never do to say so to Sally, that was all! But it was true for +all that. For his life had been a dull one, and the only comfort he +could get out of the story of it so far was that at least there was +no black page in it he would like + +<!-- Page 326 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +to cut out. Sally might read them +all, and welcome. Their relation to <i>her</i> had become the point to +consider. You see, at heart he was a slow-coach, a milksop, nothing +of the man of the world about him. Well, her race had had a dose of +the other sort in the last generation. Had the breed wearied of it? +Was that Sally's unconscious reason for liking him?</p> + +<p>"How very young Prosy has got all of a sudden!" was Sally's +postscript to this interview, as she walked back to their own +lodgings with her mother, who had been relieving guard with the +selfless one while the doctor went out to see the phosphorescence.</p> + +<p>"He's like a boy out for a holiday," her mother answered. "I had no +idea Dr. Conrad could manage such a colour as that; I thought he was +pallid and studious."</p> + +<p>"Poor dear. <i>We</i> should be pallid and studious if it was cases all +day long, and his ma at intervals."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, kitten darling, I can't help thinking perhaps we do +that poor woman an injustice...."</p> + +<p>"—Can't you?" Thus Sally in a parenthetic voice—</p> + +<p>"... and that she really isn't such a very great humbug after all!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because she would be such a <i>very</i> great humbug, don't you see, +chick?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't she? Somebody must, or there'd be no such thing."</p> + +<p>"Why should there be any such thing?"</p> + +<p>"Because of the word. Somebody must, or there'd be no one to hook it +to.... Have they stopped, I wonder, or are they going to begin +again?" This referred to the Ethiopian banjos afar. "I do declare +they're going to sing Pesky Jane, and it's nearly twelve o'clock!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind <i>them</i>! How came <i>you</i> to know all the vulgar +nigger-songs?... I was going to say. It's very difficult to believe +it's quite all humbug when one hears her talk about her son and his +welfare, and his prospects and...."</p> + +<p>"I know what she talked about. When her dear son marries, she's +going to devote herself to him and her dear daughter that will be. +Wasn't that it?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 327 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Yes; but then she couldn't say more than that all she had would be +theirs, and she would take her to her bosom, etcetera. Could she?"</p> + +<p>"She'll have to pull a long way!" The vulgar child's mind has flown +straight to the Goody's outline in profile. She is quite +incorrigible. "But wasn't that what old Mr. Turveydrop said, or very +nearly? Of course, one has to consider the parties and make +allowance."</p> + +<p>"Sallykin, what a madcap you are! You don't care <i>what</i> you say."</p> + +<p>"We-e-ell! there's nothing in that.... But look here, mammy darling. +Did that good woman in all she said to-night—all the time she was +jawing—did she once lose sight of her meritorious attitude?"</p> + +<p>"It may only be a <i>façon de parler</i>—a sort of habit."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't. Jeremiah says so. We've talked it over, us two. He +says he wouldn't like his daughter—meaning me—to marry poor Prosy, +because of the Goody."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure he meant you? Did you ask him?"</p> + +<p>"No, because I wasn't going to twit Jeremiah with being only step. +We kept it dark who was what. But, of course, he meant me. Like a +submarine telegraph." Sally stopped a moment in gravity. Then she +said: "Mother dear!"</p> + +<p>"What, kitten?"</p> + +<p>"What a pity it is Jeremiah is only step! Just think how nice if +he'd been real. Now, if you'd only met twenty years sooner...."</p> + +<p>A nettle to grasp presented itself—a bad one. Rosalind seized it +bodily. "I shouldn't have had my kitten," she said.</p> + +<p>"I see. I should have been somebody else. But that wouldn't have +mattered to me."</p> + +<p>"It would have—to me!" But this is the most she can do in the way +of nettle-grasping. She is glad when St. Sennan, from his tower with +the undoubted piece of Norman, begins to count twelve, and gives her +an excuse for a recall to duty. "Do think how we're keeping poor +Mrs. Lobjoit up, you unfeeling child!" is her appeal on behalf of +their own fisherman's wife. Sally is just taking note of a finale of +the Ethiop choir. "They've done Pesky Jane, and they're going away +to bed," she says. "How the black + +<!-- Page 328 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> +must come off on the sheets!" And +then they hurried home to sleep sound.</p> + +<p>But there was little sleep for the doctor that night, perhaps +because he had got so young all of a sudden. So it didn't matter +much that his mother countermanded his proposal that bed should be +gone to, on the ground that it was so late now that she wouldn't be +able to sleep a wink. If she <i>could</i> have gone an hour ago it would +have been different. Now it was too late. An aggressive +submissiveness was utilized by the good lady to the end of his +discomfort and that of Mrs. Iggulden, who—perhaps from some +memories of the Norman Conquest hanging about the +neighbourhood—would never go to bed as long as a light was burning +in the house.</p> + +<p>"It is very strange and most unusual, I know," she continued saying +after she had scarified a place to scratch on. "Your great-uncle +Everett Gayler did not scruple to call it phenomenal, and that when +I was the merest child. After eleven no sleep!" She continued her +knitting with tenacity to illustrate her wakefulness. "But I am +glad, dear Conrad, that you forgot about me. You were in pleasanter +society than your old mother's. No one shall have any excuse for +saying I am a burden on my son. No, my dear boy, my wish is that you +shall feel <i>free</i>." She laid aside the knitting needles, and folding +her hands across the outline Sally was to be dragged up, or along, +dropped her eyelids over a meek glare, and sat with a fixed, +submissive undersmile slightly turned towards her son.</p> + +<p>"But I thought, mother, as Mrs. Fenwick was here...." Slow, slight, +acquiescent nods stopped him; they were enough to derail any speech +except the multiplication-table or the House-that-Jack-built! But +she waited with exemplary patience for certainty that the train had +stopped. Then spoke as one that gives a commission to speech, and +observes its execution at a distance. Her expression remained +immutable. "She is a well-meaning person," said she.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know how late it was." Poor Dr. Conrad gives up +self-defence—climbs down. "The time ran away." It <i>had</i> done so, +there was no doubt about that.</p> + +<p>"And you forgot your mother. But Mrs. Fenwick is a well-meaning +person. We will say no more about it."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 329 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Whereupon her son, feeling that silence is golden, said nothing. But +he went and kissed her for all that. She said inscrutably: "You +might have kissed me." But whether she was or wasn't referring to +the fact that she had succeeded in negotiating his kiss on the rim +of her spectacles, Conrad couldn't tell. Probably she meant he might +have kissed her before.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt, however, about her intention of knitting till +past one in the morning. She did it enlarging on the medical status +of her illustrious uncle, Dr. Everett Gayler, who had just crept +into the conversation. Her son wasn't so sorry for this as Mrs. +Iggulden, who dozed and waked with starts, on principle, outside in +the passage unseen. <i>He</i> could stand at the wide-open window, and +hear the little waves plash "Sally" in the moonlight, and the +counter-music of the down-drawn shingle echo "Sally" back. Sometimes +the pebbles and the water gave place for a moment to the tread of +two persistent walkers up and down—men who smoked cigars, and +became a little audible and died again at every time of passing.</p> + +<p>One time the doctor caught a rise of voice—though they did not pass +so very near—that said: "My idea is to stay here till...."</p> + +<p>Then at the next turn the same voice grew from inaudibility to ... +"So I arranged with the parson here for to-morrow, and we shall +get...." and died again. At this moment Dr. Everett Gayler was at +the climax of his fame, having just performed tracheotomy on the +Grand Duke of Hesse-Junkerstadt, and been created Knight-Commander +of some Order whose name Mrs. Vereker wasn't sure about.</p> + +<p>Next time the men returned, the same voice that seemed to do all the +talking said: "... Expensive, of course, but she hates the idea of a +registry-office." They paused, and the listener heard that the other +voice had said something to which the first replied: "No, not +Grundy. But she had some friends cooked at one, and they said it was +stuffy, and they would sooner have endured twenty short +homilies...."</p> + +<p>A wax vesta scratched, blazed, lighted another cigar, and the second +voice said, "Oh—ah!" and both grew inaudible again.</p> + +<p>Dr. Everett Gayler had just pronounced the Grand Duchess's +disease—they were an afflicted family—a disease his narrator +couldn't + +<!-- Page 330 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> +pronounce at all. Most of her bones, in a state of +necrosis, had been skilfully removed by the time the smokers had +passed back. But so much more was Dr. Conrad listening to what the +waves said to the shingle and the shingle answered back, than to +either the Grand Duchess or the registry-office, that it never +crossed his mind whose the voice was who lit the vesta. He heard it +say good-night—its owner would get back to the hotel—and the other +make due response. And then nothing was left but the coastguard.</p> + +<p>But the Grand Duke's family were not quite done with. It had to be +recorded how many of his distinguished ancestors had suffered from +<i>Plica polonica</i>. Still, the end did come at last, and the worthy +lady thought perhaps if she could lie down now she might drop off. +So Mrs. Iggulden got her release and slept.</p> + +<p>Dr. Conrad didn't, not a wink. The whole place was full of Sally. +The flashlight at intervals, in couplets, seemed to say "Sally" +twice when it came, and then to leave a blank for him to think about +her in. The great slow steamer far out to sea showed a green eye of +jealousy or a red one of anger because it could not come ashore +where Sally was, but had perforce to go on wherever it was +navigated. The millions of black sea-elves—did you ever +discriminate them?—that the slight observer fancies are the +interstices of the moonlight on the water, were all busy about +Sally, though it was hard to follow their movements. And every time +St. Sennan said what o'clock it was, he added, "One hour nearer to +Sally to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>Poor Prosy!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 331 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A MARRIAGE BY SPECIAL LICENCE. ROSALIND'S COMPARISONS. OF THE +THREE BRIDESMAIDS, AND HOW THE BRIDE WAS A GOOD SAILOR</p> + +<p>But it never occurred to Dr. Vereker that the voice of the smoking +gentleman, whose "<i>she</i>" knew a couple that had been cooked at a +registry office, was a voice quite familiar to him. The only effect +it had on his Sally-dazed mind was to make him wonder four hours +after what it was that kept putting Julius Bradshaw into his head. +If a brain-molecule could have been found not preoccupied with Sally +he might have been able to give her next day a suggestive hint about +a possibility ahead. But never a word said he to Sally; and when, on +her return from bathing the following morning, Mrs. Lobjoit, the +fisherman's wife, surprised her with the news that "the young lady" +had come and had left her luggage, but would be back in +half-an-hour, she was first taken aback, and thought it was a +mistake next. But no—no chance of that! The young lady had asked +for Mrs. Algernon Fenwick, or, in default, for Miss Sally, quite +distinctly. She hadn't said any name, but there was a gentleman with +her. Mrs. Lobjoit seemed to imply that had there been no gentleman +she might have been nameless. Padlock's omnibus they came in.</p> + +<p>So Sally went on being taken aback where she had left off, and was +still pondering over the phenomenon when her mother followed her +through the little yard paved with round flints bedded in +mortar—all except the flower-beds, which were in this case +marigold-beds and fuschia-beds and tamarisk-shakedowns—and the +street door which always stood open, and it was very little use +ringing, the bell being broken. But you could pass through, and +there would always be old Mr. Lobjoit in the kitchen, even if Mrs. +Lobjoit was not there herself.</p> + +<p>"Why not look on the boxes, you stupid kitten? There's a name on +them, or ought to be." Thus Rosalind, after facts told.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 332 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"What a thing it is to have a practical maternal parent!" Thus +Sally. And Mrs. Lobjoit put on record with an amiable smile that +that is what she kept saying to Miss Nightingale, "Why not look?" +Whereas the fact is Mrs. Lobjoit never said anything of the sort.</p> + +<p>"Here's a go!" says Sally, who gets at the label-side of the trunk +first. "If it isn't Tishy!" And the mother and daughter look at each +other's faces, each watching the other's theory forming of what this +sudden apparition means.</p> + +<p>"What do you think, mother?"</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> think, kitten?" But the truth is, both wanted time to +know what to think. And they hadn't got much forwarder with the +solution of the problem when a light was thrown upon it by the +sudden apparition of Lætitia herself, accompanied by the young +gentleman whom Sally did not scruple to speak of—but not in his +presence—as her counter-jumper. She did this, she said, to "pay +Tishy out" for what she had said about him before she made his +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>The couple were in a mixed state of exaltation and confusion—Tishy +half laughing, a third crying, and a sixth keeping up her dignity. +Both were saying might they come in, and doing it without waiting +for an answer.</p> + +<p>Rosalind's remark was one of those nonsequences often met with in +real life: "There's enough lunch—or we can send out." Sally's was: +"But are you the Julius Bradshaws, or are you not? That's what <i>I</i> +want to know." Sally won't be trifled with, not she!</p> + +<p>"Well, Sally dear, no,—we're not—not just yet." Tishy hesitates. +Julius shows firmness.</p> + +<p>"But we want to be at two o'clock this afternoon, if you'll +come...."</p> + +<p>"Both of us?"</p> + +<p>"Why—of course, both of you."</p> + +<p>"Then Mrs. Lobjoit will have to be in time with lunch." It does not +really matter who were the speakers, nor what the share of each was +in the following aggregate:</p> + +<p>"How did you manage to get it arranged?" "Why <i>now</i>? Have you +quarrelled with your mother?" "How long can you be away? I hate a +stingy honeymoon!" "You've got no things." "Do you think + +<!-- Page 333 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +they'll +know at home where you are?" "Where are you going afterwards?" "What +do you think your father will say?" "What I want to know is, what +put it into your head <i>now</i>, more than any other time?"</p> + +<p>Responses to the whole of which, much at random, are incorporated in +what follows: "Julius isn't wanted for three weeks." "I'm sure the +Professor's on our side, really." "I left a letter to tell them, +anyhow." "Calais. We shan't be sick, in weather like this. We'll +cross by the night boat." "I've got a new dress to be married in, +and a new umbrella—oh yes, and other things." "I'll tell you the +whole story, Sally dear, as soon as I've had time to turn round." +"No—not quarrelled—at least, no more than usual." "Special +licence, of course."</p> + +<p>What time Vereker, who had been to the post-office, which sold all +sorts of things, to inquire if they had a packet of chemical oatmeal +(the only thing his mother could digest this morning), and was +coming back baffled, called in on his way to Mrs. Iggulden's. Not to +see Sally, but only to take counsel with the family about chemical +oatmeal. By a curious coincident, the moment he heard of Miss Sales +Wilson's arrival, he used Sally's expression, and said that there +was "a go!" Perhaps there was, and that accounted for it.</p> + +<p>"Here's Dr. Conrad—he'll have to come too." Thus Sally explicitly. +To which he replied, "All right. Where?" Sally replied with gravity: +"To see these two married by special licence." And Julius added: +"You <i>must</i> come, doctor, to be my bottle-holder."</p> + +<p>A small undercurrent of thought in the doctor's mind, in which he +can still accommodate passing events and the world's trivialities, +begins to receive impressions of the facts of the case. The great +river called Sally flows steadily on, on its own account, and makes +and meddles not. It despises other folk's petty affairs. Dr. Conrad +masters the position, and goes on to draw inferences.</p> + +<p>"Then that must have been <i>you</i> last night, Bradshaw?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say it was. When?"</p> + +<p>"Walking up and down with another fellow in front here. Smoking +cigars, both of you."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you sing out?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 334 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, now—why didn't I?" He seems a little unable to account for +himself, and no wonder. "I think I recollected it was like you after +you had gone."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a brain-case, Dr. Conrad. What would your patients say if +they heard you go on like that?" Sally said this, of course. Her +mother thought to herself that perhaps the patients would send for a +married doctor.</p> + +<p>But her mind was taking no strong hold on the current of events, +considering what a very vital human interest was afloat on them. It +was wandering back to another wedding-day—her own first wedding-day +of twenty years ago. As she looked at this bridegroom—all his +upspring of hope making light of such fears as needs must be in like +case all the world over—he brought back to her vividly, for all he +was so unlike him, the face of the much younger man who had met her +that day at Umballa, whose utter freedom from suspicion as he +welcomed her almost made her able to forget the weeks gone by—the +more so that they were like a dream in Hell, and their sequel like +an awakening in Paradise. Well, at any rate, she had recaptured this +man from Chaos, and he was hers again. And she had Sally. But at the +word the whole world reeled and her feet were on quicksands. What +and whence was Sally?</p> + +<p>At least this was true—there was no taint of her father there! +Sally wasn't an angel—not a bit of it—no such embarrassment to a +merely human family. But her mother could see her truth, honour, +purity—call it what you will—in every feature, every movement. As +she stood there, giving injunctions to Vereker to look alive or he'd +be late, her huge coil of sea-soaked black hair making her white +neck look whiter, and her white hands reestablishing hair-pins in +the depths of it, she seemed the very incarnation of +non-inheritance. Not a trace of the sire her mother shuddered to +think of in the music of her voice, in the laughter all who knew her +felt in the mirth of her eyebrows and the sparkle of her pearly +teeth. All her identity was her own. If only it could have been +known then that she was going to be Sally!... But how fruitless all +speculation was!</p> + +<p>"Perhaps mother knows. Chemical oatmeal, mother, for invalids and +persons of delicate digestion? They haven't got it at Pemberton's." +The eyes and the teeth flash round on her mother, + +<!-- Page 335 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> +and in a +twinkling the unhallowed shadow of the past is gone. It was only a +moment in all, though it takes more to record it. Rosalind came back +to the life of the present, but she knew nothing about chemical +oatmeal. Never mind. The doctor would find out. And he would be sure +to be in time.</p> + +<p>He was in time—plenty of time, said public opinion. And the couple +were duly married, and went away in Padlock's omnibus to catch the +train for Dover in time for the boat. And Dr. Conrad's eyes were on +the eldest bridesmaid. For, after all, two others were +obtained—jury-bridesmaids they might be called—in the persons of +Miss Gwendolen Arkwright and an even smaller sister, who were +somehow commandeered by Sally's enterprise, and bribed with promises +of refreshment. But the smaller sister was an erring sister, for +having been told she was on no account to speak during the service, +she was suddenly struck with the unfairness of the whole thing, and, +pointing at St. Sennans' arch-priest, said very audibly that <i>he</i> +was "peatin'," so why wasn't she to "peat"? However, it was a very +good wedding, and there was no doubt the principals had really +become the Julius Bradshaws. They started from Dover on a sea that +looked like a mill-pond; but Tishy's husband afterwards reported +that the bride sat with her eyes shut the last half of the <i>trajet</i>, +and said, "Don't speak to me, and I shall be all right."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>That summer night Rosalind and her daughter were looking out over +the reputed mill-pond at the silver dazzle with the elves in it. The +moon had come to the scratch later than last night, from a feeling +of what was due to the almanac, which may (or must) account for an +otherwise enigmatical remark of Sally's, who, when her mother +wondered what time it was, replied: "I don't know—it's later than +it was yesterday." But did that matter, when it was the sort of +night you stopped out all night on, according to Sally. They came to +an anchor on a seat facing the sea, and adjourned human obligation +<i>sine die</i>.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if they've done wisely." Rosalind represents married +thoughtfulness.</p> + +<p>Sally shelves misgivings of this sort by reflections on the common +lot of humanity, and considers that it will be the same for them as +every one else.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 336 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"<i>They</i>'ll be all right," she says, with cheerful optimism. "I +wonder what's become of Prosy."</p> + +<p>"He's up there with his mother. I saw him at the window. But I +didn't mean that: they'll be happy enough together, I've no doubt. I +mean, has Lætitia done wisely to quarrel with her family?"</p> + +<p>"She hasn't; it's only the she-dragon. Tishy told me all about it +going to church."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>And, oh dear, how poor Prosy, who was up there with his mother, did +long to come out to the voices he could hear plain enough, even as +far off as that! But then he had been so long away to-day, and he +knew his excellent parent always liked to finish the tale of her own +wedding-day when she began it—as she often did. So he listened +again to the story of the wedding, which was celebrated in the +severest thunderstorm experienced in these islands since the days of +Queen Elizabeth, by a heroic clergyman who was suffering from +pleuro-pneumonia, which made his voice inaudible till a miraculous +chance produced one of Squilby's cough lozenges (which are not to be +had now for love or money), and cured him on the spot. And how the +bridesmaids all had mumps, more or less. And much concerning the +amazingly dignified appearance of her own father and mother, which +was proverbial, and therefore no matter of surprise to any one, the +proverb being no doubt well known to Europe.</p> + +<p>But there, it didn't matter! Sally would be there to-morrow.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 337 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW A FORTNIGHT PASSED, AND THE HONEYMOONERS RETURNED. OF A CHAT ON +THE BEACH, AND MISS ARKWRIGHT'S SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE. ALMOST THE +LAST, LAST, LAST—MAN'S HEAD!</p> + +<p>Sally to-morrow—and to-morrow—and to-morrow. Sally for fourteen +morrows. And the moon that had lighted the devoted young man to his +fate—whatever it was to be—had waned and left the sky clear for a +new one, on no account to be seen through glass.</p> + +<p>They were morrows of inextinguishable, indescribable delight for +their victims or victim—for how shall we classify Sally? Who shall +tread the inner temple of a girl's mind? How shall it be known that +she herself has the key to the Holy of Holies?—that she is not +dwelling in the outer court, unconscious of her function of +priestess, its privileges and responsibilities? Or, in plainer +language, metaphors having been blowed in obedience to a probable +wish of the reader's, how do we know Sally was not falling in love +with the doctor? How do we know she was not in love with him +already? How did <i>she</i> know?</p> + +<p>All we know is that the morrows went on, each one sweeter than the +last, and all the little incidents went on that were such nothings +at the time, but were so sure to be borne in mind for ever! <i>You</i> +know all about it, you who read. Like enough you can remember now, +old as you are, how you and she (or he, according as your sex is) +got lost in the wood, and never found where the picnic had come to +an anchor till all the wings of chicken were gone and only legs +left; or how there was a bull somewhere; or how next day the cat got +caught on the shoulder of one of you and had to be detached, hooking +horribly, by the other; or how you felt hurt (not jealous, but hurt) +because she (or he) was decently civil to some new he (or she), and +how relieved you were when you heard it was Mr. or Mrs. +Some-name-you've-forgotten. Why, if you were to ask now, of that +grey man or + +<!-- Page 338 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> +woman whose life was linked with yours, maybe now sixty +years agone, did he or she have a drumstick, or go on to +ham-sandwiches?—or, was it really a bull, after all?—or, had that +cat's claws passed out of memory?—or, what was the name of that +lady (or gentleman) at the So-and-so's?—if you asked any of these +things, she or he might want a repeat into a deaf ear but would +answer clear enough in the end, and recall the drumsticks and the +equivocal bull, the cat's claws, and the unequivocal married person. +And then you would turn over all the little things of old, and +wrangle a bit over details here and there; and all the while you +would be the very selfsame two that were young and were lost in the +wood and trampled down the fern and saw the squirrels overhead all +those long years ago.</p> + +<p>Many a little thing of a like nature—perhaps some identical—made +up hours that became days in that fortnight we have to skip, and +then the end was drawing near; and Dr. Conrad would have to go back +and write prescriptions with nothing that could possibly do any harm +in them, and abstain with difficulty from telling young ladies with +cultivated waists they were liars when they said you could get a +loaf of bread between all round, and it was sheer nonsense. And +other little enjoyments of a G.P.'s life. Yes, the end was very +near. But Sally's resolute optimism thrust regrets for the coming +chill aside, and decided to be jolly while we could, and acted up to +its decision.</p> + +<p>Besides, an exciting variation gave an interest to the last week of +the doctor's stay at St. Sennans. The wandering honeymooners, in +gratitude to that saint, proposed to pay him a visit on their way +back to London. Perhaps they would stop a week. So the smallest +possible accommodation worthy of the name was found for them over a +brandyball and bull's-eye shop in a house that had no back rooms, +being laid like a vertical plaster against the cliff behind, and +having an exit on a flat roof where you might bask in the sun and +see the bright red poppies growing in the chalk, and contribute your +share towards a settlement of the vexed question of which are brigs. +There wasn't another room to be had in the real St. Sennans, and it +came to that or the hotel (which was beastly), and you might just as +well be in London. Thus Sally, and settled the question.</p> + +<p>And this is how it comes to pass that at the beginning of this +chapter—which + +<!-- Page 339 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +we have only just got to, after all this +circumlocution!—Sally and one of the Julius Bradshaws were sitting +talking on the beach in the shadow of a breakwater, while the other +Julius Bradshaw (the original one) was being taken for a walk to the +extremely white lighthouse three miles off, or nearly five if you +went by the road, by Dr. Conrad, who by this time knew all the walks +in the neighbourhood exactly as well as Sally did, neither more nor +less. And both knew them very well.</p> + +<p>The tide had come up quite as far as it had contemplated, and seemed +to have made up its mind this time not to go back in too great a +hurry. It was so nice there on the beach, with Tishy and Sally and +Miss Gwendolen Arkwright, the late bridesmaid, who was having an +independent chat all to herself about the many glories of the +pier-end, and the sights to be seen there by visitors for a penny. +And it—we are speaking of the tide—had got a delightful tangle of +floating weed (<i>Fucus Vesiculosus</i>) and well-washed scraps of wood +from long-forgotten wrecks—who knows?—and was turning it gently to +and fro, and over and over, with intermittent musical caresses, +against the shingle-bank, whose counter-music spoke to the sea of +the ages it had toiled in vain to grind it down to sand. And the +tide said, wait, we shall see. The day will come, it said, when not +a pebble of you all but shall be scattered drifting sand, unless you +have the luck to be carted up at a shilling a load by permission of +the authorities, to be made into a concrete of a proper consistency +according to the local by-laws. But the pebbles said, please, no; we +will bide our time down here, and you shall have us for your +own—play with us in the sun at the feet of these two ladies, or +make the whirling shoals of us, beaten to madness, thunder back your +voice when it shouts in the storm to the seaman's wife, who stops +her ears in the dark night alone that she may not hear you heralding +her husband's death. And the tide said very good; but a day would +come when the pebbles would be sand, for all that. And even the +authority would be gone, and the local by-laws. But it would sound +upon some shore for ever. So it kept on saying. Probably it was +mistaken.</p> + +<p>This has nothing to do with our story except that it is +approximately the substance of a statement made by Sally to Miss +Arkwright, + +<!-- Page 340 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +who was interested, and had been promised it all over +again to-morrow. For the present she could talk about the pier and +take her audience for granted.</p> + +<p>"But was it that Kensington Gardens business that did the job?" +asked Sally, in the shadow of the breakwater, getting the black hair +dry after three-quarters of an hour in the sea; because caps, you +know, are all nonsense as far as keeping water out goes. So Sally +had to sit ever so long with it out to dry. And the very tiny +pebbles you can almost see into stick to your hands, as you know, +and come off in your hair when you run them through it, and have to +be combed out. At least, Sally's had. But she kept on running the +pebbles through her still blue fingers for all that as she half lay, +half sat by Tishy on the beach.</p> + +<p>"'Did the job!'" repeats the bride on her honeymoon with some +indignation. "Sally dear, when will you learn to be more refined in +your ways of speech? I'm not a <i>précieuse</i>, but—'did the job!' +Really, Sally!..."</p> + +<p>"Observe the effect of three weeks in France. The Julius Bradshaws +can parlay like anything! No, Tishy darling, don't be a stuck-upper, +but tell me again about Kensington Gardens."</p> + +<p>"I told you. It was just like that. Julius and I were walking up the +avenue—you know...."</p> + +<p>"The one that goes up and across, and comes straight like this?" +Tishy, helped by a demonstration of blue finger-tips, recognises +this, strange to say.</p> + +<p>"No, not that one. It doesn't matter. We didn't see mamma coming +till she was ever so close, because of the Speke Monument in the +way. And what could possess her to come home that way from Hertford +Street, Mayfair, I cannot imagine!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Tishy dear! It's no use crying over spilled milk. What +did she say?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dear. She turned purple, and bowed civilly. To Julius, of +course. But it included me, whether or no."</p> + +<p>"But was that what did the job?... We-ell, I do not see <i>anything</i> +to object to in that expression. Was it?"</p> + +<p>"If you mean, dear, was it that that made us, me and Julius, feel +that matters would get no better by waiting, I think perhaps it +was.... Well, when it comes to meeting one's mother in Kensington +Gardens, near the Speke Monument, and being bowed civilly + +<!-- Page 341 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +to, it +seems to me it's high time.... Now, isn't it, Sally?"</p> + +<p>Sally evaded giving testimony by raising other questions: "What did +your father say?" "Did the Dragon tell him about the meeting in the +park?" "What do you think he'll say now?"</p> + +<p>"Now? Well, you know, I've got his letter. <i>He's</i> all right—and +rather dear, <i>I</i> think. What do <i>you</i> think, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"I think very."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I should say very. But with papa you never know. He really +does love us all, after a fashion, except Egerton, only I'm never +sure he doesn't do it to contradict mamma."</p> + +<p>"Why don't they chuck each other and have done with it?" The vulgar +child lets fly straight into the bull's-eye; then adds thoughtfully: +"<i>I</i> should, only, then, I'm not a married couple."</p> + +<p>Tishy elided the absurd figure of speech and ignored it. The chance +of patronising was not to be lost.</p> + +<p>"You are not married, dear. When you are, you may feel things +differently. But, of course, papa and mamma <i>are</i> very odd. I used +to hear them through my door between the rooms at L.B.G. Road. It +was wrangle, wrangle, wrangle; fight, fight, fight; all through the +night—till two o'clock sometimes. Oh dear!"</p> + +<p>"You're sure they always were quarrelling?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, yes. I used to catch all the regular words—settlement and +principal and prevaricate. All that sort of thing, you know. But +there they are, and there they'll be ten years hence, that's my +belief, living together, sleeping together, and dining at opposite +ends of the same table, and never communicating in the daytime +except through me or Theeny, but quarrelling like cat and dog."</p> + +<p>"What shall you do when you go back? Go straight there?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. Julius thinks so. After all, papa's the master of the +house—legally, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"Shall you write and say you're coming?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! Just go and take our chance. We shan't be any nearer if we +give mamma an opportunity of miffing away somewhere when we come. +What <i>is</i> that little maid talking about there?" The ex-bridesmaid +is three or four yards away, and is discoursing eloquently, a word +in the above conversation having reminded + +<!-- Page 342 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +her of a tragic event she +has mentioned before in this story. "I seeps with my bid sister +Totey's dolly," is what she appears to be saying.</p> + +<p>"Never mind the little poppet, Tishy, till you've told me more about +it." Sally is full of curiosity. "Did that do the job or did it not? +That's what I want to know."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it did, dear, indirectly. That was on Saturday afternoon. +Next morning we breakfasted under a thundercloud with Egerton +grinning inside his skin, and looking like 'Won't you catch it, +that's all!' at me out of the corner of his eye. That was bad +enough, without one's married sister up from the country taking one +aside to say that <i>she</i> wasn't going to interfere, and calling one +to witness that <i>she</i> had said nothing so far. All she said was, 'Me +and mamma settle it between us.' 'Settle what?' said I; and she +didn't answer, and went away to the first celebration."</p> + +<p>"She's not bad, your married sister," Sally decided thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, Clarissa's not bad. Only she wants to run with the hare and +explain to the hounds when they come up.... What happened next? Why, +as I went upstairs past papa's room, out comes mamma scarlet with +anger, and restraining herself in the most offensive way for me to +go past. I took no notice, and when she was gone I went down and +walked straight into the library. I said, 'What is it, papa?' I saw +he was chuckling internally, as if he'd made a hit."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't he angry? What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, <i>he</i> wasn't angry. Let's see ... oh!... what he said was, +'That depends so entirely on what <i>it</i> is, my dear. But, broadly +speaking, I should say it was your mother.' 'What has she been +saying to you?' I asked. And he answered, 'I can only give her exact +words without pledging myself to their meaning. She stated that she +"supposed I was going to tell my daughter I approved of her walking +about Kensington Gardens with <i>that man's</i> arm around her waist." I +replied—reasonably, as it seems to me—that I supposed that man was +there himself. Otherwise, it certainly did seem to me a most +objectionable arrangement, and I hope you'll promise your mother not +to do it again.'"</p> + +<p>"What on earth did he mean?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 343 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"You don't understand papa. He quibbles to irritate mamma. He meant +like a waistband—separate—don't you see?"</p> + +<p>"I see. But it wouldn't bend right." Sally's truthful nature +postpones laughing at the Professor's absurdity; looks at the case +on its merits. When she has done justice to this point, she laughs +and adds: "What did <i>you</i> say, Tishy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I said what nonsense, and it wasn't tight round like all that; +only a symptom. And we didn't even know mamma was there because of +Speke and Grant's obelisk. There wasn't a soul! Papa saw it quite as +I did, and was most reasonable. So I thought I would feel my way to +developing an idea we had been broaching, Julius and I, just that +very time by the obelisk. I asked papa flatly what he would do if I +married Julius straight off. 'I believe, my dear,' said he, 'that I +should be bound to disapprove most highly of your conduct and his.' +'But <i>should</i> you, papa?' I said. 'I should be <i>bound</i> to, my dear,' +said he. 'But should you turn us out of the house?' I asked. 'Most +certainly <i>not</i>,' said he emphatically. 'But I should disapprove.' I +said I should be awfully sorry for that. 'Of course you would,' said +he. 'Any dutiful daughter would. But I don't exactly see what harm +it would do <i>you</i>.' And you see how his letter begins—that he is +bound, as a parent, to feel the strongest disapprobation, and so on. +No, I don't think we need be frightened of papa. As for mamma, of +course it wouldn't be reasonable to expect her to...."</p> + +<p>"To expect her to what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was going to say keep her hair on. The expression is +Egerton's, and I'm sorry to say his expressions are not always +ladylike, however telling they are! So I hesitated. Now what <i>is</i> +that baby talking about down there?"</p> + +<p>For through the whole of Tishy's interesting tale that baby had been +dwelling on the shocking occurrence of her sister's doll as before +recorded. Her powers of narrative—giving a dramatic form to all +things, and stimulated by Sally's statements of what the beach said +to the sea, and the sea said back—had, it seemed, attracted shoals +of fish from the ocean depths to hear her recital of the tragedy.</p> + +<p>"Suppose, now, you come and tell it us up here, Gwenny," says the +bride to the bridesmaid. And Sally adds: "Yes, delicious + +<!-- Page 344 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +little +Miss Arkwright, come and tell us all about it too." Whereupon Miss +Arkwright's musical tones are suddenly silent, and her eyes, that +are so nearly the colour of the sea behind her, remain fixed on her +two petitioners, their owner not seeming quite sure whether she +shall acquiesce, or coquette, or possibly even burst into tears. She +decides, however, on compliance, coming suddenly up the beach on all +fours, and exclaiming, "Tate me!" flings herself bodily on Sally, +who welcomes her with, "You sweet little darling!" while Mrs. Julius +Bradshaw, anticipating requisition, looks in her bag for another +chocolate. They will spoil that child between them.</p> + +<p>"Now tell us about the fisses and dolly," says Sally. But the +narrator, all the artist rising in her soul, will have everything in +order.</p> + +<p>"I <i>told</i> ze fisses," she says, reproach in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I see, ducky. You told the fishes, and now you'll tell us all about +dolly."</p> + +<p>"I seeps wiv dolly, because my bid sister Totey said 'Yes.' Dolly +seeps in her fings. I seep in my nightgown. Kean from the wass——"</p> + +<p>"How nice you must be! Well, then, what next?" Sally may be said to +imbibe the narrator at intervals. Tishy calls her a selfish girl. +"You've got her all to yourself," she says. The story goes on:</p> + +<p>"I seep vethy thound. Papa seeps vethy thound. Dolly got between the +theets and the blangticks, and came out. It was a dood dob. Dane +<i>said</i> it <i>was</i>—a dood dob!"</p> + +<p>"What did Jane say was a good job? Poor dolly coming out?" A long, +grave headshake denies this. The constructive difficulties of the +tale are beyond the young narrator's skill. She has to resort to +ellipsis.</p> + +<p>"Or I sood have been all over brang and sawduss. Dane <i>said</i> so."</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, Sally," says Tishy, "dolly was in another +compartment—the other side of the sheet." But Sally says, of +course, <i>she</i> understands, perhaps even suspects Tishy of claiming +more acquaintance with children than herself because she has been +married three weeks. This isn't fair patronising.</p> + +<p>"Dolly came out at ve stisses"—so the sad tale goes on—"and tyed, + +<!-- Page 345 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +dolly did. Dane put her head on to ty wiv my pocket-hanshtiff!"</p> + +<p>"I see, you little ducky, of course her head had come off, and she +couldn't cry till it was put on, was that it? Don't dance, but say +yes or no." This referred to a seated triumphal dance the chronicler +indulged in at having put so much safely on record. Having subsided, +she decided on <i>zass</i> as the proper thing to say, but it took time. +Then she added suddenly: "But I <i>told</i> ze fisses." Sally took a good +long draught, and said: "Of course you did, darling. You shan't be +done out of that!" But an addendum or appendix was forthcoming.</p> + +<p>"My mummar says I must tate dolly to be socked for a penny where the +man is wiv buttons—and the man let Totey look froo his pyglass, and +see all ve long sips, sits miles long—and I shall see when I'm a +glowed-up little girl, like Totey."</p> + +<p>"Coastguard's telescope, evidently," says Sally. "The man up at the +flagstaff. Six miles long is how far off they were, not the length +of the ships at all."</p> + +<p>"I saw that. But what on earth were the socks? Does his wife sell +doll's clothes?"</p> + +<p>"We must try to find that out." And Sally sets herself to the task. +But it's none so easy. Some mystery shrouds the approach to this +passage in dolly's future life. It is connected with "kymin up," and +"tandin' on a tep," and when it began it went wizzy, wizzy, wizz, +and e-e-e-e, and never stopped. But Gwendolen had not been alarmed +whatever it was, because her "puppar" was there. But it was +exhausting to the intellect to tell of, for the description ended +with a musical, if vacuous, laugh, and a plunge into Sally's bosom, +where the narrator remained chuckling, but quite welcome.</p> + +<p>"So Gwenny wasn't pitened! What a courageous little poppet! I wonder +what on earth it was, Sally."</p> + +<p>Thus Tishy, at a loss. But Sally is sharper, for in a moment the +solution dawns upon her.</p> + +<p>"What a couple of fools we are, Tishy dear! It wasn't <i>socks</i>—it +was <i>shocks</i>. It was the galvanic battery at the end of the pier. A +penny a time, and you mustn't have it on full up, or you howl. Why +on earth didn't we think of that before?"</p> + +<p>But Nurse Jane comes in on the top of the laughter that follows, + +<!-- Page 346 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +which Miss Gwendolen is joining in, rather claiming it as a triumph +for her own dramatic power. She demurs to removal, but goes in the +end on condition that all present shall come and see dolly +galvanised at an early date. Jane agrees to replace dolly's vitals +and sew her up to qualify her for this experience. And so they +depart.</p> + +<p>"What a dear little mite!" says Mrs. Julius; and then they let the +mite lapse, and go back to the previous question.</p> + +<p>"No, Sally dear, mamma will be mamma to the end of the time. But I +didn't tell you all papa said, did I?"</p> + +<p>"How on earth can <i>I</i> tell, Tishy dear? You had got to 'any dutiful +daughter would,' etcetera. Cut along! Comes of being in love, I +suppose." This last is a reflection on the low state of Tishy's +reasoning powers.</p> + +<p>"Well, just after that, when I was going to kiss him and go, papa +stopped me, and said he had something to say, only he mustn't be too +long because he had to finish a paper on, I think, 'Some Technical +Terms in use in Cnidos in the Sixth Century, B.C.' Or was it...?"</p> + +<p>"That was it. That one'll do beautifully. Go ahead!"</p> + +<p>"Well—of course it doesn't matter. It was like papa, anyhow.... Oh, +yes—what he said then! It was about Aunt Priscilla's thousand +pounds. He wanted to repeat that the interest would be paid to me +half-yearly if by chance I married Julius or any other man without +his consent. 'I wish it to be distinctly understood that if you +marry Bradshaw it will be against my consent. But I only ask you to +promise me this, Lætitia, that you won't marry any other man against +my consent at present.' I promised, and he said I was a dutiful +daughter. There won't be any trouble with papa."</p> + +<p>"Don't look like it! I say, Tishy, that thousand pounds is very +nice. How much will you have? Forty pounds a year?"</p> + +<p>"It's more than that. It's gone up, somehow—sums of money do—or +down. They're never the same as at first. I'm so glad about it. It's +not as if I brought Julius absolutely nothing."</p> + +<p>"How much is it?" Sally is under the impression that sums of money +that exist on the word of signed documents only, and whose +materialisation can only be witnessed by bankers, are like +fourpence, one of whose properties is that it <i>is</i> fourpence. They +are + +<!-- Page 347 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +not analogous, and Lætitia is being initiated into the higher +knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, you see the stock has gone up, and it's at six +three-quarters. You must ask Julius. He can do the arithmetic."</p> + +<p>"Does that mean it's sixty-seven pounds ten?"</p> + +<p>"You'd better ask Julius. Then, you know, there's the interest." +Sally asked what interest. "Why, you see, Aunt Priscilla left it to +me eleven years ago, so there's more." But a vendor of mauve and +magenta woollen goods, known to Sally as "the beach-woman," was +working up towards them.</p> + +<p>"That woman never goes when she comes," said Sally. "Let's get up +and go!"</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>We like lingering over this pleasant little time. It helps on but +little, if at all, with our story. But in years to come this young +couple, who only slip into it by a side-chance, having really little +more to do with it than any of the thousand and one collaterals that +interest the lives of all of us, and come and go and are +forgotten—this Julius and Lætitia will talk of the pleasant three +days or so they had at St. Sennans when they came back from France. +And we, too, having choice of how much we shall tell of those three +or four days, are in little haste to leave them. Those hours of +unblushing idleness under a glorious sun—idleness fostered and +encouraged until it seems one great exertion to call a fly, and +another to subside into it—idleness on matchless moonlight nights, +on land or on water—idleness with an affectation of astronomical +study, just up to speculating on the identity of Aldebaran or +Arcturus, but scarcely equal to metaphysics—idleness that lends +itself readily to turning tables and automatic writing, and gets +some convincing phenomena, and finds out that so-and-so is an +extraordinary medium—idleness that says that letter will do just as +well to-morrow, and Smith must wait—such hours as these +disintegrate the moral fibre and anæsthetize our sense of +responsibility, and make us so oblivious of musical criticism that +we accept brass bands and inexplicable serenaders, white or black, +and even accordions and hurdy-gurdies, as intrinsic features of the +<i>ensemble</i>—the <i>fengshui</i> of the time and place—and give them a +penny if we've got one.</p> + +<p>That is and will be Mr. and Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's memory of + +<!-- Page 348 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> +those +three days or so, when they have grown quite old together, as we +hope they may. And if you add memory of an intoxicated delirium of +love—of love that was on no account to be shown or declared or even +hinted at—and of a tiresome hitch or qualification, an unselfish +parent in full blow, you will have the record that is to remain in +the mind of Conrad Vereker.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 349 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW SALLY DIDN'T CONFESS ABOUT THE DOCTOR, AND JEREMIAH CAME TO +ST. SENNANS ONCE MORE</p> + +<p>That evening Sally sat with her mother on the very uncomfortable +seat they affected on what was known as the Parade, a stone's throw +from the house for a good stone-thrower. It had a little platform of +pebbles to stand on, and tamarisks to tickle you from behind when +the wind was northerly. It was a corrugated and painful seat, and +had a strange power of finding out your tender vertebræ and +pulverising them, whatever your stature might be. It fell forward +when its occupants, goaded to madness, bore too hard on its front +bar, and convinced them they would do well, henceforward, to hold it +artificially in its place. But Rosalind and her daughter forgave it +all these defects—perhaps because they were really too lazy to +protest even against torture. It was the sea air. Anyhow, there they +sat that evening, waiting for Padlock's omnibus to come, bringing +Fenwick from the station. Just at the moment at which the story +overtakes them, Rosalind was looking wonderfully handsome in the +sunset light, and Sally was thinking to herself what a beautiful +mother she had; and how, when the after-glow dies, it will leave its +memory in the red gold that is somewhere in the rich brown her eyes +are resting on. Sally was fond of dwelling on her mother's beauty. +Perhaps doing so satisfied her personal vanity by deputy. She was +content with her own self, but had no admiration for it.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> a dear good mammy. Fancy your losing all the best time of +the morning indoors!"</p> + +<p>"How the best time of the morning, chick?"</p> + +<p>"Sitting with that old cat upstairs.... Well, I can't help it. She +<i>is</i> an old cat."</p> + +<p>"You're a perverse little monkey, kitten; that's what <i>you</i> are!" +Rosalind laughed with an excuse—or caress, it may be—in her +laugh. + +<!-- Page 350 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +"No," she continued, "we are much too hard on that old lady, +both of us. Do you know, to-day she was quite entertaining—told me +all about her own wedding-day, and how all the bridesmaids had the +mumps."</p> + +<p>"Has she never told you that before?"</p> + +<p>"Only once. Then she told me about the late-lamented, and what a +respect he had for her judgment, and how he referred to her at every +crisis. I didn't think her at all bad company."</p> + +<p>"Because you're a darling. I suppose you had it all about how Prosy, +when he was a boy, wanted to study music, and how his pa said that +the turning-point in the career of youth lay in the choice of a +profession."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! And how his strong musical turn came from her side of the +family. In herself it was dormant. But her Aunt Sophia had never +once put her finger on a false note of the piano. This was confirmed +by the authority of her eminent uncle, Dr. Everett Gayler, himself +no mean musician."</p> + +<p>"Poor Prosy! I know."</p> + +<p>"And how musical faculty—amounting to genius—often remained +absolutely unsuspected owing to its professor having no inheritance. +But it would come out in the children. Then, and not till then, +tardy justice was done.... Well, I don't know exactly how she worked +it out, but she managed to suggest that she was Handel and Mozart in +abeyance. Her son's fair complexion clinched matters. It was the +true prototype of her own. A thoroughly musical complexion, +bespeaking German ancestry."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that the omnibus?" says Sally. But, no, it isn't. She +continues: "I don't believe in musical complexions. Look at Julius +Bradshaw—dark, with high cheek-bones, and a thin olive hand with +blue veins in it. I say, mother...."</p> + +<p>"What, chick?"</p> + +<p>"He's changed his identity—Julius Bradshaw has. I can't believe he +was that spooney boy that used to come hankering after me at +church." And the amusement this memory makes hangs about Sally's +lips as the two sit on into a pause of silence.</p> + +<p>The face of the mother does not catch the amusement, but remains +grave and thoughtful. She does not speak; but the handsome eyes that +rest so lovingly on the speaker are full of something from the +past—some record that it would be an utter bewilderment + +<!-- Page 351 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +to Sally +to read—a bewilderment far beyond that crux of the moment which +maybe has struck her young mind for the first time—the old familiar +puzzle of the change that comes to all of us in our transition from +first to last experience of the strange phenomenon we call a friend. +Sally can't make it out—the way a silly lad, love-struck about her +indifferent self so short a while back, has become a totally altered +person, the husband of her schoolmate, an actual identity of life +and thought and feeling; he who was in those early days little more +than a suit of clothes and a new prayer-book.</p> + +<p>But if that is so strange to Sally, how measurelessly stranger is +she herself to her mother beside her! And the man they are waiting +and watching for, who is somewhere between this and St. Egbert's +station in Padlock's venerable 'bus, what a crux is <i>he</i>, compared +now to that intoxicated young lover of two-and-twenty years ago, in +that lawn-tennis garden that has passed so utterly from his memory! +And a moment's doubt, "But—has it?" is caught and absorbed by what +seemed to Rosalind now an almost absurd fact—that, a week before, +he had been nothing but a <i>fidus Achates</i> of that other young man +provided to make up the lawn-tennis set, and that it was that other +young man at first, not he, that belonged to <i>her</i>. And he had +changed away so easily to—who was it? Jessie Nairn, to be sure—and +left the coast clear for his friend. Whatever now <i>was</i> his name? Oh +dear, what a fool was Rosalind! said she to herself, to have half +let slip that it was <i>he</i> that was Fenwick, and not Gerry at all. +All this compares itself with Sally's experience of Bradshaw's +metamorphosis, and her own seems the stranger.</p> + +<p>Then a moment of sharp pain that she cannot talk to Sally of these +things, but must lead a secret life in her own silent heart. And +then she comes back into the living world, and finds Sally well on +with the development of another topic.</p> + +<p>"Of course, poor dears! They've not played a note together since the +row. It's been nothing but Kensington Gardens or the Albert Hall. +But I'm afraid he's no better. If only he <i>could</i> be, it would make +all the difference."</p> + +<p>"What's that, darling? <i>Who</i> could be...? Not your father?" For, as +often as not, Rosalind would speak of her husband as Sally's father.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 352 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Not Jeremiah—no. I was talking about Julius B. and his nervous +system. Wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it what?"</p> + +<p>"Make all the difference? I mean that he could get his +violin-playing back. I told you about that letter?"</p> + +<p>"No—what letter?"</p> + +<p>"From an agent in Paris. Rateau, I think, was the name. Had heard +Signor Carissimi had recovered his health completely, and was +playing. Hoped he might be honoured with his instructions to make +his arrangements in Paris, as he had done so four years ago. Wasn't +it aggravating?"</p> + +<p>"Does it make any difference?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course it does, mother darling. The aggravation! Just think +now! Suppose he could rely on ten pounds a night, fancy that!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose he could!... Yes, that would be nice." But there is a +preoccupation in her tone, and Sally wants sympathy to be drawn with +a vigorous outline.</p> + +<p>"What's my maternal parent thinking about, as grave as a judge? +Jeremiah's all right, mammy darling! <i>He's</i> not killed in a railway +accident. Catch <i>him</i>!" This is part of a systematized relationship +between the two. Each always discredits the possibility of mishap to +the other. It might be described as chronic reciprocal Christian +Science.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of Gerry." Which is true in a sense, as she does +not think of the Gerry her daughter knows. And the partial untruth +does not cross her mind—a tacit recognition of the powers of +change. "I was wool-gathering."</p> + +<p>"No—what <i>was</i> she thinking of?" For some reason the third person +is thought more persuasive than the second.</p> + +<p>"Thinking of her kitten." And this is true enough, as Rosalind is +really always thinking of Sally, more or less.</p> + +<p>"We-ell, <i>I'm</i> all right. What's the matter with <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all that I know of, darling." But it does cross the +speaker's mind that the context of circumstances might make this an +opportunity for getting at some information she wants. For Sally has +remained perfectly inscrutable about Conrad Vereker, and Rosalind +has been asking herself whether it is possible that, after all, +there <i>is</i> nothing. She doesn't know how to set about + +<!-- Page 353 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +it, though. +Perhaps the best thing would be to take a leaf out of Sally's own +book, and go straight to the bull's-eye.</p> + +<p>"Do you really want to know what I was thinking of, Sallykin?" But +no sooner has she formulated the intention of asking a question, and +allowed the intention to creep into her voice than Sally knows all +about it.</p> + +<p>"As if I don't know already. You mean me and Prosy."</p> + +<p>"Of course. But how did you know?"</p> + +<p>"Mammy <i>dear</i>! As if I was born yesterday! If you want people not to +know things, you mustn't have delicate inflexions of voice. I knew +you were going to catechize about Prosy the minute you got to 'did I +really want to know.'"</p> + +<p>"But I'm not going to catechize, chick. Only when you ask me what +I'm thinking about, and really want to know, I tell you. I <i>was</i> +thinking about you and Conrad Vereker." For some mysterious reason +this mention of his name in full seems to mature the conversation, +and make clearer definition necessary.</p> + +<p>Our own private opinion is that any one who closely observes human +communion will see that two-thirds of it runs on lines like the +foregoing. Very rarely indeed does a human creature say what it +means. Exhaustive definition, lucid statements, concise +terminology—even plain English—are foreign to its nature. The +congenial soil in which the fruit of Intelligence ripens is +Suggestion, and the wireless telegraphs of the mind are the means by +which it rejoices to communicate. Don't try to say what you +mean—because <i>you</i> can't. You are not clever enough. Try to mean +what you want to say, and leave the dictionary to take care of +itself.</p> + +<p>This little bit of philosophizing of ours has just given Sally time, +pondering gravely with the eyebrows all at rest and lips at ease, to +deal with the developed position created by the mere substitution of +a name for a nickname.</p> + +<p>"Ought there to be ... anything to think about?" Thus Sally; and her +mother sees, or thinks she sees, a little new colour in the girl's +cheeks. Or is it only the sunset? Then Rosalind says to herself that +perhaps she has made a mistake, had better have left it alone. +Perhaps. But it's done now. She is not one that goes back on her +resolutions. It is best not to be too tugging and solemn over it. +She speaks with a laugh.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 354 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"It's not my little daughter I'm afraid of, Sallykin. She's got the +key of the position. It's that dear good boy."</p> + +<p>"He's not a boy. He's thirty-one next February. Only he's not got a +birthday, because it's not leap-year. Going by birthdays he's not +quite half-past seven."</p> + +<p>"Then it won't do to go by birthdays. Even at thirty-one, though, +some boys are not old enough to know better. He's very inexperienced +in some things."</p> + +<p>"A babe unborn—only he can write prescriptions. Only they don't do +you any good. ("Ungrateful child!"... "Well, they <i>don't</i>.") You +see, he hasn't any one to go to to ask about things except me. Of +course <i>I</i> can tell him, if you come to that!"</p> + +<p>"There's his mother."</p> + +<p>"His mother! That old dianthus! Oh, mammy darling, what different +sorts of mothers do crop up when you think of it!" And Sally is so +moved by this scientific marvel that she suddenly kisses her mother, +there out on the public parade with a gentleman in check trousers +and an eye-glass coming along!</p> + +<p>"Why do you call the old lady a dianthus, chick? Really, the way you +treat that poor old body!..."</p> + +<p>"Not when Prosy's there. I know my place.... We-ell, you know what a +dianthus's figure is like? When the tentacles are in, I mean."</p> + +<p>But Rosalind tacitly condemns the analogy. Is she not herself a +mother, and bound to take part with her kind, however obese? "What +were you and the doctor talking about in the boat all that long time +yesterday?" she asks, skipping an interval which might easily have +contained a review of Mrs. Vereker inside-out like a sea-anemone. +Sally is quite equal to it.</p> + +<p>"Resuscitation after drowning. Prosy says death is really due to +carbonic acid poisoning. Anybody would think it was choking, but +it's nothing of the sort. The arterial blood is insufficiently fed +with oxygen, and death ensues."</p> + +<p>"How long did you talk about that?"</p> + +<p>"Ever so long. Till I asked him what he should do if a visitor were +drowned and couldn't be brought to. Not at the hotel; down here. Me, +for instance."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He was jolly solemn over it, Prosy was. Said he should try his + +<!-- Page 355 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +best, and as soon as he was sure it was no go, put an end to his own +existence. I said that would be wrong, and besides, he couldn't do +it. He said, oh yes, he could—he could inject air into a vein, and +lots of things. He went on a physiological tack, so I quoted +Hamlet."</p> + +<p>"What did he make of Hamlet?"</p> + +<p>"Said the researches of modern science all tended to prove that +extinction awaited us at death, and he would take his chance. He was +quite serious over it."</p> + +<p>"And then you said?..."</p> + +<p>"I said, suppose it turned out that modern science was tommy-rot, +wouldn't he feel like a fool when all was said and done? He admitted +that he might, in that case. But he would take his chance, he said. +And then we had a long argument, Prosy and I."</p> + +<p>"Has he ever resuscitated a drowned person?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, two or three. But he says he should like a little more +practice, as it's a very interesting subject."</p> + +<p>"You really are the most ridiculous little kitten there ever was! +Talking like the President of the Royal College of Surgeons! Not a +smile."</p> + +<p>"We-ell, there's nothing in <i>that</i>." Slightly offended dignity on +Miss Sally's part. "I say, the 'bus is very late; it's striking +seven."</p> + +<p>But just as St. Sennan ceases, and leaves the air clear for +listening, Rosalind exclaims, "Isn't that it?" And this time it is +it, and by ten minutes past seven Fenwick is in the arms of his +family, who congratulate him on a beautiful new suit of navy-blue +serge, in which he looks very handsome.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Often now when she looks back to those days can Rosalind see before +her the grave young face in the sundown, and hear the tale of Dr. +Conrad's materialism. And then she sees once more over the smooth +purple sea of the day before the little boat sculled by Vereker, +with Sally in the stern steering. And the white sails of the Grace +Darling of St. Sennans, that had taken a large party out at sixpence +each person three hours ago, and couldn't get back by herself for +want of wind, and had to be towed by a row-boat, whose oars sounded +rhythmically across the + +<!-- Page 356 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +mile of intervening water. She was doing +nothing to help, was Grace, but her sails flopped a little now and +again, just enough to show how glad she would have been to do so +with a little encouragement. Rosalind can see it all again quite +plain, and the little white creamy cloud that had taken pity on the +doctor sculling in the boat, and made a cool island of shadow, +coloured imperial purple on the sea, for him and Sally to float in, +and talk of how some unknown person, fool enough to get drowned, +should one day be recalled from the gate of Death.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 357 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW SALLY DIVED OFF THE BOAT, AND SHOCKED THE BEACH. OF THE +SENSITIVE DELICACY OF THE OCTOPUS. AND OF DR. EVERETT GAYLER'S +OPINIONS</p> + +<p>Fenwick had been granted, or had appropriated, another week's +holiday, and the wine-trade was to lose some of his valuable +services during that time. Not all, because in these days you can do +so much by telegraph. Consequently the chimney-piece with the +rabbits made of shells on each side, and the model of the +Dreadnought—with real planks and a companion-ladder that went too +far down, and almost serviceable brass carronades ready for +action—and a sampler by Mercy Lobjoit (1763), showing David much +too small for the stitches he was composed of, and even Goliath not +big enough to have two lips—this chimney-piece soon become a +magazine of yellow telegrams, which blew away when the window and +door were open at the same time.</p> + +<p>It was on the second of Fenwick's days on this visit that an unusual +storm of telegrams, as he came in to breakfast after an early dip in +the sea, confirmed the statement in the paper of the evening before +that W. and S.W. breezes might be expected later. "Wind freshening," +was the phrase in which the forecast threw doubts on the permanency +of its recent references to a smooth Channel-passage. However, faith +had already been undermined by current testimony to light easterly +winds backing north, on the coast of Ireland. Sally was denouncing +meteorology as imposture when the returning bather produced the +effect recorded. It interrupted a question on his lips as he +entered, and postponed it until the telegram papers had all been +reinstated and the window closed, so that Mrs. Lobjoit might come in +with the hot rolls and eggs and not have anything blown away. Then +peace reigned and the question got asked.</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do to-day?" said Sally, repeating it. "I + +<!-- Page 358 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +know +what I'm going to do first. I'm going to swim round the buoy."</p> + +<p>"My dear, they'll never put the machines down to-day." This was her +mother.</p> + +<p>"They'll do it fast enough, if I tell 'em to. It's half the fun, +having it a little rough."</p> + +<p>"Well, kitten, I suppose you'll go your own way; only I shall be +very glad when you're back in your machine. Coffee, Gerry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, coffee—in the big cup with the chip, and lots of milk. You're +a dangerous young monkey, Sarah; and I shall get old Benjamin's +boat, and hang about. And then you'll be happy, Rosey, eh?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shan't! We shall have you getting capsized, too. (I put in +three lumps of sugar.... No, <i>not</i> little ones—<i>big</i> ones!) What a +thing it is to be connected with aquatic characters!"</p> + +<p>"Never you mind the mother, Jeremiah. You get the boat. I should +like it to dive off."</p> + +<p>"All right, I'll get Vereker, and we'll row out. The doctor's not +bad as an oarsman. Bradshaw doesn't make much of it. (Yes, thanks; +another egg. The brown one preferred; don't know why!) Yes, I'll get +Dr. Conrad, and you shall come and dive off."</p> + +<p>All which was duly done, and Sally got into great disgrace by +scrambling up into the boat with the help of a looped rope hung over +the side, and was thereafter known to more than one decorous family +group frequenting the beach as that bold Miss Nightingale. But what +did Sally care what those stuffy people thought about her, with such +a set-off against their bad opinion as the glorious plunge down into +the depths, and the rushing sea-murmur in her ears, the only sound +in the strange green silence; and then the sudden magic of the +change back to the dazzling sun on the moving foam, and some human +voice that was speaking when she dived only just ending off? Surely, +after so long a plunge down, down, that voice should have passed on +to some new topic.</p> + +<p>For that black and shining merpussy, during one deep dive into the +under-world of trackless waters, had had time to recollect an +appointment with a friend, and had settled in her mind that, as soon +as she was once more in upper air, she would mention + +<!-- Page 359 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +it to the crew +of the boat she had dived from. She was long enough under for that. +Then up she came into the rise and fall and ripple overhead like a +sudden Loreley, and as soon as she could see where the boat had got +to, and was free of a long stem of floating weed she had caught up +in the foam, she found her voice. And in it, as it rang out in the +morning air, was a world of youth and life and hope from which care +was an outcast, flung to the winds and the waves.</p> + +<p>"I say, Jeremiah, we've got to meet a friend of yours on the pier +this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Time for you to come out of that water, Sarah." This name had +become nearly invariable on Fenwick's part. "Who's your friend?"</p> + +<p>"A young lady for you! She's going to bring her dolly to be +electrified for a penny. She'll cry if we don't go; so will dolly."</p> + +<p>"Then we <i>must</i> go, clearly. The doctor must come to see fair, or +dolly may get electrocuted, like me." Fenwick very rarely spoke of +his accident now; most likely would not have done so this time but +for a motive akin to his wife's nettle-grasping. He knew Sally would +think of it, and would not have her suppose he shirked speaking of +it.</p> + +<p>But the laugh goes for a moment out of the face down there in the +water, and the pearls that glittered in the sun have vanished and +the eyes are grave beneath their brows. Only for a moment; then all +the Loreley is back in evidence again, and Sally is petitioning for +only one more plunge, and then she really will swim in. The crew +protests, but the Loreley has her way; her sort generally has.</p> + +<p>"I always wonder," says Dr. Conrad, as they row to shore with +studied slowness—one must, to keep down to the pace of the swiftest +swimmer—"I always wonder whether they found that half-crown." +Probably he, too, only says this to accentuate the +not-necessarily-to-be-avoided character of the subject.</p> + +<p>The reason Fenwick answered nothing, but remained thoughtfully +silent, was, as Dr. Vereker perceived after he had spoken, that the +half-crown was mere hearsay to him, and, as such, naturally enforced +speculation on the strange "B.C." period of which he knew nothing. +Time did but little to minimise the painful + +<!-- Page 360 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> +character of such +speculations, although it seemed to make them less and less +frequent. Vereker said no more, partly because he felt this, partly +because he was so engrossed with the Loreley. He dropped the +half-crown.</p> + +<p>"You needn't row away yet," said the voice from the water. "The +machines are miles off. Look here, I'm going to swim under the boat +and come up on the other side!"</p> + +<p>Said Fenwick: "You'll be drowned, Sarah, before you've done! Do +consider your mother a little!"</p> + +<p>Said the Loreley: "All right! good-bye!" and disappeared. She was so +long under that it was quite a relief when she reappeared, well off +the boat's counter; for, of course, there was some way on the boat, +and Sally made none. The crew's eyes had been watching the wrong +water over the beam.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I do that nicely?... 'Beautifully?' Yes, I should rather +think I did! Good-bye; I must go to my machine! They won't leave it +down any longer."</p> + +<p>Off went the swimmer in the highest spirits, and landed with some +difficulty, so much had the south-west wind freshened; and the +machine started up the beach at a brisk canter to rejoin its many +unused companions on their higher level.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Dr. Conrad, with the exhilaration of the Loreley in his heart, was +to meet with a damper administered to him by his affectionate +parent, who had improved immensely in the sea air, and was getting +quite an appetite.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing, my dear, that I detest more cordially than +interference," said she, after accepting, rather more easily than +usual, her son's apologies for coming in late to lunch, and also +being distinctly gracious to Mrs. Iggulden about the +beefsteak-pudding. "Your father disapproved of it, and the whole of +my family. The words 'never meddle' were on their lips from morning +till night. Is it wonderful that I abstain from speaking, as I so +often do? Whatever I see, I am silent." And accordingly was for a +few illustrative seconds.</p> + +<p>But her son, conceiving that the pause was one very common in cases +of incipient beefsteak-pudding, and really due to kidneys, made an +autopsy of the centre of Mrs. Iggulden's masterpiece; but when he +had differentiated its contents and insulated kidneys beyond + +<!-- Page 361 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +a +doubt, he stood exposed and reproved by the tone in which his mother +resumed:</p> + +<p>"Not for me; I have oceans. I shall never eat what I have, and it +<i>is</i> so wasteful!... No, my dear. You ask, 'What is it, then?' But I +was going to tell you when you interrupted me." Here a pause for the +Universe to settle down to attention. "There is always so much +disturbance; but my meaning is plain. When I was a girl young women +were different.... I dare say it is all right. I do not wish to lay +myself open to ridicule for my old-fashioned opinions.... What <i>is</i> +it? I came back early, certainly, because I found the sun so tiring; +but surely, my dear, you cannot have failed to see that our front +window commands a full view of the bathing-machines. But I am +silent.... Mrs. Iggulden does not understand making mustard. Hers +runs."</p> + +<p>Dr. Conrad was not interested in the mustard. He <i>was</i> about the +cryptic attack on Sally's swimming and diving, which he felt to have +been dexterously conveyed in his parent's speech with scarcely a +word really to the point. There was no lack of skill in the Goody's +method. He flushed slightly, and made no immediate reply—even to a +superhumanly meek, "I know I shall be told I am wrong"—until after +he had complied with a requisition for a very little more—so small +a quantity as to seem somehow to reduce the lady's previous total +morally, though it added to it physically—and then he spoke, taking +the indictment for granted:</p> + +<p>"I can't see what you find fault with. Not Miss Sally's +bathing-costume; nobody could!" Which was truth itself, for nothing +more elegant could have been found in the annals of bathing. "And if +she has a boat to dive off, somebody must row it. Besides, her +mother would object if...." But the doctor is impatient and +annoyed—a rare thing with him. He treats his beefsteak-pudding +coldly, causing his mother to say: "Then you can ring the bell."</p> + +<p>However, she did not intend her text to be spoiled by irruptions of +Mrs. Iggulden, so she waited until the frequent rice-pudding had +elapsed, and then resumed at an advantage:</p> + +<p>"You were very snappish and peevish with me just now, Conrad, +without waiting to hear what I had to say. But I overlook it. + +<!-- Page 362 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +I am +your mother. If you had waited, I should have told you that I have +no fault whatever to find with Miss Nightingale's bathing-dress. It +is, no doubt, strictly <i>en règle</i>. Nor can I say, in these days, +what I think of girls practising exercises that in <i>my</i> day were +thought unwomanly. All is changed now, and I am old-fashioned. But +this I do say, that had your father, or your great-uncle, Dr. +Everett Gayler, been told forty years ago that a time would come +when it would be thought no disgrace for an <i>English girl</i> to jump +off a boat with an <i>unmarried man</i> in it.... My dear, I am sure the +latter would have made one of those acrid and biting remarks for +which he was celebrated in his own circle, and which have even, I +believe, been repeated by Royalty. That is the only thing I have to +say. I say nothing of girls learning to swim and dive. I say nothing +of their bicycling. Possibly the young lady who passed the window +this morning with a gentleman <i>on the same bicycle</i> was properly +engaged to him; or his sister. Even about the practice of Sandow, or +Japanese wrestling, I have nothing to say. But if they are to dive +off boats in the open sea, in the face of all the beach, at least +let the boats be rowed by married men. That is all I ask. It is very +little."</p> + +<p>What fools mothers sometimes are about their sons! They contrive +that these sons shall pass through youth to early manhood without a +suspicion that even mothers have human weaknesses. Then, all in a +moment, just when love has ridden triumphant into the citadel of the +boys' souls, they will sacrifice all—all they have won in a +lifetime—to indulge some petty spleen against the new <i>régime</i> that +threatens their dethronement. And there is no surer way of +undermining a son's loyalty than to suggest a want of delicate +feeling in the new Queen—nothing that can make him question the +past so effectually as to force him to hold his nostrils in a smell +of propriety, puffed into what seems to him a gale from heaven.</p> + +<p>The contrast between the recent merpussy in the freshening seas, and +this, as it seemed to him, perfectly gratuitous intrusion of moral +carbolic acid, gave Dr. Conrad a sense of nausea, which his love for +his mother enjoined ignorance of. His mind cast about, not for ways +of excusing Sally—the idea!—but of whitewashing his mother, +without seeming to suggest that her own mind had anything Fescennine +about it. This is always the great + +<!-- Page 363 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> +difficulty skywardness has in +dealing with the moral scavenger. Are not the motives of purity +unimpeachable?</p> + +<p>Goody Vereker, however, did not suspect herself of being a fool. On +the contrary, she felt highly satisfied with her speech, and may be +said to have hugged its peroration. Her son flushed slightly and bit +his lip, giving the old lady time for a corollary in a subdued and +chastened voice.</p> + +<p>"Had I been asked—had you consulted me, my dear—I should certainly +have advised that Mr. Fenwick should have been accompanied by +another married man, certainly not by a young, single gentleman. The +man himself—I am referring to the owner of the boat—would have +done quite well, whether married or single. Boatmen are seldom +unmarried, though frequently tattooed with ladies' names when they +have been in the navy. You see something to laugh at, Conrad? In +your mother! But I am used to it." The doctor's smile was in memory +of two sun-browned arms that had pushed the boat off two hours ago. +One had Elinor and Kate on it, the other Bessie and a Union Jack.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, mother dear," said the doctor at last, "that if +Mrs. Fenwick, who knew all about it, had seen anything outrageous +she would have spoken? She really only seemed anxious none of us +should get drowned."</p> + +<p>"Very likely, my dear; she would be. You will, I am sure, do me this +justice, that I have throughout said, from the very beginning, that +Mrs. Fenwick is a most excellent person, though I have sometimes +found her tiring."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry she has tired you. You must always tell her, you know, +when you're tired, and then she'll come and fetch me." The doctor +resisted a temptation to ask, "From the very beginning of <i>what</i>?" +For the suggestion that materials for laceration were simmering was +without foundation; was, in fact, only an example of the speaker's +method. She followed it with another.</p> + +<p>"It is so often the case with women who have passed a good deal of +time in India."</p> + +<p>"Are women tiring when they have passed a good deal of time in +India?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Conrad, <i>is it likely</i> I should talk such nonsense? You +know perfectly well what I mean." But the doctor merely awaited + +<!-- Page 364 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +natural development, which came. "Mind, I do not say I <i>believe</i> +Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story. But it would quite account for +it—fully!"</p> + +<p>What would account for what? Heaven only knew! However, the speaker +was getting the bit in her teeth, and earth would know very soon. +Dr. Conrad was conscious at this moment of the sensation which had +once made Sally speak of his mamma as an Octopus. She threw out a +tentacle.</p> + +<p>"And, of course, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story may be nothing but +idle talk. I am the last person to give credit to mere irresponsible +gossip. Let us hope it is ill founded."</p> + +<p>Whereupon her son, who knew another tentacle would come and entangle +him if he slipped clear from this one, surrendered at discretion. +What <i>was</i> Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story? A most uncandid way of +putting it, for the fact was he had heard it all from Sally in the +strictest confidence. So the insincerity was compulsory, in a sense.</p> + +<p>The Octopus, who was by this time anchored in her knitting-chair and +awaiting her mixture—two tablespoonfuls after every meal—closed +her eyes to pursue the subject, but warmed to the chace visibly.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to tell me, my dear Conrad, that you do <i>not</i> know +that it has been said—I vouch for nothing, remember—that Miss +Nightingale's mother was divorced from her father twenty years ago +in India?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's any concern of yours or mine." But having said +this, he would have liked to recall it and substitute something +else. It was brusque, and he was not sure that it was a fair way of +stating the case, especially as this matter had been freely +discussed between them in the days of their first acquaintance with +Sally and her mother. Dr. Conrad felt mean for renegading from his +apparent admission at that time that the divorce was an affair they +might properly speculate about. Mrs. Vereker knew well that her son +would be hard on himself for the slightest unfairness, and forthwith +climbed up to a pinnacle of flawless rectitude, for his confusion.</p> + +<p>"My dear, it is absolutely <i>none</i>. Am I saying that it is? People's +past lives are no affair of ours. Am I saying that they are?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 365 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, no!"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, my dear, listen to what I do say, and do not +misrepresent me. What I say is this—(Are you sure Perkins has mixed +this medicine the same as the last? The taste's different)—Now +listen! What I say is, and I can repeat it any number of times, that +it is useless to expect sensitiveness on such points under such +circumstances. I am certain that your father, or your great-uncle, +Dr. Everett Gayler, would not have hesitated to endorse my opinion +that on the broad question of whether a girl should or should not +dive off a boat rowed by an unmarried man, no one is less likely to +form a correct judgment than a lady who was divorced from her +husband twenty years ago in India. But I say nothing against Mrs. +Fenwick. She is, so far as she is known to me, an excellent person, +and a good wife and mother. Now, my dear Conrad, I must rest, for I +fear I have talked too much."</p> + +<p>Poor Prosy! All the edge of his joy of the morning was taken off. +But never mind! It would very soon be Sally herself again, and his +thirsty soul would be drinking deep draughts of her at the pier-end, +where the appointment was to be kept with the young lady and her +dolly.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 366 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF AN INTERMITTENT CURRENT AT THE PIER-END, AND OF DOLLY'S +FORTITUDE. HOW FENWICK PUT HIS HEAD IN THE JAWS OF THE FUTURE +UNAWARES, AND PROSY DIDN'T COME. HOW SALLY AND HER STEP SAW PUNCH, +AND OF A THIN END OF A FATAL WEDGE. BUT ROSALIND SAW NO COMING CLOUD</p> + +<p>An iron pier, with a sense of lattice structure about it, is not to +our old-fashioned minds nearly so fascinating as the wooden fabric +of our early memories at more than one seaside resort of our +boyhood. St. Sennan was of another school, or had become a convert +or pervert, if a Saint may be judged by his pier. For this was iron +or steel all through, barring the timber flooring whose planks were +a quarter of an inch apart, so that you could kneel down to see the +water through if you were too short to see over the advertisements a +sordid spirit of commercialism had blocked the side-railings with. +And if you were three or four, and there was nobody to hold you up +(because they were carrying baby), you did so kneel, and as like as +not got tar on your knees, and it wouldn't come off. Anyhow, Miss +Gwendolen Arkwright did, on her way to the appointment, and was +reproved therefore. On which she also reproved dolly in identical +terms, dolly having had a look through as well, though, indeed, she +can hardly be said to have knelt.</p> + +<p>But to console us for the loss of the solid groins and bolted +timbers of our youth, and to make it palatable to us that the great +seas should follow each other for ever almost unopposed—instead of +being broken into floods of drenching foam visitors get wet-through +in—this unsubstantial-looking piece of cage-work expanded as soon +as it was well out in the open channel, and almost provided John +Bull with another "other island." And whereon the pier-company's +sordid commercialism had suggested the construction of a Chinese +joss-house, or Indian bungalow—our description is a random +one—that lent itself, or was lent by the company, at really an +almost nominal figure, for entertainments + +<!-- Page 367 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +in the afternoon all +through the season. And round this structure were things desirable +by all mankind, and supposed to be desired by possessors of one +penny willing to part with it. For a penny-in-the-slot you could +learn your fate from a Sibyl, and repent of having spent your penny +on it. For another you could scent your pocket-handkerchief, and be +sorry you hadn't kept your penny for chocolate. For another you +could have the chocolate, and wish you had waited and taken a +cigarette. And for another you could take the cigarette, and realise +how ill-assorted are the flavours of chocolate and the best +Virginian tobacco.</p> + +<p>But the pennyworth that seemed the worthiest of its penny was, no +doubt, the old-fashioned galvanic battery, which shocked you for a +sixth part of the smallest sum required by literature on first +publication. It had brass handles you took hold of, and brass basins +with unholy water in them that made you curl up, and anybody else +would do so too. And there was a bunch of wires to push in, and +agonize the victim who, from motives not easily understood, laid +himself open to torture. And it certainly said "whizzy-wizzy-wizz." +But Gwenny's description had been wrong in one point. For it was +yourself, the investigator, not the machine, that said "e-e-e-e!"</p> + +<p>Now this machine was in charge of a young woman, who was also the +custodian of an invisible lady, who was to be seen for a penny each +person, children half-price. This appeared to be a contradiction in +terms, but public apathy accepted it without cavil. The taking of +this phenomenon's gate-money seemed to be almost a sinecure. Not so +the galvanic battery, which never disappointed any one. It might +disgust, or repel, those who had had no occasion to study this +branch of science, but it always acted up to its professions. Those +investigators who declined to have any more never could go away and +complain that they had not had enough. And no one had ever been +discontented with its baneful results when all the bundle of wires +was put in; indeed, the young person in charge said she had never +known any one to drain this cup of scientific experience to the +dregs. "Halfway in's enough for most," was her report of human +endurance. It was a spirited little machine, though old-fashioned.</p> + +<p>Miss Arkwright and her dolly, accompanied, as we have hinted, by + +<!-- Page 368 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> +her Nurse Jane and baby, whose violent temper had condemned his +perambulator, and compelled his attendant to carry him—so she +said—were beforehand at the place and hour named. For security +against possible disappointment a fiction was resorted to that dolly +wouldn't cry if her mamma talked seriously to her, and it was +pointed out that Mr. Fenwick was coming, and Mrs. Fenwick was +coming, and Miss Nightingale was coming, and Dr. Vereker was +coming—advantage being taken of an infant's love of vain +repetitions. But all these four events turned on dolly being good +and not crying, and the reflex action of this stipulation produced +goodness in dolly's mamma, with the effect that she didn't roar, as, +it seemed, she might otherwise have done.</p> + +<p>Miss Gwendolen was, however, <i>that</i> impatient that no dramatic +subterfuge, however skilfully engineered, could be relied upon to +last. Fortunately, a young lady she recognised, and a gentleman whom +she did not personally know, but had seen on the beach, became +interested in baby, who took no notice of them, and hiccupped. But, +then, his eyes were too beady to have any human expression; perhaps +it was more this than a contempt for vapid compliment that made him +seem unsympathetic. The young lady, however, congratulated him on +his <i>personnel</i> and on the variety of his attainments; and this +interested Miss Gwendolen, who continued not to roar, and presently +volunteered a statement on her own account.</p> + +<p>"My mummar zis a-comin', and Miss Ninedale zis a-comin', and Miss +Ninedale's mummar zis a-comin', and...." But Nurse Jane interposed, +on the ground that the lady knew already who was coming. She had no +reason for supposing this; but a general atmosphere of omniscience +among grown-up classes is morally desirable. It was, however, +limited to Clause 1. Miss Gwenny went on to the consideration of +Clause 2 without taking a division.</p> + +<p>"To see dolly danvalised for a penny. My mummar says—see—sall—div +me a penny...."</p> + +<p>"To galvanise dolly? How nice that will be!—Isn't she a dear little +thing, Paggy?—And we're just in time to see it. Now, that <i>is</i> +nice!" Observe Lætitia's family name for her husband, born of +Cattley's.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 369 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Isn't that them coming, Tish?" Yes, it is. They are conscientiously +negotiating the turnstile at the pier-entrance, where one gets a +ticket that lets you on all day, and you lose it. Conscientiously, +because the pier-company often left its side-gate open, and relied +on public spirit to acquiesce in its turnstile without dispute.</p> + +<p>But Bradshaw has the misfortune to fall in Nurse's good opinion. For +he asks who the important-looking party is, and is called to order.</p> + +<p>"Sh-sh-iii-sh, love! Do take care! Gwenny's mamma—Mrs. Chesterfield +Arkwright. They've a house at Boxley Heath—friends of the Hugh +Jameses—those very high-flying people." This is not <i>à pleine +voix</i>, and a well-disciplined Nurse knows better than to hear it.</p> + +<p>Miss Gwenny and dolly consent to accompany the lady and gentleman to +meet the party, the former undertaking to point out her mamma. "I +sail sow you wiss," she says; and then gives descriptive particulars +of the conduct of the galvanic battery, and forecasts its effect on +dolly.</p> + +<p>"There's that dear little pet," says Sally; and resumes the +operation of spoiling the little pet on the spot. She isn't sorry to +tally the pet (whose phonetics we employ) "dest wunced round the p +on her soulders, only zis wunced." She is a little silent, is Sally, +and preoccupied—perhaps won't object to a romp to divert her +thoughts. Because she is afraid poor Prosy is in the tentacles of +the Octopus. She evidently is not in love with him; if she were she +would be feeling piqued at his not being in time to the appointment, +not fidgeting about his losing the fun. She made some parade, at any +rate, of her misgivings that poor Dr. Conrad had got hooked by his +Goody, and would be late. If she <i>was</i> piqued she concealed it. +Whichever it was, she found it congenial to "tally" Miss Arkwright +on her "soulders" twiced round the pier-end before the party arrived +within range of the battery. They meanwhile—that is to say, +Rosalind and her husband, Lætitia and hers, with Sally and Gwenny's +mamma—lingered slowly along the pier listening to the experiences +of the latter, of men, women, and things among the right sort of +people.</p> + +<p>"You really never know, and one cannot be too careful. So much + +<!-- Page 370 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> +turns on the sort of people you let your daughter get mixed up with. +I'm sure Mrs. Fenwick will agree with me that Mrs. Hugh James was +right. You see, I've known her from a child, and a more unworldly +creature never breathed. But she asked me, and I could only say what +I did: 'Take the child at once to Paris and Ems and +Wiesbaden—anywhere for a change. Even a tradesman is better than a +professional man. In that case there may be money. But nowadays none +of the professions pay. And their connexions are most undesirable.'"</p> + +<p>"Now <i>I</i> should call that a brig." Thus Bradshaw, pursuing the great +controversy. But Fenwick knows better, or thinks he does. She's a +brigantine, and there are sprits'ls on both masts, and only one +square sail on the foremast. He may be right, for anything we know. +Anyhow, her sheets are white in the sun, as she tacks down channel +against the west or south-west wind, which has freshened. And she is +a glorious sight as she comes in quite close to the pier-head, and +goes into stays—(is that right?)—and her great sails flap and +swing, and a person to whom caution is unknown, and who cares for +nothing in heaven or earth, sits unconcerned on a string underneath +her bowsprit, and gets wet through every time she plunges, doing +something nautical in connexion with her foresail overhead. And then +she leans over in the breeze, and the white sheets catch it full—so +near you can hear the boom click as it swings, and the rattle of the +cordage as it runs through the blocks—and then she gets her way on +her, and shoots off through a diamond-drench of broken seas, and we +who can borrow the coastguard's telescope can know that she is the +Mary of Penzance, but are none the wiser. And a man stripped to the +waist, who is washing radishes on the poop, continues washing +radishes unmoved, and ignores all things else.</p> + +<p>"As far as the young man himself goes, I believe there is nothing to +be said. But the mother is quite unpresentable, perfectly +impossible. And the eldest sister is married to a Dissenting +clergyman—a very worthy man, no doubt, but not exactly. And the +girls are loud, etc., etc., etc." Miss Arkwright's mamma ripples on, +even as persons of condition ripple; and Tishy, whose views in this +direction have undergone expansion, manages to forget how she has +done the same herself—not long ago, neither!—and decides that the +woman is detestable.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 371 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Not so her daughter, who, with Sally as guardian and dolly as ward, +is awaiting the arrival of the party at the galvanic battery. She is +yearning for the great event; not for a promised land of jerks and +spasms for herself, but for her putative offspring. She encourages +the latter, telling her not to be pitened and kye. Dolly doesn't +seem apprehensive—shows great self-command, in fact.</p> + +<p>But this detestable mother of a lovable daughter and an untempting +granddaughter is destined to become still more detestable in the +eyes of the Julius Bradshaws before she exhausts her topic. For as +the party draws near to the scene of scientific recreation—and +progress is slow, as she is deliberate as well as detestable; and, +of course, is the pace-maker—she climbs up to a higher platform, as +it were, for the contemplation of a lower deep. She assumes, for +purposes of temporary handling of the subject, the air of one too +far removed to know more about its details than the seismograph at +Greenwich knows about the earthquake in the Andes. A dim +contemplation of a thing afar—to be forgotten on the spot, after +record made.</p> + +<p>"Luckily, it's not so bad in this case as—(Gwenny, you're tiring +Miss Nightingale. Come down!)—not so bad in this case as—(no, my +dear! you <i>must</i> wait for dolly to be galvanised. Come down at once, +and don't make conditions.)"</p> + +<p>"But I love having her dearly—do let me keep her!" from Sally.</p> + +<p>And from the human creature on her shoulders, "Miss Ninedale says +'<i>No!</i>'"</p> + +<p>"Not so bad, you were saying, as...?" Thus Rosalind, to divert the +conversation from the child.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! What <i>was</i> I saying? That child! What plagues the little +things are!" The lady closes her eyes for two seconds behind a +horizontal gloved hand, a seclusion to recollect in; then continues: +"Oh yes, when it's a shopman. I dare say you've heard of that very +painful case—daughter of a well-known Greek Pr...."</p> + +<p>But the speaker has tact enough to see her mistake from the +simultaneous loud speech it provokes. Every one seems to have +something vociferous to say, and all speak at once. Sally's +contribution + +<!-- Page 372 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> +is a suggestion that before dolly is put to the +torture we shall go into the downstairs place and see the gentleman +who's fishing catch a big grey mullet. It is adopted. Rosalind only +remains upstairs, and takes the opportunity to communicate the +Julius Bradshaw epic to Gwenny's mamma, who will now be more careful +than ever about the sort of people you pick up at the seaside and +drop. She puts these words by in her mind, for Gwenny's papa, later +on.</p> + +<p>The gentleman who is to be seen catching the big grey mullet hadn't +caught it, so far—not when the party arrived on the strange +middle-deck of the pier the water reaches at high tide, and +persuades occasional molluscs to grow on the floor of, with promises +of a bath next month. The green reflected light from the endless +rise and fall of the waves Gwenny could see (without getting down) +through the floor-gaps, seemed to be urging the fisher-gentleman to +give it up, and pointing out that the grey mullet was down here, and +didn't mean to be caught. But he paid no attention, and only went on +doing all the things that fishers do. He ascribed the fishes' +reluctance to bite to the sort of sky, and not to common-sense on +their part. He tried the other side instead. He lost his worm, and +blamed him for going off the hook—which he would have done himself, +and he knew it! He believed, honestly, that a fish of fabulous +dimensions had thought seriously of biting, and would have bitten, +only you got in the light, or made a noise.</p> + +<p>But there was no noise to speak of, really, except the clunk-clunk +of one or two moored rowboats down below, and the sh-r-r-r-r-p (if +that spells it) of their corrugated plank-sides, as they dipped and +dripped alternately. They were close to the bottom flight of stairs, +whose lowest step was left forlorn in the air, and had to be jumped +off when a real spring-tide came that knew its business.</p> + +<p>Gwenny's remark, "Ze man is fissin'," seemed to point to an +incubation of an idea, familiar to maturer life, that fishing is +more truly a state than an action. But the addendum—that he didn't +cass any fiss—betrayed her inexperience. Maturity does not call +attention to ill-success; or, if it does, it lays it at the door of +the fish.</p> + +<p>"What a jolly header one could have from here! No railings or + +<!-- Page 373 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +anything. No—ducky! I won't put you down to look over the edge. +That's not a thing for little girls to do."</p> + +<p>"You'd never get up again, Sarah. You'd have to swim ashore."</p> + +<p>"One could swim round the steps, Jeremiah—at least, according to +the tide. It's slack water now."</p> + +<p>"I wish, Mr. Fenwick—(so does Julius)—that you would make that +girl reasonable. She'll drown herself before she's done."</p> + +<p>"I know she will, Mrs. Paganini. Sure and certain! Nobody can stop +her. But Vereker's going to bring her to."</p> + +<p>"Where <i>is</i> the doctor, Tish? Didn't he say he was coming?" This was +Bradshaw. He usually says things to his wife, and leaves publication +to her.</p> + +<p>"Of course he said he was coming. I wonder if anything's the +matter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! It's his ma! The Goody's put an embargo on him, and kept +him at home. Poor Prosy!" Sally is vexed, too. But observe!—she +knows perfectly well that nothing but the Goody would have kept +Prosy from his appointment.</p> + +<p>No one in particular, but every one more or less, supposes that now +we must go back for dolly to be galvanised, Tishy rather +reluctantly, for she does not share her husband's indifference about +what the detestable one above says on the subject of shopmen; Miss +Arkwright greedily, being reminded of a higher object in life than +mere grey mullet catching. She, however, ascribes her avidity to +dolly, calling on public credulity to believe that the latter has +spoken to that effect.</p> + +<p>The arrangement of dolly in connexion with the two brass handles +offers difficulties, but a felicitous solution is discovered, for +not only will dolly remain in contact with both if her arms are +thrust inside them, but insomuch as her sleeves are stiff and +expansive, and require a perceptible pull to withdraw them, will +remain suspended in mid-air without further support, to enjoy the +rapture or endure the torture of the current, as may prove to be the +case. From this arises an advantage—namely, that her mamma will be +able to give her attention to the regulator, and shift the wire +bundle in and out, with a due regard to dolly's powers of endurance.</p> + +<p>What little things the lives of the folk in this story have turned +on! + +<!-- Page 374 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +Now, suppose Gwenny had never been allowed to take charge of +that regulator! However, this is anticipation.</p> + +<p>When dolly had endured unmoved the worst that science could inflict, +nothing would satisfy Miss Gwenny but that every one else should +take hold in a circle, as on a previous occasion, and that she +should retain control of the regulator. The experiment was tried as +proposed, all present joining in it except Mrs. Arkwright, who +excused herself owing to the trouble of taking her gloves off. +Including nurse, there were six persons. However, as nurse couldn't +abide it, almost before it had begun to say whizzy-wizzy-wizz, this +number was reduced to five.</p> + +<p>"Keep your eye on the kid, my dear," said Fenwick, addressing the +presiding young lady in his easy-going way; "don't let her put it on +all at once. Are you ready, Sarah? You ready, Mrs. Paganini? All +right—fire away!"</p> + +<p>The young lady in charge kept a careful hand near Miss Gwenny's, who +was instructed or guided to increase the current gradually. Her +attitude was docile and misleading.</p> + +<p>"Go on—a little more—yes, a little more.... No, that's enough!... +Oh, what nonsense! that's nothing!... Oh, Sally, do let <i>go</i>!... Oh, +Tishy, what a goose you are! That's nothing.... E-ow! It's horrible. +<i>I</i> won't have any more of it." The chorus of exclamations, which +you may allot at choice, ended in laughter as the galvanised circle +broke up.</p> + +<p>"Well, you are a lot of weak-kneed ... conductivities," said +Fenwick, feeling for the word. "That was nothing, as Sarah says."</p> + +<p>"Look here," suggested Sally. "Me get between you two men, and +Gwenny stick it in full up." This was done, and Sally heroically +endured the "full up" current, which, as you doubtless are aware, +increases in viciousness as it has fewer and fewer victims. But she +wasn't sorry when it was over, for all that.</p> + +<p>"You and I could take it full up," said Fenwick to Bradshaw, who +assented. But Paganini evidently didn't like it when it came to +three-quarters. Also, his wife said to him, "You'll spoil your +fingering, Julius."</p> + +<p>Fenwick seemed to think them all over-sensitive. "I could stand that +by myself," said he, and took both handles.</p> + +<p>But just at this moment a strange event happened. Somebody + +<!-- Page 375 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> +actually +applied to see the invisible lady. The eyes of the damsel in charge +were for one moment withdrawn from Miss Gwenny, who promptly seized +the opportunity to thrust in the regulator "full up."</p> + +<p>Fenwick wasn't going to cry for mercy—not he! But his lips clenched +and his eyes glared, and his hands shook. "How can you be such a +<i>goose</i>, Jeremiah?" said Sally, who was standing close by the +battery, opposite to Gwenny. She thrust back the regulator, and put +an end to Fenwick's excruciations.</p> + +<p>He said, "What did you do that for, Sarah? I could have stood it for +six months."</p> + +<p>And Sally replied: "For shame, you wicked story! And after you'd +been electrocuted once, too!"</p> + +<p>Fenwick burst into a great laugh, and exclaimed, "What on earth are +we all torturing ourselves for? Do let's go and get some tea." And +then carried Gwenny on his shoulders to the pier-entrance, where he +delivered her to her proprietors, and then they all sauntered +teawards, laughing and chatting.</p> + +<p>Rosalind thought she had never seen Gerry in such health and +spirits. On their way up to the house they passed Punch, leaning +over the footlights to rejoice in his iniquity. Few persons of +healthy sympathies can pass Punch, and these only under the +strongest temptation, such as tea. Rosalind and Lætitia and her +husband belonged to the latter class, but Fenwick and Sally elected +to see the immortal drama to a close. It lasted nearly through the +remainder of Fenwick's cigar, and then they came away, reluctant, +and wanting more of the same sort.</p> + +<p>It was then that Sally's stepfather said a rather singular thing to +her—a thing she remembered afterwards, though she noticed it but +slightly at the time. She had said to him:</p> + +<p>"Codling and Short will be quite rich men! What a lot of money +you've given them, Jeremiah!"</p> + +<p>And he had replied: "Don't they deserve it?"</p> + +<p>They had then walked on together up the road, he taking her arm in +his hand, as is the way nowadays, but saying nothing. Presently he +said, as he threw away the very last end of the cigar:</p> + +<p>"It was the first lesson of my early boyhood in retributive +injustice. It's a poor heart that never rejoices at Punch."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 376 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>It was the first time Sally had ever heard him speak of his boyhood +except as a thing he had forgotten.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Much, so much, of this chapter is made up of matter so trifling. Was +it worth recording? The chronicler might plead again as excuse his +temptation to linger over the pleasant hours it tells of, the utter +freedom of its actors from care, and his reluctance to record their +sequel. But a better apology for his prolixity and detail would be +found in the wonder felt by those actors when in after-life they +looked back and recalled them one by one; and the way each memory +linked itself, in a way unsuspected at the time, with an absolutely +unanticipated future. For even Rosalind, with all her knowledge of +the past, had no guess, for all her many misgivings and +apprehensions, of the way that things would go. Never had she been +freer from a sense of the shadow of a coming cloud than when she +looked out from the window while the tea she had just made was +mellowing, and saw her husband and daughter coming through the +little garden gate, linked together and in the best of spirits.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 377 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF THE REV. SAMUEL HERRICK AND A SUNSET. THE WEDGE'S PROGRESS. THE +BARON AGAIN, AND THE FLY-WHEEL. HOW FENWICK KNEW HIS NAME RIGHT, AND +ROSALIND DIDN'T. HOW SALLY AND HER MEDICAL ADVISER WERE NOT QUITE +WET THROUGH. HOW HE HAD MADE HER THE CONFIDANTE OF A LOVE-AFFAIR. OF +A GOOD OPENING IN SPECIALISM. MORE PROGRESS OF THE WEDGE. HOW GERRY +NEARLY MADE DINNER LATE</p> + +<p>It was quite true, as Sally had surmised, that poor Prosy had been +entangled in the meshes of his Octopus. But Sally had also recorded +her conviction that he would turn up at tea. He did so, with +apologies. You see, he hadn't liked to come away while his mother +was asleep, in case she should ask for him when she woke up, and she +slept rather longer than usual.</p> + +<p>"She may have been trying to do too much lately," said he, with a +beautiful faith in some mysterious activities practised by the Goody +unseen. Sally cultivated this faith also, to the best of her +ability, but she can hardly be said to have embraced it. The way in +which she and her mother lent themselves to it was, nevertheless, +edifying.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't let her overdo it, doctor," said Rosalind, seriously +believing herself truthful. And Sally, encouraged by her evident +earnestness, added, "And make her take plenty of nourishment. That's +half the battle."</p> + +<p>Whereupon Lætitia, swept, as it were, into the vortex of a creed, +found it in her to say, "As long as she doesn't get low." It was not +vigorous, and lacked completion, but it reassured and enforced. By +the time the little performance was done every one in the room +believed that Mrs. Vereker did down the stairs, or scoured out +saucepans, or at least dusted. Even her son believed, so forcibly +was the unanimity. Perhaps there was a taint of the incredulous in +the minds of Fenwick and Bradshaw. But each thought the other was +heart-whole, and neither suspected himself of insincerity.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 378 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Sally was curious to know exactly what lines the Octopus had +operated on. That would do later, though. She would get Prosy by +himself, and make him tell her all about it. In the course of time +tea died a natural death. Fenwick indulged in a yawn and a great +shake, and remembered that he had no end of letters to answer. Mr. +and Mrs. Julius Bradshaw suddenly thought, for no reasonable reason, +that they ought to be getting back. But they didn't really go home. +They went for a walk landward; as it was so windy, instead—remember +that they were only in the third week of their honeymoon! Sally, +with Talleyrand-like diplomacy, achieved that she and Dr. Conrad +should go for another walk in another direction. The sea was getting +up and the glass was going down, and it would be fun to go and see +the waves break over the jetty. So said Sally, and Dr. Conrad +thought so too, unequivocally. They walked away in the big sea-wind, +fraught with a great inheritance from the Atlantic of cool warmth +and dry moisture. And if you don't know what that means, you know +mighty little of the ocean in question.</p> + +<p>Rosalind watched them through the window, closed perforce, and saw +them disappear round the flagstaff with the south cone hoisted, +holding their heads on to all appearance. She said to herself: +"Foolish fellow, why can't he speak?" And her husband answered +either her thought or her words—though he could hardly have heard +them as he sat driving his pen furiously through letters—with: +"He'll have to confess up, Rosey, you'll see, before he goes."</p> + +<p>She made no reply; but, feeling a bit tired, lay down to rest on the +sofa. And so powerful was the sea air, and the effect of a fair +allowance of exercise, that she fell into a doze in spite of the +intensely wakeful properties of Mrs. Lobjoit's horsehair sofa, which +only a corrugated person could stop on without a maintained effort, +so that sound sleep was impossible. She never became quite +unconscious of the scratching pen and the moaning wind; so, as she +did not sleep, yet did not want to wake, she remained hovering on +the borderland of dreams. One minute she thought she was thinking, +sanely, about Sally and her silent lover—always uppermost in her +thoughts—the next, she was alive to the absurdity of some +dream-thing one of them had suddenly + +<!-- Page 379 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> +changed to, unnoticed. Once, +half awake, she was beginning to consider, seriously, whether she +could not legitimately approach the Octopus on the subject, but only +to find, the moment after, that the Octopus (while remaining the +same) had become the chubby little English clergyman that had +married her to Gerry at Umballa, twenty years ago. Then she thought +she would wake, and took steps towards doing it; but, as ill-luck +would have it, she began to speak before she had achieved her +purpose. And the result was: "Do you remember the Reverend Samuel +Herrick, Gerry, at Umb——Oh dear! I'm not awake.... I was talking +nonsense." Gerry laughed.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, love!" said he. "Do your fine intelligence justice! What +was it you said? Reverend Samuel who?"</p> + +<p>"I forget, darling. I was dreaming." Then, with a nettle-grasping +instinct, as one determined to flinch from nothing, "Reverend Samuel +Herrick. What did you think I said?"</p> + +<p>"Reverend Samuel Herrick or Meyrick.... 'Not negotiable.' I don't +mean the Reverend Sam, whoever he is, but the payee whose account +I'm enriching." He folded the cheque he had been writing into its +letter and enveloped it. But he paused on the brink of its gummed +edge, looking over it at Rosalind, who was still engaged getting +quite awake. "I know the name well enough. He's some chap! I expect +you saw him in the 'Chronicle.'"</p> + +<p>"Very likely, darling! He must be some chap, when you come to think +of it." She says this slightly, as a mere rounding-off speech. Then +goes behind her husband's chair and kisses him over his shoulder as +he directs the envelope.</p> + +<p>"Marmaduke, Copestake, Dickinson, and Humphreys," says he, as he +writes the names. "Now I call that a firm-and-a-half. Old Broad +Street, E.C. <i>That's</i> all!—as far as <i>he</i> goes. Now, how about +Puckeridge, Limited?"</p> + +<p>"Don't write any more, Gerry dear; you'll spoil your eyes. Come and +look at the sunset. Come along!" For a blood-red forecast of storm +in the west, surer than the surest human barometer, is blazing +through the window that cannot be opened for the blow, and turning +the shell-work rabbit and the story of Goliath into gold and jewels. +The sun is glancing through a rift in the cloud-bank, to say +good-night to the winds and seas, and wish + +<!-- Page 380 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> +them joy of the high old +time they mean to have in his absence, in the dark.</p> + +<p>The lurid level rays that make an indescribable glory of Rosalind's +halo-growth of hair as Gerry sees it against the window, have no +ill-boding in them for either—no more, that is, than always has +belonged to a rough night closing over the sea, and will do so +always until the sea is ice again on a planet sick to death. As he +draws her arm round his neck and she his round her waist, and they +glance at each other in the flaming glow, there is no thought in +either of any ill impending for themselves.</p> + +<p>"I wish Sarah were here to see you now, Rosey."</p> + +<p>"So should I, love! Only she would see you too. And then she'd make +you vainer than you are already. All men are patches of Vanity. But +I forgive you." She kisses him slightly in confirmation. They +certainly were a wonderful sight, the two of them, a minute ago, +when the light was at its best. Yes!—they wish Sally had been +there, each on the other's account. It was difficult to say which of +the two had thought of Sally first. Both had this habit of +registering the <i>rapport</i> of everything to Sally as a first duty.</p> + +<p>But a sunset glow, like this one, lasts, maybe, little longer than a +highest song-note may be sustained. It was to die. But Rosalind and +Gerry watched it out. His cheek was resting in the thick mass of +soft gold, just moving slightly to be well aware of it. The sun-ray +touched it, last of anything in the room, and died....</p> + +<p>"What's that, dear love? <i>Why?</i>..." It was Rosalind that spoke.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dearest! No, nothing!... Indeed, nothing at all!"</p> + +<p>"Gerry, what <i>was</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"What was what, dear?"</p> + +<p>"What made you leave off so suddenly?"</p> + +<p>For the slightly intermittent movement of his cheek on her +hair—what hairy thing is there that does not love to be +stroked?—had stopped; and his hand that held hers had slipped from +it, and rested for a moment on his own forehead.</p> + +<p>"It's gone now. It was a sort of recurrence. I haven't been having +them lately...."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 381 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Come and sit down, love. There, now, don't fidget! What was it +about?" Does he look pale?—thinks Rosalind—or is it only the +vanished glow?</p> + +<p>He is uncommunicative. Suppose they go out for a turn before dinner, +he suggests. They can walk down to the jetty, to meet Sarah and her +medical adviser. Soon said, soon settled. Ten minutes more, and they +are on their way to the fisher dwellings: experiencing +three-quarters of a gale, it appears, on the testimony of an Ancient +Mariner in a blue and white-striped woollen shirt, who knows about +things.</p> + +<p>"That was <i>very</i> queer, that recurrence!" Thus Gerry, after leaving +the Ancient Mariner. "It was just as the little edge of the sun went +behind the bank. And what do you think my mind hooked it on to, of +all things in the world?" Rosalind couldn't guess, of course. "Why, +a big wheel I was trying to stop, that went slowly—slowly—like the +sun vanishing. And then just as the sun went it stopped."</p> + +<p>"Was there anything else?" Entire concealment of alarm is all +Rosalind can attend to.</p> + +<p>"No end of things, all mixed up together. One thing very funny. A +great big German chap.... I say, Rosalind!"</p> + +<p>"What, Gerry darling?"</p> + +<p>"Do you recollect, when we were in Switzerland, up at that last +high-up place, Seelisberg—Sonnenberg—do you remember the great fat +Baron that gave me those cigars, and sang?"</p> + +<p>"Remember the Baron? Of course I do. Perfectly!" Rosalind contrived +a laugh. "Was he in it?" Perhaps this was rash. But then, not to say +it would have been cowardice, when it was on her tongue-tip. Let the +nettle be grasped.</p> + +<p>"He was in it, singing and all. But the whole thing was mixed up and +queer. It all went, quite suddenly. And I should have lost him out +of it, as one loses a dream, if it hadn't been for seeing him in +Switzerland. It was something to hold on by. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I think I do. <i>I</i> had forgotten what I was dreaming about when I +woke on the sofa and talked that nonsense. But I held on to the +name, for all that."</p> + +<p>"But then that wasn't a real person, the Reverend—what was +he?—Herrick or Derrick."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 382 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Rosalind passed the point by. "Gerry darling! I want you to do as I +tell you. Don't worry your head about it, but keep quiet. If memory +is coming back to you, it will come all the quicker for letting your +mind rest. Let it come gradually."</p> + +<p>"I see what you mean. You think it was really a recollection of +B.C.?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. Why should it not?"</p> + +<p>"But it's all gone clean away again! And I can't remember anything +of it at all—and there was heaps!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind! If it was real it will come back. Wait and be patient!"</p> + +<p>Rosalind's mind laid down this rule for itself—to think and act +exactly as though there had been nothing to fear. Even if all the +past had been easy to face it would have shrunk from suggestions. So +thought she to herself, perhaps with a little excusable +self-deception. Otherwise the natural thing would have been to +repeat to him all the Baron's story.</p> + +<p>No! She would not say a word, or give a hint. If it was all to come +back to him, it would come back. If not, she could not bring it +back; and she might, in the attempt to do so, merely plunge his +injured mind into more chaotic confusion. Much safer to do nothing!</p> + +<p>But why this sudden stirring of his memory, just now of all times? +Had anything unusual happened lately? Naturally, the inquiry sent +her mind back, to yesterday first, then to the day before. +No!—there was nothing there. Then to generalities. Was it the sea +bathing?—the sea air? And then on a sudden she thought of the thing +nearest at hand, that she should have thought of at first. Yes!—she +would ask Dr. Conrad about <i>that</i>: Why hadn't she thought of that +before—that galvanic battery?</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, despite her injunctions to her husband to wait and be +patient, his mind kept harking back on this curious recollection. +Luckily, so it seemed to her—at any rate for the present—he did +not seem to recall the Baron's recognition of himself, or to connect +it with this illusion or revival. He appeared to recollect the +Baron's personality, and his liberality with cigars, but little +else. If he was to be reminded of this, it must be after she had +talked over it with Vereker.</p> + +<p>They struggled with the weather along the seaward face of the +little + +<!-- Page 383 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +old fisher-town. The great wind was blowing the tar-laden +atmosphere of the nets and the all-pervading smell of tar landward; +and substituting flecks of driven foam, that it forced to follow +landward too, for all they tried to stop and rest. The population +was mostly employed getting the boats up as close to the houses as +practice permitted, and the capstans were all a-creak with the +strain; and one shrieked for a dab of lard, and got it, just as they +passed. The man with Bessie and the anchor on his arms—for it was +his—paused in his rotations with one elbow on his lever, and one +foot still behind the taut cable he was crossing. His free hand +saluted; and then, his position being defined, he was placed on a +moral equality with his superiors, and could converse. The +old-fashioned hat-touch, now dying out, is just as much a protest +against the way social order parts man from man as it is an +acknowledgment of its necessity.</p> + +<p>The lover of Bessie and Elinor and Kate was disposed to ignore the +efforts of the wind. There might, he said, be a bit of sea on, come +two or three in the marn'n—at the full of the tide. The wind might +get up a bit, if it went round suth'ard. The wind was nothing in +itself—it was the direction it came from; it got a bad character +from imputed or vicarious vice. It would be a bit rough to get a +boat off—the lady might get a wetting.... At which point Rosalind +interrupted. Nothing was further from her thoughts, she said, than +navigation in any form. But had the speaker seen her daughter go +by—the young lady that swam? For Sally was famous. He hadn't, +himself, but maybe young Benjamin had. Who, taking leave to speak +from this, announced frankly that he <i>had</i> seen a young lady, in +company with her sweetheart, go by nigh an hour agone. The tattooed +one diluted her sweetheart down to "her gentleman" reluctantly. In +his land, and the one there would soon be for the freckled and +blue-eyed Benjamin, there was no such artificial nonsense. Perhaps +some sense of this showed itself in the way he resumed his work. +"Now, young Benjamin—a-action!" said he; and the two threw +themselves again against the pole of the mollified capstan.</p> + +<p>If Rosalind fancied this little incident had put his previous +experience out of her husband's mind she was mistaken. He said, + +<!-- Page 384 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> +as +they passed on in the direction of the jetty, "I think I should like +to wind up capstans. It would suit me down to the ground." But then +became thoughtful; and, just as they were arriving at the jetty, +showed that his mind had run back by asking suddenly, "What was the +fat Baron's name?"</p> + +<p>"Diedrich Kammerkreutz." Rosalind gave him her nearest recollection, +seeing nothing to be gained by doing otherwise. Any concealment, +too, the chances were, would make matters worse instead of better.</p> + +<p>"It was Kreutzkammer, in my—dream or whatever you call it." They +stopped and looked at each other, and Rosalind replied, "It <i>was</i> +Kreutzkammer. Oh dear!" rather as one who had lost breath from some +kind of blow.</p> + +<p>He saw her distress instantly, and was all alive to soothe it. +"Don't be frightened, darling love!" he cried, and then his great +good-humoured laugh broke into the tenderness of his speech, without +spoiling it. He was so like Gerry, the boy that rode away that day +in the dog-cart, when there was "only mamma for the girl."</p> + +<p>"But when all's said and done," said she, harking back for a +reprieve, "perhaps you only recollected Sonnenberg in your dream +better than I did ... just now...." She hung fire of repeating the +name Herrick.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach zo</i>," he answered, teutonically for the moment, from +association with the Baron. "But suppose it all true, dearest, and +that I'm going to come to life again, what does it matter? It can't +alter <i>us</i>, that I can see. Could anything that you can imagine? I +should be Gerry for you, and you would be Rosey for me, to the end +of it." Her assent had a mere echo of hesitation. But he detected +it, and went on: "Unless, you mean, I remembered the hypothetical +wife?..."</p> + +<p>"Ye—es!—partly."</p> + +<p>"Well! I tell you honestly, Rosey darling, if I do, I shall keep her +to myself. A plaguing, intrusive female—to come between <i>us</i>. But +there's no such person!" At which they both laughed, remembering the +great original non-exister. But even here was a little thorn. For +Mrs. Harris brought back the name the Baron had known Gerry by. He +did not seem to have resumed it in his dream.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 385 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>The jetty ran a little way out to sea. Thus phraseology in use. It +might have reconsidered itself, and said that the jetty had at some +very remote time run out to sea and stopped there. Ever since, the +sea had broken over it at high tides, and if you cared at all about +your clothes you wouldn't go to the end of it, if you were me. +Because the salt gets into them and spoils the dye. Besides, you +have to change everything.</p> + +<p>There was a dry place at the end of the jetty, and along the edge of +the dry place were such things as cables go round and try hard to +draw, as we drew the teeth of our childhood with string. But they +fail always, although their pulls are never irresolute. On two of +these sat Sally and the doctor in earnest conversation.</p> + +<p>Rosalind and her husband looked at each other and said, "No!" This +might have been rendered, "Matters are no forwarder." It connected +itself (without acknowledgment) with the distance apart of the two +cable-blocks. Never mind; let them alone!</p> + +<p>"Are you going to sit there till the tide goes down?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that you? We didn't see you coming."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to look sharp, or you'll be wet through...."</p> + +<p>"No, we <i>shan't</i>! You only have to wait a minute and get in +between...."</p> + +<p>Easier said than done! A big wave, that was just in time to overhear +this conversation imperfectly, thought it would like to wet Sally +through, and leaped against the bulwark of the jetty. But it spent +itself in a huge torrential deluge while Sally waited a minute. A +friend followed it, but made a poor figure by comparison. Then Sally +got in between, followed by the doctor.... Well! they were really +not so <i>very</i> wet, after all! Sally was worst, as she was too +previous. She got implicated in the friend's last dying splash, +while Prosy got nearly scot-free. So said Sally to Fenwick as they +walked briskly ahead towards home, leaving the others to make their +own pace. Because it was a case of changing everything, and dinner +was always so early at St. Sennans.</p> + +<p>"Let them go on in front. I want to talk to you, Dr. Conrad." +Rosalind, perhaps, thinks his attention won't wander if she takes a +firm tone; doesn't feel sure about it, otherwise. Maybe Sally is too +definitely in possession of the citadel to allow of an incursion +from + +<!-- Page 386 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> +without. She continues: "I have something to tell you. Don't +look frightened. It is nothing but what you have predicted yourself. +My husband's memory is coming back. I don't know whether I ought to +say I am afraid or I hope it is so...."</p> + +<p>"But are you sure it is so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, listen! It has all happened since you and Sally left." And +then she narrated to the doctor, whose preoccupation had entirely +vanished, first the story of the recurrence, and Fenwick's +description of it in full; and then the incident of the Baron at +Sonnenberg, but less in detail. Then she went on, walking slower, +not to reach the house too soon. "Now, this is the thing that makes +me so sure it is recollection: just now, as we were coming to the +jetty, he asked me suddenly what was the Baron's name. I gave a +wrong version of it, and he corrected me." This does not meet an +assent.</p> + +<p>"That was nothing. He had heard it at Sonnenberg. I think much more +of the story itself; the incident of the wheel and so on. Are you +quite sure you never repeated this German gentleman's story to Mr. +Fenwick?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure."</p> + +<p>"H'm...!"</p> + +<p>"So, you see, I want you to help me to think."</p> + +<p>"May I talk to him about it?—speak openly to him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; to-morrow, not to-day. I want to hear what he says to-night. +He always talks a great deal when we're alone at the end of the day. +He will do so this time. But I want you to tell me about an idea I +have."</p> + +<p>"What idea?"</p> + +<p>"Did Sally tell you about the galvanic battery on the pier?" Dr. +Conrad stopped in his walk, and faced round towards his companion. +He shook out a low whistle—an <i>arpeggio</i> down. "Did she tell you?" +repeated Rosalind.</p> + +<p>"Miss Sa...."</p> + +<p>"Come, come, doctor! Don't be ridiculous. Say Sally!" The young +man's heart gave a responsive little jump, and then said to itself, +"But perhaps I'm only a family friend!" and climbed down. However, +on either count, "Sally" was nicer than "Miss Sally."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 387 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Sally told me about the electric entertainment at the pier-end. I'm +sorry I missed it. But if <i>that's</i> what's done it, Fenwick must try +it again."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mustn't</i> try it again?"</p> + +<p>"No—<i>must</i> try it again. Why, do you think it bad for him to +remember?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to think."</p> + +<p>"My notion is that a man has a right to his own mind. Anyhow, one +has no right to keep him out of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh no; besides, Gerry isn't out of it in this case. Not out of his +mind...."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that way. I meant excluded from participation in +himself ... you see?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I quite understand. Now listen, doctor. I want you to do me +a kindness. Say nothing, even to Sally, till I tell you. Say +<i>nothing</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You may trust me." Rosalind feels no doubt on that point, the more +so that the little passage about Sally's name has landed her at some +haven of the doctor's confidence that neither knows the name of just +yet. He is not the first man that has felt a welcome in some +trifling word of a very special daughter's mother. But woe be to the +mother who is premature and spoils all! Poor Prosy is too far gone +to be a risky subject of experiment. But <i>he</i> won't say +anything—not he! "After all, you know," he continues, "it may all +turn out a false alarm. Or false hope, should I say?"</p> + +<p>No answer. And he doesn't press for one. He is in a land of +pitfalls.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"What have you and your medical adviser been talking about all the +while, there in mid-ocean?" Fenwick forgets the late event with +pleasure. Sally, with her hair threatening to come down in the wind, +is enough to stampede a troop of nightmares.</p> + +<p>"Poor Prosy!" is all the answer that comes at present. Perhaps if +that uncontrolled black coil will be tractable she will concede more +anon. You can't get your hair back under your hat and walk quick and +talk, all at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Poorer than usual, Sarah?" But really just at this corner it's + +<!-- Page 388 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +as +much as you can do, if you have skirts, to get along at all; to say +nothing of the way such loose ends as you indulge in turn on you and +flagellate your face in the wind. Oh, the vicious energy of that +stray ribbon! Fancy having to use up one hand to hold that!</p> + +<p>But a lull came when the corner was fairly turned, in the lee of a +home of many nets, where masses of foam-fleck had found a respite, +and leisure to collapse, a bubble at a time. You could see the +prism-scale each had to itself, each of the millions, if you looked +close enough. Collectively, their appearance was slovenly. A +chestnut-coloured man a year old, who looked as if he meant some day +to be a boatswain, was seated on a pavement that cannot have soothed +his unprotected flesh—flint pebbles can't, however round—and +enjoying the mysterious impalpable nature of this foam. However, +even for such hands as his—and Sally wanted to kiss them +badly—they couldn't stop. She got her voice, though, in the lull.</p> + +<p>"Yes—a little. I've found out all about Prosy."</p> + +<p>"Found out about him?"</p> + +<p>"I've made him talk about it. It's all about his ma and a young lady +he's in love with...." Fenwick's <i>ha!</i> or <i>h'm!</i> or both joined +together, was probably only meant to hand the speaker on, but the +tone made her suspicious. She asked him why he said that, imitating +it; on which he answered, "Why shouldn't he?" "Because," said Sally, +"if you fancy Prosy's in love with me, you're mistaken."</p> + +<p>"Very good! Cut along, Sarah! You've made him talk about the young +lady he's in love with...?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he as good as talked about her, anyhow! <i>I</i> understood quite +plain. He wants to marry her awfully, but he's afraid to say so to +her, because of his ma."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't Mrs. Vereker like her?"</p> + +<p>"Dotes upon her, he says. Ug-g-h! No, it isn't that. It's the +lugging the poor girl into his ma's sphere of influence. He's +conscious of his ma, but adores her. Only he's aware she's +overwhelming, and always gets her own roundabout way. I prefer +Tishy's dragon, if you ask <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>At that point Sally is quite unconscious of Fenwick's amused eyes +fixed on her, and his smile in ambush. She says the last words + +<!-- Page 389 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +through a hairpin, while her hands take advantage of the lull to +make a good job of that rope of black hair. She will go on and tell +all the story; so Fenwick doesn't speak. Surprised at first by the +tale of Dr. Conrad's young lady, his ideas have by now fructified. +Sally continues:</p> + +<p>"He's often told me he thought G.P.'s were better single, for their +wives' sakes—that sounds wrong, somehow!—but it isn't that. It's +his ma entirely. I suppose he's told you about the epileptiform +disorders?" No, he hadn't. "Well, now! Fancy Prosy not telling you +that! He's become quite an authority since those papers he had in +the 'Lancet,' and he's thinking of giving up general practice. Sir +Dioscorides Gayler's a cousin of his, you know, and would pass on +his practice to Prosy on easy terms. House in Seymour Street, +Portman Square. Great authority on epilepsy and epileptiform +disorders. Wants a successor who knows about 'em. Naturally. Wants +three thousand pounds. Naturally. Big fees! But he would make it +easy for Prosy."</p> + +<p>"That would be all right; soon manage that." Fenwick speaks with the +confidence of one in a thriving trade. The deity of commerce, +security, can manage all things. Insecurity is atheism in the City. +"But then," he adds, "Vereker wouldn't marry, even with a house and +big-fee consultations, because he's afraid his mother would hector +over his wife. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"That's it! It's his Goody mother. I say, it <i>is</i> blowing!" It was, +and they had emerged from the shelter into the wind. No more talk!</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>As Fenwick, sea-blown and salted, resorted to the lodging-house +allowance of fresh water and soap, in a perfunctory and formal +preparation for dinner, his mind ran continually on Sally's +communication. As for the other young lady being valid, that he +dismissed as nonsense not worth consideration. Vereker had been +resorting to a furtive hint of a declaration, disguised as fiction. +It was a <i>fabula narrata de</i> Sally, <i>mutato nomine</i>. If she didn't +see through it, and respond in kind, it would show him how merely a +friend he was, and nothing more. "Perhaps he doesn't understand our +daughter's character," said Fenwick to Rosalind, when he had +repeated the conversation to her. "Of course + +<!-- Page 390 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> +he doesn't," she +replied. "No young man of his sort understands girls the least. The +other sort of young man understands the other sort of girls."</p> + +<p>And then a passing wonderment had touched her mind, of how strange +it was that Sally should be one of her own sort, so very distinctly. +How about inheritance? She grew reflective and silent over it, and +then roused herself to wonder, illogically, why Gerry hadn't gone on +talking.</p> + +<p>The reason was that as his mind dwelt happy and satisfied on the +good prospect Vereker would have if he could step into his cousin's +specialist practice as a consulting physician, with a reputation +already begun, his thoughts were caught with a strange jerk. What +and whence was a half-memory of some shadowy store of wealth that +was to make it the easiest thing in the world for him to finance the +new departure? It had nothing to do with the vast mysterious +possibilities of credit. It was a recollection of some resourceful +backing he was entitled to, somehow; and he was reminded by it of +his dream about the furniture—(we told you of that?)—but with a +reservation. When he woke from the sleep-dream of the furniture, he +in a short time could distinctly identify it as a dream, and was +convinced no such furniture had ever existed. He could not shake off +this waking dream, and it clogged his mind painfully, and made him +silent.</p> + +<p>So much so that when Rosalind, soon completed for the +banqueting-board, looked into the adjoining room to see what +progress Gerry was making, and why he was silent, she only saw the +back of a powerful frame in its shirt-sleeves, and a pair of hands +holding on each side an unbrushed head. The elbows indispensable to +them rested on the window-bar.</p> + +<p>"Look alive, Gerry darling!—you'll make dinner late.... Anything +wrong, dear love?" Sudden anxiety in her voice. "Is it another...?" +Another what? No need to define, exactly!</p> + +<p>"A sort of one," Fenwick answers. "Not so bad as the last. Hardly +describable! Never mind."</p> + +<p>He made no effort towards description, and his wife did not press +him for it. What good end could be gained by fidgeting him?</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 391 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>But she knew now that her life would be weighted with an anxiety +hard to bear, until his hesitating return of memory should make its +decision of success or failure. A guarantee of the latter would have +been most to her liking, but how could she hope for that now?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 392 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW A STONE THROWN DROVE THE WEDGE FURTHER YET. OF A TERRIBLE NIGHT +IN A BIG GALE, AND A DOOR THAT SLAMMED. THE WEDGE WELL IN</p> + +<p>The speculative weather-wisdom of the tattooed capstan-driver was +confirmed when three in the morning came, and the full of the tide. +The wind must have gone round to the southward, or to some equally +stimulating quarter, to judge by the work it got through that night +in the way of roofs blown off and chimney-pots blown down; standing +crops laid flat and spoiled for reaping; trees too full of leaf to +bear such rough treatment compelled to tear up half their roots and +fall, or pay tribute to the gale in boughs snapped asunder in time +to spare their parent stem. All these results we landsmen could see +for ourselves next day, after the storm had died down, and when the +air was so delightful after it that we took walks in the country on +purpose to enjoy it. But for the mischief it did that night at sea, +from sportively carrying away the spars of ships, which they wanted +for their own use, or blowing a stray reefer from the +weather-earring, to sending a full crew to the depths below, or on +jagged rocks no message from the white foam above could warn the +look-out of in time—for the record of this we should have belated +intermittent newspaper paragraphs, ever so long after.</p> + +<p>But the wind had not reached its ideal when, at the end of a +pleasant evening, Sally and her belongings decided that they must +just go down to the beach and see the waves before going to bed. +Wasn't there a moon? Well—yes, there was a moon, but you couldn't +see it. That made a difference, certainly, but not a conclusive one. +It wasn't a bad sort of a night, although it certainly was blowing, +and the waves would be grand seen close. So the party turned out to +go down to the beach. It included the Julius Bradshaws and Dr. +Conrad, who had looked in as usual. But + +<!-- Page 393 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> +the doctor found out that +it was past eleven, and, recalled by duty, returned to his Octopus.</p> + +<p>The waves, seen close, would have been grand if you could have seen +them from the beach, or as much of it as they had left you to stand +on. But you really could only guess what was going on out in that +great dark world of deep thunder, beyond the successive rushes of +mad foam, each of which made up its mind to tear the coast up this +time; and then changed it and went back, but always took with it +stones enough for next attempt. And the indignant clamour of the +rushing shoals, dragged off to sea against their will, rose and fell +in the lulls of the thunder beyond. Sally wanted to quote Tennyson's +"Maud" about them, but she couldn't for the tremendous wind.</p> + +<p>The propensity to throw stones into the water, whenever there are +stones and water, is always a strong one, even when the water is +black mountain ranges, foam-ridged Sierras coming on to crush us, +appalling us, even though we know they are sure to die in time. +Stones were thrown on this occasion by Sally and her stepfather, who +was credulous enough to suppose that his pebbles passed the undertow +and reached the sea itself. Sally was prevented by the elements from +misusing an adjective; for she wanted to say that the effect of a +stone thrown into such a sea was merely "homœopathic," and +abstained because her remark would have been unheard.</p> + +<p>Fenwick wanted to say that it was like the way a man dies and +vanishes into the great unknown. He, too, refrained from this, but +only partly for the same reason. Its want of novelty made another.</p> + +<p>All the others soon wanted to say it was time to go home to bed, and +tried to say it. But practice seemed easier, and they all turned to +go, followed by Fenwick and Sally, cheerfully discussing the point +of whether Sally could have swum out into that sea or not. Sally +wanted to know what was to prevent her. Obvious enough, one would +have said!</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>But Rosalind noticed one thing that was a pleasure to her. The +moment Sally came in, her husband's dream-afflictions went out. Had +he ever spoken of one in her presence? She could recall no instance. +This evening the return to absolute cheerfulness + +<!-- Page 394 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +dated from the +reappearance of Sally after she had changed everything, and made her +hair hold up. It lasted through fried soles and a huge fowl—done +enough this time—and a bread-and-butter pudding impaired by too +many raisins. Through the long end of a game of chess begun by Sally +and Dr. Conrad the evening before, and two rubbers of whist, in +which everybody else had all the good cards in their hands, as is +the case in that game. And through the visit to Neptune above +recorded.</p> + +<p>But when, after half-an-hour's chat over the day's events with +Rosalind, midnight and an extinguished candle left Fenwick to +himself and his pillow in the little room next hers with no door +between, which Mrs. Lobjoit's resources dictated, there came back to +him first a recollection of his suppressed commonplace about the +stone that had vanished for ever in the world of waters; then a hazy +memory of the same thing having happened before and the same remark +having been made by himself; then a sudden jerk of surprise, when, +just as he was thinking of sleep, he was able to answer a question +Space asked him spontaneously about where this happened, with what +would have been, had he been quite awake, words spoken aloud to +himself. "That time at Niagara, of course!" And this jerk of +surprise left him wide-awake, struggling with an army of revived +memories that had come on him suddenly.</p> + +<p>He was so thoroughly waked by them that a difficulty he always had +of remaining in bed when not asleep dictated a relighted candle and +a dressing-gown and slippers. It was akin to his aversion to +over-comfortable chairs; though he acknowledged beds as proper +implements of sleep, sleep being granted. And sleep seemed now so +completely out of the question, even if there had been no roaring of +the gale and no constant thunder of the seas on the beach below, +that Fenwick surrendered at discretion, and gave himself up a +helpless prisoner in the grasp of his own past.</p> + +<p>Not of the whole of it. But of as much as he could face here and +now. Another mind that could have commanded some strange insight +into the whole of this past, and his power or powerlessness to look +it in the face, might have striven to avert its revival. That blow +might have been too overwhelming. But there was enough, as we shall +see, in the recollection that came back + +<!-- Page 395 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +of the decade before his +return to England, to make his breath catch and a shudder run +through his strong frame as he pressed his palms hard on his +eyelids, just as though by so doing he could shut it out.</p> + +<p>Thank God Rosey was asleep, or would be soon. He would have time to +think how he could tell the story he could not be silent +about—that, he felt, might be impossible—and yet keep back one +ominous portentous fact that had come to him, as a motive force in +his former life, without the details of his early history that +belonged to it. That fact Rosey must never know, even if ... +well!—so many things turned on it. All he could see now—taken by +surprise as he was—was that, come what might, that fact should +always be kept from <i>her</i>. But as to concealing from her his strange +experience altogether, that was hardly to be thought of. He would +conceal it while he could, though, provisionally.</p> + +<p>One o'clock by his watch on the dressing-table under the candle. St. +Sennans must have struck unheard. No wonder—in this wind! Surely it +had rather increased, if anything. Fenwick paced with noiseless care +about the little room; he could not be still. The sustained monotone +of wind and sea was only crossed now and then by a sound of fall or +breakage, to chronicle some little piece of mischief achieved by the +former on land, and raise the latter's hopes of some such success in +its turn before the night should end....</p> + +<p>Two o'clock by the dressing-table watch, and still the noiseless +slippered feet of the sleepless man came and went. Little fear of +any one else hearing him! For the wind seemed to have got up the bit +that was predicted of it, and had certainly gone round to the +suth'ard. If any sleeper could cling to unconsciousness through the +rattle of the windows and the intermittent banging of a spectral +door that defied identification—the door that always bangs in +storms everywhere—the mere movement of a cautious foot would have +no effect. If unable to sleep for the wind, none would be alive to +it. It would be lost in the storm....</p> + +<p>Three o'clock! Did you, who read this, ever watch through a night +with something on your mind you are to be forced to speak of in the +morning—a compulsion awaiting you as a lion awaiting the <i>début</i> of +a reluctant martyr in the arena of the Coliseum? Did + +<!-- Page 396 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +you, so +watching, feel—not the tedium—but the maddening speed of the +hours, the cruelty of the striking clocks? Were you conscious of a +grateful reliance on your bedroom door, still closed between you and +<i>your</i> lion, as the gate that the eager eyes of Rome were fixed on +was still a respite from <i>his</i>? Fenwick was; keenly conscious. And +when on a sudden he heard with a start that a furtive hand was on +the old-fashioned door-latch, he, knowing it could be none other +than Rosalind, sleepless in the storm, felt that the lion had stolen +a march on him, and that he must make up his mind sharp whether he +would go for complete confidence or partial reserve. Certainly the +latter, of necessity, said Alacrity. There could be no doubt of it, +on her account—for the present, at any rate.</p> + +<p>For he had recollected, look you, that at the time of that +stone-throw into the rapids above Niagara he was a married man +somehow separated from his wife. And the way that he knew this was +that he could remember plainly that the reason he did not make an +offer of marriage, there by the great torrent that was rushing to +the Falls, to a French girl (whose name he got clearly) was that he +did not know if his wife was dead or living. He did not know it now. +The oddity of it was that, though he remembered clearly this +incident hinging on the fact that he was then a married man, he +could remember neither the wife he had married nor anything +connected with her. He strove hard against this partial insight into +his past, which seemed to him stranger than complete oblivion. But +he soon convinced himself that a slight hazy vision he conjured up +of a wedding years and years ago was only a reflex image—an +automatic reaction—from his recent marriage. For did not the wraith +of his present wife quietly take its place before the altar where by +rights he should have been able to recall her predecessor? It was +all confusion; no doubt of it.</p> + +<p>But his mind had travelled quickly too; for when Rosalind looked in +at his door he knew what he had to say, for her sake.</p> + +<p>"Gerry darling, have you never been to bed?"</p> + +<p>"For a bit, dearest. Then I found I couldn't sleep, and got up."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it awful, the noise? One hears it so in this house.... Well, + +<!-- Page 397 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> +I suppose it's the same in any house that looks straight over the +sea."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you slept?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, a little. But then it woke me. Then I thought I heard you +moving."</p> + +<p>"So I was. Now, suppose we both go to bed, and try to sleep. I shall +have to, because of my candle. Is that all you've got left?"</p> + +<p>"That's all, and it's guttering. And the paper will catch directly." +She blew it out to avoid this, and added: "Stop a minute and I'll +take the paper off, and make it do for a bit."</p> + +<p>"You can have mine. Leave me yours." For Fenwick's was, even now, +after burning so long, the better candle-end of the two. He took it +out of the socket, and slipped its paper roll off, an economy +suggested by the condition of its fellow.</p> + +<p>But as he did so his own light flashed full on his face, and +Rosalind saw a look on it that scarcely belonged to mere +sleeplessness like her own—unrest that comes to most of us when the +elements are restless.</p> + +<p>"Gerry, you've been worrying. You know you have, dear. Speak the +truth! You've been trying to recollect things."</p> + +<p>"I had nobody here to prevent me, you see." He made no denial; in +fact, thought admission of baffled effort was his safest course. "I +get worried and fidgeted by chaotic ideas when you're not here. But +it's nothing." Rosalind did not agree to this at all.</p> + +<p>"I wish Mrs. Lobjoit could have put us both in one room," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>we</i> didn't see our way, you know," he replied, referring to +past councils on sleeping arrangements. "It's only for a week, after +all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling; but a week's a week, and I can't have you worried to +death." She made him lie down again, and sat by him, holding his +hand. So unnerved was he by his glance back into his past, so long +unknown to him, and so sweet was the comfort of her presence and the +touch of her living hand after all those hours of perturbation +alone, that Fenwick made no protest against her remaining beside +him. But a passiveness that would have belonged to an invalid or a +sluggish temperament seemed unlike the + +<!-- Page 398 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> +strong man Rosalind knew him +for, and she guessed from it that there was more behind. Still, she +said nothing, and sat on with his hand grasping hers and finding in +it his refuge from himself. To her its warm pressure was a sure sign +that his memory had not penetrated the darkness of his earlier time. +If God willed, it might never do so. Meanwhile, what was there for +it but patience?</p> + +<p>As she sat there listening to the roaring of the gale outside, and +watching with satisfaction the evident coming of sleep, she said to +herself that it might easily be that some new thing had come back to +him which he would be unwilling she should know about, at least +until his own mind was clearer. He might speak with less reserve to +Vereker. She would give the doctor leave to talk to him to-morrow. +Fear of what she would hear may have influenced her in this.</p> + +<p>So when, sooner than she had expected, she caught the sound of the +first breath of indisputable sleep, she rose and slipped away +quietly, and as she lay down again to rest again asked herself the +question: Was it the galvanism that had done it?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 399 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW FENWICK AND VEREKER WENT FOR A WALK, AND MORE MEMORIES CAME +BACK. HOW FENWICK WAS A MILLIONAIRE, OR THEREABOUTS. OF A CLUE THAT +KILLED ITSELF. HARRISSON'S AFFAIR NOW! BOTHER THE MILLIONS! IS NOT +LOVE BETTER THAN MONEY? ONLY FENWICK'S NAME WASN'T HARRISSON NEITHER</p> + +<p>"We thought it best to let you have your sleep out, dear. Sally +agreed. No, leave the pot alone. Mrs. Lobjoit will make some fresh +coffee."</p> + +<p>"Who's the other cup?"</p> + +<p>"Vereker. He came in to breakfast; to see if we were blown away."</p> + +<p>"I see. Of course. Where are they now?"</p> + +<p>"They?... oh, him and Sally! They said they'd go and see if Tishy +and her husband were blown away."</p> + +<p>"Well, I have had my sleep out with a vengeance. It's a quarter to +ten."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, darling. So much the better. Let's have a look at +you...." And the little self-explanatory colloquy ends with Rosalind +kissing her husband and examining him with anxious eyes. She sees a +face less haggard than the one she saw last night, for is it not +daylight and has not the wind fallen to a mere cheerful breeze you +can quite stand upright in, leaning slightly seawards? And are not +the voices and the footsteps of a new day outside, and the swift +exchanges of sunlight and cloud-shadow that are chasing each other +off the British Channel? And has not a native of eighty years of age +(which he ignores) just opened the street door on his own +responsibility and shouted along the passage that pra'ans are large +this morning? He is more an institution than a man, and is freely +spoken of as "The Shrimps." A flavour of a Triton who has got too +dry on the beach comes in with the sea air, and also a sense of +prawns, emptied from a wooden measure they have been honourably +shaken + +<!-- Page 400 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +down into, falling on a dish held out to receive them by an +ambassador of four, named by Sally little Miss Lobjoit, the youngest +of her race.</p> + +<p>But for all that the rising life of the hours and the subsiding gale +may do to chase away the memory of the oppressions of the night from +one who was defenceless in its solitude, Rosalind can see how much +they leave behind. Her husband may do his best to make light of +it—to laugh it off as nothing but the common bad night we all know +so well; may make the most of the noises of the storm, and that +abominable banging door; but he will not conceal from her the effort +that it costs him to do so. Besides, had he not admitted, in the +night, that he "got worried and fidgeted by chaotic ideas"? What +were these ideas? How far had he penetrated into his own past? She +was not sorry for the few words she had had time to exchange with +Dr. Conrad while Sally went to seek her hat. She had renewed and +confirmed her permission to him to speak to her husband freely about +himself.</p> + +<p>"Are Mr. and Mrs. Paganini gone to sea?" This is said as Fenwick +opens negotiations rather mechanically with the fresh coffee Mrs. +Lobjoit has produced, and as that lady constructs for removal a +conglomerate of plates and effete eggs.</p> + +<p>"Gone to sea, Gerry? Not very likely. What's the meaning of that? +Explain."</p> + +<p>"Why, Sally and her doctor are staring out at the offing...."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"And didn't you say they had gone to find out if they were blown +away?"</p> + +<p>"I supposed they changed their minds." Rosalind talks absently, as +if they didn't matter. All her thoughts are on her husband. But she +doesn't fancy catechizing him about his experiences in the night, +neither. She had better let him alone, and wait new oblivion or a +healthy revival.</p> + +<p>He is also <i>distrait</i>, and when he spoke of Sally and the doctor he +had shown no interest in his own words. His eyes do not kindle at +hers in his old way, and might be seeing nothing, for all there is +in them to tell of it. He makes very short work of a cup of coffee, +and a mere pretence of anything else; and then, suddenly rousing +himself with a shake, says this won't do, and he must go out and get +a blow. All right, says Rosalind, and he'd better + +<!-- Page 401 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +get Dr. Conrad, +and make him go for a walk. Only they are not to fall over the +cliff.</p> + +<p>"Fall over the cliff!" repeats Fenwick. He laughs, and she is glad +at the sound. "You couldn't fall over the cliff against such a wind +as this. I defy any one to." He kisses her and goes out, and she +hears him singing, as he hunts for a stick that has vanished, an old +French song:</p> + +<p class="song"> +"Auprès de ma blond-e<br /> +Comme c'est bon—c'est bon—c'est bon...." +</p> + +<p>Only, when he has found the stick and his hat, he does not go at +once, but comes back, and says, as he kisses her again: "Don't +fidget about me, darling; I'm all right." Which must have been +entirely brain-wave or thought-reading, as Rosalind had said never a +word of her anxiety, so far.</p> + +<p>Fenwick walked away briskly towards the flagstaff where Sally and +Vereker had been looking out to sea. In the dazzling sunshine—all +the more dazzling for the suddenness of its come and go—and the +intoxicating rush of well-washed air that each of those crested +waves out yonder knew so much about—and they were all of a +tale—and such a companion in the enjoyment of it as that white +sea-bird afloat against the blue gap of sky or purple underworld of +cloud, what could he do other than cast away the thoughts the night +had left, the cares, whatever they were, that the revival of memory +had brought back?</p> + +<p>If he could not succeed altogether in putting them aside, at least +he could see his way to bearing them better, with a kiss of his wife +still on his face, and all St. Sennans about him in the sunshine, +and Sally to come. However, before he reached the flagstaff he met +the doctor, and heard that Miss Sally had actually gone down to the +machines to see if Gabriel wouldn't put one down near the water, so +that she could run a little way. She was certain she could swim in +that sea if she could once get through what she called the +selvage-wave. If Gabriel wouldn't, she should take her things up to +the house and put them on and walk down to the sea in a cloak. It +was quite ridiculous, said the merpussy, people making such a fuss +about a few waves. What was the world coming to?</p> + +<p>"She'll be all safe," was Fenwick's comment when he heard this. + +<!-- Page 402 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +"They won't let her go in, at the machines. They won't let her leave +the Turkey-twill knickers and the short skirt. She always leaves +them there to dry. <i>She's</i> all right. Let's take a turn across the +field; it's too windy for the cliff."</p> + +<p>"You had a bad night, Fenwick."</p> + +<p>"All of us had. About three in the morning I thought the house would +blow down. And there was a door banged, etc...."</p> + +<p>"You had a worse night than the rest of us. Look at me straight in +the face. No, I wasn't going to say show me your tongue." They had +stopped a moment at the top of what was known as The Steps—<i>par +excellence</i>—which was the shortest cut up to the field-path. Dr. +Conrad looks a second or so, and then goes on: "I thought so. You've +got black lines under your eyes, and you're evidently conscious of +the lids. I expect you've got a pain in them, one in each, tied +together by a string across here." That is to say, from eyebrow to +eyebrow, as illustrated fingerwise.</p> + +<p>Fenwick wasn't prepared to deny it evidently. He drew his own +fingers across his forehead, as though to feel if the pain were +really there. It confirmed a suspicion he couldn't have sworn to.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I suppose I did have a worse night than the rest of you. At +least, I hope so, for your sakes." His manner might have seemed to +warrant immediate speculation or inquiry about the cause of his +sleeplessness, but Vereker walked on beside him in silence. The way +was along a short, frustrated street that led to the field-pathway +that was grass-grown, more or less, all but the heaps of flints that +were one day to make a new top-dressing, but had been forgotten by +the local board, and the premature curb-stones whose anticipations +about traffic had never been fulfilled. The little detached houses +on either side were unselfish little houses, that only wanted to be +useful and afford shelter to the wanderer, or provide a refuge for +old age. All made use, on placards, of the cautious expression +"Apartments"; while some flung all reserve to the winds and said +also they were "To let" outright. The least satisfactory one of the +lot was almost invisible owing to its egotism, but distinguishable +from afar because the cross-board on a standard that had been placed +in the garden-front had fallen forward over the palings like Punch's +gallows. It + +<!-- Page 403 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> +didn't much matter, because the placard attached was +dissolving off in the rains, and hanging down so low that a goat was +eating it with relish, standing against the parapet of the +garden-fence.</p> + +<p>They reached the point at which Albion Villas had been thwarted by a +hedge, rich in unripe sloes and green abortive blackberries, in +their attempt to get across a stubble-field to the new town, and +passed in instalments through its turnstile, or kissing-gate. +Neither spoke, except that Fenwick said, "Look at the goat," until, +after they had turned on to the chalk pathway, nearly dry in the +warm sun and wind, he added a question:</p> + +<p>"Did you ever taste a sloe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, once."</p> + +<p>"That is what every one says if you ask him if he ever tasted a +sloe. Nobody ever does it again."</p> + +<p>"But they make sloe-gin of them?"</p> + +<p>"That, my dear Vereker, is what everybody always says next. Sally +told me they did, and she's right. They console themselves for the +taste of the sloe by an imaginary <i>liqueur</i> like <i>maraschino</i>. But +that's because they never tasted sloe-gin."</p> + +<p>Vereker thinks he may conclude that Fenwick is talking for talk's +sake, and humours him. He can get to the memory-subject later.</p> + +<p>"A patient of mine," he says, "who's been living at Spezzia, was +telling me about a fruit that was very good there, <i>diosperi</i> he +called them. They must be very unlike sloes by his description."</p> + +<p>"And naturally sloes made you think of them. I wonder what they +are—<i>diosperi</i>—<i>diosperi</i>——" He repeated the word as though +trying to recall it. Dr. Conrad helped the identification.</p> + +<p>"He said they are what the Japs call jelly-plums—great big fruit, +very juicy."</p> + +<p>"I know. They're persimmons, or a sort of persimmons. We used to get +lots of them in California, and even up at the Klondyke...."</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly and remained silent. A sudden change in him was +too marked to escape notice, and there could be no doubt about the +cause. The doctor walked beside him, also silent, for a few paces. +Then he spoke:</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 404 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"You will have to bear this, Fenwick, and keep your head. It is just +as I told you it would be. It is all coming back." He laid his left +hand on his companion's shoulder as they stood side-by-side on the +chalk pathway, and with his right felt the wrist that was nearest +him. Fenwick was in a quiver all through his frame, and his pulse +was beating furiously as Dr. Conrad's finger touched it. But he +spoke with self-control, and his step was steady as they walked on +slowly together the moment after.</p> + +<p>"It's all coming back. It <i>has</i> come back. I shall remember all in +time." Then he repeated Vereker's words, "I must keep my head. I +shall have to bear this," and walked on again in silence. The young +man beside him still felt he had best not speak yet. Just let the +physical perturbation subside. Talking would only make it worse.</p> + +<p>They may have walked so for two minutes before Fenwick spoke again. +Then he roused himself, to say, with but little hint in his voice of +any sense of the oddity of his question: "Which is my dream?—this +or the other?" Then added: "That's the question I want to ask, and +nobody can answer."</p> + +<p>"And of course all the while each of us knows perfectly well the +answer is simply 'Neither.' You are a man that has had an accident, +and lost his memory. Be patient, and do not torment yourself. Let it +take its own time."</p> + +<p>"All right, doctor! Patience is the word." He spoke in an +undertone—a voice of acquiescence, or rather obedience. "Perhaps it +will not be so bad when I remember more." They walked on again.</p> + +<p>Then Vereker, noting that during silence he brooded under the +oppression of what he had already recovered from the past, and to +all appearance struck, once or twice, on some new unwelcome vein of +thought, judging from a start or a momentary tension of the arm that +now held his, decided that it would be as well to speak to him now, +and delay no longer.</p> + +<p>"Has anything come back to you, so far, that will unsettle your +present life?"</p> + +<p>"No, no—not that, thank God! Not so far as I can see. But much that +must disquiet it; it cannot be otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Do you mind telling me?"</p> + +<p>"No, surely, dear fellow!—surely I will tell you. Why should I + +<!-- Page 405 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> +not? But what I say to you don't repeat to Sally or her mother. Not +just now, you know. Wait!"</p> + +<p>There was a recess in the wall of mortar-bedded flints that ran +along the path, which would give shelter from the wind to light a +cigar. Fenwick stopped and took two from a cigar-case, Sally's +present to him last Christmas, and offered one to Dr. Conrad, who, +however, didn't want to smoke so early. He lighted his own in the +recess, with only a slight tremor of the hand, barely visible even +to Vereker's experienced eye; and then, as he threw away the match, +said, without anything that could be called emotion, though always +with an apparent sense of his bewilderment at his own words:</p> + +<p>"I am that man Harrisson that was in all the newspapers just about +the time of the—you remember—when I...."</p> + +<p>Vereker failed for the moment to grasp the degree of his own +astonishment, and used the residuum of his previous calmness to say:</p> + +<p>"I remember. The time of your accident."</p> + +<p>"<i>Am</i> I that man? I mean ought I to say 'I <i>am</i> that man'? I know I +<i>was</i> that man, in my old dream. I know it now, in this one."</p> + +<p>"Well, but—so much the better! You are a millionaire, Fenwick, with +mines at Klondyke...."</p> + +<p>Dr. Conrad had been so taken aback at the suddenness of the +extraordinary revelation that his amazement was quite at a loss for +means of expression. A delayed laugh, not unmixed with a gasp, +expressed nothing—merely recorded a welcome to the good side of it. +For, of course, when one hears of Golconda one is bound to think it +good, failing evidence to the contrary.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I <i>was</i> that man—Algernon Harrisson. Now, the question +is—and you'll have to help me here, Vereker. Don't look so +thunderstruck, old chap—Shall I be that man again or not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not, in Heaven's name? How can you help it?" The speaker is too +dumbfounded, so far, to be able to get the whip hand of the +circumstances. But the pace may be slacker presently.</p> + +<p>"Let's be steady!" Fenwick's voice, as he says this, has a sense of +ease in it, as though he were relieved by his disclosure. He takes +Vereker's arm in his again, and as they walk on together + +<!-- Page 406 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> +is +evidently on good terms with his cigar—so the doctor thinks—and +the tremor has gone from his hands. A short pause, and he goes on +speaking: "Until we pitched on the Klondyke just now I knew nothing +of this. I shall get it all back in time. Let me see!..."</p> + +<p>The doctor recovered his presence of mind. "Stop a minute," said he. +"Do you know, Fenwick, if I were you I shouldn't try to tell +anything until you're clearer about the whole thing. Don't talk to +me now. Wait till you are in a state to know how much you wish to +tell." But Fenwick would have none of this. He shook his head +decidedly.</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> talk to some one about it. And my wife I cannot...."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"You will see. You need not be frightened of too many confidences. I +haven't recollected any grave misdemeanours yet. I'll keep them to +myself when they come. Now listen to what I can and do recollect +pretty clearly." He paused a second, as if his first item was shaky; +then said, "Yes!—of course." And went on as though the point were +cleared up.</p> + +<p>"Of course! I went up to the Klondyke almost in the first rush, in +'97. I'll tell you all about that after. Others besides myself +became enormously rich that summer, but I was one of the luckiest. +However, I don't want to tell you about Harrisson at +Klondyke—(that's how I find it easiest to think of myself, third +person singular!)—but to get at the thing in the dream, that +concerns me most <i>now</i>. Listen!... Only remember this, Vereker dear! +I can only recall jagged fragments yet awhile. I have been stunned, +and can't help that...." He stopped the doctor, who was about to +speak, with: "I know what you are going to say; let it stand over a +bit—wait and be patient—all that sort of game! All very good and +sensible, but I <i>can't</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Can't?"</p> + +<p>"No! Can't—simply <i>can't</i>. Because, look you! One of the things +that has come back is that I am a married man—by which I mean that +Harrisson was. Oh dear! It <i>is</i> such an ease to me to think of +Harrisson as somebody else. You can't understand that." But Vereker +is thoroughly discomposed.</p> + +<p>"But didn't you say—only just now—there was +nothing—<i>nothing</i>—to + +<!-- Page 407 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +unsettle your present life? No; I can't +understand—I <i>can't</i> understand." His reply is to Fenwick's words, +but the reference is to the early part of his speech.</p> + +<p>"You will understand it better if I tell you more. Let me do it my +own way, because I get mixed, and feel as if I might lose the clue +any moment. All the time I was with the Clemenceaux at Ontario I was +a married man—I mean that I <i>knew</i> I was a married man. And I +remember knowing it all that time. Indeed, I did! But if you ask me +who my wife was—she wasn't there, you know; you've got all that +clear?—why, I can't tell you any more than Adam! All I know is that +all that time little Ernestine was growing from a girl to a woman, +the reason I felt there could be no misunderstanding on that score +was that Clemenceau and his wife knew quite well I had been married +and divorced or something—there was something rum, long before—and +you know Papists would rather the Devil outright than have their +daughter marry a divorced man. But as to who the wife had been, and +what it was all about...."</p> + +<p>He stopped again suddenly, seizing Vereker by the arm with a strong +hand that trembled as it had done before. His face went very white, +but he kept self-possession, as it were mechanically; so completely +that the long ash on his half-smoked cigar remained unbroken. He +waited a moment, and then spoke in a controlled way.</p> + +<p>"I can remember nothing of the story; or what seems to come I <i>know</i> +is only confusion ... by things in it...." Vereker thought it might +be well to change the current of his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Who were the Clemenceaux at Ontario?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I ought to tell you that. Only there were so many +things. Clemenceau was a jeweller at Ontario. I lived in the flat +over his shop, and used to see a great deal of his family. I must +have lived almost entirely among French Canadians while I was +there—it was quite three or four years...."</p> + +<p>"And all that time, Fenwick, you thought of yourself as a married +man?"</p> + +<p>"Married or divorced—yes. And long before that."</p> + +<p>"It is quite impossible for me—you must see it—to form any picture +in my mind of how the thing presents itself to you."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 408 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"It seems—to me—perfectly incredible that you should have no +recollection at all of the marriage, or divorce, or whatever it +was...."</p> + +<p>"I did not say I had no recollection <i>at all</i>. Listen. Don't you +know this, Vereker?—of course you do, though—how one wakes from a +hideous dream and remembers exactly the feeling it produced, and how +the same feeling comes back when one recalls from the dream some +fragment preserved from all one has forgotten of it—something +nowise horrible in itself, but from its associations in the dream?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, perfectly!"</p> + +<p>"Well—that's my case. When I try to bring back the memories I know +I <i>must</i> have had at that time in Canada, nothing comes back but a +horror—something like a story read in boyhood and shuddered at in +the night—but all details gone. I mean all details with horror in +them. Because, do you know?..."</p> + +<p>"Yes——?" Vereker stopped beside him on the path, as Fenwick +stopped and hesitated. Utter perplexity almost forbidding speech was +the impression the doctor received of his condition at this moment. +After a moment's silence he continued:</p> + +<p>"You will hardly believe me, but almost the only thing I can +revive—that is, have revived so far—is an occurrence that must +needs at the time have been a happiness and a delight. And yet it +now presents itself to me as an excruciating torment—as part of +some tragedy in which I had to be an actor, but of which I can seize +no detail that does not at once vanish, leaving mere pain and +confusion."</p> + +<p>"What was it? You don't mind...."</p> + +<p>"Mind telling you? Oh no!—why should I? I may be happier if I can +tell it. It's like this. I am at a railway-station in the heat +somewhere, and am expecting a girl who is coming to marry me. I can +remember the heat and our meeting, and then all is Chaos again. +Then, instead of remembering more, I go over and over again the old +thing as at first.... No! nothing new presents itself. Only the +railway-station and the palm-trees in the heat. And the train coming +slowly in, and my knowing that she is in it, and coming to marry +me."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 409 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Do you mean that the vision—or scene—in your mind stops dead, and +you don't see her get out of the carriage?"</p> + +<p>They had walked on slowly again a short distance. Fenwick made +another halt, and as he flicked away a most successful crop of +cigar-ash that he had been cultivating—so it struck Vereker—as a +kind of gauge or test of his own self-control, he answered:</p> + +<p>"I couldn't say that. Hardly! I see a girl or woman get out of the +carriage, but <i>not her</i>...!"</p> + +<p>Vereker was completely at a loss—began to be a little afraid his +companion's brain might be giving way. "How <i>can</i> you tell that," +said he, "unless you know who she ought to have been?"</p> + +<p>Fenwick resumed his walk, and when he replied did so in a voice that +had less tension in it, as though something less painful had touched +his mind:</p> + +<p>"It's rum, I grant you. But the whole thing is too rum to bear +thinking of—at least, to bear talking about. As to the exact reason +<i>why</i> I know it's not her, that's simple enough!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Because Mrs. Fenwick gets out of the train—my Rosey, here, Sally's +mother. And it's just the same with the only other approach to a +memory that connects itself with it—a shadowy, indistinct ceremony, +also in the heat, much more indistinct than the railway-station. My +real wife's image—Rosey's, here—just takes the place at the altar +where the other one should be, and prevents my getting at any +recollection of her. It is the only thing that makes the dream +bearable."</p> + +<p>Vereker said nothing. He did not want to disturb any lull in the +storm in his companion's mind. After a slight pause the latter +continued:</p> + +<p>"The way I account for it seems to me sufficient. I cannot conceive +any woman being to me what ... or, perhaps I should express it +better by saying I cannot connect the <i>wife-idea</i> with any image +except hers. And, of course, the strong dominant idea displaces the +feeble memory."</p> + +<p>Vereker was ready with an unqualified assent at the moment. For +though Sally, as we have seen, had taken him into her confidence the +day after her mother's wedding—and, indeed, had talked over the +matter many times with him since—the actual truth was far too +strange to suggest itself offhand, as it would have + +<!-- Page 410 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +been doing had +the doctor connected the fact that Sally's mother went out to India +to be married with this meeting of two lovers at a simmering +railway-station, name not known. The idea of the <i>impossible per se</i> +is probably the one a finite intelligence most readily admits, and +is always cordially welcome in intellectual difficulties—a +universal resolution of logical discords. In the case of these two +men, at that moment, neither was capable of knowing the actual truth +had he been told it, whatever the evidence; still less of catching +at slight connecting-links. Fenwick went on speaking:</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you will understand it—yes! I think, perhaps, +you might—that it's a consolation to me this way Mrs. Fenwick comes +in. It seems to bring fresh air into what else would be—ugh!" He +shuddered a half-intentional shudder; then, dropping his voice, went +on, speaking quickly: "The thing makes part of some tragedy—some +sad story—something best forgotten! If I could only dare to hope I +might remember no more—might even forget it altogether."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps if you could remember the whole the painfulness might +disappear. Does not anything in the image of the railway-station +give a clue to its whereabouts?"</p> + +<p>"No. It hardly amounts to an image at all—more a fact than an +image. But the heat was a fact. And the dresses were all +white—thin—tropical...."</p> + +<p>"Then the Mrs. Fenwick that comes out of the train isn't dressed as +she dresses here?"</p> + +<p>"Why, n-n-no!... No, certainly not. But that's natural, you know. Of +course, my mind supplies a dress for the heat."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't diminish the puzzlement."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—but it does, though. Because, look here! It's not the +<i>only</i> thing. I find myself consciously making Rosey look <i>younger</i>. +I can't help my mind—my <i>now</i> mind—working, do what I will! But as +to where it was, I fancy I have a clue. I can remember +remembering—if you understand me—that I had been in +Australia—remembered it at Ontario—talked about it to Tina +Clemenceau...."</p> + +<p>If Vereker had had any tendency to get on a true scent at this +point, the reference to Australia would have thrown him off it. And +the thought of the Canadian girl took Fenwick's mind once more + +<!-- Page 411 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +to +his American life: "It was my thinking of that girl made all this +come back to me, you know. Just after you left us, when we were +throwing stones in the sea, last night...."</p> + +<p>"Throwing stones in the sea?..."</p> + +<p>"Yes—we went down to the waves on the beach, and my throwing a +stone in reminded me of it all, after. I was just going to get to +sleep, when, all of a sudden, what must I think of but Niagara!—at +least, the rapids. I was standing with Mademoiselle Tina—no one +else—on a rock overlooking the great torrent, and I threw a stone +in, and she said no one would ever see that stone again. I said, +'Like a man when he dies and is forgotten,' or something of that +sort. I recollect her now—poor child!—turning her eyes full on me +and saying, 'But I should not forget you, Mr. Harrisson.' You see +how it was? Only it seems a sort of disloyalty to the poor girl to +tell it. It was all plain, and she meant it to be. I can't remember +now whether I said, 'I can't marry you, Tina, because I don't know +that my wife is dead,' or whether I only thought it. But I know that +I then knew I was, or had been, married and divorced or deserted. +And it was that unhappy stone that brought it all back to me."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure that began it. I was just off, and some outlying scrap +of my mind was behindhand, and that stone saw it and pounced on it. +I remembered more after that. I know I was rather glad to start off +to the new gold river, because of Ernestine Clemenceau. I don't +think I should have cared to marry Ernestine. Anyhow, I didn't. She +seems to me Harrisson's affair now. Don't laugh at me, doctor!"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't laughing." And, indeed, this was true. The doctor was very +far from laughing.</p> + +<p>They had walked some little way inland, keeping along a road sunk in +the chalk. This now emerged on an exposed hill-side, swept by the +sea wind; which, though abated, still made talk less easy than in +the sheltered trench, or behind the long wall where Fenwick lit his +cigar. Vereker suggested turning back; and, accordingly, they +turned. The doctor found time to make up his mind that no harm could +be done now by referring to his interview with Rosalind, the day +before.</p> + +<p>"Your wife told me yesterday that you had just had a tiresome +recurrence + +<!-- Page 412 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +when you came out after us—at the jetty-end, you know."</p> + +<p>"Surely! So I had. Did she tell you what it was?" Evidently, in the +stress and turmoil of his subsequent experience in the night, it had +slipped from him. The doctor said a reminding word or two, and it +came back.</p> + +<p>"I know, I know. I've got it now. That was last night. But now—that +again! <i>Why</i> was it so horrible? That was dear old Kreutzkammer, at +'Frisco. What could there be horrible about <i>him</i>?..." A clear idea +shot into the doctor's mind—not a bad thing to work on.</p> + +<p>"Fenwick!—don't you see how it is? These things are only horrible +to you <i>because</i> you half recollect them. The pain is only the +baffled strain on the memory, not the thing you are trying to +recover."</p> + +<p>"Very likely." He assents, but his mind is dwelling on Kreutzkammer, +evidently. For he breaks into a really cheerful laugh, pleasant in +the ears of his companion. "Why, <i>that</i> was Diedrich Kreutzkammer!" +he exclaims, "up at that Swiss place. And I didn't know him from +Adam!"</p> + +<p>"Of course it was. But look here, Fenwick—isn't what I say true? +Half the things that come back to you will be no pain at all when +you have fairly got hold of them. Only, <i>wait</i>! Don't struggle to +remember, but let them come."</p> + +<p>"All right, old chap! I'll be good." But he has no very strong +convictions on the subject, clearly. The two walk on together in +silence as far as the low flint wall, in another recess of which +Fenwick lights another cigar, as before. Then he turns to the doctor +and says:</p> + +<p>"Not a word of this to Rosey—nor to Sallykin!" The doctor seems +perplexed, but assents and promises. "Honest Injun!—as Sally says," +adds Fenwick. And the doctor repeats that affidavit, and then says:</p> + +<p>"I shall have to finesse a good deal. I can manage with Mrs. +Fenwick. But—I wish I felt equally secure with Miss Sally." He +feels very insecure indeed in that quarter, if the truth is told. +And he is afflicted with a double embarrassment here, as he has +never left Sally without her "miss" in speaking to Fenwick, while, +on the other hand, he holds a definite licence from her mother—is, + +<!-- Page 413 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> +as it were, a chartered libertine. But that's a small matter, after +all. The real trouble is having to look Sally in the face and +conceal anything.</p> + +<p>"Miss who?" says Fenwick. "Oh—Sally, you mean! Of course she'll +rush the position. Trust her!" He can't help laughing as he thinks +of Sally, with Dr. Conrad vainly trying to protect his outworks.</p> + +<p>The momentary hesitation about how to speak of Sally may have +something to do with Vereker's giving the conversation a twist. It +turns, however, on a point that has been waiting in his mind all +through their interview, ever since Fenwick spoke of his identity +with Harrisson.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Fenwick," he says. "It's all very fine your talking +about keeping Mrs. Fenwick in the dark about this. I know it's for +her own sake—but you can't."</p> + +<p>"And why not? I can't have Rosey know I have another wife +living...."</p> + +<p>"You don't know she's alive, for one thing!"</p> + +<p>"H'm!... I don't <i>know</i>, certainly. But I should have known, +somehow, if she were dead. Of course, if further memory or inquiry +proves that she <i>is</i> dead, that's another matter."</p> + +<p>"But, in the meanwhile, how can you prove your identity with +Harrisson and claim all your property without her knowing?... What I +mean is, I can't think it out. There may be a way...."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy"—Fenwick says this very quietly—"that's exactly the +reason why I said you would have to help me to settle whether I +should be that man again or not. I say <i>not</i>, if the decision lies +with me."</p> + +<p>"Not?—not <i>at all</i>?" The doctor fairly gasps; his breath is taken +away. Never perhaps was a young man freer from thought and influence +of money than he, more absorbed in professional study and untainted +by the supremacies of property. But for all that he was human, and +English, and theoretically accepted gold as the thing of things, the +one great aim and measure of success. Of other men's success, that +is, and <i>their</i> aim, not his. For he was, in his own eyes, a humble +plodder, not in the swim at all. But he ascribed to the huge sums +real people had a right to, outside the limits of the likes of him, +a kind of sacredness + +<!-- Page 414 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> +that grew in a geometrical ratio with their +increase. It gave him much more pain to hear that a safe had been +robbed of thousands in gold than he felt when, on opening a +wrapped-up fee, what seemed a guinea to the touch turned out a new +farthing and a shilling to the sight. It was in the air that he +lived in—that all of us live in.</p> + +<p>So, when Fenwick made in this placid way a choice of conduct that +must needs involve the sacrifice of sums large enough to be spoken +of with awe, even in the sacred precincts of a bank, poor Dr. Conrad +felt that all his powers of counsel had been outshot, and that his +mind was reeling on its pedestal. That a poor man should give up his +savings <i>en bloc</i> to help a friend would have seemed to him natural +and reasonable; that he should do so for honest love of a woman +still more so; but that a millionaire should renounce his millions! +Was it decent? was it proper? was it considerate to Mammon? But that +must have been Fenwick's meaning, too. The doctor did not recover +his speech before Fenwick spoke again:</p> + +<p>"Why should I claim all my property? How should I be the gainer if +it made Rosey unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"I see. I quite see. I feel with you, you know; feel as you do. But +what will become of the money?"</p> + +<p>"The poor darling money? Just think! It will lie neglected at the +bank, unclaimed, forsaken, doing no more mischief than when it was +harmless dust and nuggets in the sand of the Klondyke. While it was +there, gold was a bit—a mighty small bit—dearer than it has become +since. Now that it is in the keeping of chaps who won't give it up +half as easily as the Klondyke did, I suppose it has appreciated +again, as the saying is. The difference of cost between getting it +out of the ground and out of the bank is a negligible factor...." +Fenwick seemed to find ease in chatting economics in this way. Some +of it was so obviously true to Vereker that he at once concluded it +would be classed among fallacies; he had had experience of this sort +of thing. But he paid little attention, as he was thinking of how +much of this interview he could repeat to Sally, to whom every step +they took brought him nearer. The roar of a lion in his path was +every moment more audible to the ears of his imagination. And it +left him silent; but Fenwick went on speaking:</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 415 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"We won't trouble about the darling dust and nuggets; let them lie +in pawn, and wait for a claimant. They won't find Mr. Harrisson's +heir-at-law in a hurry. If ever proof comes of the death of Mrs. +Harrisson—whoever she was—I'll be Mr. Harrisson again. Till +then...."</p> + +<p>"Till then what?"</p> + +<p>"Till then, Vereker dear"—Fenwick said this very seriously, with +emphasis—"till then we shall do most wisely to say nothing further +to Mrs. Fenwick or to Sally. You must see that it won't be possible +to pick and choose, to tell this and reserve that. I shall speak of +the recurrences of memory that come to me, as too confused for +repetition. I shall tell lies about them if I think it politic. +Because I can't have Rosey made miserable on any terms. As for the +chick, you'll have to manage the best you can."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best," the doctor says, without a particle of confidence +in his voice. "But about yourself, Fenwick?"</p> + +<p>"I shall do very well, as long as I can have a chat with you now and +again. You've no idea what a lot of good it has done me, this +talking to you. And, of course, I haven't told you one-tenth of the +things I remember. There was one thing I wanted to say though just +now, and we got off the line—what was it now? Oh, I know, about my +name. It wasn't really Harrisson."</p> + +<p>"Not really Harrisson? What was it then?" What next, and next?—is +the import of the speaker's face.</p> + +<p>"I'll be hanged if I know! But it's true, rum as it seems. I know I +knew it wasn't Harrisson every time I signed a cheque in America. +But as for what it <i>was</i>, that all belongs to the dim time before. +Isn't that them coming to meet us?"</p> + +<p>Yes, it was. And there was something else also the doctor had had it +on his tongue to say, and it had got away on a siding. But it didn't +matter—it was only about whether the return of memory had or had +not been due to the galvanic battery on the pier.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 416 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF THE DOCTOR'S CAUTIOUS RESERVE, AND MRS. FENWICK'S STRONG +COMMON-SENSE. AND OF A LADY AT BUDA-PESTH. HOW HARRISSON WAS ONLY +PAST FORGOTTEN NEWSPAPERS TO DR. VEREKER. OF THE OCTOPUS'S PULSE, +HOW THE HABERDASHER'S BRIDE WOULD TRY ON AT TWO GUAS. A WEEK, AND OF +A PLEASANT WALK BACK FROM THE RAILWAY STATION</p> + +<p>"You never mean to say you've been in the water?"</p> + +<p>It was quite clear, from the bluish finger-tips of the gloveless +merpussy—for at St. Sennans sixes are not <i>de rigueur</i> in the +morning—that she <i>has</i> been in, and has only just come out. But +Fenwick, who asked the question, grasped a handful of loose black +hair for confirmation, and found it wet.</p> + +<p>"Haven't I?" says the incorrigible one. "And you should have heard +the rumpus over getting a machine down."</p> + +<p>"She's a selfish little monkey," her mother says, but forgivingly, +too. "She'll drown herself, and not care a penny about all the +trouble she gives." You see, Rosalind wouldn't throw her words into +this callous form if she was really thinking about the merpussy. But +just now she is too anxious about Gerry to be very particular.</p> + +<p>What has passed between him and Dr. Conrad? What does the latter +know now more than she does herself? She falls back with him, and +allows the other two to go on in front. Obviously the most natural +arrangement.</p> + +<p>"What has he told you, Dr. Conrad?" This is not unexpected, and the +answer is a prepared one, preconcerted under pressure between the +doctor and his conscience.</p> + +<p>"I am going to ask you, Mrs. Fenwick, to do me a very great +kindness—don't say yes without hearing what it is—to ask you to +allow me to keep back all your husband says to me, and to take for +granted that he repeats to you all he feels certain of himself in +his own recollections."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 417 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"He <i>has</i> told you more?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he has. But I am far from certain that anything he has said +can be relied upon—in his present state. Anyway, I should be very +sorry to take upon myself the responsibility of repeating it."</p> + +<p>"He wishes you not to do so?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. I should say so. Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"I won't press you to repeat anything you wish to keep back. But is +his mind easier? After all, that's the main point."</p> + +<p>"That is my impression—much easier." He felt he was quite warranted +in saying this. "And I should say that if he does not himself tell +you again whatever he has been saying to me, it will only show how +uncertain and untrustworthy all his present recollections are. I +cannot tell you how strongly I feel that the best course is to leave +his mind to its own natural development. It may even be that the +partial and distorted images of events such as he has been speaking +of to me...."</p> + +<p>"I mustn't ask you what they were?... Yes, go on."</p> + +<p>"May again become dim and disappear altogether. If they are to do +so, nothing can be gained by dwelling on them now—still less by +trying to verify them—and least of all by using them as a stimulus +to further recollection."</p> + +<p>"You think I had better not ask him questions?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. Leave him to himself. Keep his mind on other +matters—healthy occupations, surrounding life. I am certain of one +thing—that the effort to disinter the past is painful to him in +itself, quite independent of any painful associations in what he is +endeavouring to recall."</p> + +<p>"I have seen that, too, in the slight recurrences he has had when I +was there. I quite agree with you about the best course to pursue. +Let us have patience and wait."</p> + +<p>Of course, Vereker had not the remotest conception that the less +Fenwick remembered, the better his wife would be pleased. So the +principal idea in his mind at that moment was, what a very sensible +as well as handsome woman he was talking to! It was the way in which +most people catalogued Rosalind Fenwick. But her ready assent to his +wishes had intensified the doctor's first item of description. A +subordinate wave of his thought created + +<!-- Page 418 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> +an image of the girl +Fenwick must have pictured to himself coming out of the railway +carriage. He only repeated: "Let us have patience, and wait," with a +feeling of relief from possible further catechism.</p> + +<p>But in order to avoid showing his wish to abate inquiry, he could +talk about aspects of the case that would not involve it. He could +tell of analogous cases well known, or in his own practice. For +instance, that of a Frenchwoman who wandered away from Amiens, +unconscious of her past and her identity, and somehow got to +Buda-Pesth. There, having retained perfect powers of using her +mother-tongue, and also speaking German fluently, she had all but +got a good teachership in a school, only she had no certificate of +character. With a great effort she recalled the name of a lady at +Amiens she felt she could write to for one, and did so. "Fancy her +husband's amazement," said Dr. Conrad, "when, on opening a letter +addressed to his wife in her own handwriting, he found it was an +application from Fräulein Schmidt, or some German name, asking for a +testimonial!" He referred also to the many cases of the caprices of +memory he had met with in his studies of the <i>petit-mal</i> of +epilepsy, a subject to which he had given special attention. It may +have crossed his mind that his companion had fallen very thoroughly +in with his views about not dissecting her husband's case overmuch +for the present. But he put it down, if it did, to her strong +common-sense. It is rather a singular thing how very ready men are +to ascribe this quality—whatever it is—to a beautiful woman. +Especially if she agrees with them.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the doctor was not very sorry when he saw that Sally +and Fenwick, on in front, had caught up with—or been caught up with +by—a mixed party, of a sort to suspend, divert, or cancel all +conversation of a continuous sort. Miss Gwendolen Arkwright and her +next eldest sister had established themselves on Fenwick's +shoulders, and the Julius Bradshaws had just intersected them from a +side-alley. The latter were on the point of extinction; going back +to London by the 3.15, and everything packed but what they had on. +It was a clear reprieve, till 3.15 at any rate.</p> + +<p>There could be no doubt, thought Rosalind to herself, that her +husband's conversation with Vereker had made him easier in his mind + +<!-- Page 419 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> +than when she saw him last, just after breakfast. No doubt he was +all the better, too, for the merpussy's account of her exploit on +the beach; of how she managed to overrule old Gabriel and get a +machine put down, contrary to precedent, common caution, and public +opinion—even in the face of urgent remonstrance from her Swiss +acquaintance, almost as good a swimmer as herself; how she had +picked out a good big selvage-wave to pop in under, and when she got +beyond it enjoyed all the comfort incidental to being in bed with +the door locked. Because, you see, she exaggerated. However, one +thing she said was quite true. There were no breakers out beyond the +said selvage-wave, because the wind had fallen a great deal, and +seemed to have given up the idea of making any more white +foam-crests for the present. But there would be more wind again in +the night, said authority. It was only a half-holiday for Neptune.</p> + +<p>Sally's bracing influence was all the stronger from the fact of her +complete unconsciousness of anything unusual. Her mother had said +nothing to her the day before of the revival of Baron Kreutzkammer, +nor had Dr. Conrad, acting under cautions given. And all Sally knew +of the wakeful night was that her mother had found Fenwick walking +about, unable to sleep, and had said at breakfast he might just as +well have his sleep out now. To which she had agreed, and had then +gone away to see if "the Tishies," as she called them, were blown +away, and had met the doctor coming to see if <i>she</i> was. So she was +in the best of moods as an antidote to mind-cloudage. And Fenwick, +under the remedy, seemed to her no more unlike himself than was to +be expected after not a wink till near daylight. The object of this +prolixity is that it may be borne in mind that Sally never shared +her mother's or her undeclared lover's knowledge of the strange +mental revival caused—as seemed most probable—by the action of the +galvanic battery on the previous day.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Vereker walked back to his Octopus, whom he had forsaken for an +unusually long time, with his brain in a whirl at the strange +revelation he had just heard. His medical experience had put him +well on his guard anent one possibility—that the whole thing might +be delusion on Fenwick's part. How could such + +<!-- Page 420 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> +an imperfect +memory-record be said to prove anything without confirmation from +without?</p> + +<p>His habits of thought had qualified him to keep this possibility +provisionally in the background without forgetting it. There was +nothing in the mere knowledge of its existence to prevent his trying +to recall all he could of the story of the disappearance of +Harrisson, as he read it in the newspapers a year and a half ago. +There had been a deal of talk about it at the time, and great +efforts had been made to trace Harrisson, but without success. The +doctor lingered a little on his way, conscious that he could recall +very little of the Harrisson case, but too interested to be able to +leave his recollections dormant until he should get substantial +information. The Octopus could recollect all about it no doubt, but +how venture to apply to her? Or how to Sally? Though, truly, had he +done so, it would have been with much less hope of a result. Neither +Sally nor her mother were treasure-houses of the day's gossip, as +<i>his</i> mother was. "We must have taken mighty little notice of what +was going on in the world at the time," so thought the doctor to +himself.</p> + +<p>What <i>did</i> he actually recollect? A paragraph headed "Disappearance +of a Millionaire" in a hurried perusal of an evening paper as he +rode to an urgent case; a repetition—several repetitions—on the +newspaper posters of the name Harrisson during the fortnight +following, chiefly disclosing supposed discoveries of the missing +man, sandwiched with other discoveries of their falsehood—clue and +disappointment by turns. He could remember his own perfectly +spurious interest in the case, produced by such announcements +staring at him from all points of the compass, and his own +preposterous contributions to talk-making about them, such as "Have +they found that man Harrisson yet?" knowing himself the merest +impostor all the while, but feeling it dutiful to be up-to-date. How +came no one of them all to put two and two together?</p> + +<p>A gleam of a solution was supplied to the doctor's mind when he set +himself to answer the question, "How should I have gone about +suspecting it?" How, indeed? Ordinary every-day people—<i>you</i>'s and +<i>me</i>'s—can't lightly admit to our minds the idea that we have +actually got mixed up with the regular public people in the +newspapers. Have not even our innocent little announcements + +<!-- Page 421 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> +that we +have been born, or died, or got married, always had a look of having +got in by accident, or under some false pretence? Have we not felt +inflated when a relation of ours has had a letter to a newspaper +inserted, in real print, with his own name as bold as brass? Vereker +was not surprised, on thinking it over, that he personally had +missed the clue. And if he, why not others? Besides, all the +Harrisson talk had been superseded by some more exciting matter +before it had been recognised as possible that Fenwick's memory +might never come back.</p> + +<p>Just as he arrived at Mrs. Iggulden's a thought struck him—not +heavily; only a light, reminding flick—and he stopped a minute to +see what it had to say. It referred to his interview with Scotland +Yard, some six weeks after Fenwick's first appearance.</p> + +<p>He could recall that in the course of his interview one of the +younger officials spoke in an undertone to his chief; who thereon, +after consideration, turned to the doctor and said, "Had not your +man a panama hat? I understood you to say so;" and on receiving an +affirmative reply, spoke again in an undertone to his subordinate to +the effect, half-caught by Vereker, that "Alison's hat was black +felt." Did he say by any chance Harrisson, not Alison? If so, might +not that account for a rather forbidding or opposive attitude on the +Yard's part? He remembered something of fictitious claimants coming +forward, representing themselves as Harrisson—desperate bidders for +a chance of the Klondyke gold. They might easily have supposed this +man and his quenched memory another of the same sort. Evidently if +investigation was not to suffer from overgrown suspicion, only young +and guileless official instinct could be trusted—plain-clothes +<i>ingénus</i>. Dr. Conrad laughed to himself over a particularly +outrageous escapade of Sally's, who, when her mother said they +always sent such very young chicks of constables to Glenmoira Road +in the morning, impudently ascribed them to inspector's eggs, laid +overnight.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"My pulse—feel it!" His Goody mother greeted the doctor with a +feeble voice from inarticulate lips, and a wrist outstretched. She +was being moribund; to pay him out for being behindhand.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 422 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>He skipped all interims, and said, with negligible inaccuracy, "It's +only a quarter past."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk, but feel!" Her failing senses could indulge a little +impatience; but it was like throwing ballast out of a balloon. She +meant to be all the worse directly.</p> + +<p>Her son felt the outstretched wrist, and was relieved to find it +normal—almost abnormally normal, just before lunch! But he had to +pretend. A teaspoonful of brandy in half a glass of water, clearly! +He knew she hated it, but she had better swallow it down. <i>That</i> was +right! And he would hurry Mrs. Iggulden with lunch. However, Mrs. +Iggulden had been beforehand, having seen her good gentleman coming +and the table all laid ready, so she got the steak on, only she knew +there would something happen if too much hurry and sure enough she +broke a decanter. We do not like the responsibility of punctuation +in this sentence.</p> + +<p>"I thought you had forgotten me," quoth the revived Goody to her +son, assisting her to lunch. But the excellent woman said <i>me</i> (as +if it was the name of somebody else, and spelt <i>M</i> double <i>E</i>) with +a compassionate moan.</p> + +<p>Rosalind was glad to see her husband in good spirits again. He was +quite like himself before that unfortunate little galvanic battery +upset everything. Perhaps its effect would go off, and all he had +remembered of the past grow dim again. It was a puzzle, even to +Rosalind herself, that her natural curiosity about all Gerry's +unknown history should become as nothing in view of the unwelcome +contingencies that history might disclose. It spoke well for the +happiness of the <i>status quo</i> that she was ready to forego the +satisfaction of this curiosity altogether rather than confront its +possible disturbing influences. "If we can only know nothing about +it, and be as we are!" was the thought uppermost in her mind.</p> + +<p>It certainly was a rare piece of good luck that, owing to Sally's +leaving the house before Fenwick appeared, and running away to her +madcap swim before he could join her and the doctor, she had just +avoided seeing him during the worst of his depression. Indeed, his +remark that he had not slept well seemed to account for all she had +seen in the morning. And in the afternoon, when the whole party, +minus the doctor, walked over to + +<!-- Page 423 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> +St. Egbert's Station for the +honeymoon portion of it to take its departure for town, and the +other three to say farewells, Fenwick was quite in his usual form. +Only his wife watched for any differences, and unless it was that he +gave way rather more freely than usual to the practice of walking +with his arm round herself or Sally, or both, she could detect +nothing. As the road they took was a quiet one, and they met +scarcely a soul, no exception on the score of dignity was taken to +this by Rosalind; and as for Sally, her general attitude was "Leave +Jeremiah alone—he shall do as he likes." Lætitia's mental comment +was that it wasn't Oxford Street this time, and so it didn't matter.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"I shall walk straight into papa's library," said that young married +lady in answer to an inquiry from Sally, as they fell back a little +to chat. "I shall just walk straight in and say we've come back."</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose the Professor will say?"</p> + +<p>"My dear!—it's the merest toss up. If he's got some very +interesting Greek or Phœnician nonsense on hand, he'll let me +kiss him over his shoulder and say, 'All right—I'm busy.' If it's +only the Cosmocyclopædia work—which he doesn't care about, only it +pays—he may look up and kiss me, or even go so far as to say: +'Well!—and where's master Julius?' But I don't expect he'll give +any active help in the collision with mamma, which is sure to come. +I rather hope she won't be at home the first time."</p> + +<p>"Why? Wouldn't it be better to have it over and done with?" Sally +always wants to clinch everything.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course; only the second time mamma's edge will be all taken +off, and she'll die down. Besides, the crucial point is Paggy +kissing her. It's got to be done, and it will be such a deal easier +if I can get Theeny and Classy kissed first." Classy was the married +sister, Clarissa. "After all, mamma must have got a shred of +common-sense somewhere, and she must know that when things can +neither be cured nor endured you have to pretend, sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"You bottle up when it comes to that," said Sally philosophically. +"But I shouldn't wonder, Tishy, if you found your Goody aggravating, +too. She'll talk about haberdashers."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 424 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, haberdashers are a trifle! If that was all she might +talk herself hoarse. Besides, I can stop that by the mantle +department."</p> + +<p>"What about it? Oh, I know, though!—about your being worth two +guineas a week to try on. She would know you were not serious, +though."</p> + +<p>"Would she? I'm not so sure about it myself—not sure I'm not +serious, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tishy! You don't mean you would go and try on at two guineas a +week?"</p> + +<p>"I really don't know, Sally dear. If I'm to have my husband's +profession flung in my face at every turn, I may just as well have +the advantage of it by a side-wind. Think what two guineas a week +means! A hundred and four guineas a year—remember! guineas, not +pounds. And Paggy thinks he could get it arranged for us to go out +and dine together in the middle of the day at an Italian +restaurant...."</p> + +<p>"I say, what a lark!" Sally immediately warms up to the scheme. "I +could come, too. Do you know, Tishy dear, I was just going to twit +you with the negro and his spots. But now I won't."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The Julius Bradshaws must have reached home early, as our story will +show later that the anticipated collision with the Dragon took place +the same evening. No great matter for surprise, this, to any one who +has noticed the energetic impatience for immediate town-event in +folk just off a holiday. These two were too keen to grapple with +their domestic problem to allow of delays. So, after getting some +dinner in a hurry at Georgiana Terrace, Bayswater, they must needs +cab straight away to Ladbroke Grove Road. As for what happened when +they got there, we shall know as much as we want of it later. For +the present our business lies with Fenwick and his wife; to watch, +in sympathy with the latter, for the next development in the strange +mental state of the former, and to hope with her, as it must be +confessed, for continued quiescence; or, better still, for a +complete return of oblivion.</p> + +<p>It seemed so cruelly hard to Rosalind that it might not be. What had +she to gain by the revival of a forgotten past—a past her + +<!-- Page 425 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> +own +share of which she had for twenty years striven to forget? Utterly +guiltless as, conceivably, she may have known herself to be, she had +striven against that past as the guilty strive with the memory of a +concealed crime. And here was she, at the end of this twenty years, +with all she most longed for at the beginning in her possession, +mysteriously attained with a thoroughness no combination of +circumstances, no patience or forbearance of her own, no +self-restraint or generosity of her young husband's could possibly +have brought about. Think only of what we do know of this imperfect +story! Conceive that it should have been possible for the Algernon +Palliser of those days to know and understand it to the full; +indulge the supposition, however strained it may be, that his so +knowing it would not have placed him in a felon's dock for the +prompt and righteous murder of the betrayer—we take the first +convenient name—of the woman he loved. Convince yourself this could +have been; figure to yourself a happy wedded life for the couple +after Miss Sally had made her unconscious <i>début</i> with the supremest +indifference to her antecedents; construct a hypothetical bliss for +them at all costs, and then say if you can fill out the picture with +a relation between Sally and her putative father to be compared for +a moment to the one chance has favoured now for the stepfather and +stepdaughter of our story.</p> + +<p>Our own imagination is at fault about the would-have-beens and +might-have-beens in this case. The only picture our mind can form of +what would have followed a full grasp of all the facts by Algernon +Palliser may be dictated or suggested by a memory of what sent Mr. +Salter, of Livermore's Rents, 1808, to the hospital. Rosalind knew +nothing of Mr. Salter, but she could remember well all Gerry's feats +of strength in his youth—all the cracking of walnuts in his +arm-joints and bending of kitchen-pokers across his neck—and also, +too well, an impotence against his own anger when provoked; it had +died down now to a trifle, but she could detect the trifle still. +Was such an executive to be trusted not to take the law into its own +hands, to fall into the grasp of an offended legislative function +later—one too dull to be able to define offence so as to avoid the +condemnation, now and again, of a culprit whose technical crime has +the applause of the whole human race? Had the author of all her +wrongs met + +<!-- Page 426 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> +his death at the hands of her young husband, might not +this husband of her later life—beside her now—be still serving his +time at the galleys, with every compulsory sharer in his +condemnation thinking him a hero?</p> + +<p>It was all so much better as it had turned out. Only, could it +remain so?</p> + +<p>At least, nothing was wrong now, at this moment. Whatever her +husband had said to Vereker in that morning walk, the present hour +was a breathing-space for Rosalind. The Kreutzkammer recurrence of +the previous evening was losing its force for her, and there had +been nothing since that she knew of. "Chaotic ideas"—the phrase he +had used in the night—might mean anything or nothing.</p> + +<p>They came back from the railway-station by what was known to them as +the long short cut in contradistinction to the short short cut. The +latter, Sally said, had the courage of its opinions, while the +former was a time-serving cut. Could she have influenced it at the +first go-off—when it originally started from the V-shaped stile +your skirts stuck in, behind the Wheatsheaf—it might have mustered +the resolution to go straight on, instead of going off at a tangent +to Gattrell's Farm, half a mile out of the way. Was it intimidated +by a statement that trespassers would be prosecuted, nailed to an +oak-tree, legible a hundred years ago, perhaps, when its nails were +not rust, and really held it tight—instead of, as now, merely +countenancing its wish to remain from old habit? It may have been so +frightened in its timid youth; but if so, surely the robust +self-assertion of its straight start for Gattrell's had in it +something of contempt for the poor old board, coupled with its +well-known intention of turning to the left and going slap through +the wood the minute you (or it) got there. It may even have twitted +that board with its apathy in respect of trespassers. Had the threat +<i>ever</i> been carried out?</p> + +<p>The long short cut was, according to the aborigines, a goodish step +longer than the road, geometrically. But there was some inner +sense—moral, ethical, spiritual—somehow metaphysical or +supraphysical—in which it was a short cut, for all that. The road +was a dale farther, some did say, along of the dust. But, then, +there was no dust now, because it was all laid. So the reason + +<!-- Page 427 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> +why +was allowed to lapse, and the fact to take care of itself for once. +Helped by an illusion that a path through an undergrowth of +nut-trees and an overgrowth of oak on such a lovely afternoon as +this wasn't distance at all—even when you got hooked in the +brambles—and by other palliative incidents, it was voted a very +short cut indeed. Certainly not too long for Rosalind's +breathing-space, and had it been even a longer short cut she would +have been well contented.</p> + +<p>Every hour passed now, without a new recurrence of some bygone, was +going to give her—she knew it well beforehand—a sense of greater +security. And every little incident on the walk that made a change +in the rhythm of event was welcome. When they paused for +refreshments—ginger-beer in stone bottles—at Gattrell's, and old +Mrs. Gattrell, while she undid the corks, outlined the troubles of +her husband's family and her own, she felt grateful for both to have +kept clear of India and "the colonies." No memories of California or +the Arctic Circle could arise from Mrs. Gattrell's twin-sister +Debory, who suffered from information—internal information, mind +you; an explanation necessary to correct an impression of overstrain +to the mind in pursuit of research. Nor from her elder sister +Hannah, whose neuralgic sick headaches were a martyrdom to herself, +but apparently a source of pride to her family. Of which the +inflation, strange to say, was the greater because Dr. Knox was of +opinion that they would yield to treatment and tonics; though the +old lady herself was opposed to both, and said elder-flower-water. +She was a pleasant old personage, Mrs. Gattrell, who always shone +out as a beacon of robust health above a fever-stricken, paralysed, +plague-spotted, debilitated, and disintegrating crowd of +blood-relations and connexions by marriage. But not one of all these +had ever left the soil they were born on, none of Mrs. Gattrell's +people holding with foreign parts. And nothing whatever had ever +taken place at St. Egbert's till the railway come; so it wasn't +likely to arouse memories of the ice-fields of the northern cold or +the tiger-hunts of the southern heat.</p> + +<p>Rosalind found herself asking of each new thing as it arose: "Will +this bring anything fresh to his mind, or will it pass?" The +wood-path the nut-tree growth all but closed over on either side she +decided was safe; it could taste of nothing but his English + +<!-- Page 428 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> +school-boyhood, before ever she knew him. But the sudden uprush of +the covey of partridges from the stubble, and their bee-line for a +haven in the next field—surely danger lay that way? Think what a +shot he was in the old days! However, he only said, "Poor dears, +they don't know how near the thirty-first is," and seemed to be able +to know that much from past experience without discomfort at not +knowing more.</p> + +<p>When Sally proposed fortune-telling in connexion with a <i>bona-fide</i> +gipsy woman, who looked (she said) exactly like in "Lavengro," her +mother's first impulse was to try and recall if she and the Gerry of +old times had ever been in contact with gipsies, authentic or +otherwise, and, after decision in the negative, to feel that this +wanderer was more welcome than not, as having a tendency to conduct +his mind safely into new channels. Even the conclave of cows he had +to disperse that they might get through a gate—cows that didn't +mind how long they waited at it, having time on their +hands—suggested the same kind of query. She was rapidly getting to +look at everything from the point of view of what it was going to +remind her husband of. She must struggle against the habit that was +forming, or it would become insupportable. But then, again, the +thought would come back that every hour that passed without an alarm +was another step towards a safe haven; and who could say that in a +week or so things might not be, at least, no worse than they were +before this pestilent little galvanic battery broke in upon her +peace?</p> + +<p>The fact that he had spoken of new memories to Vereker and had not +repeated them to her was no additional source of uneasiness; rather, +if anything, the contrary. For she could not entertain the idea that +Gerry would keep back from her anything he could tell to Vereker. +What had actually happened was necessarily inconceivable by +her—that a <i>recollected recollection</i> of his own marriage with her +should be interpreted by him as a memory of a marriage with some +other woman unknown, who might, for anything he knew, be still +living; that his inference as to the bearing of this on his own +conduct was that he should refrain, at any cost to himself, from +claiming, so to speak, his own identity; should accept the +personality chance had forced upon him for her sake; should even +forego the treasure of her sympathy, + +<!-- Page 429 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> +more precious far to him than +the heavy score to his credit at the banks of New York and San +Francisco, rather than dig up what needs must throw doubt on the +validity of their marriage, and turn her path of life, now smooth, +to one of stones and thorns. For that was the course he had sketched +out for himself; and had it only been possible for oblivion to draw +a sharp line across the slowly reviving record, and to say to +memory: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," Fenwick might have +persevered in this course successfully till now. And then all our +story would have been told—at least, as far as Rosalind and Fenwick +go. And we might say farewell to them at this moment as the cows +reluctantly surrender passage-way of the long short cut, and Gerry +saunters on, seemingly at ease from his own mind's unwelcome +activities, with Sally on one arm and his wife in the other, and +Mrs. Grundy nowhere. But no conspiracies are possible to memory and +oblivion. They are a couple that act independently and consult +nobody's convenience but their own.</p> + +<p>It may easily be that Rosalind, had she been mistress of all the +facts and taken in the full position, would have decided to run the +risks incidental to confronting her husband with his own past—taken +him into her confidence and told him. With the chance in view that +his reason might become unsettled from the chronic torment of +constant half-revivals of memory, would it not almost be safer to +face the acute convulsion of a sudden <i>éclaircissement</i>—to put +happiness to the touch, and win or lose it all? Sally could be got +out of the way for long enough to allow of a resumption of +equilibrium after the shock of the first disclosure and a completely +established understanding that she <i>must not be told</i>, come what +might. Supposing that she could tell, and he could hear, the whole +story of twenty years ago better than when a terrible position +warped it for teller and hearer in what had since become to her an +intolerable dream—supposing this done, and each could understand +the other, might not the very strangeness of the fact that the small +new life that played so large a part in that dream had become Sally +since, and was the only means by which Sally could have been +established, might not this tell for peace? Might it not even raise +the question, "What does a cloud of twenty years ago matter at all?" +and suggest + +<!-- Page 430 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +the answer, "Nothing? For did not Sally come to us out +of the cloud, and could we do without her?"</p> + +<p>But Rosalind's half-insight into the patchwork of her husband's +perceptions warranted no step so decisive. Rather, if anything, it +pointed to a gradual resumption of his <i>status quo</i> of a few days +ago. After all, had he not had (and completely forgotten) +recurrences like that of the Baron and the fly-wheel? Well, perhaps +the last was a shade more vivid than the others. But then see now, +had he not forgotten it already to all outward seeming?</p> + +<p>So that the minds of the two of them worked to a common +end—silence. Hers in the hope that the effects of the galvanic +current—if that did it—would die away and leave him rest for his; +his in the fear that behind the unraised curtain that still hid his +early life from himself was hidden what might become a baleful power +to breed unrest for hers.</p> + +<p>But it all depended on his own mastery of himself. Except he told +it, who should know that he was Harrisson? And <i>how</i> he felt the +shelter of the gold! Who was going to suspect that a man who could +command wealth in six figures by disclosing his identity, would keep +it a secret? And for his wife's sake too! A pitiful four-or +five-figure man might—yes. But hundreds of thousands!—think of it!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 431 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF AN EXPEDITION AGAINST A GOODY, AND THE WALK BACK TO LOBJOIT'S. +AND THE WALK BACK AGAIN TO IGGULDEN'S. HOW FENWICK TOOK VEREKER'S +CONFIDENCE BY STORM. OF A COLLIER THAT PUT TO SEA. SUCCESSFUL +AMBUSCADE OF THE OCTOPUS. PROVISIONAL EQUILIBRIUM OF FENWICK'S MIND. +WHY BOTHER ABOUT HORACE? WHY NOT ABOUT PICKWICK JUST AS MUCH? THE +KITTEN WASN'T THERE—CERTAINLY NOT!</p> + +<p>So it came about that during the remainder of that day and part of +the next Fenwick either made no further exploration of his past; or, +if he did so, concealed his discoveries. For he not only kept +silence with Rosalind, but even with Vereker was absolutely +reserved, never alluding to their conversation of the morning. And +the doctor accepted this reserve, and asked no questions.</p> + +<p>As for Rosalind, she was only too glad to catch at the support of +the medical authority and to abstain from question or suggestion; +for the present certainly, and, unless her silence—as might +be—should seem to imply a motive on her part, to maintain it until +her husband revived the subject by disclosing further recollections +of the bygone time. Happily Sally knew nothing about it; <i>that</i> her +mother was convinced of. And Sally wasn't likely to know anything, +for Vereker's professional discretion could be relied on, even if +her suspicions were excited. And, really, except that Fenwick seemed +a little drowsy and reflective, and that Rosalind had a semitone of +consolation in her manner towards him, there was nothing to excite +suspicion.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>After the cows—this is an expression borrowed from Sally, later in +the afternoon—conversation flagged through the rest of the walk +home. Except for regrets, more than once expressed, that it would be +much too late for tea when we got in, and a passing + +<!-- Page 432 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +word on the +fact that at the seaside one got as greedy as some celebrated +glutton—a Roman emperor, perhaps—very few ideas were interchanged. +But a little conversation was made out of the scarcity of a good +deal, for the persistent optimism of Sally recognised that it was +awfully jolly saying nothing on such a lovely evening. Slight +fatigue, combined with the beauty of sky and sea and distant +downland, the lengthening shadows of the wheatsheaves, and the +scarlet of poppies in the stubble, seemed good to justify +contemplation and silence. It was an hour to caress in years to +come, none the less that it was accepted as the mere routine of +daily life in the short term of its existence. It was an hour that +came to an end when the party arrived at the hedge of the unripe +sloes that had checked the onset of Albion Villas towards the new +town, and passed through the turnstile Fenwick and Vereker had +passed through in the morning. Then speech came back, and each did +what all folk invariably do after a long spell of silence—revealed +what they were being silent about, or seemed to be. Most likely +Fenwick's contribution was only a blind, as his mind must have been +full of many thoughts he wished to keep to himself.</p> + +<p>"I wonder when Paganini's young woman's row with her mother's going +to come off—to-day or to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I was wondering whether it would come off at all. I dare say she'll +accept the inevitable." Thus Rosalind, and for our part we believe +this also was not quite candid—in fact, was really suggested by her +husband's remark. But Sally's was a genuine disclosure, and really +showed what her mind had been running on.</p> + +<p>"I've been meditating a Crusade," she said, with remoteness from +current topics in her voice. And both her companions immediately +made concessions to one that seemed to them genuine as compared with +their own.</p> + +<p>"Against whom, kitten?" said her mother.</p> + +<p>And Fenwick reinforced her with, "Yes, who's the Crusade to be +against, Sarah?"</p> + +<p>"Against the Octopus." And Sally says this with the most perfectly +unconscious gravity, as though a Crusade against an octopus was a +very common occurrence in every-day life. The eyes of her companions +twinkle a little interchange across her unseen, + +<!-- Page 433 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> +but are careful to +keep anything suggesting a smile out of their voices as they apply +for enlightenment.</p> + +<p>"Because of poor Prosy," Sally explains. "You'll see now. She won't +allow him to come round this evening, you see if she does!" She is +so intent upon her subject-matter that they might almost have smiled +aloud without detection, after all.</p> + +<p>"When's it to come off, Sarah—the Crusade?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of going round this evening if he doesn't turn up."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we all go," Fenwick suggests. And Rosalind assents. The +Crusade may be considered organized. "We'll give him till +eight-forty-five," Sally says, forecasting strategy, "and then if he +doesn't come we'll go."</p> + +<p>Eight-forty-five came, but no doctor. So the Crusade came off as +arranged, with the result that the Christian forces, on arriving in +the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, found that the Octopus responsible +for the personation of the Saracens had just gone to bed. It was an +ill-advised Crusade, because if the Christians had only had a little +patience, the released prisoner would have looked round as soon as +his janitor was asleep. As it turned out, no sooner were the +visitors' voices audible than the Octopus became alive to the +pleasures of society, and renounced sleep in its favour. She would +slip something on and come down, and did so. Her doing so was out of +keeping with the leading idea of the performance, presenting the +Paynim as an obliging race; but a meek and suffering one, though it +never aired its grievances. These, however, were the chief subjects +of conversation during the visit, which, in spite of every failure +in dramatic propriety, was always spoken of in after days as "the +Crusade." It came to an end in due course, the Saracen host retiring +to bed, with benedictions.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Vereker walked back with our friends to Mrs. Lobjoit's through the +sweet night-air a considerate little shower of rain, that came down +while they were sympathetically engaged, had just washed clean. +Vapour-drifts that were wavering between earth and sky, and +sacrificing their birthright of either cloudship or foghood, were +accompanying a warm sea-wind towards the north. Out beyond, and +quite clear of all responsibility for them and + +<!-- Page 434 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> +theirs, was a +flawless heaven with the stellar and planetary universe in it, +pitiless and passionless eyes perhaps—as Tennyson calls them—and +strange fires; but in this case without power to burn and brand +their nothingness into the visitors to St. Sennans, who laughed and +talked and smoked and took no notice; and, indeed, rather than +otherwise, considered that Orion's Belt and Aldebaran had been put +there to make it a fine night for them to laugh and talk and smoke +in.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to Vereker, after his walk with Fenwick in the +morning, to find the latter like his usual cheerful self again. The +doctor had had rather a trying time with his Goody mother, so that +the day had been more one of tension than of peace, and it was a +heavenly respite to him from filial duties dutifully borne, to walk +home with the goddess of his paradise—the paradise that was so soon +to come to an end and send him to the release of his "locum," Mr. +Neckitt. Never mind. The having such a time to look back to in the +future was quite as much as one general practitioner, with a duty to +his mother, could in reason expect. Was Dr. Conrad aware, we wonder, +how much the philosophical resignation that made this attitude of +thought possible was due to the absence of any other visible +favoured applicant for Miss Sally, and the certainty that he would +see her once or twice a week at least after he had gone back to his +prescriptions and his diary of cases?</p> + +<p>Probably he wasn't; and when, on arriving at Lobjoit's, Fenwick +announced that he didn't want to go in yet, and would accompany the +doctor back to Iggulden's and take a turn round, the only misgiving +that could try for an insecure foothold in the mind now given up to +a delirium it called Sally was one that Fenwick might have some new +painful memory to tell. But he was soon at rest about this. Fenwick +wasn't going to talk about himself. Very much the reverse, if one's +own reverse is some one else. He was going to talk about the doctor, +into whose arm he slipped his own as soon as he had lighted his +second cigar. For they had not walked quick from Iggulden's.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me about Sir Dioscorides Nayler and the epileptiform +disorders."</p> + +<p>"Miss Sally's been telling you...."</p> + +<p>"No, she didn't—Sally did." Both laughed. The doctor will make + +<!-- Page 435 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> +it +Sally next time—that's understood. "You told Sally and she told me. +What's the damage to be?"</p> + +<p>"How much did Sally tell you?" The little formality comes easier to +the doctor's shyness as it figures, this time, quotation-wise. It is +a repeat of Fenwick's use of it.</p> + +<p>"Sally said three thousand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what I told her. But it's not official. He may want +more. He may let me have it for three. Only I don't know why I +should have it for less than any one else."</p> + +<p>"Never you mind why! That's no concern of yours, my dear boy. What +you've got to think of is of yourself and Mrs. Vereker. Dioscorides +will take care of himself—trust him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, I have to think of my mother." One can hear in the +speaker's voice what may be either self-reproach for having +neglected this aspect of the case, or very tolerant indictment of +Fenwick for having mistakenly thought he had done so.</p> + +<p>"What's the man thinking of? Of course you have, but I didn't mean +your mother. She's a dear old lady"—this came grudgingly—"but I +didn't mean her. I meant the Mrs. Vereker that's to come. Your wife, +dear fellow, your wife."</p> + +<p>The way the young man flushed up, hesitated, stammered, couldn't +organize a sane word, amused Fenwick intensely. Of course he was, so +to speak, quite at home—understood the position thoroughly. But he +wasn't going to torment the doctor. He was only making it impossible +for him to avoid confession, for his own sake. He did not wait for +the stammering to take form, but continued:</p> + +<p>"I mean the young lady you told Sally about—the young lady you are +hesitating to propose to because there'll be what you call +complications in medicine—complications about your mamma, to put it +plainly.... Oh yes, of course, Sally told me all about it directly." +Vereker cannot resist a laugh, for all his embarrassment, a laugh +which somehow had the image of Sally in it. "She <i>would</i>, you know. +Sally's the sort of party that—that, if she'd been Greek, would +have been the daughter of an Arcadian shepherdess and a +thunderbolt."</p> + +<p>"Of course she would. I say, Fenwick, look here...."</p> + +<p>"Have another cigar, old man."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 436 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"No, I've smoked enough. That one's lasted all the time since we +came out. Look here—what I want to say is ... well, that I was a +great fool—did wrong in fact—to talk to Sally about that young +lady...."</p> + +<p>"And to that young lady about Sally," Fenwick says quietly. For half +a second—such alacrity has thought—Vereker takes his meaning +wrong; thinks he really believes in the other young lady. Then it +flashes on him, and he knows how his companion has been seeing +through him all the while. But so lovable is Fenwick, and so much +influence is there in the repose of his strength, that there is no +resentment on Vereker's part that he should be thus seen through. He +surrenders at discretion.</p> + +<p>"I see you know," he says helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Know you love Sally?—of course I do! So does her mother. So does +yours, for that matter. So does every one, except herself. Why, even +you yourself know it! <i>She</i> never will know it unless she hears it +on the best authority—your own, you know."</p> + +<p>"Ought I to tell her? I know I was all wrong about that humbug-girl +I cooked up to tell her about. I altogether lost my head, and was a +fool."</p> + +<p>"I can't see what end you proposed to yourself by doing it," says +Fenwick a little maliciously. "If Sally had recommended you to speak +up, because it was just possible the young lady might be pining for +you all the time, you couldn't have asked her <i>her</i> name, and then +said, 'That's hers—you're her!' like the fat boy in 'Pickwick.' +No!—I consider, my dear boy, that you didn't do yourself any good +by that ingenious fiction. You know all the while you wouldn't have +been sorry to think she understood you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I didn't think she did. I really don't know what +I did or didn't think. I quite lost my head over it, that's the +truth."</p> + +<p>"Highly proper. Quite consistent with human experience! It's the +sort of job chaps always do lose their heads over. The question now +is, What are we going to do next?" Which meant what was Vereker +going to do next? and was understood by his hearer in that sense. He +made no answer at the moment, and Fenwick was not going to press for +one.</p> + +<p>A Newcastle collier had come in to deliver her cargo some days +since, + +<!-- Page 437 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +before the wind sprang up, and the coal-carts had been +passing and repassing across the sands at low water; for there was a +new moon somewhere in the sky when she came, as thin as a sickle, +clinging tight round the business moon that saw to the spring-tides, +a phantom sphere an intrepid star was daring to go close to. This +brig had not been disappointing her backers, for wagers had been +freely laid that she would drag her moorings in the wind, and drift. +Fenwick and Vereker stopped in their walk to lean on the wooden rail +above the beach that skirted the two inclines, going either way, up +which the waggons had been a couple of hours ago scrambling over the +shingle against time, to land one more load yet while the ebb +allowed it. They could hear the yeo-yeo! of the sail-hoisters at +work on the big mainsail abaft, and wondered how on earth she was +going to be got clear with so little sea-way and the wind dead in +shore. But they were reassured by the ancient mariner with the +striped shirt, whose mission in life seemed to be to stand about and +enlighten land-minds about sea-facts. The master of yander craft had +doon that much afower, and he'd do it again. Why, he'd known him +from three year old, the striped shirt had! Which settled the +matter. Then presently the clink-clink of the windlass dragging at +the anchor. They watched her in silence till, free of her moorings, +any one could have sworn she would be on shore to a certainty. But +she wasn't. She seemed mysteriously to be able to manage for +herself, and just as a berth for the night on the shingle appeared +inevitable, leaned over to the wind and crept away from the land, +triumphant.</p> + +<p>Then, the show being over, as Fenwick and Vereker turned to look the +lateness of the hour in the face, and get home to bed, the latter +answered the question of the former, as though he had but just asked +it.</p> + +<p>"Speak to Sally. I shall have to." And then added, with an awestruck +face and bated breath: "But it's <i>awful</i>!" A moment after he was +laughing at himself, as he said to his companion, referring to a +very palpable fact, "I don't wonder I made you laugh just now."</p> + +<p>They walked on without much said till they came to Iggulden's; when +the doctor, seeing no light in the sitting-room, hoped his worthy +mother had fulfilled a promise made when they came away, + +<!-- Page 438 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> +and gone +to bed. It was then past eleven. But he was reckoning without his +host.</p> + +<p>Fenwick said to him, as they stood on Iggulden's threshold and +doormat respectively—presuming rashly, on imperfect information, to +delay farewells—"Now look here, Conrad, my dear boy (I like your +name Conrad), don't you go and boil over to Sally to-morrow, nor +next day. You'll only spoil the rest of your stay, maybe.... What! +well—what I mean is that nothing I say prejudices the kitten. +You'll understand that, I'm sure?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. Of course, if Sally were to say she knew somebody she +would like a deal better, there's no reason why she shouldn't.... I +mean <i>I</i> couldn't complain."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes! I see. You'd exonerate her. Good boy! Very proper." And +indeed the doctor had felt, as the words passed his lips, that he +was rather a horrid liar. But the point didn't matter. Fenwick +laughed it off: "Just you take my advice, and refer the matter to +the kitten the last day you're here. Monday, won't it be? And don't +think about it!"</p> + +<p>"Oh no! I'm a philosophical sort of chap, I am! Never in extremes. +Good-night!"</p> + +<p>"I see. <i>Sperat infestis metuit secundis alteram sortem bene +præparatum pectus</i>—Horace." Fenwick ran this through in a breath; +and the doctor, a little hazy in school-memories of the classics, +said, "What's that?" and began translating it—"The bosom well +prepared for either lot, fears...." Fenwick caught him up and +completed the sentence:</p> + +<p>"Fears what is good, and hopes for what is not. Cut away to bed, old +chap, and sleep sound...." Then he paused a moment, as he saw the +doctor looking a question at him intently, and just about to speak +it. He answered it before it came:</p> + +<p>"No, no! Nothing more. I mean to forget all about it, and take my +life as it stands. Bother Mr. Harrisson!" He dropped his voice to +say this; then raised it again. "Don't you fret about me, doctor. +Remember, I'm Algernon Fenwick! Good-night!"</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" And then the doctor, with the remains of heart-turmoil +in him, and a brain reeling, more or less, went up into what he +conceived to be an empty dark room, and was disconcerted + +<!-- Page 439 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> +by an +ill-used murmur in the darkness—a meek, submissive voice of one +accustomed to slights:</p> + +<p>"I told her to blow it out and go to bed. It is all—quite—right, +my dear. So do not complain. Now help me with my things, and I will +get to bed."</p> + +<p>"My dear mother! I <i>am</i> so sorry. I had no idea you had not gone +long ago!"</p> + +<p>"My dear!—it does not matter in the least now. What is done, is +done. Be careful with the grease over my work. These candles drop +dreadfully, unless you hold them exactly upright. And gutter. Now +give me your arm, and I will go to bed. I <i>think</i> I shall sleep." +And the worthy woman was really—if her son could only have got his +eyes freed from the scales of domestic superstition, and seen +it—intensely happy and exultant at this fiendish little piece of +discomfort-mongering. She had scored; there was no doubt of it. She +was even turning it over in her own mind whether it would not bear +repetition at a future time; and quite intended, if so, to enjoy +herself over it. Now the doctor was contrite and heavy at heart at +his cruel conduct; walking about—just think!—and talking over his +own affairs while his self-sacrificing mother was sitting in the +dark, with the lamp out! To be sure there was no visible reason why +she should have had it put out, except as a picturesque and +imaginative way of rubbing her altruism into its nearest victim. +Unless, indeed, it was done in order that the darkened window should +seem to announce to the returning truant that she had gone to bed, +and to lull his mind to unconsciousness of the ambush that awaited +him.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, the doctor was so impressed with his own delinquency that he +felt it would be impossible, the lamp having been put out, to take +his mother into his confidence about his conversation with Fenwick. +Which he certainly would have done—late as the hour was—if it had +been left in. So he said good-night, and carried the chaos of his +emotions away to bed with him, and lay awake with them till +cock-crow.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>As Fenwick walked back home, timing his pace by his expectation of +his cigar's duration, he wondered whether, perhaps, he had not been +a little rash. He felt obliged to go back on interviews + +<!-- Page 440 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> +with Sally, +in which the doctor had been spoken of. He recalled for his +justification one in particular. The family conclave at Krakatoa +Villa had recurred to a remark of Rosalind's about the drawback to +Vereker's practice of his bachelorhood. He was then, as it were, +brought up for a second reading, and new clauses added to him +containing schedules of possible wives. Fenwick had noticed, then, +that Sally's assent to the insertion of any candidate's name turned +on two points: one, the lady's consent being taken for granted; the +other, that every young single female human creature known by name +or describable by language was actually out of the question, or +inadmissible in its answer. She rejected almost all applicants for +the post of a doctor's wife without examining their claims, on the +ground of moral or physical defect—as, for instance, you never +would go and tie up poor Prosy to a wife that golloped. Sylvia +Peplow, indeed! Interrogated about the nature of "golloping," Sally +could go no nearer than that Miss Peplow looked as if she couldn't +help it. And her sister was worse: she was perfectly pecky, and shut +up with a click. And as for the large Miss Baker—why, you knew how +large <i>she</i> was, and it would be quite ridiculous! Besides, her +stupidity!</p> + +<p>The only candidates that got the least consideration owed their +success to their names or expectations. Caroline Smith had, or would +have sometime, a thousand a year. But she squinted. Still, she might +be thought over. Mrs. Pollicitus Biggs's cousin Isabella would have +two thousand when her mother died, but the vitality of the latter +was indescribable. Besides, she was just like her name, Isabella, +and did her hair religiously. There was Chariclea Epimenides, +certainly, who had got three thousand, and would have six more. She +might be worth thinking of....</p> + +<p>"Why don't you have him yourself, Sarah?" Fenwick had asked at this +point. Rosalind had just left the room to speak to Ann. But he +didn't want Sarah to be obliged to answer, so he went on: "Why are +all these young ladies' incomes exactly in round thousands?"</p> + +<p>To which Sally had replied: "They always are, when you haven't got +'em." But had fallen into contemplation, and presently said—out of +the blue—"Because I'm an unsettled sort of party—a vagrant. I +shouldn't do for a G.P.'s wife, thank you, + +<!-- Page 441 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> +Jeremiah! I should like +to live in a caravan, and go about the country, and wood fires out +of doors." Was it, Fenwick wondered, the gipsies they had seen +to-day that had made her think of this? and then he recalled how he +afterwards heard the kitten singing to herself the old ballad:</p> + +<p class="song"> +"What care I for my goose-feather bed?<br /> +What care I for my money oh?" +</p> + +<p>and hearing her so sing had somehow imputed to the parade of bravado +in the swing of its rhythm a something that might have belonged to a +touched chord. Like enough a mistake of his, said Reason. But for +all that the reminiscence played its part in soothing Fenwick's +misgivings of his own rashness.</p> + +<p>"The kitten's all right," said he to himself. "And if she doesn't +want Master Conrad, the sooner he knows it the better!" But he had +little doubt of the course things would take as he stopped to look +at that venturesome star, that seemed to be going altogether too +near the moon for safety.</p> + +<p>In a few moments he turned again towards home. And then his mind +must needs go off to the thing of all others he wished not to think +of—<i>himself</i>. He had come to see this much clearly, that until the +veil floated away from between him and his past and left the whole +atmosphere transparent, there could be no certainty that a +recrudescence of that past would not be fatal to his wife's +happiness. And inevitably, therefore, to his own. Having once +formulated the idea that for the future <i>he</i> was to be one person +and Harrisson another, he found its entertainment in practice easier +than he had anticipated. He had only to say to himself that it was +for her sake that he did it, and he did not find it altogether +impossible to dismiss his own identity from the phantasmagoria that +kept on coming back and back before his mind, and to assign the +whole drama to another person; to whom he allowed the name of +Harrisson all the easier from his knowledge that it never had been +really his own. Very much the easier, too, no doubt, from the sense +that the function of memory was still diseased, imperfect, +untrustworthy. How could it be otherwise when he still was unable to +force it back beyond a certain limit? It was mainly a vision of +America, and, previous to that, a mystery of interminable avenues of +trees, and an + +<!-- Page 442 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> +inexplicable horror of a struggle with death. There +he always lost himself. In the hinterland of this there was that +vision of a wedding somewhere. And then bewilderment, because the +image of his living wife, his very soul of the world he now dwelt +in, the woman whose daughter had grown into his heart as his +own—yes, not only the image, but the very name of her—had come in +and supplanted that of the forgotten wife of that forgotten day. So +much so that more than once, in striving to follow the clue given by +that railway-carriage, his mind had involuntarily called the warm +living thing that came into his arms from it "Rosey." In the face of +that, what was the worth of anything he should recollect now, that +he should not discard it as a mere phantasm, for her sake? How +almost easy to say to himself, "that was Harrisson," and then to +add, "whoever he was," and dismiss him.</p> + +<p>Do you—you who read—find this so very difficult to understand? Can +you recall no like imperfect memory of your own that, multiplied a +hundredfold, would supply an analogy, a standpoint to look into +Fenwick's disordered mind from?</p> + +<p>After his delirious collision with his first vigorous revival of the +past, he was beginning to settle down to face it, helped by the +talisman of his love for Rosalind, whom it was his first duty to +shield from whatever it should prove to hold of possible injury to +her. That happy hour of the dying sunset in the shorn cornfields, +with her and Sally and the sky above and the sea beyond, had gone +far to soothe the perturbation of the night. And his talk of the +morning with this young man he had just left had helped him +strongly. For he knew in his heart he could safely go to him again +if he could not bear his own silence, could trust him with whatever +he could tell at all to any one. Could he not, when he was actually +ready to trust him with—Sally?</p> + +<p>So, though he was far from feeling at rest, a working equilibrium +was in sight. He could acquiesce in what came back to him, as it +came; need never struggle to hasten or retard it. Little things +would float into his mind, like house-flies into the ray from a +shutter-crack in a darkened room, and float away again uncaptured, +or whizz and burr round and against each other as the flies do, and +then decide—as the flies do—that neither concerns the other and +each may go his way. But he was nowise bound + +<!-- Page 443 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +to catch these things +on the wing, or persuade them to live in peace with one another. If +they came, they came; and if they went, they went.</p> + +<p>Such a one caught his thoughts, and held them for a moment as, +satisfied that astronomy would see to that star, he turned to go +straight home to Lobjoit's. That would just last out the cigar. But +what was it now? What was the fly that flew into his sun-ray this +time, that it should make him remember a line of Horace, to be so +pat with it, and to know what it meant, too?</p> + +<p>But this fact, that he could not tell how he came to know its +meaning, showed him how decisively the barrier line across the +memory of his boyhood was drawn, or, it might be, his early manhood. +He could not remember, properly speaking, the whole of his life in +the States, but he could remember telling a man—one Larpent, a man +with a club-foot, at Ontario—that he had been there over fifteen +years. This man has nothing to do with this story, but he happens to +serve as an illustration of the disjointed way in which small +details would tell out clear against a background of confusion. Why, +Fenwick could remember his face plainly—how close-shaven he was, +and black over the razor-land; how his dentist had inserted an +artificial tooth that didn't match, and shone out white. But as to +the fifteen years he had spent in the States, that he had told Mr. +Larpent of, they grew dimmer and dimmer as he tried to carry his +recollection further back. Beyond them—or rather, longer ago than +they, properly speaking—came that endless, intolerable labyrinth of +trees, and then, earlier still, that railway-carriage. It was +getting clearer; but the worst of it was that the clearer it got, +the clearer grew the Rosey that came out of it. As long as that went +on, there was nothing of it all he could place faith in. He had been +told that no man could be convinced, by his own reason, of his own +hallucination. He would supply a case to the contrary. It would +amuse him one day, if ever he came to know that girl of the +railway-carriage was dead, to tell Rosalind all his experiences, and +how bravely he fought against what he knew to be delusion.</p> + +<p>But he must make an effort against this sort of thing. Here was he, +who had just made up his mind—so he phrased it—to remain himself, +and refuse to be Harrisson, no sooner was he left alone for a few +minutes than he must needs be raking up the + +<!-- Page 444 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> +past. And that, too, +because of a line of Horace!—sound in itself, but quite cut asunder +from its origin, the book he read it in, or the voice he heard read +it. What did that line matter? Leave it for Mr. Harrisson in that +state of pre-existence. As well make a point of recalling the +<i>provenance</i> of any little thing that had happened in this his +present life. Well, for instance, Mary and the fat boy in +"Pickwick." Rosalind had read him that aloud, he knew, but he +couldn't say when. Was he going to worry himself to recall that +which could do him no harm to know? Surely not. And if so, why +strive to bring back things better forgotten? It is useless to +endeavour to make the state of Fenwick's mind, at this point of the +imperfect revival of memory, appear other than incredible. A person +who has had the painful experience of forgetting his own name in a +dream would perhaps understand it best. Or, without going so far, +can no help be got towards it from our frequent certainties about +some phrase (for instance) that we think we cannot possibly forget? +about some date that we believe no human power will ever obliterate? +And in five minutes—gone—utterly gone! Truly, there is no evidence +but a man's own word for what he does or does not, can or cannot, +recollect.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"I say, Rosey, when was it you read to me about Mary and the fat boy +in 'Pickwick'?" Fenwick, having suggested a doubt to himself about +his power to recall what he supposed to have happened recently, had, +of course, set about doing it directly. His question was asked of +his wife as he came into her bedroom on his return. He mounted the +stairs singing to himself,</p> + +<p class="song"> +"Que nous mangerons Marott-e,<br /> +Bec-à-bec et toi et moi," +</p> + +<p>till he came in to where Rosalind was sitting reading, with her +wonderful hair combed free—probably by Sally for a treat. Then he +asked his question rather suddenly, and it made her start.</p> + +<p>"I was in the middle of my book, and you made me jump." He gave her +a kiss for apology. "What's the question? When did I read to you +about Mary and the fat boy? I couldn't say. I feel as if I had, +though."</p> + +<p>"Was it out in the garden at K. Villa? It wasn't here." He usually +called Krakatoa "K." for working purposes.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 445 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"No, it certainty wasn't here. It must have been at home, only I +can't recollect when. Ask Sally."</p> + +<p>"The kitten wasn't there."</p> + +<p>"She would know, though. She always knows. She's not asleep yet ... +Sallykin!" The young person is on the other side of a mere wooden +partition, congenial to the architecture of Lobjoit's, and her reply +conveys the idea of a speaker in bed who hasn't moved to answer.</p> + +<p>"What? Be quick. I'm going to sleep."</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, chick. When was it I read to this man Mary and the +fat boy in 'Pickwick'?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? Not when I was there."</p> + +<p>"All right, Sarah." Thus Fenwick, to whom Sarah responds:</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Jeremiah. Go to bed, and don't keep decent Christian +people awake at this hour of the night. Take mother's book away, and +cut it."</p> + +<p>Rosalind closes her book and says: "<i>I</i> don't know, darling, if +Sally doesn't. Why do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't say. It crossed my mind. I know the kitten wasn't there, +though. Good-night, love.... Oh yes, I shall sleep to-night. Ta, ta, +Sarah—pleasant dreams!"</p> + +<p>But he had not reached the door when the voice of Sarah came again, +with the implication of a mouth that had come out into the open.</p> + +<p>"Stop, Jeremiah!" it said. "It wasn't at K. Villa."</p> + +<p>"Why not, chick?"</p> + +<p>"Because Pickwick's <i>lost</i>! It was lent to those impossible people +at Turnham Green, and they stole it. I know they did. Name like +Marylebone."</p> + +<p>"The Haliburtons? Why, that's ever so long ago." Thus Rosalind.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is. It's been gone ages. I'm going to sleep. +Good-night!" And Jeremiah said good-night once more and departed.</p> + +<p>Sally didn't go straight to sleep, but she made a start on her way +there. It was not a vigorous start, for she had hardly begun upon it +when she desisted, and sat up in bed and listened.</p> + +<p>"What's that, mother? Nothing wrong, is there?"</p> + +<p>"No, darling child, what should be wrong? Go to sleep."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 446 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I thought I heard you gasp, or snuffle, or sigh, or sob, or click +in your throat. That's all. Sure you didn't?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure. Now, do be a reasonable kitten, and go to sleep; I +shall be in bed in half-a-second."</p> + +<p>And Sally subsides, but first makes a stipulation: "You <i>will</i> sleep +in your hair, mother darling, won't you? Or, at least, do it up, and +not that hateful nightcap?"</p> + +<p>But though Rosalind felt conscientiously able to disclaim any of the +sounds Sally had described, something audible had occurred in her +breathing. Sally's first word had gone nearest, but it was hardly a +full-grown gasp.</p> + +<p>Her husband's question about "Pickwick" had scarcely taken her +attention off an exciting story-climax, and she really did want to +know why the Archbishop turned pale as death when the Countess +kissed him. Gerry was looking well and cheerful again, and there was +nothing to connect his inquiry with any reminiscence of "B.C." So, +as soon as he had gone, she reopened her book—not without a mental +allusion to a dog in Proverbs—and went on where she had left off. +The writer had not known how to manage his Archbishop and Countess, +and the story went flat and slushy like an ill-whipped <i>zabajone</i>. +She put the book aside, and wondered whether "Pickwick" really <i>had</i> +been alienated by the impossible Haliburtons; sat thinking, but only +of the thing of <i>now</i>—nothing of buried records.</p> + +<p>So she sat, it might be for two minutes. Then, quite suddenly, she +had bitten her lip and her brows had wrinkled. And her eyes had +locked to a fixed look that would stay till she had thought this +out. So her face said, and the stillness of her hand.</p> + +<p>For she had suddenly remembered when and where it was she had read +to that man about Mary and the fat boy. It was in the garden at her +mother's twenty-two years ago. She remembered it well now, and quite +suddenly. She could remember how Gerry, young-man-wise, had tried to +utilise Thackeray to show his greater knowledge of the world—had +flaunted Piccadilly and Pall Mall before the dazzled eyes of an +astonished suburban. She could remember how she read it aloud to +him, because, when he read over her shoulder, she always turned the +page before he was ready. And his decision that Dickens's characters +were never gentlemen, and her saying perhaps that was why he was so +amusing. + +<!-- Page 447 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> +And then how he got the book from her and went on reading +while she went away for her lawn-tennis shoes, and when she came +back found he had only two more pages to read, and then he would +come and play.</p> + +<p>But it spoke well for her husband's chances of a quiet time to-night +that he should hold this memory in his mind, and yet be secure +against a complete resurrection of the past. Nothing else might grow +from it. He evidently thought the reading had been at Shepherd's +Bush. He would hardly have said, "the kitten wasn't there," unless +his ideas had been glued to that spot. But then—and Rosalind's mind +swam to think of it—how very decisively the kitten was "not there" +in that other garden two-and-twenty years ago.</p> + +<p>It was at that moment the gasp, or sigh, or sob, or whatever it was, +awoke Sally. Her mother had been strong against the mere memory of +the happy hour of thoughtless long ago; but then, this that was to +come—this thing the time was thoughtless of! Was it not enough to +force a gasp from self-control itself? a cry from any creature +claiming to be human? "<i>The kitten wasn't there!</i>" No, truly she was +not.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 448 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<p class="subhead">HOW MEMORY CREPT BACK AND BACK, AND FENWICK KEPT HIS OWN COUNSEL. +ROSALIND NEED NEVER KNOW IT. OF A JOLLY BIG BLOB OF MELTED CANDLE, +AND SALLY'S HALF-BROTHER. OF FENWICK'S IMPROVED GOOD SPIRITS</p> + +<p>That was a day of many little incidents, and a fine day into the +bargain. Perhaps the next day was helped to be a flat day by the +barometer, which had shown its usual untrustworthiness and gone +down. The wind's grievance—very perceptible to the leeward of +keyholes and window-cracks—may have been against this instability. +It had been looking forward to a day's rest, and here this +meteorology must needs be fussing. Neptune on the contrary was all +the fresher for his half-holiday, and was trotting out tiny white +ponies all over his fields, who played bo-peep with each other in +and out of the valleys of the plough-land. But they were grey +valleys now, that yesterday were smiling in the sun. And the sky was +a mere self-coloured sky (a modern expression, as unconvincing as +most of its congeners), and wanted to make everything else as grey +as itself. Also there came drifts of fine rain that wetted you +through, and your umbrella wasn't any good. So a great many of the +visitors to St. Sennans thought they would stop at home and get +those letters written.</p> + +<p>Sally wouldn't admit that the day was flat <i>per se</i>, but only that +it had become so owing to the departure of Lætitia and her husband. +She reviewed the latter a good deal, as one who had recently been +well under inspection and had stood the test. He was really a very +nice fellow, haberdasher or no, wasn't he, mother? To which Rosalind +replied that he was a very nice fellow indeed, only so quiet. If he +had had his violin with him, he would have been much more +perceptible. But she supposed it was best to travel with it as +little as possible. For it had been decided, all things considered, +that the precious Strad should be left locked up at home. "It's got +an insurance policy all to itself," + +<!-- Page 449 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +said Sally, "for three hundred +pounds." She was quite awestruck by the three hundred golden +sovereigns which these pounds would have been if they had had an +existence of their own off paper.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> ought to have an insurance policy all to yourself, Sarah," +said Fenwick. "Only I don't believe any office would accept you. +Fancy your swimming out like that yesterday! How far did you go?"</p> + +<p>"Round the buoy and aback again. I say, Jeremiah, if ever I get +drowned, mind you rush to the bathing-machine and see if there's a +copy of 'Ally Sloper' or 'Tit-Bits'. Because there'd be fifty pounds +for each. Think of that!" Sally is delighted with these sums, too, +to the extent of quite losing sight of the sacrifice necessary for +their acquisition.</p> + +<p>"Two whole fifties!" Fenwick says, adding after consideration: "I +think we had sooner keep our daughter, eh, Rosey?" And Rosalind +agreed. Only she really was a shocking madcap, the kitten!</p> + +<p>Had some flavour of Fenwick's mental history got in the air, that +Sally, presumably with no direct information about its last chapter, +should say to him suddenly: "It <i>is</i> such a puzzle to me, Jeremiah, +that you've never recollected the railway-carriage"? He was saved +from telling fibs in reply—for he <i>had</i> recollected the +railway-carriage, and left it, as it were, for Mr. Harrisson—by +Sally continuing: "When you were Mr. Fenwick, and I wasn't at +liberty to kiss you." She did so to illustrate.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how I could reasonably have resented your kissing me, +Sarah. And I'm Mr. Fenwick now."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, you're Jeremiah. But if you were he ever so, I'm +puzzled why Mr. Fenwick <i>now</i> can't remember Mr. Fenwick <i>then</i>."</p> + +<p>"He <i>can't</i>, Sarah dear. He can no more remember Mr. Fenwick <i>then</i> +than if no such person had ever existed." It was a clever +equivocation, for though he had so far made nothing of the name on +his arm, he was quite clear he came back to England Harrisson. His +gravity and sadness as he said it may have been not so much +duplicity as a reflection from his turgid current of thought of the +last two days. It imposed on Sally, who decided in her own mind on +changing the topic as soon as she + +<!-- Page 450 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> +could do it without a jerk. +Meanwhile, a stepping-stone was available—extravagant treatment of +the subject with a view to help from laughter.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what Mr. Fenwick <i>then</i> would have thought if I had kissed +him in the railway-carriage."</p> + +<p>"He'd have thought you must be Sally, only he hadn't noticed it. +<i>He</i> wouldn't have made a rumpus on high moral grounds, I'm sure. +But I don't know about the old cock that talked about the terms of +the Company's charter...."</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" Sally interrupts him blankly. He had better have let it +alone. But it wouldn't do to admit anything.</p> + +<p>"What's 'hullo,' Sarah?"</p> + +<p>"See how you're recollecting things! Jeremiah's recollecting the +railway-carriage, mother—the electrocution-carriage."</p> + +<p>"Are you, darling?" Rosalind, coming behind his chair, puts her +hands round his neck. "What have you recollected?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I've recollected anything the kitten hasn't told me," +says Fenwick dreamily. But Sally is positive she never told him +anything about the terms of the Company's charter.</p> + +<p>Rosalind adheres to her policy of keeping Sally out of it as much as +possible. In this case a very small fib indeed serves the purpose: +"You must have told him, chick; or perhaps I repeated it. I remember +your telling <i>me</i> about the elderly gentleman who was in a rage with +the Company." Sally looked doubtful, but gave up the point.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Fenwick felt certain in his own heart that "the terms +of the Company's charter" was a bit of private recollection of his +own. And Rosalind had never heard of it before. But it was true she +had heard of the elderly gentleman. Near enough!</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>As to the crowd of memories that kept coming, some absolutely clear, +some mere phantoms, into the arena of Fenwick's still disordered +mind, they would have an interest, and a strong one, for this story +if its object were the examination of strange freaks of memory. But +the only point we are nearly concerned with is the rigid barrier +drawn across the backward pathway of his recollection at some period +between ten and fifteen years ago. Till this should be removed, and +the dim image of his forgotten marriage should acquire force and +cohesion, he and his wife were safe + +<!-- Page 451 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> +from the intrusion of their +former selves on the scene of their present happiness—safe possibly +from a power of interference it might exercise for ill—safe +certainly from risk of a revelation to Sally of her mother's history +and her own parentage—but safe at a heavy cost to the one of the +three who alone now held the key to their disclosure.</p> + +<p>However vividly Fenwick had recalled the incidents of his arrival in +England, and however convinced he was that no part of them was mere +dream, they all belonged for him to that buried Harrisson whose +identity he shrank from taking on himself—<i>would</i> have shrunk from, +at the cost that was to be paid for it, had the prize of its +inheritance been ten times as great. Still, one or two connecting +links had caught on either side, the chief one being Sally, who had +actually spoken with him whilst still Harrisson—although it must be +admitted she had not kissed him—and the one next in importance, the +cabman. The pawnbroker made a very bad third—in fact, scarcely +counted, owing to his own moroseness or reserve. But the cabman! +Why, Fenwick had it all now at his fingers' ends. He could recall +the start from New York, the wish to keep the secret of his +gold-mining success to himself on the ship, and his satisfaction +when he found his name printed with one <i>s</i> in the list of cabin +passengers. Then a pleasant voyage on a summer Atlantic, and that +nice young American couple whose acquaintance he made before they +passed Sandy Hook, every penny of whose cash had been stolen on +board, and how he had financed them, careless of his own ready cash. +And how then, not being sure if he should go to London or to +Manchester, he decided on the former, and wired his New York banker +to send him credit, prompt, at the bank he named in London; and then +Livermore's Rents, 1808, and the joy of the cabman; and then the +Twopenny Tube; and then Sally. He tried what he could towards +putting in order what followed, but could determine nothing except +that he stooped for the half-crown, and something struck him a heavy +blow. Thereupon he was immediately a person, or a confusion, sitting +alone in a cab, to whom a lady came whom he thought he knew, and to +this lady he wanted to say, "Is that you?" for no reason he could +now trace, but found he could scarcely articulate.</p> + +<p>Recalling everything thus, to the full, he was able to supply links + +<!-- Page 452 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> +in the story that we have found no place for so far. For instance, +the loss of a small valise on the boat that contained credentials +that would have made it quite unnecessary for him to cable to New +York for credit, and also an incident this reminded him of—that he +had not only parted with most of his cash to the young Americans, +but had given his purse to the lady to keep her share of it in, +saying he had a very good cash pocket, and would have plenty of time +to buy another, whereas <i>they</i> were hurrying through to catch the +tidal boat for Calais. This accounted for that little new +pocket-book without a card in it that had given no information at +all. He could remember having made so free with his cards on the +boat and in the train that he had only one left when he got to +Euston.</p> + +<p>He found himself, as the hours passed, better and better able to +dream and speculate about the life he now chose to imagine was +Harrisson's property, not his; and the more so the more he felt the +force of the barrier drawn across the earlier part of it. Had the +barrier remained intact, he might ultimately have convinced himself, +for all practical purposes, that Harrisson's life was all dream. +Yes, all a dream! The cold and the gold of the Klondyke, the French +Canadians at Ontario, four years on a cattle-ranch in California, +five of unsuccessful attempts to practise at the American Bar—all, +all a dream of another man named Harrisson, dreamed by Algernon +Fenwick, that big hairy man at the wine-merchant's in Bishopsgate, +who has a beautiful wife and a daughter who swims like a fish. One +of the many might-have-beens that were not! But a decision against +its reality demanded time, and his revival of memory was only +forty-eight hours old so far.</p> + +<p>Of course, he would have liked, of all things, to make full +confession, and talk it all out—this quasi-dream—to Rosalind; but +he could not be sure how much he could safely bring to light, how +much would be best concealed. He could not run the <i>slightest</i> risk +when the thing at stake was her peace of mind. No, no—Harrisson be +hanged! Him and his money, too.</p> + +<p>So, though things kept coming to his recollection, he could hold his +peace, and did so. There was nothing to come—not likely to be—that +could unsay that revelation that he had been a married man, and did +not know of his wife's death; not even that + +<!-- Page 453 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> +he and she had been +divorced, which would have been nearly as bad. He knew the worst of +it, at any rate, and Rosalind need never know it if he kept it all +to himself, best and worst.</p> + +<p>So that day passed, and there was nothing to note about it, unless +we mention that Sally was actually kept out of the Channel by +Neptune's little white ponies aforesaid, which spoiled the swimming +water—though, of course, it wasn't rough—backed by the fact that +these little sudden showers wetted you through, right through your +waterproof, before you knew where you were. Dr. Conrad came in as +usual in the evening, reporting that his mother was "rather better." +It was a discouraging habit she had, when she was not known to have +been any worse than usual. This good lady always caught +Commiseration napping, if ever that quality took forty winks. The +doctor was very silent this evening, imbibing Sally without comment. +However, St. Sennans was drawing to a close for all others. That was +enough to account for it, Sally thought. It was the last day but +one, and poor Prosy couldn't be expected to accept her own +view—that the awful jolliness of being back at Krakatoa Villa would +even compensate—more than compensate—for the pangs of parting with +the Saint. Sally's optimism was made of a stuff that would wash, or +was all wool.</p> + +<p>According to her own account, she had spent the whole day wondering +whether the battle between Tishy and her mother had come off. She +said so last thing of all to <i>her</i> mother as she decanted the melted +paraffin of a bedroom candle whose wick, up to its neck therein, was +unable to find a scope for its genius, and yielded only a spectral +blue spark that went out directly if you carried it. Tilted over, it +would lick in the end—this was Sally's testimony; and if you +dropped the grease on the back of the soap-dish and thickened it up +to a good blob, it would come off click when it was cold, and not +make any mess at all.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've been wondering all day long," said she. "How I should +enjoy being there to see! How freezing and dignified the Dragon will +be! Mrs. Sales Wilson! Or perhaps she'll flare. (I wish this wick +would; and it's such disgraceful waste of good candle!)"</p> + +<p>"I do think, kitten, you're unkind to the poor lady. Just think how +she must have dreamed about the splendid match her handsome + +<!-- Page 454 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> +daughter was going to make! And, you know, it <i>is</i> rather a come +down...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course it's a come down. But I don't pity the Dragon one +bit. She should have thought more of Tishy's happiness, and less of +her grandeur. (It's just beginning; the flame will go white +directly.)"</p> + +<p>"She'd got some one else in view then?" Rosalind was quickly +perceptive about it.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; don't you know? Sir Penderfield. (That'll do now, nicely; +there's the white flame!) Sir Oughtred Penderfield. He's a Bart., of +course. But he's a horror, and they say his father was even worse. +Like father, like son! And the Dragon wanted Tishy to accept him."</p> + +<p>At the name Rosalind shivered. The thought that followed it sent a +knife-cut to her heart. This man that Sally had spoken of so +unconsciously was <i>her brother</i>—at least, he was brother enough to +her by blood to make that thought a blade to penetrate the core of +her mother's soul. It was a case for her strength to show itself +in—a case for nettle-grasping with a vengeance. She would grasp +this nettle directly; but oh, for one moment—only one moment—just +to be a little less sick with the slice of the chill steel! just to +quench the tremor she knew would come with her voice if she tried +now to say, "What was the name? Tishy's <i>prétendu</i>'s, I mean; not +his father's."</p> + +<p>But she could take the whole of a moment, and another, for that +matter. So she left her words on her tongue's tip to say later, and +felt secure that Sally would not look up and see the dumb white face +she herself could see in the mirror she sat before. For, of course, +she saw Sally's reflection, too, its still thoughtful eyelids half +shrouded in a broken coil of black hair their owner's pearly teeth +are detaining an end of, to stop it falling in the paraffin she is +so intent on, as she watches it cooling on the soap-dish.</p> + +<p>"I've made it such a jolly big blob it'll take ever so long to cool. +You can, you know, if you go gently. Only then the middle stops +soft, and if you get in a hurry it spoils the clicket." But it is +hard enough now to risk moving the hair over it, and Sally's voice +was free to speak as soon as her little white hand had swept the +black coils back beyond the round white throat. Mrs. + +<!-- Page 455 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> +Lobjoit's +mirror has its defects apart from some of the quicksilver having +been scratched off; but Rosalind can see the merpussy's image plain +enough, and knows perfectly well that before she looks up she will +reap the harvest of happiness she has been looking forward to. She +will "clicket" off the "blob" with her finger.</p> + +<p>The moment of fruition comes, and a filbert thumbnail spuds the +hardened lozenge off the smooth glaze. "There!" says Sally, "didn't +I tell you? Just like ice.... What, mother?" For her mother's +question had been asked, very slightly varied, in a nettle-grasping +sense. She has had time to think.</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> was Tishy's man's name—the other applicant? Christian name, +I mean; not his father's."</p> + +<p>"Sir Oughtred Penderfield. Why?"</p> + +<p>"I remember there was a small boy in India, twenty-two years ago, +named Penderfield. Is Oughtred his only name?" The nettle-grasping +there was in this! Rosalind felt consoled by her own strength.</p> + +<p>"Can't say. He may have a dozen. Never seen him. Don't want to! But +his hair's as black as mine, Tishy says.... I say, mother, isn't it +deliciously smooth?" But this refers to the paraffin lozenge, not to +the hair.</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling. Now I want to get to bed, if you've no objection."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, mother darling; but say I'm right about the Dragon and +Sir Penderfield. Because I <i>am</i>, you know."</p> + +<p>"Of course you are, chick. Only you never told me about him; now, +did you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I was so honourable. It was a secret. Very well, +good-night, then.... Oh, you poor mother! how cold you are, and I've +been keeping you up! Good-night!"</p> + +<p>And off went Sally, leaving her mother to reason with herself about +her own unreasonableness. After all, what was there in the fact that +the little chap she remembered, seven years old, at the Residency at +Khopal twenty odd years ago had grown up and inherited his father's +baronetcy? What was there in this to discompose and upset her, to +make her breath catch and her nerves thrill? A longing came on her +that Gerry should not look in to say good-night till she was in a +position to refuse interviewing + +<!-- Page 456 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> +on the score of impending sleep. +She made a dash for bed, and got the light out, out-generalling him +by perhaps a minute.</p> + +<p>What could she expect? Not that little Tamerlane, as his father +called him, should die just to be out of her path. It was no fault +of his that he was his father's son, with—how could she doubt after +what Sally had just said?—the curse of his father's form of manhood +or beasthood upon him. And yet, might it not have been better that +he should have died, the innocent child she knew him, than live to +follow his father's footsteps? Better, best of all that the whole +evil brood should perish and be forgotten.... Stop!</p> + +<p>For the thought she had framed caught her breath and held it, caught +her by the heart and checked its beating, caught her by the brain +and stopped its thinking; and she was glad when her husband's voice +found her, dumb and stunned in the silence, and brought a respite to +the unanswerable enigma she was face to face with.</p> + +<p>"Hullo! light out already? Beg your pardon, darling. Good-night!"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't asleep." So he came in and said good-night officially and +departed. His voice and his presence had staved off a nightmare idea +that was on the watch to seize on her—how if chance had brought +Sally across this unsuspected relation of hers, and events had +forced a full declaration of their kinship? Somnus jumped at the +chance given by its frustration; the sea air asserted itself, and +went into partnership with him, and Rosalind's mind was carried +captive into dreamland.</p> + +<p>But not before she had heard her husband stop singing to himself a +German student's song as he closed his door on himself for the +night.</p> + +<p class="song"> +"War ich zum grossen Herrn geboren, wie Kaiser Maximilian...." +</p> + +<p>There could be no further unwelcome memories there, thank Heaven! No +mind oppressed by them could possibly sing "Kram-bam-bambuli, +krambam-bu-li!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 457 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<p class="subhead">BATHING WEATHER AGAIN, AND A LETTER FROM TISHY BRADSHAW. THE TRIUMPH +OF ORPHEUS. BUT WAS IT EURYDICE OR THE LITTLE BATTERY? THE +REV. MR. HERRICK. OF A REVERIE UNDER A BATHING-MACHINE, AND OF GWENDOLEN'S +MAMMA'S CONNECTING-LINK. OF DR. CONRAD'S MAMMA'S DONKEY-CHAIR, AND +HIS GREAT-AUNT ELIZA. HOW SALLY AND HE STARTED FOR THEIR LAST WALK +AT ST. SENNANS</p> + +<p>The next day the morning was bright and the sea was clear of +Poseidon's ponies. They had gone somewhere else. Therefore, it +behooved Mrs. Lobjoit to get breakfast quick, because it was absurd +to expect anybody to go in directly after, and the water wouldn't be +good later than half-past ten. Which Sally, coming downstairs at +eight, impressed on Mrs. Lobjoit, who entered her own recognisances +that it should appear as by magic the very minute your mamma came +down. For it is one of the pleasures of +anticipation-of-a-joy-to-come to bring about its antecedents too +soon, and so procure a blank period of unqualified existence to +indulge Hope in without alloy. Even so, when true prudence wishes to +catch a train, she orders her cab an hour before, and takes tickets +twenty minutes before, and arrives on the platform eighteen minutes +before there is the slightest necessity to do so; and then she +stands on the said platform and lives for the train that is to be, +and inquires of every guard, ticket-taker, and pointsman with +respect to every linear yard of the platform edge, whether her train +is going to come up there; and they ask each other questions, and +give prismatic information; and then the train for Paradise (let us +say) comes reluctantly backwards into the station with friends +standing on its margin, and prudence seizes her valise and goes at a +hand-gallop to the other end, where the <i>n</i>th class is, and is only +just in time to get a corner seat.</p> + +<p>So, though there was no fear of the tide going out as fast as the +train for Paradise, Sally, relying on Mrs. Lobjoit, who had become a +very old friend in eight weeks, felt she had done well to + +<!-- Page 458 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +be beforehand, and, as breakfast would be twenty minutes, sat down to +write a letter to Tishy. She wrote epistle-wise, heedless of style +and stops, and as her mother was also twenty minutes—we are not +responsible for these expressions—she wrote a heap of it. Then +events thickened, as Fenwick, returning from an early dip, met the +postman outside, and came in bearing an expected letter which Sally +pounced upon.</p> + +<p>"All about the row!" said she, attacking an impregnable corner of +the envelope with a fork-point, in a fever of impatience to get at +the contents. "Hang these envelopes! There, that's done it! Whatever +they want to sticky them up so for I can't imagine...."</p> + +<p>"Get your breakfast, kitten, and read it after."</p> + +<p>"I dare say. Catch me! No, I'm the sort that never waits for +anything.... No, mummy darling; it shan't get cold. I can gormandize +and read aloud both at once."</p> + +<p>But she doesn't keep her promise, for she dives straight into an +exploration ahead, and meanly says, "Just half a minute till I see +what's coming," or, "Only to the end of this sentence," and also +looks very keen and animated, and throws in short notes of +exclamation and <i>well</i>'s and <i>there</i>'s and <i>think of that</i>'s till +Fenwick enters a protest.</p> + +<p>"Don't cheat, Sarah!" he says. "Play fair! If you won't read it +aloud yourself, let somebody else."</p> + +<p>"There's the first sheet to keep you quiet, Jeremiah!" Who, however, +throws it over to Rosalind, who throws it back with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"What a couple of big babies you two are!" she exclaims. "As if I +couldn't possess my soul in peace for five minutes! Do put the +letter by till you've had your breakfasts."</p> + +<p>But this course was not approved, and the contents of Lætitia's +epistle came out by fits and jerks and starts, and may be said to +have been mixed with tea and coffee and eggs and bacon and toast. +Perhaps we had better leave these out, and give the letter intact. +Here it is:</p> + +<div class="corresp"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dearest Sally</span>,</p> + +<p>"I am going to keep my promise, and write you a long letter at once, +and tell you all about our reception at home. You will say + +<!-- Page 459 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> +it wasn't worth writing, especially as you will be back on Monday. +However, a promise is a promise!</p> + +<p>"We got to Victoria at seven, and were not so very late considering +at G. Terrace; but when we had had something to eat I propounded my +idea I told you of, that we should just go straight on, and beard +mamma in her own den, and have it out. I knew I shouldn't sleep +unless we did. Paggy said, 'Wouldn't it do as well if he called +there to-morrow for the Strad—which we had left behind last time as +a connecting-link to go and fetch away—and me to meet him as he +came from the shop?' But surprise-tactics were better—I knew they +would be—and now Paggy admits I was right.</p> + +<p>"Of course, Thomas stared when he saw who it was, and was going to +sneak off without announcing us, and Fossett, who just crossed us in +the passage, was perfectly comic. Pag said afterwards she was +bubbling over with undemonstrativeness, which was clever for him. I +simply said to Thomas that I thought he had better announce us, as +we weren't expected, and he asked who he was to announce, miss! +Actually, I was rather relieved when Pag said, 'Say Mr. and Mrs. +Julius Bradshaw.' I should have laughed, I know. Thomas looked a +model of discretion that wouldn't commit itself either way, and did +as he was bid in an apologetic voice; but he turned round on the +stairs to say to me, 'I suppose you know, msam, there's two ladies +and a gentleman been dining here?' Because he began miss and ended +ma'am, and then turned scarlet. Pag said after he thought Thomas +wanted to caution us against a bigamist mamma was harbouring.</p> + +<p>"Papa was very nice, really. His allusion to our little escapade was +the only one made, and might have meant nothing at all. 'Well, +you're a nice couple of people, upon my word!' and then, seeing that +mamma remained a block (which she can), he introduced Paggy to one +of the two ladies as 'My son-in-law, Mr. Julius Bradshaw.' I'm sure +mamma gave a wooden snort and was ashamed of it before visitors, +because she did another rather more probable one directly after, and +pretended it was only that sort. Really, except a peck for me and +saying <i>howd</i> and nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to +herself. But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it +quite made me jump—I + +<!-- Page 460 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> +mean the way the lady Pag was introduced to +rushed into his arms. I wasn't sure I hadn't better take him away at +once. She was a celebrated German pianiste that had accompanied him +in Paris. Mamma was at school with her at Frankfort. She had been +inconsolable at the disappearance of the great Carissimi, whose +playing of the Kreutzer was the only perfectly sympathetic one she +had ever met. Was she never to play it with him again? Alas, no! for +she was off to Vienna to-morrow, and then to New York, and if the +ship went down she would never play the Kreutzer with Signore +Carissimi again!</p> + +<p>"I saw papa's eye looking mischievous, and then he pointed to the +Strad, where it was lying on the piano—locked up safe; we saw to +that—and said there was Paganini's fiddle, why not play the +<i>Cruet-stand</i>, or whatever you called it, <i>now</i>? Mamma found her +voice, but lost her judgment, for she tried to block the performance +on a fibby ground. Think how late it was, and how it would be +keeping Madame von Höfenhoffer! She put her head in the lion's mouth +there, for the Frau immediately said she would play all night rather +than lose a note of Signore Carissimi. The other two went, and +nobody wanted them. I've forgotten the woman's second husband's +name—he's dead—but her son's the man I told you about. Of course, +he hadn't expected to meet me, and I hope he felt like a fool. I was +so glad it wasn't him, but Paggy. They played right through the +Kreutzer, and didn't want the music, which couldn't be found, and +then did bits again, and it was absolutely glorious. Even mamma +(she's fond of music—it's her only good quality—and where should I +get mine from if she wasn't?) couldn't stop quite stony, though she +did her best, I promise you. As for papa, he was chuckling so over +mamma's dilemma—because she wanted to trample on Paggy, and it +<i>was</i> a dilemma—that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you +know, dear, it <i>did</i> go on—one thing after another, that Frau glued +to the clavier like a limpet not detachable without violence—till +nearly one in the morning, having begun at ten about! And there was +papa and Egerton and Theeny all sniggering at mamma, I know, in +secret, and really proud of the connexion, if the truth were known. +Mamma tried to get a little revenge by saying to me freezingly when +the Höfenhoffer had gone: 'I suppose you are going home with + +<!-- Page 461 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> +Mr. Bradshaw, Lætitia? Good-night.' And then she said <i>goodn</i> to Paggy +just as she had said <i>howd</i>. I thought Paggy behaved so nicely. +However, I'll tell you all about that on Monday.</p> + +<p>"Papa was <i>very</i> nice—came out on the doorstep to say good-night, +and, do you know—it really <i>is</i> very odd; it must be the sea +air—papa said to Paggy as we were starting: 'How's the head—the +nerves, you know—eh, Master Julius?' And actually Paggy said: 'Why, +God bless my soul, I had forgotten all about them!' Oh, Sally +darling, just think! Suppose they got well, and all because I +treated him to a honeymoon! Oh, my gracious, what a long letter!"</p> +</div> + +<p>"There now! that <i>is</i> a letter and a half. 'With love from us both,' +mine affectionately. And twelve pages! And Tishy's hand's not so +large, neither, as all that." This is Sally, as epilogue; but her +mother puts in a correction:</p> + +<p>"It's thirteen pages. There's a bit on a loose page you haven't +read." Sally has seen that, and it was nothing—so she says; but +Fenwick picks it up and reads it aloud:</p> + +<p>"P.S.—Just a line to say I've remembered that name. She's +Herrick—married a parson in India soon after her Penderfield +husband died. She's great on reformatories."</p> + +<p>Sally reread her letter with a glow of interest on her face and a +passing approval or echo now and then. She noticed nothing unusual +in either her mother or her stepfather; but she did not look up, so +absorbed was she.</p> + +<p>Had she done so she might have wondered why her mother had gone so +pale suddenly, and why there should be that puzzled absent look on +the handsome face her eyes remained fixed on across the table; but +her own mind was far away, deep in her amusement at her friend's +letter, full of her image of the disconcerted Dragon and the way +Paganini and Beethoven in alliance had ridden rough-shod over Mrs. +Grundy and social distinctions. She saw nothing, and finished a cup +of coffee undisturbed, and asked for more.</p> + +<p>Fenwick, caught by some memory or association he could not define or +give its place to, for the moment looked at neither of his +companions. Rosalind, only too clear about all the postscript of the +letter had brought before her own mind, saw reason to + +<!-- Page 462 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> +dread its +effect on his. The linking of the name of Penderfield and that of +the clergyman who had married them at Umballa—a name that, two days +since, had had a familiar sound to him when she incautiously uttered +it—was using Suggestion to bait a trap for Memory. She felt she was +steering through shoal-waters perilously near the wind; but she made +no attempt to break his reverie. She might do as much harm as good. +She only watched his face, feeling its contrast to that of the +absorbed and happy merpussy, rejoicing in the fortunate outcome of +her friend's anxieties.</p> + +<p>It was a great relief when, with a deep breath and a shake, akin to +a horse's when the flies won't take a hint, Fenwick flung off the +oppression, whatever it was, and came back into the living world on +a stepping-stone of the back-talk.</p> + +<p>"Well done, Paganini! Nothing like it since Orpheus and +Eurydice—only this time it was Proserpine, not Pluto, that had to +be put to sleep.... What's the matter, darling? Anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all. I was looking at you."</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>I'm</i> all right!" And Sally looked up from her letter for a +moment to say, "There's nothing the matter with Jeremiah," and went +on reading as before. Sally's attitude about him always implied a +kind of proprietorship, as in a large, fairly well-behaved dog. +Rosalind felt glad she had not looked at <i>her</i>.</p> + +<p>Presently Fenwick said: "Now, who's coming for a walk with me?" But +Sally was off directly to find the Swiss girl she sometimes bathed +with, and Rosalind thought it would be nice in a sheltered place on +the beach. She really wanted to be alone, and knew the shortest way +to this was to sit still, especially in the morning; but Gerry had +better get Vereker to go for a walk. Perhaps she would look in at +his mother's later. So Fenwick, after a customary caution to Sally +not to drown herself, went away to find Conrad, as he generally +called him now.</p> + +<p>Rosalind was shirking a problem she dared not face from a cowardly +conviction of its insolubility. What would she do if Gerry should, +without some warning, identify her? She had to confess to herself +that she had no clue at all to the effect it would have, coming +suddenly, on him. She could at least imagine aspects, attitudes, +tones of voice for him if it came slowly; but she + +<!-- Page 463 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> +could not supply +any image of him, under other circumstances, not more or less +founded on her recollections of twenty years ago. Might she not lose +him again, as she lost him then? She <i>must</i> get nearer to safety +than she was now. Was she not relying on the house not catching fire +instead of negotiating insurance policies or providing fire +extinguishers?</p> + +<p>She would go and sit under the shelter of one of the many unemployed +machines—for only a few daring spirits would follow Sally's example +to-day—and try to think it out. Just a few instructions to Mrs. +Lobjoit, and a word or two of caution to Gerry not to fall over +cliffs, or to get run over at level-crossings or get sunstrokes, or +get cold, etc., and she would fall back on her own society and +think....</p> + +<p>Yes, that was the question! Might she not lose him again? And if she +did, how live without him?... Oh yes, she would be no worse off than +before, in a certain sense. She would have Sally still ... but....</p> + +<p>Which would be the worse? The loss of the husband whom every day +taught her to love more dearly, or the task of explaining the cause +of her loss to Sally? The one she fixed her mind on always seemed +intolerable. As for the other contingencies—difficulties of making +all clear to friends, and so forth—let them go; they were not worth +a thought. But she <i>must</i> be beforehand, and know how to act, how to +do her best to avert both, if the thing she dreaded came to pass....</p> + +<p>There now! Here she was settled under the lee of a machine—happily +the shadow-side, for the sun was warm—and the white foam of the +undertow was guilty of a tremendous glare—the one the people who +can't endure the seaside get neuralgia from—and Sally was going to +come out of the second machine directly in the Turkey-twill +knickers, and find her way through the selvage-wave and the dazzle, +or get knocked down and have to try back. Surely Rosalind, instead +of saying over and over again that she <i>must</i> be ready to meet the +coming evil, possibly close at hand, ought to make a serious effort +to become so. She found herself, even at this early hour of the day, +tired with the strain of a misgiving that an earthquake was +approaching; and as those who have lived through earthquakes become +unstrung at every slightest tremor of the earth's crust beneath +them, so she felt that + +<!-- Page 464 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> +the tension begun with that recurrence of +two days ago had grown and grown, and threatened to dominate her +mind, to the exclusion of all else. Every little thing, such as the +look on her husband's face half an hour ago, made her say to +herself, as the earthquake-haunted man says at odd times all through +the day and night, "Is this <i>it</i>? Has it come?" and she saw before +her no haven of peace.</p> + +<p>What was it now she really most feared? Simply the effect of the +revelation on her husband's mind—an effect no human creature could +make terms with. She was not the least afraid of anything he could +say or do, delirium apart; but see what delirium had made of +him—she was sure it was so—in that old evil hour when he had flung +her from him and gone away in anger to try to get her sentence of +banishment ratified. How could she guard against a repetition, in +some form or other, of the disastrous errors of that unhappy time?</p> + +<p>As we know, she was still in ignorance of all the revived memories +he had told to Vereker; but she knew there had been +something—disjointed, perhaps, and not to be relied on, as the +doctor had said, but none the less to be feared on that account. She +had seen the effect of his sleepless night before he went away with +Vereker, and knew it to be connected with mental disturbance outside +and beyond mere loss of rest; and she had an uneasy sense that +something was being kept from her. She could not but believe Gerry's +cheerfulness was partly assumed. Had he been quite at ease about his +recollections, surely he would have told them to <i>her</i>. Then this +had all come on the top of that Kreutzkammer one. The most upsetting +thing of all, though, was the change that had come over him suddenly +at breakfast, just after he had read aloud the name Herrick—a name +he had seemed not free from memory of when her tongue was betrayed +into speaking it—and the name Penderfield. If it was due to this +last, so much the worse! It was the name of all others that was best +for oblivion.</p> + +<p>How hard it seemed that it must needs force itself to the fore in +this way! Its present intrusion into her life and surroundings was +utterly unconnected with anything in the past. Sally's friendship +with Lætitia began in a music-class six years ago. The Sales Wilsons +were people to all appearance as un-Indian as + +<!-- Page 465 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> +any folk need be. Why +must Sally's friend, of all others, be the object of its owner's +unwelcome admiration? To think, too, how near she had been to a +precipice without knowing it! Suppose she had come face to face with +that woman again! To be sure, her intercourse with Ladbroke Grove +Road was limited to one stiff exchange of calls in "the season." +Still, it might have happened ... but where was the use of begging +and borrowing troubles?</p> + +<p>Was it, or was it not, the fact, she asked herself, that now, after +all these years, she thought of this woman as worse than her +husband, the iniquity of the accomplice as more diabolical than that +of the principal? She found she could not answer this in the +negative off-hand. The paradox was also before her that that +incorrigible amphibious treasure of hers, whose voice was even now +shouting to her more timorous friend from beyond the selvage-wave +she had just contemptuously dived through—that that Sally, +inexchangeable for anything she could conceive or imagine, must +needs have been something quite other than she was, had she come of +any other technical paternity than the accursed one she had to own +to. Was there some terrible law in Nature that slow forgiveness of +the greatest wrong that can be wrought must perforce be granted to +its inflictor, through the gracious survivor of a brutal +indifference that would almost add to his crime, if that were +possible? If, so, surely the Universe must be the work of an +Almighty Fiend, a Demiurgus with a cruel heart, and this the +masterstroke of all his cunning. But what, in Heaven's name, was the +use of bruising her brains against the conundrums of the great +unanswered metaphysical sphinx? Better be contented with the easy +vernacular solution of the rhymester:</p> + +<p class="verse"> +"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,<br /> +Evils from circumstances grow." +</p> + +<p>Because she felt she was getting no nearer the solution of her own +problem, and was, if anything, wandering from the point.</p> + +<p>Another way of looking at the matter was beginning to take form: had +hung about her mind and forsaken it more than once. Might it not be +better, after all, to dash at the position and capture it while her +forces were well under control? To pursue the + +<!-- Page 466 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> +metaphor, the +commissariat might not hold out. Better endure the ills we have—of +course, Rosalind knew all that—than fly to others that we know not +of. But suppose we have a chance of flying to others we can measure +the length and breadth of, and staving off thereby an uncalculable +unknown? She felt she almost knew the worst that could come of +taking Gerry into her confidence, telling him boldly all about +himself, provided she could choose her opportunity and make sure +Sally was well out of the way. The concealment from Sally was the +achievement whose failure involved the greatest risk. Her husband's +mind would bear the knowledge of his story well or ill according to +the way in which it reached him; but the necessity of keeping her +girl in ignorance of it was a thing absolute. Any idea that Sally's +origin could be concealed from her, and her stepfather's identity +made known, Rosalind dismissed as simply fantastic.</p> + +<p>A lady who had established herself below high-water mark with many +more books than she could read, and plant capable of turning out +much more work than she could do, at this point fled for safety from +a rush of white foam. It went back for more, meaning to wet her +through next time; but had to bear its disappointment. Mrs. +Arkwright—for it was Gwendolen's mamma—being driven from the +shadow of the breakwater, cast about her for a new lodgment, and +perceived one beside Mrs. Fenwick, whom she thought very well for +the seaside, but not to leave cards on. <i>Might</i> she come up there, +beside you? Rosalind didn't want her, but had to pretend she did, to +encourage her advent. It left behind it a track of skeins and +volumes, which had trickled from the fugitive, but were recovered by +a domestic, and pronounced dry. Besides, they were only library +books, and didn't matter.</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen you since the other day on the pier, Mrs. Fenwick, +or I wanted to have asked you more about that charming young couple, +the Julian Attwoods. Oh dear! I knew I should get the name wrong.... +<i>Bradshaw!</i> Yes, of course." Her vivid perception of what the name +really is, when apprised of it, almost amounts to a paroxysm. You +see, on the pier that day, she made a bad blunder over those +Bradshaw people, and though she had consoled her conscience by +admitting to her husband + +<!-- Page 467 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> +that she had "<i>mis le pied dans le plat</i>," +still, she thought, if she was actually going to plump down on Mrs. +Fenwick's piece of beach, she ought to do a little more apology. +By-the-bye, why is it that ladies of her sort always resort to +snippets of French idiom, whenever they get involved in a quagmire +of delicacy—or indelicacy, as may be? Will Gwendolen grow like her +mother? However, that doesn't concern us now.</p> + +<p>A little stiffness on Rosalind's part was really due to her wish to +be by herself, but Mrs. Arkwright ascribed it to treasured +resentment against her blunders of two days since. Now, she was a +person who could never let anything drop—a tugging person. She +proceeded to develop the subject.</p> + +<p>"Really a most interesting story! I need hardly say that my +informants had given me no particulars. Very old friends of my +husband's. Quite possible they really knew nothing of this young +gentleman's musical gifts. Simply told my husband the tale as I told +it to you. Just that the daughter of an old friend of theirs, +Professor Sales Wilson—<i>the</i> Professor Sales Wilson—of course, +quite a famous name in literature—scholarship—that sort of +thing—had run away with a shopman! That was what my husband heard, +you know. <i>I</i> merely repeated it."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it, as things go, rather a malicious way of putting it—on +their part?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arkwright gave sagacious nods, indicative of comfortable +"<i>we</i>-know-the-world-we-live-in-and-won't-pretend" relationships +between herself and the speaker. They advertised perfect mutual +understanding on a pinnacle of married experience. Fancy there being +any need for anything else between <i>us</i>! they said. Their editor +then supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been a +<i>soupçon</i> of personal feeling in the case—bias, pique, whatever one +likes to call it. <i>You</i> know, dear Mrs. Fenwick?" But Mrs. Fenwick +waited for further illumination. "Well, you know ... I suppose it's +rather a breach of confidence, only I know I shall be safe with +<i>you</i>...."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me any secrets, Mrs. Arkwright. I'm not safe." But Mrs. +Arkwright was not a person to be put off in this way. Not she! She +meant elucidation, and nothing short of bayonets would stop her.</p> + +<p>"Well, really, perhaps I'm making it of too much importance to + +<!-- Page 468 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> +talk +of breaches of confidence. After all, it only amounts to a gentleman +having been disappointed. Of course, his relations would ... don't +you see?..."</p> + +<p>"Was it some man that was after Tishy?" asked Rosalind, wondering +how many more rejected suitors were wearing the willow about the +haberdasher's bride. She had heard of one, only last night. She was +not putting two and two together.</p> + +<p>"I dare say everybody knows it, and it's only my nonsensical +caution. But one does get <i>so</i> timorous of saying anything. <i>You</i> +know, dear Mrs. Fenwick! However, it's better to say it out now—of +course, quite between ourselves, you know. It was Mrs. Samuel +Herrick's son, Sir Charles Penderfield. He's the present baronet, +you know. Father was in the army—rather distinguished man, I fancy. +Her second husband was a clergyman...." Here followed social +analysis, some of which Rosalind could have corrected. The speaker +floundered a little among county families, and then resumed the main +theme. "Mrs. Herrick is a sort of connexion of my husband's (I don't +exactly know what; but then, I never <i>do</i> know—family is such a +bore), and it was <i>she</i> told <i>him</i> all about this. I always forget +these things when they're told <i>me</i>. But I can quite understand that +the young man's mother, in speaking of it ... <i>you</i> understand?..."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, naturally. I think my daughter's coming out. I saw +her machine-door move." Rosalind began collecting herself for +departure.</p> + +<p>"But, of course, you won't repeat any of this—but, of course, I +know I can rely upon you—but, of course, it doesn't really +matter...." A genial superior tone of toleration for mankind's +foibles as seen by the two speakers from an elevation comes in at +this point juicily. It meets an appreciative response in the +prolonged first syllable of Rosalind's "<i>Cer</i>tainly. I never should +dream," etc., whose length makes up for an imperfect finish—a +dispersal of context from which a farewell good-morning emerges +clear, hand-in-hand with a false statement that the speaker has +enjoyed sitting there talking.</p> + +<p>Rosalind had not enjoyed it at all. She was utilising the merpussy's +return to land as a means of escape, because, had there been no Mrs. +Arkwright, and no folk-chatter, Sally would have come + +<!-- Page 469 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +scranching up +the shingle, and flung herself down beside her mother. As it was, +Rosalind's "Oh, <i>I am</i> so glad to get away from that woman!" told a +tale. And Sally's truthful soul interpreted the upshot of that tale +as prohibitive of merely going away and sitting down elsewhere. She +and her mother were in honour bound to have promised to meet +somebody somewhere—say, for instance, Mrs. Vereker and her son and +donkey-chair. Sally said it, for instance, seeing something of the +sort would soothe the position; and the two of them met the three, +or rather the three and a half, for we had forgotten the boy to whom +the control of the donkey was entrusted, and whose interpretation of +his mission was to beat the donkey incessantly like a carpet, and to +drag it the other way. The last held good of all directions soever. +Which the donkey, who was small, but by nature immovable, requited +by taking absolutely no notice whatever of his exertions.</p> + +<p>"What's become of my step-parent? I thought he was going to take you +for a walk." So spoke Sally to Dr. Conrad as she and her mother met +the three others, and the half. The doctor replied:</p> + +<p>"He's gone for a walk along the cliff by himself. I would have +gone...." The doctor pauses a moment till the donkey-chair is a few +paces ahead, accompanied by Mrs. Fenwick. "I would have gone, only, +you see, it's just mother's last day or two...." Sally apprehends +perfectly. But he shouldn't have dropped his voice. He was quite +distant enough to be inaudible by the Octopus as far as overhearing +words went. But any one can hear when a voice is dropped suddenly, +and words are no longer audible. Dr. Conrad is a very poor +Machiavelli, when all is said and done.</p> + +<p>"I can hear <i>every word</i> my boy is saying to your girl, Mrs. +Fenwick." This is delivered with exemplary sweetness by the Octopus, +who then guesses with diabolical acumen at almost the exact wording +of her son's speech. Apparently, no amount of woollen wraps, no +double thickness of green veil to keep the glare out, no smoked +glasses with flanges to make it harmless if it gets in, can obscure +the Goody's penetrative powers when invoked for the discomfiture of +her kind. "But does not my dear boy know," she continues gushily, +"that I am <i>al</i>ways content to be <i>alone</i> as long + +<!-- Page 470 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> +as I can be +<i>sure</i> that he is happily employed <i>elsewhere</i>. I am a <i>dull old +woman</i>, I know; but, at least, my wish is not to be a burden. That +was the wish of my great-aunt Eliza—your great-great-aunt, Conrad; +you never saw her—in her last illness. I borrow her +expression—'not to be a burden.'" The Octopus, having seized her +prey in this tentacle, was then at liberty to enlarge upon the +unselfish character of her great-aunt, reaping the advantages of a +vicarious egoism from an hypnotic suggestion that that character was +also her own. The great-aunt had, it appeared, lost the use, broadly +speaking, of her anatomy, and could only communicate by signs; but +when she died she was none the less missed by her own circle, whose +grief for her loss took the form of a tablet. The speaker paused a +moment for her hearers to contemplate the tablet, and perhaps ask +for the inscription, when Sally saw an opening, and took advantage +of it.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Conrad's going to be very selfish this afternoon, Mrs. Vereker, +and come with us to Chalke, where that dear little church is that +looks like a barn. I mean to find the sexton and get the key this +time."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I shall be <i>per</i>fectly happy knitting. Do not trouble +about me for one moment. I shall think how you are enjoying +yourselves. When I was a girl there was nothing I enjoyed more than +ransacking old churches...."</p> + +<p>And so forth. Rosalind felt almost certain that Sally either said or +telegraphed to the doctor, who was wavering, "You'll come, you know. +Now, mind; two-thirty punc.," and resolved, if he did <i>not</i> come, to +go to Iggulden's and extract him from the tentacles of his mamma, +and remain entangled herself, if necessary.</p> + +<p>In fact, this was how the arrangement for the afternoon worked out. +Dr. Conrad did <i>not</i> turn up, as expected, and Rosalind carried out +her intention. She rescued the doctor, and sent him round to join +her husband and Sally, promising to follow shortly and catch them +up. The three started to walk, but Fenwick, after a little slow +walking to allow Rosalind to overtake them, had misgivings that she +had got caught, and went back to rescue her, telling Sally and the +doctor it was no use to wait—they would follow on, and take their +chance. And the programme so indicated was acted on.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 471 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF LOVE, CONSIDERED AS A THUNDERSTORM, AND OF AGUR, THE SON OF JAKEH +(PROV. XXX.). OF A COUNTRY WALK AND A JUDICIOUSLY RESTORED CHURCH. +OF TWO CLASPED HANDS, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. NOTHING SO VERY +REMARKABLE AFTER ALL!</p> + +<p>Love, like a thunderstorm, is very much more intelligible in its +beginnings—to its chronicler, at least—than it becomes when it is, +so to speak, overhead. We all know the clear-cut magnificence of the +great thundercloud against the sky, its tremendous deliberation, its +hills and valleys of curdling mist, fraught with God knows what +potential of destruction in volts and ohms; the ceaseless muttering +of its wrath as it speaks to its own heart, and its sullen secrets +reverberate from cavern to cavern in the very core of its innermost +blackness. We know the last prismatic benedictions of the sun it +means to hide from us—the strange gleams of despairing light on the +other clouds—clouds that are not in it, mere outsiders or +spectators. We can remember them after we have got home in time to +avoid a wetting, and can get our moist water-colours out and do a +recollection of them before they go out of our heads—or think we +can.</p> + +<p>But we know, too, that there comes a time of a sudden wind and +agitated panic of the trees, and then big, warm preliminary drops, +and then the first clap of thunder, clear in its own mind and full +of purpose. Then the first downpour of rain, that isn't quite so +clear, and wavers for a breathing-space, till the tart reminder of +the first swift, decisive lightning-flash recalls it to its duty, +and it becomes a steady, intolerable torrent that empties roads and +streets of passers-by, and makes the gutters rivulets. And then the +storm itself—flash upon flash—peal upon peal—up to the blinding +and deafening climax, glare and thunderbolt in a breath. And then +it's overhead, and we are sure something has been struck that time.</p> + +<p>It was all plain sailing, two days since, in the love-storm we want + +<!-- Page 472 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> +the foregoing sketch of a thunderstorm to illustrate, that was +brewing in the firmament of Conrad Vereker's soul. At the point +corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder—wherever it +was—Chaos set in in that firmament. And Chaos was developing +rapidly at the time when the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity +from the maternal clutch, started on what he believed would be his +last walk with his idol at St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he +got back to London, though there might be, academically speaking, +opportunities of seeing Sally, it wasn't going to be the same thing. +That was the phrase his mind used, and we know quite well what it +meant.</p> + +<p>Of course, when some peevish author or invalid sends out a servant +to make you take your organ farther off, a good way down the street, +you can begin again exactly where you left off, lower down. But a +barrel-organ has no soul, and one has one oneself, usually. Dr. +Vereker's soul, on this occasion, was the sport of the love-storm of +our analogy, and was tossed and driven by whirlwinds, beaten down by +torrents, dazzled by lightning and deafened by thunder, out of reach +of all sane record by the most eloquent of chroniclers. It was not +in a state to accept calmly the idea of transference to Shepherd's +Bush. A tranquil mind would have said, "By all means, go home and +start afresh." But no; the music in this case refused to welcome the +change. Still, he would forget it—make light of it and ignore +it—to enjoy this last little expedition with Sally to the village +church across the downs, that had been so sweetly decorated for the +harvest festival. A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. +<i>Carpe diem!</i></p> + +<p>So Dr. Conrad seemed to have grown younger than ever when he and +Sally got away from all the world, after Fenwick had fallen back to +rescue the captive, octopus-caught. Whereat Sally's heart rejoiced; +for this young man's state of subordination to his skilful and +overwhelming parent was a constant thorn in her side. To say she +felt for him is to say nothing. To say that she would have jumped +out of her skin with joy at hearing that he was engaged to that +young lady, unknown; and that that young lady had successfully made +terms of capitulation, involving the disbanding of the Goody, and +her ultimate dispersal to Bedford Park with a companion—to vouch +for this actually happening might + +<!-- Page 473 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> +be rash. But Sally told +herself—and her mother, for that matter—that she should so jump +out of her skin; and you may believe her, perhaps. We happen not to; +but it may have been true, for all that.</p> + +<p>Agur, the son of Jakeh (Prov. xxx.), evidently thought the souls of +women not worth analysis, and the way of a maid with a man not a +matter for Ithiel and Ucal to spend time and thought over, as they +seem to have said nothing to King Solomon on the subject. But then +Agur candidly admitted that he was more brutish than any man, and +had not the understanding of a man. So he contented himself with +wondering at the way of a man with a maid, and made no remarks about +the opposite case. Even with the understanding of a man, would he +have been any nearer seeing into the mystery of a girl's heart? As +for ourselves, we give it up. We have to be content with watching +what Miss Sally will do next, not trying to understand her.</p> + +<p>She certainly <i>believed</i> she believed—we may go that far—when she +started to walk to Chalke Church with a young man she felt a strong +interest in, and wanted to see happily settled in life—(all her +words, please, not ours)—that she intended, this walk, to get out +of Prosy who the young lady was that he had hinted at, and, what was +more, she knew exactly how she was going to lead up to it. Only she +wouldn't rush the matter; it would do just as well, or better, after +they had seen the little church, and were walking back in the +twilight. They could be jolly and chatty then. Oh yes, certainly a +good deal better. As for any feeling of shyness about it, of relief +at postponing it—what <i>nonsense</i>! Hadn't they as good as talked it +all over already? But, for our own part, we believe that this +readiness to let the subject wait was a concession Sally made +towards admitting a personal interest in the result of her +inquiry—so minute a one that maybe you may wonder why we call it a +concession at all. Dr. Conrad was perhaps paltering a little with +the truth, too, when he said to himself that he was quite prepared +to fulfil his half-promise to Fenwick and reveal his mind to Sally; +but not till quite the end of this walk, in case he should spoil it, +and upset Sally. Or, perhaps, to-morrow morning, on the way to the +train. Our own belief is, he was frightened, and it was an excuse.</p> + +<p>"We shall go by the beech-forest," was Sally's last speech to +Fenwick, + +<!-- Page 474 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> +as he turned back on his mission of rescue. And twenty +minutes later she and Dr. Conrad were crossing the smooth +sheep-pasture that ended at the boundary of the said forest—a tract +of woodland that was always treated with derision on account of its +acreage. It was small, for a forest, certainly; but, then, it hadn't +laid claim to the name itself. Sally spoke forgivingly of it as they +approached it.</p> + +<p>"It's a handy little forest," said she; "only you can't lie down in +it without sticking out. If you don't expect to, it doesn't matter." +This was said without a trace of a smile, Sally-fashion. It took its +reasonableness for granted, and allowed the speaker to continue +without a pause into conversation sane and unexaggerated.</p> + +<p>"What were you and Jeremiah talking about the day before yesterday, +when you went that long walk?"</p> + +<p>"We talked about a good many things. I've forgotten half."</p> + +<p>"Which was the one you don't want me to know about? Because you +haven't forgotten that, you know." Vereker thinks of Sally's +putative parents, the Arcadian shepherdess and the thunderbolt. +Obviously a reality! Besides—so ran the doctor's thought—with her +looking like <i>that</i>, what can I do? He felt perfectly helpless, but +wouldn't confess it. He would make an effort. One thing he was +certain of: that evasion, with those eyes looking at him, would mean +instant shipwreck.</p> + +<p>"We had a long talk, dear Miss Sally, about how much Jeremiah"—a +slight accent on the name has the force of inverted commas in +text—"can really recollect of his own history." But Sally's reply +takes a form of protest, without seeming warranty.</p> + +<p>"I say, Dr. Conrad, I wish you wouldn't.... However, never mind that +now. I want to know about Jeremiah. Has he remembered a lot more, +and not told?"</p> + +<p>"He goes on recovering imperfect versions of things. He told me a +good many such yesterday—so imperfect that I am convinced as his +mind clears he will find that some of them, though founded on +reality, are little better than dreams. He can't rely on them +himself.... But what is it you wish I wouldn't?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing!—I'll tell you after. Never mind that now. What are +the things—I mean, the things he recovers the imperfect versions +of? You needn't tell me the versions, you know, + +<!-- Page 475 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> +but you might tell +me what they were versions of, without any breach of confidence." +Dr. Conrad has not time for more than a word or two towards the +obvious protest against this way of stating the case, before Sally +becomes frankly aware of her own unfairness. "No, I won't worm out +and inquisit," she says—and we are bound to give her exact +language. "It isn't fair on a general practitioner to take him for a +walk and get at his professional secrets." The merry eyebrows and +the pearly teeth, slightly in abeyance for a serious moment or two, +are all in evidence again as the black eyes flash round on the +doctor, and, as it were, convey his reprieve to him. He acknowledges +it in this sense.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you don't insist upon my telling, Miss Sally. If you had +insisted, I should have had to tell." He paused a second, drawing an +inference from an expression of Sally's face, then added: "Well, +it's true...."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of that." This refers to her intention to say +something, which never fructified; but somehow got communicated, +magnetically perhaps, to Dr. Conrad. "Never mind what, now. Because +if your soles are as slippy as mine are, we shall never get up. +Catch hold!"</p> + +<p>This last refers to the necessity two travellers are under, who, +having to ascend a steep escarpment of slippery grass, can only do +so by mutual assistance. Sally and the doctor got to the top, and +settled down to normal progress on a practicable gradient, and all +the exhilaration of the wide, wind-swept downland. But what had been +to the unconscious merpussy nothing but a mutual accommodation +imposed by a common lot—common subjection to the forces of +gravitation and the extinction of friction by the reaction of short +grass on leather—had been to her companion a phase of stimulus to +the storm that was devastating the region of his soul; a new and +prolonged peal of thunder swift on the heels of a blinding +lightning-flash, and a deluge to follow such as a real storm makes +us run to shelter from. On Dr. Conrad's side of the analogy, there +was no shelter, and he didn't ask for it. Had he asked for anything, +it would have been for the power to tell Sally what she had become +to him, and a new language he did not now know in which to tell it. +And such a vocabulary!</p> + +<p>But Dr. Conrad didn't know how simple the language was that he + +<!-- Page 476 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> +felt +the want of—least of all, that there was only one word in its +vocabulary. And when the two of them got to the top of their +slippery precipice, breathless, he was no nearer the disclosure he +had made up his mind to, and as good as promised Fenwick to make, +than when they were treading the beechmast and listening to the +wood-doves in the handy little forest they had left below. But oh, +the little things in this life that are the big ones all the while, +and no one ever suspects them!</p> + +<p>A very little thing indeed was to play a big part, unacknowledged +till after, in the story of this walk. For it chanced that as they +reached the hill-top the diminution of the incline was so gradual +that at no exact point could the lease of Sally's hand to that of +the doctor be determined by either landlord or tenant. We do not +mean that he refused to let go, nor that Sally consciously said to +herself that it would be rude to snatch back the gloveless +six-and-a-half that she had entrusted to him, the very minute she +didn't want his assistance. It was a <i>nuance</i> of action or demeanour +far, far finer than that on the part of either. But it was real all +the same. And the facts of the case were as clear to Sally's +subconsciousness, unadmitted and unconfessed, as though Dr. Conrad +had found his voice then and there, and said out boldly: "There is +<i>no</i> young lady I am wavering about except it be you; she's a +fiction, and a silly one. There is no one in the world I care for as +I do for you. There is nothing in the world that I can name or dream +of so precious to me as this hand that I now give up with +reluctance, under the delusion that I have not held it long enough +to make you guess the whole of the story." All that was said, but +what an insignificant little thing it was that said it!</p> + +<p>As for Miss Sally, it was only her subself that recognised that any +one had said anything at all. Her superself dismissed it as a fancy; +and, therefore, being put on its mettle to justify that action, it +pointed out to her that, after that, it would be the merest +cowardice to shirk finding out about Dr. Conrad's young lady. She +would manage it somehow by the end of this walk. But still an +element of postponement came in, and had its say. Yet it excited no +suspicions in her mind, or she ignored them. She was quite within +her rights, technically, in doing so.</p> + +<p>It was necessary, though, to tide over the momentary +reciprocity—the + +<!-- Page 477 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> +slight exchange of consciousnesses that, if +indulged, must have ended in a climax—with a show of stiffness; a +little pretence that we were a lady and gentleman taking a walk, +otherwise undescribed. When the doctor relinquished Sally's hand, he +felt bound to ignore the fact that hers went on ringing like a bell +in the palm of his, and sending musical messages up his arm; and to +talk about dewponds. They occur on the tops of downs, and are very +scientific. High service and no rate are the terms of their +water-supply. Dr. Conrad knew all about them, and was aware that one +they passed was also a relic of prehistoric man, who had dug it, and +didn't live long enough, poor fellow! to know it was a dewpond, or +prehistoric. Sally was interested. A little bird with very long legs +didn't seem to care, and walked away without undue hurry, but +amazingly quickly, for all that.</p> + +<p>"What a little darling!" Sally said. "Did you hear that delicious +little noise he made? Isn't he a water-ouzel?" Sally took the first +name that she thought sounded probable. She really was making talk, +to contribute her share to the fiction about the lady and gentleman. +So was her companion. He reflected for a moment whether he could say +anything about Grallæ and Scolopacidæ, or such like, but decided +against heaping up instructive matter on the top of the recent +dewponds. He gave it up, and harked back quite suddenly to congenial +personalities.</p> + +<p>"What was it you wished I wouldn't, Miss Sally?"</p> + +<p>Our Sally had it on her lips to say, "Why, do <i>that</i>—call me <i>Miss</i> +Sally, of course! I can't <i>tell</i> you how I hate it." But, this time, +she was seized with a sudden fit of shyness. She could have said it +quite easily before that trivial hand-occurrence, and the momentary +stiffness that followed it. Now she backed out in the meanest way, +and even sought to fortify the lady and gentleman pretext. She +looked back over the panorama they were leaving behind, and +discerned that that was Jeremiah and her maternal parent coming +through the clover-field. But it wasn't, palpably. Nevertheless, +Sally held tight to her groundless opinion long enough for the +previous question to be droppable, without effrontery. Then her +incorrigible candour bubbled up, and she refused to take advantage +of her own subterfuge.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Dr. Conrad; I'll tell you presently. I've a bone to +pick with you. Wait till we've seen the little +churchy-wurchy—there + +<!-- Page 478 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> +it is, over there, with a big +weathercock—and then we can quarrel and go home separate."</p> + +<p>Even Agur, the son of Jakeh, would have seen, at this point, the way +that this particular maid, in addressing this particular man, was +exaggerating a certain spirit of bravado; and if he had been +accompanying them unseen from St. Sennans, would certainly have +deserved his own self-censure if he had failed to trace this spirit +to its source—the hand-incident. We believe it was only affectation +in Agur, and that he knew all about the subject, men, maids, and +every other sort; only he didn't think any of the female sorts worth +his Oriental consideration. It was a far cry to the dawn of Browning +in those days.</p> + +<p>Down the hill to the flatlands was a steep pathway, where talk +paused naturally. When you travel in single file on a narrow footway +with a grass slide to right or left of you, which it does not do to +tread on with shoe-soles well polished on two miles of previous +grass, you don't talk—especially if you have come to some point in +talk where silence is not unwelcome. Sally and the doctor said +scarcely a dozen words on the way down to the little village that +owned the name and the church of Chalke. When they arrived in its +seclusion they found, for purposes of information and reference, no +human creatures visible except some absolutely brown, white-haired +ones whose existence dated back only a very few years—not enough to +learn English in. So, when addressed, they remained a speechless +group, too unaccustomed to man to be able to say where keys of +churches were to be had, or anything else. But the eldest, a very +little girl in a flexible blue bonnet, murmured what Sally, with +insight, interpreted into a reference.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, that's right. You go and tell moarther t' whoam that a +lady and gentleman want to see inside the church, and ask for the +key." Whereupon the little maid departs down a passage into a smell +of wallflowers, and is heard afar rendering her message as a long +narrative—so long that Dr. Conrad says the child cannot have +understood right, and they had better prosecute inquiry further. +Sally thinks otherwise, and says men are impatient fidgets.</p> + +<p>The resolute dumbness of one of the small natives must have been a +<i>parti-pris</i>, for it suddenly disappeared during his sister's +absence, + +<!-- Page 479 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> +and he gave a narrative of a family dissension, not +necessarily recent. He appears proud of his own share in it, which +Sally nevertheless felt she could not appear to sanction by silence.</p> + +<p>"You bad little boy," she said. "You smacked your sister Elizabeth +in t' oy, and your foarther smacked you. I hope he hurt." The bad +little boy assented with a nod, and supplied some further details. +Then he asked for a penny before his sister Elizabeth came back. He +wanted it to buy almond-rock, but he wouldn't give any of it to +Jacob, nor to his sister Elizabeth, nor to Reuben, nor to many +others, whom he seemed to exclude from almond-rock with rapture. +Asked to whom he would give some, then, he replied: "Not you—eat it +moyself!" and laughed heartlessly. Sally, we regret to say, gave +this selfish little boy a penny for not being hypocritical. And then +his sister Elizabeth reappeared with the key, which was out of scale +with her, like St. Peter's.</p> + +<p>The inward splendours of this church had been inferred by Sally from +a tiptoe view through the window, which commanded its only archaic +object of interest—the monument of a woolstapler who, three hundred +and odd years ago, had the effrontery to have two wives and sixteen +children. He ought to have had one or two more wives, thought Dr. +Conrad. However, the family was an impressive one now, decorated as +it was with roses cut out of turnips, and groups of apples and +carrots and cereals. And no family could have kneeled down more +symmetrically, even in 1580.</p> + +<p>But there was plenty to see in that church, too. Indeed, it was for +all the world like the advertisement sheets of <i>Architectonic +Ecclesiology</i> (ask for this paper at your club), and every window +was brim full of new stained glass, and every inch of floor-space +was new encaustic tiles. And, what was more, there was a new mosaic +over the chancel-arch—a modest and wobbly little arch in itself, +that seemed afflicted with its position, and to want to get away +into a quiet corner and meditate. Sally said so, and added so should +she, if she were it.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if the woolstapler was married here to one or other of the +little square women," said she.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why the angels up there look so sulky," said Dr. Conrad. +And then Sally, who seemed absent-minded, found something + +<!-- Page 480 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> +else to +wonder about—a certain musical whistling noise that filled the +little church. But it was only a big bunch of moonwort on a +stained-glass-window sill, and the wind was blowing through a +vacancy that should have been a date, and making Æolian music. The +little maid with the key found her voice over this suddenly. Her +bruvver had done that, she said with pride. He had oymed a stoo-an +when it was putten up, and brokken t' glass. So that stained glass +was very new indeed, evidently.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why they call that stuff 'honesty,' Miss Sally?" said the +doctor. Sally, feeling that the interest of either in the church was +really perfunctory, said vaguely—did they? And then, recoiling from +further wonderment, and, indeed, feeling some terror of becoming +idiotic if this sort of thing went on much longer, she exclaimed, +with reality in her voice: "Because it's not pretending to take an +interest when it doesn't, like us. But I wish you wouldn't, Dr. +Conrad; I do hate it so."</p> + +<p>"Hate what? Taking an interest or calling it honesty? <i>I</i> didn't +call it honesty. <i>They</i> did, whoever they are!"</p> + +<p>"No, no—I don't mean that. Never mind. I'll tell you when we're +out. Come along—that is, if you've seen enough of the tidy mosaic +and the tidy stained glass, and the tidy nosegays on the tidy +table." The doctor came along—seemed well satisfied to do so. But +this was the third time Sally had wished that Dr. Conrad wouldn't, +and this time she felt she must explain. She wasn't at all sure that +the name of that herb hadn't somehow got into the atmosphere—caught +on, as it were, and twitted her. After all, why shouldn't she speak +a plain thought to an old friend, as poor Prosy was now? Who could +gainsay it? Moreover—now, surely this was an inspiration—why +shouldn't she kill two birds with one stone, and work in her inquiry +about the other young lady with this plain thought that was on her +tongue to speak?</p> + +<p>The sun was a sheer blaze of golden light as they stepped out of the +little church into its farewell efforts on behalf of the +hill-shadowed land of premature sunsets, and the merpussy looked her +best in its effulgence. Sally's good looks had never been such as to +convince her she was a beauty; and we suppose she wasn't, critically +speaking. But youth and health, and an arrow-straight + +<!-- Page 481 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> +bearing, and +a flawless complexion, in a flood of evening light, make a bold bid +for beauty even in the eyes of others than young men already +half-imbecile with love. Sally's was, at any rate, enough to +dumbfounder the little janitress with the key, who stood at gaze +with violet eyes in her sunbrowned face in the shadow, looking as +though for certain they would never close again; while, as for Dr. +Conrad, he was too far gone to want a finishing touch, and if he had +been, the faintest animation of an extra flush due to embarrassment +at what she was meaning to say would have done the business for him. +What could he do but wonder and idolize, even while he almost +flinched before his idol; and wait to know what it was she wished he +wouldn't? What was there in earth or heaven he would not, if Sally +wished it?</p> + +<p>"Dr. Conrad, I'm sure you must know what I mean. I do so hate being +called 'Miss Sally.' Do make it 'Sally,' and have done with it."</p> + +<p>The breezy freshness of her spontaneous ease was infectious, and the +shy man's answering laugh showed how it had caught his soul. "Is +that all?" says he. "That's soon done—Sally! You know, I <i>do</i> call +you Sally when I speak to your mother and...."</p> + +<p>"Now, <i>do</i> say father. You've no idea how I like it when people call +Jeremiah my father, instead of step."</p> + +<p>"Well—father, then. I mean, <i>they</i> said call you Sally; so of +course I do. But speaking to you—don't you see?..." The doctor +hesitates—doesn't actually blush, perhaps. A slight pause in the +conversation eases off the context. The little maiden has to lock up +the church-door with the big key, and to receive sixpence and a kiss +from Sally. The violet eyes follow the lady and gentleman, fixed in +wonderment, as they move off towards the hill, and the last glint of +the sun vanishes. Then Sally goes on where they left off:</p> + +<p>"No, I don't see. Speaking to me, what? Be an explicit little +general practitioner, or we shall quarrel, after all, and go home +different ways."</p> + +<p>"Well, look here! You know Bailey, the young man that drives me +round in London?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. How does he come in?"</p> + +<p>"Why, just this way; I've known the youth for years, and the other + +<!-- Page 482 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> +day if it doesn't turn out that he's been married ever so long! And +when I taxed him with needless secrecy and mistrust of an old +friend, what does the young humbug say? 'The fact is, sir, I hadn't +the cheek to tell you.' Well, <i>I</i> was like that. I hadn't the +cheek."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, you have the grace to call him a young humbug. I'm +glad you're repentant, Dr. Conrad."</p> + +<p>"Come—I say, now—Sally! That's not fair."</p> + +<p>"What's not fair?"</p> + +<p>"Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You called me 'Dr. +Conrad.'"</p> + +<p>"We-ell, I don't see anything in <i>that</i>. Of course, it's quite a +different thing—you and me."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then. I shall say Miss Sally. Miss Sally!"</p> + +<p>Here was Sally's opportunity, clear enough. She had never had a +chance till now of bringing back the mysterious young lady of the +jetty-interview into court, and examining her. She felt quite sure +of herself and her powers of conducting the case—and she was +mistaken. She knew nothing of the traps and pitfalls that were +gaping for her. Her opening statement went easily though; it was all +prepared.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, Dr. Conrad dear, the cases are quite different? When +you're married, your wife will call <i>me</i> Sally, of course. But ... +well, if I had a husband, you know, <i>he</i> would call <i>you</i> Dr. +Vereker. Sure to!" Sally felt satisfied with the sound of her voice. +But the doctor said never a word, and his face was grave. She would +have to go on, unassisted, and she had invented nothing to say, so +far. So a wavering crept in—nothing in itself at first, apart from +her consciousness of it. "Besides, though, of course <i>she</i> would +call <i>me</i> Sally, she mightn't quite—not altogether, you know—I +mean, she might think it...." But ambushes revealed themselves in +every hedge, ready to break out if she ended this sentence. Dr. +Conrad made completion unnecessary.</p> + +<p>"Whom do you mean by <i>she</i>, Sally?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! Who could I mean but the girl you told me about +that you think wouldn't agree with your mother?"</p> + +<p>"I thought so. See what a mess I made of it! No, Sally, there's no +such person. Now I shall have to speak the truth, and then + +<!-- Page 483 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> +I shall +have to go away from you, and it will all be spoiled...." But Sally +interposes on the tense speech, and sound of growing determination +in the doctor's voice:</p> + +<p>"Oh no, don't—no, don't! Don't say anything that will change it +from <i>now</i>. See how happy we are! How could it be better? I'll call +you Conrad, or anything you like. Only, <i>don't</i> make it different."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I won't. I promise!" The doctor calms down. "But, Sally +dearest—I may say Sally dearest, mayn't I?..."</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps. Only you must make that do for the present."</p> + +<p>But there is a haunting sense of the Octopus in the conscientious +soul of her son, and even though he is allowed to say "Sally +dearest," the burden is on him of knowing that he has been swept +away in the turmoil of this whirlwind of self, and he is feeling +round to say <i>peccavi</i>, and make amends by confession. He makes +"Sally dearest" do for the moment, but captures as a set-off the +hand that slips readily enough into the arm he offers for it, with a +caressing other hand, before he speaks again. He renews his +promise—but with such a compensation in the hand that remains at +rest in his! and then continues:</p> + +<p>"Dearest Sally, I dare say you see how it was—about mother. It was +very stupid of me, and I did it very badly. I got puzzled, and lost +my head."</p> + +<p>"I thought it was a real young lady, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"I saw you did. And I do think—just now—I should have let you +continue believing in the real young lady ... only when you said +that...."</p> + +<p>"Said what?"</p> + +<p>"Said that about your husband, and calling me Conrad. I couldn't +stand it. It was just like a knife ... no, I'm in earnest, it <i>was</i>. +How could I have borne it—gone on at all—with you married to any +one else?" He asks this in a tone of serious conviction, of one who +is diagnosing a strange case, conscientiously. Sally declines +consultation—won't be too serious over it.</p> + +<p>"You would have had to. Men get on capitally when they have to. But +very likely I won't marry you. Don't be too sure! I haven't +committed myself, you know." Nevertheless, the hand remains passive +in the doctor's, as he continues his diagnosis:</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 484 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I shouldn't deserve you. But, then, who could?"</p> + +<p>Sally tacitly refuses to help in answering this question.</p> + +<p>"I vote for neither of us marrying anybody else, but going on like +now," says she thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>Sally, you see, was recovering herself after a momentary alarm, +produced by the gust of resolution on Dr. Conrad's part. She had +shut her window on the storm in his soul, and felt safe in resuming +her identity. All through this walk, ever since the hand-incident, +she had been hard at work ignoring suggestions of her inner mind +that her companion was a loaded gun, and not quite safe to play +with. Now she felt she had established a sort of <i>modus vivendi</i> +which would not involve her in the horrors of a formal engagement, +with the concomitants of dissension and bitterness that she had +noticed in friends' families on such occasions. Why shouldn't she +and poor Prosy walk about together as much as they liked—yes, even +call in at a church and get married if they liked—and have no one +else fussing over them? The sort of semi-trothplight she had just +hushed into silence would do for a good long time to come, because +she understood Prosy down to the ground, and, of course, she knew +that his mistrusting her was out of the question.</p> + +<p>As for the doctor, his was the sort of temperament one often meets +with in very fair men of his type—intensely shy, but with a backing +of resolution on occasion shown, bred of a capacity for high-strung +passion. He had formed his intention fully and clearly of telling +Sally the whole truth before they arrived at St. Sennans that +evening, and had been hastened to what was virtually an avowal by a +premature accident, as we have seen. Now the murder was out, and he +was walking home slowly beside the marvel, the mystery, that had +taken possession of the inmost recesses of his life—very much in +her pocket, if the truth must be told—with an almost intolerable +searching fire of joy finding every moment a new untouched recess in +his innermost heart. He could have fallen at her feet and kissed +them, could have poured out his very soul in passionate +protestations, could and would have done anything that would have +given a moment's respite to the tension of his love for this +all-absorbing other creature that was absolutely here—a reality, +and no dream—beside him. But he was going to be good, at her +bidding, and remain + +<!-- Page 485 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> +a sane and reasonable general practitioner, +however much his heart beat and his head swam. Poor Prosy!</p> + +<p>No! On consideration, Agur, the son of Jakeh, didn't know all about +it. He only knew the Oriental temperament. He was quite up to date, +no doubt, but neither he nor Ithiel nor Ucal nor King Solomon could +reckon with spiritual volcanoes. Probably nothing in the world could +have explained to either of them the meaning of one or two bits of +music Schubert wrote on this subject of Love—we don't flinch from +our phraseology; we know that all will understand it whom we care +should do so. By-the-bye, Dr. Vereker was partly German, and a +musician. Agur can have had no experience of either. The ancestors +of Schubert and Beethoven were splendid savages in his day, sleeping +on the snow-wreaths in the forests of the north; and somewhere among +them there was a germ of a love-passion that was one day to ring +changes on the peals that were known to Agur, the son of Jakeh.</p> + +<p>But this is wandering from the point, and all the while Sally and +her lover have been climbing that hill again, and are now walking +over the lonely down above, towards the sun, and their shadows are +long behind them—at least, their shadow; for they have but one, and +we fancy we have let some of our record slip, for the man's arm is +round the girl's waist. Yes, some further clearer understanding has +come into their lives, and maybe Sally sees by now that the vote she +passed <i>nem. con.</i> may be rescinded in the end.</p> + +<p>If you had been near them then, invisible, we know you would not +have gone close and listened. You would have been too honourable. +But you would only have heard this—take our word for it!</p> + +<p>"Do you know what I always call you behind your back? I always call +you Prosy. I don't know why."</p> + +<p>"Because I <i>am</i> prosy—level-headed, slow sort of card—but prosy +beyond a doubt."</p> + +<p>"No, you're not. I don't think you know the least what you're like. +But I shall call you Prosy, all the same, or whatever I choose!"</p> + +<p>"You don't take to Conrad, somehow?"</p> + +<p>"It sounds so reproachful. It's like William."</p> + +<p>"Does William sound reproachful?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 486 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Of course it does! Willy-yum! A most reproachful name. No, Prosy +dear, I shall call you Prosy, whatever the consequences may be. +People must put their own construction upon it."</p> + +<p>"Mother calls me Conny very often."</p> + +<p>"When she's not taking exception to you ... oh, no! I know. I was +only joking ... there, then! we won't quarrel and go home opposite +ways about that. Besides, I'm the young lady...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sally darling, dearest, it does make me feel such a fool. +Please don't!"</p> + +<p>"Stuff and nonsense, Prosy dear! I shall, if I choose. So there!... +No, but seriously—<i>why</i> did you think I shouldn't get on well with +your mother?" Poor Prosy looks very much embarrassed at this point; +his countenance pleads for respite. But Sally won't let him off. And +he is as wax in her hands, and she knows it, and also that every +word that passes her coral lips seems to the poor stricken man a +pearl of wisdom. And she is girl enough to enjoy her power, is +Sally.</p> + +<p>"<i>Why</i> do you think I shan't get on with her?" Note the slight +variation in the question, driving the nail home, leaving no escape. +The doctor's manner in reply is that of one who appeals to Truth +herself to help him, before a court that acknowledges no other +jurisdiction.</p> + +<p>"Because ... I must say it because it's true, only it seems so ... +so disloyal, you might say, to mother...."</p> + +<p>"Well! Because what?"</p> + +<p>"Because then it won't be the same as <i>your</i> mother. It can't be."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Sally—dearest love—how can it?"</p> + +<p>"Well! Perhaps <i>why not</i> was fibs. And, of course, mother's an +angel, so it's not fair. But, Prosy dear, I'll tell you one thing I +<i>do</i> think—that affectionate sons make very bad medical attendants +for their ma's; and I should say the same if they had all the +degrees in Christendom."</p> + +<p>"You think a nervous element comes in?..."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>And so the conversation ripples on, a quiet undertone of perfect +confidence, freedom without reserve as to another self, suddenly + +<!-- Page 487 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> +discovered in the working identity of a fellow-creature. It ripples +on just thus, all the distance of the walk along the topmost down, +in the evening sunlight, and then comes a pause to negotiate the +descent to their handy little forest below. Then a sense that they +are coming back into a sane, dry world, and must be a lady and a +gentleman again. But there must be a little farewell to the +enchanted land they are leaving behind—a recognition of its story, +under the beech-trees as the last gleam goes, and leaves us our +inheritance of twilight.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember, darling, how we climbed up there, coming, and had +hold to the top?" His lips find hers, naturally and without +disguise. It is the close of the movement, and company-manners will +be wanted directly. But just a bar or two, and a space, before the +music dies!...</p> + +<p>"I remember," says Sally. "That began it. Oh, what a long time ago +that does seem now! What a rum start it all is—the whole turn-out!" +For the merpussy is her incorrigible self, and will be to the last.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>When Sally reached home, very late, she was not displeased, though +she was a little surprised, to find that Mrs. Lobjoit was keeping +dinner back, and that her mother and Fenwick had not reappeared, +having been away since they parted. Not displeased, because it gave +her time to settle down—the expression she made use of, to think +with; not with any admission, however, that she either felt or +looked unusually <i>exaltée</i>—but surprised, because it was eight +o'clock, and she felt that even Mrs. Lobjoit's good-nature might +have limits.</p> + +<p>But while she was settling down, in a happy, excited dream she half +wondered that she did not wake from, back came the truants; and she +heard from her room above Mrs. Lobjoit's report that Miss Sally was +gone upstairs to get ready, with the faintest hint of reproach in +the tone. Then her mother's "Don't stop to read letters, +Gerry—that'll do after," and Fenwick's "All right!" not followed by +immediate obedience. Then, after half a moment's delay, in which she +felt some surprise at herself for not going out to meet them coming +up the stairs, her mother's voice approaching, that asked where the +kitten was.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here you are, chick!—how long have you been in? Why, +Sallykin! + +<!-- Page 488 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> +what is it, child?... Oh, Gerry—Gerry—come up here and +hear this!" For the merpussy, in spite of many stoical resolutions, +had merged a beginning of verbal communication in a burst of happy +tears on her mother's bosom.</p> + +<p>And when Fenwick, coming upstairs three steps at a time, filled the +whole house with "Hullo, Sarah! what's the latest intelligence?" +this young lady had only just time to pull herself together into +something like dignified self-possession, in order to reply +ridiculously—how could she have been our usual Sally, +else?—"We-ell! I don't see that it's anything so very remarkable, +after all. I've been encouraging my medical adviser's attentions, if +you want to know, Jeremiah."</p> + +<p>Was it only a fancy of Sally's, as she ended off a hurried toilet, +for Mrs. Lobjoit's sake, or did her mother say to Fenwick, +"Well!—<i>that</i> is something delightful, at any rate"? As though it +were in some sense a set-off against something not delightful +elsewhere.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 489 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A RECURRENCE FROM <i>AS YOU LIKE IT</i> AND HOW FENWICK DIDN'T. WHY A +SAILOR WOULD NOT LEARN TO SWIM. THE BARON AGAIN. OF A CUTTLE-FISH +AND HIS SQUIRT. OF THE POWER OF <i>A PRIORI</i> REASONING. OF SALLY'S +CONFESSION, AND HOW FENWICK WENT TO A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL</p> + +<p>When Fenwick turned back towards home, ostensibly to shorten +Rosalind's visit to the doctor's mother, he had no intention of +doing so early enough to allow of his rejoining his companions, +however slowly they might walk. Neither did he mean to deprive old +Mrs. Vereker of Rosalind until she had had her full allowance of +her. In an hour would do—or three-quarters. He discounted +twenty-five per cent., owing to a recollection of the green veil and +spectacles. Then he felt unkind, and said to himself, that, after +all, the old woman couldn't help it.</p> + +<p>Fenwick felt he was making a great concession in giving up +three-quarters of an hour of Rosalind. As soon as he had had +exercise enough for the day, and was in a mood to smoke and saunter +about idly, he wanted Rosalind badly, and was little disposed to +give her up. But the old Goody was going away to-morrow, and he +would be liberal. He would take a turn along the sea-front—would +have time to get down to the jetty—and then would invade the cave +of the Octopus and extract the prisoner from its tentacles.</p> + +<p>His intention in forsaking Sally and the doctor was half suspected +by the latter, quite clear to himself, and only unperceived by his +opaque stepdaughter. As he idled down towards the old +fisher-dwellings and the net-huts, he tried to picture the form the +declaration would take, and the way it would be received. That this +would be favourable he never doubted for a moment; but he recalled +the speech of Benedict to Beatrice, "By my troth I take thee for +pity," and fancied Sally's response might be of the same complexion. +His recollection of these words produced a + +<!-- Page 490 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> +mental recurrence, a +distressing and imperfect one, connected with the earlier time he +could not reach back to, of the words being used to himself by a +girl who ascribed them to Rosalind in <i>As You Like It</i>, and a +discussion after of their whereabouts in Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>The indescribable wrench this gave his mind was so painful that he +was quite relieved to recall Vereker's opinion that it was always +the imperfection of the memory and the effort that gave pain, not +the thing remembered. And in this case there could be no doubt that +it was a mere dream, for the girl not only took the form of his +Rosey he was going back to directly, but actually claimed her name, +saying distinctly, "like my namesake, Celia's friend, in +Shakespeare." Could any clearer proof be given that it was mere +brain-froth?</p> + +<p>The man with "Bessie" and "Elinor" tattooed on his arm was enjoying +a pipe and mending a net, not to be too idle. The glass might be +rising—or not. He was independent of Science. A trifle of wind in +the night was his verdict, glass or no! The season was drawing nigh +to a close now for a bathing-resort, as you might say. Come another +se'nnight, you wouldn't see a machine down, as like as not. But you +could never say, to a nicety. He'd known every lodging in the old +town full, times and again, to the end of September month, before +now. But this year was going to fall early, and your young lady +would lose her swimming.</p> + +<p>"She's a rare lass, too, for the water," he concluded, without any +consciousness of familiarity in the change of phrase. "Not that I +know much myself, touching swimming and the like. For I can't swim +myself, never a stroke."</p> + +<p>"That's strange, too, for a seaman," said Fenwick.</p> + +<p>"No, sir! Not so strange as you might think it. You ask up and down +among we, waterside or seafaring, and you'll find a many have never +studied it, for the purpose. Many that would make swimmers, with a +bit of practice, will hold off, for the reason I tell you. Overboard +in mid-ocean, and none to help, and not a spar, would you soonest +drown, end on, or have to fight for it, like it or no?"</p> + +<p>"Drown! The sooner the better." Fenwick has no doubt about the +matter.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 491 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Why, sure! So I say, master. And I've put no encouragement on young +Benjamin, over yonder, to give study to the learning of it, for the +same reason. And not a stroke can he swim, any more than his +father."</p> + +<p>"Well! I can't swim myself, so there's three of us!" said Fenwick. +"My daughter swims enough for the lot." It gave him such pleasure to +speak thus of Sally boldly, where there need be no exact definition +of their kinship. The net-mender pursued the subject with the kind +of gravity on him that always comes on a seaman when drowning is +under discussion.</p> + +<p>"She's a rare one, for sure. Never but three, or may be fower, have +I seen in my time to come anigh to her—man nor woman. The best +swimmer a long way I've known—Peter Burtenshaw by name—I helped +bring to after drowning. He'd swum—at a guess—the best part of six +hours afower we heard the cry of him on our boat. Too late a bit we +were, but we found him, just stone-dead like, and brought him round. +It was what Peter said of that six hours put me off of letting 'em +larn yoong Benjamin to swim when he was a yoongster. And when he got +to years of understanding I told him my mind, and he never put +himself to study it."</p> + +<p>Fenwick would have liked to go on talking with the fisherman, as his +mental recurrence about Shakespeare had fidgeted him, and he found +speech a relief. But some noisy visitors from the new St. Sennans on +the cliff above had made an irruption into the little old +fishing-quarter, and the attention of the net-mender was distracted +by possibilities of a boat-to-day being foisted on their simplicity; +it was hardly rough enough to forbid the idea. Fenwick, therefore, +sauntered on towards the jetty, but presently turned to go back, as +half his time had elapsed.</p> + +<p>As he repassed the net-mender with a short word or two for +valediction, his ear was caught by a loud voice among the party of +visitors, who were partly sitting on the beach, partly throwing +stones in the water. Something familiar about that voice, surely!</p> + +<p>"I gannod throw stoanss. I am too vat. I shall sit on the peach and +see effrypotty else throw stoanss. I shall smoke another cigar. Will +you haff another cigar, Mr. Prown? You will not? Ferry well! Nor +you, Mrs. Prown? Not for the worlt? Ferry + +<!-- Page 492 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> +well! Nor you, Mr. +Bilkington? Ferry well! I shall haff one myself, and you shall throw +stoanss." And then, as though to remove the slightest doubt about +the identity of the speaker, the voice broke into song:</p> + +<p class="song"> +"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,<br /> +Einen bessern findst du nicht—" +</p> + +<p>but ended on "Mein guter Kamerad," exclaiming stentorianly, +"Opleitch me with a madge," and lighting his cigar in spite of his +companions' indignation at the music stopping.</p> + +<p>Fenwick stood hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. His +inclination was to go straight down the beach to his old friend, +whom—of course, you understand?—he now remembered quite well, and +explain the strange circumstances that had rendered their meeting in +Switzerland abortive. But then!—what would the effect be on his +present life, in his relation to Rosalind and (almost as important) +to Sally? Diedrich Kreutzkammer had been, for some time in +California, a most intimate friend. Fenwick had made him the +confidant of his marriage and his early life, all that he had since +forgotten, and he had it now in his power to recover all this from +the past. Strange to say, although he could remember the telling of +these things, he could only remember weak, confused snatches of what +he told. It was unaccountable—but there!—he could not try to +unravel that skein now. He must settle, and promptly, whether to +speak to the Baron or to run.</p> + +<p>He was not long in coming to a decision, especially as he saw that +hesitation was sure to end in the adoption of the former +course—probably the wrong one. He just caught the Baron's last +words—a denunciation of the hotel he was stopping at, loud enough +to reach the new St. Sennans, of which it was the principal +constituent—and then walked briskly off. He arrived at Iggulden's +within the hour he had first conceded to the Octopus, and got +Rosalind out for a walk, as originally proposed.</p> + +<p>There was no apparent reason why the impossibility of overtaking +Sally and the doctor should be interpreted into an excuse for going +in the opposite direction; but each accepted it as such, or as a +justification at least. Rosalind had not so distinct a reason as her +husband for wishing not to break in upon them, as he + +<!-- Page 493 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> +had not +reported the whole of his last talk with Vereker. But though she did +not know that Dr. Conrad had as good as promised to make a clean +breast of it before returning to London, she thought nothing was +more likely than that he should do so, and resolved to leave the +stage clear for the leading parts. She may even have flattered +herself that she was showing tact—keeping an unconscious Gerry out +of the way, who might else interfere with the stars in their +courses, in the manner of the tactless. Rosalind suspected this of +Sally, that whatever she might think she thought, and whatever +parade she made of an even mind no sentiments whatever prevailed in, +there was in her inmost heart another Sally, locked in and +unconfessed, that had strong views on the subject. And she wanted +this Sally to be let out for a spell, or for poor Prosy to be +allowed into her cell long enough to speak for himself. Anyhow, this +was their last chance here, and she wasn't going to spoil it.</p> + +<p>She had gone near to making up her mind—after her sufferings from +Gwenny's mamma in the morning—to attempt, at any rate, a +communication of their joint story to her husband. But it <i>must</i> +depend on circumstances and possibilities. She foresaw a long period +of resolutions undermined by doubts, decisions rescinded at the last +moment, and suddenly-revealed ambushes, and perhaps in the end +self-reproach for a mismanaged revelation that might have been so +much more skilfully done. Never mind—it was all in the day's work! +She had borne much, and would bear more.</p> + +<p>"How do you know they are all nonsense, Gerry darling?" We catch +their conversation in the middle as they walk along the sands the +tide is leaving clear, after accommodating the few morning-bathers +with every opportunity to get out of their depths. "How do you +<i>know</i>? Surely the parts that you <i>do</i> seem to remember clearly +<i>must</i> be all right, however confused the rest is."</p> + +<p>Fenwick gives his head the old shake, dashes his hair across his +brow and rubs it, then replies: "The worst of the job is, you see, +that the bits I remember clearest are the greatest gammon. What do +you make of that?"</p> + +<p>Rosalind's hand closes on her nettle. "Instance, Gerry!—give me an +instance, and I shall know what you mean."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 494 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Fenwick is outrageously confident of the safety of his last +imperfect recollection. He can trust to its absurdity if he can +trust to anything.</p> + +<p>"Well! For instance, just now—an hour ago—I recollected something +about a girl who would have it Rosalind in <i>As You Like It</i> said, +'By my troth I take thee for pity,' to Orlando. And all the while it +was Benedict said it to Beatrice in <i>All's Well that Ends Well</i>."</p> + +<p>The hand on the nettle tightens. "Gerry <i>dearest</i>!" she +remonstrates. "There's nothing in <i>that</i>, as Sallykin says. Of +course it <i>was</i> Benedict said it to Beatrice."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but the gammon wasn't in that. It was the girl that said it. +When I tried to think who it was, she turned into <i>you</i>! I mean, she +became exactly like you."</p> + +<p>"But I'm a woman of forty." This was a superb piece of +nettle-grasping; and there was not a tremor in the voice that said +it, and the handsome face of the speaker was calm, if a little pale. +Fenwick noticed nothing.</p> + +<p>"Like what I should suppose you were as a girl of eighteen or +twenty. It's perfectly clear how the thing worked. It was from +something else I seem to recollect her saying, 'Like my namesake, +Celia's friend in Shakespeare.' The moment she said that, of course +the name Rosalind made me think you into the business. It was quite +natural."</p> + +<p>"Quite natural! And when I was that girl that was what I said." She +had braced herself up, in all the resolution of her strong nature, +to the telling of her secret, and his; and she thought this was her +opportunity. She was mistaken. For as she stood, keeping, as it +were, a heartquake in abeyance, till she should see him begin to +understand, he replied without the least perceiving her +meaning—evidently accounting her speech only a variant on "If I +<i>had</i> been that girl," and so forth—"Of course you did, +sweetheart," said he, with a laugh in his voice, "<i>when</i> you were +that girl. And I expect that girl said it when she was herself, +whoever she was, and the name Rosalind turned her into you? Look at +this cuttlefish before he squirts."</p> + +<p>For a moment Rosalind Fenwick was almost two people, so distinctly +did the two aspects or conditions of herself strike her mind. The +one was that of breath drawn freely, of a respite, a reprieve, + +<!-- Page 495 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> +a +heartquake escaped; for, indeed, she had begun to feel, as she +neared the crisis, that the trial might pass her powers of +endurance. The other of a new terror—that the tale, perhaps, <i>could +not be told at all</i>! that, unassisted by a further revival of her +husband's memory, it would remain permanently incredible by him, +with what effect of a half-knowledge of the past God only knew. The +sense of reprieve got the better of the new-born apprehension—bid +it stand over for a while, at least. Sufficient for the day was the +evil thereof.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Gerry, absolutely unconscious of her emotion, and seeming +much less disconcerted over this abortive recollection than over +previous ones, stood gazing down into the clear rock-pool that +contained the cuttlefish. "Do come and look at him, Rosey love," +said he. "His manners are detestable, but there can be no doubt +about the quality of his black."</p> + +<p>She leaned a bit heavily on the arm she took as they left the +cuttlefish to his ill-conditioned solitude. "Tired, dearest?" said +her husband; and she answered, "Just a little!" But his mind was a +clean sheet on which his story would have to be written in ink as +black as the cuttlefish's Parthian squirt, and in a full round hand +without abbreviations, unless it should do something to help itself. +Let it rest while she rested and thought.</p> + +<p>She thought and thought—happy for all her strain of nerve and mind, +on the quiet stretch of sand and outcrop of chalk, slippery with +weed, that the ebbing tide would leave safe for them for hours to +come. So thinking, and seeing the way in which her husband's reason +was entrenched against the facts of his own life, in a citadel +defended by human experience at bay, she wavered in her resolution +of a few hours since—or, rather, she saw the impossibility of +forcing the position, thinking contentedly that at least if it was +so impracticable to her it would be equally so to other agencies, +and he might be relied on to remain in the dark. The <i>status quo</i> +would be the happiest, if it could be preserved. So when, after a +two hours' walk through the evening glow and the moonrise, Rosalind +came home to Sally's revelation, as we have seen, the slight +exception her voice took to universal rejoicing was the barest echo +of the tension of her absolutely unsuccessful attempt to get in the +thin end of the wedge of an incredible revelation.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 496 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>Quite incredible! So hopeless is the case of a mere crude, +unadulterated fact against an irresistible <i>a priori</i> belief in its +incredibility.</p> + +<p>Sally was reserved about details, but clear about the outcome of her +expedition with Prosy. They perfectly understood each other, and it +wasn't anybody else's concern; present company's, of course, +excepted. Questioned as to plans for the future—inasmuch as a +marriage did not seem inconsequent under the circumstances—Sally +became enigmatical. The word "marriage" had not been so much as +mentioned. She admitted the existence of the institution, but +proposed—now and for the future—to regard it as premature. Wasn't +even sure she would tell anybody, except Tishy; and perhaps also +Henriette Prince, because she was sure to ask, and possibly Karen +Braun if she did ask. But she didn't seem at all clear what she was +going to say to them, as she objected to the expression "engaged." A +thing called "it" without an antecedent, got materialised, and did +duty for something more intelligible. Yes!—she would tell Tishy +about It, and just those one or two others. But if It was going to +make any difference, or there was to be any fuss, she would just +break It off, and have done with It.</p> + +<p>Sentiments of this sort provoked telegraphic interchanges of +smile-suggestion between her hearers all through the evening meal +that was so unusually late. This lateness received sanction from the +fact that Mr. Fenwick would very likely have letters by the morning +post that would oblige him to return to town by the afternoon train. +If so, this was his last evening, and clearly nothing mattered. Law +and order might be blowed, or hanged.</p> + +<p>It was, under these circumstances, rather a surprise to his hearers +when he said, after smoking half through his first cigar, that he +thought he should walk up to the hotel in the new town, because he +fancied there was a man there he knew. As to his name, he thought it +was Pilkington, but wasn't sure. Taunted with reticence, he said it +was nothing but business. As Rosalind could easily conceive that +Gerry might not want to introduce all the Pilkingtons he chanced +across to his family, she didn't press for explanation. "He'll very +likely call round to see your young man, chick, when he's done with +Pilkington." To which Sally replied, + +<!-- Page 497 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> +"Oh, <i>he'll</i> come round here. +Told him to!" Which he did, at about ten o'clock. But Fenwick had +never called at Iggulden's, neither had he come back to his own +home. It was after midnight before his foot was on the stairs, and +Sally had retired for the night, telling her mother not to +fidget—Jeremiah would be all right.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 498 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF AN OBSERVANT AND THOUGHTFUL, BUT SNIFFY, WAITER; AND HOW HE +OPENED A NEW BOTTLE OF COGNAC. HOW THE BARON SAW FENWICK HOME, +WITHOUT HIS HAT. AN OLD MEMORY FROM ROSALIND'S PAST AND HIS. AND +THEN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WHOLE. SLEEP UPON IT! BUT WHAT BECAME OF +HIS HORRIBLE BABY?</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock that night a respectable man with weak eyes and a +cold was communing with a commanding Presence that lived in a +bureau—nothing less!—in the entrance-hall of the big hotel at the +new St. Sennans. It was that of a matron with jet earrings and +tube-curls and a tortoise-shell comb, and an educated contempt for +her species. It lived in that bureau with a speaking-pipe to speak +to every floor, and a telephone for the universe beyond. He that now +ventured to address it was a waiter, clearly, for he carried a +table-napkin, on nobody's behalf and uselessly, but with a feeling +for emblems which might have made him Rouge Dragon in another +sphere. As it was, he was the head waiter in the accursed restaurant +or dining-<i>salon</i> at the excruciating new hotel, where he would +bring you cold misery from the counter at the other end, or lukewarm +depression <i>à la carte</i> from the beyond—but nothing that would do +you any good inside, from anywhere.</p> + +<p>"Are those parties going, in eighty-nine, do you make out?" The +Presence speaks, but with languid interest.</p> + +<p>"Hapathetic party, and short customer. Takes you up rather free. +Name of Pilkington. Not heard 'em say anything!"</p> + +<p>"Who did you say was going?"</p> + +<p>"The German party. Party of full 'abit. Call at seven in the +morning. Fried sole and cutlets <i>à la</i> mangtynong and sweet omelet +at seven-thirty sharp. Too much by way of smoking all day, in my +thinking! But they say plums and greengages, took all through meals, +is a set-off."</p> + +<p>"I don't pretend to be an authority. Isn't that him, in the +smoking-room?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 499 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"Goin' on in German? Prob'ly." Both stop and listen. What they hear +is the Baron, going on very earnestly indeed in German. What keeps +them listening is that another voice comes in occasionally—a voice +with more than mere earnestness in it; a voice rather of anguish +under control. Then both voices pause, and silence comes suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Who's the other party?"</p> + +<p>"In a blue soote, livin' in one of the sea-'ouses down on the beach. +Big customer. Prodooces a rousin' impression!"</p> + +<p>"Is that his daughter that swims?... That's him—coming away."</p> + +<p>But it isn't. It is the Baron, wrathful, shouting, swearing, neither +in German nor English, but in either or both. Where is that tamned +kellner? Why does he not answer the pell? This is an <i>abscheuliches</i> +hotel, and every one connected with it is an <i>Esel</i>. What he wants +is some cognac and a doctor forthwith. His friend has fainted, and +he has been pressing the tamned puddon, and nobody comes.</p> + +<p>The attitude of the lady with the earrings epitomizes the complete +indifference of a hotel-keeper to the private lives of its guests +nowadays. That bell must be seen to, she says. Otherwise she is +callous. The respectable waiter hurries for the cognac, and returns +with a newly-drawn bottle and two glasses to the smoking-room, to +find that the gentleman has recovered and won't have any. He +suggests that our young man could step round for Dr. Maccoll; but +the proposed patient says, "The devil fly away with Dr. Maccoll!" +which doesn't look like docility. The respectable waiter takes note +of his appearance, and reports of it to his principal on dramatic +grounds, not as a matter into which human sympathies enter.</p> + +<p>"Very queer he looks. Doo to reaction, or the coatin's of the +stomach. Affectin' the action of the heart.... No, there's nobody +else in the smoking-room. Party with the 'ook instead of a hand's +watching of 'em play penny-pool in the billiard-room." Surely a tale +to bring a tear to the eye of sensibility! But not to one that sees +in mankind only a thing that comes and goes and pays its bill—or +doesn't. The lady in the bureau appears to listen slightly to the +voices that come afresh from the smoking-room, but their duration is +all she is concerned with. "He's + +<!-- Page 500 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> +going now," she says. He is; and +he does look queer—very queer. His companion does not leave him at +the door, but walks out into the air with him without his hat, +speaking to him volubly and earnestly, always in German. His speech +suggests affectionate exhortation, and the way he takes his arm is +affectionate. The voices go out of hearing, and it is so long before +the Baron returns, hatless, that he must have gone all the way to +the sea-houses down on the beach.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Sally retired to her own couch in order to supply an inducement to +her mother to go to bed herself, and sit up no longer for Gerry's +return, which might be any time, of course. Rosalind conceded the +point, and was left alone under a solemn promise not to be a goose +and fidget. But she was very deliberate about it; and though she +didn't fidget, she went all the slower that she might think back on +a day—an hour—of twenty years ago, and on the incident that Gerry +had half recalled, quite accurately as far as it went, but strangely +unsupported by surroundings or concomitants.</p> + +<p>It came back to her with both. She could remember even the face of +her mother's coachman Forsyth, who had driven her with Miss +Stanynaught, her <i>chaperon</i> in this case, to the dance where she was +to meet Gerry, as it turned out; and how Forsyth was told not to +come for them before three in the morning, as he would only have to +wait; and how Miss Stanynaught, her governess of late, who was over +forty, pleaded for two, and Forsyth <i>did</i> have to wait; and how she +heard the music and the dancing above, for they were late; and how +they waded upstairs against a descending stream of muslin skirts and +marked attentions going lawnwards towards the summer night, and bent +on lemonade and ices; and then their entry into the dancing-room, +and an excited hostess and daughters introducing partners like mad; +and an excited daughter greeting a gentleman who had come upstairs +behind them, with "Well, Mr. Palliser, you <i>are</i> late. You don't +deserve to be allowed to dance at all." And that was Jessie Nairn, +of course, who added, "I've jilted you for Arthur Fenwick."</p> + +<p>How well Rosalind could remember turning round and seeing a splendid +young chap who said, "What a jolly shame!" and didn't seem to be +oppressed by that or anything else; also Jessie's further + +<!-- Page 501 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> +speech, +apologizing for having also appropriated Miss Graythorpe's partner. +So they would have to console each other. What a saucy girl Jessie +was, to be sure! She introduced them with a run, "Mr. Algernon +Palliser, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Mr. +Algernon Palliser," and fled. And Rosalind was piqued about Arthur +Fenwick's desertion. It seemed all so strange now—such a vanished +world! Just fancy!—she had been speculating if she should accept +Arthur, if he got to the point of offering himself.</p> + +<p>But a shaft from Cupid's bow must have been shot from a slack +string, for Rosalind could remember how quickly she forgot Arthur +Fenwick as she took a good look at Gerry Palliser, his great friend, +whom he had so often raved about to her, and who was to be brought +to play lawn-tennis next Monday. And then to the ear of her mind, +listening back to long ago, came a voice so like the one she was to +hear soon, when that footstep should come on the stair.</p> + +<p>"I can't waltz like Arthur, Miss Graythorpe. But you'll have to put +up with me." And the smile that spread over his whole face was so +like him now. Then came the allusion to <i>As You Like It</i>.</p> + +<p>"I'll take you for pity, Mr. Palliser—'by my troth,' as my namesake +Rosalind, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare, says to what's his name +... Orlando...."</p> + +<p>"Come, I say, Miss Graythorpe, that's not fair. It was Benedict said +it to Beatrice."</p> + +<p>"Did he? And did Beatrice say she wouldn't waltz with him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, please! I'm so sorry. No—it wasn't Benedict—it <i>was</i> +Rosalind."</p> + +<p>"That's right! Now let me button your glove for you. You'll be for +ever, with those big fingers." For both of us, thought Rosalind, +were determined to begin at once and not lose a minute. That dear +old time ... before...!</p> + +<p>Then, even clearer still, came back to her the dim summer-dawn in +the garden, with here and there a Chinese lantern not burned out, +and the flagging music of the weary musicians afar, and she and +Gerry with the garden nearly to themselves. She could feel the cool +air of the morning again, and hear the crowing of a self-important +cock. And the informal wager which would live + +<!-- Page 502 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> +the longer—a Chinese +lantern at the point of death, or the vanishing moon just touching +the line of tree-tops against the sky, stirred by the morning wind. +And the voice of Gerry when return to the house and a farewell +became inevitable. She shut her eyes, and could hear it and her own +answer.</p> + +<p>"I shall go to India in six weeks, and never see you again."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will; because Arthur Fenwick is to bring you round to +lawn-tennis...."</p> + +<p>"That won't make having to go any better. And then when I come back, +in ever so many years, I shall find you...."</p> + +<p>"Gone to kingdom come?"</p> + +<p>"No—married!... Oh no, do stop out—don't go in yet...."</p> + +<p>"We ought to go in. Now, don't be silly."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it.... Well!—a fellow I know asked a girl to marry +him he'd only known two hours."</p> + +<p>"What very silly friends you must have, Mr. Palliser! Did she marry +him?"</p> + +<p>"No! but they're engaged, and he's in Ceylon. But you wouldn't marry +me...."</p> + +<p>"How on earth can you tell, in such a short time? What a goose you +are!... There!—the music's stopped, and Mrs. Nairn said that must +be the last waltz. Come along, or we shall catch it."</p> + +<p>They had known each other exactly four hours!</p> + +<p>Rosalind remembered it all, word for word. And how Gerry captured a +torn glove to keep; and when he came, as appointed, to lawn-tennis, +went back at once to Shakespeare, and said he had looked it up, and +it <i>was</i> Beatrice and Benedict, and not Rosalind at all. She could +remember, too, her weary and reproachful <i>chaperon</i>, and the +well-deserved scolding she got for the way she had been going on +with that young Palliser. Eight dances!</p> + +<p>So long ago! And she could think through it all again. And to him it +had become a memory of shreds and patches. Let it remain so, or +become again oblivion—vanish with the rest of his forgotten past! +Her thought that it would do so was confidence itself as she sat +there waiting for his footstep on the stair. For had she not spoken +of herself unflinchingly as the girl who said those + +<!-- Page 503 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> +words from +Shakespeare, and had not her asseveration slipped from the mind that +could not receive it as water slips from oil? She could wait there +without misgiving—could even hope that, whatever it was due to, +this recent stirring of the dead bones of memory might mean nothing, +and die away leaving all as it was before.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Sally, acknowledging physical fatigue with reluctance, after her +long walk and swim in the morning, went to bed. It presented itself +to her as a thing practicable, and salutary in her state of +bewilderment, to lie in bed with her eyes closed, and think over the +events of the day. It would be really quiet. And then she would be +awake when Jeremiah came in, and would call out for information if +there was a sound of anything to hear about. But her project fell +through, for she had scarcely closed her eyes when she fell into a +trap laid for her by sleep—deep sleep, such as we fancy dreamless. +And when Fenwick came back she could not have heard his words to her +mother, even had they risen above the choking undertone in which he +spoke, nor her mother's reply, more audible in its sudden alarm, but +still kept down—for, startled as she was at Gerry's unexpected +words, she did not lose her presence of mind.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Gerry darling? What is it, dear love? Has anything +happened? I'll come."</p> + +<p>"Yes—come into my room. Come away from our girl. She mustn't hear."</p> + +<p>She knew then at once that his past had come upon him somehow. She +knew it at once from the tone of his voice, but she could make no +guess as to the manner of it. She knew, too, that that heartquake +was upon her—the one she had felt so glad to stave off that day +upon the beach—and that self-command had to be found in an +emergency she might not have the strength to meet.</p> + +<p>For the shock, coming as it did upon her false confidence—a sudden +thunderbolt from a cloudless sky—was an overwhelming one. She knew +she would have a moment's outward calm before her powers gave way, +and she must use it for Sally's security. What Gerry said was +true—their girl <i>must not</i> hear.</p> + +<p>But oh, how quick thought travels! By the time Rosalind, after +stopping a second outside Sally's door, listening for any movement, + +<!-- Page 504 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> +had closed that of her husband's room as she followed him in, +placing the light she carried on a chair as she entered, she had +found in the words "our girl" a foretaste of water in the desert +that might be before her.</p> + +<p>Another moment and she knew she was safe, so far as Gerry himself +went. As he had himself said, he would be the same Gerry to her and +she the same Rosey to him, whatever wild beast should leap out of +the past to molest them. She knew it was as he caught her to his +heart, crushing her almost painfully in the great strength that went +beyond his own control as he shook and trembled like an aspen-leaf +under the force of an emotion she could only, as yet, guess at the +nature of. But the guess was not a wrong one, in so far as it said +that each was there to be the other's shield and guard against ill, +past, present, and to come—a refuge-haven to fly to from every +tempest fate might have in store. She could not speak—could not +have found utterance even had words come to her. She could only rest +passive in his arms, inert and dumb, feeling in the short gasps that +caught his breath how he struggled for speech and failed, then +strove again. At last his voice came—short, spasmodic sentences +breaking or broken by like spans of silence:</p> + +<p>"Oh, my darling, my darling, remember!... remember!... whatever it +is ... it shall not come between us ... it shall not ... it <i>shall</i> +not.... Oh, my dear!... give me time, and I shall speak ... if I +could only say at once ... in one word ... could only understand ... +that is all ... to understand...." He relaxed his hold upon her; but +she held to him, or she might have fallen, so weak was she, and so +unsteady was the room and all in it to her sight. The image of him +that she saw seemed dim and in a cloud, as he pressed his hands upon +his eyes and stood for a moment speechless; then struggled again to +find words that for another moment would not come, caught in the +gasping of his breath. Then he got a longer breath, as for ease, and +drawing her face towards his own—and this time the touch of his +hand was tender as a child's—he kissed it repeatedly—kissed her +eyes, her cheeks, her lips. And in his kiss was security for her, +safe again in the haven of his love, come what might. She felt how +it brought back to her the breath she knew would fail her, unless +her heart, that had beaten so furiously a moment + +<!-- Page 505 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> +since, and then +died away, should resume its life. The room became steady, and she +saw his face and its pallor plainly, and knew that in a moment she +should find her voice. But he spoke first, again.</p> + +<p>"That is what I want, dear love—to understand. Help me to +understand," he said. And then, as though feeling for the first time +how she was clinging to him for support, he passed his arm round her +gently, guiding her to sit down. But he himself remained standing by +her, as though physically unaffected by the storm of emotion, +whatever its cause, that had passed over him. Then Rosalind found +her voice.</p> + +<p>"Gerry darling—let us try and get quiet over it. After all, we are +both here." As she said this she was not very clear about her own +meaning, but the words satisfied her. "I see you have remembered +more, but I cannot tell how much. Now try and tell me—have you +remembered <i>all</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I think so, darling." He was speaking more quietly now, as one +docile to her influence. His manner gave her strength to continue.</p> + +<p>"Since you left Mr. Pilkington—your friend at the hotel—didn't you +say the name Pilkington?"</p> + +<p>"No—there was no Pilkington! Oh yes, there was!—a friend of +Diedrich's...."</p> + +<p>"Has it come back, I mean, since you left the house? Who is +Diedrich?"</p> + +<p>"Stop a bit, dearest love! I shall be able to tell it all directly." +She, too, was glad of a lull, and welcomed his sitting down beside +her on the bed-end, drawing her face to his, and keeping it with the +hand that was not caressing hers. Presently he spoke again, more at +ease, but always in the undertone, just above a whisper, that meant +the consciousness of Sally, too, near. Rosalind said, "She won't +hear," and he replied, "No; it's all right, I think," and continued:</p> + +<p>"Diedrich Kreutzkammer—he's Diedrich—don't you remember? Of course +you do!... I heard him down on the beach to-day singing. I wanted to +go to him at once, but I had to think of it first, so I came home. +Then I settled to go to him at the hotel. I had not remembered +anything then—anything to speak of—I had not remembered IT. Now it +is all back upon me, + +<!-- Page 506 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> +in a whirl." He freed the hand that held hers +for a moment, and pressed his fingers hard upon his eyes; then took +her hand again, as before. "I wanted to see the dear old fellow and +talk over old times, at 'Frisco and up at the Gold River—that, of +course! But I wanted, too, to make him repeat to me all the story I +had told him of my early marriage—oh, my darling!—<i>our</i> marriage, +and I did not know it! I know it now—I know it now."</p> + +<p>Rosalind could feel the thrill that ran through him as his hand +tightened on hers. She spoke, to turn his mind for a moment. "How +came Baron Kreutzkammer at St. Sennans?"</p> + +<p>"Diedrich? He has a married niece living at Canterbury. Don't you +remember? He told you and you told me...." Rosalind had forgotten +this, but now recalled it. "Well, we talked about the States—all +the story I shall have to tell you, darling, some time; but, oh +dear, how confused I get! <i>That</i> wasn't the first. The first was +telling him my story—the accident, and so on—and it was hard work +to convince him it was really me at Sonnenberg. That was rather a +difficulty, because I had sent him in the name I had in America, and +he only saw an old friend he thought was dead. All <i>that</i> was a +trifle; but, oh, the complications!..."</p> + +<p>"What was the name you had in America?"</p> + +<p>Fenwick answered musingly, "Harrisson," and then paused before +saying, "No, I had better not...." and leaving the sentence +unfinished. She caught his meaning, and said no more. After all, it +could matter very little if she never heard his American +experiences, and the name Harrisson had no association for her. She +left him to resume, without suggestion.</p> + +<p>"He might have reminded me of anything that happened in the States, +and I should just have come back here and told it you, because, you +see, I should have been sure it was true, and no dream. It was +India. I had told him all, don't you see? And I got him to repeat +it, and then it all came back—all at once, the moment I saw it was +<i>you</i>, my darling—you yourself! It all became quite easy then. It +was <i>us</i>—you and me! I know it now—I know it now!"</p> + +<p>"But, dearest, what made you see that it was us?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, because of the name! He told me all I had told + +<!-- Page 507 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> +him +from the beginning in German. We always spoke German. He could not +remember your first name, but he remembered your mother's—it had +stayed in his mind—because of the German word <i>Nachtigall</i> being so +nearly the same. As he said the word my mind got a frightful twist, +and I thought I was mad. I did, indeed, my dearest love—raving +mad!"</p> + +<p>"And then you knew it?"</p> + +<p>"And then I knew it. I nearly fainted clean off, and he went for +brandy; but I came round, and the dear old boy saw me to this door +here. It has all only just happened." He remained silent again for a +little space, holding her hand, and then said suddenly: "It <i>has</i> +happened, has it not? Is it all true, or am I dreaming?"</p> + +<p>"Be patient, darling. It is all true—at least, I think so. It is +all true if it is like this, because remember, dear, you have told +me almost nothing.... I only know that it has come back to you that +I am Rosey and that you are Gerry—the old Rosey and Gerry long ago +in India...." She broke down over her own words, as her tears, a +relief in themselves, came freely, taxing her further to keep her +voice under for Sally's sake. It was only for a moment; then she +seemed to brush them aside in an effort of self-mastery, and again +began, dropping her voice even lower. "It is all true if it is like +this. I came out to marry you in India ... my darling!... and a +terrible thing happened to me on the way ... the story you know more +of now than I could tell you then ... for how <i>could</i> I tell it ... +think?..."</p> + +<p>Her husband started up from her side gasping, beating his head like +a madman. She was in terror lest she had done wrong in her speech. +"Gerry, Gerry!" she appealed to him in a scarcely raised voice, +"think of Sally!" She rose and went to him, repeating, "Think of +Sally!" then drew him back to his former place. His breath went and +came heavily, and his forehead was drenched with sweat, as in +epilepsy; but the paroxysm left him as he sank back beside her, +saying only, "My God! that miscreant!" but showing that he had heard +her by the force of the constraint he put upon his voice. It gave +her courage to go on.</p> + +<p>"I could not get it told then. I did not know the phrases—and you +were so happy, my darling—so happy when you met me at the station! +Oh, how could I? But I was wrong. I ought + +<!-- Page 508 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> +not to have let you marry +me, not knowing. And then ... it seemed deception, and I could not +right it...." Her voice broke again, as she hid her face on his +shoulder; but she knew her safety in the kiss she felt on her free +hand, and the gentleness of his that stroked her hair. Then she +heard his almost whispered words above her head, close to her ear:</p> + +<p>"Darling, forgive me—forgive me! It was <i>I</i> that was in fault. I +might have known...."</p> + +<p>"Gerry, dear ... no!..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I might. There was a woman there—had been an officer's wife. +She came to me and spoke rough truths about it—told me her notion +of the tale in her own language. 'Put her away from you,' she said, +'and you won't get another like her, and won't deserve her!' And she +was right, poor thing! But I was headstrong and obstinate, and would +not hear her. Oh, my darling, <i>how</i> we have paid for it!"</p> + +<p>"But you have found me again, dear love!" He did not answer, but +raised up her face from his shoulder, parting the loose hair +tenderly—for it was all free on her shoulders—and gazing straight +into her eyes with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Yes, +darling, what is it?" said she, as though he had spoken.</p> + +<p>"I am getting fogged!" he said, "and cannot make it out. Was it pure +accident? Surely something must have happened to bring it about."</p> + +<p>"Bring what about?"</p> + +<p>"How came we to find each other again, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see! Pure accident, I should say, dear! Why not? It would not +have happened if it had not been possible. Thank God it did!"</p> + +<p>"Thank God it did! But think of the strangeness of it all! How came +Sally in that train?"</p> + +<p>"Why not, darling? Where else could she have been? She was coming +back to tea, as usual."</p> + +<p>"And she put me in a cab—bless her!—she and Conrad Vereker—and +brought me home to you. But did you know me at once, darling?"</p> + +<p>"At once."</p> + +<p>"But why didn't you tell me?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 509 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"If you had shown the slightest sign of knowing me I should have +told you, and taken my chance; but you only looked at me and smiled, +and never knew me! Was mine a good plan? At least, it has answered." +A clasp and a kiss was the reply. She was glad that he should choose +the line of conversation, and did not break into the pause that +followed. The look of fixed bewilderment on his face was painful, +but she did not dare any suggestion of guidance to his mind. She had +succeeded but ill before in going back to the cause of their own +early severance. Yet that was what she naturally had most at heart, +and longed to speak of. Could she have chosen, she would have liked +to resume it once for all, in spite of the pain—to look the +dreadful past in the face, and then agree to forget it together. She +was hungry to tell him that even when he broke away from her that +last time she saw him at Umballa—broke away from her so roughly +that his action had all the force and meaning of a blow—she only +saw <i>his</i> image of the wrong she had done, or seemed to have done +him; that she had nothing for him through it all but love and +forgiveness. At least, she would have tried to make sure that he had +been able to connect and compare the tale she had told him since +their reunion with his new memory of the facts of twenty years ago. +But she dared say nothing further as yet. For his part, at this +moment, he seemed strangely willing to let all the old story lapse, +and to dwell only on the incredible chance that had brought them +again together. All that eventful day our story began with had +leaped into the foreground of his mind.</p> + +<p>Presently he said, still almost whispering hoarsely, with a constant +note of amazement and something like panic in his voice: "If it +hadn't happened—the accident—I suppose I should have gone back to +the hotel. And what should I have done next? I should never have +found you and Sally...."</p> + +<p>"Were you poor, Gerry darling?"</p> + +<p>"Frightfully rich! Gold-fields, mining-place up the Yu-kon. Near the +Arctic Circle." He went on in a rapid undertone, as if he were +trying to supply briefly what he knew the woman beside him must be +yearning to know, if not quite unlike other women. "I wasn't well +off before—didn't get on at the Bar at St. Louis—but not poor +exactly. Then I made a small pile cattle-ranching in Texas, and +somehow went to live at Quebec. There + +<!-- Page 510 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> +were a lot of French +Canadians I took to. Then after that, 'Frisco and the gold...."</p> + +<p>"Gerry dear!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, love, what?"</p> + +<p>"Have you any relations living in England?"</p> + +<p>"Heaps, but I haven't spoken to one of them for years and years—not +since <i>then</i>. One of them's a Bart. with a fungus on his nose in +Shropshire. He's an uncle. Then there's my sister, if she's not +dead—my sister Livy. She's Mrs. Huxtable. I fancy they all think +I'm dead in the bush in Australia. I had a narrow squeak there...."</p> + +<p>"Now, Gerry darling, I'll tell you what I want you to do...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I will."</p> + +<p>"You can't tell me all these things now, and you'll be ill; so lie +down on the bed there, and I'll sit by you till you go to sleep. Or +look, you get to bed comfortably, and I'll be back in a few minutes +and sit by you. Just till you go off. Now do as I tell you."</p> + +<p>He obeyed like a child. It was wonderful how, in the returning power +of her self-command, she took him, as it were, in hand, and rescued +him from the tension of his bewilderment. Apart from the fact that +the fibre of her nature was exceptionally strong, her experience of +this last hour had removed the most part of the oppression that had +weighed her down for more than a twelvemonth—the doubt as to which +way a discovery of his past would tell on her husband's love for +her. She had no feeling now but anxiety on his behalf, and this +really helped her towards facing the situation calmly. All things do +that take us out of ourselves.</p> + +<p>She stood again a moment outside Sally's door to make sure she was +not moving, then went to her own room, not sorry to be alone. She +wanted a pause for the whirl in her brain to stop, for the torrent +of new event that had rushed in upon it to find its equilibrium. If +Gerry fell asleep before she returned to him so much the better! She +did not even light her candle, preferring to be in the dark.</p> + +<p>But this did not long defer her return to her husband's room. A very +few minutes in the darkness and the silence of her own were enough +for her, and she was grateful for both. Then she went back, to find +him in bed, sitting up and pressing his fingers on + +<!-- Page 511 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> +his eyes, as one +does when suffering from nervous headache. But he disclaimed any +such feeling in answer to her inquiry. She sat down beside him, +holding his hand, just as she had done in the night of the storm, +and begged him for her sake and his own to try to sleep. It would +all seem so much easier and clearer in the morning.</p> + +<p>Yes, he would sleep, he said. And, indeed, he had resolved to affect +sleep, so as to induce her to go away herself and rest. But it was +not so easy. Half-grasped facts went and came—recollections that he +knew he should before long be able to marshal in their proper order +and make harmonious. For the time being, though they had not the +nightmare character of the recurrences he had suffered from before +his memory-revival, they stood between him and sleep effectually. +But he could and would simulate sleep directly, for Rosalind's sake. +He had looked at his watch and seen that it was near two in the +morning. Yes, he would sleep; but he must ask one question, or lose +his reason if she left him alone with it unanswered.</p> + +<p>"Rosey darling!"</p> + +<p>"What, dearest?"</p> + +<p>"We'll forget the old story, won't we, and only think of <i>now</i>? +That's the right way to take it, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>She kissed his face as she answered, just as she might have kissed a +child. "Quite right, dear love," she said; "and now go to sleep. Or +if you must talk a little more, talk about Conrad and Sally."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes!" he answered; "that's all happiness. Conrad and Sally! But +there's a thing...."</p> + +<p>"What thing, dear? What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I shall ask it you in the end, so why not now?" She felt in his +hand a shudder that ran through him, as his hold on her fingers +tightened.</p> + +<p>"So why not now?" she repeated after him. "Why hesitate?"</p> + +<p>The tremor strengthened in her hand and was heard in his voice +plainly as he answered with an effort: "What became of the baby?"</p> + +<p>"What became of the baby!" There was a new terror in Rosalind's +voice as she repeated the words—a fear for his reason. "What baby?"</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 512 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"<i>The</i> baby—<i>his</i> baby—<i>his</i> horrible baby!"</p> + +<p>"Gerry darling! Gerry <i>dearest</i>! do think...." His puzzled eyes, +bloodshot in his white face, turned full upon her; but he remained +silent, waiting to hear more. "You have forgotten, darling," she +said quietly.</p> + +<p>His free hand that lay on the coverlid clenched, and a spasm caught +his arm, as though it longed for something to strike or strangle. +"No, no!" said he; "I am all right. I mean that damned monster's +baby. There <i>was</i> a baby?" His voice shook on these last words as +though he, too, had a fear for his own reason. His face flushed as +he awaited her reply.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Gerry darling! but you <i>have</i> forgotten. His baby was Sally—my +Sallykin!"</p> + +<p>For it was absolutely true that, although he had as complete a +knowledge, in a certain sense, of Sally's origin as the well-coached +student has of the subject he is to answer questions in, he had +forgotten it under the stress of his mental trial as readily as the +student forgets what his mind has only acquiesced in for its +purpose, in his joy at recovering his right to ignorance. Sally had +an existence of her own quite independent of her origin. She was his +and Rosalind's—a part of <i>their</i> existence, a necessity. It was +easy and natural for him to dissociate the living, breathing reality +that filled so much of their lives from its mere beginnings. It was +less easy for Rosalind, but not an impossibility altogether, helped +by the forgiveness for the past that grew from the soil of her +daughter's love.</p> + +<p>"You <i>had</i> forgotten, dear," she repeated; "but you know now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I had forgotten, because of Sally herself; but she is <i>my</i> +daughter now...."</p> + +<p>She waited, expecting him to say more; but he did not speak again. +As soon as he was, or seemed to be, asleep, she rose quietly and +left him.</p> + +<p>She was so anxious that no trace of the tempest that had passed over +her should be left for Sally to see in the morning that she got as +quickly as possible to bed; and, with a little effort to +tranquillise her mind, soon sank into a state of absolute oblivion. +It was the counterswing of the pendulum—Nature's protest against a +strain beyond her powers to bear, and its remedy.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 513 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF A CONTRACT JOB FOR REPAIRS. HOW FENWICK HAD ANOTHER SLEEPLESS +NIGHT AFTER ALL. WHICH IS WHICH, NOW OR TWENTY ODD YEARS AGO? HOW +SALLY FOLLOWED JEREMIAH OUT. WHAT A LOT OF TALK ABOUT A LIFE-BELT!</p> + +<p>A colourless dawn chased a grey twilight from the sea and white +cliffs of St. Sennans, and a sickly effort of the sun to rise +visibly, ending above a cloud-bank in a red half-circle that seemed +a thing quite unconnected with the struggling light, was baffled by +a higher cloud-bank still that came discouragingly from the west, +and quenched the hopes of the few early risers who were about as St. +Sennans tower chimed six. The gull that flew high above the green +waste of white-flecked waters was whiter still against the inky blue +of the cloud-curtain that had disallowed the day, and the paler +vapour-drifts that paused and changed and lost themselves and died; +but the air that came from the sea was sweet and mild for the time +of year, and the verdict of the coastguardsman at the flagstaff, who +in pursuance of his sinecure had seen the night out, was that the +day was pretty sure to be an uncertain sart, with little froshets on +the water, like over yander. He seemed to think that a certainty of +uncertainty had all the value of a forecast, and was as well +satisfied with his report as he was that he had not seen a smuggler +through the telescope he closed as he uttered it.</p> + +<p>"Well, I should judge it might be fairly doubtful," was the reply of +the man he was speaking with. It was the man who had "Elinor" and +"Bessie" tattooed on his arm. They were not legible now, as a couple +of life-belts, or hencoops, as they are sometimes called, hung over +the arm and hid them. The boy Benjamin was with his father, and +carried a third. An explanation of them came in answer to +interrogation in the eye of the coastguard. "Just to put a touch of +new paint on 'em against the weather." The speaker made one movement +of his head say that + +<!-- Page 514 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> +they had come from the pier-end, and another +that he had taken them home to repaint by contract.</p> + +<p>"What do you make out of S. S. P. C.?" the coastguard asked, scarcely +as one who had no theory himself, more as one archæologist +addressing another, teeming with deference, but ready for +controversy. The other answered with some paternal pride:</p> + +<p>"Ah, there now! Young Benjamin, he made <i>that</i> good, and asked for +to make it red in place of black himself! Didn't ye, ye young +sculping? St. Sennans Pier Company, that's all it comes to, followed +out. But I'm no great schoolmaster myself, and that's God's truth." +Both contemplated the judicious restoration with satisfaction; and +young Benjamin, who had turned purple under publicity, murmured that +it was black afower. He didn't seem to mean anything, but to think +it due to himself to say something, meaning or no. The +coastguardsman merely said, "Makes a tidy job!" and the father and +son went on their way to the pier.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour before, this coastguard had looked after the +visitor in a blue serge suit up at Lobjoit's, who had passed him +going briskly towards the fishing-quarter. He had recognised him +confidently, for he knew Fenwick well, and saw nothing strange in +his early appearance. Now that he saw him returning, and could take +full note of him, he almost suspected he had been mistaken, so wild +and pallid was the face of this man, who, usually ready with a light +word for every chance encounter—even with perfect strangers—now +passed him by ungreeted, and to all seeming unconscious of his +presence. The coastguard was for a moment in doubt if he should not +follow him, inferring something in the nature of delirium from his +aspect; but seeing that he made straight for the pier, and knowing +that young Benjamin's father was more familiar with him than +himself, he was contented to record in thought that that was a face +with a bad day ahead, and leave it.</p> + +<p>For Gerry, when Rosalind left him, was rash in assuming he could let +her do so safely. His well-meant pretext of sleep was not destined +to grow into a reality. He had really believed that it would, so +soothing was the touch of her hand in his own. The moment he was +alone his mind leapt, willy-nilly, to the analysis of one point or +other in the past that had just come back to him. He + +<!-- Page 515 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> +tried to +silence thought, and to sleep, knowing that his best hope was in +rest; but each new effort only ended in his slipping back to what he +had just dismissed. And that terrible last interview with Rosey at +Umballa, when he parted from her, as he thought, never to see her +again, was the Rome to which all the roads of recollection led. Each +involuntary visit there had its <i>renchérissement</i> on the previous +one, and in the end the image of that hour became a +brain-oppression, and wrote the word "fever" large on the tablets of +his apprehension.</p> + +<p>He knew now it was not to be sleep; he knew it as he sat up in bed +feeling his pulse, and stimulating it with his anxiety that it +should go slow. Was there nothing he could take that would make him +sleep? Certainly he knew of nothing, anywhere, except it was to be +found by waking Rosalind, probably sound asleep by now. Out of the +question! Oh, why, why, with all the warning he had had, had he +neglected to provide himself with a mysterious thing known to him +all his life as a soothing-draught? It would have been so useful +now, and Conrad would have defined it down to the prosaic +requirements of pharmacy. But it was too late!</p> + +<p>So long as her hand was in his, so long as her lips were near his +own, what did it matter what he recollected? The living present +cancelled the dead past. But to be there alone in the dark, with the +image of that Rosalind of former years clinging to him, and crying +for forgiveness because his mind, warped against her by a false +conception of the truth, could not forgive; to be defenceless +against her last words, coming through the long interval to him +again just as he heard them, twenty years ago, bringing back the +other noises of the Indian night—the lowing of the bullocks in the +compound, the striking of the hour on the Kutcherry gongs, the +grinding of the Persian wheels unceasingly drawing water for the +irrigation of the fields—to be exposed to this solitude and +ever-growing imagination was to become the soil for a self-sown crop +of terrors—fear of fever, fear of madness, fear at the very least +of perturbation such that Sally might come, through it, to a +knowledge that had to be kept from her at all costs.</p> + +<p>He lighted his candle with a cautious match, and found what might be +a solace—a lucky newspaper of the morning. If only he could read it +without audible rustling, unheard by the sleepers!</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 516 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>The print was almost too small to be read by the light of a single +candle; but there were the usual headings, the usual ranks of +capitals that tell us so quick that there is nothing we shall care +about in the pale undecipherable paragraphs below, and that we have +spent our halfpenny in vain. There was the usual young lady who had +bought, or was trying on, a large hat, and whose top-story above, in +profile, had got so far ahead of her other stories below. There were +the consignments of locust-flights of boots, for this young lady's +friends, with heels in the instep. And all the advertisements that +some one <i>must</i> believe, or they would not pay for insertion; but +that <i>we</i> ignore, incredulous. Fenwick tried hard, for his own sake, +to make the whole thing mean something, but his dazed brain and +feverish eyes refused to respond to his efforts, and he let the +paper go, and gave himself up, a prey to his own memories. After +all, the daylight was sure to come in the end to save him.</p> + +<p>He tried hard to reason with himself, to force himself to feel the +reality of his own belief that all was well; for he had no doubt of +it, as an abstract truth. It was the power of getting comfort from +it that was wanting. If only his heart could stop thumping and his +brain burning, <i>he</i> would have done the rejoicing that Rosalind was +there, knowing all he knew, and loving him; that Sally was there, +loving him too, but knowing nothing, and needing to know nothing; +that one of his first greetings in the day to come would be from +Conrad Vereker, probably too much intoxicated with his own happiness +to give much attention to what he was beginning to acknowledge was +some kind of physical or nervous fever. If he could only sleep!</p> + +<p>But he could not—could hardly close his eyes. He said to himself +again and again that nothing was the matter; that, if anything, he +and Rosey were better off than they had been yet; that they had +passed through a land of peril to a great deliverance. But he did +not believe his own assurance, and the throng of memories that his +feverish condition would not let sleep, or that were its cause, came +on him more and more thickly through all those hours of the dreary +night. They came, too, with a growing force, each one as it returned +having more the character of a waking dream, vivid almost to the +point of reality. But all ended alike. He always found himself +breaking away from + +<!-- Page 517 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> +Rosey in the veranda in the bungalow at Umballa, +and could hear again her cry of despair: "Oh, Gerry, Gerry! It is +not as you think. Oh, stay, stay! Give me a chance to show you how I +love you!" The tramp of his horse as he rode away from his home and +that white figure left prostrate in the veranda above him, became a +real sound that beat painfully upon his ears; and the voice of the +friend he sought—an old soldier in camp at Sabatoo, where he rode +almost without a halt—as he roused him in the dawn of the next day, +came to him again almost as though spoken in the room beside him: +"Left <i>your</i> wife, Palliser! My God, sir! what's to come next?" And +then the wicked hardness of his own heart, and his stubborn refusal +to listen to the angry remonstrance that followed. "I tell you this, +young man! the man's a fool—a damned fool—that runs from the woman +who loves him!" And the asseveration that the speaker would say the +same if she was anything short of the worst character in camp, only +in slightly different words. His remorse for his own obduracy, and +the cruelty of his behaviour then; his shame when he thought of his +application, months later, to the Court at Lahore—for "relief" from +Rosey: just imagine it!—these were bad enough to think back on, +even from the point of view of his previous knowledge; but how +infinitely worse when he thought what she had been to him, how she +had acted towards him two years ago!</p> + +<p>Even the painful adventure he could now look back to clearly, and +with a rather amused interest, as to an event with no laceration in +it—his wandering in an Australian forest, for how many days he +could not say, and his final resurrection at a town a hundred miles +from his starting-point—even this led him back in the end to the +old story. The whole passed through his mind like the scenes of a +drama—his confidence, having lost the track, that his horse, left +to himself, would find it again; his terror when, coming back from a +stone's-throw off, he found the tree deserted he had tied his horse +to; his foolish starting off to catch him, when the only sane course +was to wait for his return. But the second act of the drama took his +mind again to Rosey in her loneliness; for when he was found by a +search-party at the foot of a telegraph-post he had used his last +match to burn down, he was inarticulate, and seemed to give his name +as Harrisson. As he + +<!-- Page 518 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> +slowly recovered sense and speech at the +telegraph-station—for the interruption of the current had been his +cry for help to its occupants—he heard himself addressed by the +name and saw the mistake; but he did not correct it, being, indeed, +not sorry for an incognito, sick of his life, as it were, and glad +to change his identity. But how if Rosey wrote to him then—think of +it!—under his old name? Fancy <i>her</i> when the time came for a +possible reply, with who could say what of hope in it! Fancy her +many decisions that it was still too soon for an answer, followed by +as many others as time went on that it was not too late! If he had +received such a letter from her then, might it not all have been +different? May she not have written one? He had talked so little +with her; nothing forbade the idea. And so his mind travelled round +with monotonous return, always to that old time, and those old +scenes, and all the pain of them.</p> + +<p>It was curious—he noted the oddity himself—that his whole life in +America took the drama character, and <i>he</i> became the spectator. He +never caught himself playing his own part over again, with all its +phases of passion or excitement, as in the earlier story. In that, +his identification of himself with his past grew and grew, and as +his fever increased through the small hours of the morning, got more +and more the force of a waking dream. And when the dawn came at +last, and the gleam from the languid sun followed it, the man who +got up and looked out towards its great blue bank of cloud was only +half sure he was not another former self, looking out towards +another sea, twenty years ago, to see if he could identify the ship +that was to take him from Kurachi to Port Jackson.</p> + +<p>What did it all mean? Yes, sure enough he had taken his passage, and +to-morrow leagues of sea would lie between him and Rosey. That would +end it for ever. No reconciliations, no repentance then!... Was +there not still time? a chance if he chose to catch at it? Puny +irresolution! Shake it all off, and have done with it.... He +shuddered as he thought through his old part again, and then came +back with a jerk to the strange knowledge that he was opening a +closed book, a tragedy written twenty years ago; and that there, +within a few feet of where he gazed with a jaded sight out to the +empty sea, was Rosey herself, alive and breathing; and in an hour or +two he was to see her, feel + +<!-- Page 519 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> +the touch of her hand and lips, be his +happy self again of three days only gone by, if he could but face +masterfully the strange knowledge this mysterious revival of a +former self had brought upon him. And there was Sally....</p> + +<p>But at the name, as it came to his mind, came also the shock of +another mystery—who and what was Sally?</p> + +<p>Let him lie down again and try to think quietly. Was not this part +of his delirium? Could he have got the story right? Surely! Was it +not of her that Rosey had said, only a few hours since, "<i>His</i> baby +was Sally—<i>my</i> Sallykin"? And was he not then able to reply +collectedly and with ease, "She is <i>my</i> daughter now," and to feel +the power of his choice that it should be so? But the strength of +Rosalind was beside him then, and now he was here alone. He beat +off—fought against—that hideous fatherhood of Sally's that he +could not bear, that image that he felt might drive him mad. Oh, +villain, villain! Far, far worse to him was—perforce must be—this +miscreant's crime than that mere murder that shook Hamlet's reason +to its foundation. He dared not think of it lest he should cry out +aloud. But, patience! Only two or three hours more, and Rosalind +would be there to help him to bear it.... What a coward's +thought!—to help him to bear what she herself had borne in silence +for twenty years!</p> + +<p>Would he not be better up, now that it was light? Of course! But how +be sure he should not wake them?</p> + +<p>Well, the word was caution; he must be very quiet about it, that was +all. He slipped on his clothes without washing—it always makes a +noise—ran a comb through the tangled hair his pillow-tossings of +four hours had produced, and got away stealthily without accident, +or meeting any early riser, speech with whom would have betrayed +him.</p> + +<p>He had little trouble with the door-fastenings, that often perplex +us in a like case, blocking egress with mysterious mechanisms. +Housebreakers were rare in St. Sennans. He had more fear his +footsteps would be audible; but it seemed not, and he walked away +towards the cliff pathway unnoticed.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The merpussy waked to a consciousness of happiness undefined, a +sense of welcome to the day. What girl would not have done so, under +her circumstances? For Sally had no doubt in her mind + +<!-- Page 520 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> +of her own +satisfaction at the outcome of yesterday. She might have treated the +feelings and experience of other lovers—regular ones, prone to +nonsense—with contempt, but she never questioned the advantages of +her own position as compared with theirs. Her feast was better +cooked, altogether more substantial and real than the kickshaws and +sweetmeats she chose to ascribe to the <i>menus</i> of Arcadia. +Naturally; because see what a much better sort Conrad was! It was +going to be quite a different kind of thing this time. And as for +the old Goody, she was not half bad. Nothing was half bad in Sally's +eyes that morning, and almost everything was wholly good.</p> + +<p>She had slept so sound she was sure it was late. But it was only +half-past six, and the early greetings of Mrs. Lobjoit below were +not to the baker, nor even to the milk, but to next door, which was +dealing with the question of its mat and clean step through the +agency of its proprietress, whose voice chimed cheerfully with Mrs. +Lobjoit's over the surprise of the latter finding <i>her</i> street door +had been opened, and that some one had already passed out. For Mrs. +Lobjoit had made <i>that</i> sure, the night before, that she had "shot +to" the bottom bolt that <i>would</i> shet, <i>because</i> she had ignored as +useless the top bolt that <i>wouldn't</i> shet—the correlation of events +so often appealed to by witnesses under examination; which Law, +stupidly enough, prides itself on snubbing them for. Further, Mrs. +Lobjoit would have flown to the solution that it was her gentleman +gone out, only that it was quite into the night before they stopped +from talking.</p> + +<p>Sally heard this because she had pulled down the top sash of her +window to breathe the sea air, regardless of the fact she well knew, +and described thus—that the sash-weight stuck and clunkled and +wouldn't come down. She decided against running the risk of +disturbing Jeremiah on the strength of Mrs. Lobjoit's impressions; +although, if he had gone out, she certainly would follow him. But +she slipped on a dressing-gown and went half-way downstairs, to see +if his hat was still on its peg. It was gone. So she went back to +her room, and dressed furtively. Because if they <i>had</i> been talking +late into the night, it would be just as well for her mother to have +her sleep out.</p> + +<p>But she had hardly finished washing when she became aware of a +footstep outside—Jeremiah's certainly. She went to the window, + +<!-- Page 521 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> +saw +him approach the house, look up at it, but as though he did not +recognise that she was there, and then turn away towards the +flagstaff and the old town. It was odd and unlike him, and Sally was +alarmed. Besides, how white he looked!</p> + +<p>Bear this in mind, that Sally knew absolutely nothing of the +cataclysm of revived memory in Jeremiah. Remember that the incident +of the galvanic battery at the pier-end is only four days old. Do +not be misled by the close details we have given of these four days.</p> + +<p>Sally's alarm at the haggard look of her stepfather's face took away +her breath; at least, she did not find her voice soon enough for him +to hear her call out—she did not like to shout loud because of her +mother—as he turned away. Or it seemed so, for that was the only +way she could account for his walking away so abruptly. In her hurry +to get dressed and follow him, she caught up an undergarment that +lay on the floor, without seeing that her own foot was on the tape +that was to secure it, and a rip and partial disruption was the +consequence. Never mind, it would hold up till she came in. Or, if +it didn't, where was that safety-pin that was on her dressing-table +yesterday? Not there? Again, never mind! She would do, somehow. She +hurried on her clothes, and her hat and waterproof, and left the +house, going quickly on what she supposed to be the track of +Jeremiah, who was, by now, no longer visible.</p> + +<p>But she caught sight of him returning, while she was still two or +three minutes' walk short of the flagstaff he was approaching from +the other side. He would stop to talk with the coastguard. He always +did. Surely he would, this time. But no—he didn't.</p> + +<p>He may have spoken, but he did not stop. So Sally noted as she +hesitated an instant, seeing him turn off at an angle and go towards +the pier. There was a shorter cut to the pier, without going to the +flagstaff. Sally turned herself, and took it. She would catch him as +he came back from the pier-end, if he was going to walk along it.</p> + +<p>She saw him as she descended the slope that, part pathway and part +steps, led down towards the sea. He walked straight towards the +pier, passing as he went a man and boy, who were carrying what she +took, at that distance, for well-made coils of rope; and then, +arriving at the pier-turnstile just as they did, pass them, and, + +<!-- Page 522 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> +leaving them apparently in conversation with the gatekeeper, walk +steadily on towards the pier-end.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"I shouldn't call the paint properly hardened on myself. Nor won't +be yet-a-piece, if you ask my opinion." It was young Benjamin's +father said these words to the veteran in charge of the +pier-turnstile; who, as an early bird, was counting his tickets, so +to speak, before they were hatched—his actual professional +cabinet-séance not having begun. For the pier wasn't open yet, and +his permission to Fenwick to pass the open side-gate was an +indulgence to an acquaintance.</p> + +<p>His reply to the speaker was that he must bide awhile in patience, +then. Paint was good to dry while the grass grew, and there was +plenty else to fret about for them as wanted it. He seemed only to +mention this from consideration of the wants of others. He either +had plenty to fret about, or was happier without anything. He ended +with, "What have you to say to that, Jake Tracy?" showing that the +father of Benjamin was Jacob, following precedent.</p> + +<p>But Jacob preferred not to be led away into ethics. "I should stand +'em by, in the shadow, for the matter of a day or two," said he. "In +yander." And the life-belts being safely disposed of, he added: "I +thought to carry back number fower from the pier-end, and make a +finish of the job. But looking to the condition of this paint, maybe +better leave her for service. She'll do as well next week." But the +moralist inclined to make a finish of the job. Who was going +overboard afore the end of next week? And supposing they did, the +resources of civilisation wouldn't be exhausted, for we could throw +'em a clean one paint or no.</p> + +<p>"Send your lad to fetch her along, Jake. I'll make myself +answerable." And young Benjamin, confirmed by a nod from his father, +departed for the mysteriously feminine hencoop.</p> + +<p>Just as the boy turned to go, Fenwick came up, and, paying no +attention to greetings from the two men, passed through the +side-gate and walked rather briskly away along the pier. Each of the +men looked at the other, as though asking a question. But neither +answered, and then both said, "Queer, too!" A nascent discussion of +whether one or other should not follow him—for the look of his face +had gone home to both, as he was, of course, well + +<!-- Page 523 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> +known to +them—was cut short by Jacob Tracy saying, "Here's his daughter +coming to see for him." And, just after, Sally had passed them, +leaving them pleasantly stirred by the bright smile and eye-flash +that seemed this morning brighter than ever. The boy shouted +something from the pier-end, to which his father's shouted reply was +that he must bide a minute and he would come to see himself.</p> + +<p>"The yoong beggar's got the use of his eyes," he said, not hurrying. +"I'll go bail he'll find her. She's there all right, I suppose?" He +was still referring to the hencoop, not to any lady.</p> + +<p>"Ah, <i>she's</i> there, quite safe. You'd best step along and find her. +Boys are boys, when all's told."</p> + +<p>But Jacob wanted Benjamin to distinguish himself, and still didn't +hurry. The strange appearance of Mrs. Lobjoit's gentleman supplied +materials for chat. Presently his son shouted again, and he +answered, "Not there, is she? I'll come." He walked away towards the +pier-end just as Sally, who had fancied Jeremiah would be somewhere +alongside of the pagoda-building that nearly covered it, came back +from her voyage of exploration, and looked down the steps to the +under-platform, that young Benjamin had just come up shouting.</p> + +<p>What little things life and death turn on sometimes!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 524 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h2> + +<p class="subhead">OF CONRAD VEREKER'S REVISION OF PARADISE, AND OF FENWICK'S HIGH +FEVER. OF AN ENGLISH OFFICER WHO WAVERED AT BOMBAY, AND OF FENWICK'S +SURPRISE-BATH IN THE BRITISH CHANNEL. WHY HE DID NOT SINK. THE ELLEN +JANE OF ST. SENNANS. ONLY SALLY IS IN THE WATER STILL. MORE BOATS. FOUND!</p> + +<p>Fenwick, haunted by the phantoms of his own past—always, as his +fever grew, assuming more and more the force of realities—but +convinced of their ephemeral nature, and that the crisis of this +fever would pass and leave him free, had walked quickly along the +sea front towards the cliff pathway. Had Dr. Conrad seen him as he +passed below his window and looked up at it, he would probably have +suspected something and followed him. And then the events of this +story would have travelled a different road. But Vereker, possessed +by quite another sort of delirium, had risen even earlier—almost +with the dawn—and, taking Sally's inaccessibility at that unearthly +hour for granted, had gone for a long walk over what was now to him +a land of enchantment—the same ground he and Sally had passed over +on the previous evening. He and his mother would be on their way to +London in a few hours, and he would like to see the landmarks that +were to be a precious memory for all time yet once more while he had +the chance. Who could say that he would ever visit St. Sennans +again?</p> + +<p>If Fenwick, in choosing this direction first, had a half-formed idea +of attracting the doctor's attention, the appearance of Mrs. +Iggulden's shuttered parlour-window would have discouraged him. It +told a tale of a household still asleep, and quite truly as far as +she herself was concerned. For Dr. Conrad, as might have been +expected, was very late in coming home the night before; and his +mother's peculiarity of not being able to sleep if kept up till +eleven, combined with the need of a statement of her position, a +declaration of policy, and almost a budget, if + +<!-- Page 525 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> +not quite, on the +subject of her son's future housekeeping, having resulted in what +threatened to become an all-night sitting, the good woman's dozes +and repentances, with jerks, on the stairs overnight, had produced +their consequences in the morning. Fenwick passed the house, and +walked on as far as where the path rose to the cliffs; then turned +back, and, pausing a moment, as we have seen, under Sally's window, +failed in his dreamy state to see her as she looked over the +cross-bar at him, and then went on towards the old town. It may be +she was not very visible; the double glasses of an open sash-window +are almost equal to opacity. But even with that, the extreme +aberration of Fenwick's mind at the moment is the only way to +account for his not seeing her.</p> + +<p>In fact, his mental perturbation came and went by gusts, as his +memory caught at or relinquished agitating points of reminiscence, +always dwelling on that parting from Rosalind at Umballa. His brain +and nervous system were in a state that involved a climax and +reaction; and, unhappily, this climax, during which his +identification of his present self with his memory of its past was +intensified to the point of absolute hallucination, came at an +inopportune moment. If he could only have kept the phantoms of his +imagination at bay until he met Sally! But, really, speculation on +so strange a frame of mind is useless; we can only accept the facts +as they stand.</p> + +<p>He had no recollection afterwards of what followed when he passed +the house and failed to see Sally or hear her call out to him. For +the time being he was back again in his life of twenty years ago. +Those who find this hard to believe may see no way of accounting for +what came about but by ascribing to Fenwick an intention of suicide. +For our part we believe him to have been absolutely incapable of +such an act from a selfish impulse; and, moreover, it is absurd to +impute to him such a motive, at this time, however strongly he might +have been impelled towards it by discovering the injustice and +cruelty of his own unforgiveness towards his young wife at some +previous time—as, for instance, in America—when she herself was +beyond his reach, and a recantation of his error impossible. Unless +we accept his conduct as the result of a momentary dementia, +produced by overstrain, it must remain inexplicable.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 526 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>It appeared to him, so far as he was afterwards able to define or +record it, that he was no longer walking on the familiar track +between the few lodging-houses that made up the old St. Sennans, and +the still older fishing-quarter near the jetty, but that he was +again on his way from Lahore to Kurachi, from which he was to embark +for a new land where his broken heart might do its best to heal; for +if ever a man was utterly broken-hearted it was he when he came away +from Lahore, after his futile attempt to procure a divorce. He no +longer saw the cold northern sea under its great blue cloud-curtain +that had shrouded the coming day; nor the line of fishing-smacks, +beached high and dry, and their owners' dwellings near at hand, a +little town of tar and timber in behind the stowage-huts of nets and +tackle, nor the white escarpment of the cliffs beyond, that the sea +had worked so many centuries to plunder from the rounded pastures of +the sheep above. He no longer heard the music of the waves on the +shingle, nor the cry of the sea-bird that swept over them, nor the +tinkle of the sheep-bell the wind knows how to carry so far in the +stillness of the morning, nor the voices of the fisher-children +playing in the boats that one day may bear them to their death. His +mind was far away in the Indian heat, parching and suffocated on the +long railway journey from Lahore to Kurachi, scarcely better when he +had reached his first boat that was to take him to Bombay, to embark +again a day or two later for Australia. How little he had forgotten +of the short but tedious delay in that chaotic emporium of all +things European and Asiatic, that many-coloured meeting-ground of a +thousand nationalities! How little, that the whole should come back +to him now, and fill his brain with its reality, till the living +present grew dim and vanished; reviving now and again, as fiction, +read in early years, revives with a suggested doubt—is it true or +false?</p> + +<p>He sat again on the Esplanade at Bombay, as the sun vanished in a +flood of rosy gold, and released the world from his heat. He felt +again the relief of the evening wind; heard again the chat of a +group of English officers who sipped sherry-cobblers at a table a +few paces off. "I always change my mind," said one of them, +"backwards and forwards till the last minute; then I make it the +last one." He quite understood this man's speech, and + +<!-- Page 527 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> +thought how +like himself! For from the time he left Lahore he, too, had gone +backwards and forwards, now resolving to return, come what might, +now telling himself firmly there was no remedy but in distance +apart, and all there might be of oblivion. Was there not yet time? +He could still go back, even now. But no; the old obduracy was on +him. Rosey had deceived him!</p> + +<p>Then he seemed to have come again to <i>his</i> last minute. Once he was +fairly on the ship that was even now coaling for her voyage, once +the screw was on the move and the shore-lights vanishing, the die +would be cast. The stars that he and Rosey had seen in that cool +English garden that night he met her first would vanish, too, and a +world would be between them. Still, the hour had not come; it was +not too late yet. But still the inveterate thought came back—she +<i>had</i> deceived him.</p> + +<p>So his delirium ended as its prototype of over twenty years ago had +ended. He hardened his heart, thrust aside all thought of +forgiveness and repentance, and went resolutely down to the quay, as +he thought, to embark on the little boat for the ship, and so +practically put all thought of hesitation and return out of his +mind. This moment was probably what would have been the crisis of +his fever, and it was an evil hour for him in which the builder of +the pier at St. Sennans made it so like the platform of that +experience of long ago. But the boat that he saw before him as he +stepped unhesitatingly over its edge was only the image of a +distempered brain, and in an instant he was struggling with the +cold, dark water. A sudden shock of chill, an intolerable choking +agony of breath involuntarily held, an instantaneous dissipation of +his dream, the natural result of the shock, and Fenwick knew himself +for what he was, and fought the cruel water in his despair. Even so +a drowning man fights who in old failures to learn swimming has just +mastered its barest rudiments. A vivid pageant rushed across his +mind of all the consequences of what seemed to him now his +inevitable death, clearest of all a sad vision of Sally and Rosalind +returning to their home alone—the black dresses and the silence. He +found voice for one long cry for help, without a hope that it could +be heard or that help could be at hand.</p> + +<p>But he was neither unseen nor unheard, as you will know if we + +<!-- Page 528 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> +have +not failed in showing the succession of events. Sally never +hesitated an instant as she caught sight of the delirious man's +involuntary plunge into the green waves that had no terrors for +<i>her</i>. She threw off as she ran, fast, fast down the wooden +stairway, the only clothes she could get rid of—her hat and light +summer cloak—and went straight, with a well-calculated dive, to +follow him and catch him as he rose. If only she did not miss him! +Let her once pinion his arms from behind, and she would get him +ashore even if no help came. Why, there was no sea to speak of!</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The man Jacob Tracy, the father of Benjamin, saw something to +quicken his speed as he walked along the pier to help in the +discovery of the life-belt. Why did the swimming young lady from +Lobjoit's want to be rid of her wrap-up at that rate as she turned +so sharp round to run down the ladder? He increased a brisk walk to +a run as the lad, who had followed the young lady down the steps, +came running up again; for there was hysterical terror in his +voice—he was a mere boy—as he shouted something that became, as +distance lessened, "In t' wa-ater! in t' wa-ater! in t' wa-ater! in +t' wa-ater!" And he was waving something in his hand—a lady's hat +surely; for with an instinct of swift presence of mind—a quality +that is the breath of life to all that go down to the sea in ships, +mariners or fisher-folk—he had seen that the headgear Sally threw +away would tell its tale quicker than any words he could rely on +finding.</p> + +<p>"Roon smart, yoong Benjamin—roon for the bo'ats and call out +'oars'! Roon, boy—you've no time to lose!" And as the father dashes +down the steps he spoke of as "the ladder" the son runs for all he +is worth to carry the alarm to the shore. He shouts, "Oars, oars, +oars!" as he was told. But it is not needed, for his thought of +bringing up the hat has done his work already for him. The +coastguard, though the pier itself hid the two immersions from him, +is quick of apprehension and ready with his glass, and has seen the +boy's return from below; and at the same time heard, not his words, +but the terror in them, and by some mysterious agency has sent a +flying word along the beach that has brought a population out to +help.</p> + +<p>A bad time of the tide to get a boat off sharp, and a long shelving + +<!-- Page 529 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> +run of sandy shingle before we reach the sea; for all the boats are +on the upper strand of the beach, above the last high-water mark, +and the flow of the tide is scarcely an hour old. There is a short +squat cobble, flat-bottomed and of intolerable weight, down near the +waters, and its owner makes for it. Another man drives him out +seawards, against the constant lift of breaking waves, large enough +to be troublesome, small enough to be numerous. They give no chance +to the second man to leap into the boat, so deep has he to go, +pushing on until the pads are out and the boat controlled; but he +has barely time to feel the underdraw of the recoiling wave when the +straight scour of a keel comes down along the sand and pebbles—the +Ellen Jane, St. Sennans—half-pushed, half-borne by a crew three +minutes have extemporised. You two in the bows, and you two astarn, +and the spontaneous natural leader—the man the emergency makes—at +the tiller-ropes, and Ellen Jane is off, well drenched at the +outset. An oar swings round high in the air, not to knock one of you +two astarn into the water, and then, "Give way!" and then the short, +quick rhythm of the stroke, and four men at their utmost stress, +each knowing life and death may hang upon the greatness of his +effort.</p> + +<p>The cobble is soon outshot, but its owner will not give in. He bears +away from the course of the boat that has passed him, to seek their +common object where the tide-drift may have swept it, beyond some +light craft at their moorings which would have hidden it for a +while. He has the right of it this time, for as he passes, straining +at his sculls, under the stern of a pleasure-yacht at anchor, his +eye is caught by a black spot rising on a wave, and he makes for it. +Not too fast at the last, though, but cautiously, so as to grasp the +man with the life-belt and hold him firm till help shall come to get +him on board. He might easily have overshot him; but he has him now, +and the four-oar sights him as she swings round between the +last-moored boat and the pier; and comes apace, the quicker for the +tide.</p> + +<p>"What is it ye say, master? What do ye make it out the gentleman +says, Peter?" For Fenwick, hauled on board the cobble with the help +of a man from the other boat, who returns to his oar, is alive and +conscious, but not much more. A brandy-flask comes from somewhere in +the steerage, where a mop and a tin + +<!-- Page 530 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> +pot and a boathook live, and +its effect is good. The half-drowned man becomes articulate enough +to justify the report. "It's his daughter he's asking +for—overboard, too!" and then the man who spoke first says: "You be +easy in your mind, master; we'll find her. Bear away a bit, and lie +to, Tom." Tom is the man in the cobble, and he does as he is bidden. +He ships his sculls and drifts, watching round on all sides for what +may be just afloat near the surface. The four-oar remains, and the +eyes of her crew are straining hard to catch a sight of anything +that is not mere lift and ripple of a wave.</p> + +<p>Then more boats one after another, and more, and the gathering crowd +that lines the shore sees them scatter and lie to, some way apart, +to watch the greater space of water. All drift, because they know +that what they seek is drifting, too, and that if they move they +lose their only chance; for the thing they have to find is so small, +so small, and that great waste of pitiless sea is so large. It is +their only chance.</p> + +<p>The crowd, always growing, moves along the beach as the flotilla of +drifting boats move slowly with the tide. They can hear the shouting +from boat to boat, but catch but little of the words. They follow +on, with little speech among themselves, and hope dying slowly out +of their hearts. Gradually towards the jetty, where the girl they +are seeking sat, only a few days since, beside the man whose heart +the memory of yesterday is still rejoicing; the only trouble of +whose unconscious soul is the thought that he and she must soon be +parted, however short the term of their separation may be. He will +know more soon.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the shouting increases in the boats, and excited voices +break the silence on the shore. It won't do to hope too much, but +surely all the boats are thickening to one spot.... No, it's +nothing!... Yes, it <i>is</i>—it <i>is</i> something—one knows what—sighted +abaft the Ellen Jane, whose steersman catches it with a boathook as +the oars we on the beach saw suddenly drop back water—slowly, +cautiously—and only wait for him to drag the light weight athwart +the gunwale to row for the dear life towards the town. The scattered +crowd turns and comes back, trampling the shingle, to meet the boat +as she lands, and follow what she brings to the nearest haven.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 531 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h2> + +<p class="subhead">AN ERRAND IN VAIN, AND HOW DR. CONRAD CAME TO KNOW. CONCERNING +LLOYD'S COFFEEHOUSE, AND THE BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN. MARSHALL HALL'S +SYSTEM AND SILVESTER'S. SOCIAL DISADVANTAGES. A CHAT WITH A +CENTENARIAN, AND HOW ROSALIND CAME TO KNOW. THOMAS LOCOCK OF +ROCHESTER. ONE O'CLOCK!</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Dr. Conrad?" It was Rosalind who spoke, through the +half-open window of her bedroom, to the happy, expectant face of the +doctor in the little front garden below. "I'm only just up, and +they're both gone out. I shall be down in a few minutes." For she +had looked into her husband's room, and then into Sally's, and +concluded they must have gone out together. So much the better! If +Sally was with him, no harm could come to him.</p> + +<p>"I don't see them anywhere about," said the doctor. Sally had not +been gone ten minutes, and at this moment had just caught sight of +Fenwick making for the pier. The short cut down took her out of +sight of the house. Rosalind considered a minute.</p> + +<p>"Very likely they've gone to the hotel—the 'beastly hotel,' you +know." There is the sound of a laugh, and the caress in her voice, +as she thinks of Sally, whom she is quoting. "Gerry found a friend +there last night—a German gentleman—who was to go at seven-fifty. +Very likely he's walked up to say good-bye to him. Suppose you go to +meet them! How's Mrs. Vereker this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I haven't seen her yet! We talked rather late, so I +left without waking her. I've been for a walk."</p> + +<p>"Well, go and meet Gerry. I feel pretty sure he's gone there." And +thereon Dr. Conrad departed, and so, departing towards the new town, +lost sight for the time being of the pier and the coast. He went by +the steps and Albion Villas, and as he caught a glimpse therefrom of +the pier-end in the distance, had an impression + +<!-- Page 532 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> +of a man running +along it and shouting; but he drew no inferences, although it struck +him there was panic, with the energy of sudden action, in this man's +voice.</p> + +<p>He arrived at the hotel, of course without meeting either Sally or +Fenwick. He had accepted them as probably there, on perhaps too +slight evidence. But they might be in the hotel. Had the German +gentleman gone?—he asked. The stony woman he addressed replied from +her precinct, with no apparent consciousness that she was addressing +a fellow-creature, that No. 148, if you meant him, had paid and gone +by last 'bus. She spoke as to space, but as one too indifferent on +all points to care much who overheard her.</p> + +<p>Vereker thanked her, and turned to go. As he departed he caught a +fragment of conversation between her and the waiter who had produced +the brandy the evening before. He was in undress uniform—a holland +or white-jean jacket, and a red woollen comforter. He had lost his +voice, or most of it, and croaked; and his cold had got worse in the +night. He was shedding tears copiously, and wiping them on a +cruet-stand he carried in one hand. The other was engaged by an +empty coal-scuttle with a pair of slippers in it, inexplicably.</p> + +<p>"There's a start down there. Party over the pier-end! Dr. Maccoll +he's been 'phoned for."</p> + +<p>"Party from this hotel?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't say. Porcibly. No partic'lars to identify, so far."</p> + +<p>"They're not bringing him here?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't say, miss; but I should say they wasn't myself."</p> + +<p>"If you know you can say. Who told you, and what did <i>he</i> say? Make +yourself understood."</p> + +<p>"Dr. Maccoll he's been 'phoned for. You can inquire and see if I +ain't right. Beyond that I take no responsibility."</p> + +<p>The Lady of the Bureau came out; moved, no doubt, by an image of a +drowned man whose resources would not meet the credits she might be +compelled to give him. She came out to the front through the +swing-door, looked up and down the road, and seemed to go back +happier. Dr. Conrad's curiosity was roused, and he started at once +for the beach, but absolutely without a trace of personal misgiving. +No doubt the tendency we all have to impute public mishaps to a +special class of people outside + +<!-- Page 533 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> +our own circle had something to do +with this. As he passed down an alley behind some cottages—a short +way to the pier—he was aware of a boy telling a tale in a terrified +voice to a man and an elderly woman. It was the man with the striped +shirt, and the boy was young Benjamin. He had passed on a few paces +when the man called to him, and came running after him, followed by +the woman and boy.</p> + +<p>"I ask your pardon, sir—I ask your pardon...." What he has to say +will not allow him to speak, and his words will not come. He turns +for help to his companion. "<i>You</i> tell him, Martha woman," he says, +and gives in.</p> + +<p>"My master thinks, sir, you may find something on the beach...."</p> + +<p>"Something on the beach!..." Fear is coming into Dr. Conrad's face +and voice.</p> + +<p>"Find something has happened on the beach. But they've got him +out...."</p> + +<p>"Got him out! Got whom out? Speak up, for Heaven's sake!"</p> + +<p>"It might be the gentleman you know, sir, and...." But the speaker's +husband, having left the telling to his wife, unfairly strikes in +here, to have the satisfaction of lightening the communication. "But +<i>he's</i> out safe, sir. You may rely on the yoong lad." He has made it +harder for his wife to tell the rest, and she hesitates. But Dr. +Conrad has stayed for no more. He is going at a run down the sloped +passage that leads to the sea. The boy follows him, and by some +dexterous use of private thoroughfares, known to him, but not to the +doctor, arrives first, and is soon visible ahead, running towards +the scattered groups that line the beach. The man and woman follow +more slowly.</p> + +<p>Few of those who read this, we hope, have ever had to face a shock +so appalling as the one that Conrad Vereker sustained when he came +to know what it was that was being carried up the beach from the +boat that had just been driven stern on to the shingle, as he +emerged to a full view of the sea and the running crowd, thickening +as its last stragglers arrived to meet it. But most of us who are +not young have unhappily had some experience of the sort, and many +will recognise (if we can describe it) the feeling that was his in +excess when a chance bystander—not + +<!-- Page 534 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> +unconcerned, for no one was +that—used in his hearing a phrase that drove the story home to him, +and forced him to understand. "It's the swimming girl from +Lobjoit's, and she's drooned." It was as well, for he had to know. +What did it matter how he became the blank thing standing there, +able to say to itself, "Then Sally is dead," and to attach their +meaning to the words, but not to comprehend why he went on living? +One way of learning the thing that closes over our lives and veils +the sun for all time is as good as another; but how came he to be so +colourlessly calm about it?</p> + +<p>If we could know how each man feels who hears in the felon's dock +the sentence of penal servitude for life, it may be we should find +that Vereker's sense of being for the moment a cold, unexplained +unit in an infinite unfeeling void, was no unusual experience. But +this unit knew mechanically what had happened perfectly well, and +its duty was clear before it. Just half a second for this sickness +to go off, and he would act.</p> + +<p>It was a longer pause than it seemed to him, as all things appeared +to happen quickly in it, somewhat as in a photographic life-picture +when the films are run too quick. At least, that remained his memory +of it. And during that time he stood and wondered why he could not +feel. He thought of her mother and of Fenwick, and said to himself +they were to be pitied more than he; for they were human, and +<i>could</i> feel it—could really know what jewel they had lost—had +hearts to grieve and eyes to weep with. He had nothing—was a stupid +blank! Oh, he had been mistaken about himself and his love: he was a +stone.</p> + +<p>A few moments later than his first sight of that silent +crowd—moments in which the world had changed and the sun had become +a curse; in which he had for some reason—not grief, for he could +not grieve—resolved on death, except in an event he dared not hope +for—he found himself speaking to the men who had borne up the beach +the thing whose germ of life, if it survived, was <i>his</i> only chance +of life hereafter.</p> + +<p>"I am a doctor; let me come." The place they had brought it to was a +timber structure that was held as common property by the +fisher-world, and known as Lloyd's Coffeehouse. It was not a +coffeehouse, but a kind of spontaneous club-room, where the old men +sat and smoked churchwarden pipes, and told each other + +<!-- Page 535 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> +tales of +storm and wreck, and how the news of old sea-battles came to St. +Sennans in their boyhood; of wives made widows for their country's +good, and men all sound of limb when the first gun said "Death!" +across the water, crippled for all time when the last said +"Victory!" and there was silence and the smell of blood. Over the +mantel was an old print of the battle of Camperdown, with +three-deckers in the smoke, flanked by portraits of Rodney and +Nelson. There was a long table down the centre that had been there +since the days of Rodney, and on this was laid what an hour ago was +Sally; what each man present fears to uncover the face of, but less +on his own account than for the sake of the only man who seems +fearless, and lays hands on the cover to remove it; for all knew, or +guessed, what this dead woman might be—might have been—to this +man.</p> + +<p>"I am a doctor; let me come."</p> + +<p>"Are ye sure ye know, young master? Are ye sure, boy?" The speaker, +a very old man, interposes a trembling hand to save Vereker from +what he may not anticipate, perhaps has it in mind to beseech him to +give place to the local doctor, just arriving. But the answer is +merely, "I know." And the hand that uncovers the dead face never +wavers, and then that white thing we see is all there is of +Sally—that coil and tangle of black hair, all mixed with weed and +sea-foam, is the rich mass that was drying in the sun that day she +sat with Fenwick on the beach; those eyes that strain behind the +half-closed eyelids were the merry eyes that looked up from the +water at the boat she dived from two days since; those lips are the +lips the man who stands beside her kissed but yesterday for the +first time. The memory of that kiss is on him now as he wipes the +sea-slime from them and takes the first prompt steps for their +salvation.</p> + +<p>The old Scotch doctor, who came in a moment later, wondered at the +resolute decision and energy Vereker was showing. He had been told +credibly of the circumstances of the case, and gave way on technical +points connected with resuscitation, surrendering views he would +otherwise have contended for about Marshall Hall's and Silvester's +respective systems. Perhaps one reason for this was that +auscultation of the heart convinced him that the case was hopeless, +and he may have reflected that if any other + +<!-- Page 536 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> +method than Dr. +Vereker's was used that gentleman was sure to believe the patient +might have been saved. Better leave him to himself.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>Rosalind returned to her dressing, after Dr. Conrad walked away from +the house, with a feeling—not a logical one—that now she need not +hurry. Why having spoken with him and forwarded him on to look for +Sally and Gerry should make any difference was not at all clear, and +she did not account to herself for it. She accepted it as an +occurrence that put her somehow in touch with the events of the +day—made her a part of what was going on elsewhere. She had felt +lapsed, for the moment, when, waking suddenly to advanced daylight, +she had gone first to her husband's room and then to Sally's, and +found both empty. The few words spoken from her window with her +recently determined son-in-law had switched on her current again, +metaphorically speaking.</p> + +<p>So she took matters easily, and was at rest about her husband, in +spite of the episode of the previous evening—rather, we should have +said, of the small hours of that morning. The fact is, it was her +first sleep she had waked from, an unusually long and sound one +after severe tension, and in the ordinary course of events she would +probably have gone to sleep again. Instead, she had got up at once, +and gone to her husband's room to relieve her mind about him. A +momentary anxiety at finding it empty disappeared when she found +Sally's empty also; but by that time she was effectually waked, and +rang for Mrs. Lobjoit and the hot water.</p> + +<p>If Mrs. Lobjoit, when she appeared with it, had been able to give +particulars of Sally's departure, and to say that she and Mr. +Fenwick had gone out separately, Rosalind would have felt less at +ease about him; but nothing transpired to show that they had not +gone out together. Mrs. Lobjoit's data were all based on the fact +that she found the street door open when she went to do down her +step, and she had finished this job and gone back into the kitchen +by the time Sally followed Fenwick out. Of course, she never came +upstairs to see what rooms were empty; why should she? And as no +reason for inquiry presented itself, the question was never raised +by Rosalind. Sally was + +<!-- Page 537 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> +naturally an earlier bird than herself, and +quite as often as not she would join Gerry in his walk before +breakfast.</p> + +<p>How thankful she felt, now that the revelation was over, that Sally +was within reach to help in calming down the mind that had been so +terribly shaken by it; for all her thoughts were of Gerry; on her +own behalf she felt nothing but contentment. Think what her daily +existence had been! What had she to lose by a complete removal of +the darkness that had shrouded her husband's early life with her—or +rather, what had she not to gain? Now that it had been assured to +her that nothing in the past could make a new rift between them, the +only weight upon her mind was the possible necessity for revealing +to Sally in the end the story of her parentage. What mother, to whom +a like story of her own early days was neither more nor less than a +glimpse into Hell, could have felt otherwise about communicating it +to her child? She felt, too, the old feeling of the difficulty there +would be in making Sally understand. The girl had not chanced across +devildom enough to make her an easy recipient of such a tale.</p> + +<p>Oh, the pleasure with which she recalled his last words of the night +before: "She is <i>my</i> daughter now!" It was the final ratification of +the protest of her life against the "rights" that Law and Usage +grant to technical paternity; rights that can only be abrogated or +ignored by a child's actual parent—its mother—at the cost of +insult and contumely from a world that worships its own folly and +ignores its own gods. Sally was hers—her own—hard as the terms of +her possession had been, and she had assigned a moiety of her rights +in her to the man she loved. What was the fatherhood of blood alone +to set against the one her motherhood had a right to concede, and +had conceded, in response to the spontaneous growth of a father's +love? What claim had devilish cruelty and treachery to any share in +their result—a result that, after all, was the only compensation +possible to their victim?</p> + +<p>We do not make this endeavour to describe Rosalind's frame of mind +with a view to either endorsing or disclaiming her opinions. We +merely record them as those of a woman whose life-story was an +uncommon one; but not without a certain sympathy for the new +definition of paternity their philosophy involves, + +<!-- Page 538 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> +backed by a +feeling that its truth is to some extent acknowledged in the +existing marriage-law of several countries. As a set-off against +this, no woman can have a child entirely her own except by incurring +what are called "social disadvantages." The hare that breaks covert +incurs social disadvantages. A happy turn of events had shielded +Rosalind from the hounds, or they had found better sport elsewhere. +And her child was her own.</p> + +<p>But even as the thought was registered in her mind, that child lay +lifeless; and her husband, stunned and dumb in his despair, dared +not even long that she, too, should know, to share his burden.</p> + +<p>"Those people are taking their time," said she. Not that she was +pressingly anxious for them to come home. It was early still, and +the more Gerry lived in the present the better. Sally and her lover +were far and away the best foreground for the panorama of his mind +just now, and she herself would be quite happy in the middle +distance. There would be time and enough hereafter, when the storm +had subsided, for a revelation of all those vanished chapters of his +life in Canada and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>It was restful to her, after the tension and trial of the night, to +feel that he was happy with Sally and poor Prosy. What did it really +matter how long they dawdled? She could hear in anticipation their +voices and the laughter that would tell her of their coming. In a +very little while it would be a reality, and, after all, the +pleasure of a good symposium over Sally's betrothal was still to +come. She and Gerry and the two principals had not spoken of it +together yet. That would be a real happiness. How seldom it was that +an engagement to marry gave such complete satisfaction to +bystanders! And, after all, <i>they</i> are the ones to be consulted; not +the insignificant bride and bridegroom elect. Perhaps, though, she +was premature in this case. Was there not the Octopus? But then she +remembered with pleasure that Conrad had represented his mother as +phenomenally genial in her attitude towards the new arrangement; as +having, in fact, a claim to be considered not only a bestower of +benign consent, but an accomplice before the fact. Still, Rosalind +felt her own reserves on the subject, although she had always taken +the part of the Octopus on principle when she + +<!-- Page 539 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> +thought Sally had +become too disrespectful towards her. Anyhow, no use to beg and +borrow troubles! Let her dwell on the happiness only that was before +them all. She pictured a variety of homes for Sally in the time to +come, peopling them with beautiful grandchildren—only, mind you, +this was to be many, many years ahead! She could not cast herself +for the part of grandmother while she twined that glorious hair into +its place with hands that for softness and whiteness would have +borne comparison with Sally's own.</p> + +<p>In the old days, before the news of evil travelled fast, the widowed +wife would live for days, weeks, months, unclouded by the knowledge +of her loneliness, rejoicing in the coming hour that was to bring +her wanderer back; and even as her heart laughed to think how now, +at last, the time was drawing near for his return, his heart had +ceased to beat, and, it may be, his bones were already bleaching +where the assassin's knife had left him in the desert; or were +swaying to and fro in perpetual monotonous response to the +ground-swell, in some strange green reflected light of a sea-cavern +no man's eye had ever seen; or buried nameless in a common tomb with +other victims of battle or of plague; or, worst of all, penned in +some dungeon, mad to think of home, waking from dreams of <i>her</i> to +the terror of the intolerable night, its choking heat or deadly +chill. And all those weeks or months the dearth of news would seem +just the chance of a lost letter, no more—a thing that may happen +any day to any of us. And she would live on in content and hope, +jesting even in anticipation of his return.</p> + +<p>Even so Rosalind, happy and undisturbed, dwelt on the days that were +to come for the merpussy and poor Prosy, as she still had chosen to +call him, for her husband and herself; and all the while <i>there</i>, so +near her, was the end of it all, written in letters of death.</p> + +<p>They were taking their time, certainly, those people; so she would +put her hat on and go to meet them. Mrs. Lobjoit wasn't to hurry +breakfast, but wait till they came. All right!</p> + +<p>It looked as if it would rain later, so it was just as well to get +out a little now. Rosalind was glad of the sweet air off the sea, +for the night still hung about her. The tension of it was on her +still, for all that she counted herself so much the better, so much + +<!-- Page 540 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> +the safer, for that interview with Gerry. But oh, what a thing to +think that now he knew <i>her</i> as she had known him from the +beginning! How much they would have to tell each other, when once +they were well in calm water!... Why were those girls running, and +why did that young man on the beach below shout to some one who +followed him, "It's over at the pier"?</p> + +<p>"Is anything the matter?" She asked the question of a very old man, +whom she knew well by sight, who was hurrying his best in the same +direction. But his best was but little, as speed, though it did +credit to his age; for old Simon was said to be in his hundredth +year. Rosalind walked easily beside him as he answered:</p> + +<p>"I oondersta'and, missis, there's been a fall from the pier-head.... +Oh yes, they've getten un out; ye may easy your mind o' that." But, +for all that, Rosalind wasn't sorry her party were up at the hotel. +She had believed them there long enough to have forgotten that she +had no reason for the belief to speak of.</p> + +<p>"You've no idea who it is?"</p> + +<p>"Some do say a lady and a gentleman." Rosalind felt still gladder of +her confidence that Sally and Gerry were out of the way. "'Ary one +of 'em would be bound to drown but for the boats smart and +handy—barring belike a swimmer like your young lady! She's a rare +one, to tell of!"</p> + +<p>"I believe she is. She swam round the Cat Buoy in a worse sea than +this two days ago."</p> + +<p>"And she would, too!" Then the old boy's voice changed as he went +on, garrulous: "But there be seas, missis, no man can swim in. My +fower boys, they were fine swimmers—all fower!"</p> + +<p>"But were they?..." Rosalind did not like to say drowned; but old +Simon took it as spoken.</p> + +<p>"All fower of 'em—fine lads all—put off to the wreck—wreck o' th' +brig Thyrsis, on th' Goodwins—and ne'er a one come back. And I had +the telling of it to their mother. And the youngest, he never was +found; and the others was stone dead ashore, nigh on to the +Foreland. There was none to help. Fifty-three year ago come this +Michaelmas."</p> + +<p>"Is their mother still living?" Rosalind asked, interested. Old + +<!-- Page 541 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> +Simon had got to that stage in which the pain of the past is less +than the pleasure of talking it over. "Died, she did," said he, +almost as though he were unconcerned, "thirty-five year ago—five +year afower ever I married my old missis yander." Rosalind felt less +sympathy. If she were to lose Sally or Gerry, would she ever be able +to talk like this, even if she lived to be ninety-nine? Possibly +yes—only she could not know it now. She felt too curious about what +had happened at the pier to think of going back, and walked on with +old Simon, not answering him much. He seemed quite content to talk.</p> + +<p>She did not trouble herself on the point of her party returning and +not finding her. Ten chances to one they would hear about the +accident, and guess where she had gone. Most likely they would +follow her. Besides, she meant to go back as soon as ever she knew +what had happened.</p> + +<p>Certainly there were a great many people down there round about +Lloyd's Coffeehouse! Had a life been lost? How she hoped not! What a +sad end it would be to such a happy holiday as theirs had been! She +said something to this effect to the old man beside her. His reply +was: "Ye may doubt of it, in my judgment, missis. The rowboats were +not long enough agone for that. Mayhap he'll take a bit of nursing +round, though." But he quickened his pace, and Rosalind was sorry +that a sort of courtesy towards him stood in her way. She would have +liked to go much quicker.</p> + +<p>She could not quite understand the scared look of a girl to whom she +said, "Is it a bad accident? Do you know who it is?" nor why this +girl muttered something under her breath, then got away, nor why so +many eyes, all tearful, should be fixed on <i>her</i>. She asked again of +the woman nearest her, "Do you know who it is?" but the woman +gasped, and became hysterical, making her afraid she had accosted +some anxious relative or near friend, who could not bear to speak of +it. And still all the eyes were fixed upon her. A shudder ran +through her. Could that be pity she saw in them—pity for <i>her</i>?</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, tell me at once! Tell me what this is...."</p> + +<p>Still silence! She could hear through it sobs here and there in the +crowd, and then two women pointed to where an elderly man who looked +like a doctor came from a doorway close by. She + +<!-- Page 542 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> +heard the +hysterical woman break down outright, and her removal by friends, +and then the strong Scotch accent of the doctor-like man making a +too transparent effort towards an encouraging tone.</p> + +<p>"There's nae reason to anteecipate a fatal tairmination, so far. I +wouldna undertake myself to say the seestolic motion of the heart +was...." But he hesitated, with a puzzled look, as Rosalind caught +his arm and hung to it, crying out: "Why do you tell <i>me</i> this? For +God's sake, speak plain! I am stronger than you think."</p> + +<p>His answer came slowly, in an abated voice, but clearly: "Because +they tauld me ye were the girl's mither."</p> + +<p>In the short time that had passed since Rosalind's mind first +admitted an apprehension of evil the worst possibility it had +conceived was that Vereker or her husband was in danger. No +misgiving about Sally had entered it, except so far as a swift +thought followed the fear of mishap to one of them. "How shall Sally +be told of this? When and where will she know?"</p> + +<p>Two of the women caught her as she fell, and carried her at the +Scotch doctor's bidding into a house adjoining, where Fenwick had +been carried in a half-insensible collapse that had followed his +landing from the cobble-boat in which he was sculled ashore.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>"Tell me what has happened. Where is Dr. Vereker?" Rosalind asks the +question of any of the fisher-folk round her as soon as returning +consciousness brings speech. They look at each other, and the woman +the cottage seems to belong to says interrogatively, "The young +doctor-gentleman?" and then answers the last question. He is looking +to the young lady in at the Coffeehouse. But no one says what has +happened. Rosalind looks beseechingly round.</p> + +<p>"Will you not tell me now? Oh, tell me—tell me the whole!"</p> + +<p>"It's such a little we know ourselves, ma'am. But my husband will be +here directly. It was he brought the gentleman ashore...."</p> + +<p>"Where is the gentleman?" Rosalind has caught up the speaker with a +decisive rally. Her natural strength is returning, prompted by +something akin to desperation.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 543 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"We have him in here, ma'am. But he's bad, too! Here's my husband. +Have ye the brandy, Tom?"</p> + +<p>Rosalind struggles to her feet from the little settee they had laid +her on. Her head is swimming, and she is sick, but she says: "Let me +come!" She has gathered this much—that whatever has happened to +Sally, Vereker is there beside her, and the other doctor she knows +of. She can do nothing, and Gerry is close at hand. They let her +come, and the woman and her husband follow. The one or two others go +quietly out; there were too many for the tiny house.</p> + +<p>That is Gerry, she can see, on the trestle-bedstead near the window +with the flowerpots in it. He seems only half conscious, and his +hands and face are cold. She cannot be sure that he has recognised +her. Then she knows she is being spoken to. It is the fisherman's +wife who speaks.</p> + +<p>"We could find no way to get the gentleman's wet garments from him, +but we might make a shift to try again. He's a bit hard to move. Not +too much at once, Tom." Her husband is pouring brandy from his flask +into a mug.</p> + +<p>"Has he had any brandy?"</p> + +<p>"Barely to speak of. Tell the lady, Tom!"</p> + +<p>"No more than the leaving of a flask nigh empty out in my boat. It +did him good, too. He got the speech to tell of the young lady, +else—God help us!—we might have rowed him in, and lost the bit of +water she was under. But we had the luck to find her." It was the +owner of the cobble who spoke.</p> + +<p>"Gerry, drink some of this at once. It's me—Rosey—your wife!" She +is afraid his head may fail, for anything may happen now; but the +brandy the fisherman's wife has handed to her revives him. No one +speaks for awhile, and Rosalind, in the dazed state that so +perversely notes and dwells on some small thing of no importance, +and cannot grasp the great issue of some crisis we are living +through, is keenly aware of the solemn ticking of a high grandfather +clock, and of the name of the maker on its face—"Thomas Locock, +Rochester." She sees it through the door into the front room, and +wonders what the certificate or testimonial in a frame beside it is; +and whether the Bible on the table below it, beside the fat blue jug +with a ship and inscriptions on it, has illustrations and the Stem +of Jesse rendered pictorially. + +<!-- Page 544 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> +Or is it "Pilgrim's Progress," and +no Bible at all? Who or what is she, that can sit and think of this +and that, knowing that a world—her world and her husband's—is at +stake, and that a terrible game is being played to save it, there +within twenty yards of them? If she could only have given active +help! But that she knows is impossible. She knows enough to be +satisfied that all that can be done is being done; that even warmth +and stimulants are useless, perhaps even injurious, till artificial +respiration has done its work. She can recall Sally's voice telling +her of these things. Yes, she is best here beside her husband.</p> + +<p>What is it that he says in a gasping whisper? Can any one tell him +what it is has happened? She cannot—perhaps could not if she +knew—and she does not yet know herself. She repeats her question to +the fisherman and his wife. They look at each other and say young +Ben Tracy was on the pier. Call him in. It is something to know that +what has happened was on the pier. While young Ben is hunted up the +opportunity is taken to make the change of wet clothes for +extemporised dry ones. The half-drowned, all-chilled, and bewildered +man is reviving, and can help, though rigidly and with difficulty. +Then Ben is brought in, appalled and breathless.</p> + +<p>The red-eyed and tear-stained boy is in bad trim for giving +evidence, but under exhortation to speak up and tell the lady he +articulates his story through his sobs. He is young, and can cry. He +goes back to the beginning.</p> + +<p>His father told him to run and hunt round for the life-belt, and he +went to left instead of to right, and missed of seeing it. And he +was at the top o' the ladder, shooat'un aloud to his father, and the +gentleman—he nodded towards Fenwick—was walking down below. Then +the young lady came to the top stair of the ladder. The narrator +threw all his powers of description into the simultaneousness of +Sally's arrival at this point and the gentleman walking straight +over the pier-edge. "And then the young lady she threw away her hat, +and come runnin' down, runnin' down, and threw away her cloak, she +<i>did</i>, and stra'at she went for t' wa'ater!" Young Benjamin's story +and his control over his sobs come to an end at the same time, and +his father, just arrived, takes up the tale.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 545 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I saw there was mishap in it," he says, "by the manner of my young +lad with the lady's hat, and I went direct for the life-belt, for +I'm no swimmer myself. Tom, man, tell the lady I'm no swimmer...." +Tom nodded assent, "... or I might have tried my luck. It was a bad +business that the life-belt was well away at the far end, and I had +no chance to handle it in time. It was the run of the tide took them +out beyond the length of the line, and I was bound to make the best +throw I could, and signal to shore for a boat." He was going to tell +how the only little boat at the pier-end had got water-logged in the +night, when Rosalind interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Did you see them both in the water?"</p> + +<p>"Plain. The young lady swimming behind and keeping the gentleman's +head above the water. I could hear her laughing like, and talking. +Then I sent the belt out, nigh half-way, and she saw it and swam for +it. Then I followed my young lad for to get out a shore-boat."</p> + +<p>It was the thought of the merpussy laughing like and talking in the +cruel sea that was to engulf her that brought a heart-broken choking +moan from her mother. Then, all being told, the fisher-folk glanced +at each other, and by common consent went noiselessly from the room +and lingered whispering outside. They closed the outer door, leaving +the cottage entirely to Rosalind and her husband, and then they two +were alone in the darkened world; and Conrad Vereker, whom they +could not help, was striving—striving against despair—to bring +back life to Sally.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>A terrible strain—an almost killing strain—had been put upon +Fenwick's powers of endurance. Probably the sudden shock of his +immersion, the abrupt suppression of an actual fever almost at the +cost of sanity, had quite as much to do with this as what he was at +first able to grasp of the extent of the disaster. But actual chill +and exposure had contributed their share to the state of +semi-collapse in which Rosalind found him. Had the rower of the +cobble turned in-shore at once, some of this might have been saved; +but that would have been one pair of eyes the fewer, and every boat +was wanted. Now that his powerful constitution had the chance to +reassert itself, his revival went quickly. + +<!-- Page 546 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> +He was awakening to a +world with a black grief in it; but Rosey was there, and had to be +lived for, and think of his debt to her! Think of the great wrong he +did her in that old time that he had only regained the knowledge of +yesterday! Her hand in his gave him strength to speak, and though +his voice was weak it would reach the head that rested on his bosom.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you now, darling, what I remember. I went off feverish +in the night after you left me, and I suppose my brain gave way, in +a sense. I went out early to shake it off, and a sort of delusion +completely got the better of me. I fancied I was back at Bombay, +going on the boat for Australia, and I just stepped off the +pier-edge. Our darling must have been there. Oh, Sally, Sally!..." +He had to pause and wait.</p> + +<p>"Hope is not all dead—not yet, not yet!" Rosalind's voice seemed to +plead against despair.</p> + +<p>"I know, Rosey dearest—not yet. I heard her voice ... oh, her +voice!... call to me to be still, and she would save me. And then I +felt her dear hand ... first my arm, then my head, on each side." +Again his voice was choking, but he recovered. "Then, somehow, the +life-belt was round me—I can't tell how, but she made me hold it so +as to be safe. She was talking and laughing, but I could not hear +much. I know, however, that she said quite suddenly, 'I had better +swim back to the pier. Hold on tight, Jeremiah!'..." He faltered +again before ending. "I don't know why she went, but she said, 'I +must go,' and swam away."</p> + +<p>That was all Fenwick could tell. The explanation came later. It was +that unhappy petticoat-tape! A swimmer's leg-stroke may be +encumbered in a calm sea, or when the only question is of keeping +afloat for awhile. But in moderately rough water, and in a struggle +against a running tide—which makes a certain speed imperative—the +conditions are altered. Sally may have judged wrongly in trying to +return to the pier, but remember—she could not in the first moments +know that the mishap had been seen, and help was near at hand. Least +of all could she estimate the difficulty of swimming in a loosened +encumbered skirt. In our judgment, she would have done better to +remain near the life-belt, even if she, too, had ultimately had to +depend on it. The additional risk for Fenwick would have been small.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 547 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>After he had ended what he had to tell he remained quite still, and +scarcely spoke during the hour that followed. Twice or three times +during that hour Rosalind rose to go out and ask if there was any +change. But, turning to him with her hand on the door, and asking +"Shall I go?" she was always met with "What good will it do? Conrad +will tell us at once," and returned to her place beside him. After +all, what she heard might be the end of Hope. Better stave off +Despair to the last.</p> + +<p>She watched the deliberate hands of the clock going cruelly on, +unfaltering, ready to register in cold blood the moment that should +say that Sally, as they knew her, was no more. Thomas Locock, of +Rochester, had taken care of that. Where would those hands be on +that clock-face when all attempt at resuscitation had to stop? And +why live after it?</p> + +<p>She fancied she could hear, at intervals, Dr. Conrad's voice giving +instructions; and the voice of the Scotsman, less doubtfully, which +always sounded like that of a medical man, for some reason not +defined. As the clock-hand pointed to ten, she heard both quite +near—outside Lloyd's Coffeehouse, evidently. Then she knew why she +had so readily relinquished her purpose of getting at Dr. Conrad for +news. It was the dread of seeing anything of the necessary +manipulation of the body. Could she have helped, it would have been +different. No, if she must look upon her darling dead, let it be +later. But now there was that poor fellow-sufferer within reach, and +she could see him without fear. She went out quickly.</p> + +<p>"Can you come away?"</p> + +<p>"Quite safely for a minute. The others have done it before."</p> + +<p>"Is there a chance?"</p> + +<p>"There is a chance." Dr. Conrad's hand as she grasps it is so cold +that it makes her wonder at the warmth of her own. She is strangely +alive to little things. "Yes—there <i>is</i> a chance," he repeats, more +emphatically, as one who has been contradicted. But the old Scotch +doctor had only said cautiously, "It would be airly times to be +geevin' up hopes," in answer to a half-suggestion of reference to +him in the words just spoken. Rosalind keeps the cold hand that has +taken hers, and the crushing weight of her own misery almost gives +place to her utter pity for + +<!-- Page 548 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> +the ash-white face before her, and the +tale there is in it of a soul in torture.</p> + +<p>"What is the longest time ... the longest time...?" she cannot frame +her question, but both doctors take its meaning at once, repeating +together or between them, "The longest insensibility after +immersion? Many hours."</p> + +<p>"But how many?" Six, certainly, is Dr. Conrad's testimony. But the +Scotchman's conscience plagues him; he must needs be truthful. "Vara +likely you're right," he says. "I couldna have borne testimony +pairsonally to more than two. But vara sairtainly you're more likely +to be right than I." His conscience has a chilling effect.</p> + +<p>Fenwick, a haggard spectacle, has staggered to the door of the +cottage. He wants to get the attention of some one in the crowd that +stands about in silence, never intrusively near. It is the father of +young Benjamin, who comes being summoned.</p> + +<p>"That man you told me about...." Fenwick begins.</p> + +<p>"Peter Burtenshaw?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! How long was he insensible?"</p> + +<p>"Eight hours—rather better! We got him aboard just before eight +bells of the second dog-watch, and it was eight bells of the middle +watch afore he spoke. Safe and sure! Wasn't I on the morning-watch +myself, and beside him four hours of the night before, and turned in +at eight bells? He'll tell you the same tale himself. Peter +Burtenshaw—he's a stevedore now, at the new docks at Southampton." +Much of this was quite unintelligible—ship's time is always a +problem—but it was reassuring, and Rosalind felt grateful to the +speaker, whether what he said was true or not. In that curious frame +of mind that observed the smallest things, she was just aware of the +difficulty in the way of a reference to Peter Burtenshaw at the new +docks at Southampton. Then she felt a qualm of added sickness at +heart as she all but thought, "How that will amuse Sally when I come +to tell it to her!"</p> + +<p>The old Scotchman had to keep an appointment—connected with birth, +not death. "I've geen my pledge to the wench's husband," he said, +and went his way. Rosalind saw him stopped as he walked through the +groups that were lingering silently for a chance of good news; and +guessed that he had none to give, by the + +<!-- Page 549 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> +way his questioners fell +back disappointed. She was conscious that the world was beginning to +reel and swim about her; was half asking herself what could it all +mean—the waiting crowds of fisher-folk speaking in undertones among +themselves; the pitying eyes fixed on her and withdrawn as they met +her own; the fixed pallor and tense speech of the man who held her +hand, then left her to return again to an awful task that had, +surely, something to do with her Sally, there in that cramped +tarred-wood structure close down upon the beach. What did his words +mean: "I must go back; it is best for you to keep away"? Oh, yes; +now she knew, and it was all true. She saw how right he was, but she +read in his eyes the reason why he was so strong to face the terror +that she knew was <i>there</i>—in <i>there</i>! It was that he knew so well +that death would be open to him if defeat was to be the end of the +battle he was fighting. But there should be no panic. Not an inch of +ground should be uncontested.</p> + +<p>Back again in the little cottage with Gerry, but some one had helped +her back. Surely, though, his voice had become his own again as he +said: "We are no use, Rosey darling. We are best here. Conrad knows +what he's about." And there was a rally of real hope, or a bold bid +for it, when his old self spoke in his words: "Why does that solemn +old fool of a Scotch doctor want to put such a bad face on the +matter? Patience, sweetheart, patience!"</p> + +<p>For them there was nothing else. They could hinder, but they could +not help, outside there. Nothing for it now but to count the minutes +as they passed, to feel the cruelty of that inexorable clock in the +stillness; for the minutes passed too quickly. How could it be else, +when each one of them might have heralded a hope and did not; when +each bequeathed its little legacy of despair? But was there need +that each new clock-tick as it came should say, as the last had +said: "Another second has gone of the little hour that is left; +another inch of the space that parts us from the sentence that knows +no respite or reprieve"? Was it not enough that the end must come, +without the throb of that monotonous reminder: "Nearer +still!—nearer still!"</p> + +<p>Neither spoke but a bare word or two, till the eleventh stroke of +the clock, at the hour, left it resonant and angry, and St. Sennans +tower answered from without. Then Rosalind said, "Shall + +<!-- Page 550 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> +I go out +and see, now?" and Fenwick replied, "Do, darling, if you wish to. +But he would tell us at once, if there were anything." She answered, +"Yes, perhaps it's no use," and fell back into silence.</p> + +<p>She was conscious that the crowd outside had increased, in spite of +a fine rain that had followed the overclouding of the morning. She +could hear the voices of other than the fisher-folk—some she +recognised as those of beach acquaintance. That was Mrs. Arkwright, +the mother of Gwenny. And that was Gwenny herself, crying bitterly. +Rosalind knew quite well, though she could hear no words, that +Gwenny was being told that she could not go to Miss Nightingale now. +She half thought she would like to have Gwenny in, to cry on her and +make her perhaps feel less like a granite-block in pain. But, then, +was not Sally a baby of three once? She could remember the pleasure +the dear old Major had at seeing baby in her bath, and how he +squeezed a sponge over her head, and she screwed her eyes up. He had +died in good time, and escaped this inheritance of sorrow. How could +she have told him of it?</p> + +<p>What was she that had outlived him to bear all this? Much, so much, +of her was two dry, burning eyes, each in a ring of pain, that had +forgotten tears and what they meant. How was it that now, when that +Arkwright woman's voice brought back her talk upon the beach, not +four-and-twenty hours since, and her unwelcome stirring of the dead +embers of a burned-out past—how was it that that past, at its +worst, seemed easier to bear than this intolerable <i>now</i>? How had it +come about that a memory of twenty years ago, a memory of how she +had prayed that her unborn baby might die, rather than live to +remind her of that black stain upon the daylight, its father, had +become in the end worse to her, in her heart of hearts, than the +thing that caused it? And then she fell to wondering when it was +that her child first took hold upon her life; first crept into it, +then slowly filled it up. She went back on little incidents of that +early time, asking herself, was it then, or then, I first saw that +she was Sally? She could recall, without adding another pang to her +dull, insensate suffering, the moment when the baby, as the Major +and General Pellew sat playing chess upon the deck, captured the +white king, and sent him flying into the Mediterranean; + +<!-- Page 551 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> +and though +she could not smile now, could know how she would have smiled +another time. Was that white king afloat upon the water still? A +score of little memories of a like sort chased one another as her +mind ran on, all through the childhood and girlhood of their +subject. And now—it was all to end....</p> + +<p>And throughout those years this silent man beside her, this man she +meant to live for still, for all it should be in a darkened +world—this man was ... where? To think of it—in all those years, +no Sally for him! See what she had become to him in so short a +time—such a little hour of life! Think of the waste of it—of what +she might have been! And it was she, the little unconscious thing +herself, that sprang from what had parted them. If she had to face +all the horrors of her life anew for it, would she flinch from one +of them, only to hear that the heart that had stopped its beating +would beat again, that the voice that was still would sound in her +ears once more?</p> + +<p>Another hour! The clock gave out its warning that it meant to +strike, in deadly earnest with its long premonitory roll. Then all +those twelve strokes so quick upon the heels of those that sounded +but now, as it seemed. Another hour from the tale of those still +left but reasonable hope; another hour nearer to despair. The +reverberations died away, and left the cold insensate tick to +measure out the next one, while St. Sennans tower gave its answer as +before.</p> + +<p>"Shall I go now, Gerry, to see?"</p> + +<p>"I say not, darling; but go, if you like." He could not bear to hear +it, if it was to be the death-sentence. So Rosalind still sat on to +the ticking of the clock.</p> + +<p>Her brain and powers of thought were getting numbed. Trivial things +came out of the bygone times, and drew her into dreams—back into +the past again—to give a moment's spurious peace; then forsook her +treacherously to an awakening, each time deadlier than the last. +Each time to ask anew, what could it all mean? Sally dead or +dying—Sally dead or dying! Each time she repeated the awful words +to herself, to try to get a hold she was not sure she had upon their +meaning. Each time she slipped again into a new dream and lost it.</p> + +<p>Back again now, in the old days of her girlhood! Back in that + +<!-- Page 552 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> +little front garden of her mother's house, twenty odd years ago, and +Gerry's hand in hers—the hand she held to now; and Gerry's face +that now, beside her, looked so still and white and heart-broken, +all aglow with life and thoughtless youth and hope. Again she felt +upon her lips his farewell kiss, not to be renewed until ... but at +the thought she shuddered away, horror-stricken, from the nightmare +that any memory must be of what then crossed her life, and robbed +them both of happiness. And then her powers of reason simply reeled +and swam, and her brain throbbed as she caught the thought forming +in it: "Better happiness so lost, and all the misery over again, +than this blow that has come upon us now! Sally dead or dying—Sally +dead or dying!" For what was <i>she</i>, the thing we could not bear to +lose, but the living record, the very outcome, of the poisoned soil +in that field of her life her memory shrank from treading?</p> + +<p>What was that old Scotchman—he seemed to have come back—what was +he saying outside there? Yes, listen! Fenwick starts up, all his +life roused into his face. If only that clock would end that long +unnecessary roll of warning, and strike! But before the +long-deferred single stroke comes to say another hour has passed, he +is up and at the door, with Rosalind clinging to him terrified.</p> + +<p>"What's the news, doctor? Tell it out, man!—never fear." Rosalind +dares not ask; her heart gives a great bound, and stops, and her +teeth chatter and close tight. She could not speak if she tried.</p> + +<p>"I wouldna like to be over-confeedent, Mr. Fenwick, and ye'll +understand I'm only geevin' ye my own eempression...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, quite right—go on...."</p> + +<p>"Vara parteecularly because our young friend Dr. Vereker is +unwulling to commeet himself ... but I should say a +pairceptible...."</p> + +<p>He is interrupted. For with a loud shout Dr. Conrad himself, +dishevelled and ashy-white of face, comes running from the door +opposite. The word he has shouted so loudly he repeats twice; then +turns as though to go back. But he does not reach the door, for he +staggers suddenly, like a man struck by a bullet, and falls heavily, +insensible.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 553 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>There is a movement and a shouting among the scattered groups that +have been waiting, three hours past, as those nearest at hand run to +help and raise him; and the sound of voices and exultation passes +from group to group. For what he shouted was the one word "Breath!" +And Rosalind knew its meaning as her head swam and she heard no +more.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<!-- Page 554 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> +</div> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h2> + +<p class="subhead">WAS IT THE LITTLE GALVANIC BATTERY? THE LAST CHAPTER RETOLD BY THE +PRESS. A PROPER RAILING. BUT THEY <i>WEREN'T</i> DROWNED. WHAT'S THE +FUSS? MASTER CHANCELLORSHIP APPEARS AND VANISHES. ELECTUARY OF +ST. SENNA. AT GEORGIANA TERRACE. A LETTER FROM SALLY. ANOTHER FROM +CONRAD. EVERYTHING VANISHES!</p> + +<p>Professor Sales Wilson, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's papa, was enjoying +himself thoroughly. He was the sole occupant of 260, Ladbroke Grove +Road, servants apart. All his blood-connected household had departed +two days after the musical evening described in <a href="#CHAPTER_XL">Chapter XL.</a>, +and there was nothing that pleased him better than to have London to +himself—that is to say, to himself and five millions of perfect +strangers. He had it now, and could wallow unmolested in Sabellian +researches, and tear the flimsy theories of Bopsius—whose name we +haven't got quite right—to tatters. Indeed, we are not really sure +the researches <i>were</i> Sabellian. But no matter!</p> + +<p>Just at the moment at which we find him, the Professor was not +engaged in any researches at all, unless running one's eye down the +columns of a leading journal, to make sure there is nothing in them, +is a research. That is what he was doing in his library. And he was +also talking to himself—a person from whom he had no reserves or +concealments. What he had to say ran in this wise:</p> + +<p>"H'm!—h'm!—'The Cyclopean Cyclopædia.' Forty volumes in calf. Net +price thirty-five pounds. A digest of human knowledge, past, +present, and probable. With a brief appendix enumerating the things +of which we are still ignorant, and of our future ignorance of which +we are scientifically certain ... h'm! h'm!... not dear at the +price. But stop a bit! 'Until twelve o'clock on Saturday next copies +of the above, with revolving + +<!-- Page 555 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span> +bookcase, can be secured for the low +price of seven pounds ten.'..." This did not seem to increase the +speaker's confidence and he continued, as he wrestled with a +rearrangement of the sheet: "Shiny paper, and every volume weighs a +ton. Very full of matter—everything in it except the thing you want +to know. By-the-bye ... what a singular thing it is, when you come +to think of it, that so many people will sell you a thing worth a +pound for sixpence, who won't give you a shilling outright on any +terms! It must have to do with their unwillingness to encourage +mendicancy. A noble self-denial, prompted by charity organizations! +Hullo!—what's this? 'Heroic rescue from drowning at St. +Sennans-on-Sea.' H'm—h'm—h'm!—can't read all that. But <i>that's</i> +where the married couple went—St. Sennans-on-Sea. The bride +announced her intention yesterday of looking in at five to-day for +tea. So I suppose I shall be disturbed shortly."</p> + +<p>The soliloquist thought it necessary to repeat his last words twice +to convince himself and the atmosphere that his position was one of +grievance. Having done this, and feeling he ought to substantiate +his suggestion that he was just on the point of putting salt on the +tail of an unidentified Samnite, or a finishing touch on the +demolition of Bopsius, he folded his newspaper, which we suspect he +had not been reading candidly from, and resumed his writing.</p> + +<p>Did you ever have a quarter of an hour of absolutely unalloyed +happiness? Probably not, if you have never known the joys of +profound antiquarian erudition, with an unelucidated past behind +you, and inexpensive publication before. The Professor's fifteen +minutes that followed were not only without alloy, but had this +additional zest—that that girl would come bothering in directly, +and he would get his grievance, and work it. And at no serious +expense, for he was really very partial to his daughter, and meant, +<i>au fond de soi</i>, to enjoy her visit. Nevertheless, discipline had +to be maintained, if only for purposes of self-deception, and the +Professor really believed in his own "Humph! I supposed it would be +that," when Lætitia's knock came at the street door.</p> + +<p>"Such a shame to disturb you, papa dear! But you'll have to give me +tea—you said you would."</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 556 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"It isn't five o'clock yet. Well—never mind. Sit down and don't +fidget. I shall have done presently.... No! make yourself useful now +you <i>are</i> here. Get me 'Passeri Picturæ Etruscorum,' volume three, +out of shelf C near the window ... that's right. Very good find for +a young married woman. Now sit down and read the paper—there's +something will interest you. You may ring for tea, only don't talk."</p> + +<p>The Professor then became demonstratively absorbed in the +Sabellians, or Bopsius, or both, and Lætitia acted as instructed, +but without coming on the newspaper-paragraph. She couldn't ask for +a clue after so broad a hint, so she had to be contented with +supposing her father referred to the return of Sir Charles +Penderfield, Bart., as a Home Rule Unionist and Protectionist Free +Trader. Only if it was that, it was the first she had ever known of +her father being aware of the Bart.'s admiration for herself. So she +made the tea, and waited till the pen-scratching stopped, and the +Sabellians or Bopsius were blotted, glanced through, and ratified.</p> + +<p>"There, that'll do for that, I suppose." His tone surrendered the +grievance as an act of liberality, but maintained the principle. +"Well, have we found it?"</p> + +<p>"Found what?"</p> + +<p>"The heroic rescue—at your place—Saint Somebody—Saint +Senanus...."</p> + +<p>"No! Do show me that." Lætitia forms a mental image of a lifeboat +going out to a wreck. How excited Sally must have been!</p> + +<p>"Here, give it me and I'll find it.... Yes—that's right—a big lump +and a little lump. I'm to take less sugar because of gout. Very +good! Oh ... yes ... here we are. 'Heroic Rescue at St. Sennans' ... +just under 'Startling Elopement at Clapham Rise'.... Got it?"</p> + +<p>Lætitia supplied the cup of tea, poured one for herself, and took +the paper from her father without the slightest suspicion of what +was coming. "It will have to wait a minute till I've had some tea," +she said. "I'm as thirsty as I can be. I've been to see my +mother-in-law and Constance"—this was Julius's sister—"off to +Southend. And just fancy, papa; Pag and I played from nine till a +quarter-to-one last night, and he never felt + +<!-- Page 557 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> +it, nor had any +headache nor anything." The topic is so interesting that the unread +paragraph has to wait.</p> + +<p>The Professor cannot think of any form of perversion better than +"Very discreditable to him. I hope you blew him well up?"</p> + +<p>"Now, papa, don't be nonsensical! Do you know, I'm really beginning +to believe Pag's right, and it <i>was</i> the little galvanic battery. +Shouldn't you say so, though, seriously?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes. If there wasn't a big galvanic battery, it must have been +the little one. It stands to reason. But <i>what</i> does my musical +son-in-law think was the little galvanic battery?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, papa, how ridiculous you are! Why, of course, his nerves +going away—as they really <i>have</i> done, you know; and I can't see +any good pretending they haven't. Yesterday was the fourth evening +he hasn't felt them...."</p> + +<p>"Stop a bit! There is a lack of scientific precision in the +structure of your sentences. A young married woman ought really to +be more accurate. Now let's look it over, and do a little +considering. I gather, in the first place, that my son-in-law's +nerves going away was, or were, a little galvanic battery...."</p> + +<p>"Dear papa, don't paradox and catch me out. Just this once, be +reasonable! Think what a glorious thing it would be for us if his +nerves <i>had</i> gone for good. Another cup? Was the last one right?"</p> + +<p>"My position is peculiar. (Yes, the tea was all right.) I find +myself requested to be reasonable, and to embark on a career of +reasonableness by considering the substantial advantages to my +daughter and her husband of the disappearance of his nervous +system...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish you wouldn't! <i>Do</i> be serious...." The Professor looked +at her reflectively as he drank the cup of tea, and it seemed to +dawn on him slowly that his daughter <i>was</i> serious. The fact is, +Tishy was very serious indeed, and was longing for sympathy over a +matter for great elation. She and Julius had been purposely playing +continuously for long hours to test the apparent suspension or +cessation of his nervous affection, and had not so far seen a sign +of a return; but they were dreadfully afraid of counting their +chickens in advance.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 558 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"I noticed the other evening"—the Professor has surrendered, and +become serious—"that Julius wasn't any the worse, and he had played +a long time. What should you do?" Tishy looked inquiringly. "Well, I +mean what steps could be taken if it were...?"</p> + +<p>"If we could trust to it? Oh, no difficulty at all! Any number of +engagements directly."</p> + +<p>"It would please your mother." Tishy cannot help a passing thought +on the oddity of her parents' relations to one another. Even though +he spoke of the Dragon as a connexion of his daughter he was but +little concerned with, the first thought that crossed his mind was a +sort of satisfaction under protest that she would have something to +be pleased about. Tishy wondered whether she and Julius would end up +like that. Of course they wouldn't! What pity people's parents were +so unreasonable!</p> + +<p>"Yes; mamma wouldn't be at all sorry. Fiddlers are not Baronets, but +anything is better than haberdashing. <i>I'm</i> not ashamed of it, you +know." She had subjected herself gratuitously to her own suspicion +that she might be, and resented it.</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her with an amused face; looked down at these +social fads of poor humanity from the height of his Olympus. If he +knew anything about the Unionist Home Ruler's aspirations for +Lætitia, he said nothing. Then he asked a natural question—what +<i>was</i> the little galvanic battery? Tishy gave her account of it, but +before she had done the Professor was thinking about Sabines or +Lucanians. The fact is that Tishy was never at her best with her +father. She was always so anxious to please him that she tumbled +over her own anxiety, and in this present case didn't tell her story +as well as she might have done. He began considering how he could +get back to the shreds of Bopsius, if any were left, and looked at +his watch.</p> + +<p>"Well, that was very funny—very funny!" said he absently. "Now, +don't forget the heroic rescue before you go."</p> + +<p>Tishy perceived the delicate hint, and picked up the paper with "I +declare I was forgetting all about it!" But she had scarcely cast +her eyes on it when she gave a cry. "Oh, papa, papa; it's <i>Sally</i>! +Oh dear!" And then: "Oh dear, oh dear! I can hardly see to make it +out. But I'm sure she's all right! They say so." And kept on trying +to read. Her father did what + +<!-- Page 559 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span> +was, under the circumstances, the best +thing to do—took the paper from her, and as she sank back with a +beating heart and flushed face on the chair she had just risen from +read the paragraph to her as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockcenter"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Heroic Rescue from Drowning at St. Sennans-on-Sea.</span>—Early +this morning, as Mr. Algernon Fenwick, of Shepherd's Bush, at present on +a visit at the old town, was walking on the pier-end, at the point +where there is no rail or rope for the security of the public, his +foot slipped, and he was precipitated into the sea, a height of at +least ten feet. Not being a swimmer, his life was for some minutes +in the greatest danger; but fortunately for him his stepdaughter, +Miss Rosalind Nightingale, whose daring and brilliant feats in +swimming have been for some weeks past the admiration and envy of +all the visitors to the bathing quarter of this most attractive of +south-coast watering-places, was close at hand, and without a +moment's hesitation plunged in to his rescue. Encumbered as she was +by clothing, she was nevertheless able to keep Mr. Fenwick above +water, and ultimately to reach a life-buoy that was thrown from the +pier. Unfortunately, having established Mr. Fenwick in a position of +safety, she thought her best course would be to return to the pier. +She was unable in the end to reach it, and her strength giving way, +she was picked up, after an immersion of more than twenty minutes, +by the boats that put off from the shore. It will readily be +imagined that a scene of great excitement ensued, and that a period +of most painful anxiety followed, for it was not till nearly four +hours afterwards that, thanks to the skill and assiduity of Dr. +Fergus Maccoll, of <span class="smcap">22a</span>, Albion Crescent, assisted by Dr. Vereker, of +London, the young lady showed signs of life. We are happy to say +that the latest bulletins appear to point to a speedy and complete +recovery, with no worse consequences than a bad fright. We +understand that the expediency of placing a proper railing at all +dangerous points on the pier is being made the subject of a +numerously signed petition to the Town Council."</p> +</div> + +<p>"That seems all right," said the Professor. And he said nothing +further, but remained rubbing his shaved surface in a sort of +compromising way—a way that invited or permitted exception to be +taken to his remark.</p> + +<div> +<!-- Page 560 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> +</div> + +<p>"All right? Yes, but—oh, papa, do think what might have happened! +They might both have been drowned."</p> + +<p>"But they weren't!"</p> + +<p>"Of course they weren't! But they <i>might</i> have been."</p> + +<p>"Well, it would have proved that people are best away from the +seaside. Not that any further proof is necessary. Now, good-bye, my +dear; I must get back to my work."</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>That afternoon Julius Bradshaw went on a business mission to +Cornhill, and was detained in the city till past five o'clock. It +was then too late to return to the office, as six was the closing +hour; so he decided on the Twopenny Tube to Lancaster Gate, the +nearest point to home. There was a great shouting of evening papers +round the opening into the bowels of the earth at the corner of the +Bank, and Julius's attention was caught by an unearthly boy with a +strange accent.</p> + +<p>"'Mail and Echo,' third edition, all the latest news for a 'apeny. +Fullest partic'lars in my copies. Alderman froze to death on the +Halps. Shocking neglect of twins. 'Oxton man biles his third wife +alive. Cricket this day—Surrey going strong. More about heroic +rescue from drowning at St. Senna's. Full and ack'rate partic'lars +in my copies only. Catch hold!..." Julius caught hold, and thought +the boy amusing. Conversation followed, during cash settlements.</p> + +<p>"Who's been heroically rescued?"</p> + +<p>"Friend of mine—young lady—fished her governor out—got drownded +over it herself, and was brought to. 'Mail' a 'apeny; torkin' a +penny extra! Another 'apeny." Julius acquiesced, but felt entitled +to more talking.</p> + +<p>"Where was it?"</p> + +<p>"St. Senna's, where they make the lectury—black stuff.... Yes, it +<i>was</i> a friend o' mine, mister, so I tell you, and no lies! Miss +Rosalind Nightingale. I see her in the fog round Piccadilly way.... +No, no lies at all! Told me her name of her own accord, and went +indoors." Julius would have tried to get to the bottom of this if he +had not been so taken aback by it, even at the cost of more pence +for conversation; but by the time he had found that his informant +had certainly read the paragraph, or at least mastered Sally's name +right, the boy had vanished. + +<!-- Page 561 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> +Of course, he was the boy with the gap +in his teeth that she had seen in the fog when Colonel Lund was +dying. We can only hope that his shrewdness and prudence in worldly +matters have since brought him the success they deserve, as his +disappearance was final.</p> + +<p>Even the Twopenny Tube was too slow for Julius Bradshaw, so mad was +he with impatience to get to Georgiana Terrace. When he got there, +and went upstairs two steps at a time, and "I say, Tishy dearest, +look at <i>this</i>!" on his lips, he was met half-way by his young wife, +also extending a newspaper, and "Paggy, just <i>fancy</i> what's +happened! Look at <i>this</i>!"</p> + +<p>They were so wild with excitement that they refused food—at least, +when it took the form of second helpings—and when the banquet was +over Lætitia could do nothing but walk continually about the room +with gleaming eyes and a flushed face waiting furiously for the +post; for she was sure it would bring her a letter from Sally or her +mother. And she was right, for the rush to the street door that +followed the postman's knock resulted firstly in denunciations of an +intransitive letter-box nobody but a fool would ever have tried to +stuff all those into, and secondly in a pounce by Lætitia on Sally's +own handwriting.</p> + +<p>"You may just as well read it upstairs comfortably, Tish," says +Julius, meanly affecting stoicism now that it is perfectly +clear—for the arrival of the letter practically shows it—that +nobody is incapacitated by the accident. "Come along up!"</p> + +<p>"All right!" says his wife. "Why, mine's written in pencil! Who's +yours from?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't opened it yet. Come along. Don't be a goose!" This was a +little cheap stoicism, worth deferring satisfaction of curiosity +three minutes for.</p> + +<p>"Whose handwriting is it?" She goes on devouring, intensely +absorbed, though she speaks.</p> + +<p>"It looks like the doctor's."</p> + +<p>"Of course! You'll see directly.... All right, I'm coming!"</p> + +<p>Take your last look at the Julius Bradshaws, as they settle down +with animated faces to serious perusal of their letters. They may +just as well drink their coffee, though, and Julius will presently +light his cigar for anything we know to the contrary; but we shall +not see it, for when we have transcribed the two letters + +<!-- Page 562 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> +they are +reading we shall lay down our pen, and then, if you want to know any +more about the people in this story, you must inquire of the +originals, all of whom are still living except Dr. Vereker's mother, +who died last year, we believe. Here are the letters:</p> + +<div class="corresp"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">My dearest Tishy</span>,</p> + +<p>"I have a piece of news to tell that will be a great surprise to +you. I am engaged to Conrad Vereker. Perhaps, though, I oughtn't to +say as much as that, because it hasn't gone any farther at present +than me promising not to marry any one else, and as far as I can see +I might have promised any man that.</p> + +<p>"Now, don't write and say you expected it all along, because I +shan't believe you.</p> + +<p>"Of course, tell anybody you like—only I hope they'll all say +that's no concern of theirs. I should be so much obliged to them. +Besides, so very little has transpired to go by that I can't see +exactly what they could either congratulate or twit about. Being +engaged is so very shadowy. Do you remember our dancing-mistress at +school, who had been engaged seven years to a dancing-master, and +then they broke it off by mutual consent, and she married a Creole? +And they'd saved up enough for a school of their own all the time! +However, as long as it's distinctly understood there's to be no +marrying at present, I don't think the arrangement a bad one. Of +course, you'll understand I mean other girls, and the sort of men +they get engaged to. With Prosy it's different; one knows where one +is. Only I shouldn't consider it honourable to jilt Prosy, even for +the sake of remaining single. You see what I mean.</p> + +<p>"The reason of pencil (don't be alarmed!) is that I am writing this +in bed, having been too long in the water. It's to please Prosy, +because my System has had a shake. I <i>am</i> feeling very queer still, +and can't control my thumb to write. I must tell you about it, or +you'll get the story somewhere else and be frightened.</p> + +<p>"It was all Jeremiah's fault, and I really can't think what he was +doing. He admits that he was seedy, and had had a bad night. Anyhow, +it was like this: I followed him down to the pier very early before +breakfast, and you remember where the man + +<!-- Page 563 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span> +was fishing and caught +nothing that day? Well, what does Jeremiah do but just walk plump +over the edge. I had all but got to him, by good luck, and of course +I went straight for him and caught him before he sank. I induced him +not to kick and flounder, and got him inside a life-belt they threw +from the pier, and then I settled to leave him alone and swim to the +steps, because you've no idea how I felt my clothes, and it would +have been all right, only a horrible heavy petticoat got loose and +demoralised me. I don't know how it happened, but I got all wrong +somehow, and a breaker caught me. <i>Don't get drowned</i>, Tishy; or, if +you do, <i>don't be revived again</i>! I don't know which is worst, but I +think reviving. I can't write about it. I'll tell you when I come +back.</p> + +<p>"They won't tell me how long I was coming to, but it must have been +much longer than I thought, when one comes to think of it. Only I +can't tell, because when poor dear Prosy had got me +to<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>—down +at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, where old Simon sits all day—and I had been +wrapped up in what I heard a Scotchman call 'weel-warmed blawnkets,' +and brought home in a closed fly from Padlock's livery stables, I +went off sound asleep with my fingers and toes tingling, and never +knew the time nor anything. (Continuation bit.) This is being +written, to tell you the truth, in the small hours of the morning, +in secrecy with a guttering candle. It seems to have been really +quite a terrible alarm to poor darling mother and Jeremiah, and much +about the same to my medical adviser, who resuscitated me on +Marshall Hall's system, followed by Silvester's, and finally opened +a vein. And there was I alive all the time, and not grateful to +Prosy at all, I can tell you, for bringing me to. I have requested +not to be brought to next time. The oddity of it all was +indescribable. And there, now I come to think of it, I've never so +much as seen the Octopus since Prosy and I got engaged. I shall have +to go round as soon as I'm up. (Later continuation bit—after +breakfast.) Do you know, it makes me quite miserable to think what +an anxiety I've been to all of them! Mother and J. can't take their +eyes off me, and look quite wasted and resigned. And poor dear +Prosy! How ever shall I make it up to him? Do you know, + +<!-- Page 564 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> +as soon as +it was known I was to,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> the dear fellow actually tumbled down +insensible! I had no idea of the turn-out there's been until just +now, when mother and Jeremiah confessed up. Just fancy it! Now I +must shut up to catch the post.</p> + +<p class="center"> +"Your ever affect. friend, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +"<span class="smcap">Sally</span>." +</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Part +of a verb to <i>get to</i>, or <i>bring to</i>. Not very intelligible! +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> See +<a href="#Footnote_A_1">note</a>, p. 563. +</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="corresp"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Bradshaw</span>,</p> + +<p>"I am so very much afraid you and your wife may be alarmed by +hearing of the events of this morning—possibly by a +press-paragraph, for these things get about—that I think it best to +send you a line to say that, though we have all had a terrible time +of anxiety, no further disastrous consequences need be anticipated. +Briefly, the affair may be stated thus:</p> + +<p>"Fenwick and Miss Nightingale were on the pier early this morning, +and from some unexplained false step F. fell from the lower stage +into the water. Miss N. immediately plunged in to his rescue, and +brought him in safety to a life-buoy that was thrown from the pier. +It seemed that she then started to swim back, being satisfied of his +safety till other help came, but got entangled with her clothes and +went under. She was brought ashore insensible, and remained so +nearly four hours. For a long time I was almost without hope, but we +persevered against every discouragement, with complete final +success. I am a good deal more afraid now of the effect of the shock +on Mrs. Fenwick and her husband than for anything that may happen to +Miss N., whose buoyancy of constitution is most remarkable. You will +guess that I had rather a rough time (the news came rather suddenly +to me), and all the more (but I know you will be glad to hear this) +that Miss N. and your humble servant had only just entered on an +engagement to be married at some date hereafter not specified. I am +ashamed to say I showed weakness (but not till I was sure the lungs +were acting naturally), and had to be revived with stimulants! I am +all right now, and, do you know, I really believe my mother will be +all the better for it; for when she heard what had happened, she +actually got up and <i>ran</i>—yes, ran—to Lloyd's Coffeehouse (you +remember it?), where I was just coming round, and had the +satisfaction of telling her the news. I cannot help suspecting that +her case may have been wrongly diagnosed, and + +<!-- Page 565 --> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span> +that the splanchnic +ganglion and solar plexus are really the seat of the evil. If so, +the treatment has been entirely at fault.</p> + +<p>"I shall most likely be back to-morrow, so keep your congrats. for +me, old chap. No time for a letter. Love from us all to yourself and +Mrs. J. B.</p> + +<p class="center"> +"Yours ever, +</p> +<p class="right"> +"<span class="smcap">Conrad Vereker</span>. +</p> + +<p>"P.S.—I reopen this (which I wrote late last night) to say that +Miss N., so far from having acquired a horror of the water (as is +usual in such cases), talks of 'swimming over the ground' if the +weather clears. I fear she is incorrigible."</p> +</div> + +<hr class="bigspacer" /> + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="bbox"> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By WILLIAM DE MORGAN</span></h3> + +<h4>JOSEPH VANCE</h4> + +<p>A novel of life near London in the 50's. $1.75.</p> + +<p class="size90">"The best thing in fiction since Mr. Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must +take its place, by virtue of its tenderness and pathos, its wit and +humor, its love of human kind, and its virile characterization, as +the first great English novel that has appeared in the twentieth +century."—<span class="smcap">Lewis Melville</span> in +<i>New York Times Saturday Review</i>.</p> + +<p class="size90">"If the reader likes both 'David Copperfield' and 'Peter Ibbetson' +he can find the two books in this one."—<i>The Independent.</i></p> + +<h4>ALICE-FOR-SHORT</h4> + +<p>The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends and +family, with some decidedly dramatic happenings. $1.75.</p> + +<p class="size90">"Really worth reading and praising.... If any writer of the present +era is read a half century hence, a quarter century, or even a +decade, that writer is William De Morgan."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"It is the Victorian age itself that speaks in these rich, +interesting, overcrowded books.... Everywhere are wit, learning and +scholarship.... Will be remembered as Dickens's novels are +remembered."—<i>Springfield Republican.</i></p> + +<div class="right size110"> +<div class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</div> +<span style="float: left;">PUBLISHERS</span> NEW YORK +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="advert"> + +<h4>WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S SOMEHOW GOOD</h4> + +<p>After years of separation from his wife, the hero, during a complete +suspension of memory and loss of identity, accidentally finds +shelter in her home. This situation seems very simple, but the +developments are far from simple, and form a story of complicated +motives and experiences which holds the reader closely.</p> + +<p>An almost grown-up daughter, ignorant of the situation, heightens +the tension of the plot, and furnishes her share of two charming +stories of young love.</p> + +<p>"Somehow Good" is, in the unanimous opinion of the publishers' +readers, an advance upon anything of Mr. De Morgan's yet publisht. +$1.75.</p> + +<h4>WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S ALICE-FOR-SHORT</h4> + +<p>The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends and +family, with some decidedly dramatic happenings. Sixth printing. +$1.75.</p> + +<p class="size90">"'Joseph Vance' was far and away the best novel of the year, and of +many years.... Mr. De Morgan's second novel ... proves to be no less +remarkable, and equally productive of almost unalloyed delight.... +The reader ... is hereby warned that if he skims 'Alice-for-Short' +it will be to his own serious loss.... A remarkable example of the +art of fiction at its noblest."—<i>Dial.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"Really worth reading and praising ... will be hailed as a +masterpiece. If any writer of the present era is read a half century +hence, a quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William +De Morgan."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<h4>WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE</h4> + +<p>A novel of life near London in the 50's. Sixth printing. $1.75.</p> + +<p class="size90">"The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr. +Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place, by virtue of its +tenderness and pathos, its wit and humor, its love of human kind, +and its virile characterization, as the first great English novel +that has appeared in the twentieth century."—<span class="smcap">Lewis Melville</span> +in <i>New York Times Saturday Review</i>.</p> + +<p class="size90">"A perfect piece of writing."—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p> + +<h4>MAY SINCLAIR'S THE HELPMATE</h4> + +<p>A story of married life. Third printing. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="size90">"An advance upon 'The Divine Fire.'"—<i>London Times.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"The one novel on the divorce question."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"A noteworthy book.... There are things said in these pages, and +said very plainly, which need to be said, which are rarely enough +said—almost never so well said. The book contains unforgettable +scenes, persons, phrases, and such a picture of the hardness of a +good woman as exists nowhere else in our literature."—<i>New York +Times Saturday Review.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"Masterly ... artistic to the core."—<i>Boston Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"No criticism of trifles can leave in doubt the great distinction of +her craftsmanship. Very certainly she must have made her reputation +by this book, if it had not been already won."—<i>Punch</i> (London).</p> + +<h4>MAY SINCLAIR'S THE DIVINE FIRE</h4> + +<p>A story of a London poet. 13th printing. $1.50.</p> + +<p class="size90">"In all our new fiction I have found nothing worthy to compare with +'The Divine Fire.'"—<span class="smcap">Mary Moss</span> in +<i>The Atlantic Monthly.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"A full-length study of the poetic temperament, framed in a varied +and curiously interesting environment, and drawn with a firmness of +hand that excites one's admiration.... Moreover, a real distinction +of style, besides being of absorbing interest from cover to +cover."—<i>Dial.</i></p> + +<p class="size90">"I find her book the most remarkable that I have read for many +years."—<span class="smcap">Owen Seaman</span> in <i>Punch</i> (London).</p> + +<div class="right"><span style="float: left;"><b>MAY SINCLAIR'S THE TYSONS</b></span> 4th printing. $1.50</div> + +<p class="size90">"Maintains a clinging grip upon the mind and senses, compelling one +to acknowledge the author's genius."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p> + +<div class="right"><span style="float: left;"><b>MAY SINCLAIR'S SUPERSEDED</b></span> 2nd printing. $1.25</div> + +<p class="size90">"Makes one wonder if in future years the quiet little English woman +may not be recognized as a new Jane Austen."—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> + +<div class="right"><span style="float: left;"><b>MAY SINCLAIR'S AUDREY CRAVEN</b></span> 2nd printing. $1.50</div> + +<p class="size90">"It ranks high in originality, interest and power.... Audrey is a +distinct creation."—<i>Times Review.</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="size105">⁂</span> +<span class="size90">If the reader will send his name and address the publisher +will send, from time to time, information regarding their new books.</span></p> + +<div class="right"> +<div class="center size110 gesperrt">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</div> +<span style="float: left;">PUBLISHERS</span> NEW YORK +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h3>"THE RETURN OF THE ESSAY"</h3> + +<h4>OVER AGAINST GREEN PEAK</h4> + +<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Miss Zephine Humphrey</span></p> + +<p>The homely experiences of a bright young woman and her Aunt Susan, +not to mention the "hired girl," in New England country life. $1.25 +net; by mail, $1.33.</p> + +<p class="size90">"The obvious friendliness of the little book was immediately +disarming. It is leisurely, restful, delightful. Throughout runs a +vein of gentle humor, of spontaneity, of unaffected enthusiasm, of a +spirit keenly alive to beauty and eager to share its +delights."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p> + +<h4>COMMENTS OF BAGSHOT</h4> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">J. A. Spender</span>, editor of "The Westminster Gazette." +$1.25 net; by mail, $1.33.</p> + +<p>Delightful comments upon a great range of subjects, including +"Friendship," "Bores," "The Eleventh-Hour Man," "Shyness," "Wealth," +"Poverty," "The Needy and the Greedy," "Women's Morality," etc.</p> + +<p class="size90"><i>The Spectator</i> (London)—"While affording the easiest of reading, +nevertheless touches deep issues deeply and fine issues finely. Not +only thinks himself, but makes you think ... wise and witty.... +Whether dealing with death and immortality, or riches and Socialism, +he always contrives to be pungent and interesting and yet urbane, +for there is no attempt either at flashy cynicism or cheap +epigram.... We advise our readers to read carefully the admirable +passage about Socialism and Bagshot's defence of Aristotle's +'magnificent man.'"</p> + +<h4>WORDS TO THE WISE—AND OTHERS</h4> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">Miss Ellen Burns Sherman</span>. $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60.</p> + +<p>The Root and Foliage of Style—When Steel Strikes Punk—Our Kin and +Others—At the End of the Rainbow—Modern Letter Writing, with +various actual examples—Our Comédie Humaine—The Slain That Are Not +Numbered.</p> + +<p class="size90"><i>Boston Transcript</i>—"A freshness and piquancy wholly delightful.... +Opens fresh doors into delightful thoughts and fancies."</p> + +<p class="size90"><i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>—"Some of these essays are among the best +in the English language."</p> + +<p class="size90"><i>Chicago Record-Herald</i>—"Considered in connection with countless +other excellent works of the crowded literary season it resembles +'an oasis green in deserts dry.'"</p> + +<h4>TAPER LIGHTS</h4> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">Miss Ellen Burns Sherman</span>. $1.25 net; by mail, $1.34.</p> + +<p class="size90"><i>Springfield Republican</i>—"The first satisfactory stopping-place is +the last page.... A second and even a third reading is pretty likely +to end at the same place."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<h3>FIVE DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES</h3> + +<h4>POEMS FOR TRAVELERS</h4> + +<p>Compiled by <span class="smcap">Mary R. J. DuBois</span>. 16mo.</p> + +<p>Covers France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece in +some three hundred poems (nearly one-third of them by Americans) +from about one hundred and thirty poets. All but some forty of these +poems were originally written in English.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The three following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible +covers and pictured cover linings. 16mo. Each, cloth, $1.50; +leather, $2.50.</p> + +<h4>THE POETIC OLD WORLD</h4> + +<p>Compiled by <span class="smcap">Miss L. H. Humphrey</span>.</p> + +<p>Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium and the British Isles, in +some two hundred poems from about ninety poets. Some thirty, not +originally written in English, are given in both the original and +the best available translation.</p> + +<h4>THE OPEN ROAD</h4> + +<p>A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>.</p> + +<p>Some 125 poems from over 60 authors, including Fitzgerald, Shelley, +Shakespeare, Kenneth Grahame, Stevenson, Whitman, Browning, Keats, +Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, William Morris, Maurice +Hewlett, Isaak Walton, William Barnes, Herrick, Dobson, Lamb, +Milton, Whittier, etc., etc.</p> + +<p class="size90">"A very charming book from cover to cover."—<i>Dial.</i></p> + +<h4>THE FRIENDLY TOWN</h4> + +<p>A little book for the urbane, compiled by <span class="smcap">E. V. Lucas</span>.</p> + +<p>Over 200 selections in verse and prose from 100 authors, including: +James R. Lowell, Burroughs, Herrick, Thackeray, Scott, Vaughn, +Milton, Cowley, Browning, Stevenson, Henley, Longfellow, Keats, +Swift, Meredith, Lamb, Lang, Dobson, Fitzgerald, Pepys, Addison, +Kemble, Boswell, Holmes, Walpole, and Lovelace.</p> + +<p class="size90">"Would have delighted Charles Lamb."—<i>The Nation.</i></p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<h4>A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN</h4> + +<p>Over 200 poems representing some 80 authors. Compiled by <span class="smcap">E. V. +Lucas</span>. With decorations by <span class="smcap">F. D. Bedford</span>. <i>Revised edition</i>. $2.00. +Library edition, $1.00 net.</p> + +<p class="size90">"We know of no other anthology for children so complete and well +arranged."—<i>Critic.</i></p> + +<div> +<table summary="advertisement footer" width="100%" > +<tr> +<td class="left"><span class="size115">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</span></td> +<td class="right"><span class="size75">PUBLISHERS<br />NEW YORK</span></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +</div> <!-- end advertisements section --> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Note</h3> + +<p>This ebook retains the spelling variations of the original text.</p> + +<p>Advertisements from the front of the original text have been moved to +the back of this ebook. Ellipses have been standardized.</p> + +<p>The following typographical corrections have been made to this text:</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="tntable" summary="Transcriber's Note"> + +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_iii">Table of Contents</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed CONRADE to CONRAD (CONRAD VEREKER'S)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_98">Page 98</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed heathrug to hearthrug (side of the hearthrug)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_110">Page 110</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed things to thing (this sort of thing)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_119">Page 119</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed Sallikin to Sallykin (My Sallykin has been)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_132">Page 132</a>:</td><td class="col2">Removed duplicate word 'to' (one word to save us)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_169">Page 169</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed Rosy to Rosey (Rosey had found a guardian)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_188">Page 188</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed use to us (both of us drowned)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_242">Page 242</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed Simly to Simply (Simply this: to show you)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_270">Page 270</a>:</td><td class="col2">Added missing single-quote (to come hisself.')</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_281">Page 281</a>:</td><td class="col2">Added missing word 'on' (Sally was on a stairflight)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_304">Page 304</a>:</td><td class="col2">Removed duplicate word 'together' (talk together earnestly)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_342">Page 342</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed you to your (promise your mother)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_382">Page 382</a>:</td><td class="col2">Added missing period (recollection of B.C.)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_383">Page 383</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed tan-laden to tar-laden (blowing the tar-laden)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_399">Page 399</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed explantory to explanatory (self-explanatory colloquy)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_413">Page 413</a>:</td><td class="col2">Added missing close-quotes ("Not?—not at all?")</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_426">Page 426</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed Rosanlind to Rosalind (breathing-space for Rosalind)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_433">Page 433</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed bendictions to benedictions (bed, with benedictions)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_437">Page 437</a>:</td><td class="col2">Added missing close-quotes ("But it's awful!")</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_449">Page 449</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed same to some (Had some flavour)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_459">Page 459</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed suprise to surprise (surprise-tactics)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_471">Page 471</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed lighting-flash to lightning-flash (decisive lightning-flash)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_476">Page 476</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed he to be (be determined by either landlord)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_491">Page 491</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed elasped to elapsed (his time had elapsed)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_494">Page 494</a>:</td><td class="col2">Removed extraneous close-quotes (trust to anything.)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_500">Page 500</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed skirits to skirts (muslin skirts)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_505">Page 505</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed Kruetzkammer to Kreutzkammer (Kreutzkammer—he's Diedrich)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_520">Page 520</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed new to knew (she well knew)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1"><a href="#Page_559">Page 559</a>:</td><td class="col2">Changed recue to rescue (plunged in to his rescue)</td></tr> + +</table> +</div> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Somehow Good, by William de Morgan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMEHOW GOOD *** + +***** This file should be named 28345-h.htm or 28345-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/4/28345/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, C. 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