diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:04:45 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:04:45 -0700 |
| commit | 2c76eb6318c6e2160d09bb145a4ef492deff2196 (patch) | |
| tree | 331f7d28fdf7a7c5529313a716533e3af63ccdbf /35920-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '35920-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/35920-h.htm | 8551 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-004.jpg | bin | 0 -> 94782 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-092.jpg | bin | 0 -> 71484 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-103.jpg | bin | 0 -> 93686 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-149.jpg | bin | 0 -> 96698 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-177.jpg | bin | 0 -> 80727 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-189.jpg | bin | 0 -> 80072 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-206.jpg | bin | 0 -> 84940 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/illus-239.jpg | bin | 0 -> 93315 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 35920-h/images/logo.png | bin | 0 -> 2567 bytes |
10 files changed, 8551 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/35920-h/35920-h.htm b/35920-h/35920-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2acbc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/35920-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8551 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sea Lady, by H. G. Wells. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h1 {line-height: 180%; margin-top: 3em;} +h2 {line-height: 130%;} +h3 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.title { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.4; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 3em; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr.l1 {width: 65%; margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 4em;} +hr.l2 {width: 20%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +td {padding-top: .7em;} +td.col1 {text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} +td.col2 {text-align: left; padding-right: 1em; vertical-align: top; + display: block; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +td.col3 {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} +.rght {float: right; padding-left: 3em;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 94%; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: right; + color: gray; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; font-size: small;} + +.news {text-align: center; line-height: 150%; font-size: 110%; + word-spacing: .5em; letter-spacing: .1em; + margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +.r1 {margin-top: 1em;} +.r6 {margin-top: 6em;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.tnote { + border: dashed 1px; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + font-size: 90%; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea Lady, by Herbert George Wells + +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: The Sea Lady + +Author: Herbert George Wells + +Illustrator: Lewis Baumer + +Release Date: April 20, 2011 [EBook #35920] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + + +<h1>THE SEA LADY</h1> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-004.jpg" width="400" height="486" alt="“Am I doing it right?” asked the Sea Lady." title="" /> +<span class="caption">“Am I doing it right?” asked the Sea Lady.</span><br /><br /> +<span class="caption rght"><small>(See page <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.)</small></span> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + + +<h1>THE SEA LADY</h1> + +<p class="title">BY<br /> + +<big>H. G. WELLS</big></p> + +<p class="title"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo.png" width="66" height="80" alt="logo" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="title">NEW YORK<br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +<small>1902</small></p> +<hr class="l2"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="title"><small><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1902</small><br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> + +<p class="title"><i><small>Published September, 1902</small></i></p> + +<p class="title"><small>Copyright 1901 by H. G. Wells</small></p> +<hr class="l2"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td class="col1"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td class="col2"> </td><td class="col3"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">I.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">The coming of the Sea Lady</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">II.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">Some first impressions</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">III.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">The episode of the various journalists</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">IV.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">The quality of Parker</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">V.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">The absence and return of Mr. Harry +Chatteris</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">VI.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">Symptomatic</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">VII.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">The crisis</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col1">VIII.</td><td class="col2">—<span class="smcap">Moonshine triumphant</span></td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> +<hr class="l2"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td class="col2"> </td><td class="col3"><small>FACING<br /> PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">“Am I doing it right?” asked the Sea Lady<div class="rght"><a href="#Page_ii"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></div></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">“Stuff that the public won’t believe aren’t facts”</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">She positively and quietly settled down with the Buntings</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_91">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">A little group about the Sea Lady’s bath chair</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">“Why not?”</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">The waiter retires amazed</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_171">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">They seemed never to do anything but blow and +sigh and rustle papers</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_181">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="col2">Adjusting the folds of his blanket to a greater +dignity</td><td class="col3"><a href="#Page_217">216</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + +<h1>THE SEA LADY</h1> + + +<hr class="l2"/> +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE FIRST.</small><br /> + +THE COMING OF THE SEA LADY</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Such previous landings of mermaids +as have left a record, have all a flavour of +doubt. Even the very circumstantial account +of that Bruges Sea Lady, who was +so clever at fancy work, gives occasion to +the sceptic. I must confess that I was +absolutely incredulous of such things until +a year ago. But now, face to face with +indisputable facts in my own immediate +neighbourhood, and with my own second +cousin Melville (of Seaton Carew) as the +chief witness to the story, I see these old +legends in a very different light. Yet so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +many people concerned themselves with +the hushing up of this affair, that, but for +my sedulous enquiries, I am certain it +would have become as doubtful as those +older legends in a couple of score of +years. Even now to many minds——</p> + +<p>The difficulties in the way of the hushing-up +process were no doubt exceptionally +great in this case, and that they did +contrive to do so much, seems to show +just how strong are the motives for secrecy +in all such cases. There is certainly no +remoteness nor obscurity about the scene +of these events. They began upon the +beach just east of Sandgate Castle, towards +Folkestone, and they ended on the beach +near Folkestone pier not two miles away. +The beginning was in broad daylight on +a bright blue day in August and in full +sight of the windows of half a dozen +houses. At first sight this alone is sufficient +to make the popular want of information<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +almost incredible. But of that +you may think differently later.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randolph Bunting’s two charming +daughters were bathing at the time in +company with their guest, Miss Mabel +Glendower. It is from the latter lady +chiefly, and from Mrs. Bunting, that I +have pieced together the precise circumstances +of the Sea Lady’s arrival. From +Miss Glendower, the elder of two Glendower +girls, for all that she is a principal +in almost all that follows, I have obtained, +and have sought to obtain, no information +whatever. There is the question of the +lady’s feelings—and in this case I gather +they are of a peculiarly complex sort. +Quite naturally they would be. At any +rate, the natural ruthlessness of the literary +calling has failed me. I have not +ventured to touch them.…</p> + +<p>The villa residences to the east of +Sandgate Castle, you must understand, are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +particularly lucky in having gardens that +run right down to the beach. There is +no intervening esplanade or road or path +such as cuts off ninety-nine out of the +hundred of houses that face the sea. As +you look down on them from the western +end of the Leas, you see them crowding +the very margin. And as a great number +of high groins stand out from the shore +along this piece of coast, the beach is +practically cut off and made private except +at very low water, when people can get +around the ends of the groins. These +houses are consequently highly desirable +during the bathing season, and it is the +custom of many of their occupiers to let +them furnished during the summer to persons +of fashion and affluence.</p> + +<p>The Randolph Buntings were such +persons—indisputably. It is true of course +that they were not Aristocrats, or indeed +what an unpaid herald would freely call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +“gentle.” They had no right to any sort +of arms. But then, as Mrs. Bunting would +sometimes remark, they made no pretence +of that sort; they were quite free (as +indeed everybody is nowadays) from snobbery. +They were simple homely Buntings—Randolph +Buntings—“good people” +as the saying is—of a widely diffused +Hampshire stock addicted to brewing, +and whether a suitably remunerated herald +could or could not have proved them +“gentle” there can be no doubt that Mrs. +Bunting was quite justified in taking in +the <cite>Gentlewoman</cite>, and that Mr. Bunting +and Fred were sedulous gentlemen, and +that all their ways and thoughts were +delicate and nice. And they had staying +with them the two Miss Glendowers, to +whom Mrs. Bunting had been something +of a mother, ever since Mrs. Glendower’s +death.</p> + +<p>The two Miss Glendowers were half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +sisters, and gentle beyond dispute, a +county family race that had only for a generation +stooped to trade, and risen at once +Antæus-like, refreshed and enriched. The +elder, Adeline, was the rich one—the +heiress, with the commercial blood in her +veins. She was really very rich, and she +had dark hair and grey eyes and serious +views, and when her father died, which he +did a little before her step-mother, she had +only the later portion of her later youth +left to her. She was nearly seven-and-twenty. +She had sacrificed her earlier +youth to her father’s infirmity of temper +in a way that had always reminded her of +the girlhood of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. +But after his departure for a sphere +where his temper has no doubt a wider +scope—for what is this world for if it is +not for the Formation of Character?—she +had come out strongly. It became evident +she had always had a mind, and a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +active and capable one, an accumulated +fund of energy and much ambition. She +had bloomed into a clear and critical socialism, +and she had blossomed at public +meetings; and now she was engaged to +that really very brilliant and promising +but rather extravagant and romantic person, +Harry Chatteris, the nephew of an +earl and the hero of a scandal, and quite a +possible Liberal candidate for the Hythe +division of Kent. At least this last matter +was under discussion and he was about, +and Miss Glendower liked to feel she was +supporting him by being about too, and +that was chiefly why the Buntings had +taken a house in Sandgate for the summer. +Sometimes he would come and stay +a night or so with them, sometimes he +would be off upon affairs, for he was +known to be a very versatile, brilliant, first-class +political young man—and Hythe +very lucky to have a bid for him, all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +things considered. And Fred Bunting +was engaged to Miss Glendower’s less distinguished, +much less wealthy, seventeen-year +old and possibly altogether more ordinary +half-sister, Mabel Glendower, who +had discerned long since when they were +at school together that it wasn’t any good +trying to be clear when Adeline was about.</p> + +<p>The Buntings did not bathe “mixed,” +a thing indeed that was still only very +doubtfully decent in 1898, but Mr. Randolph +Bunting and his son Fred came +down to the beach with them frankly instead +of hiding away or going for a walk +according to the older fashion. (This, notwithstanding +that Miss Mabel Glendower, +Fred’s <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancée</i> to boot, was of the bathing +party.) They formed a little procession +down under the evergreen oaks in the garden +and down the ladder and so to the +sea’s margin.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting went first, looking as it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +were for Peeping Tom with her glasses, +and Miss Glendower, who never bathed +because it made her feel undignified, went +with her—wearing one of those simple, +costly “art” morning costumes Socialists +affect. Behind this protecting van came, +one by one, the three girls, in their +beautiful Parisian bathing dresses and +headdresses—though these were of course +completely muffled up in huge hooded +gowns of towelling—and wearing of course +stockings and shoes—they bathed in stockings +and shoes. Then came Mrs. Bunting’s +maid and the second housemaid and +the maid the Glendower girls had brought, +carrying towels, and then at a little interval +the two men carrying ropes and things. +(Mrs. Bunting always put a rope around +each of her daughters before ever they +put a foot in the water and held it until +they were safely out again. But Mabel +Glendower would not have a rope.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> + +<p>Where the garden ends and the beach +begins Miss Glendower turned aside and +sat down on the green iron seat under the +evergreen oak, and having found her place +in “Sir George Tressady”—a book of +which she was naturally enough at that +time inordinately fond—sat watching the +others go on down the beach. There they +were a very bright and very pleasant group +of prosperous animated people upon the +sunlit beach, and beyond them in streaks +of grey and purple, and altogether calm +save for a pattern of dainty little wavelets, +was that ancient mother of surprises, +the Sea.</p> + +<p>As soon as they reached the high-water +mark where it is no longer indecent to be +clad merely in a bathing dress, each of the +young ladies handed her attendant her +wrap, and after a little fun and laughter +Mrs. Bunting looked carefully to see if +there were any jelly fish, and then they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +went in. And after a minute or so, it +seems Betty, the elder Miss Bunting, +stopped splashing and looked, and then +they all looked, and there, about thirty +yards away was the Sea Lady’s head, as if +she were swimming back to land.</p> + +<p>Naturally they concluded that she must +be a neighbour from one of the adjacent +houses. They were a little surprised not +to have noticed her going down into the +water, but beyond that her apparition had +no shadow of wonder for them. They +made the furtive penetrating observations +usual in such cases. They could see that +she was swimming very gracefully and +that she had a lovely face and very beautiful +arms, but they could not see her +wonderful golden hair because all that was +hidden in a fashionable Phrygian bathing +cap, picked up—as she afterwards admitted +to my second cousin—some nights +before upon a Norman <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">plage</i>. Nor could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +they see her lovely shoulders because of +the red costume she wore.</p> + +<p>They were just on the point of feeling +their inspection had reached the limit of +really nice manners and Mabel was pretending +to go on splashing again and saying +to Betty, “She’s wearing a red dress. +I wish I could see—” when something +very terrible happened.</p> + +<p>The swimmer gave a queer sort of flop +in the water, threw up her arms and—vanished!</p> + +<p>It was the sort of thing that seems for +an instant to freeze everybody, just one +of those things that everyone has read of +and imagined and very few people have +seen.</p> + +<p>For a space no one did anything. One, +two, three seconds passed and then for an +instant a bare arm flashed in the air and +vanished again.</p> + +<p>Mabel tells me she was quite paralysed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +with horror, she did nothing all the time, +but the two Miss Buntings, recovering a +little, screamed out, “Oh, she’s drowning!” +and hastened to get out of the sea +at once, a proceeding accelerated by Mrs. +Bunting, who with great presence of mind +pulled at the ropes with all her weight +and turned about and continued to pull +long after they were many yards from the +water’s edge and indeed cowering in a +heap at the foot of the sea wall. Miss +Glendower became aware of a crisis and +descended the steps, “Sir George Tressady” +in one hand and the other shading +her eyes, crying in her clear resolute voice, +“She must be saved!” The maids of +course were screaming—as became them—but +the two men appear to have acted +with the greatest presence of mind. +“Fred, Nexdoors ledder!” said Mr. Randolph +Bunting—for the next-door neighbour +instead of having convenient stone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +steps had a high wall and a long wooden +ladder, and it had often been pointed out +by Mr. Bunting if ever an accident should +happen to anyone there was <em>that!</em> In a +moment it seems they had both flung off +jacket and vest, collar, tie and shoes, and +were running the neighbour’s ladder out +into the water.</p> + +<p>“Where did she go, Ded?” said Fred.</p> + +<p>“Right out hea!” said Mr. Bunting, +and to confirm his word there flashed +again an arm and “something dark”—something +which in the light of all that +subsequently happened I am inclined to +suppose was an unintentional exposure of +the Lady’s tail.</p> + +<p>Neither of the two gentlemen are +expert swimmers—indeed so far as I can +gather, Mr. Bunting in the excitement +of the occasion forgot almost everything +he had ever known of swimming—but +they waded out valiantly one on each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +side of the ladder, thrust it out before +them and committed themselves to the +deep, in a manner casting no discredit +upon our nation and race.</p> + +<p>Yet on the whole I think it is a matter +for general congratulation that they were +not engaged in the rescue of a genuinely +drowning person. At the time of my +enquiries whatever soreness of argument +that may once have obtained between +them had passed, and it is fairly clear that +while Fred Bunting was engaged in swimming +hard against the long side of the +ladder and so causing it to rotate slowly +on its axis, Mr. Bunting had already swallowed +a very considerable amount of sea-water +and was kicking Fred in the chest +with aimless vigour. This he did, as he +explains, “to get my legs down, you +know. Something about that ladder, you +know, and they <em>would</em> go up!”</p> + +<p>And then quite unexpectedly the Sea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +Lady appeared beside them. One lovely +arm supported Mr. Bunting about the +waist and the other was over the ladder. +She did not appear at all pale or frightened +or out of breath, Fred told me when +I cross-examined him, though at the time +he was too violently excited to note a detail +of that sort. Indeed she smiled and +spoke in an easy pleasant voice.</p> + +<p>“Cramp,” she said, “I have cramp.” +Both the men were convinced of that.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bunting was on the point of telling +her to hold tight and she would be +quite safe, when a little wave went almost +entirely into his mouth and reduced him +to wild splutterings.</p> + +<p>“<em>We’ll</em> get you in,” said Fred, or something +of that sort, and so they all hung, +bobbing in the water to the tune of Mr. +Bunting’s trouble.</p> + +<p>They seem to have rocked so for some +time. Fred says the Sea Lady looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +calm but a little puzzled and that she +seemed to measure the distance shoreward. +“You <em>mean</em> to save me?” she +asked him.</p> + +<p>He was trying to think what could be +done before his father drowned. “We’re +saving you now,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You’ll take me ashore?”</p> + +<p>As she seemed so cool he thought he +would explain his plan of operations, +“Trying to get—end of ladder—kick with +my legs. Only a few yards out of our +depth—if we could only——”</p> + +<p>“Minute—get my breath—moufu’ +sea-water,” said Mr. Bunting. <em>Splash!</em> +wuff!…</p> + +<p>And then it seemed to Fred that a +little miracle happened. There was a +swirl of the water like the swirl about a +screw propeller, and he gripped the Sea +Lady and the ladder just in time, as it +seemed to him, to prevent his being washed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +far out into the Channel. His father vanished +from his sight with an expression of +astonishment just forming on his face and +reappeared beside him, so far as back and +legs are concerned, holding on to the +ladder with a sort of death grip. And +then behold! They had shifted a dozen +yards inshore, and they were in less than +five feet of water and Fred could feel the +ground.</p> + +<p>At its touch his amazement and dismay +immediately gave way to the purest +heroism. He thrust ladder and Sea Lady +before him, abandoned the ladder and his +now quite disordered parent, caught her +tightly in his arms, and bore her up out +of the water. The young ladies cried +“Saved!” the maids cried “Saved!” Distant +voices echoed “Saved, Hooray!” +Everybody in fact cried “Saved!” except +Mrs. Bunting, who was, she says, under +the impression that Mr. Bunting was in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +fit, and Mr. Bunting, who seems to have +been under an impression that all those +laws of nature by which, under Providence, +we are permitted to float and swim, were +in suspense and that the best thing to do +was to kick very hard and fast until the +end should come. But in a dozen seconds +or so his head was up again and his feet +were on the ground and he was making +whale and walrus noises, and noises like a +horse and like an angry cat and like sawing, +and was wiping the water from his +eyes; and Mrs. Bunting (except that +now and then she really <em>had</em> to turn and +say “<em>Ran</em>dolph!”) could give her attention +to the beautiful burthen that clung +about her son.</p> + +<p>And it is a curious thing that the Sea +Lady was at least a minute out of the +water before anyone discovered that she +was in any way different from—other +ladies. I suppose they were all crowding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +close to her and looking at her beautiful +face, or perhaps they imagined that she +was wearing some indiscreet but novel +form of dark riding habit or something of +that sort. Anyhow not one of them +noticed it, although it must have been before +their eyes as plain as day. Certainly +it must have blended with the costume. +And there they stood, imagining that Fred +had rescued a lovely lady of indisputable +fashion, who had been bathing from +some neighbouring house, and wondering +why on earth there was nobody on the +beach to claim her. And she clung to +Fred and, as Miss Mabel Glendower +subsequently remarked in the course of +conversation with him, Fred clung to +her.</p> + +<p>“I had cramp,” said the Sea Lady, +with her lips against Fred’s cheek and one +eye on Mrs. Bunting. “I am sure it was +cramp.… I’ve got it still.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I don’t see anybody—” began Mrs. +Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Please carry me in,” said the Sea +Lady, closing her eyes as if she were ill—though +her cheek was flushed and warm. +“Carry me in.”</p> + +<p>“Where?” gasped Fred.</p> + +<p>“Carry me into the house,” she whispered +to him.</p> + +<p>“Which house?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting came nearer.</p> + +<p>“<em>Your</em> house,” said the Sea Lady, and +shut her eyes for good and became oblivious +to all further remarks.</p> + +<p>“She— But I don’t understand—” +said Mrs. Bunting, addressing everybody.…</p> + +<p>And then it was they saw it. Nettie, +the younger Miss Bunting, saw it first. +She pointed, she says, before she could +find words to speak. Then they all saw +it! Miss Glendower, I believe, was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +person who was last to see it. At any +rate it would have been like her if she +had been.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” said Nettie, giving words +to the general horror. “<em>Mother!</em> She +has a <em>tail!</em>”</p> + +<p>And then the three maids and Mabel +Glendower screamed one after the other. +“Look!” they cried. “A tail!”</p> + +<p>“Of all—” said Mrs. Bunting, and +words failed her.</p> + +<p>“<em>Oh!</em>” said Miss Glendower, and put +her hand to her heart.</p> + +<p>And then one of the maids gave it a +name. “It’s a mermaid!” screamed the +maid, and then everyone screamed, “It’s +a mermaid.”</p> + +<p>Except the mermaid herself; she remained +quite passive, pretending to be insensible +partly on Fred’s shoulder and +altogether in his arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>That, you know, is the tableau so far +as I have been able to piece it together +again. You must imagine this little knot +of people upon the beach, and Mr. Bunting, +I figure, a little apart, just wading out +of the water and very wet and incredulous +and half drowned. And the neighbour’s +ladder was drifting quietly out to sea.</p> + +<p>Of course it was one of those positions +that have an air of being conspicuous.</p> + +<p>Indeed it was conspicuous. It was +some way below high water and the +group stood out perhaps thirty yards +down the beach. Nobody, as Mrs. Bunting +told my cousin Melville, knew a bit +<em>what</em> to do and they all had even an exaggerated +share of the national hatred of +being seen in a puzzle. The mermaid +seemed content to remain a beautiful +problem clinging to Fred, and by all accounts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +she was a reasonable burthen for a +man. It seems that the very large family +of people who were stopping at the house +called Koot Hoomi had appeared in force, +and they were all staring and gesticulating. +They were just the sort of people +the Buntings did not want to know—tradespeople +very probably. Presently +one of the men—the particularly vulgar +man who used to shoot at the gulls—began +putting down their ladder as if he intended +to offer advice, and Mrs. Bunting +also became aware of the black glare of +the field glasses of a still more horrid man +to the west.</p> + +<p>Moreover the popular author who lived +next door, an irascible dark square-headed +little man in spectacles, suddenly turned +up and began bawling from his inaccessible +wall top something foolish about his +ladder. Nobody thought of his silly ladder +or took any trouble about it, naturally.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +He was quite stupidly excited. To judge +by his tone and gestures he was using +dreadful language and seemed disposed +every moment to jump down to the beach +and come to them.</p> + +<p>And then to crown the situation, over +the westward groin appeared Low Excursionists!</p> + +<p>First of all their heads came, and then +their remarks. Then they began to clamber +the breakwater with joyful shouts.</p> + +<p>“Pip, Pip,” said the Low Excursionists +as they climbed—it was the year of +“pip, pip”—and, “What HO she bumps!” +and then less generally, “What’s up ’<em>ere?”</em></p> + +<p>And the voices of other Low Excursionists +still invisible answered, “Pip, Pip.”</p> + +<p>It was evidently a large party.</p> + +<p>“Anything wrong?” shouted one of +the Low Excursionists at a venture.</p> + +<p>“My <em>dear!”</em> said Mrs. Bunting to +Mabel, “what <em>are</em> we to do?” And in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +her description of the affair to my cousin +Melville she used always to make that the +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">clou</i> of the story. “My DEAR! What +ARE we to do?”</p> + +<p>I believe that in her desperation she +even glanced at the water. But of course +to have put the mermaid back then would +have involved the most terrible explanations.…</p> + +<p>It was evident there was only one thing +to be done. Mrs. Bunting said as much. +“The only thing,” said she, “is to carry +her indoors.”</p> + +<p>And carry her indoors they did!…</p> + +<p>One can figure the little procession. +In front Fred, wet and astonished but still +clinging and clung to, and altogether too +out of breath for words. And in his arms +the Sea Lady. She had a beautiful figure, +I understand, until that horrible tail began +(and the fin of it, Mrs. Bunting told my +cousin in a whispered confidence, went up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +and down and with pointed corners for all +the world like a mackerel’s). It flopped +and dripped along the path—I imagine. +She was wearing a very nice and very +long-skirted dress of red material trimmed +with coarse white lace, and she had, Mabel +told me, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gilet</i>, though that would scarcely +show as they went up the garden. And +that Phrygian cap hid all her golden hair +and showed the white, low, level forehead +over her sea-blue eyes. From all that followed, +I imagine her at the moment scanning +the veranda and windows of the +house with a certain eagerness of scrutiny.</p> + +<p>Behind this staggering group of two +I believe Mrs. Bunting came. Then Mr. +Bunting. Dreadfully wet and broken +down Mr. Bunting must have been by then, +and from one or two things I have noticed +since, I can’t help imagining him as +pursuing his wife with, “Of course, my +dear, <em>I</em> couldn’t tell, you know!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + +<p>And then, in a dismayed yet curious +bunch, the girls in their wraps of towelling +and the maids carrying the ropes and +things and, as if inadvertently, as became +them, most of Mr. and Fred Bunting’s +clothes.</p> + +<p>And then Miss Glendower, for once at +least in no sort of pose whatever, clutching +“Sir George Tressady” and perplexed +and disturbed beyond measure.</p> + +<p>And then, as it were pursuing them +all, “Pip, pip,” and the hat and raised +eyebrows of a Low Excursionist still anxious +to know “What’s up?” from the +garden end.</p> + +<p>So it was, or at least in some such way, +and to the accompaniment of the wildest +ravings about some ladder or other heard +all too distinctly over the garden wall—(“Overdressed +Snobbs take my <cite>rare old +English adjective</cite> ladder…!”)—that +they carried the Sea Lady (who appeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +serenely insensible to everything) up +through the house and laid her down +upon the couch in Mrs. Bunting’s room.</p> + +<p>And just as Miss Glendower was suggesting +that the very best thing they could +do would be to send for a doctor, the Sea +Lady with a beautiful naturalness sighed +and came to.</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE SECOND</small><br /> + +SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>There with as much verisimilitude as +I can give it, is how the Folkestone mermaid +really came to land. There can be +no doubt that the whole affair was a deliberately +planned intrusion upon her part. +She never had cramp, she couldn’t have +cramp, and as for drowning, nobody was +near drowning for a moment except Mr. +Bunting, whose valuable life she very +nearly sacrificed at the outset of her adventure. +And her next proceeding was +to demand an interview with Mrs. Bunting +and to presume upon her youthful +and glowing appearance to gain the support, +sympathy and assistance of that good-hearted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +lady (who as a matter of fact was +a thing of yesterday, a mere chicken in +comparison with her own immemorial +years) in her extraordinary raid upon +Humanity.</p> + +<p>Her treatment of Mrs. Bunting would +be incredible if we did not know that, in +spite of many disadvantages, the Sea Lady +was an extremely well read person. She +admitted as much in several later conversations +with my cousin Melville. For a +time there was a friendly intimacy—so +Melville always preferred to present it—between +these two, and my cousin, who +has a fairly considerable amount of curiosity, +learnt many very interesting details +about the life “out there” or “down +there”—for the Sea Lady used either expression. +At first the Sea Lady was exceedingly +reticent under the gentle insistence +of his curiosity, but after a time, I +gather, she gave way to bursts of cheerful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +confidence. “It is clear,” says my cousin, +“that the old ideas of the submarine life as +a sort of perpetual game of ‘who-hoop’ +through groves of coral, diversified by +moonlight hair-combings on rocky strands, +need very extensive modification.” In +this matter of literature, for example, they +have practically all that we have, and unlimited +leisure to read it in. Melville is +very insistent upon and rather envious of +that unlimited leisure. A picture of a +mermaid swinging in a hammock of +woven seaweed, with what bishops call a +“latter-day” novel in one hand and a sixteen +candle-power phosphorescent fish in +the other, may jar upon one’s preconceptions, +but it is certainly far more in accordance +with the picture of the abyss she +printed on his mind. Everywhere Change +works her will on things. Everywhere, +and even among the immortals, Modernity +spreads. Even on Olympus I suppose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +there is a Progressive party and a new +Phaeton agitating to supersede the horses +of his father by some solar motor of his +own. I suggested as much to Melville +and he said “Horrible! Horrible!” and +stared hard at my study fire. Dear old +Melville! She gave him no end of facts +about Deep Sea Reading.</p> + +<p>Of course they do not print books +“out there,” for the printer’s ink under +water would not so much run as fly—she +made that very plain; but in one way or +another nearly the whole of terrestrial literature, +says Melville, has come to them. +“We know,” she said. They form indeed +a distinct reading public, and additions to +their vast submerged library that circulates +forever with the tides, are now pretty systematically +sought. The sources are various +and in some cases a little odd. Many +books have been found in sunken ships. +“Indeed!” said Melville. There is always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +a dropping and blowing overboard of novels +and magazines from most passenger-carrying +vessels—sometimes, but these are +not as a rule valuable additions—a deliberate +shying overboard. But sometimes +books of an exceptional sort are thrown +over when they are quite finished. (Melville +is a dainty irritable reader and no +doubt he understood that.) From the sea +beaches of holiday resorts, moreover, the +lighter sorts of literature are occasionally +getting blown out to sea. And so soon +as the Booms of our great Popular Novelists +are over, Melville assured me, the +libraries find it convenient to cast such +surplus copies of their current works as +the hospitals and prisons cannot take, below +high-water mark.</p> + +<p>“That’s not generally known,” said I.</p> + +<p>“<em>They</em> know it,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>In other ways the beaches yield. +Young couples who “begin to sit heapy,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +the Sea Lady told my cousin, as often as +not will leave excellent modern fiction +behind them, when at last they return to +their proper place. There is a particularly +fine collection of English work, it seems, +in the deep water of the English Channel; +practically the whole of the Tauchnitz +Library is there, thrown overboard at the +last moment by conscientious or timid +travellers returning from the continent, +and there was for a time a similar source +of supply of American reprints in the +Mersey, but that has fallen off in recent +years. And the Deep Sea Mission for +Fishermen has now for some years been +raining down tracts and giving a particularly +elevated tone of thought to the extensive +shallows of the North Sea. The +Sea Lady was very precise on these points.</p> + +<p>When one considers the conditions of +its accumulation, one is not surprised to +hear that the element of fiction is as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +dominant in this Deep Sea Library as it +is upon the counters of Messrs. Mudie; +but my cousin learnt that the various +illustrated magazines, and particularly the +fashion papers, are valued even more highly +than novels, are looked for far more +eagerly and perused with envious emotion. +Indeed on that point my cousin got +a sudden glimpse of one of the motives +that had brought this daring young lady +into the air. He made some sort of suggestion. +“We should have taken to dressing +long ago,” she said, and added, with a +vague quality of laughter in her tone, “it +isn’t that we’re unfeminine, Mr. Melville. +Only—as I was explaining to Mrs. Bunting, +one must consider one’s circumstances—how +<em>can</em> one <em>hope</em> to keep anything nice +under water? Imagine lace!”</p> + +<p>“Soaked!” said my cousin Melville.</p> + +<p>“Drenched!” said the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“Ruined!” said my cousin Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And then you know,” said the Sea +Lady very gravely, “one’s hair!”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Melville. “Why!—you +can never get it <em>dry!”</em></p> + +<p>“That’s precisely it,” said she.</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville had a new light +on an old topic. “And that’s why—in +the old time——?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly!” she cried, “exactly! Before +there were so many Excursionists +and sailors and Low People about, one +came out, one sat and brushed it in the +sun. And then of course it really <em>was</em> +possible to do it up. But now——”</p> + +<p>She made a petulant gesture and +looked gravely at Melville, biting her lip +the while. My cousin made a sympathetic +noise. “The horrid modern spirit,” +he said—almost automatically.…</p> + +<p>But though fiction and fashion appear +to be so regrettably dominant in the nourishment +of the mer-mind, it must not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +supposed that the most serious side of +our reading never reaches the bottom of +the sea. There was, for example, a case +quite recently, the Sea Lady said, of the +captain of a sailing ship whose mind had +become unhinged by the huckstering uproar +of the <cite>Times</cite> and <cite>Daily Mail</cite>, and +who had not only bought a second-hand +copy of the <cite>Times</cite> reprint of the Encyclopædia +Britannica, but also that dense collection +of literary snacks and samples, +that All-Literature Sausage which has +been compressed under the weighty editing +of Doctor Richard Garnett. It has +long been notorious that even the greatest +minds of the past were far too copious +and confusing in their—as the word goes—lubrications. +Doctor Garnett, it is alleged, +has seized the gist and presented +it so compactly that almost any business +man now may take hold of it without +hindrance to his more serious occupations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +The unfortunate and misguided seaman +seems to have carried the entire collection +aboard with him, with the pretty evident +intention of coming to land in Sydney +the wisest man alive—a Hindoo-minded +thing to do. The result might have been +anticipated. The mass shifted in the +night, threw the whole weight of the +science of the middle nineteenth century +and the literature of all time, in a virulently +concentrated state, on one side of his +little vessel and capsized it instantly.…</p> + +<p>The ship, the Sea Lady said, dropped +into the abyss as if it were loaded with +lead, and its crew and other movables did +not follow it down until much later in +the day. The captain was the first to arrive, +said the Sea Lady, and it is a curious +fact, due probably to some preliminary +dippings into his purchase, that he came +head first, instead of feet down and limbs +expanded in the customary way.…<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<p>However, such exceptional windfalls +avail little against the rain of light literature +that is constantly going on. The +novel and the newspaper remain the +world’s reading even at the bottom of the +sea. As subsequent events would seem to +show, it must have been from the common +latter-day novel and the newspaper +that the Sea Lady derived her ideas of +human life and sentiment and the inspiration +of her visit. And if at times she +seemed to underestimate the nobler tendencies +of the human spirit, if at times +she seemed disposed to treat Adeline Glendower +and many of the deeper things of +life with a certain sceptical levity, if she +did at last indisputably subordinate reason +and right feeling to passion, it is only just +to her, and to those deeper issues, that we +should ascribe her aberrations to their +proper cause.…<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>My cousin Melville, I was saying, did +at one time or another get a vague, a very +vague conception of what that deep-sea +world was like. But whether his conception +has any quality of truth in it is more +than I dare say. He gives me an impression +of a very strange world indeed, a +green luminous fluidity in which these +beings float, a world lit by great shining +monsters that drift athwart it, and by waving +forests of nebulous luminosity amidst +which the little fishes drift like netted +stars. It is a world with neither sitting, +nor standing, nor going, nor coming, +through which its inhabitants float and +drift as one floats and drifts in dreams. +And the way they live there! “My dear +man!” said Melville, “it must be like a +painted ceiling!…”</p> + +<p>I do not even feel certain that it is in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +the sea particularly that this world of the +Sea Lady is to be found. But about +those saturated books and drowned scraps +of paper, you say? Things are not always +what they seem, and she told him all of +that, we must reflect, one laughing afternoon.</p> + +<p>She could appear, at times, he says, as +real as you or I, and again came mystery +all about her. There were times when it +seemed to him you might have hurt her +or killed her as you can hurt and kill anyone—with +a penknife for example—and +there were times when it seemed to him +you could have destroyed the whole material +universe and left her smiling still. +But of this ambiguous element in the +lady, more is to be told later. There are +wider seas than ever keel sailed upon, and +deeps that no lead of human casting will +ever plumb. When it is all summed up, +I have to admit, I do not know, I cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +tell. I fall back upon Melville and my +poor array of collected facts. At first +there was amazingly little strangeness +about her for any who had to deal with +her. There she was, palpably solid and +material, a lady out of the sea.</p> + +<p>This modern world is a world where +the wonderful is utterly commonplace. +We are bred to show a quiet freedom +from amazement, and why should we +boggle at material Mermaids, with Dewars +solidifying all sorts of impalpable things +and Marconi waves spreading everywhere? +To the Buntings she was as matter of +fact, as much a matter of authentic and +reasonable motives and of sound solid +sentimentality, as everything else in the +Bunting world. So she was for them in +the beginning, and so up to this day with +them her memory remains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The way in which the Sea Lady talked +to Mrs. Bunting on that memorable morning, +when she lay all wet and still visibly +fishy on the couch in Mrs. Bunting’s +dressing-room, I am also able to give with +some little fulness, because Mrs. Bunting +repeated it all several times, acting the +more dramatic speeches in it, to my cousin +Melville in several of those good long +talks that both of them in those happy +days—and particularly Mrs. Bunting—always +enjoyed so much. And with her +very first speech, it seems, the Sea Lady +took her line straight to Mrs. Bunting’s +generous managing heart. She sat up on +the couch, drew the antimacassar modestly +over her deformity, and sometimes looking +sweetly down and sometimes openly +and trustfully into Mrs. Bunting’s face, +and speaking in a soft clear grammatical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +manner that stamped her at once as no +mere mermaid but a finished fine Sea +Lady, she “made a clean breast of it,” as +Mrs. Bunting said, and “fully and frankly” +placed herself in Mrs. Bunting’s +hands.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Bunting,” said Mrs. Bunting to +my cousin Melville, in a dramatic rendering +of the Sea Lady’s manner, “do permit +me to apologise for this intrusion, for I +know it <em>is</em> an intrusion. But indeed it +has almost been <em>forced</em> upon me, and if +you will only listen to my story, Mrs. +Bunting, I think you will find—well, if +not a complete excuse for me—for I can +understand how exacting your standards +must be—at any rate <em>some</em> excuse for what +I have done—for what I <em>must</em> call, Mrs. +Bunting, my deceitful conduct towards +you. Deceitful it was, Mrs. Bunting, for +I never had cramp— But then, Mrs. +Bunting”—and here Mrs. Bunting would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +insert a long impressive pause—“I never +had a mother!”</p> + +<p>“And then and there,” said Mrs. Bunting, +when she told the story to my cousin +Melville, “the poor child burst into tears +and confessed she had been born ages and +ages ago in some dreadful miraculous way +in some terrible place near Cyprus, and +had no more right to a surname— Well, +<em>there</em>—!” said Mrs. Bunting, telling the +story to my cousin Melville and making +the characteristic gesture with which she +always passed over and disowned any indelicacy +to which her thoughts might have +tended. “And all the while speaking +with such a nice accent and moving in +such a ladylike way!”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said my cousin Melville, +“there are classes of people in whom one +excuses— One must weigh——”</p> + +<p>“Precisely,” said Mrs. Bunting. “And +you see it seems she deliberately chose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +<em>me</em> as the very sort of person she had always +wanted to appeal to. It wasn’t as +if she came to us haphazard—she picked +us out. She had been swimming round +the coast watching people day after day, +she said, for quite a long time, and she +said when she saw my face, watching the +girls bathe—you know how funny girls +are,” said Mrs. Bunting, with a little deprecatory +laugh, and all the while with a +moisture of emotion in her kindly eyes. +“She took quite a violent fancy to me +from the very first.”</p> + +<p>“I can <em>quite</em> believe <em>that</em>, at any +rate,” said my cousin Melville with unction. +I know he did, although he always +leaves it out of the story when he +tells it to me. But then he forgets that +I have had the occasional privilege of +making a third party in these good long +talks.</p> + +<p>“You know it’s most extraordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +and exactly like the German story,” said +Mrs. Bunting. “Oom—what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Undine?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly—yes. And it really seems +these poor creatures are Immortal, Mr. +Melville—at least within limits—creatures +born of the elements and resolved into +the elements again—and just as it is in +the story—there’s always a something—they +have no Souls! No Souls at all! +Nothing! And the poor child feels it. +She feels it dreadfully. But in order to +<em>get</em> souls, Mr. Melville, you know they +have to come into the world of men. At +least so they believe down there. And so +she has come to Folkestone. To get a +soul. Of course that’s her great object, +Mr. Melville, but she’s not at all fanatical +or silly about it. Any more than <em>we</em> +are. Of course <em>we</em>—people who feel +deeply——”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said my cousin Melville,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +with, I know, a momentary expression of +profound gravity, drooping eyelids and a +hushed voice. For my cousin does a +good deal with his soul, one way and another.</p> + +<p>“And she feels that if she comes to +earth at all,” said Mrs. Bunting, “she <em>must</em> +come among <em>nice</em> people and in a nice +way. One can understand her feeling like +that. But imagine her difficulties! To +be a mere cause of public excitement, and +silly paragraphs in the silly season, to be +made a sort of show of, in fact—she +doesn’t want <em>any</em> of it,” added Mrs. Bunting, +with the emphasis of both hands.</p> + +<p>“What <em>does</em> she want?” asked my +cousin Melville.</p> + +<p>“She wants to be treated exactly like +a human being, to <em>be</em> a human being, just +like you or me. And she asks to stay +with us, to be one of our family, and to +learn how we live. She has asked me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +to advise her what books to read that are +really nice, and where she can get a dress-maker, +and how she can find a clergyman +to sit under who would really be +likely to understand her case, and everything. +She wants me to advise her about +it all. She wants to put herself altogether +in my hands. And she asked it all so +nicely and sweetly. She wants me to advise +her about it all.”</p> + +<p>“Um,” said my cousin Melville.</p> + +<p>“You should have heard her!” cried +Mrs. Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Practically it’s another daughter,” he +reflected.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Bunting, “and even +that did not frighten me. She admitted +as much.”</p> + +<p>“Still——”</p> + +<p>He took a step.</p> + +<p>“She has means?” he inquired abruptly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Ample. She told me there was a +box. She said it was moored at the end +of a groin, and accordingly dear Randolph +watched all through luncheon, and afterwards, +when they could wade out and reach +the end of the rope that tied it, he and +Fred pulled it in and helped Fitch and +the coachman carry it up. It’s a curious +little box for a lady to have, well made, of +course, but of wood, with a ship painted +on the top and the name of ‘Tom’ cut in +it roughly with a knife; but, as she says, +leather simply will <em>not</em> last down there, and +one has to put up with what one can get; +and the great thing is it’s <em>full</em>, perfectly +full, of gold coins and things. Yes, +gold—and diamonds, Mr. Melville. You +know Randolph understands something— Yes, +well he says that box—oh! I couldn’t +tell you <em>how</em> much it isn’t worth! And +all the gold things with just a sort of +faint reddy touch.… But anyhow, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +is rich, as well as charming and beautiful. +And really you know, Mr. Melville, +altogether— Well, I’m going to help +her, just as much as ever I can. Practically, +she’s to be our paying guest. As +you know—it’s no great secret between <em>us</em>—Adeline— Yes.… +She’ll be the +same. And I shall bring her out and introduce +her to people and so forth. It +will be a great help. And for everyone +except just a few intimate friends, she is +to be just a human being who happens to +be an invalid—temporarily an invalid—and +we are going to engage a good, trustworthy +woman—the sort of woman who +isn’t astonished at anything, you know—they’re +a little expensive but they’re to be +got even nowadays—who will be her +maid—and make her dresses, her skirts at +any rate—and we shall dress her in long +skirts—and throw something over It, you +know——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Over——?”</p> + +<p>“The tail, you know.”</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville said “Precisely!” +with his head and eyebrows. But that was +the point that hadn’t been clear to him so +far, and it took his breath away. Positively—a +tail! All sorts of incorrect theories +went by the board. Somehow he felt +this was a topic not to be too urgently +pursued. But he and Mrs. Bunting were +old friends.</p> + +<p>“And she really has … a tail?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Like the tail of a big mackerel,” said +Mrs. Bunting, and he asked no more.</p> + +<p>“It’s a most extraordinary situation,” +he said.</p> + +<p>“But what else <em>could</em> I do?” asked +Mrs. Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Of course the thing’s a tremendous +experiment,” said my cousin Melville, and +repeated quite inadvertently, “<em>a tail!</em>”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<p>Clear and vivid before his eyes, obstructing +absolutely the advance of his +thoughts, were the shiny clear lines, the +oily black, the green and purple and silver, +and the easy expansiveness of a mackerel’s +termination.</p> + +<p>“But really, you know,” said my +cousin Melville, protesting in the name +of reason and the nineteenth century—“a +tail!”</p> + +<p>“I patted it,” said Mrs. Bunting.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Certain supplementary aspects of the +Sea Lady’s first conversation with Mrs. +Bunting I got from that lady herself afterwards.</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady had made one queer +mistake. “Your four charming daughters,” +she said, “and your two sons.”</p> + +<p>“My dear!” cried Mrs. Bunting—they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +had got through their preliminaries +by then—“I’ve only two daughters and +one son!”</p> + +<p>“The young man who carried—who +rescued me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. And the other two girls are +friends, you know, visitors who are staying +with me. On land one has visitors——”</p> + +<p>“I know. So I made a mistake?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes.”</p> + +<p>“And the other young man?”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean Mr. Bunting.”</p> + +<p>“Who is Mr. Bunting?”</p> + +<p>“The other gentleman who——”</p> + +<p>“<em>No!</em>”</p> + +<p>“There was no one——”</p> + +<p>“But several mornings ago?”</p> + +<p>“Could it have been Mr. Melville?… +<em>I</em> know! You mean Mr. Chatteris! +I remember, he came down with us one +morning. A tall young man with fair—rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +curlyish you might say—hair, wasn’t +it? And a rather thoughtful face. He +was dressed all in white linen and he sat +on the beach.”</p> + +<p>“I fancy he did,” said the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“He’s not my son. He’s—he’s a +friend. He’s engaged to Adeline, to the +elder Miss Glendower. He was stopping +here for a night or so. I daresay he’ll +come again on his way back from Paris. +Dear me! Fancy <em>my</em> having a son like +that!”</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady was not quite prompt in +replying.</p> + +<p>“What a stupid mistake for me to +make!” she said slowly; and then with +more animation, “Of course, now I think, +he’s much too old to be your son!”</p> + +<p>“Well, he’s thirty-two!” said Mrs. +Bunting with a smile.</p> + +<p>“It’s preposterous.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t say <em>that</em>.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But I saw him only at a distance, +you know,” said the Sea Lady; and then, +“And so he is engaged to Miss Glendower? +And Miss Glendower——?”</p> + +<p>“Is the young lady in the purple robe +who——”</p> + +<p>“Who carried a book?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Bunting, “that’s +the one. They’ve been engaged three +months.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me!” said the Sea Lady. “She +seemed— And is he very much in love +with her?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Mrs. Bunting.</p> + +<p>“<em>Very</em> much?”</p> + +<p>“Oh—of <em>course</em>. If he wasn’t, he +wouldn’t——”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said the Sea Lady +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“And it’s such an excellent match in +every way. Adeline’s just in the very +position to help him——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> + +<p>And Mrs. Bunting it would seem +briefly but clearly supplied an indication +of the precise position of Mr. Chatteris, +not omitting even that he was the nephew +of an earl, as indeed why should she omit +it?—and the splendid prospects of his alliance +with Miss Glendower’s plebeian but +extensive wealth. The Sea Lady listened +gravely. “He is young, he is able, he +may still be anything—anything. And +she is so earnest, so clever herself—always +reading. She even reads Blue Books—government +Blue Books I mean—dreadful +statistical schedulely things. And the +condition of the poor and all those +things. She knows more about the condition +of the poor than any one I’ve ever +met; what they earn and what they eat, +and how many of them live in a room. +So dreadfully crowded, you know—perfectly +shocking.… She is just the +helper he needs. So dignified—so capable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +of giving political parties and influencing +people, so earnest! And you +know she can talk to workmen and take +an interest in trades unions, and in quite +astonishing things. <em>I</em> always think she’s +just <cite>Marcella</cite> come to life.”</p> + +<p>And from that the good lady embarked +upon an illustrative but involved +anecdote of Miss Glendower’s marvellous +blue-bookishness.…</p> + +<p>“He’ll come here again soon?” the +Sea Lady asked quite carelessly in the +midst of it.</p> + +<p>The query was carried away and lost in +the anecdote, so that later the Sea Lady repeated +her question even more carelessly.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Bunting did not know +whether the Sea Lady sighed at all or not. +She thinks not. She was so busy telling +her all about everything that I don’t think +she troubled very much to see how her information +was received.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> + +<p>What mind she had left over from her +own discourse was probably centred on +the tail.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Even to Mrs. Bunting’s senses—she is +one of those persons who take everything +(except of course impertinence or impropriety) +quite calmly—it must, I think, +have been a little astonishing to find herself +sitting in her boudoir, politely taking +tea with a real live legendary creature. +They were having tea in the boudoir, because +of callers, and quite quietly because, +in spite of the Sea Lady’s smiling assurances, +Mrs. Bunting would have it she +<em>must</em> be tired and unequal to the exertions +of social intercourse. “After <em>such</em> +a journey,” said Mrs. Bunting. There +were just the three, Adeline Glendower +being the third; and Fred and the three +other girls, I understand, hung about in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +general sort of way up and down the staircase +(to the great annoyance of the servants +who were thus kept out of it altogether) +confirming one another’s views of +the tail, arguing on the theory of mermaids, +revisiting the garden and beach and +trying to invent an excuse for seeing the +invalid again. They were forbidden to +intrude and pledged to secrecy by Mrs. +Bunting, and they must have been as altogether +unsettled and miserable as young +people can be. For a time they played +croquet in a half-hearted way, each no +doubt with an eye on the boudoir window.</p> + +<p>(And as for Mr. Bunting, he was in +bed.)</p> + +<p>I gather that the three ladies sat and +talked as any three ladies all quite resolved +to be pleasant to one another would talk. +Mrs. Bunting and Miss Glendower were +far too well trained in the observances of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +good society (which is as every one knows, +even the best of it now, extremely mixed) +to make too searching enquiries into the +Sea Lady’s status and way of life or precisely +where she lived when she was at +home, or whom she knew or didn’t know. +Though in their several ways they wanted +to know badly enough. The Sea Lady +volunteered no information, contenting +herself with an entertaining superficiality +of touch and go, in the most ladylike way. +She professed herself greatly delighted +with the sensation of being in air and +superficially quite dry, and was particularly +charmed with tea.</p> + +<p>“And don’t you have <em>tea?”</em> cried +Miss Glendower, startled.</p> + +<p>“How can we?”</p> + +<p>“But do you really mean——?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never tasted tea before. How +do you think we can boil a kettle?”</p> + +<p>“What a strange—what a wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +world it must be!” cried Adeline. And +Mrs. Bunting said: “I can hardly <em>imagine</em> +it without tea. It’s worse than— I mean +it reminds me—of abroad.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting was in the act of refilling +the Sea Lady’s cup. “I suppose,” +she said suddenly, “as you’re not used to +it— It won’t affect your diges—” She +glanced at Adeline and hesitated. “But +it’s China tea.”</p> + +<p>And she filled the cup.</p> + +<p>“It’s an inconceivable world to me,” +said Adeline. “Quite.”</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes rested thoughtfully on +the Sea Lady for a space. “Inconceivable,” +she repeated, for, in that unaccountable +way in which a whisper will attract +attention that a turmoil fails to arouse, the +tea had opened her eyes far more than +the tail.</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady looked at her with sudden +frankness. “And think how wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +all this must seem to <em>me!”</em> she +remarked.</p> + +<p>But Adeline’s imagination was aroused +for the moment and she was not to be put +aside by the Sea Lady’s terrestrial impressions. +She pierced—for a moment or so—the +ladylike serenity, the assumption of +a terrestrial fashion of mind that was imposing +so successfully upon Mrs. Bunting. +“It must be,” she said, “the strangest +world.” And she stopped invitingly.…</p> + +<p>She could not go beyond that and the +Sea Lady would not help her.</p> + +<p>There was a pause, a silent eager +search for topics. Apropos of the Niphetos +roses on the table they talked of +flowers and Miss Glendower ventured: +“You have your anemones too! How +beautiful they must be amidst the rocks!”</p> + +<p>And the Sea Lady said they were +very pretty—especially the cultivated +sorts.…<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And the fishes,” said Mrs. Bunting. +“How wonderful it must be to see the +fishes!”</p> + +<p>“Some of them,” volunteered the Sea +Lady, “will come and feed out of one’s +hand.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting made a little coo of approval. +She was reminded of chrysanthemum +shows and the outside of the Royal +Academy exhibition and she was one of +those people to whom only the familiar is +really satisfying. She had a momentary +vision of the abyss as a sort of diverticulum +of Piccadilly and the Temple, a +place unexpectedly rational and comfortable. +There was a kink for a time about +a little matter of illumination, but it recurred +to Mrs. Bunting only long after. +The Sea Lady had turned from Miss +Glendower’s interrogative gravity of expression +to the sunlight.</p> + +<p>“The sunlight seems so golden here,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +said the Sea Lady. “Is it always golden?”</p> + +<p>“You have that beautiful greenery-blue +shimmer I suppose,” said Miss Glendower, +“that one catches sometimes ever +so faintly in aquaria——”</p> + +<p>“One lives deeper than that,” said the +Sea Lady. “Everything is phosphorescent, +you know, a mile or so down, and +it’s like—I hardly know. As towns +look at night—only brighter. Like piers +and things like that.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” said Mrs. Bunting, with the +Strand after the theatres in her head. +“Quite bright?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, quite,” said the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“But—” struggled Adeline, “is it +never put out?”</p> + +<p>“It’s so different,” said the Sea +Lady.</p> + +<p>“That’s why it is so interesting,” said +Adeline.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + +<p>“There are no nights and days, you +know. No time nor anything of that +sort.”</p> + +<p>“Now that’s very queer,” said Mrs. +Bunting with Miss Glendower’s teacup in +her hand—they were both drinking quite +a lot of tea absent-mindedly, in their interest +in the Sea Lady. “But how do you +tell when it’s Sunday?”</p> + +<p>“We don’t—” began the Sea Lady. +“At least not exactly—” And then—“Of +course one hears the beautiful hymns that +are sung on the passenger ships.”</p> + +<p>“Of course!” said Mrs. Bunting, having +sung so in her youth and quite forgetting +something elusive that she had previously +seemed to catch.</p> + +<p>But afterwards there came a glimpse +of some more serious divergence—a +glimpse merely. Miss Glendower hazarded +a supposition that the sea people +also had their Problems, and then it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +would seem the natural earnestness of her +disposition overcame her proper attitude +of ladylike superficiality and she began to +ask questions. There can be no doubt that +the Sea Lady was evasive, and Miss Glendower, +perceiving that she had been a trifle +urgent, tried to cover her error by expressing +a general impression.</p> + +<p>“I can’t see it,” she said, with a gesture +that asked for sympathy. “One wants to +see it, one wants to <em>be</em> it. One needs to +be born a mer-child.”</p> + +<p>“A mer-child?” asked the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“Yes— Don’t you call your little +ones——?”</p> + +<p>“<em>What</em> little ones?” asked the Sea +Lady.</p> + +<p>She regarded them for a moment with +a frank wonder, the undying wonder of +the Immortals at that perpetual decay and +death and replacement which is the gist of +human life. Then at the expression of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +their faces she seemed to recollect. “Of +course,” she said, and then with a transition +that made pursuit difficult, she agreed +with Adeline. “It <em>is</em> different,” she said. +“It <em>is</em> wonderful. One feels so alike, you +know, and so different. That’s just where +it <em>is</em> so wonderful. Do I look—? And +yet you know I have never had my hair +up, nor worn a dressing gown before today.”</p> + +<p>“What do you wear?” asked Miss +Glendower. “Very charming things, I +suppose.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a different costume altogether,” +said the Sea Lady, brushing away a +crumb.</p> + +<p>Just for a moment Mrs. Bunting regarded +her visitor fixedly. She had, I +fancy, in that moment, an indistinct, imperfect +glimpse of pagan possibilities. +But there, you know, was the Sea Lady in +her wrapper, so palpably a lady, with her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +pretty hair brought up to date and such a +frank innocence in her eyes, that Mrs. +Bunting’s suspicions vanished as they +came.</p> + +<p>(But I am not so sure of Adeline.)</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE THIRD</small><br /> + +THE EPISODE OF THE VARIOUS<br /> +JOURNALISTS</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The remarkable thing is that the Buntings +really carried out the programme Mrs. +Bunting laid down. For a time at least +they positively succeeded in converting the +Sea Lady into a credible human invalid, +in spite of the galaxy of witnesses to the +lady’s landing and in spite of the severe internal +dissensions that presently broke out. +In spite, moreover, of the fact that one of +the maids—they found out which only +long after—told the whole story under +vows to her very superior young man who +told it next Sunday to a rising journalist +who was sitting about on the Leas maturing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +a descriptive article. The rising journalist +was incredulous. But he went about +enquiring. In the end he thought it good +enough to go upon. He found in several +quarters a vague but sufficient rumour of +a something; for the maid’s young man +was a conversationalist when he had anything +to say.</p> + +<p>Finally the rising journalist went and +sounded the people on the two chief Folkestone +papers and found the thing had just +got to them. They were inclined to pretend +they hadn’t heard of it, after the +fashion of local papers when confronted +by the abnormal, but the atmosphere of +enterprise that surrounded the rising journalist +woke them up. He perceived he +had done so and that he had no time to +lose. So while they engaged in inventing +representatives to enquire, he went off and +telephoned to the <cite>Daily Gunfire</cite> and the +<cite>New Paper</cite>. When they answered he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +positive and earnest. He staked his reputation—the +reputation of a rising journalist!</p> + +<p>“I swear there’s something up,” he +said. “Get in first—that’s all.”</p> + +<p>He had some reputation, I say—and +he had staked it. The <cite>Daily Gunfire</cite> was +sceptical but precise, and the <cite>New Paper</cite> +sprang a headline “A Mermaid at last!”</p> + +<p>You might well have thought the thing +was out after that, but it wasn’t. There +are things one doesn’t believe even if they +are printed in a halfpenny paper. To find +the reporters hammering at their doors, so +to speak, and fended off only for a time +by a proposal that they should call again; +to see their incredible secret glaringly in +print, did indeed for a moment seem a +hopeless exposure to both the Buntings +and the Sea Lady. Already they could +see the story spreading, could imagine the +imminent rush of intimate enquiries, the +tripod strides of a multitude of cameras,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +the crowds watching the windows, the +horrors of a great publicity. All the +Buntings and Mabel were aghast, simply +aghast. Adeline was not so much aghast +as excessively annoyed at this imminent +and, so far as she was concerned, absolutely +irrelevant publicity. “They will never +dare—” she said, and “Consider how it +affects Harry!” and at the earliest opportunity +she retired to her own room. The +others, with a certain disregard of her offence, +sat around the Sea Lady’s couch—she +had scarcely touched her breakfast—and +canvassed the coming terror.</p> + +<p>“They will put our photographs in +the papers,” said the elder Miss Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Well, they won’t put mine in,” said +her sister. “It’s horrid. I shall go right +off now and have it taken again.”</p> + +<p>“They’ll interview the Ded!”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” said Mr. Bunting terrified. +“Your mother——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It’s your place, my dear,” said Mrs. +Bunting.</p> + +<p>“But the Ded—” said Fred.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t,” said Mr. Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Well, some one’ll have to tell ’em +anyhow,” said Mrs. Bunting. “You +know, they will——”</p> + +<p>“But it isn’t at all what I wanted,” +wailed the Sea Lady, with the <cite>Daily Gunfire</cite> +in her hand. “Can’t it be stopped?”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know our journalists,” +said Fred.</p> + +<p>The tact of my cousin Melville saved +the situation. He had dabbled in journalism +and talked with literary fellows like +myself. And literary fellows like myself +are apt at times to be very free and outspoken +about the press. He heard of the +Buntings’ shrinking terror of publicity +as soon as he arrived, a perfect clamour—an +almost exultant clamour indeed, +of shrinking terror, and he caught the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +Sea Lady’s eye and took his line there +and then.</p> + +<p>“It’s not an occasion for sticking at +trifles, Mrs. Bunting,” he said. “But I +think we can save the situation all the +same. You’re too hopeless. We must +put our foot down at once; that’s all. +Let <em>me</em> see these reporter fellows and +write to the London dailies. I think I +can take a line that will settle them.”</p> + +<p>“Eh?” said Fred.</p> + +<p>“I can take a line that will stop it, +trust me.”</p> + +<p>“What, altogether?”</p> + +<p>“Altogether.”</p> + +<p>“How?” said Fred and Mrs. Bunting. +“You’re not going to bribe them!”</p> + +<p>“Bribe!” said Mr. Bunting. “We’re +not in France. You can’t bribe a British +paper.”</p> + +<p>(A sort of subdued cheer went around +from the assembled Buntings.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You leave it to me,” said Melville, in +his element.</p> + +<p>And with earnestly expressed but not +very confident wishes for his success, they +did.</p> + +<p>He managed the thing admirably.</p> + +<p>“What’s this about a mermaid?” he +demanded of the local journalists when +they returned. They travelled together +for company, being, so to speak, emergency +journalists, compositors in their +milder moments, and unaccustomed to +these higher aspects of journalism. +“What’s this about a mermaid?” repeated +my cousin, while they waived precedence +dumbly one to another.</p> + +<p>“I believe some one’s been letting +you in,” said my cousin Melville. “Just +imagine!—a mermaid!”</p> + +<p>“That’s what we thought,” said the +younger of the two emergency journalists. +“We knew it was some sort of hoax, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +know. Only the <cite>New Paper</cite> giving it +a headline——”</p> + +<p>“I’m amazed even Banghurst—” said +my cousin Melville.</p> + +<p>“It’s in the <cite>Daily Gunfire</cite> as well,” +said the older of the two emergency journalists.</p> + +<p>“What’s one more or less of these ha’penny +fever rags?” cried my cousin with +a ringing scorn. “Surely you’re not +going to take your Folkestone news from +mere London papers.”</p> + +<p>“But how did the story come about?” +began the older emergency journalist.</p> + +<p>“That’s not my affair.”</p> + +<p>The younger emergency journalist had +an inspiration. He produced a note book +from his breast pocket. “Perhaps, sir, +you wouldn’t mind suggesting to us something +we might say——”</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville complied.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The rising young journalist who had +first got wind of the business—who must +not for a moment be confused with the +two emergency journalists heretofore described—came +to Banghurst next night in +a state of strange exultation. “I’ve been +through with it and I’ve seen her,” he +panted. “I waited about outside and saw +her taken into the carriage. I’ve talked +to one of the maids—I got into the house +under pretence of being a telephone man +to see their telephone—I spotted the wire—and +it’s a fact. A positive fact—she’s +a mermaid with a tail—a proper mermaid’s +tail. I’ve got here——”</p> + +<p>He displayed sheets.</p> + +<p>“Whaddyer talking about?” said +Banghurst from his littered desk, eyeing +the sheets with apprehensive animosity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The mermaid—there really <em>is</em> a mermaid. +At Folkestone.”</p> + +<p>Banghurst turned away from him and +pawed at his pen tray. “Whad if there +is!” he said after a pause.</p> + +<p>“But it’s proved. That note you +printed——”</p> + +<p>“That note I printed was a mistake if +there’s anything of that sort going, young +man.” Banghurst remained an obstinate +expansion of back.</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“We don’t deal in mermaids here.”</p> + +<p>“But you’re not going to let it drop?”</p> + +<p>“I am.”</p> + +<p>“But there she is!”</p> + +<p>“Let her be.” He turned on the rising +young journalist, and his massive face was +unusually massive and his voice fine and +full and fruity. “Do you think we’re going +to make our public believe anything +simply because it’s true? They know perfectly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +well what they are going to believe +and what they aren’t going to believe, and +they aren’t going to believe anything about +mermaids—you bet your hat. I don’t care +if the whole damned beach was littered +with mermaids—not the whole damned +beach! We’ve got our reputation to keep +up. See?… Look here!—you don’t +learn journalism as I hoped you’d do. It +was you what brought in all that stuff +about a discovery in chemistry——”</p> + +<p>“It’s true.”</p> + +<p>“Ugh!”</p> + +<p>“I had it from a Fellow of the Royal +Society——”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-092.jpg" width="400" height="393" alt="“Stuff that the public won’t believe aren’t facts.”" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“Stuff that the public won’t believe aren’t facts.”</span> +</div> +<p>“I don’t care if you had it from—anybody. +Stuff that the public won’t believe +aren’t facts. Being true only makes ’em +worse. They buy our paper to swallow it +and it’s got to go down easy. When I +printed you that note and headline I +thought you was up to a lark. I thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +you was on to a mixed bathing scandal +or something of that sort—with juice in +it. The sort of thing that <em>all</em> understand. +You know when you went down to Folkestone +you were going to describe what +Salisbury and all the rest of them wear +upon the Leas. And start a discussion on +the acclimatisation of the café. And all +that. And then you get on to this (unprintable +epithet) nonsense!”</p> + +<p>“But Lord Salisbury—he doesn’t go to +Folkestone.”</p> + +<p>Banghurst shrugged his shoulders over +a hopeless case. “What the deuce,” he +said, addressing his inkpot in plaintive +tones, “does <em>that</em> matter?”</p> + +<p>The young man reflected. He addressed +Banghurst’s back after a pause. +His voice had flattened a little. “I might +go over this and do it up as a lark perhaps. +Make it a comic dialogue sketch +with a man who really believed in it—or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +something like that. It’s a beastly lot of +copy to get slumped, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Nohow,” said Banghurst. “Not in +any shape. No! Why! They’d think it +clever. They’d think you was making +game of them. They hate things they +think are clever!”</p> + +<p>The young man made as if to reply, +but Banghurst’s back expressed quite +clearly that the interview was at an +end.</p> + +<p>“Nohow,” repeated Banghurst just +when it seemed he had finished altogether.</p> + +<p>“I may take it to the <cite>Gunfire</cite> then?”</p> + +<p>Banghurst suggested an alternative.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the young man, +heated, “the <cite>Gunfire</cite> it is.”</p> + +<p>But in that he was reckoning without +the editor of the <cite>Gunfire</cite>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>It must have been quite soon after +that, that I myself heard the first mention +of the mermaid, little recking that at +last it would fall to me to write her history. +I was on one of my rare visits to +London, and Micklethwaite was giving +me lunch at the Penwiper Club, certainly +one of the best dozen literary clubs in +London. I noted the rising young journalist +at a table near the door, lunching +alone. All about him tables were vacant, +though the other parts of the room were +crowded. He sat with his face towards +the door, and he kept looking up whenever +any one came in, as if he expected +some one who never came. Once +distinctly I saw him beckon to a man, +but the man did not respond.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Micklethwaite,” I said, +“why is everybody avoiding that man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +over there? I noticed just now in the +smoking-room that he seemed to be trying +to get into conversation with some +one and that a kind of taboo——”</p> + +<p>Micklethwaite stared over his fork. +“Ra-ther,” he said.</p> + +<p>“But what’s he done?”</p> + +<p>“He’s a fool,” said Micklethwaite +with his mouth full, evidently annoyed. +“Ugh,” he said as soon as he was free to +do so.</p> + +<p>I waited a little while.</p> + +<p>“What’s he done?” I ventured.</p> + +<p>Micklethwaite did not answer for a +moment and crammed things into his +mouth vindictively, bread and all sorts of +things. Then leaning towards me in a +confidential manner he made indignant +noises which I could not clearly distinguish +as words.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” I said, when he had done.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Micklethwaite. He swallowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +and then poured himself wine—splashing +the tablecloth.</p> + +<p>“He had <em>me</em> for an hour very nearly +the other day.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?” I said.</p> + +<p>“Silly fool,” said Micklethwaite.</p> + +<p>I was afraid it was all over, but luckily +he gave me an opening again after gulping +down his wine.</p> + +<p>“He leads you on to argue,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That——?”</p> + +<p>“That he can’t prove it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“And then he shows you he can. +Just showing off how damned ingenious +he is.”</p> + +<p>I was a little confused. “Prove what?” +I asked.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t I been telling you?” said +Micklethwaite, growing very red. “About +this confounded mermaid of his at Folkestone.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> + +<p>“He says there is one?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he does,” said Micklethwaite, +going purple and staring at me very hard. +He seemed to ask mutely whether I of +all people proposed to turn on him and +back up this infamous scoundrel. I +thought for a moment he would have +apoplexy, but happily he remembered his +duty as my host. So he turned very suddenly +on a meditative waiter for not removing +our plates.</p> + +<p>“Had any golf lately?” I said to +Micklethwaite, when the plates and the +remains of the waiter had gone away. +Golf always does Micklethwaite good except +when he is actually playing. Then, I +am told— If I were Mrs. Bunting I +should break off and raise my eyebrows +and both hands at this point, to indicate +how golf acts on Micklethwaite when he +is playing.</p> + +<p>I turned my mind to feigning an interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +in golf—a game that in truth I despise +and hate as I despise and hate nothing +else in this world. Imagine a great +fat creature like Micklethwaite, a creature +who ought to wear a turban and a long +black robe to hide his grossness, whacking +a little white ball for miles and miles with +a perfect surgery of instruments, whacking +it either with a babyish solemnity or a +childish rage as luck may have decided, +whacking away while his country goes to +the devil, and incidentally training an innocent-eyed +little boy to swear and be a +tip-hunting loafer. That’s golf! However, +I controlled my all too facile sneer +and talked of golf and the relative merits +of golf links as I might talk to a child +about buns or distract a puppy with the +whisper of “rats,” and when at last I could +look at the rising young journalist again +our lunch had come to an end.</p> + +<p>I saw that he was talking with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +greater air of freedom than it is usual to +display to club waiters, to the man who +held his coat. The man looked incredulous +but respectful, and was answering +shortly but politely.</p> + +<p>When we went out this little conversation +was still going on. The waiter was +holding the rising young journalist’s soft +felt hat and the rising young journalist +was fumbling in his coat pocket with a +thick mass of papers.</p> + +<p>“It’s tremendous. I’ve got most of it +here,” he was saying as we went by. “I +don’t know if you’d care——”</p> + +<p>“I get very little time for reading, +sir,” the waiter was replying.</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE FOURTH</small><br /> + +THE QUALITY OF PARKER</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>So far I have been very full, I know, +and verisimilitude has been my watchword +rather than the true affidavit style. But if +I have made it clear to the reader just +how the Sea Lady landed and just how it +was possible for her to land and become a +member of human society without any +considerable excitement on the part of +that society, such poor pains as I have +taken to tint and shadow and embellish +the facts at my disposal will not have been +taken in vain. She positively and quietly +settled down with the Buntings. Within +a fortnight she had really settled down so +thoroughly that, save for her exceptional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +beauty and charm and the occasional faint +touches of something a little indefinable +in her smile, she had become a quite passable +and credible human being. She was +a cripple, indeed, and her lower limb was +most pathetically swathed and put in a +sort of case, but it was quite generally understood—I +am afraid at Mrs. Bunting’s +initiative—that presently <em>they</em>—Mrs. Bunting +said “they,” which was certainly almost +as far or even a little farther than legitimate +prevarication may go—would be +as well as ever.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-103.jpg" width="400" height="477" alt="She positively and quietly settled down with the Buntings." title="" /> +<span class="caption">She positively and quietly settled down with the Buntings.</span> +</div> + +<p>“Of course,” said Mrs. Bunting, “she +will never be able to <em>bicycle</em> again——”</p> + +<p>That was the sort of glamour she +threw about it.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>In Parker it is indisputable that the +Sea Lady found—or at least had found +for her by Mrs. Bunting—a treasure of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +the richest sort. Parker was still fallaciously +young, but she had been maid to a +lady from India who had been in a “case” +and had experienced and overcome cross-examination. +She had also been deceived +by a young man, whom she had fancied +greatly, only to find him walking out with +another—contrary to her inflexible sense +of correctness—in the presence of which +all other things are altogether vain. Life +she had resolved should have no further +surprises for her. She looked out on its +(largely improper) pageant with an expression +of alert impartiality in her hazel +eyes, calm, doing her specific duty, and +entirely declining to participate further. +She always kept her elbows down by her +side and her hands always just in contact, +and it was impossible for the most powerful +imagination to conceive her under any +circumstances as being anything but absolutely +straight and clean and neat. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +her voice was always under all circumstances +low and wonderfully distinct—just +to an infinitesimal degree indeed “mincing.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting had been a little nervous +when it came to the point. It was Mrs. +Bunting of course who engaged her, because +the Sea Lady was so entirely without +experience. But certainly Mrs. Bunting’s +nervousness was thrown away.</p> + +<p>“You understand,” said Mrs. Bunting, +taking a plunge at it, “that—that she is +an invalid.”</p> + +<p>“I <em>didn’t</em>, Mem,” replied Parker respectfully, +and evidently quite willing to +understand anything as part of her duty +in this world.</p> + +<p>“In fact,” said Mrs. Bunting, rubbing +the edge of the tablecloth daintily with +her gloved finger and watching the operation +with interest, “as a matter of fact, +she has a mermaid’s tail.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Mermaid’s tail! Indeed, Mem! And +is it painful at all?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear, no, it involves no inconvenience—nothing. +Except—you understand, +there is a need of—discretion.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Mem,” said Parker, as who +should say, “there always is.”</p> + +<p>“We particularly don’t want the servants——”</p> + +<p>“The lower servants— No, Mem.”</p> + +<p>“You understand?” and Mrs. Bunting +looked up again and regarded Parker +calmly.</p> + +<p>“Precisely, Mem!” said Parker, with a +face unmoved, and so they came to the +question of terms. “It all passed off +<em>most</em> satisfactorily,” said Mrs. Bunting, +taking a deep breath at the mere memory +of that moment. And it is clear that +Parker was quite of her opinion.</p> + +<p>She was not only discreet but really +clever and handy. From the very outset<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +she grasped the situation, unostentatiously +but very firmly. It was Parker who contrived +the sort of violin case for It, and +who made the tea gown extension that +covered the case’s arid contours. It was +Parker who suggested an invalid’s chair +for use indoors and in the garden, and a +carrying chair for the staircase. Hitherto +Fred Bunting had been on hand, at last +even in excessive abundance, whenever +the Sea Lady lay in need of masculine +arms. But Parker made it clear at once +that that was not at all in accordance with +her ideas, and so earned the lifelong gratitude +of Mabel Glendower. And Parker +too spoke out for drives, and suggested +with an air of rightness that left nothing +else to be done, the hire of a carriage and +pair for the season—to the equal delight +of the Buntings and the Sea Lady. It +was Parker who dictated the daily drive +up to the eastern end of the Leas and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +Sea Lady’s transfer, and the manner of +the Sea Lady’s transfer, to the bath chair +in which she promenaded the Leas. There +seemed to be nowhere that it was pleasant +and proper for the Sea Lady to go +that Parker did not swiftly and correctly +indicate it and the way to get to it, and +there seems to have been nothing that it +was really undesirable the Sea Lady should +do and anywhere that it was really undesirable +that she should go, that Parker +did not at once invisibly but effectively +interpose a bar. It was Parker who released +the Sea Lady from being a sort of +private and peculiar property in the Bunting +household and carried her off to a becoming +position in the world, when the +crisis came. In little things as in great +she failed not. It was she who made it +luminous that the Sea Lady’s card plate +was not yet engraved and printed (“Miss +Doris Thalassia Waters” was the pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +and appropriate name with which the Sea +Lady came primed), and who replaced the +box of the presumably dank and drowned +and dripping “Tom” by a jewel case, a +dressing bag and the first of the Sea +Lady’s trunks.</p> + +<p>On a thousand little occasions this +Parker showed a sense of propriety that +was penetratingly fine. For example, in +the shop one day when “things” of an +intimate sort were being purchased, she +suddenly intervened.</p> + +<p>“There are stockings, Mem,” she said +in a discreet undertone, behind, but not +too vulgarly behind, a fluttering straight +hand.</p> + +<p>“<em>Stockings!</em>” cried Mrs. Bunting. +“But——!”</p> + +<p>“I think, Mem, she should have stockings,” +said Parker, quietly but very firmly.</p> + +<p>And come to think of it, why <em>should</em> +an unavoidable deficiency in a lady excuse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +one that can be avoided? It’s there we +touch the very quintessence and central +principle of the proper life.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Bunting, you know, would +never have seen it like that.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Let me add here, regretfully but with +infinite respect, one other thing about +Parker, and then she shall drop into her +proper place.</p> + +<p>I must confess, with a slight tinge of +humiliation, that I pursued this young +woman to her present situation at Highton +Towers—maid she is to that eminent +religious and social propagandist, the Lady +Jane Glanville. There were certain details +of which I stood in need, certain scenes +and conversations of which my passion +for verisimilitude had scarcely a crumb to +go upon. And from first to last, what she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +must have seen and learnt and inferred +would amount practically to everything.</p> + +<p>I put this to her frankly. She made +no pretence of not understanding me nor +of ignorance of certain hidden things. +When I had finished she regarded me +with a level regard.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t think of it, sir,” she said. +“It wouldn’t be at all according to my +ideas.”</p> + +<p>“But!—It surely couldn’t possibly hurt +you now to tell me.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I couldn’t, sir.”</p> + +<p>“It couldn’t hurt anyone.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t that, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I should see you didn’t lose by it, +you know.”</p> + +<p>She looked at me politely, having said +what she intended to say.</p> + +<p>And, in spite of what became at last +very fine and handsome inducements, that +remained the inflexible Parker’s reply.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +Even after I had come to an end with my +finesse and attempted to bribe her in the +grossest manner, she displayed nothing but +a becoming respect for my impregnable +social superiority.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t think of it, sir,” she repeated. +“It wouldn’t be at all according +to my ideas.”</p> + +<p>And if in the end you should find this +story to any extent vague or incomplete, +I trust you will remember how the inflexible +severity of Parker’s ideas stood in my +way.</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE FIFTH</small><br /> + +THE ABSENCE AND RETURN OF +MR. HARRY CHATTERIS</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>These digressions about Parker and +the journalists have certainly led me astray +from the story a little. You will, however, +understand that while the rising young +journalist was still in pursuit of information, +Hope and Banghurst, and Parker +merely a budding perfection, the carriage +not even thought of, things were already +developing in that bright little establishment +beneath the evergreen oaks on the +Folkestone Riviera. So soon as the minds +of the Buntings ceased to be altogether +focused upon this new and amazing social +addition, they—of all people—had most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +indisputably discovered, it became at first +faintly and then very clearly evident that +their own simple pleasure in the possession +of a guest so beautiful as Miss Waters, so +solidly wealthy and—in a manner—so distinguished, +was not entirely shared by the +two young ladies who were to have been +their principal guests for the season.</p> + +<p>This little rift was perceptible the very +first time Mrs. Bunting had an opportunity +of talking over her new arrangements with +Miss Glendower.</p> + +<p>“And is she really going to stay with +you all the summer?” said Adeline.</p> + +<p>“Surely, dear, you don’t mind?”</p> + +<p>“It takes me a little by surprise.”</p> + +<p>“She’s asked me, my dear——”</p> + +<p>“I’m thinking of Harry. If the general +election comes on in September—and +every one seems to think it will —You +promised you would let us inundate you +with electioneering.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But do you think she——”</p> + +<p>“She will be dreadfully in the way.”</p> + +<p>She added after an interval, “She +stops my working.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear!”</p> + +<p>“She’s out of harmony,” said Adeline.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting looked out of her window +at the tamarisk and the sea. “I’m +sure I wouldn’t do anything to hurt +Harry’s prospects. You know how enthusiastic +we all are. Randolph would do +anything. But are you sure she will be +in the way?”</p> + +<p>“What else can she be?”</p> + +<p>“She might help even.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, help!”</p> + +<p>“She might canvass. She’s very attractive, +you know, dear.”</p> + +<p>“Not to me,” said Miss Glendower. +“I don’t trust her.”</p> + +<p>“But to some people. And as Harry +says, at election times every one who can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +do anything must be let do it. Cut them—do +anything afterwards, but at the time—you +know he talked of it when Mr. +Fison and he were here. If you left electioneering +only to the really nice people——”</p> + +<p>“It was Mr. Fison said that, not Harry. +And besides, she wouldn’t help.”</p> + +<p>“I think you misjudge her there, dear. +She has been asking——”</p> + +<p>“To help?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and all about it,” said Mrs. +Bunting, with a transient pink. “She +keeps asking questions about why we are +having the election and what it is all about, +and why Harry is a candidate and all that. +She wants to go into it quite deeply. <em>I</em> +can’t answer half the things she asks.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s why she keeps up those +long conversations with Mr. Melville, I +suppose, and why Fred goes about neglecting +Mabel——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> + +<p>“My dear!” said Mrs. Bunting.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t have her canvassing with +us for anything,” said Miss Glendower. +“She’d spoil everything. She is frivolous +and satirical. She looks at you with +incredulous eyes, she seems to blight all +one’s earnestness.… I don’t think you +quite understand, dear Mrs. Bunting, what +this election and my studies mean to me—and +Harry. She comes across all that—like +a contradiction.”</p> + +<p>“Surely, my dear! I’ve never heard +her contradict.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she doesn’t contradict. But +she— There is something about her— One +feels that things that are most +important and vital are nothing to her. +Don’t you feel it? She comes from another +world to us.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting remained judicial. Adeline +dropped to a lower key again. “I +think,” she said, “anyhow, that we’re taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +her very easily. How do we know +what she is? Down there, out there, she +may be anything. She may have had excellent +reasons for coming to land——”</p> + +<p>“My dear!” cried Mrs. Bunting. “Is +that charity?”</p> + +<p>“How do they live?”</p> + +<p>“If she hadn’t lived nicely I’m sure +she couldn’t behave so nicely.”</p> + +<p>“Besides—coming here! She had no +invitation——”</p> + +<p>“I’ve invited her now,” said Mrs. +Bunting gently.</p> + +<p>“You could hardly help yourself. I +only hope your kindness——”</p> + +<p>“It’s not a kindness,” said Mrs. Bunting, +“it’s a duty. If she were only half +as charming as she is. You seem to forget”—her +voice dropped—“what it is she +comes for.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I want to know.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure in these days, with so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +materialism about and such wickedness +everywhere, when everybody who has a +soul seems trying to lose it, to find any +one who hadn’t a soul and who is trying +to find one——”</p> + +<p>“But <em>is</em> she trying to get one?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Flange comes twice every week. +He would come oftener, as you know, if +there wasn’t so much confirmation about.”</p> + +<p>“And when he comes he sits and +touches her hand if he can, and he talks in +his lowest voice, and she sits and smiles—she +almost laughs outright at the things +he says.”</p> + +<p>“Because he has to win his way with +her. Surely Mr. Flange may do what he +can to make religion attractive?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe she believes she will +get a soul. I don’t believe she wants one +a bit.”</p> + +<p>She turned towards the door as if she +had done.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting’s pink was now permanent. +She had brought up a son and two +daughters, and besides she had brought +down a husband to “My dear, how was <em>I</em> +to know?” and when it was necessary to +be firm—even with Adeline Glendower—she +knew how to be firm just as well as +anybody.</p> + +<p>“My dear,” she began in her very +firmest quiet manner, “I am positive you +misjudge Miss Waters. Trivial she may +be—on the surface at any rate. Perhaps +she laughs and makes fun a little. There +are different ways of looking at things. +But I am sure that at bottom she is just +as serious, just as grave, as—any one. You +judge her hastily. I am sure if you knew +her better—as I do——”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bunting left an eloquent pause.</p> + +<p>Miss Glendower had two little pink +flushes in her cheeks. She turned with +her hand on the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>“At any rate,” she said, “I am sure +that Harry will agree with me that she +can be no help to our cause. We have +our work to do and it is something more +than just vulgar electioneering. We have +to develop and establish ideas. Harry has +views that are new and wide-reaching. +We want to put our whole strength into +this work. Now especially. And her +presence——”</p> + +<p>She paused for a moment. “It is a +digression. She divides things. She puts +it all wrong. She has a way of concentrating +attention about herself. She alters +the values of things. She prevents my +being single-minded, she will prevent +Harry being single-minded——”</p> + +<p>“I think, my dear, that you might +trust my judgment a little,” said Mrs. +Bunting and paused.</p> + +<p>Miss Glendower opened her mouth +and shut it again, without speaking. It became<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +evident finality was attained. Nothing +remained to be said but the regrettable.</p> + +<p>The door opened and closed smartly +and Mrs. Bunting was alone.</p> + +<p>Within an hour they all met at the +luncheon table and Adeline’s behaviour to +the Sea Lady and to Mrs. Bunting was as +pleasant and alert as any highly earnest +and intellectual young lady’s could be. +And all that Mrs. Bunting said and did +tended with what people call infinite tact—which +really, you know, means a great +deal more tact than is comfortable—to develop +and expose the more serious aspect +of the Sea Lady’s mind. Mr. Bunting +was unusually talkative and told them all +about a glorious project he had just heard +of, to cut out the rather shrubby and weedy +front of the Leas and stick in something +between a wine vault and the Crystal Palace +as a Winter Garden—which seemed +to him a very excellent idea indeed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It is time now to give some impression +of the imminent Chatteris, who for all his +late appearance is really the chief human +being in my cousin Melville’s story. It +happens that I met him with some frequency +in my university days and afterwards +ever and again I came upon him. +He was rather a brilliant man at the university, +smart without being vulgar and +clever for all that. He was remarkably +good-looking from the very onset of his +manhood and without being in any way a +showy spendthrift, was quite magnificently +extravagant. There was trouble in his +last year, something hushed up about a +girl or woman in London, but his family +had it all over with him, and his uncle, +the Earl of Beechcroft, settled some of his +bills. Not all—for the family is commendably +free from sentimental excesses—but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +enough to make him comfortable +again. The family is not a rich one and +it further abounds in an extraordinary +quantity of rather frowsy, loose-tongued +aunts—I never knew a family quite so +rich in old aunts. But Chatteris was so +good-looking, easy-mannered, and clever, +that they seemed to agree almost without +discussion to pull him through. They +hunted about for something that would +be really remunerative without being +laborious or too commercial; and meanwhile—after +the extraordinary craving of +his aunt, Lady Poynting Mallow, to see +him acting had been overcome by the +united efforts of the more religious section +of his aunts—Chatteris set himself seriously +to the higher journalism—that is +to say, the journalism that dines anywhere, +gets political tips after dinner, and +is always acceptable—if only to avoid +thirteen articles—in a half-crown review.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +In addition, he wrote some very passable +verse and edited Jane Austen for the only +publisher who had not already reprinted +the works of that classic lady.</p> + +<p>His verse, like himself, was shapely and +handsome, and, like his face, it suggested +to the penetrating eye certain reservations +and indecisions. There was just that touch +of refinement that is weakness in the public +man. But as yet he was not a public +man; he was known to be energetic and +his work was gathering attention as always +capable and occasionally brilliant. His +aunts declared he was ripening, that any +defect in vigour he displayed was the incompleteness +of the process, and decided +he should go to America, where vigour +and vigorous opportunities abound, and +there, I gather, he came upon something +like a failure. Something happened, indeed, +quite a lot happened. He came +back unmarried—and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">viâ</i> the South Seas,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +Australasia and India. And Lady Poynting +Mallow publicly told him he was a +fool, when he got back.</p> + +<p>What happened in America, even if +one does not consult contemporary American +papers, is still very difficult to determine. +There appear to have been the +daughter of a millionaire and something +like an engagement in the story. According +to the <cite>New York Yell</cite>, one of the +smartest, crispest, and altogether most representative +papers in America, there was +also the daughter of some one else, whom +the <cite>Yell</cite> interviewed, or professed to interview, +under the heading:</p> + +<p class="news"> +AN ARISTOCRATIC BRITISHER<br /> + +<small>TRIFLES WITH</small><br /> + +A PURE AMERICAN GIRL<br /> + +INTERVIEW WITH THE VICTIM<br /> + +<small>OF HIS</small><br /> + +HEARTLESS LEVITY</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> + +<p>But this some one else was, I am inclined +to think in spite of her excellently +executed portrait, merely a brilliant stroke +of modern journalism, the <cite>Yell</cite> having +got wind of the sudden retreat of Chatteris +and inventing a reason in preference +to discovering one. Wensleydale tells me +the true impetus to bolt was the merest +trifle. The daughter of the millionaire, +being a bright and spirited girl, had undergone +interviewing on the subject of her +approaching marriage, on marriage in general, +on social questions of various sorts, +and on the relations of the British and +American peoples, and he seems to have +found the thing in his morning paper. +It took him suddenly and he lost his head. +And once he started, he seems to have +lacked the power of mind to turn about +and come back. The affair was a mess, +the family paid some more of his bills and +shirked others, and Chatteris turned up in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +London again after a time, with somewhat +diminished glory and a series of letters +on Imperial Affairs, each headed with +the quotation: “What do they know of +England who only England know?”</p> + +<p>Of course people of England learnt +nothing of the real circumstances of the +case, but it was fairly obvious that he had +gone to America and come back empty-handed.</p> + +<p>And that was how, in the course of +some years, he came to Adeline Glendower, +of whose special gifts as his helper +and inspiration you have already heard +from Mrs. Bunting. When he became +engaged to her, the family, which had long +craved to forgive him—Lady Poynting +Mallow as a matter of fact had done so—brightened +wonderfully. And after considerable +obscure activities he declared +himself a philanthropic Liberal with open +spaces in his platform, and in a position,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +and ready as a beginning, to try the quality +of the conservative South.</p> + +<p>He was away making certain decisive +arrangements, in Paris and elsewhere, at +the time of the landing of the Sea Lady. +Before the matter was finally settled it +was necessary that something should be +said to a certain great public character, +and then he was to return and tell Adeline. +And every one was expecting him +daily, including, it is now indisputable, the +Sea Lady.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The meeting of Miss Glendower and +her affianced lover on his return from +Paris was one of those scenes in this story +for which I have scarcely an inkling of the +true details. He came to Folkestone and +stopped at the Métropole, the Bunting +house being full and the Métropole being +the nearest hotel to Sandgate; and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +walked down in the afternoon and asked +for Adeline, which was pretty rather than +correct. I gather that they met in the +drawing-room, and as Chatteris closed the +door behind him, I imagine there was +something in the nature of a caress.</p> + +<p>I must confess I envy the freedom of +the novelist who can take you behind such +a locked door as this and give you all that +such persons say and do. But with the +strongest will in the world to blend the +little scraps of fact I have into a continuous +sequence of events, I falter at this +occasion. After all, I never saw Adeline +at all until after all these things were over, +and what is she now? A rather tall, a +rather restless and active woman, very +keen and obvious in public affairs—with +something gone out of her. Melville once +saw a gleam of that, but for the most part +Melville never liked her; she had a wider +grasp of things than he, and he was a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +afraid of her; she was in some inexplicable +way neither a pretty woman nor a “dear +lady” nor a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande dame</i> nor totally insignificant, +and a heretic therefore in Melville’s +scheme of things. He gives me +small material for that earlier Adeline. +“She posed,” he says; she was “political,” +and she was always reading Mrs. Humphry +Ward.</p> + +<p>The last Melville regarded as the most +heinous offence. It is not the least of my +cousin’s weaknesses that he regards this +great novelist as an extremely corrupting +influence for intelligent girls. She makes +them good and serious in the wrong way, +he says. Adeline, he asserts, was absolutely +built on her. She was always attempting +to be the incarnation of <cite>Marcella</cite>. +It was he who had perverted Mrs. +Bunting’s mind to adopt this fancy. But +I don’t believe for a moment in this +idea of girls building themselves on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +heroines in fiction. These are matters of +elective affinity, and unless some bullying +critic or preacher sends us astray, +we take each to our own novelist as +the souls in the Swedenborgian system +take to their hells. Adeline took to the +imaginary <cite>Marcella</cite>. There was, Melville +says, the strongest likeness in their mental +atmosphere. They had the same defects, +a bias for superiority—to use his expressive +phrase—the same disposition towards +arrogant benevolence, that same obtuseness +to little shades of feeling that leads +people to speak habitually of the “Lower +Classes,” and to think in the vein of that +phrase. They certainly had the same virtues, +a conscious and conscientious integrity, +a hard nobility without one touch of +magic, an industrious thoroughness. More +than in anything else, Adeline delighted +in her novelist’s thoroughness, her freedom +from impressionism, the patient resolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +with which she went into the corners and +swept under the mat of every incident. +And it would be easy to argue from that, +that Adeline behaved as Mrs. Ward’s +most characteristic heroine behaved, on an +analogous occasion.</p> + +<p><cite>Marcella</cite> we know—at least after her +heart was changed—would have clung +to him. There would have been a moment +of high emotion in which thoughts—of +the highest class—mingled with +the natural ambition of two people in +the prime of life and power. Then she +would have receded with a quick movement +and listened with her beautiful +hand pensive against her cheek, while +Chatteris began to sum up the forces +against him—to speculate on the action +of this group and that. Something +infinitely tender and maternal +would have spoken in her, pledging her +to the utmost help that love and a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +can give. She would have produced +in Chatteris that exquisite mingled impression +of grace, passion, self-yielding, +which in all its infinite variations and +repetitions made up for him the constant +poem of her beauty.</p> + +<p>But that is the dream and not the reality. +So Adeline might have dreamt of +behaving, but—she was not <cite>Marcella</cite>, +and only wanting to be, and he was not +only not Maxwell but he had no intention +of being Maxwell anyhow. If he had had +an opportunity of becoming Maxwell he +would probably have rejected it with extreme +incivility. So they met like two +unheroic human beings, with shy and +clumsy movements and, I suppose, fairly +honest eyes. Something there was in the +nature of a caress, I believe, and then I +incline to fancy she said “Well?” and I +think he must have answered, “It’s all +right.” After that, and rather allusively,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +with a backward jerk of the head at intervals +as it were towards the great personage, +Chatteris must have told her particulars. +He must have told her that he +was going to contest Hythe and that the +little difficulty with the Glasgow commission +agent who wanted to run the Radical +ticket as a “Man of Kent” had been settled +without injury to the party (such as it +is). Assuredly they talked politics, because +soon after, when they came into the +garden side by side to where Mrs. Bunting +and the Sea Lady sat watching the +girls play croquet, Adeline was in full +possession of all these facts. I fancy that +for such a couple as they were, such intimation +of success, such earnest topics, replaced, +to a certain extent at any rate, the +vain repetition of vulgar endearments.</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady appears to have been +the first to see them. “Here he is,” she +said abruptly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Whom?” said Mrs. Bunting, glancing +up at eyes that were suddenly eager, +and then following their glance towards +Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“Your other son,” said the Sea Lady, +jesting unheeded.</p> + +<p>“It’s Harry and Adeline!” cried Mrs. +Bunting. “Don’t they make a handsome +couple?”</p> + +<p>But the Sea Lady made no reply, and +leaned back, scrutinising their advance. +Certainly they made a handsome pair. +Coming out of the veranda into the blaze +of the sun and across the trim lawn towards +the shadow of the ilex trees, they were lit, +as it were, with a more glorious limelight, +and displayed like actors on a stage more +spacious than the stage of any theatre. +The figure of Chatteris must have come +out tall and fair and broad, a little sunburnt, +and I gather even then a little preoccupied, +as indeed he always seemed to be in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +those latter days. And beside him Adeline, +glancing now up at him and now towards +the audience under the trees, dark +and a little flushed, rather tall—though +not so tall as <cite>Marcella</cite> seems to have +been—and, you know, without any instructions +from any novel-writer in the +world, glad.</p> + +<p>Chatteris did not discover that there +was any one but Buntings under the tree +until he was close at hand. Then the abrupt +discovery of this stranger seems to +have checked whatever he was prepared to +say for his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</i>, and Adeline took the +centre of the stage. Mrs. Bunting was +standing up, and all the croquet players—except +Mabel, who was winning—converged +on Chatteris with cries of welcome. +Mabel remained in the midst of what I +understand is called a tea-party, loudly demanding +that they should see her “play it +out.” No doubt if everything had gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +well she would have given a most edifying +exhibition of what croquet can sometimes +be.</p> + +<p>Adeline swam forward to Mrs. Bunting +and cried with a note of triumph in +her voice: “It is all settled. Everything +is settled. He has won them all and he +is to contest Hythe.”</p> + +<p>Quite involuntarily her eyes must have +met the Sea Lady’s.</p> + +<p>It is of course quite impossible to say +what she found there—or indeed what +there was to find there then. For a moment +they faced riddles, and then the Sea +Lady turned her eyes with a long deferred +scrutiny to the man’s face, which she probably +saw now closely for the first time. +One wonders whether it is just possible +that there may have been something, if it +were no more than a gleam of surprise +and enquiry, in that meeting of their eyes. +Just for a moment she held his regard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +and then it shifted enquiringly to Mrs. +Bunting.</p> + +<p>That lady intervened effusively with an +“Oh! I forgot,” and introduced them. I +think they went through that without another +meeting of the foils of their regard.</p> + +<p>“You back?” said Fred to Chatteris, +touching his arm, and Chatteris confirmed +this happy guess.</p> + +<p>The Bunting girls seemed to welcome +Adeline’s enviable situation rather than +Chatteris as an individual. And Mabel’s +voice could be heard approaching. +“Oughtn’t they to see me play it out, Mr. +Chatteris?”</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Harry, my boy!” cried Mr. +Bunting, who was cultivating a bluff manner. +“How’s Paris?”</p> + +<p>“How’s the fishing?” said Harry.</p> + +<p>And so they came into a vague circle +about this lively person who had “won +them all”—except Parker, of course, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +remained in her own proper place and was, +I am certain, never to be won by anybody.</p> + +<p>There was a handing and shifting of +garden chairs.</p> + +<p>No one seemed to take the slightest +notice of Adeline’s dramatic announcement. +The Buntings were not good at +thinking of things to say. She stood in +the midst of the group like a leading lady +when the other actors have forgotten their +parts. Then every one woke up to this, as +it were, and they went off in a volley. “So +it’s really all settled,” said Mrs. Bunting; +and Betty Bunting said, “There <em>is</em> to be +an election then!” and Nettie said, “What +fun!” Mr. Bunting remarked with a +knowing air, “So you saw him then?” and +Fred flung “Hooray!” into the tangle of +sounds.</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady of course said nothing.</p> + +<p>“We’ll give ’em a jolly good fight for +it, anyhow,” said Mr. Bunting.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, I hope we shall do that,” said +Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“We shall do more than that,” said +Adeline.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes!” said Betty Bunting, “we +shall.”</p> + +<p>“I knew they would let him,” said +Adeline.</p> + +<p>“If they had any sense,” said Mr. +Bunting.</p> + +<p>Then came a pause, and Mr. Bunting +was emboldened to lift up his voice and +utter politics. “They are getting sense,” +he said. “They are learning that a party +must have men, men of birth and training. +Money and the mob—they’ve tried +to keep things going by playing to fads +and class jealousies. And the Irish. And +they’ve had their lesson. How? Why,—we’ve +stood aside. We’ve left ’em to +faddists and fomenters—and the Irish. +And here they are! It’s a revolution in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +the party. We’ve let it down. Now we +must pick it up again.”</p> + +<p>He made a gesture with his fat little +hand, one of those fat pink little hands +that appear to have neither flesh nor bones +inside them but only sawdust or horse-hair. +Mrs. Bunting leaned back in her +chair and smiled at him indulgently.</p> + +<p>“It is no common election,” said Mr. +Bunting. “It is a great issue.”</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady had been regarding him +thoughtfully. “What is a great issue?” +she asked. “I don’t quite understand.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bunting spread himself to explain +to her. “This,” he said to begin with. +Adeline listened with a mingling of interest +and impatience, attempting ever and +again to suppress him and to involve Chatteris +by a tactful interposition. But Chatteris +appeared disinclined to be involved. +He seemed indeed quite interested in Mr. +Bunting’s view of the case.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presently the croquet quartette went +back—at Mabel’s suggestion—to their +game, and the others continued their +political talk. It became more personal +at last, dealing soon quite specifically with +all that Chatteris was doing and more +particularly all that Chatteris was to do. +Mrs. Bunting suddenly suppressed Mr. +Bunting as he was offering advice, and +Adeline took the burden of the talk again. +She indicated vast purposes. “This election +is merely the opening of a door,” she +said. When Chatteris made modest disavowals +she smiled with a proud and +happy consciousness of what she meant +to make of him.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Bunting supplied footnotes +to make it all clear to the Sea Lady. +“He’s so modest,” she said at one point, +and Chatteris pretended not to hear and +went rather pink. Ever and again he +attempted to deflect the talk towards the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +Sea Lady and away from himself, but he +was hampered by his ignorance of her +position.</p> + +<p>And the Sea Lady said scarcely anything +but watched Chatteris and Adeline, +and more particularly Chatteris in relation +to Adeline.</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE SIXTH</small><br /> + +SYMPTOMATIC</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>My cousin Melville is never very clear +about his dates. Now this is greatly to +be regretted, because it would be very +illuminating indeed if one could tell just +how many days elapsed before he came +upon Chatteris in intimate conversation +with the Sea Lady. He was going along +the front of the Leas with some books +from the Public Library that Miss Glendower +had suddenly wished to consult, +and which she, with that entire ignorance +of his lack of admiration for her +which was part of her want of charm for +him, had bidden him bring her. It was +in one of those sheltered paths just under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +the brow which give such a pleasant and +characteristic charm to Folkestone, that +he came upon a little group about the +Sea Lady’s bath chair. Chatteris was +seated in one of the wooden seats that are +embedded in the bank, and was leaning +forward and looking into the Sea Lady’s +face; and she was speaking with a smile +that struck Melville even at the time as +being a little special in its quality—and +she seems to have been capable of many +charming smiles. Parker was a little distance +away, where a sort of bastion projects +and gives a wide view of the pier +and harbour and the coast of France, regarding +it all with a qualified disfavour, +and the bath chairman was crumpled up +against the bank lost in that wistful melancholy +that the constant perambulation +of broken humanity necessarily engenders.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-149.jpg" width="400" height="540" alt="A little group about the Sea Lady’s bath chair." title="" /> +<span class="caption">A little group about the Sea Lady’s bath chair.</span> +</div> + +<p>My cousin slackened his pace a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +and came up and joined them. The conversation +hung at his approach. Chatteris +sat back a little, but there seemed no resentment +and he sought a topic for the +three to discuss in the books Melville carried.</p> + +<p>“Books?” he said.</p> + +<p>“For Miss Glendower,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“What are they about?” asked the +Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“Land tenure,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“That’s hardly my subject,” said the +Sea Lady, and Chatteris joined in her +smile as if he saw a jest.</p> + +<p>There was a little pause.</p> + +<p>“You are contesting Hythe?” said +Melville.</p> + +<p>“Fate points that way,” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“They threaten a dissolution for September.”</p> + +<p>“It will come in a month,” said Chatteris,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +with the inimitable tone of one who +knows.</p> + +<p>“In that case we shall soon be busy.”</p> + +<p>“And <em>I</em> may canvass,” said the Sea +Lady. “I never have——”</p> + +<p>“Miss Waters,” explained Chatteris, +“has been telling me she means to help +us.” He met Melville’s eye frankly.</p> + +<p>“It’s rough work, Miss Waters,” said +Melville.</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind that. It’s fun. And I +want to help. I really do want to help—Mr. +Chatteris.”</p> + +<p>“You know, that’s encouraging.”</p> + +<p>“I could go around with you in my +bath chair?”</p> + +<p>“It would be a picnic,” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“I mean to help anyhow,” said the Sea +Lady.</p> + +<p>“You know the case for the plaintiff?” +asked Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked at him.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got your arguments?”</p> + +<p>“I shall ask them to vote for Mr. +Chatteris, and afterwards when I see +them I shall remember them and smile +and wave my hand. What else is +there?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said Chatteris, and shut the +lid on Melville. “I wish I had an argument +as good.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of people are they here?” +asked Melville. “Isn’t there a smuggling +interest to conciliate?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t asked that,” said Chatteris. +“Smuggling is over and past, you know. +Forty years ago. It always has been forty +years ago. They trotted out the last of +the smugglers,—interesting old man, full of +reminiscences,—when there was a count of +the Saxon Shore. He remembered smuggling—forty +years ago. Really, I doubt +if there ever was any smuggling. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +existing coast guard is a sacrifice to a vain +superstition.”</p> + +<p>“Why!” cried the Sea Lady. “Only +about five weeks ago I saw quite near +here——”</p> + +<p>She stopped abruptly and caught Melville’s +eye. He grasped her difficulty.</p> + +<p>“In a paper?” he suggested.</p> + +<p>“Yes, in a paper,” she said, seizing the +rope he threw her.</p> + +<p>“Well?” asked Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“There is smuggling still,” said the +Sea Lady, with an air of some one who +decides not to tell an anecdote that is suddenly +found to be half forgotten.</p> + +<p>“There’s no doubt it happens,” said +Chatteris, missing it all. “But it doesn’t +appear in the electioneering. I certainly +sha’n’t agitate for a faster revenue cutter. +However things may be in that respect, I +take the line that they are very well as +they are. That’s my line, of course.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +And he looked out to sea. The eyes of +Melville and the Sea Lady had an intimate +moment.</p> + +<p>“There, you know, is just a specimen +of the sort of thing we do,” said Chatteris. +“Are you prepared to be as intricate as +that?”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” said the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>My cousin was reminded of an anecdote.</p> + +<p>The talk degenerated into anecdotes +of canvassing, and ran shallow. My cousin +was just gathering that Mrs. Bunting and +Miss Bunting had been with the Sea Lady +and had gone into the town to a shop, +when they returned. Chatteris rose to +greet them and explained—what had been +by no means apparent before—that he +was on his way to Adeline, and after a few +further trivialities he and Melville went +on together.</p> + +<p>A brief silence fell between them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Who is that Miss Waters?” asked +Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“Friend of Mrs. Bunting,” prevaricated +Melville.</p> + +<p>“So I gather.… She seems a very +charming person.”</p> + +<p>“She is.”</p> + +<p>“She’s interesting. Her illness seems +to throw her up. It makes a passive thing +of her, like a picture or something that’s—imaginary. +Imagined—anyhow. She +sits there and smiles and responds. Her +eyes—have something intimate. And +yet——”</p> + +<p>My cousin offered no assistance.</p> + +<p>“Where did Mrs. Bunting find her.”</p> + +<p>My cousin had to gather himself together +for a second or so.</p> + +<p>“There’s something,” he said deliberately, +“that Mrs. Bunting doesn’t seem +disposed——”</p> + +<p>“What can it be?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It’s bound to be all right,” said Melville +rather weakly.</p> + +<p>“It’s strange, too. Mrs. Bunting is +usually so disposed——”</p> + +<p>Melville left that to itself.</p> + +<p>“That’s what one feels,” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Mystery.”</p> + +<p>My cousin shares with me a profound +detestation of that high mystic method of +treating women. He likes women to be +finite—and nice. In fact, he likes everything +to be finite—and nice. So he +merely grunted.</p> + +<p>But Chatteris was not to be stopped +by that. He passed to a critical note. +“No doubt it’s all illusion. All women +are impressionists, a patch, a light. You +get an effect. And that is all you are +meant to get, I suppose. She gets an +effect. But how—that’s the mystery. It’s +not merely beauty. There’s plenty of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +beauty in the world. But not of these +effects. The eyes, I fancy.”</p> + +<p>He dwelt on that for a moment.</p> + +<p>“There’s really nothing in eyes, you +know, Chatteris,” said my cousin Melville, +borrowing an alien argument and a tone +of analytical cynicism from me. “Have +you ever looked at eyes through a hole in +a sheet?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Chatteris. +“I don’t mean the mere physical eye.… +Perhaps it’s the look of health—and the +bath chair. A bold discord. You don’t +know what’s the matter, Melville?”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“I gather from Bunting it’s a disablement—not +a deformity.”</p> + +<p>“He ought to know.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not so sure of that. You don’t +happen to know the nature of her disablement?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell at all,” said Melville in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +speculative tone. It struck him he was +getting to prevaricate better.</p> + +<p>The subject seemed exhausted. They +spoke of a common friend whom the +sight of the Métropole suggested. Then +they did not talk at all for a time, until +the stir and interest of the band stand +was passed. Then Chatteris threw out a +thought.</p> + +<p>“Complex business—feminine motives,” +he remarked.</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“This canvassing. <em>She</em> can’t be interested +in philanthropic Liberalism.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a difference in the type. And +besides, it’s a personal matter.”</p> + +<p>“Not necessarily, is it? Surely there’s +not such an intellectual gap between the +sexes! If <em>you</em> can get interested——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know.”</p> + +<p>“Besides, it’s not a question of principles. +It’s the fun of electioneering.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Fun!”</p> + +<p>“There’s no knowing what won’t interest +the feminine mind,” said Melville, +and added, “or what will.”</p> + +<p>Chatteris did not answer.</p> + +<p>“It’s the district visiting instinct, I +suppose,” said Melville. “They all have +it. It’s the canvassing. All women like +to go into houses that don’t belong to +them.”</p> + +<p>“Very likely,” said Chatteris shortly, +and failing a reply from Melville, he gave +way to secret meditations, it would seem +still of a fairly agreeable sort.</p> + +<p>The twelve o’clock gun thudded from +Shornecliffe Camp.</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” said Chatteris, and quickened +his steps.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>They found Adeline busy amidst her +papers. As they entered she pointed reproachfully, +yet with the protrusion of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +certain Marcella-like undertone of sweetness, +at the clock. The apologies of Chatteris +were effusive and winning, and involved +no mention of the Sea Lady on +the Leas.</p> + +<p>Melville delivered his books and left +them already wading deeply into the details +of the district organisation that the +local Liberal organiser had submitted.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>A little while after the return of Chatteris, +my cousin Melville and the Sea Lady +were under the ilex at the end of the sea +garden and—disregarding Parker (as every +one was accustomed to do), who was in +a garden chair doing some afternoon work +at a proper distance—there was nobody +with them at all. Fred and the girls +were out cycling—Fred had gone with +them at the Sea Lady’s request—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +Miss Glendower and Mrs. Bunting were +at Hythe calling diplomatically on some +rather horrid local people who might +be serviceable to Harry in his electioneering.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bunting was out fishing. He was +not fond of fishing, but he was in many +respects an exceptionally resolute little +man, and he had taken to fishing every +day in the afternoon after luncheon in +order to break himself of what Mrs. Bunting +called his “ridiculous habit” of getting +sea-sick whenever he went out in a boat. +He said that if fishing from a boat with +pieces of mussels for bait after luncheon +would not break the habit nothing would, +and certainly it seemed at times as if it +were going to break everything that was +in him. But the habit escaped. This, +however, is a digression.</p> + +<p>These two, I say, were sitting in the +ample shade under the evergreen oak, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +Melville, I imagine, was in those fine +faintly patterned flannels that in the year +1899 combined correctness with ease. He +was no doubt looking at the shaded face +of the Sea Lady, framed in a frame of +sunlit yellow-green lawn and black-green +ilex leaves—at least so my impulse for +verisimilitude conceives it—and she at +first was pensive and downcast that afternoon +and afterwards she was interested +and looked into his eyes. Either she must +have suggested that he might smoke or +else he asked. Anyhow, his cigarettes +were produced. She looked at them with +an arrested gesture, and he hung for a +moment, doubtful, on her gesture.</p> + +<p>“I suppose <em>you</em>—” he said.</p> + +<p>“I never learned.”</p> + +<p>He glanced at Parker and then met +the Sea Lady’s regard.</p> + +<p>“It’s one of the things I came for,” +she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<p>He took the only course.</p> + +<p>She accepted a cigarette and examined +it thoughtfully. “Down there,” she said, +“it’s just one of the things— You will +understand we get nothing but saturated +tobacco. Some of the mermen— There’s +something they have picked up from the +sailors. Quids, I think they call it. But +that’s too horrid for words!”</p> + +<p>She dismissed the unpleasant topic by +a movement, and lapsed into thought.</p> + +<p>My cousin clicked his match-box.</p> + +<p>She had a momentary doubt and +glanced towards the house. “Mrs. Bunting?” +she asked. Several times, I understand, +she asked the same thing.</p> + +<p>“She wouldn’t mind—” said Melville, +and stopped.</p> + +<p>“She won’t think it improper,” he +amplified, “if nobody else thinks it improper.”</p> + +<p>“There’s nobody else,” said the Sea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +Lady, glancing at Parker, and my cousin +lit the match.</p> + +<p>My cousin has an indirect habit of +mind. With all general and all personal +things his desperation to get at them +obliquely amounts almost to a passion; he +could no more go straight to a crisis than +a cat could to a stranger. He came off at +a tangent now as he was sitting forward +and scrutinising her first very creditable +efforts to draw. “I just wonder,” he +said, “exactly what it was you <em>did</em> come +for.”</p> + +<p>She smiled at him over a little jet of +smoke. “Why, this,” she said.</p> + +<p>“And hairdressing?”</p> + +<p>“And dressing.”</p> + +<p>She smiled again after a momentary +hesitation. “And all this sort of thing,” +she said, as if she felt she had answered +him perhaps a little below his +deserts. Her gesture indicated the house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +and the lawn and—my cousin Melville +wondered just exactly how much else.</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_ii">“Am I doing it right?” asked the Sea +Lady.</a></p> + +<p>“Beautifully,” said my cousin with a +faint sigh in his voice. “What do you +think of it?”</p> + +<p>“It was worth coming for,” said the +Sea Lady, smiling into his eyes.</p> + +<p>“But did you really just come——?”</p> + +<p>She filled in his gap. “To see what +life was like on land here?… Isn’t that +enough?”</p> + +<p>Melville’s cigarette had failed to light. +He regarded its blighted career pensively.</p> + +<p>“Life,” he said, “isn’t all—this sort of +thing.”</p> + +<p>“This sort of thing?”</p> + +<p>“Sunlight. Cigarette smoking. Talk. +Looking nice.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s made up——”</p> + +<p>“Not altogether.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>“For example?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>you</em> know.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“You know,” said Melville, and would +not look at her.</p> + +<p>“I decline to know,” she said after a +little pause.</p> + +<p>“Besides—” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“You told Mrs. Bunting—” It occurred +to him that he was telling tales, +but that scruple came too late.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Something about a soul.”</p> + +<p>She made no immediate answer. He +looked up and her eyes were smiling. +“Mr. Melville,” she said, innocently, +“what <em>is</em> a soul?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said my cousin readily, and +then paused for a space. “A soul,” said +he, and knocked an imaginary ash from his +extinct cigarette.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<p>“A soul,” he repeated, and glanced at +Parker.</p> + +<p>“A soul, you know,” he said again, and +looked at the Sea Lady with the air of a +man who is handling a difficult matter with +skilful care.</p> + +<p>“Come to think of it,” he said, “it’s +a rather complicated matter to explain——”</p> + +<p>“To a being without one?”</p> + +<p>“To any one,” said my cousin Melville, +suddenly admitting his difficulty.</p> + +<p>He meditated upon her eyes for a +moment.</p> + +<p>“Besides,” he said, “you know what a +soul is perfectly well.”</p> + +<p>“No,” she answered, “I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“You know as well as I do.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! that may be different.”</p> + +<p>“You came to get a soul.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I don’t want one. Why—if +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>one hasn’t one——?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, <em>there!”</em> And my cousin shrugged +his shoulders. “But really you know— It’s +just the generality of it that makes it +hard to define.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody has a soul?”</p> + +<p>“Every one.”</p> + +<p>“Except me?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not certain of that.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Bunting?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>“And Mr. Bunting?”</p> + +<p>“Every one.”</p> + +<p>“Has Miss Glendower?”</p> + +<p>“Lots.”</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady mused. She went off +at a tangent abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Melville,” she said, “what is a +union of souls?”</p> + +<p>Melville flicked his extinct cigarette +suddenly into an elbow shape and then +threw it away. The phrase may have +awakened some reminiscence. “It’s an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +extra,” he said. “It’s a sort of flourish.… +And sometimes it’s like leaving +cards by footmen—a substitute for the +real presence.”</p> + +<p>There came a gap. He remained +downcast, trying to find a way towards +whatever it was that was in his mind +to say. Conceivably, he did not clearly +know what that might be until he came +to it. The Sea Lady abandoned an attempt +to understand him in favour of a +more urgent topic.</p> + +<p>“Do you think Miss Glendower and +Mr. Chatteris——?”</p> + +<p>Melville looked up at her. He noticed +she had hung on the latter name. “Decidedly,” +he said. “It’s just what they +<em>would</em> do.”</p> + +<p>Then he spoke again. “Chatteris?” +he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I thought so,” said Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Sea Lady regarded him gravely. +They scrutinised each other with an unprecedented +intimacy. Melville was suddenly +direct. It was a discovery that it +seemed he ought to have made all along. +He felt quite unaccountably bitter; he +spoke with a twitch of the mouth and his +voice had a note of accusation. “You +want to talk about him.”</p> + +<p>She nodded—still grave.</p> + +<p>“Well, <em>I</em> don’t.” He changed his +note. “But I will if you wish it.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you would.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>you</em> know,” said Melville, discovering +his extinct cigarette was within +reach of a vindictive heel.</p> + +<p>She said nothing.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“I saw him first,” she apologised, +“some years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“In the South Seas—near Tonga.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<p>“And that is really what you came +for?”</p> + +<p>This time her manner was convincing. +She admitted, “Yes.”</p> + +<p>Melville was carefully impartial. “He’s +sightly,” he admitted, “and well-built and +a decent chap—a decent chap. But I +don’t see why you——”</p> + +<p>He went off at a tangent. “He didn’t +see you——?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no.”</p> + +<p>Melville’s pose and tone suggested a +mind of extreme liberality. “I don’t see +why you came,” he said. “Nor what you +mean to do. You see”—with an air of +noting a trifling but valid obstacle—“there’s +Miss Glendower.”</p> + +<p>“Is there?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well, isn’t there?”</p> + +<p>“That’s just it,” she said.</p> + +<p>“And besides after all, you know, why +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>should you——?”</p> + +<p>“I admit it’s unreasonable,” she said. +“But why reason about it? It’s a matter +of the imagination——”</p> + +<p>“For him?”</p> + +<p>“How should I know how it takes +him? That is what I <em>want</em> to know.”</p> + +<p>Melville looked her in the eyes again. +“You know, you’re not playing fair,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“To her?”</p> + +<p>“To any one.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because you are immortal—and unincumbered. +Because you can do everything +you want to do—and we cannot. I +don’t know why we cannot, but we cannot. +Here we are, with our short lives and our +little souls to save, or lose, fussing for our +little concerns. And you, out of the elements, +come and beckon——”</p> + +<p>“The elements have their rights,” she +said. And then: “The elements are the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +elements, you know. That is what you +forget.”</p> + +<p>“Imagination?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly. That’s <em>the</em> element. Those +elements of your chemists——”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“Are all imagination. There isn’t any +other.” She went on: “And all the elements +of your life, the life you imagine +you are living, the little things you must +do, the little cares, the extraordinary little +duties, the day by day, the hypnotic limitations—all +these things are a fancy that +has taken hold of you too strongly for you +to shake off. You daren’t, you mustn’t, +you can’t. To us who watch you——”</p> + +<p>“You watch us?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. We watch you, and sometimes +we envy you. Not only for the +dry air and the sunlight, and the shadows +of trees, and the feeling of morning, and +the pleasantness of many such things, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +because your lives begin and end—because +you look towards an end.”</p> + +<p>She reverted to her former topic. +“But you are so limited, so tied! The +little time you have, you use so poorly. +You begin and you end, and all the time +between it is as if you were enchanted; +you are afraid to do this that would be +delightful to do, you must do that, though +you know all the time it is stupid and disagreeable. +Just think of the things—even +the little things—you mustn’t do. Up +there on the Leas in this hot weather all +the people are sitting in stuffy ugly clothes—ever +so much too much clothes, hot +tight boots, you know, when they have the +most lovely pink feet, some of them—we +<em>see</em>,—and they are all with little to talk +about and nothing to look at, and bound +not to do all sorts of natural things and +bound to do all sorts of preposterous +things. Why are they bound? Why are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +they letting life slip by them? Just as +if they wouldn’t all of them presently +be dead! Suppose you were to go up +there in a bathing dress and a white cotton +hat——”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t be proper!” cried Melville.</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-177.jpg" width="400" height="402" alt="“Why not?”" title="" /> +<span class="caption">“Why not?”</span> +</div> + +<p>“It would be outrageous!”</p> + +<p>“But any one may see you like that on +the beach!”</p> + +<p>“That’s different.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t different. You dream it’s +different. And in just the same way you +dream all the other things are proper or +improper or good or bad to do. Because +you are in a dream, a fantastic, +unwholesome little dream. So small, so +infinitely small! I saw you the other +day dreadfully worried by a spot of ink +on your sleeve—almost the whole afternoon.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> + +<p>My cousin looked distressed. She +abandoned the ink-spot.</p> + +<p>“Your life, I tell you, is a dream—a +dream, and you can’t wake out of it——”</p> + +<p>“And if so, why do you tell me?”</p> + +<p>She made no answer for a space.</p> + +<p>“Why do you tell me?” he insisted.</p> + +<p>He heard the rustle of her movement +as she bent towards him.</p> + +<p>She came warmly close to him. She +spoke in gently confidential undertone, as +one who imparts a secret that is not to be +too lightly given. “Because,” she said, +“there are better dreams.”</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>For a moment it seemed to Melville +that he had been addressed by something +quite other than the pleasant lady in the +bath chair before him. “But how—?” +he began and stopped. He remained silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +with a perplexed face. She leaned +back and glanced away from him, and +when at last she turned and spoke again, +specific realities closed in on him once +more.</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t I,” she asked, “if I +want to?”</p> + +<p>“Shouldn’t what?”</p> + +<p>“If I fancy Chatteris.”</p> + +<p>“One might think of obstacles,” he +reflected.</p> + +<p>“He’s not hers,” she said.</p> + +<p>“In a way, he’s trying to be,” said +Melville.</p> + +<p>“Trying to be! He has to be what +he is. Nothing can make him hers. If +you weren’t dreaming you would see +that.” My cousin was silent. “She’s +not <em>real</em>,” she went on. “She’s a +mass of fancies and vanities. She gets +everything out of books. She gets herself +out of a book. You can see her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +doing it here.… What is she seeking? +What is she trying to do? All this work, +all this political stuff of hers? She talks +of the condition of the poor! What is +the condition of the poor? A dreary +tossing on the bed of existence, a perpetual +fear of consequences that perpetually +distresses them. Lives of anxiety +they lead, because they do not know what +a dream the whole thing is. Suppose +they were not anxious and afraid.… +And what does she care for the condition +of the poor, after all? It is only a point +of departure in her dream. In her heart +she does not want their dreams to be +happier, in her heart she has no passion +for them, only her dream is that she +should be prominently doing good, asserting +herself, controlling their affairs +amidst thanks and praise and blessings. +<em>Her</em> dream! Of serious things!—a rout +of phantoms pursuing a phantom ignis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +fatuus—the afterglow of a mirage. Vanity +of vanities——”</p> + +<p>“It’s real enough to her.”</p> + +<p>“As real as she can make it, you +know. But she isn’t real herself. She +begins badly.”</p> + +<p>“And he, you know——”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t believe in it.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not so sure.”</p> + +<p>“I am—now.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a complicated being.”</p> + +<p>“He will ravel out,” said the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“I think you misjudge him about that +work of his, anyhow,” said Melville. +“He’s a man rather divided against himself.” +He added abruptly, “We all are.” +He recovered himself from the generality. +“It’s vague, I admit, a sort of vague wish +to do something decent, you know, that +he has——”</p> + +<p>“A sort of vague wish,” she conceded; +“but——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> + +<p>“He means well,” said Melville, clinging +to his proposition.</p> + +<p>“He means nothing. Only very dimly +he suspects——”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“What you too are beginning to suspect.… +That other things may be conceivable +even if they are not possible. +That this life of yours is not everything. +That it is not to be taken too seriously. +Because … there are better dreams!”</p> + +<p>The song of the sirens was in her +voice; my cousin would not look at her +face. “I know nothing of any other +dreams,” he said. “One has oneself and +this life, and that is enough to manage. +What other dreams can there be? Anyhow, +we are in the dream—we have to +accept it. Besides, you know, that’s going +off the question. We were talking +of Chatteris, and why you have come +for him. Why should you come, why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +should any one outside come—into this +world?”</p> + +<p>“Because we are permitted to come—we +immortals. And why, if we choose to +do so, and taste this life that passes and +continues, as rain that falls to the ground, +why should we not do it? Why should +we abstain?”</p> + +<p>“And Chatteris?”</p> + +<p>“If he pleases me.”</p> + +<p>He roused himself to a Titanic effort +against an oppression that was coming +over him. He tried to get the thing +down to a definite small case, an incident, +an affair of considerations. “But look +here, you know,” he said. “What precisely +do you mean to do if you get him? +You don’t seriously intend to keep up the +game to that extent. You don’t mean—positively, +in our terrestrial fashion, you +know—to marry him?”</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady laughed at his recovery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +of the practical tone. “Well, why not?” +she asked.</p> + +<p>“And go about in a bath chair, and— No, +that’s not it. What <em>is</em> it?”</p> + +<p>He looked up into her eyes, and it +was like looking into deep water. Down +in that deep there stirred impalpable +things. She smiled at him.</p> + +<p>“No!” she said, “I sha’n’t marry him +and go about in a bath chair. And grow +old as all earthly women must. (It’s the +dust, I think, and the dryness of the air, +and the way you begin and end.) You +burn too fast, you flare and sink and die. +This life of yours!—the illnesses and the +growing old! When the skin wears +shabby, and the light is out of the hair, +and the teeth— Not even for love would +I face it. No.… But then you know—” +Her voice sank to a low whisper. “<em>There +are better dreams.</em>”</p> + +<p>“What dreams?” rebelled Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +“What do you mean? What are you? +What do you mean by coming into this +life—you who pretend to be a woman—and +whispering, whispering … to us who +are in it, to us who have no escape.”</p> + +<p>“But there is an escape,” said the Sea +Lady.</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“For some there is an escape. When +the whole life rushes to a moment—” +And then she stopped. Now there is +clearly no sense in this sentence to my +mind, even from a lady of an essentially +imaginary sort, who comes out of the sea. +How can a whole life rush to a moment? +But whatever it was she really did say, +there is no doubt she left it half unsaid.</p> + +<p>He glanced up at her abrupt pause, +and she was looking at the house.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>“Do … ris! Do … ris! Are +you there?” It was Mrs. Bunting’s voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +floating athwart the lawn, the voice of +the ascendant present, of invincibly sensible +things. The world grew real again to +Melville. He seemed to wake up, to start +back from some delusive trance that crept +upon him.</p> + +<p>He looked at the Sea Lady as if he +were already incredulous of the things +they had said, as if he had been asleep and +dreamed the talk. Some light seemed to +go out, some fancy faded. His eye rested +upon the inscription, “Flamps, Bath Chair +Proprietor,” just visible under her arm.</p> + +<p>“We’ve got perhaps a little more serious +than—” he said doubtfully, and then, +“What you have been saying—did you +exactly mean——?”</p> + +<p>The rustle of Mrs. Bunting’s advance +became audible, and Parker moved and +coughed.</p> + +<p>He was quite sure they had been +“more serious than——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Another time perhaps——”</p> + +<p>Had all these things really been said, or +was he under some fantastic hallucination?</p> + +<p>He had a sudden thought. “Where’s +your cigarette?” he asked.</p> + +<p>But her cigarette had ended long ago.</p> + +<p>“And what have you been talking +about so long?” sang Mrs. Bunting, with +an almost motherly hand on the back of +Melville’s chair.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Melville, at a loss for once, +and suddenly rising from his chair to face +her, and then to the Sea Lady with an +artificially easy smile, “What <em>have</em> we +been talking about?”</p> + +<p>“All sorts of things, I dare say,” said +Mrs. Bunting, in what might almost be +called an arch manner. And she honoured +Melville with a special smile—one of those +smiles that are morally almost winks.</p> + +<p>My cousin caught all the archness full +in the face, and for four seconds he stared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +at Mrs. Bunting in amazement. He +wanted breath. Then they all laughed +together, and Mrs. Bunting sat down +pleasantly and remarked, quite audibly to +herself, “As if I couldn’t guess.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-189.jpg" width="400" height="454" alt="The waiter retires amazed." title="" /> +<span class="caption">The waiter retires amazed.</span> +</div> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>I gather that after this talk Melville +fell into an extraordinary net of doubting. +In the first place, and what was most distressing, +he doubted whether this conversation +could possibly have happened at all, +and if it had whether his memory had not +played him some trick in modifying and +intensifying the import of it all. My +cousin occasionally dreams conversations +of so sober and probable a sort as to +mingle quite perplexingly with his real +experiences. Was this one of these occasions? +He found himself taking up and +scrutinising, as it were, first this remembered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +sentence and then that. Had she +really said this thing and quite in this +way? His memory of their conversation +was never quite the same for two days together. +Had she really and deliberately +foreshadowed for Chatteris some obscure +and mystical submergence?</p> + +<p>What intensified and complicated his +doubts most, was the Sea Lady’s subsequent +serene freedom from allusion to +anything that might or might not have +passed. She behaved just as she had always +behaved; neither an added intimacy +nor that distance that follows indiscreet +confidences appeared in her manner.</p> + +<p>And amidst this crop of questions +arose presently quite a new set of doubts, +as if he were not already sufficiently +equipped. The Sea Lady alleged she had +come to the world that lives on land, for +Chatteris.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p><p>And then——?</p> + +<p>He had not hitherto looked ahead to +see precisely what would happen to Chatteris, +to Miss Glendower, to the Buntings +or any one when, as seemed highly probable, +Chatteris was “got.” There were +other dreams, there was another existence, +an elsewhere—and Chatteris was to go +there! So she said! But it came into +Melville’s mind with a quite disproportionate +force and vividness that once, long +ago, he had seen a picture of a man and a +mermaid, rushing downward through deep +water.… Could it possibly be that sort +of thing in the year eighteen hundred +and ninety-nine? Conceivably, if she had +said these things, did she mean them, and +if she meant them, and this definite campaign +of capture was in hand, what was +an orderly, sane-living, well-dressed bachelor +of the world to do?</p> + +<p>Look on—until things ended in a +catastrophe?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>One figures his face almost aged. He +appears to have hovered about the house +on the Sandgate Riviera to a scandalous +extent, failing always to get a sufficiently +long and intimate tête-à-tête with the Sea +Lady to settle once for all his doubts as to +what really had been said and what he had +dreamed or fancied in their talk. Never +had he been so exceedingly disturbed as +he was by the twist this talk had taken. +Never had his habitual pose of humorous +acquiescence in life been quite so difficult +to keep up. He became positively absent-minded. +“You know if it’s like that, it’s +serious,” was the burden of his private +mutterings. His condition was palpable +even to Mrs. Bunting. But she misunderstood +his nature. She said something. +Finally, and quite abruptly, he set off to +London in a state of frantic determination +to get out of it all. The Sea Lady wished +him good-bye in Mrs. Bunting’s presence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +as if there had never been anything unusual +between them.</p> + +<p>I suppose one may contrive to understand +something of his disturbance. He +had made quite considerable sacrifices to +the world. He had, at great pains, found +his place and his way in it, he had imagined +he had really “got the hang of it,” as +people say, and was having an interesting +time. And then, you know, to encounter +a voice, that subsequently insists upon +haunting you with “<em>There are better +dreams</em>”; to hear a tale that threatens +complications, disasters, broken hearts, and +not to have the faintest idea of the proper +thing to do.</p> + +<p>But I do not think he would have +bolted from Sandgate until he had really +got some more definite answer to the question, +“<em>What</em> better dreams?” until he had +surprised or forced some clearer illumination +from the passive invalid, if Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +Bunting one morning had not very tactfully +dropped a hint.</p> + +<p>You know Mrs. Bunting, and you can +imagine what she tactfully hinted. Just +at that time, what with her own girls and +the Glendower girls, her imagination was +positively inflamed for matrimony; she +was a matrimonial fanatic; she would have +married anybody to anything just for the +fun of doing it, and the idea of pairing +off poor Melville to this mysterious immortal +with a scaly tail seems to have +appeared to her the most natural thing +in the world.</p> + +<p><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Apropos</i> of nothing whatever I fancy +she remarked, “Your opportunity is now, +Mr. Melville.”</p> + +<p>“My opportunity!” cried Melville, trying +madly not to understand in the face of +her pink resolution.</p> + +<p>“You’ve a monopoly now,” she cried. +“But when we go back to London with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +her there will be ever so many people running +after her.”</p> + +<p>I fancy Melville said something about +carrying the thing too far. He doesn’t +remember what he did say. I don’t think +he even knew at the time.</p> + +<p>However, he fled back to London in +August, and was there so miserably at loose +ends that he had not the will to get out of +the place. On this passage in the story he +does not dwell, and such verisimilitude as +may be, must be supplied by my imagination. +I imagine him in his charmingly +appointed flat,—a flat that is light without +being trivial, and artistic with no want of +dignity or sincerity,—finding a loss of interest +in his books, a loss of beauty in the +silver he (not too vehemently) collects. I +imagine him wandering into that dainty little +bed-room of his and around into the +dressing-room, and there, rapt in a blank +contemplation of the seven-and-twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +pairs of trousers (all creasing neatly in their +proper stretchers) that are necessary to his +conception of a wise and happy man. For +every occasion he has learnt, in a natural +easy progress to knowledge, the exquisitely +appropriate pair of trousers, the permissible +upper garment, the becoming +gesture and word. He was a man who +had mastered his world. And then, you +know, the whisper:—</p> + +<p>“<em>There are better dreams.</em>”</p> + +<p>“What dreams?” I imagine him asking, +with a defensive note. Whatever +transparence the world might have had, +whatever suggestion of something beyond +there, in the sea garden at Sandgate, I +fancy that in Melville’s apartments in +London it was indisputably opaque.</p> + +<p>And “Damn it!” he cried, “if these +dreams are for Chatteris, why should she +tell me? Suppose I had the chance of +them— Whatever they are——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>He reflected, with a terrible sincerity +in the nature of his will.</p> + +<p>“No!” And then again, “No!</p> + +<p>“And if one mustn’t have ’em, why +should one know about ’em and be worried +by them? If she comes to do mischief, +why shouldn’t she do mischief without +making me an accomplice?”</p> + +<p>He walks up and down and stops at +last and stares out of his window on the +jaded summer traffic going Haymarket +way.</p> + +<p>He sees nothing of that traffic. He +sees the little sea garden at Sandgate and +that little group of people very small and +bright and something—something hanging +over them. “It isn’t fair on them—or me—or +anybody!”</p> + +<p>Then you know, quite suddenly, I imagine +him swearing.</p> + +<p>I imagine him at his luncheon, a meal +he usually treats with a becoming gravity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +I imagine the waiter marking the kindly +self-indulgence of his clean-shaven face, +and advancing with that air of intimate +participation the good waiter shows to +such as he esteems. I figure the respectful +pause, the respectful enquiry.</p> + +<p>“Oh, anything!” cries Melville, and +the waiter retires amazed.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>To add to Melville’s distress, as petty +discomforts do add to all genuine trouble, +his club-house was undergoing an operation, +and was full of builders and decorators; +they had gouged out its windows +and gagged its hall with scaffolding, and +he and his like were guests of a stranger +club that had several members who blew. +They seemed never to do anything but +blow and sigh and rustle papers and go to +sleep about the place; they were like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +blight-spots on the handsome plant of +this host-club, and it counted for little +with Melville, in the state he was in, that +all the fidgety breathers were persons of +eminent position. But it was this temporary +dislocation of his world that brought +him unexpectedly into a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">quasi</i> confidential +talk with Chatteris one afternoon, for +Chatteris was one of the less eminent and +amorphous members of this club that was +sheltering Melville’s club.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-206.jpg" width="400" height="449" alt="They seemed never to do anything but blow and sigh and +rustle papers." title="" /> +<span class="caption">They seemed never to do anything but blow and sigh and +rustle papers.</span> +</div> + +<p>Melville had taken up <cite>Punch</cite>—he was +in that mood when a man takes up anything—and +was reading, he did not know +exactly what. Presently he sighed, looked +up, and discovered Chatteris entering the +room.</p> + +<p>He was surprised to see Chatteris, +startled and just faintly alarmed, and Chatteris +it was evident was surprised and disconcerted +to see him. Chatteris stood in +as awkward an attitude as he was capable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +of, staring unfavourably, and for a moment +or so he gave no sign of recognition. +Then he nodded and came forward +reluctantly. His every movement suggested +the will without the wit to escape. +“You here?” he said.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing away from +Hythe at this time?” asked Melville.</p> + +<p>“I came here to write a letter,” said +Chatteris.</p> + +<p>He looked about him rather helplessly. +Then he sat down beside Melville and demanded +a cigarette. Suddenly he plunged +into intimacy.</p> + +<p>“It is doubtful whether I shall contest +Hythe,” he remarked.</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>He lit his cigarette.</p> + +<p>“Would you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it,” said Melville. “But +then it’s not my line.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Is it mine?”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it a little late in the day to drop +it?” said Melville. “You’ve been put up +for it now. Every one’s at work. Miss +Glendower——”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t seem to want to go on.”</p> + +<p>“My dear man!”</p> + +<p>“It’s a bit of overwork perhaps. I’m +off colour. Things have gone flat. That’s +why I’m up here.”</p> + +<p>He did a very absurd thing. He +threw away a quarter-smoked cigarette +and almost immediately demanded another.</p> + +<p>“You’ve been a little immoderate with +your statistics,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>Chatteris said something that struck +Melville as having somehow been said before. +“Election, progress, good of humanity, +public spirit. None of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +things interest me really,” he said. “At +least, not just now.”</p> + +<p>Melville waited.</p> + +<p>“One gets brought up in an atmosphere +in which it’s always being whispered +that one should go for a career. +You learn it at your mother’s knee. They +never give you time to find out what you +really want, they keep on shoving you at +that. They form your character. They +rule your mind. They rush you into it.”</p> + +<p>“They didn’t rush me,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“They rushed me, anyhow. And here +I am!”</p> + +<p>“You don’t want a career?”</p> + +<p>“Well— Look what it is.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! if you look at what things +are!”</p> + +<p>“First of all, the messing about to get +into the House. These confounded parties +mean nothing—absolutely nothing. +They aren’t even decent factions. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +blither to damned committees of damned +tradesmen whose sole idea for this world +is to get overpaid for their self-respect; +you whisper and hobnob with local solicitors +and get yourself seen about with +them; you ask about the charities and institutions, +and lunch and chatter and +chum with every conceivable form of +human conceit and pushfulness and trickery——”</p> + +<p>He broke off. “It isn’t as if <em>they</em> +were up to anything! They’re working +in their way, just as you are working in +your way. It’s the same game with all +of them. They chase a phantom gratification, +they toil and quarrel and envy, +night and day, in the perpetual attempt to +persuade themselves in spite of everything +that they are real and a success——”</p> + +<p>He stopped and smoked.</p> + +<p>Melville was spiteful. “Yes,” he admitted, +“but I thought <em>your</em> little movement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +was to be something more than +party politics and self-advancement——?”</p> + +<p>He left his sentence interrogatively +incomplete.</p> + +<p>“The condition of the poor,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Chatteris, regarding him +with a sort of stony admission in his blue +eyes.</p> + +<p>Melville dodged the look. “At Sandgate,” +he said, “there was, you know, a +certain atmosphere of belief——”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Chatteris for the second +time.</p> + +<p>“That’s the devil of it!” said Chatteris +after a pause.</p> + +<p>“If I don’t believe in the game I’m +playing, if I’m left high and dry on this +shoal, with the tide of belief gone past +me, it isn’t <em>my</em> planning, anyhow. I know +the decent thing I ought to do. I mean +to do it; in the end I mean to do it; I’m +talking in this way to relieve my mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +I’ve started the game and I must see it +out; I’ve put my hand to the plough and +I mustn’t go back. That’s why I came to +London—to get it over with myself. It +was running up against you, set me off. +You caught me at the crisis.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“But for all that, the thing is as I +said—none of these things interest me +really. It won’t alter the fact that I am +committed to fight a phantom election +about nothing in particular, for a party +that’s been dead ten years. And if the +ghosts win, go into the Parliament as a +constituent spectre.… There it is—as +a mental phenomenon!”</p> + +<p>He reiterated his cardinal article. +“The interest is dead,” he said, “the will +has no soul.”</p> + +<p>He became more critical. He bent a +little closer to Melville’s ear. “It isn’t +really that I don’t believe. When I say I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +don’t believe in these things I go too far. +I do. I know, the electioneering, the intriguing +is a means to an end. There is +work to be done, sound work, and important +work. Only——”</p> + +<p>Melville turned an eye on him over +his cigarette end.</p> + +<p>Chatteris met it, seemed for a moment +to cling to it. He became absurdly confidential. +He was evidently in the direst +need of a confidential ear.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to do it. When I sit +down to it, square myself down in the +chair, you know, and say, now for the rest +of my life this is IT—this is your life, +Chatteris; there comes a sort of terror, +Melville.”</p> + +<p>“H’m,” said Melville, and turned away. +Then he turned on Chatteris with the air +of a family physician, and tapped his shoulder +three times as he spoke. “You’ve had +too much statistics, Chatteris,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> + +<p>He let that soak in. Then he turned +about towards his interlocutor, and toyed +with a club ash tray. “It’s every day +has overtaken you,” he said. “You can’t +see the wood for the trees. You forget +the spacious design you are engaged upon, +in the heavy details of the moment. You +are like a painter who has been working +hard upon something very small and exacting +in a corner. You want to step back +and look at the whole thing.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Chatteris, “that isn’t +quite it.”</p> + +<p>Melville indicated that he knew better.</p> + +<p>“I keep on, stepping back and looking +at it,” said Chatteris. “Just lately I’ve +scarcely done anything else. I’ll admit it’s +a spacious and noble thing—political work +done well—only— I admire it, but it +doesn’t grip my imagination. That’s where +the trouble comes in.”</p> + +<p>“What <em>does</em> grip your imagination?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +asked Melville. He was absolutely certain +the Sea Lady had been talking this paralysis +into Chatteris, and he wanted to see +just how far she had gone. “For example,” +he tested, “are there—by any +chance—other dreams?”</p> + +<p>Chatteris gave no sign at the phrase. +Melville dismissed his suspicion. “What +do you mean—other dreams?” asked +Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“Is there conceivably another way—another +sort of life—some other aspect——?”</p> + +<p>“It’s out of the question,” said Chatteris. +He added, rather remarkably, “Adeline’s +awfully good.”</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville acquiesced silently +in Adeline’s goodness.</p> + +<p>“All this, you know, is a mood. My +life is made for me—and it’s a very good +life. It’s better than I deserve.”</p> + +<p>“Heaps,” said Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Much,” said Chatteris defiantly.</p> + +<p>“Ever so much,” endorsed Melville.</p> + +<p>“Let’s talk of other things,” said Chatteris. +“It’s what even the street boys call +<em>mawbid</em> nowadays to doubt for a moment +the absolute final all-this-and-nothing-else-in-the-worldishness +of whatever you happen +to be doing.”</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville, however, could +think of no other sufficiently interesting +topic. “You left them all right at Sandgate?” +he asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p>“Except little Bunting.”</p> + +<p>“Seedy?”</p> + +<p>“Been fishing.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. Breezes and the spring +tides.… And Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>Chatteris shot a suspicious glance at +him. He affected the offhand style. “<em>She’s</em> +quite well,” he said. “Looks just as charming +as ever.”</p> + +<p>“She really means that canvassing?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>“She’s spoken of it again.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll do a lot for you,” said Melville, +and left a fine wide pause.</p> + +<p>Chatteris assumed the tone of a man +who gossips.</p> + +<p>“Who is this Miss Waters?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“A very charming person,” said Melville +and said no more.</p> + +<p>Chatteris waited and his pretence of +airy gossip vanished. He became very +much in earnest.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he said. “Who is this +Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>“How should <em>I</em> know?” prevaricated +Melville.</p> + +<p>“Well, you do know. And the others +know. Who is she?”</p> + +<p>Melville met his eyes. “Won’t they +tell you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“That’s just it,” said Chatteris.</p> + +<p>“Why do you want to know?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t I know?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a sort of promise to keep it +dark.”</p> + +<p>“Keep <em>what</em> dark?”</p> + +<p>My cousin gestured.</p> + +<p>“It can’t be anything wrong?” My +cousin made no sign.</p> + +<p>“She may have had experiences?”</p> + +<p>My cousin reflected a moment on the +possibilities of the deep-sea life. “She +has had them,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care, if she has.”</p> + +<p>There came a pause.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Melville,” said Chatteris, +“I want to know this. Unless it’s a +thing to be specially kept from me.… +I don’t like being among a lot of people +who treat me as an outsider. What is +this something about Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>“What does Miss Glendower say?”</p> + +<p>“Vague things. She doesn’t like her +and she won’t say why. And Mrs. Bunting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +goes about with discretion written +all over her. And she herself looks at +you— And that maid of hers looks— The +thing’s worrying me.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you ask the lady herself?”</p> + +<p>“How can I, till I know what it is? +Confound it! I’m asking <em>you</em> plainly +enough.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Melville, and at the moment +he had really decided to tell Chatteris. +But he hung upon the manner of +presentation. He thought in the moment +to say, “The truth is, she is a mermaid.” +Then as instantly he perceived +how incredible this would be. He always +suspected Chatteris of a capacity for +being continental and romantic. The +man might fly out at him for saying such +a thing of a lady.</p> + +<p>A dreadful doubt fell upon Melville. +As you know, he had never seen that tail<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +with his own eyes. In these surroundings +there came to him such an incredulity of +the Sea Lady as he had not felt even +when first Mrs. Bunting told him of her. +All about him was an atmosphere of solid +reality, such as one can breathe only in a +first-class London club. Everywhere ponderous +arm-chairs met the eye. There +were massive tables in abundance and +match-boxes of solid rock. The matches +were of some specially large, heavy sort. +On a ponderous elephant-legged green +baize table near at hand were several +copies of the <cite>Times</cite>, the current <cite>Punch</cite>, +an inkpot of solid brass, and a paper +weight of lead. <em>There are other dreams!</em> +It seemed impossible. The breathing of +an eminent person in a chair in the far +corner became very distinct in that interval. +It was heavy and resolute like the +sound of a stone-mason’s saw. It insisted +upon itself as the touchstone of reality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +It seemed to say that at the first whisper +of a thing so utterly improbable as a mermaid +it would snort and choke.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t believe me if I told +you,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“Well, tell me—anyhow.”</p> + +<p>My cousin looked at an empty chair +beside him. It was evidently stuffed with +the very best horse-hair that money could +procure, stuffed with infinite skill and an +almost religious care. It preached in the +open invitation of its expanded arms that +man does not live by bread alone—inasmuch +as afterwards he needs a nap. An +utterly dreamless chair!</p> + +<p>Mermaids?</p> + +<p>He felt that he was after all quite possibly +the victim of a foolish delusion, +hypnotised by Mrs. Bunting’s beliefs. Was +there not some more plausible interpretation, +some phrase that would lie out bridgeways +from the plausible to the truth?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> + +<p>“It’s no good,” he groaned at last.</p> + +<p>Chatteris had been watching him furtively.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t care a hang,” he said, +and shied his second cigarette into the +massively decorated fireplace. “It’s no +affair of mine.”</p> + +<p>Then quite abruptly he sprang to his +feet and gesticulated with an ineffectual +hand.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t,” he said, and seemed +to intend to say many regrettable things. +Meanwhile until his intention ripened he +sawed the air with his ineffectual hand. I +fancy he ended by failing to find a thing +sufficiently regrettable to express the pungency +of the moment. He flung about +and went towards the door.</p> + +<p>“Don’t!” he said to the back of the +newspaper of the breathing member.</p> + +<p>“If you don’t want to,” he said to the +respectful waiter at the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> + +<p>The hall-porter heard that he didn’t +care—he was damned if he did!</p> + +<p>“He might be one of these here +guests,” said the hall-porter, greatly +shocked. “That’s what comes of lettin’ +’em in so young.”</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Melville overcame an impulse to follow +him.</p> + +<p>“Confound the fellow!” said he.</p> + +<p>And then as the whole outburst came +into focus, he said with still more emphasis, +“Confound the fellow!”</p> + +<p>He stood up and became aware that +the member who had been asleep was now +regarding him with malevolent eyes. He +perceived it was a hard and invincible +malevolence, and that no petty apologetics +of demeanour could avail against it. He +turned about and went towards the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<p>The interview had done my cousin +good. His misery and distress had lifted. +He was presently bathed in a profound +moral indignation, and that is the very +antithesis of doubt and unhappiness. +The more he thought it over, the more +his indignation with Chatteris grew. That +sudden unreasonable outbreak altered all +the perspectives of the case. He wished +very much that he could meet Chatteris +again and discuss the whole matter from +a new footing.</p> + +<p>“Think of it!” He thought so vividly +and so verbally that he was nearly +talking to himself as he went along. It +shaped itself into an outspoken discourse +in his mind.</p> + +<p>“Was there ever a more ungracious, +ungrateful, unreasonable creature than this +same Chatteris? He was the spoiled child +of Fortune; things came to him, things +were given to him, his very blunders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +brought more to him than other men’s successes. +Out of every thousand men, nine +hundred and ninety-nine might well find +food for envy in this way luck had served +him. Many a one has toiled all his life and +taken at last gratefully the merest fraction +of all that had thrust itself upon this +insatiable thankless young man. Even +I,” thought my cousin, “might envy him—in +several ways. And then, at the mere +first onset of duty, nay!—at the mere first +whisper of restraint, this insubordination, +this protest and flight!</p> + +<p>“Think!” urged my cousin, “of the +common lot of men. Think of the many +who suffer from hunger——”</p> + +<p>(It was a painful Socialistic sort of line +to take, but in his mood of moral indignation +my cousin pursued it relentlessly.)</p> + +<p>“Think of many who suffer from hunger, +who lead lives of unremitting toil, +who go fearful, who go squalid, and withal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +strive, in a sort of dumb, resolute way, their +utmost to do their duty, or at any rate +what they think to be their duty. Think +of the chaste poor women in the world! +Think again of the many honest souls +who aspire to the service of their kind, +and are so hemmed about and preoccupied +that they may not give it! And +then this pitiful creature comes, with his +mental gifts, his gifts of position and opportunity, +the stimulus of great ideas, and +a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancée</i>, who is not only rich and beautiful—she +<em>is</em> beautiful!—but also the best +of all possible helpers for him. And he +turns away. It isn’t good enough. It +takes no hold upon his imagination, if you +please. It isn’t beautiful enough for him, +and that’s the plain truth of the matter. +What does the man <em>want?</em> What does +he expect?…”</p> + +<p>My cousin’s moral indignation took +him the whole length of Piccadilly, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +along by Rotten Row, and along the +flowery garden walks almost into Kensington +High Street, and so around by the Serpentine +to his home, and it gave him such +an appetite for dinner as he had not had +for many days. Life was bright for him +all that evening, and he sat down at last, +at two o’clock in the morning, before a +needlessly lit, delightfully fusillading fire +in his flat to smoke one sound cigar before +he went to bed.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said suddenly, “I am not +<em>mawbid</em> either. I take the gifts the gods +will give me. I try to make myself happy, +and a few other people happy, too, to do a +few little duties decently, and that is +enough for me. I don’t look too deeply +into things, and I don’t look too widely +about things. A few old simple ideals——</p> + +<p>“H’m.</p> + +<p>“Chatteris is a dreamer, with an impossible, +extravagant discontent. What does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +he dream of?… Three parts he is a +dreamer and the fourth part—spoiled +child.”</p> + +<p>“Dreamer.…”</p> + +<p>“Other dreams.…”</p> + +<p>“What other dreams could she +mean?”</p> + +<p>My cousin fell into profound musings. +Then he started, looked about him, +saw the time by his Rathbone clock, got +up suddenly and went to bed.</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE SEVENTH</small><br /> + +THE CRISIS</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The crisis came about a week from +that time—I say about because of Melville’s +conscientious inexactness in these +matters. And so far as the crisis goes, I +seem to get Melville at his best. He was +keenly interested, keenly observant, and +his more than average memory took some +excellent impressions. To my mind, at +any rate, two at least of these people come +out, fuller and more convincingly than +anywhere else in this painfully disinterred +story. He has given me here an Adeline +I seem to believe in, and something much +more like Chatteris than any of the broken +fragments I have had to go upon, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +amplify and fudge together so far. And +for all such transient lucidities in this +mysterious story, the reader no doubt will +echo my Heaven be thanked!</p> + +<p>Melville was called down to participate +in the crisis at Sandgate by a +telegram from Mrs. Bunting, and his +first exponent of the situation was Fred +Bunting.</p> + +<p>“<em>Come down. Urgent. Please</em>,” was +the irresistible message from Mrs. Bunting. +My cousin took the early train and +arrived at Sandgate in the forenoon.</p> + +<p>He was told that Mrs. Bunting was upstairs +with Miss Glendower and that she +implored him to wait until she could leave +her charge. “Miss Glendower not well, +then?” said Melville. “No, sir, not at all +well,” said the housemaid, evidently awaiting +a further question. “Where are the +others?” he asked casually. The three +younger young ladies had gone to Hythe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +said the housemaid, with a marked omission +of the Sea Lady. Melville has an intense +dislike of questioning servants on points at +issue, so he asked nothing at all concerning +Miss Waters. This general absence +of people from the room of familiar occupation +conveyed the same suggested warning +of crisis as the telegram. The housemaid +waited an instant longer and withdrew.</p> + +<p>He stood for a moment in the drawing-room +and then walked out upon the +veranda. He perceived a richly caparisoned +figure advancing towards him. It +was Fred Bunting. He had been taking +advantage of the general desertion of +home to bathe from the house. He was +wearing an umbrageous white cotton hat +and a striped blanket, and a more aggressively +manly pipe than any fully adult +male would ever dream of smoking, hung +from the corner of his mouth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hello!” he said. “The mater sent +for you?”</p> + +<p>Melville admitted the truth of this +theory.</p> + +<p>“There’s ructions,” said Fred, and removed +the pipe. The act offered conversation.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>“Gone.”</p> + +<p>“Back?”</p> + +<p>“Lord, no! Catch her! She’s gone +to Lummidge’s Hotel. With her maid. +Took a suite.”</p> + +<p>“Why——”</p> + +<p>“The mater made a row with her.”</p> + +<p>“Whatever for?”</p> + +<p>“Harry.”</p> + +<p>My cousin stared at the situation.</p> + +<p>“It broke out,” said Fred.</p> + +<p>“What broke out?”</p> + +<p>“The row. Harry’s gone daft on her, +Addy says.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<p>“On Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>“Rather. Mooney. Didn’t care for +his electioneering—didn’t care for his ordinary +nourishment. Loose ends. Didn’t +mention it to Adeline, but she began to +see it. Asked questions. Next day, +went off. London. She asked what +was up. Three days’ silence. Then—wrote +to her.”</p> + +<p>Fred intensified all this by raising his +eyebrows, pulling down the corners of his +mouth and nodding portentously. “Eh?” +he said, and then to make things clearer: +“Wrote a letter.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t write to her about Miss +Waters?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t know what he wrote about. +Don’t suppose he mentioned her name, +but I dare say he made it clear enough. +All I know is that everything in the house +felt like elastic pulled tighter than it ought +to be for two whole days—everybody in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +sort of complicated twist—and then there +was a snap. All that time Addy was writing +letters to him and tearing ’em up, and +no one could quite make it out. Everyone +looked blue except the Sea Lady. +She kept her own lovely pink. And at +the end of that time the mater began asking +things, Adeline chucked writing, gave +the mater half a hint, mater took it all in +in an instant and the thing burst.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Glendower didn’t——?”</p> + +<p>“No, the mater did. Put it pretty +straight too—as the mater can.… <em>She</em> +didn’t deny it. Said she couldn’t help +herself, and that he was as much hers as +Adeline’s. I <em>heard</em> that,” said Fred shamelessly. +“Pretty thick, eh?—considering +he’s engaged. And the mater gave it her +pretty straight. Said, ‘I’ve been very +much deceived in you, Miss Waters—very +much indeed.’ I heard her.…”</p> + +<p>“And then?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Asked her to go. Said she’d requited +us ill for taking her up when +nobody but a fisherman would have +looked at her.”</p> + +<p>“She said that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, words to that effect.”</p> + +<p>“And Miss Waters went?”</p> + +<p>“In a first-class cab, maid and boxes in +another, all complete. Perfect lady.… +Couldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it—the +tail, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“And Miss Glendower?”</p> + +<p>“Addy? Oh, she’s been going it. +Comes downstairs and does the pale-faced +heroine and goes upstairs and does the +broken-hearted part. <em>I</em> know. It’s all +very well. You never had sisters. You +know——”</p> + +<p>Fred held his pipe elaborately out of +the way and protruded his face to a confidential +nearness.</p> + +<p>“I believe they half like it,” said Fred,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +in a confidential half whisper. “Such a +go, you know. Mabel pretty near as bad. +And the girls. All making the very most +they can of it. Me! I think Chatteris +was the only man alive to hear ’em. <em>I</em> +couldn’t get up emotion as they do, if my +feet were being flayed. Cheerful home, +eh? For holidays.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s—the principal gentleman?” +asked Melville a little grimly. “In London?”</p> + +<p>“Unprincipled gentleman, I call him,” +said Fred. “He’s stopping down here at +the Métropole. Stuck.”</p> + +<p>“Down here? Stuck?”</p> + +<p>“Rather. Stuck and set about.”</p> + +<p>My cousin tried for sidelights. “What’s +his attitude?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Slump,” said Fred with intensity.</p> + +<p>“This little blow-off has rather astonished +him,” he explained. “When he +wrote to say that the election didn’t interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +him for a bit, but he hoped to pull +around——”</p> + +<p>“You said you didn’t know what he +wrote.”</p> + +<p>“I do that much,” said Fred. “He +no more thought they’d have spotted that +it meant Miss Waters than a baby. But +women are so thundering sharp, you +know. They’re born spotters. How it’ll +all end——”</p> + +<p>“But why has he come to the Métropole?”</p> + +<p>“Middle of the stage, I suppose,” said +Fred.</p> + +<p>“What’s his attitude?”</p> + +<p>“Says he’s going to see Adeline and +explain everything—and doesn’t do it.… +Puts it off. And Adeline, as far as I can +gather, says that if he doesn’t come down +soon, she’s hanged if she’ll see him, much +as her heart may be broken, and all that, +if she doesn’t. You know.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Naturally,” said Melville, rather inconsecutively. +“And he doesn’t?”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t stir.”</p> + +<p>“Does he see—the other lady?”</p> + +<p>“We don’t know. We can’t watch +him. But if he does he’s clever——”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“There’s about a hundred blessed relatives +of his in the place—came like crows +for a corpse. I never saw such a lot. +Talk about a man of good old family—it’s +decaying! I never saw such a high old +family in my life. Aunts they are chiefly.”</p> + +<p>“Aunts?”</p> + +<p>“Aunts. Say, they’ve rallied round him. +How they got hold of it I don’t know. +Like vultures. Unless the mater— But +they’re here. They’re all at him—using +their influence with him, threatening to +cut off legacies and all that. There’s one +old girl at Bate’s, Lady Poynting Mallow—least +bit horsey, but about as all right as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +any of ’em—who’s been down here twice. +Seems a trifle disappointed in Adeline. +And there’s two aunts at Wampach’s—you +know the sort that stop at Wampach’s—regular +hothouse flowers—a watering-potful +of real icy cold water would +kill both of ’em. And there’s one come +over from the Continent, short hair, short +skirts—regular terror—she’s at the Pavilion. +They’re all chasing round saying, +‘Where is this woman-fish sort of thing? +Let me peek!’”</p> + +<p>“Does that constitute the hundred +relatives?”</p> + +<p>“Practically. The Wampachers are +sending for a Bishop who used to be his +schoolmaster——”</p> + +<p>“No stone unturned, eh?”</p> + +<p>“None.”</p> + +<p>“And has he found out yet——”</p> + +<p>“That she’s a mermaid? I don’t believe +he has. The pater went up to tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +him. Of course, he was a bit out of +breath and embarrassed. And Chatteris +cut him down. ‘At least let me hear +nothing against her,’ he said. And the +pater took that and came away. Good +old pater. Eh?”</p> + +<p>“And the aunts?”</p> + +<p>“They’re taking it in. Mainly they +grasp the fact that he’s going to jilt Adeline, +just as he jilted the American girl. +The mermaid side they seem to boggle at. +Old people like that don’t take to a new +idea all at once. The Wampach ones are +shocked—but curious. They don’t believe +for a moment she really is a mermaid, +but they want to know all about it. +And the one down at the Pavilion simply +said, ‘Bosh! How can she breathe under +water? Tell me that, Mrs. Bunting. +She’s some sort of person you have picked +up, I don’t know how, but mermaid she +<em>cannot</em> be.’ They’d be all tremendously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +down on the mater, I think, for picking +her up, if it wasn’t that they can’t do +without her help to bring Addy round +again. Pretty mess all round, eh?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose the aunts will tell him?”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“About the tail.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose they will.”</p> + +<p>“And what then?”</p> + +<p>“Heaven knows! Just as likely they +won’t.”</p> + +<p>My cousin meditated on the veranda +tiles for a space.</p> + +<p>“It amuses me,” said Fred Bunting.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” said my cousin Melville, +“what am I supposed to do? Why have +I been asked to come?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Stir it up a bit, I expect. +Everybody do a bit—like the +Christmas pudding.”</p> + +<p>“But—” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been bathing,” said Fred. “Nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +asked me to take a hand and I +didn’t. It won’t be a good pudding without +me, but there you are! There’s only +one thing I can see to do——”</p> + +<p>“It might be the right thing. What +is it?”</p> + +<p>“Punch Chatteris’s head.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how that would help matters.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it wouldn’t help matters,” said +Fred, adding with an air of conclusiveness, +“There it is!” Then adjusting the +folds of his blanket to a greater dignity, +and replacing his long extinct large pipe +between his teeth, he went on his way. +The tail of his blanket followed him reluctantly +through the door. His bare feet +padded across the hall and became inaudible +on the carpet of the stairs.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/illus-239.jpg" width="400" height="493" alt="Adjusting the folds of his blanket to a greater dignity." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Adjusting the folds of his blanket to a greater dignity.</span> +</div> + +<p>“Fred!” said Melville, going doorward +with a sudden afterthought for fuller +particulars.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Fred had gone.</p> + +<p>Instead, Mrs. Bunting appeared.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>She appeared with traces of recent +emotion. “I telegraphed,” she said. +“We are in dreadful trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Waters, I gather——”</p> + +<p>“She’s gone.”</p> + +<p>She went towards the bell and stopped. +“They’ll get luncheon as usual,” she said. +“You will be wanting your luncheon.”</p> + +<p>She came towards him with rising +hands. “You can <em>not</em> imagine,” she said. +“That poor child!”</p> + +<p>“You must tell me,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“I simply do not know what to do. +I don’t know where to turn.” She came +nearer to him. She protested. “All that +I did, Mr. Melville, I did for the best. I +saw there was trouble. I could see that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +had been deceived, and I stood it as long +as I could. I <em>had</em> to speak at last.”</p> + +<p>My cousin by leading questions and +interrogative silences developed her story +a little.</p> + +<p>“And every one,” she said, “blames +me. Every one.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody blames everybody who +does anything, in affairs of this sort,” said +Melville. “You mustn’t mind that.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try not to,” she said bravely. +“<em>You</em> know, Mr. Melville——”</p> + +<p>He laid his hand on her shoulder for +a moment. “Yes,” he said very impressively, +and I think Mrs. Bunting felt +better.</p> + +<p>“We all look to you,” she said. “I don’t +know what I should do without you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said Melville. “How do +things stand? What am I to do?”</p> + +<p>“Go to him,” said Mrs. Bunting, “and +put it all right.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But suppose—” began Melville +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Go to her. Make her see what it +would mean for him and all of us.”</p> + +<p>He tried to get more definite instructions. +“Don’t make difficulties,” implored +Mrs. Bunting. “Think of that poor girl +upstairs. Think of us all.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” said Melville, thinking of +Chatteris and staring despondently out of +the window.</p> + +<p>“Bunting, I gather——”</p> + +<p>“It is you or no one,” said Mrs. +Bunting, sailing over his unspoken words. +“Fred is too young, and Randolph—! +He’s not diplomatic. He—he hectors.”</p> + +<p>“Does he?” exclaimed Melville.</p> + +<p>“You should see him abroad. Often—many +times I have had to interfere.… +No, it is you. You know Harry so well. +He trusts you. You can say things to +him—no one else could say.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That reminds me. Does <em>he</em> know——”</p> + +<p>“We don’t know. How can we know? +We know he is infatuated, that is all. He +is up there in Folkestone, and she is in +Folkestone, and they may be meeting——”</p> + +<p>My cousin sought counsel with himself.</p> + +<p>“Say you will go?” said Mrs. Bunting, +with a hand upon his arm.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go,” said Melville, “but I don’t +see what I can do!”</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Bunting clasped his hand in +both of her own plump shapely hands and +said she knew all along that he would, and +that for coming down so promptly to her +telegram she would be grateful to him so +long as she had a breath to draw, and then +she added, as if it were part of the same +remark, that he must want his luncheon.</p> + +<p>He accepted the luncheon proposition +in an incidental manner and reverted to +the question in hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Do you know what his attitude——”</p> + +<p>“He has written only to Addy.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t as if he had brought about +this crisis?”</p> + +<p>“It was Addy. He went away and +something in his manner made her write +and ask him the reason why. So soon as +she had his letter saying he wanted to rest +from politics for a little, that somehow he +didn’t seem to find the interest in life he +thought it deserved, she divined everything——”</p> + +<p>“Everything? Yes, but just what <em>is</em> everything?”</p> + +<p>“That <em>she</em> had led him on.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Waters?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>My cousin reflected. So that was +what they considered to be everything! +“I wish I knew just where he stood,” he +said at last, and followed Mrs. Bunting +luncheonward. In the course of that meal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +which was <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>, it became almost unsatisfactorily +evident what a great relief +Melville’s consent to interview Chatteris +was to Mrs. Bunting. Indeed, she seemed +to consider herself relieved from the greater +portion of her responsibility in the +matter, since Melville was bearing her +burden. She sketched out her defence +against the accusations that had no doubt +been levelled at her, explicitly and implicitly.</p> + +<p>“How was <em>I</em> to know?” she asked, +and she told over again the story of that +memorable landing, but with new, extenuating +details. It was Adeline herself +who had cried first, “She must be saved!” +Mrs. Bunting made a special point of +that. “And what else was there for me +to do?” she asked.</p> + +<p>And as she talked, the problem before +my cousin assumed graver and yet graver +proportions. He perceived more and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +more clearly the complexity of the situation +with which he was entrusted. In +the first place it was not at all clear that +Miss Glendower was willing to receive +back her lover except upon terms, and +the Sea Lady, he was quite sure, did +not mean to release him from any grip +she had upon him. They were preparing +to treat an elemental struggle as if it +were an individual case. It grew more +and more evident to him how entirely +Mrs. Bunting overlooked the essentially +abnormal nature of the Sea Lady, how +absolutely she regarded the business as a +mere every-day vacillation, a commonplace +outbreak of that jilting spirit which dwells, +covered deep, perhaps, but never entirely +eradicated, in the heart of man; and how +confidently she expected him, with a little +tactful remonstrance and pressure, to restore +the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">status quo ante</i>.</p> + +<p>As for Chatteris!—Melville shook his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +head at the cheese, and answered Mrs. +Bunting abstractedly.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“She wants to speak to you,” said +Mrs. Bunting, and Melville with a certain +trepidation went upstairs. He went up +to the big landing with the seats, to save +Adeline the trouble of coming down. +She appeared dressed in a black and violet +tea gown with much lace, and her dark +hair was done with a simple carefulness +that suited it. She was pale, and +her eyes showed traces of tears, but she +had a certain dignity that differed from +her usual bearing in being quite unconscious.</p> + +<p>She gave him a limp hand and spoke +in an exhausted voice.</p> + +<p>“You know—all?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“All the outline, anyhow.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why has he done this to me?”</p> + +<p>Melville looked profoundly sympathetic +through a pause.</p> + +<p>“I feel,” she said, “that it isn’t coarseness.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“It is some mystery of the imagination +that I cannot understand. I should +have thought—his career at any rate—would +have appealed.…” She shook +her head and regarded a pot of ferns +fixedly for a space.</p> + +<p>“He has written to you?” asked Melville.</p> + +<p>“Three times,” she said, looking up.</p> + +<p>Melville hesitated to ask the extent of +that correspondence, but she left no need +for that.</p> + +<p>“I had to ask him,” she said. “He +kept it all from me, and I had to force it +from him before he would tell.”</p> + +<p>“Tell!” said Melville, “what?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<p>“What he felt for her and what he +felt for me.”</p> + +<p>“But did he——?”</p> + +<p>“He has made it clearer. But still +even now. No, I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>She turned slowly and watched Melville’s +face as she spoke: “You know, +Mr. Melville, that this has been an enormous +shock to me. I suppose I never +really knew him. I suppose I—idealised +him. I thought he cared for—our work +at any rate.… He <em>did</em> care for our +work. He believed in it. Surely he believed +in it.”</p> + +<p>“He does,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“And then— But how can he?”</p> + +<p>“He is—he is a man with rather a +strong imagination.”</p> + +<p>“Or a weak will?”</p> + +<p>“Relatively—yes.”</p> + +<p>“It is so strange,” she sighed. “It is +so inconsistent. It is like a child catching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +at a new toy. Do you know, Mr. Melville”—she +hesitated—“all this has made +me feel old. I feel very much older, +very much wiser than he is. I cannot +help it. I am afraid it is for all women +… to feel that sometimes.”</p> + +<p>She reflected profoundly. “For <em>all</em> +women— The child, man! I see now +just what Sarah Grand meant by that.”</p> + +<p>She smiled a wan smile. “I feel just +as if he had been a naughty child. And +I—I worshipped him, Mr. Melville,” she +said, and her voice quivered.</p> + +<p>My cousin coughed and turned about +to stare hard out of the window. He was, +he perceived, much more shockingly inadequate +even than he had expected to be.</p> + +<p>“If I thought she could make him +happy!” she said presently, leaving a +hiatus of generous self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>“The case is—complicated,” said Melville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her voice went on, clear and a little +high, resigned, impenetrably assured.</p> + +<p>“But she would not. All his better +side, all his serious side— She would +miss it and ruin it all.”</p> + +<p>“Does he—” began Melville and +repented of the temerity of his question.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Does he—ask to be released?”</p> + +<p>“No.… He wants to come back +to me.”</p> + +<p>“And you——”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t come.”</p> + +<p>“But do you—do you want him +back?”</p> + +<p>“How can I say, Mr. Melville? He +does not say certainly even that he wants +to come back.”</p> + +<p>My cousin Melville looked perplexed. +He lived on the superficies of emotion, +and these complexities in matters he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +always assumed were simple, put him +out.</p> + +<p>“There are times,” she said, “when it +seems to me that my love for him is altogether +dead.… Think of the disillusionment—the +shock—the discovery of +such weakness.”</p> + +<p>My cousin lifted his eyebrows and +shook his head in agreement.</p> + +<p>“His feet—to find his feet were of +clay!”</p> + +<p>There came a pause.</p> + +<p>“It seems as if I have never loved +him. And then—and then I think of all +the things that still might be.”</p> + +<p>Her voice made him look up, and he +saw that her mouth was set hard and tears +were running down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>It occurred to my cousin, he says, that +he would touch her hand in a sympathetic +manner, and then it occurred to +him that he wouldn’t. Her words rang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +in his thoughts for a space, and then he +said somewhat tardily, “He may still be +all those things.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose he may,” she said slowly +and without colour. The weeping moment +had passed.</p> + +<p>“What is she?” she changed abruptly. +“What is this being, who has come between +him and all the realities of life? +What is there about her—? And why +should I have to compete with her, because +he—because he doesn’t know his +own mind?”</p> + +<p>“For a man,” said Melville, “to know +his own mind is—to have exhausted +one of the chief interests in life. After +that—! A cultivated extinct volcano—if +ever it was a volcano.”</p> + +<p>He reflected egotistically for a space. +Then with a secret start he came back to +consider her.</p> + +<p>“What is there,” she said, with that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +deliberate attempt at clearness which was +one of her antipathetic qualities for Melville—“what +is there that she has, that she +offers, that <em>I</em>——?”</p> + +<p>Melville winced at this deliberate proposal +of appalling comparisons. All the +catlike quality in his soul came to his aid. +He began to edge away, and walk obliquely +and generally to shirk the issue. “My dear +Miss Glendower,” he said, and tried to +make that seem an adequate reply.</p> + +<p>“What <em>is</em> the difference?” she insisted.</p> + +<p>“There are impalpable things,” waived +Melville. “They are above reason and +beyond describing.”</p> + +<p>“But you,” she urged, “you take an +attitude, you must have an impression. +Why don’t you— Don’t you see, Mr. +Melville, this is very”—her voice caught +for a moment—“very vital for me. It +isn’t kind of you, if you have impressions— I’m +sorry, Mr. Melville, if I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +seem to be trying to get too much from +you. I—I want to know.”</p> + +<p>It came into Melville’s head for a moment +that this girl had something in her, +perhaps, that was just a little beyond his +former judgments.</p> + +<p>“I must admit, I have a sort of impression,” +he said.</p> + +<p>“You are a man; you know him; you +know all sorts of things—all sorts of ways +of looking at things, I don’t know. If +you could go so far—as to be frank.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Melville and stopped.</p> + +<p>She hung over him as it were, as a +tense silence.</p> + +<p>“There <em>is</em> a difference,” he admitted, +and still went unhelped.</p> + +<p>“How can I put it? I think in certain +ways you contrast with her, in a way +that makes things easier for her. He has—I +know the thing sounds like cant, only +you know, <em>he</em> doesn’t plead it in defence—he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +has a temperament, to which she sometimes +appeals more than you do.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know, but how?”</p> + +<p>“Well——”</p> + +<p>“Tell me.”</p> + +<p>“You are austere. You are restrained. +Life—for a man like Chatteris—is schooling. +He has something—something perhaps +more worth having than most of us +have—but I think at times—it makes life +harder for him than it is for a lot of us. +Life comes at him, with limitations and +regulations. He knows his duty well +enough. And you— You mustn’t mind +what I say too much, Miss Glendower—I +may be wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Go on,” she said, “go on.”</p> + +<p>“You are too much—the agent general +of his duty.”</p> + +<p>“But surely!—what else——?”</p> + +<p>“I talked to him in London and then +I thought he was quite in the wrong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +Since that I’ve thought all sorts of things—even +that you might be in the wrong. +In certain minor things.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t mind my vanity now,” she +cried. “Tell me.”</p> + +<p>“You see you have defined things—very +clearly. You have made it clear to +him what you expect him to be, and what +you expect him to do. It is like having +built a house in which he is to live. For +him, to go to her is like going out of a +house, a very fine and dignified house, I +admit, into something larger, something +adventurous and incalculable. She is—she +has an air of being—<em>natural</em>. She is +as lax and lawless as the sunset, she is as +free and familiar as the wind. She doesn’t—if +I may put it in this way—she doesn’t +love and respect him when he is this, and +disapprove of him highly when he is that; +she takes him altogether. She has the +quality of the open sky, of the flight of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +birds, of deep tangled places, she has the +quality of the high sea. That I think is +what she is for him, she is the Great Outside. +You—you have the quality——”</p> + +<p>He hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” she insisted. “Let us get +the meaning.”</p> + +<p>“Of an edifice.… I don’t sympathise +with him,” said Melville. “I am a +tame cat and I should scratch and mew at +the door directly I got outside of things. +I don’t want to go out. The thought +scares me. But he is different.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “he is different.”</p> + +<p>For a time it seemed that Melville’s +interpretation had hold of her. She stood +thoughtful. Slowly other aspects of the +thing came into his mind.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” she said, thinking as she +looked at him. “Yes. Yes. That is the +impression. That is the quality. But in +reality— There are other things in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +the world beside effects and impressions. +After all, that is—an analogy. It is +pleasant to go out of houses and dwellings +into the open air, but most of us, +nearly all of us must live in houses.”</p> + +<p>“Decidedly,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“He cannot— What can he do with +her? How can he live with her? What +life could they have in common?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a case of attraction,” said Melville, +“and not of plans.”</p> + +<p>“After all,” she said, “he must come +back—if I let him come back. He may +spoil everything now; he may lose his +election and be forced to start again, lower +and less hopefully; he may tear his heart +to pieces——”</p> + +<p>She stopped at a sob.</p> + +<p>“Miss Glendower,” said Melville abruptly.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you quite understand.”</p> + +<p>“Understand what?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You think he cannot marry this—this +being who has come among us?”</p> + +<p>“How could he?”</p> + +<p>“No—he couldn’t. You think his +imagination has wandered away from you—to +something impossible. That generally, +in an aimless way, he has cut himself +up for nothing, and made an inordinate +fool of himself, and that it’s simply a +business of putting everything back into +place again.”</p> + +<p>He paused and she said nothing. But +her face was attentive. “What you do +not understand,” he went on, “what no +one seems to understand, is that she +comes——”</p> + +<p>“Out of the sea.”</p> + +<p>“Out of some other world. She +comes, whispering that this life is a phantom +life, unreal, flimsy, limited, casting +upon everything a spell of disillusionment——”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p> + +<p>“So that <em>he</em>——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and then she whispers, ‘There +are better dreams!’”</p> + +<p>The girl regarded him in frank perplexity.</p> + +<p>“She hints of these vague better +dreams, she whispers of a way——”</p> + +<p>“<em>What</em> way?”</p> + +<p>“I do not know what way. But it is +something—something that tears at the +very fabric of this daily life.”</p> + +<p>“You mean——?”</p> + +<p>“She is a mermaid, she is a thing of +dreams and desires, a siren, a whisper and +a seduction. She will lure him with +her——”</p> + +<p>He stopped.</p> + +<p>“Where?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Into the deeps.”</p> + +<p>“The deeps?”</p> + +<p>They hung upon a long pause. Melville +sought vagueness with infinite solicitude,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +and could not find it. He blurted +out at last: “There can be but one way +out of this dream we are all dreaming, +you know.”</p> + +<p>“And that way?”</p> + +<p>“That way—” began Melville and +dared not say it.</p> + +<p>“You mean,” she said, with a pale +face, half awakened to a new thought, +“the way is——?”</p> + +<p>Melville shirked the word. He met +her eyes and nodded weakly.</p> + +<p>“But how—?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“At any rate”—he said hastily, seeking +some palliative phrase—“at any rate, +if she gets him, this little world of +yours— There will be no coming back +for him, you know.”</p> + +<p>“No coming back?” she said.</p> + +<p>“No coming back,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“But are you sure?” she doubted.</p> + +<p>“Sure?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That it is so?”</p> + +<p>“That desire is desire, and the deep +the deep—yes.”</p> + +<p>“I never thought—” she began and +stopped.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Melville,” she said, “you know I +don’t understand. I thought—I scarcely +know what I thought. I thought he was +trivial and foolish to let his thoughts go +wandering. I agreed—I see your point—as +to the difference in our effect upon +him. But this—this suggestion that for +him she may be something determining +and final— After all, she——”</p> + +<p>“She is nothing,” he said. “She is +the hand that takes hold of him, the shape +that stands for things unseen.”</p> + +<p>“What things unseen?”</p> + +<p>My cousin shrugged his shoulders. +“Something we never find in life,” he said. +“Something we are always seeking.”</p> + +<p>“But what?” she asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>Melville made no reply. She scrutinised +his face for a time, and then looked +out at the sunlight again.</p> + +<p>“Do you want him back?” he said.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want him back?”</p> + +<p>“I feel as if I had never wanted him +before.”</p> + +<p>“And now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.… But—if he will not come +back?”</p> + +<p>“He will not come back,” said Melville, +“for the work.”</p> + +<p>“I know.”</p> + +<p>“He will not come back for his self-respect—or +any of those things.”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Those things, you know, are only +fainter dreams. All the palace you have +made for him is a dream. But——”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“He might come back—” he said, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +looked at her and stopped. He tells me +he had some vague intention of startling +her, rousing her, wounding her to some +display of romantic force, some insurgence +of passion, that might yet win Chatteris +back, and then in that moment, and like +a blow, it came to him how foolish such a +fancy had been. There she stood impenetrably +herself, limitedly intelligent, well-meaning, +imitative, and powerless. Her +pose, her face, suggested nothing but a +clear and reasonable objection to all that +had come to her, a critical antagonism, a +steady opposition. And then, amazingly, +she changed. She looked up, and suddenly +held out both her hands, and there +was something in her eyes that he had +never seen before.</p> + +<p>Melville took her hands mechanically, +and for a second or so they stood looking +with a sort of discovery into each +other’s eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Tell him,” she said, with an astounding +perfection of simplicity, “to come +back to me. There can be no other thing +than what I am. Tell him to come back +to me!”</p> + +<p>“And——?”</p> + +<p>“Tell him <em>that</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Forgiveness?”</p> + +<p>“No! Tell him I want him. If he +will not come for that he will not come +at all. If he will not come back for that”—she +halted for a moment—“I do not +want him. No! I do not want him. He +is not mine and he may go.”</p> + +<p>His passive hold of her hands became +a pressure. Then they dropped apart +again.</p> + +<p>“You are very good to help us,” she +said as he turned to go.</p> + +<p>He looked at her. “You are very +good to help me,” she said, and then: +“Tell him whatever you like if only he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +will come back to me!… No! Tell +him what I have said.” He saw she +had something more to say, and stopped. +“You know, Mr. Melville, all this is like +a book newly opened to me. Are you +sure——?”</p> + +<p>“Sure?”</p> + +<p>“Sure of what you say—sure of what +she is to him—sure that if he goes on he +will—” She stopped.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“It means—” she said and stopped +again.</p> + +<p>“No adventure, no incident, but a +going out from all that this life has to +offer.”</p> + +<p>“You mean,” she insisted, “you +mean——?”</p> + +<p>“Death,” said Melville starkly, and +for a space both stood without a word.</p> + +<p>She winced, and remained looking +into his eyes. Then she spoke again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Mr. Melville, tell him to come back +to me.”</p> + +<p>“And——?”</p> + +<p>“Tell him to come back to me, or”—a +sudden note of passion rang in her voice—“if +I have no hold upon him, let him +go his way.”</p> + +<p>“But—” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“I know,” she cried, with her face set, +“I know. But if he is mine he will come +to me, and if he is not— Let him dream +his dream.”</p> + +<p>Her clenched hand tightened as she +spoke. He saw in her face she would +say no more, that she wanted urgently +to leave it there. He turned again towards +the staircase. He glanced at her +and went down.</p> + +<p>As he looked up from the bend of +the stairs she was still standing in the +light.</p> + +<p>He was moved to proclaim himself in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +some manner her adherent, but he could +think of nothing better than: “Whatever +I can do I will.” And so, after a curious +pause, he departed, rather stumblingly, +from her sight.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>After this interview it was right and +proper that Melville should have gone at +once to Chatteris, but the course of +events in the world does occasionally display +a lamentable disregard for what is +right and proper. Points of view were +destined to crowd upon him that day—for +the most part entirely unsympathetic +points of view. He found Mrs. Bunting +in the company of a boldly trimmed bonnet +in the hall, waiting, it became clear, +to intercept him.</p> + +<p>As he descended, in a state of extreme +preoccupation, the boldly trimmed bonnet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +revealed beneath it a white-faced, resolute +person in a duster and sensible boots. +This stranger, Mrs. Bunting made apparent, +was Lady Poynting Mallow, one of +the more representative of the Chatteris +aunts. Her ladyship made a few enquiries +about Adeline with an eye that took Melville’s +measure, and then, after agreeing to +a number of the suggestions Mrs. Bunting +had to advance, proposed that he should +escort her back to her hotel. He was +much too exercised with Adeline to discuss +the proposal. “I walk,” she said. +“And we go along the lower road.”</p> + +<p>He found himself walking.</p> + +<p>She remarked, as the Bunting door +closed behind them, that it was always a +comfort to have to do with a man; and +there was a silence for a space.</p> + +<p>I don’t think at that time Melville +completely grasped the fact that he had a +companion. But presently his meditations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +were disturbed by her voice. He +started.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That Bunting woman is a fool,” repeated +Lady Poynting Mallow.</p> + +<p>There was a slight interval for consideration.</p> + +<p>“She’s an old friend of mine,” said +Melville.</p> + +<p>“Quite possibly,” said Lady Poynting +Mallow.</p> + +<p>The position seemed a little awkward +to Melville for a moment. He flicked a +fragment of orange peel into the road. +“I want to get to the bottom of all this,” +said Lady Poynting Mallow. “Who <em>is</em> +this other woman?”</p> + +<p>“What other woman?”</p> + +<p>“<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tertium quid</i>,” said Lady Poynting +Mallow, with a luminous incorrectness.</p> + +<p>“Mermaid, I gather,” said Melville.</p> + +<p>“What’s the objection to her?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Tail.”</p> + +<p>“Fin and all?”</p> + +<p>“Complete.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sure of it?”</p> + +<p>“Certain.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I’m certain,” repeated Melville with +a quite unusual testiness.</p> + +<p>The lady reflected.</p> + +<p>“Well, there are worse things in the +world than a fishy tail,” she said at +last.</p> + +<p>Melville saw no necessity for a reply. +“H’m,” said Lady Poynting Mallow, apparently +by way of comment on his silence, +and for a space they went on.</p> + +<p>“That Glendower girl is a fool too,” +she added after a pause.</p> + +<p>My cousin opened his mouth and shut +it again. How can one answer when +ladies talk in this way? But if he did +not answer, at any rate his preoccupation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +was gone. He was now acutely aware of +the determined person at his side.</p> + +<p>“She has means?” she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Miss Glendower?”</p> + +<p>“No. I know all about her. The +other?”</p> + +<p>“The mermaid?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the mermaid. Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>she</em>—Very considerable means. +Galleons. Phœnician treasure ships, +wrecked frigates, submarine reefs——”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s all right. And now will +you tell me, Mr. Melville, why shouldn’t +Harry have her? What if she is a mermaid? +It’s no worse than an American +silver mine, and not nearly so raw and ill-bred.”</p> + +<p>“In the first place there’s his engagement——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <em>that!”</em></p> + +<p>“And in the next there’s the Sea +Lady.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But I thought she——”</p> + +<p>“She’s a mermaid.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no objection. So far as I can +see, she’d make an excellent wife for him. +And, as a matter of fact, down here she’d +be able to help him in just the right way. +The member here—he’ll be fighting—this +Sassoon man—makes a lot of capital out +of deep-sea cables. Couldn’t be better. +Harry could dish him easily. That’s all +right. Why shouldn’t he have her?”</p> + +<p>She stuck her hands deeply into the +pockets of her dust-coat, and a china-blue +eye regarded Melville from under the +brim of the boldly trimmed bonnet.</p> + +<p>“You understand clearly she is a +properly constituted mermaid with a real +physical tail?”</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Lady Poynting Mallow.</p> + +<p>“Apart from any question of Miss +Glendower——”</p> + +<p>“That’s understood.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I think that such a marriage would +be impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>My cousin played round the question. +“She’s an immortal, for example, with a +past.”</p> + +<p>“Simply makes her more interesting.”</p> + +<p>Melville tried to enter into her point +of view. “You think,” he said, “she +would go to London for him, and marry +at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and pay +for a mansion in Park Lane and visit just +anywhere he liked?”</p> + +<p>“That’s precisely what she would do. +Just now, with a Court that is waking +up——”</p> + +<p>“It’s precisely what she won’t do,” said +Melville.</p> + +<p>“But any woman would do it who +had the chance.”</p> + +<p>“She’s a mermaid.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + +<p>“She’s a fool,” said Lady Poynting +Mallow.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t even mean to marry +him; it doesn’t enter into her code.”</p> + +<p>“The hussy! What does she mean?”</p> + +<p>My cousin made a gesture seaward. +“That!” he said. “She’s a mermaid.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Out there.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“There!”</p> + +<p>Lady Poynting Mallow scanned the +sea as if it were some curious new object. +“It’s an amphibious outlook for +the family,” she said after reflection. +“But even then—if she doesn’t care for +society and it makes Harry happy—and +perhaps after they are tired of—rusticating——”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you fully realise that +she is a mermaid,” said Melville; “and +Chatteris, you know, breathes air.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> + +<p>“That <em>is</em> a difficulty,” admitted Lady +Poynting Mallow, and studied the sunlit +offing for a space.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be +managed for all that,” she considered +after a pause.</p> + +<p>“It can’t be,” said Melville with arid +emphasis.</p> + +<p>“She cares for him?”</p> + +<p>“She’s come to fetch him.”</p> + +<p>“If she wants him badly he might +make terms. In these affairs it’s always +one or other has to do the buying. She’d +have to <em>marry</em>—anyhow.”</p> + +<p>My cousin regarded her impenetrably +satisfied face.</p> + +<p>“He could have a yacht and a diving +bell,” she suggested; “if she wanted him +to visit her people.”</p> + +<p>“They are pagan demigods, I believe, +and live in some mythological way in the +Mediterranean.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Dear Harry’s a pagan himself—so +that doesn’t matter, and as for being +mythological—all good families are. He +could even wear a diving dress if one +could be found to suit him.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think that anything of the +sort is possible for a moment.”</p> + +<p>“Simply because you’ve never been a +woman in love,” said Lady Poynting +Mallow with an air of vast experience.</p> + +<p>She continued the conversation. “If +it’s sea water she wants it would be quite +easy to fit up a tank wherever they lived, +and she could easily have a bath chair +like a sitz bath on wheels.… Really, +Mr. Milvain——”</p> + +<p>“Melville.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Melville, I don’t see where your +‘impossible’ comes in.”</p> + +<p>“Have you seen the lady?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I’ve been in Folkestone +two days doing nothing?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You don’t mean you’ve called on her?”</p> + +<p>“Dear, no! It’s Harry’s place to +settle that. But I’ve seen her in her +bath chair on the Leas, and I’m certain +I’ve never seen any one who looked so +worthy of dear Harry. <em>Never!</em>”</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” said Melville. “Apart +from any other considerations, you know, +there’s Miss Glendower.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never regarded her as a suitable +wife for Harry.”</p> + +<p>“Possibly not. Still—she exists.”</p> + +<p>“So many people do,” said Lady +Poynting Mallow.</p> + +<p>She evidently regarded that branch of +the subject as dismissed.</p> + +<p>They pursued their way in silence.</p> + +<p>“What I wanted to ask you, Mr. +Milvain——”</p> + +<p>“Melville.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Melville, is just precisely where +you come into this business?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m a friend of Miss Glendower.”</p> + +<p>“Who wants him back.”</p> + +<p>“Frankly—yes.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t she devoted to him?”</p> + +<p>“I presume as she’s engaged——”</p> + +<p>“She ought to be devoted to him—yes. +Well, why can’t she see that she +ought to release him for his own good?”</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t see it’s for his good. +Nor do I.”</p> + +<p>“Simply an old-fashioned prejudice +because the woman’s got a tail. Those +old frumps at Wampach’s are quite of +your opinion.”</p> + +<p>Melville shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“And so I suppose you’re going to +bully and threaten on account of Miss +Glendower.… You’ll do no good.”</p> + +<p>“May I ask what you are going to +do?”</p> + +<p>“What a good aunt always does.”</p> + +<p>“And that?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Let him do what he likes.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose he wants to drown himself?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Mr. Milvain, Harry isn’t a +fool.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you she’s a mermaid.”</p> + +<p>“Ten times.”</p> + +<p>A constrained silence fell between +them.</p> + +<p>It became apparent they were near the +Folkestone Lift.</p> + +<p>“You’ll do no good,” said Lady Poynting +Mallow.</p> + +<p>Melville’s escort concluded at the lift +station. There the lady turned upon him.</p> + +<p>“I’m greatly obliged to you for coming, +Mr. Milvain,” she said; “and very +glad to hear your views of this matter. +It’s a peculiar business, but I hope we’re +sensible people. You think over what I +have said. As a friend of Harry’s. You +<em>are</em> a friend of Harry’s?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>“We’ve known each other some +years.”</p> + +<p>“I feel sure you will come round to +my point of view sooner or later. It is +so obviously the best thing for him.”</p> + +<p>“There’s Miss Glendower.”</p> + +<p>“If Miss Glendower is a womanly +woman, she will be ready to make any +sacrifice for his good.”</p> + +<p>And with that they parted.</p> + +<p>In the course of another minute Melville +found himself on the side of the road +opposite the lift station, regarding the +ascending car. The boldly trimmed bonnet, +vivid, erect, assertive, went gliding +upward, a perfect embodiment of sound +common sense. His mind was lapsing +once again into disorder; he was stunned, +as it were, by the vigour of her ladyship’s +view. Could any one not absolutely right +be quite so clear and emphatic? And if +so, what became of all that oppression of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> +foreboding, that sinister promise of an +escape, that whisper of “other dreams,” +that had dominated his mind only a short +half-hour before?</p> + +<p>He turned his face back to Sandgate, +his mind a theatre of warring doubts. +Quite vividly he could see the Sea Lady as +Lady Poynting Mallow saw her, as something +pink and solid and smart and wealthy, +and, indeed, quite abominably vulgar, and +yet quite as vividly he recalled her as she +had talked to him in the garden, her face +full of shadows, her eyes of deep mystery, +and the whisper that made all the world +about him no more than a flimsy, thin +curtain before vague and wonderful, and +hitherto, quite unsuspected things.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Chatteris was leaning against the railings. +He started violently at Melville’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> +hand upon his shoulder. They made awkward +greetings.</p> + +<p>“The fact is,” said Melville, “I—I +have been asked to talk to you.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t apologise,” said Chatteris. +“I’m glad to have it out with some +one.”</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence.</p> + +<p>They stood side by side—looking down +upon the harbour. Behind, the evening +band played remotely and the black little +promenaders went to and fro under the +tall electric lights. I think Chatteris decided +to be very self-possessed at first—a +man of the world.</p> + +<p>“It’s a gorgeous night,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Glorious,” said Melville, playing up +to the key set.</p> + +<p>He clicked his cutter on a cigar. +“There was something you wanted me +to tell you——”</p> + +<p>“I know all that,” said Chatteris with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +the shoulder towards Melville becoming +obtrusive. “I know everything.”</p> + +<p>“You have seen and talked to her?”</p> + +<p>“Several times.”</p> + +<p>There was perhaps a minute’s pause.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?” asked +Melville.</p> + +<p>Chatteris made no answer and Melville +did not repeat his question.</p> + +<p>Presently Chatteris turned about. +“Let’s walk,” he said, and they paced +westward, side by side.</p> + +<p>He made a little speech. “I’m sorry +to give everybody all this trouble,” he +said with an air of having prepared his +sentences; “I suppose there is no question +that I have behaved like an ass. I +am profoundly sorry. Largely it is my +own fault. But you know—so far as the +overt kick-up goes—there is a certain +amount of blame attaches to our outspoken +friend Mrs. Bunting.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there is,” Melville admitted.</p> + +<p>“You know there are times when one +is under the necessity of having moods. +It doesn’t help them to drag them into +general discussion.”</p> + +<p>“The mischief’s done.”</p> + +<p>“You know Adeline seems to have +objected to the presence of—this sea +lady at a very early stage. Mrs. Bunting +overruled her. Afterwards when there +was trouble she seems to have tried to +make up for it.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know Miss Glendower had +objected.”</p> + +<p>“She did. She seems to have seen—ahead.”</p> + +<p>Chatteris reflected. “Of course all +that doesn’t excuse me in the least. But +it’s a sort of excuse for <em>your</em> being dragged +into this bother.”</p> + +<p>He said something less distinctly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> +about a “stupid bother” and “private +affairs.”</p> + +<p>They found themselves drawing near +the band and already on the outskirts of +its territory of votaries. Its cheerful +rhythms became insistent. The canopy +of the stand was a focus of bright light, +music-stands and instruments sent out +beams of reflected brilliance, and a luminous +red conductor in the midst of the +lantern guided the ratatoo-tat, ratatoo-tat +of a popular air. Voices, detached fragments +of conversation, came to our talkers +and mingled impertinently with their +thoughts.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t ’ave no truck with ’im, +not after that,” said a young person to +her friend.</p> + +<p>“Let’s get out of this,” said Chatteris +abruptly.</p> + +<p>They turned aside from the high path +of the Leas to the head of some steps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> +that led down the declivity. In a few +moments it was as if those imposing +fronts of stucco, those many-windowed +hotels, the electric lights on the tall masts, +the band-stand and miscellaneous holiday +British public, had never existed. It is +one of Folkestone’s best effects, that +black quietness under the very feet of a +crowd. They no longer heard the band +even, only a remote suggestion of music +filtered to them over the brow. The +black-treed slopes fell from them to the +surf below, and out at sea were the lights +of many ships. Away to the westward +like a swarm of fire-flies hung the lights +of Hythe. The two men sat down on a +vacant seat in the dimness. For a time +neither spoke. Chatteris impressed Melville +with an air of being on the defensive. +He murmured in a meditative +undertone, “I wouldn’t ’ave no truck with +’im not after that.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I will admit by every standard,” he +said aloud, “that I have been flappy and +feeble and wrong. Very. In these things +there is a prescribed and definite course. +To hesitate, to have two points of view, +is condemned by all right-thinking people.… +Still—one has the two points of +view.… You have come up from +Sandgate?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see Miss Glendower?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Talked to her?… I suppose— What +do you think of her?”</p> + +<p>His cigar glowed into an expectant +brightness while Melville hesitated at his +answer, and showed his eyes thoughtful +upon Melville’s face.</p> + +<p>“I’ve never thought her—” Melville +sought more diplomatic phrasing. “I’ve +never found her exceptionally attractive +before. Handsome, you know, but not—winning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> +But this time, she seemed … +rather splendid.”</p> + +<p>“She is,” said Chatteris, “she is.”</p> + +<p>He sat forward and began flicking +imaginary ash from the end of his cigar.</p> + +<p>“She <em>is</em> splendid,” he admitted. “You—only +begin to imagine. You don’t, my +dear man, know that girl. She is not—quite—in +your line. She is, I assure you, +the straightest and cleanest and clearest +human being I have ever met. She believes +so firmly, she does right so simply, +there is a sort of queenly benevolence, a +sort of integrity of benevolence——”</p> + +<p>He left the sentence unfinished, as +if unfinished it completely expressed his +thought.</p> + +<p>“She wants you to go back to her,” +said Melville bluntly.</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Chatteris and flicked +again at that ghostly ash. “She has written +that.… That’s just where her complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> +magnificence comes in. She doesn’t +fence and fool about, as the she-women +do. She doesn’t squawk and say, ‘You’ve +insulted me and everything’s at an end;’ +and she doesn’t squawk and say, ‘For +God’s sake come back to me!’ <em>She</em> +doesn’t say, she ‘won’t ’ave no truck with +me not after this.’ She writes—straight. +I don’t believe, Melville, I half knew her +until all this business came up. She +comes out.… Before that it was, as you +said, and I quite perceive—I perceived +all along—a little too—statistical.”</p> + +<p>He became meditative, and his cigar +glow waned and presently vanished altogether.</p> + +<p>“You are going back?”</p> + +<p>“By Jove! <em>Yes.</em>”</p> + +<p>Melville stirred slightly and then they +both sat rigidly quiet for a space. Then +abruptly Chatteris flung away his extinct +cigar. He seemed to fling many other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +things away with that dim gesture. “Of +course,” he said, “I shall go back.</p> + +<p>“It is not my fault,” he insisted, “that +this trouble, this separation, has ever +arisen. I was moody, I was preoccupied, +I know—things had got into my head. +But if I’d been left alone.…</p> + +<p>“I have been forced into this position,” +he summarised.</p> + +<p>“You understand,” said Melville, “that—though +I think matters are indefined +and distressing just now—I don’t attach +blame—anywhere.”</p> + +<p>“You’re open-minded,” said Chatteris. +“That’s just your way. And I can imagine +how all this upset and discomfort +distresses you. You’re awfully good to +keep so open-minded and not to consider +me an utter outcast, an ill-regulated disturber +of the order of the world.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a distressing state of affairs,” said +Melville. “But perhaps I understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +the forces pulling at you—better than you +imagine.”</p> + +<p>“They’re very simple, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Very.”</p> + +<p>“And yet——?”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>He seemed to hesitate at a dangerous +topic. “The other,” he said.</p> + +<p>Melville’s silence bade him go on.</p> + +<p>He plunged from his prepared attitude. +“What is it? Why should—this +being—come into my life, as she has done, +if it <em>is</em> so simple? What is there about +her, or me, that has pulled me so astray? +She has, you know. Here we are at sixes +and sevens! It’s not the situation, it’s the +mental conflict. Why am I pulled about? +She has got into my imagination. How? +I haven’t the remotest idea.”</p> + +<p>“She’s beautiful,” meditated Melville.</p> + +<p>“She’s beautiful certainly. But so is +Miss Glendower.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> + +<p>“She’s very beautiful. I’m not blind, +Chatteris. She’s beautiful in a different +way.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but that’s only the name for the +effect. <em>Why</em> is she very beautiful?”</p> + +<p>Melville shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“She’s not beautiful to every one.”</p> + +<p>“You mean?”</p> + +<p>“Bunting keeps calm.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—<em>he</em>——!”</p> + +<p>“And other people don’t seem to see +it—as I do.”</p> + +<p>“Some people seem to see no beauty +at all, as we do. With emotion, that is.”</p> + +<p>“Why do we?”</p> + +<p>“We see—finer.”</p> + +<p>“Do we? Is it finer? Why should +it be finer to see beauty where it is fatal +to us to see it? Why? Unless we are to +believe there is no reason in things, why +should this—impossibility, be beautiful to +any one anyhow? Put it as a matter of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +reason, Melville. Why should <em>her</em> smile +be so sweet to me, why should <em>her</em> voice +move me! Why her’s and not Adeline’s? +Adeline has straight eyes and clear eyes +and fine eyes, and all the difference there +can be, what is it? An infinitesimal curving +of the lid, an infinitesimal difference +in the lashes—and it shatters everything—in +this way. Who could measure the difference, +who could tell the quality that +makes me <em>swim</em> in the sound of her voice.… +The difference? After all, it’s a +visible thing, it’s a material thing! It’s in +my eyes. By Jove!” he laughed abruptly. +“Imagine old Helmholtz trying to gauge +it with a battery of resonators, or Spencer +in the light of Evolution and the Environment +explaining it away!”</p> + +<p>“These things are beyond measurement,” +said Melville.</p> + +<p>“Not if you measure them by their +effect,” said Chatteris. “And anyhow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> +why do they take us? That is the question +I can’t get away from just now.”</p> + +<p>My cousin meditated, no doubt with +his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets. +“It is illusion,” he said. “It is a sort of +glamour. After all, look at it squarely. +What is she? What can she give you? +She promises you vague somethings.… +She is a snare, she is deception. She is +the beautiful mask of death.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Chatteris. “I know.”</p> + +<p>And then again, “I know.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing for me to learn +about that,” he said. “But why—why +should the mask of death be beautiful? +After all— We get our duty by good +hard reasoning. Why should reason and +justice carry everything? Perhaps after +all there are things beyond our reason, +perhaps after all desire has a claim on +us?”</p> + +<p>He stopped interrogatively and Melville<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> +was profound. “I think,” said my +cousin at last, “Desire <em>has</em> a claim on us. +Beauty, at any rate——</p> + +<p>“I mean,” he explained, “we are human +beings. We are matter with minds +growing out of ourselves. We reach +downward into the beautiful wonderland +of matter, and upward to something—” +He stopped, from sheer dissatisfaction +with the image. “In another direction, +anyhow,” he tried feebly. He jumped at +something that was not quite his meaning. +“Man is a sort of half-way house—he must +compromise.”</p> + +<p>“As you do?”</p> + +<p>“Well. Yes. I try to strike a balance.”</p> + +<p>“A few old engravings—good, I suppose—a +little luxury in furniture and +flowers, a few things that come within +your means. Art—in moderation, and a +few kindly acts of the pleasanter sort, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> +certain respect for truth; duty—also in +moderation. Eh? It’s just that even +balance that I cannot contrive. I cannot +sit down to the oatmeal of this daily +life and wash it down with a temperate +draught of beauty and water. Art!… +I suppose I’m voracious, I’m one of the +unfit—for the civilised stage. I’ve sat +down once, I’ve sat down twice, to perfectly +sane, secure, and reasonable things.… +It’s not my way.”</p> + +<p>He repeated, “It’s not my way.”</p> + +<p>Melville, I think, said nothing to that. +He was distracted from the immediate +topic by the discussion of his own way +of living. He was lost in egotistical +comparisons. No doubt he was on the +verge of saying, as most of us would +have been under the circumstances: “I +don’t think you quite understand my position.”</p> + +<p>“But, after all, what is the good of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +talking in this way?” exclaimed Chatteris +abruptly. “I am simply trying to elevate +the whole business by dragging in these +wider questions. It’s justification, when +I didn’t mean to justify. I have to choose +between life with Adeline and this woman +out of the sea.”</p> + +<p>“Who is Death.”</p> + +<p>“How do I know she is Death?”</p> + +<p>“But you said you had made your +choice!”</p> + +<p>“I have.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to recollect.</p> + +<p>“I have,” he corroborated. “I told +you. I am going back to see Miss Glendower +to-morrow.</p> + +<p>“Yes.” He recalled further portions +of what I believe was some prepared and +ready-phrased decision—some decision +from which the conversation had drifted. +“The need of my life is discipline, the +habit of persistence, of ignoring side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> +issues and wandering thoughts. Discipline!”</p> + +<p>“And work.”</p> + +<p>“Work, if you like to put it so; it’s +the same thing. The trouble so far has +been I haven’t worked hard enough. I’ve +stopped to speak to the woman by the +wayside. I’ve paltered with compromise, +and the other thing has caught me.… +I’ve got to renounce it, that is all.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t that your work is contemptible.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove! No. It’s—arduous. It +has its dusty moments. There are places +to climb that are not only steep but +muddy——”</p> + +<p>“The world wants leaders. It gives +a man of your class a great deal. Leisure. +Honour. Training and high traditions——”</p> + +<p>“And it expects something back. I +know. I am wrong—have been wrong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> +anyhow. This dream has taken me wonderfully. +And I must renounce it. After +all it is not so much—to renounce a +dream. It’s no more than deciding to +live. There are big things in the world +for men to do.”</p> + +<p>Melville produced an elaborate conceit. +“If there is no Venus Anadyomene,” +he said, “there is Michael and his +Sword.”</p> + +<p>“The stern angel in armour! But +then he had a good palpable dragon to +slash and not his own desires. And our +way nowadays is to do a deal with the +dragons somehow, raise the minimum +wage and get a better housing for the +working classes by hook or by crook.”</p> + +<p>Melville does not think that was a fair +treatment of his suggestion.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Chatteris, “I’ve no doubt +about the choice. I’m going to fall in—with +the species; I’m going to take my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> +place in the ranks in that great battle for +the future which is the meaning of life. +I want a moral cold bath and I mean to +take one. This lax dalliance with dreams +and desires must end. I will make a time +table for my hours and a rule for my life, +I will entangle my honour in controversies, +I will give myself to service, as a +man should do. Clean-handed work, +struggle, and performance.”</p> + +<p>“And there is Miss Glendower, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“Rather!” said Chatteris, with a faint +touch of insincerity. “Tall and straight-eyed +and capable. By Jove! if there’s to +be no Venus Anadyomene, at any rate +there will be a Pallas Athene. It is she +who plays the reconciler.”</p> + +<p>And then he said these words: “It +won’t be so bad, you know.”</p> + +<p>Melville restrained a movement of impatience, +he tells me, at that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Chatteris, he says, broke into a +sort of speech. “The case is tried,” he +said, “the judgment has been given. I +am that I am. I’ve been through it all +and worked it out. I am a man and I +must go a man’s way. There is Desire, the +light and guide of the world, a beacon on +a headland blazing out. Let it burn! Let +it burn! The road runs near it and by it—and +past.… I’ve made my choice. +I’ve got to be a man, I’ve got to live a +man and die a man and carry the burden +of my class and time. There it is! I’ve +had the dream, but you see I keep hold +of reason. Here, with the flame burning, +I renounce it. I make my choice.… +Renunciation! Always—renunciation! +That is life for all of us. We have desires, +only to deny them, senses that we +all must starve. We can live only as a +part of ourselves. Why should <em>I</em> be exempt. +For me, she is evil. For me she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> +is death.… Only why have I seen her +face? Why have I heard her voice?…”</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>They walked out of the shadows and +up a long sloping path until Sandgate, as +a little line of lights, came into view below. +Presently they came out upon the brow +and walked together (the band playing +with a remote and sweetening indistinctness +far away behind them) towards the +cliff at the end. They stood for a little +while in silence looking down. Melville +made a guess at his companion’s +thoughts.</p> + +<p>“Why not come down to-night?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“On a night like this!” Chatteris +turned about suddenly and regarded the +moonlight and the sea. He stood quite +still for a space, and that cold white radiance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> +gave an illusory strength and decision +to his face. “No,” he said at last, and the +word was almost a sigh.</p> + +<p>“Go down to the girl below there. +End the thing. She will be there, thinking +of you——”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Chatteris, “no.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not ten yet,” Melville tried +again.</p> + +<p>Chatteris thought. “No,” he answered, +“not to-night. To-morrow, in the light of +everyday.</p> + +<p>“I want a good, gray, honest day,” +he said, “with a south-west wind.… +These still, soft nights! How can you +expect me to do anything of that sort +to-night?”</p> + +<p>And then he murmured as if he +found the word a satisfying word to repeat, +“Renunciation.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” he said with the most astonishing +transition, “but this is a night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> +out of fairyland! Look at the lights of +those windows below there and then up—up +into this enormous blue of sky. And +there, as if it were fainting with moonlight—shines +one star.”</p> +<hr class="l1"/> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><small>CHAPTER THE EIGHTH</small><br /> + +MOONSHINE TRIUMPHANT</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>Just precisely what happened after +that has been the most impossible thing +to disinter. I have given all the things +that Melville remembered were said, I +have linked them into a conversation +and checked them by my cousin’s afterthoughts, +and finally I have read the +whole thing over to him. It is of course +no verbatim rendering, but it is, he says, +closely after the manner of their talk, the +gist was that, and things of that sort were +said. And when he left Chatteris, he +fully believed that the final and conclusive +thing was said. And then he says it +came into his head that, apart from and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +outside this settlement, there still remained +a tangible reality, capable of action, +the Sea Lady. What was she going +to do? The thought toppled him back +into a web of perplexities again. It carried +him back into a state of inconclusive +interrogation past Lummidge’s Hotel.</p> + +<p>The two men had gone back to the +Métropole and had parted with a firm +handclasp outside the glare of the big +doorway. Chatteris went straight in, Melville +fancies, but he is not sure. I understand +Melville had some private thinking +to do on his own account, and I conceive +him walking away in a state of profound +preoccupation. Afterwards the fact that +the Sea Lady was not to be abolished by +renunciations, cropped up in his mind, +and he passed back along the Leas, as I +have said. His inconclusive interrogations +elicited at the utmost that Lummidge’s +Private and Family Hotel is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> +singularly like any other hotel of its +class. Its windows tell no secrets. And +there Melville’s narrative ends.</p> + +<p>With that my circumstantial record +necessarily comes to an end also. There +are sources, of course, and glimpses. Parker +refuses, unhappily—as I explained. +The chief of these sources are, first, +Gooch, the valet employed by Chatteris; +and, secondly, the hall-porter of Lummidge’s +Private and Family Hotel.</p> + +<p>The valet’s evidence is precise, but has +an air of being irrelevant. He witnesses +that at a quarter past eleven he went up +to ask Chatteris if there was anything +more to do that night, and found him +seated in an arm-chair before the open +window, with his chin upon his hands, +staring at nothing—which, indeed, as +Schopenhauer observes in his crowning +passage, is the whole of human life.</p> + +<p>“More to do?” said Chatteris.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yessir,” said the valet.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said Chatteris, “absolutely +nothing.” And the valet, finding this answer +quite satisfactory, wished him goodnight +and departed.</p> + +<p>Probably Chatteris remained in this +attitude for a considerable time—half an +hour, perhaps, or more. Slowly, it would +seem, his mood underwent a change. At +some definite moment it must have been +that his lethargic meditation gave way to +a strange activity, to a sort of hysterical +reaction against all his resolves and renunciations. +His first action seems to me +grotesque—and grotesquely pathetic. He +went into his dressing-room, and in the +morning “his clo’es,” said the valet, “was +shied about as though ’e’d lost a ticket.” +This poor worshipper of beauty and the +dream shaved! He shaved and washed +and he brushed his hair, and, his valet +testifies, one of the brushes got “shied”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +behind the bed. Even this throwing about +of brushes seems to me to have done little +or nothing to palliate his poor human preoccupation +with the toilette. He changed +his gray flannels—which suited him very +well—for his white ones, which suited +him extremely. He must deliberately and +conscientiously have made himself quite +“lovely,” as a schoolgirl would have put it.</p> + +<p>And having capped his great “renunciation” +by these proceedings, he seems to +have gone straight to Lummidge’s Private +and Family Hotel and demanded to see +the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>She had retired.</p> + +<p>This came from Parker, and was delivered +in a chilling manner by the hall-porter.</p> + +<p>Chatteris swore at the hall-porter. +“Tell her I’m here,” he said.</p> + +<p>“She’s retired,” said the hall-porter +with official severity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Will you tell her I’m here?” said +Chatteris, suddenly white.</p> + +<p>“What name, sir?” said the hall-porter, +in order, as he explains, “to avoid a +frackass.”</p> + +<p>“Chatteris. Tell her I must see her +now. Do you hear, <em>now?</em>”</p> + +<p>The hall-porter went to Parker, and +came half-way back. He wished to goodness +he was not a hall-porter. The manager +had gone out—it was a stagnant hour. +He decided to try Parker again; he raised +his voice.</p> + +<p>The Sea Lady called to Parker from +the inner room. There was an interval of +tension.</p> + +<p>I gather that the Sea Lady put on a +loose wrap, and the faithful Parker either +carried her or sufficiently helped her from +her bedroom to the couch in the little +sitting-room. In the meanwhile the hall-porter +hovered on the stairs, praying for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> +the manager—prayers that went unanswered—and +Chatteris fumed below. Then +we have a glimpse of the Sea Lady.</p> + +<p>“I see her just in the crack of the +door,” said the porter, “as that maid of +hers opened it. She was raised up on her +hands, and turned so towards the door. +Looking exactly like this——”</p> + +<p>And the hall-porter, who has an Irish +type of face, a short nose, long upper lip, +and all the rest of it, and who has also +neglected his dentist, projected his face +suddenly, opened his eyes very wide, and +slowly curved his mouth into a fixed +smile, and so remained until he judged the +effect on me was complete.</p> + +<p>Parker, a little flushed, but resolutely +flattening everything to the quality of the +commonplace, emerged upon him suddenly. +Miss Waters could see Mr. Chatteris +for a few minutes. She was emphatic +with the “Miss Waters,” the more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> +emphatic for all the insurgent stress of +the goddess, protestingly emphatic. And +Chatteris went up, white and resolved, to +that smiling expectant presence. No one +witnessed their meeting but Parker—assuredly +Parker could not resist seeing that, +but Parker is silent—Parker preserves a +silence that rubies could not break.</p> + +<p>All I know, is this much from the +porter:</p> + +<p>“When I said she was up there and +would see him,” he says, “the way he +rooshed up was outrageous. This is a +Private Family Hotel. Of course one +sees things at times even here, but——</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t find the manager to tell +’im,” said the hall-porter. “And what +was <em>I</em> authorised to do?</p> + +<p>“For a bit they talked with the door +open, and then it was shut. That maid +of hers did it—I lay.”</p> + +<p>I asked an ignoble question.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Couldn’t ketch a word,” said the hall-porter. +“Dropped to whispers—instanter.”</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>And afterwards—</p> + +<p>It was within ten minutes of one that +Parker, conferring an amount of decorum +on the request beyond the power of any +other living being, descended to demand—of +all conceivable things—the bath +chair!</p> + +<p>“I got it,” said the hall-porter with +inimitable profundity.</p> + +<p>And then, having let me realise the +fulness of that, he said: “They never +used it!”</p> + +<p>“No?”</p> + +<p>“No! He carried her down in his arms.”</p> + +<p>“And out?”</p> + +<p>“And out!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was difficult to follow in his description +of the Sea Lady. She wore +her wrap, it seems, and she was “like a +statue”—whatever he may have meant by +that. Certainly not that she was impassive. +“Only,” said the porter, “she was +alive. One arm was bare, I know, and +her hair was down, a tossing mass of +gold.</p> + +<p>“He looked, you know, like a man +who’s screwed himself up.</p> + +<p>“She had one hand holding his hair—yes, +holding his hair, with her fingers in +among it.…</p> + +<p>“And when she see my face she threw +her head back laughing at me.</p> + +<p>“As much as to say, ‘<em>got</em> ’im!’</p> + +<p>“Laughed at me, she did. Bubblin’ +over.”</p> + +<p>I stood for a moment conceiving this +extraordinary picture. Then a question +occurred to me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Did <em>he</em> laugh?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Gord bless you, sir, laugh? <em>No!</em>”</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The definite story ends in the warm +light outside Lummidge’s Private and +Family Hotel. One sees that bright solitude +of the Leas stretching white and +blank—deserted as only a seaside front in +the small hours can be deserted—and all +its electric light ablaze. And then the +dark line of the edge where the cliff drops +down to the undercliff and sea. And beyond, +moonlit, the Channel and its incessant +ships. Outside the front of the +hotel, which is one of a great array of +pallid white facades, stands this little black +figure of a hall-porter, staring stupidly +into the warm and luminous mystery of +the night that has swallowed Sea Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +and Chatteris together. And he is the +sole living thing in the picture.</p> + +<p>There is a little shelter set in the brow +of the Leas, wherein, during the winter +season, a string band plays. Close by +there are steps that go down precipitously +to the lower road below. Down these +it must have been they went together, +hastening downward out of this life of +ours to unknown and inconceivable things. +So it is I seem to see them, and surely +though he was not in a laughing mood, +there was now no doubt nor resignation +in his face. Assuredly now he had found +himself, for a time at least he was sure of +himself, and that at least cannot be misery, +though it lead straight through a few +swift strides to death.</p> + +<p>They went down through the soft +moonlight, tall and white and splendid, +interlocked, with his arms about her, his +brow to her white shoulder and her hair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> +about his face. And she, I suppose, smiled +above him and caressed him and whispered +to him. For a moment they must have +glowed under the warm light of the lamp +that is half-way down the steps there, and +then the shadows closed about them. He +must have crossed the road with her, +through the laced moonlight of the tree +shadows, and through the shrubs and +bushes of the undercliff, into the shadeless +moon glare of the beach. There was +no one to see that last descent, to tell +whether for a moment he looked back before +he waded into the phosphorescence, +and for a little swam with her, and presently +swam no longer, and so was no +more to be seen by any one in this gray +world of men.</p> + +<p>Did he look back, I wonder? They +swam together for a little while, the man +and the sea goddess who had come for +him, with the sky above them and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> +water about them all, warmly filled with +the moonlight and set with shining stars. +It was no time for him to think of truth, +nor of the honest duties he had left behind +him, as they swam together into the unknown. +And of the end I can only guess +and dream. Did there come a sudden +horror upon him at the last, a sudden perception +of infinite error, and was he drawn +down, swiftly and terribly, a bubbling repentance, +into those unknown deeps? Or +was she tender and wonderful to the last, +and did she wrap her arms about him and +draw him down, down until the soft waters +closed above him into a gentle ecstasy of +death?</p> + +<p>Into these things we cannot pry or +follow, and on the margin of the softly +breathing water the story of Chatteris +must end. For the tailpiece to that, let us +put that policeman who in the small hours +before dawn came upon the wrap the Sea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> +Lady had been wearing just as the tide +overtook it. It was not the sort of garment +low people sometimes throw away—it +was a soft and costly wrap. I seem to +see him perplexed and dubious, wrap in +charge over his arm and lantern in hand, +scanning first the white beach and black +bushes behind him and then staring out to +sea. It was the inexplicable abandonment +of a thoroughly comfortable and desirable +thing.</p> + +<p>“What were people up to?” one figures +him asking, this simple citizen of a +plain and observed world. “What do +such things mean?</p> + +<p>“To throw away such an excellent +wrap…!”</p> + +<p>In all the southward heaven there were +only a planet and the sinking moon, and +from his feet a path of quivering light +must have started and run up to the extreme +dark edge before him of the sky.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +Ever and again the darkness east and west +of that glory would be lit by a momentary +gleam of phosphorescence; and far out +the lights of ships were shining bright and +yellow. Across its shimmer a black fishing +smack was gliding out of mystery into +mystery. Dungeness shone from the west +a pin-point of red light, and in the east +the tireless glare of that great beacon on +Gris-nez wheeled athwart the sky and vanished +and came again.</p> + +<p>I picture the interrogation of his lantern +going out for a little way, a stain of +faint pink curiosity upon the mysterious +vast serenity of night.</p> + + +<p class="center r6">THE END</p> + +<hr class="l1"/> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h2>Transcriber's Notes</h2> + + +<p>A few obvious printer's errors have been silently corrected.</p> + +<p>Otherwise spelling, hyphenation, interpunction and grammar have been +preserved as in the original.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea Lady, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 35920-h.htm or 35920-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/2/35920/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, eagkw and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-004.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-004.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..67e830e --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-004.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-092.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-092.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b5163d --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-092.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-103.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-103.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..64be562 --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-103.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-149.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-149.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..23f5ba4 --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-149.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-177.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-177.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4fbea5f --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-177.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-189.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-189.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..720fdbf --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-189.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-206.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-206.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..371d561 --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-206.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/illus-239.jpg b/35920-h/images/illus-239.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d65b9dd --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/illus-239.jpg diff --git a/35920-h/images/logo.png b/35920-h/images/logo.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f211069 --- /dev/null +++ b/35920-h/images/logo.png |
