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diff --git a/5260-0.txt b/5260-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d06dd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/5260-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9223 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Duet, by Arthur Conan Doyle + + +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: A Duet + with an Occasional Chorus + + +Author: Arthur Conan Doyle + + + +Release Date: July 5, 2014 [eBook #5260] +[This file was first posted on June 18, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DUET*** + + +Transcribed from the 1899 Grant Richards edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + A DUET + WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS + + + BY + + A. CONAN DOYLE + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + LONDON + + GRANT RICHARDS + + 9 HENRIETTA STREET + + 1899 + + * * * * * + + Edinburgh: T. and A CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + + * * * * * + + TO + MRS. MAUDE CROSSE + +DEAR MAUDE,—All the little two-oared boats which put out into the great +ocean have need of some chart which will show them how to lay their +course. Each starts full of happiness and confidence, and yet we know +how many founder, for it is no easy voyage, and there are rocks and +sandbanks upon the way. So I give a few pages of your own private log, +which tell of days of peace, and days of storm—such storms as seem very +petty from the deck of a high ship, but are serious for the two-oared +boats. If your peace should help another to peace, or your storm console +another who is storm-tossed, then I know that you will feel repaid for +this intrusion upon your privacy. May all your voyage be like the +outset, and when at last the oars fall from your hands, and those of +Frank, may other loving ones be ready to take their turn of toil—and so, +_bon voyage_! + + Ever your friend, + + THE AUTHOR. + +_Jan._ 20, 1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THE OVERTURE 1 +THE OVERTURE CONTINUED 9 +THE OVERTURE CONCLUDED 24 +THE TWO SOLOS 34 +IN BRITAIN’S VALHALLA 48 +TWO SOLOS AND A DUET 71 +KEEPING UP APPEARANCES 88 +THE HOME-COMING 100 +LAYING A COURSE 112 +CONFESSIONS 128 +CONCERNING MRS. BEETON 146 +MR. SAMUEL PEPYS 158 +A VISIT TO MR. SAMUEL PEPYS 170 +TROUBLE 185 +A RESCUE 204 +THE BROWNING SOCIETY 218 +AN INVESTMENT 236 +A THUNDERCLOUD 251 +DANGER 269 +NO. 5 CHEYNE ROW 290 +THE LAST NOTE OF THE DUET 311 +THE TRIO 326 + + + + +THE OVERTURE +I +ABOUT THAT DATE + + +THESE are the beginnings of some of the letters which they wrote about +that time. + + _Woking_, _May_ 20_th_. + +MY DEAREST MAUDE,—You know that your mother suggested, and we agreed, +that we should be married about the beginning of September. Don’t you +think that we might say the 3rd of August? It is a Wednesday, and in +every sense suitable. Do try to change the date, for it would in many +ways be preferable to the other. I shall be eager to hear from you about +it. And now, dearest Maude . . . (The rest is irrelevant.) + + _St. Albans_, _May_ 22_nd_. + +My Dearest Frank,—Mother sees no objection to the 3rd of August, and I am +ready to do anything which will please you and her. Of course there are +the guests to be considered, and the dressmakers and other arrangements, +but I have no doubt that we shall be able to change the date all right. +O Frank . . . (What follows is beside the point.) + + _Woking_, _May_ 25_th_. + +MY DEAREST MAUDE,—I have been thinking over that change of date, and I +see one objection which had not occurred to me when I suggested it. +August the 1st is Bank holiday, and travelling is not very pleasant about +that time. My idea now is that we should bring it off before that date. +Fancy, for example, how unpleasant it would be for your Uncle Joseph if +he had to travel all the way from Edinburgh with a Bank-holiday crowd. +It would be selfish of us if we did not fit in our plans so as to save +our relatives from inconvenience. I think therefore, taking everything +into consideration, that the 20th of July, a Wednesday, would be the very +best day that we could select. I do hope that you will strain every +nerve, my darling, to get your mother to consent to this change. When I +think . . . (A digression follows.) + + _St. Albans_, _May_ 27_th_. + +MY DEAREST FRANK,—I think that what you say about the date is very +reasonable, and it is so sweet and unselfish of you to think about Uncle +Joseph. Of course it would be very unpleasant for him to have to travel +at such a time, and we must strain every nerve to prevent it. There is +only one serious objection which my mother can see. Uncle Percival (that +is my mother’s second brother) comes back from Rangoon about the end of +July, and will miss the wedding (O Frank, think of its being _our_ +wedding!) unless we delay it. He has always been very fond of me, and he +might be hurt if we were married so immediately before his arrival. +Don’t you think it would be as well to wait? Mother leaves it all in +your hands, and we shall do exactly as you advise. O Frank . . . (The +rest is confidential.) + + _Woking_, _May_ 29_th_. + +MY OWN DEAREST,—I think that it would be unreasonable upon the part of +your Uncle Percival to think that we ought to have changed the date of a +matter so important to ourselves, simply in order that he should be +present. I am sure that on second thoughts your mother and yourself will +see the thing in this light. I must say, however, that in one point I +think you both show great judgment. It would certainly be invidious to +be married _immediately_ before his arrival. I really think that he +would have some cause for complaint if we did that. To prevent any +chance of hurting his feelings, I think that it would be far best, if +your mother and you agree with me, that we should be married upon July +7th. I see that it is a Thursday, and in every way suitable. When I +read your last letter . . . (The remainder is unimportant.) + + _St. Albans_, _June_ 1_st_. + +DEAREST FRANK,—I am sure that you are right in thinking that it would be +as well not to have the ceremony too near the date of Uncle Percival’s +arrival in England. We should be so sorry to hurt his feelings in any +way. Mother has been down to Madame Mortimer’s about the dresses, and +she thinks that everything could be hurried up so as to be ready by July +7th. She is so obliging, and her skirts _do_ hang so beautifully. O +Frank, it is only a few weeks’ time, and then . . . + + _Woking_, _June_ 3_rd_. + +MY OWN DARLING MAUDE,—How good you are—and your mother also—in falling in +with my suggestions! Please, please don’t bother your dear self about +dresses. You only want the one travelling-dress to be married in, and +the rest we can pick up as we go. I am sure that white dress with the +black stripe—the one you were playing tennis with at the +Arlingtons’—would do splendidly. You looked simply splendid that day. I +am inclined to think that it is my favourite of all your dresses, with +the exception of the dark one with the light-green front. That shows off +your figure so splendidly. I am very fond also of the grey Quaker-like +alpaca dress. What a little dove you do look in it! I think those +dresses, and of course your satin evening-dress, are my favourites. On +second thoughts, they are the only dresses I have ever seen you in. But +I like the grey best, because you wore it the first time I ever—you +remember! You must _never_ get rid of those dresses. They are too full +of associations. I want to see you in them for years, and years, and +years. + +What I wanted to say was that you have so many charming dresses, that we +may consider ourselves independent of Madame Mortimer. If her things +should be late, they will come in very usefully afterwards. I don’t want +to be selfish or inconsiderate, my own dearest girlie, but it would be +rather too much if we allowed my tailor or your dressmaker to be +obstacles to our union. I just want you—your dainty little self—if you +had only your ‘wee coatie,’ as Burns says. Now look here! I want you to +bring your influence to bear upon your mother, and so make a small change +in our plans. The earlier we can have our honeymoon, the more pleasant +the hotels will be. I do want your first experiences with me to be +without a shadow of discomfort. In July half the world starts for its +holiday. If we could get away at the end of this mouth, we should just +be ahead of them. This month, this very month! Oh, do try to manage +this, my own dearest girl. The 30th of June is a Tuesday, and in every +way suitable. They could spare me from the office most excellently. +This would just give us time to have the banns three times, beginning +with next Sunday. I leave it in your hands, dear. Do try to work it. + + _St. Albans_, _June_ 4_th_. + +MY DEAREST FRANK,—We nearly called in the doctor after your dear old +preposterous letter. My mother gasped upon the sofa while I read her +some extracts. That I, the daughter of the house, should be married in +my old black and white tennis-dress, which I wore at the Arlingtons’ to +save my nice one! Oh, you are simply splendid sometimes! And the +learned way in which you alluded to my alpaca. As a matter of fact, it’s +a merino, but that doesn’t matter. Fancy your remembering my wardrobe +like that! And wanting me to wear them all for years! So I shall, dear, +secretly, when we are quite quite alone. But they are all out of date +already, and if in a year or so you saw your poor dowdy wife with tight +sleeves among a roomful of puff-shouldered young ladies, you would not be +consoled even by the memory that it was in that dress that you first . . . +you know! + +As a matter of fact, I _must_ have my dress to be married in. I don’t +think mother would regard it as a legal marriage if I hadn’t, and if you +knew how nice it will be, you would not have the heart to interfere with +it. Try to picture it, silver-grey—I know how fond you are of greys—a +little white chiffon at neck and wrists, and the prettiest pearl +trimming. Then the hat _en suite_, pale-grey lisse, white feather and +brilliant buckle. All these details are wasted upon you, sir, but you +will like it when you see it. It fulfils your ideal of tasteful +simplicity, which men always imagine to be an economical method of +dressing, until they have wives and milliners’ bills of their own. + +And now I have kept the biggest news to the last. Mother has been to +Madame, and she says that if she works all night, she will have +everything ready for the 30th. O Frank, does it not seem incredible! +Next Tuesday three weeks. And the banns! Oh my goodness, I am +frightened when I think about it! Dear old boy, you won’t tire of me, +will you? Whatever should I do if I thought you had tired of me! And +the worst of it is, that you don’t know me a bit. I have a hundred +thousand faults, and you are blinded by your love and cannot see them. +But then some day the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will +perceive the whole hundred thousand at once. Oh, what a reaction there +will be! You will see me as I am, frivolous, wilful, idle, petulant, and +altogether horrid. But I do love you, Frank, with all my heart, and +soul, and mind, and strength, and you’ll count that on the other side, +won’t you? Now I am so glad I have said all this, because it is best +that you should know what you should expect. It will be nice for you to +look back and to say, ‘She gave me fair warning, and she is no worse than +she said.’ O Frank, think of the 30th. + +_P.S._—I forgot to say that I had a grey silk cape, lined with cream, to +go with the dress. It is just sweet! + + * * * * * + +So that is how they arranged about the date. + + + + +THE OVERTURE CONTINUED +II +IN A MINOR KEY + + + _Woking_, _June_ 7_th_. + +MY OWN DEAREST MAUDE,—How I wish you were here, for I have been down, +down, down, in the deepest state of despondency all day. I have longed +to hear the sound of your voice, or to feel the touch of your hand! How +can I be despondent, when in three weeks I shall be the husband of the +dearest girl in England? That is what I ask myself, and then the answer +comes that it is just exactly on that account that my wretched conscience +is gnawing at me. I feel that I have not used you well; I owe you +reparation, and I don’t know what to do. + +In your last dear letter you talk about being frivolous. _You_ have +never been frivolous. But I have been frivolous—for ever since I have +learned to love you, I have been so wrapped up in my love, with my +happiness gilding everything about me, that I have never really faced the +prosaic facts of life or discussed with you what our marriage will really +necessitate. And now, at this eleventh hour, I realise that I have led +you on in ignorance to an act which will perhaps take a great deal of the +sunshine out of your life. What have I to offer you in exchange for the +sacrifice which you will make for me? Myself, my love, and all that I +have—but how little it all amounts to! You are a girl in a thousand, in +ten thousand—bright, beautiful, sweet, the dearest lady in all the land. +And I an average man—or perhaps hardly that—with little to boast of in +the past, and vague ambitions for the future. It is a poor bargain for +you, a most miserable bargain. You have still time. Count the cost, and +if it be too great, then draw back even now without fear of one word or +inmost thought of reproach from me. Your whole life is at stake. How +can I hold you to a decision which was taken before you realised what it +meant? Now I shall place the facts before you, and then, come what may, +my conscience will be at rest, and I shall be sure that you are acting +with your eyes open. + +You have to compare your life as it is, and as it will be. Your father +is rich, or at least comfortably off, and you have been accustomed all +your life to have whatever you desired. From what I know of your +mother’s kindness, I should imagine that no wish of yours has ever +remained ungratified. You have lived well, dressed well, a sweet home, a +lovely garden, your collie, your canary, your maid. Above all, you have +never had anxiety, never had to worry about the morrow. I can see all +your past life so well. In the mornings, your music, your singing, your +gardening, your reading. In the afternoons, your social duties, the +visit and the visitor. In the evening, tennis, a walk, music again, your +father’s return from the City, the happy family-circle, with occasionally +the dinner, the dance, and the theatre. And so smoothly on, month after +month, and year after year, your own sweet, kindly, joyous nature, and +your bright face, making every one round you happy, and so reacting upon +your own happiness. Why should you bother about money? That was your +father’s business. Why should you trouble about housekeeping? That was +your mother’s duty. You lived like the birds and the flowers, and had no +need to take heed for the future. Everything which life could offer was +yours. + +And now you must turn to what is in store for you, if you are still +content to face the future with me. Position I have none to offer. What +is the exact position of the wife of the assistant-accountant of the +Co-operative Insurance Office? It is indefinable. What are my +prospects? I may become head-accountant. If Dinton died—and I hope he +won’t, for he is an excellent fellow—I should probably get his berth. +Beyond that I have no career. I have some aspirations after literature—a +few critical articles in the monthlies—but I don’t suppose they will ever +lead to anything of consequence. + +And my income, £400 a year with a commission on business I introduce. +But that amounts to hardly anything. You have £50. Our total, then, is +certainly under £500. Have you considered what it will mean to leave +that charming house at St. Albans—the breakfast-room, the billiard-room, +the lawn—and to live in the little £50 a year house at Woking, with its +two sitting-rooms and pokey garden? Have I a right to ask you to do such +a thing? And then the housekeeping, the planning, the arranging, the +curtailing, the keeping up appearances upon a limited income. I have +made myself miserable, because I feel that you are marrying me without a +suspicion of the long weary uphill struggle which lies before you. O +Maude, my darling Maude, I feel that you sacrifice too much for me! If I +were a man I should say to you, ‘Forget me—forget it all! Let our +relations be a closed chapter in your life. You can do better. I and my +cares come like a great cloud-bank to keep the sunshine from your young +life. You who are so tender and dainty! How can I bear to see you +exposed to the drudgery and sordid everlasting cares of such a household! +I think of your graces, your pretty little ways, the elegancies of your +life, and how charmingly you carry them off. You are born and bred for +just such an atmosphere as the one which you breathe. And I take +advantage of my good-fortune in winning your love to drag you down, to +take the beauty and charm from your life, to fill it with small and +vulgar cares, never-ending and soul-killing. Selfish beast that I am, +why should I allow you to come down into the stress and worry of life, +when I found you so high above it? And what can I offer you in +exchange?’ These are the thoughts which come back and back all day, and +leave me in the blackest fit of despondency. I confessed to you that I +had dark humours, but never one so hopeless as this. I do not wish my +worst enemy to be as unhappy as I have been to-day. + +Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, your very +inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too much of you? +Does the change frighten you? You will have this in the morning, and I +should have my answer by the evening post. I shall meet the postman. +How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter from him, or to give myself +away. Wilson has been in worrying me with foolish talk, while my +thoughts were all of our affairs. He worked me up into a perfectly +homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that I kept on smiling and was not +discourteous to him. I wonder which is right, to be polite but +hypocritical, or to be inhospitable but honest. + +Good-bye, my own dearest sweetheart—all the dearer when I feel that I may +lose you.—Ever your devoted + + FRANK. + + _St. Albans_, _June_ 8_th_. + +Frank, tell me for Heaven’s sake what your letter means! You use words +of love, and yet you talk of parting. You speak as if our love were a +thing which we might change or suppress. O Frank, you cannot take my +love away from me. You don’t know what you are to me, my heart, my life, +my all. I would give my life for you willingly, gladly—every beat of my +heart is for you. You don’t know what you have become to me. My every +thought is yours, and has been ever since that night at the Arlingtons’. +My love is so deep and strong, it rules my whole life, my every action +from morning to night. It is the very breath and heart of my +life—unchangeable. I could not alter my love any more than I could stop +my heart from beating. How could you, could you suggest such a thing! I +know that you really love me just as much as I love you, or I should not +open my heart like this. I should be too proud to give myself away. But +I feel that pride is out of place when any mistake or misunderstanding +may mean lifelong misery to both of us. I would only say good-bye if I +thought your love had changed or grown less. But I know that it has not. +O my darling, if you only knew what terrible agony the very thought of +parting is, you would never have let such an idea even for an instant, on +any pretext, enter your mind. The very possibility is too awful to think +of. When I read your letter just now up in my room, I nearly fainted. I +can’t write. O Frank, don’t take my love away from me. I can’t bear it. +Oh no, it is my everything. If I could only see you now, I know that you +would kiss these heart-burning tears away. I feel so lonely and tired. +I cannot follow all your letter. I only know that you talked of parting, +and that I am weary and miserable. + + MAUDE. + + (COPY OF TELEGRAM) + + _From Frank Crosse_, to _Miss Maude Selby_, + + _The Laurels_, _St. Albans_ + + Coming up eight-fifteen, arrive midnight. + + _June_ 10_th_. + +How good of you, dear old boy, to come racing across two counties at a +minute’s notice, simply in order to console me and clear away my +misunderstandings. Of course it was most ridiculous of me to take your +letter so much to heart, but when I read any suggestion about our +parting, it upset me so dreadfully, that I was really incapable of +reasoning about anything else. Just that one word PART seemed to be +written in letters of fire right across the page, to the exclusion of +everything else. So then I wrote an absurd letter to my boy, and the +dear came scampering right across the South of England, and arrived at +midnight in the most demoralised state. It was just sweet of you to +come, dear, and I shall never forget it. + +I am so sorry that I have been so foolish, but you must confess, sir, +that you have been just a little bit foolish also. The idea of supposing +that when I love a man my love can be affected by the size of his house +or the amount of his income. It makes me smile to think of it. Do you +suppose a woman’s happiness is affected by whether she has a +breakfast-room, or a billiard-board, or a collie dog, or any of the other +luxuries which you enumerated? But these things are all the merest +trimmings of life. They are not the essentials. _You_ and your love are +the essentials. Some one who will love me with all his heart. Some one +whom I can love with all my heart. Oh the difference it makes in life! +How it changes everything! It glorifies and beautifies everything. I +always felt that I was capable of a great love—and now I have it. + +Fancy your imagining that you had come into my life in order to darken +it. Why, you _are_ my life. If you went out of it, what would be left? +You talk about my happiness before I met you—but oh, how empty it all +was! I read, and played, and sang as you say, but what a void there was! +I did it to please mother, but there really seemed no very clear reason +why I should continue to do it. Then you came, and everything was +changed. I read because you are fond of reading and because I wanted to +talk about books with you. I played because you are fond of music. I +sang in the hope that it might please you. Whatever I did, you were +always in my mind. I tried and tried to become a better and nobler +woman, because I wanted to be worthy of the love you bore me. I have +changed, and developed, and improved more in the last three months than +in all my life before. And then you come and tell me that you have +darkened my life. You know better now. My life has become full and +rich, for Love fills my life. It is the keynote of my nature, the +foundation, the motive power. It inspires me to make the most of any +gift or talent that I have. How could I tell you all this if I did not +know that your own feeling was as deep. I could not have given the one, +great, and only love of my life in exchange for a half-hearted affection +from you. But you will never again make the mistake of supposing that +any material consideration can affect our love. + +And now we won’t be serious any longer. Dear mother was very much +astounded by your tumultuous midnight arrival, and equally precipitate +departure next morning. Dear old boy, it was so nice of you! But you +won’t ever have horrid black humours and think miserable things any more, +will you? But if you must have dark days, now is your time, for I can’t +possibly permit any after the 30th.—Ever your own + + MAUDE. + + _Woking_, _June_ 11_th_. + +MY OWN DEAREST GIRLIE,—How perfectly sweet you are! I read and re-read +your letter, and I understand more and more how infinitely your nature is +above mine. And your conception of love—how lofty and unselfish it is! +How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly thing could be weighed +for an instant against it! And yet it was just my jealous love for you, +and my keenness that you should never be the worse through me, which led +me to write in that way, so I will not blame myself too much. I am +really glad that the cloud came, for the sunshine is so much brighter +afterwards. And I seem to know you so much better, and to see so much +more deeply into your nature. I knew that my own passion for you was the +very essence of my soul—oh, how hard it is to put the extreme of emotion +into the terms of human speech!—but I did not dare to hope that your +feelings were as deep. I hardly ventured to tell even you how I really +felt. Somehow, in these days of lawn-tennis and afternoon tea, a strong +strong passion, such a passion as one reads of in books and poems, seems +out of place. I thought that it would surprise, even frighten you, +perhaps, if I were to tell you all that I felt. And now you have written +me two letters, which contain all that I should have said if I had spoken +from my heart. It is all my own inmost thought, and there is not a +feeling that I do not share. O Maude, I may write lightly and speak +lightly, perhaps, sometimes, but there never was a woman, never, never in +all the story of the world, who was loved more passionately than you are +loved by me. Come what may, while the world lasts and the breath of life +is between my lips, you are the one woman to me. If we are together, I +care nothing for what the future may bring. If we are not together, all +the world cannot fill the void. + +You say that I have given an impulse to your life: that you read more, +study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could not possibly +have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure than that. It +is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my +conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that +is the effect. I have felt so happy and light-hearted ever since you +said it. It is rather absurd to think that _I_ should improve you, but +if you in your sweet frankness say that it is so, why, I can only marvel +and rejoice. + +But you must not study and work too hard. You say that you do it to +please me, but that would not please me. I’ll tell you an anecdote as a +dreadful example. I had a friend who was a great lover of Eastern +literature, Sanskrit, and so on. He loved a lady. The lady to please +him worked hard at these subjects also. In a month she had shattered her +nervous system, and will perhaps never be the same again. It was +impossible. She was not meant for it, and yet she made herself a martyr +over it. I don’t mean by this parable that it will be a strain upon your +intellect to keep up with mine. But I do mean that a woman’s mind is +_different_ from a man’s. A dainty rapier is a finer thing than a +hatchet, but it is not adapted for cutting down trees all the same. + +Rupton Hale, the architect, one of the few friends I have down here, has +some most deplorable views about women. I played a round of the Byfleet +Golf Links with him upon Wednesday afternoon, and we discussed the +question of women’s intellects. He would have it that they have never a +light of their own, but are always the reflectors of some other light +which you cannot see. He would allow that they were extraordinarily +quick in assimilating another person’s views, but that was all. I quoted +some very shrewd remarks which a lady had made to me at dinner. ‘Those +are the traces of the last man,’ said he. According to his preposterous +theory, you could in conversation with a woman reconstruct the last man +who had made an impression to her. ‘She will reflect you upon the next +person she talks to,’ said he. It was ungallant, but it was ingenious. + +Dearest sweetheart, before I stop, let me tell you that if I have brought +any happiness into your life, you have brought far, far more into mine. +My soul seemed to come into full being upon the day when I loved you. It +was so small, and cramped, and selfish, before—and life was so hard, and +stupid, and purposeless. To live, to sleep, to eat, for some years, and +then to die—it was so trivial and so material. But now the narrow walls +seem in an instant to have fallen, and a boundless horizon stretches +around me. And everything appears beautiful. London Bridge, King +William Street, Abchurch Lane, the narrow stair, the office with the +almanacs and the shining desks, it has all become glorified, tinged with +a golden haze. I am stronger: I step out briskly and breathe more +deeply. And I am a better man too. God knows there was room for it. +But I do try to make an ideal, and to live up to it. I feel such a fraud +when I think of being put upon a pedestal by you, when some little hole +where I am out of sight is my true place. I am like the man in Browning +who mourned over the spots upon his ‘speckled hide,’ but rejoiced in the +swansdown of his lady. And so, my own dear sweet little swansdown lady, +good-night to you, with my heart’s love now and for ever from your true +lover, + + FRANK. + +Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! oh, how I am longing for Saturday, when I +shall see you again! We will go on Sunday and hear the banns together. + + + + +THE OVERTURE CONCLUDED + + + _St. Albans_, _June_ 14_th_. + +MY DEAREST FRANK,—What a dreadful thing it is to have your name shouted +out in public! And what a voice the man had! He simply bellowed ‘Maude +Selby of this parish’ as if he meant all this parish to know about it. +And then he let you off so easily. I suppose he thought that there was +no local interest in Frank Crosse of Woking. But when he looked round +expectantly, after asking whether there was any known cause or just +impediment why we should not be joined together, it gave me quite a +thrill. I felt as if some one would jump up like a Jack-in-the-box and +make a scene in the church. How relieved I was when he changed the +subject! I sank my face in my hands, but I know that I was blushing all +down my neck. Then I looked at you between my fingers, and there you +were sitting quite cool and cheerful, as if you rather liked it. I think +that we shall go to evening-service next week. Papa has given up going +altogether since the new organist came. He says he cannot face the +music. + +What a sweet time we had together. I shall never, never forget it! O +Frank, how good you are to me! And how I hope you won’t regret what you +are doing. It is all very well just now, when I am young and you think +that I am pretty. I love that you should think so, but I am compelled to +tell you that it is not really so. I can’t imagine how you came to think +it! I suppose it was from seeing me so often beside papa. If you saw me +near Nelly Sheridan, or any other _really_ pretty girl, you would at once +see the difference. It just happens that you like grey eyes and brown +hair, and the other things, but that does not mean that I am really +pretty. I should be so sorry if there were any misunderstanding about +this, and you only found out when too late. You ought to keep this +letter for reference, as papa always says, and then it will be +interesting to you afterwards. + +I should like you to see me now—or rather I wouldn’t have you see me for +the world. I am so flushed and untidy, for I have been cooking. Is it +not absurd, if you come to think of it, that we girls should be taught +the irregular French verbs, and the geography of China, and never to cook +the simplest thing? It really does seem ridiculous. + +But it is never too late to mend, so I went into the kitchen this morning +and made a tart. You can’t imagine what a lot of things one needs even +for such a simple thing as that. I thought cook was joking when she put +them all down in front of me. It was like a conjurer giving his +performance. There was an empty bowl, and a bowl full of sliced apples, +and a big board, and a rolling-pin, and eggs, and butter, and sugar, and +cloves, and of course flour. We broke eggs and put them into a bowl—you +can’t think what a mess an egg makes when it misses the bowl. Then we +stirred them up with flour and butter and things. I stirred until I was +perfectly exhausted. No wonder a cook has usually a great thick arm. +Then when it had formed a paste, we rolled it out, and put the apples in +the dish, and roofed it in, and trimmed the edges, and stuck flat leaves +made of paste all over it, and the dearest little crown in the middle. +Then we put it into the oven until it was brown. It looked a very nice +tart, and mamma said that I had made it very solidly. It certainly did +feel very heavy for its size. Mamma would not taste it, because she said +that she thought Dr. Tristram would not approve of her doing so, but I +had a piece, and really it was not so bad. Mamma said the servants might +have it at dinner, but the servants said that the poor window-cleaner had +a large family, and so we gave it to him. It is so sweet to feel that +one is of any use to any one. + +What do you think happened this morning? Two wedding-presents arrived. +The first was a very nice fish slice and fork in a case. It was from +dear old Mrs. Jones Beyrick, on whom we really had no claim whatever. We +all think it so kind of her, and such a nice fish-slice. The other was a +beautiful travelling-bag from Uncle Arthur. Stamped in gold upon it were +the letters M.C., I said, ‘Oh, what a pity! They have put the wrong +initials.’ That made mamma laugh. I suppose one soon gets used to it. +Fancy how you would feel if it were the other way about, and you changed +your name to mine. They might call you Selby, but you would continue to +feel Crosse. I didn’t mean that for a joke, but women make jokes without +intending it. The other day the curate drove up in his donkey-cart, and +mother said, ‘Oh, what a nice tandem!’ I think that she meant to say +‘turn-out’; but papa said it was the neatest thing he had heard for a +long time, so mamma is very pleased, but I am sure that she does not know +even now why it should be so funny. + +What stupid letters I write! Doesn’t it frighten you when you read them +and think that is the person with whom I have to spend my life. Yet you +never seem alarmed about it. I think it is so _brave_ of you. That +reminds me that I never finished what I wanted to say at the beginning of +this letter. Even supposing that I am pretty (and my complexion +sometimes is simply awful), you must bear in mind how quickly the years +slip by, and how soon a woman alters. Why, we shall hardly be married +before you will find me full of wrinkles, and without a tooth in my head. +Poor boy, how dreadful for you! Men seem to change so little and so +slowly. Besides, it does not matter for them, for nobody marries a man +because he is pretty. But you must marry me, Frank, not for what I look +but for what I am—for my inmost, inmost self, so that if I had no body at +all, you would love me just the same. That is how I love you, but I do +prefer you with your body on all the same. I don’t know how I love you, +dear. I only know that I am in a dream when you are near me—just a +beautiful dream. I live for those moments.—Ever your own little + + MAUDE. + +_P.S._—Papa gave us such a fright, for he came in just now and said that +the window-cleaner and all his family were very ill. This was a joke, +because the coachman had told him about my tart. Wasn’t it horrid of +him? + + _Woking_, _June_ 17_th_. + +MY OWN SWEETEST MAUDE,—I do want you to come up to town on Saturday +morning. Then I will see you home to St. Albans in the evening, and we +shall have another dear delightful week end. I think of nothing else, +and I count the hours. Now please to manage it, and don’t let anything +stop you. You know that you can always get your way. Oh yes, you can, +miss! _I_ know. + +We shall meet at the bookstall at Charing Cross railway station at one +o’clock, but if anything should go wrong, send me a wire to the Club. +Then we can do some shopping together, and have some fun also. Tell your +mother that we shall be back in plenty of time for dinner. Make another +tart, and I shall eat it. Things are slack at the office just now, and I +could be spared for a few days. + +So you have had a fish-slice. It is so strange, because on that very day +I had my first present, and it was a fish-slice also. We shall have fish +at each end when we give a dinner. If we get another fish-slice, then we +shall give a fish-dinner—or keep one of the slices to give to your friend +Nelly Sheridan when _she_ gets married. They will always come in useful. +And I have had two more presents. One is a Tantalus spirit-stand from my +friends in the office. The other is a pair of bronzes from the cricket +club. They got it up without my knowing anything about it, and I was +amazed when a deputation came up to my rooms with them last night. ‘May +your innings be long and your partnership unbroken until you each make a +hundred not out.’ That was the inscription upon a card. + +I have something very grave to tell you. I’ve been going over my bills +and things, and I owe ever so much more than I thought. I have always +been so careless, and never known exactly how I stood. It did not matter +when one was a bachelor, for one always felt that one could live quite +simply for a few months, and so set matters straight. But now it is more +serious. The bills come to more than a hundred pounds; the biggest one +is forty-two pounds to Snell and Walker, the Conduit Street tailors. +However, I am ordering my marriage-suit from them, and that will keep +them quiet. I have enough on hand to pay most of the others. But we +must not run short upon our honeymoon—what an awful idea! Perhaps there +may be some cheques among our presents. We will hope for the best. + +But there is a more serious thing upon which I want to consult you. You +asked me never to have any secrets from you, or else I should not bother +you about such things. I should have kept it for Saturday when we meet, +but I want you to have time to think about it, so that we may come to +some decision then. + +I am surety to a man for an indefinite sum of money. It sounds rather +dreadful, does it not? But it is not so bad as it sounds, for there is +no harm done yet. But the question is what we should do in the future +about it, and the answer is not a very easy one. He is a very pleasant +fellow, an insurance agent, and he got into some trouble about his +accounts last year. The office would have dismissed him, but as I knew +his wife and his family, I became surety that he should not go wrong +again, and so I saved him from losing his situation. His name is +Farintosh. He is one of those amiable, weak, good fellows whom you +cannot help loving, although you never can trust them. Of course we +could give notice that we should not be responsible any longer, but it +would be a thunderbolt to this poor family, and the man would certainly +be ruined. We don’t want to begin our own happiness by making any one +else unhappy, do we? But we shall talk it over, and I shall do what you +advise. You understand that we are only liable in case he defaults, and +surely it is very unlikely that he will do so after the lesson that he +has already had. + +I think the house will do splendidly. The Lindens is the name, and it is +on the Maybury Road, not more than a quarter of a mile from the station. +If your mother and you could come down on Tuesday or Wednesday, I should +get a half-day off, and you would be able to inspect it. Such a nice +little lawn in front, and garden behind. A conservatory, if you please, +dining-room and drawing-room. You can never assemble more than four or +five guests. On your at-home days, we shall put up little placards as +they do outside the theatres, ‘Drawing-room full,’ ‘Dining-room full,’ +‘Room in the Conservatory.’ There are two good bedrooms, one large +maid’s room, and a lumber-room. One cook and one housemaid could run it +beautifully. Rent £50 on a three years’ lease—with taxes, about £62. I +think it was just built for us. Rupton Hale says that we must be careful +not to brush against the walls, and that it would be safer to go outside +to sneeze—but that is only his fun. + +What a dull, stupid letter! I do hope that I shall be in good form on +Saturday. I am a man of moods—worse luck! and they come quite regardless +of how I wish to be, or even of how I have cause to be. I do hope that I +shall make your day bright for you—the last day that we shall have +together before _the_ day. There have been times when I have been such +bad company to you, just when I wished to be at my best. But you are +always so sweet and patient and soothing. Until Saturday, then, my own +darling.—Ever your lover, + + FRANK. + +_P.S._—I open this to tell you that such a gorgeous fish-knife, with our +monograms upon it, has just arrived from Mrs. Preston, my father’s old +friend. I went to the Goldsmith’s Company in Regent Street yesterday +afternoon, and I bought—what do you think? It looks so beautiful upon +its snow-white cotton wadding. I like them very broad and rather flat. +I do hope you will think it all right. It fills me with the strangest +feelings when I look at it. Come what may, foul weather or fair, sorrow +or joy, that little strip of gold will still be with us—we shall see it +until we can see no more. + +_P.P.S._—Saturday! Saturday!! Saturday!!! + + + + +THE TWO SOLOS + + +THEIR tryst was at the Charing Cross bookstall at one o’clock, and so Mr. +Frank Crosse was there at quarter-past twelve, striding impatiently up +and down, and stopping dead whenever a woman emerged from the entrance, +like a pointer dog before a partridge. Before he came he had been +haunted by the idea that possibly Maude might have an impulse to come +early—and what if she were to arrive and not find him there! Every +second of her company was so dear to him, that when driving to meet her +he had sometimes changed from one cab to another upon the way, because +the second seemed to have the faster horse. But now that he was on the +ground he realised that she was very exact to her word, and that she +would neither be early nor late. And yet, in the illogical fashion of a +lover, he soon forgot that it was he who was too soon, and he chafed and +chafed as the minutes passed, until at about quarter to one he was +striding gloomily about with despondent features and melancholy +forebodings, imagining a thousand miserable reasons for her inexplicable +delay. A good many people stared at him as they passed, and we may do so +among the number. + +In person Frank Crosse was neither tall nor short, five feet eight and a +half to be exact, with the well-knit frame and springy step of a young +man who had been an athlete from his boyhood. He was slim, but wiry, and +carried his head with a half-defiant backward slant which told of pluck +and breed. His face was tanned brown, in spite of his City hours, but +his hair and slight moustache were flaxen, and his eyes, which were his +best features, were of a delicate blue, and could vary in expression from +something very tender to something particularly hard. He was an orphan, +and had inherited nothing from his parents save a dash of the artist from +his mother. It was not enough to help him to earn a living, but it +transformed itself into a keen appreciation and some ambitions in +literature, and it gave a light and shade to his character which made him +rather complex, and therefore interesting. His best friends could not +deny the shade, and yet it was but the shadow thrown by the light. +Strength, virility, emotional force, power of deep feeling—these are +traits which have to be paid for. There was sometimes just a touch of +the savage, or at least there were indications of the possibility of a +touch of the savage, in Frank Crosse. His intense love of the open air +and of physical exercise was a sign of it. He left upon women the +impression, not altogether unwelcome, that there were unexplored recesses +of his nature to which the most intimate of them had never penetrated. +In those dark corners of the spirit either a saint or a sinner might be +lurking, and there was a pleasurable excitement in peering into them, and +wondering which it was. No woman ever found him dull. Perhaps it would +have been better for him if they had, for his impulsive nature had never +been long content with a chilly friendship. He was, as we may see, a man +with a past, but it _was_ a past, now that Maude Selby had come like an +angel of light across the shadowed path of his life. In age he was +nearly twenty-seven. + +There are one or two things which might be said for him which he would +not have said for himself. He was an only child and an orphan, but he +had adopted his grandparents, who had been left penniless through his +father’s death, and through all his struggles he had managed to keep them +happy and comfortable in a little cottage in Worcestershire. Nor did he +ever tell them that he had a struggle—fearing lest it should make their +position painful; and so when their quarterly cheque arrived, they took +it as a kindly but not remarkable act of duty upon the part of their +wealthy grandson in the City, with no suspicion as to the difference +which their allowance was making to him. Nor did he himself look upon +his action as a virtuous one, but simply as a thing which must obviously +be done. In the meantime, he had stuck closely to his work, had won +rapid promotion in the Insurance Office in which he had started as junior +clerk, had gained the goodwill of his superiors through his frank, +unaffected ways, and had been asked to play for the second Surrey eleven +at cricket. So without going the length of saying that he was worthy of +Maude Selby, one might perhaps claim—if it could be done without +endangering that natural modesty which was one of his charms—that he was +as worthy as any other young man who was available. + +That unfortunate artistic soul of his, which had been in the tropics of +expectation, and was now in the arctic of reaction, had just finally +settled down to black despair, with a grim recognition of the fact that +Maude had certainly and absolutely given him up, when one boomed from the +station clock, and on the very stroke she hurried on to the platform. +How could he have strained his eyes after other women, as if a second +glance were ever needed when it was really she! The perfectly graceful +figure, the trimness and neatness of it, the beautiful womanly poise of +the head, the quick elastic step, he could have sworn to her among ten +thousand. His heart gave a bound at the sight of her, but he had the +English aversion to giving himself away, and so he walked quickly forward +to meet her with an impassive face, but with a look in his eyes which was +all that she wanted. + +‘How are you?’ + +‘How do you do?’ + +He stood for a few moments looking at her in silence. She had on the +dress which he loved so much, a silver-grey merino skirt and jacket, with +a blouse of white pongee silk showing in front. Some lighter coloured +trimming fringed the cloth. She wore a grey toque, with a dash of white +at the side, and a white veil which softened without concealing the dark +brown curls and fresh girlish face beneath it. Her gloves were of grey +suède, and the two little pointed tan shoes peeping from the edge of her +skirt were the only touches of a darker tint in her attire. Crosse had +the hereditary artist’s eye, and he could only stand and stare and enjoy +it. He was filled with admiration, with reverence, and with wonder that +this perfect thing should really proclaim itself to be all his own. +Whatever had he done, or could he do, to deserve it? + +She looked up at him in a roguish sidelong way, with the bright +mischievous smile which was one of her charms. + +‘Well, sir, do you approve?’ + +‘By Jove, it is splendid—beautiful!’ + +‘So glad! I hoped you would, since you are so fond of greys. Besides, +it is cooler in this weather. I hope you have not been waiting.’ + +‘Oh no, that’s all right.’ + +‘You looked so solemn when first I saw you.’ + +‘Did I?’ + +‘And then you just jumped.’ + +‘Did I? I’m sorry.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘I don’t know. I like our feelings to be our very very own, and never to +show them to any one else at all. I dare say it is absurd, but that is +my instinct.’ + +‘Never mind, dear, it wasn’t such a big jump as all that. Where are we +going?’ + +‘Come here, Maude, into the waiting-room.’ + +She followed him into the gloomy, smoky, dingy room. Bare yellow benches +framed an empty square of brown linoleum. A labouring man with his wife +and a child sat waiting with the stolid patience of the poor in one +corner. They were starting on some Saturday afternoon excursion, and had +mistimed their train. Maude Selby and Frank Crosse took the other +corner. He drew a jeweller’s box from his pocket and removed the lid. +Something sparkled among the wadding. + +‘O Frank! Is that really it?’ + +‘Do you like it?’ + +‘What a broad one it is! Mother’s is quite thin.’ + +‘They wear thin in time.’ + +‘It is beautiful. Shall I try it on?’ + +‘No, don’t. There is some superstition about it.’ + +‘But suppose it won’t fit?’ + +‘That is quite safe. I measured it with your sapphire ring.’ + +‘I haven’t half scolded you enough about that sapphire ring. How could +you go and give twenty-two guineas for a ring?—oh yes, sir, that was the +price, for I saw a duplicate yesterday in the Goldsmith’s Company. You +dear extravagant old boy!’ + +‘I had saved the money.’ + +‘But not for that!’ + +‘For nothing half or quarter as important. But I had the other to the +same size, so it is sure to fit.’ + +Maude had pushed up her veil, and sat with the little golden circlet in +her hand, looking down at it, while the dim watery London sunlight poured +through the window, and tagged all her wandering curls with a coppery +gleam. It was a face beautiful in itself, but more beautiful for its +expression—sensitive, refined, womanly, full of innocent archness and +girlish mischief, but with a depth of expression in the eyes, and a +tender delicacy about the mouth, which spoke of a great spirit with all +its capacities for suffering and devotion within. The gross admirer of +merely physical charms might have passed her over unnoticed. So might +the man who is attracted only by outward and obvious signs of character. +But to the man who could see, to the man whose own soul had enough of +spirituality to respond to hers, and whose eye could appreciate the +subtlety of a beauty which is of the mind as well as of the body, there +was not in all wide London upon that midsummer day a sweeter girl than +Maude Selby, as she sat in her grey merino dress with the London sun +tagging her brown curls with that coppery glimmer. + +She handed back the ring, and a graver expression passed over her mobile +face. + +‘I feel as you said in your letter, Frank. There _is_ something tragic +in it. It will be with me for ever. All the future will arrange itself +round that little ring.’ + +‘Are you afraid of it?’ + +‘Afraid!’ her grey glove rested for an instant upon the back of his hand. +‘I _couldn’t_ be afraid of anything if you were with me. It is really +extraordinary, for by nature I am so easily frightened. But if I were +with you in a railway accident or anywhere, it would be just the same. +You see I become for the time part of you, as it were, and you are brave +enough for two.’ + +‘I don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I +have as many nerves as my neighbours.’ + +Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said +she. + +‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and +miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to +be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I _know_ that I +am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and +no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’ + +She laughed with shining eyes. + +‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so +beautiful about you.’ + +It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are +themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders. + +‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he. +‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do? +I want you to choose.’ + +‘I am quite happy whatever we do. I am content to sit here with you +until evening.’ + +Her idea of a happy holiday set them both laughing. + +‘Come along,’ said he, ‘we shall discuss it as we go.’ + +The workman’s family was still waiting, and Maude handed the child a +shilling as she went out. She was so happy herself that she wanted every +one else to be happy also. The people turned to look at her as she +passed. With the slight flush upon her cheeks and the light in her eyes, +she seemed the personification of youth, and life, and love. One tall +old gentleman started as he looked, and watched her with a rapt face +until she disappeared. Some cheek had flushed and some eye had +brightened at his words once, and sweet old days had for an instant lived +again. + +‘Shall we have a cab?’ + +‘O Frank, we must learn to be economical. Let us walk.’ + +‘I can’t and won’t be economical to-day.’ + +‘There now! See what a bad influence I have upon you.’ + +‘Most demoralising! But we have not settled yet where we are to go to.’ + +‘What _does_ it matter, if we are together?’ + +‘There is a good match at the Oval, the Australians against Surrey. +Would you care to see that?’ + +‘Yes, dear, if you would.’ + +‘And there are matinées at all the theatres.’ + +‘You would rather be in the open air.’ + +‘All I want is that you should enjoy yourself.’ + +‘Never fear. I shall do that.’ + +‘Well, then, first of all I vote that we go and have some lunch.’ + +They started across the station yard, and passed the beautiful old stone +cross. Among the hansoms and the four-wheelers, the hurrying travellers, +and the lounging cabmen, there rose that lovely reconstruction of +mediævalism, the pious memorial of a great Plantagenet king to his +beloved wife. + +‘Six hundred years ago,’ said Frank, as they paused and looked up, ‘that +old stone cross was completed, with heralds and armoured knights around +it to honour her whose memory was honoured by the king. Now the +corduroyed porters stand where the knights stood, and the engines whistle +where the heralds trumpeted, but the old cross is the same as ever in the +same old place. It is a little thing of that sort which makes one +realise the unbroken history of our country.’ + +Maude insisted upon hearing about Queen Eleanor, and Frank imparted the +little that he knew as they walked out into the crowded Strand. + +‘She was Edward the First’s wife, and a splendid woman. It was she, you +remember, who sucked the wound when he was stabbed with a poisoned +dagger. She died somewhere in the north, and he had the body carried +south to bury it in Westminster Abbey. Wherever it rested for a night he +built a cross, and so you have a line of crosses all down England to show +where that sad journey was broken.’ + +They had turned down Whitehall, and passed the big cuirassiers upon their +black chargers at the gate of the Horse Guards. Frank pointed to one of +the windows of the old banqueting-hall. + +‘You’ve seen a memorial of a queen of England,’ said he. ‘That window is +the memorial of a king.’ + +‘Why so, Frank?’ + +‘I believe that it was through that window that Charles the First passed +out to the scaffold when his head was cut off. It was the first time +that the people had ever shown that they claimed authority over their +king.’ + +‘Poor fellow!’ said Maude. ‘He was so handsome, and such a good husband +and father.’ + +‘It is the good kings who may be the dangerous ones.’ + +‘O Frank!’ + +‘If a king thinks only of pleasure, then he does not interfere with +matters of state. But if he is conscientious, he tries to do what he +imagines to be his duty, and so he causes trouble. Look at Charles, for +example. He was a very good man, and yet he caused a civil war. George +the Third was a most exemplary character, but his stupidity lost us +America, and nearly lost us Ireland. They were each succeeded by +thoroughly bad men, who did far less harm.’ + +They had reached the end of Whitehall, and the splendid panorama of +Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament lay before them. The most +stately of ancient English buildings was contrasted with the most +beautiful of modern ones. How anything so graceful came to be built by +this tasteless and utilitarian nation must remain a marvel to the +traveller. The sun was shining upon the gold-work of the roof, and the +grand towers sprang up amid the light London haze, like some gorgeous +palace in a dream. It was a fit centre for the rule to whose mild sway +one-fifth of the human race acquiesces—a rule upheld by so small a force +that only the consent of the governed can sustain it. + +Frank and Maude stood together looking up at it. + +‘How beautiful it is!’ she cried. ‘How the gilding lights up the whole +building!’ + +‘And how absurd it is not to employ it more in our gloomy London +architecture!’ said Frank. ‘Imagine how grand a gilded dome of St. +Paul’s would look, hanging like a rising sun over the City. But here is +our restaurant, Maude, and Big Ben says that it is a quarter to two. + + + + +IN BRITAIN’S VALHALLA + + +THEY had discussed the rooms in their new house, and the bridesmaids’ +dresses, and Maude’s cooking, and marriage-presents, and the merits of +Brighton, and the nature of love, and volleying at tennis (Maude was the +lady-champion of a tennis club), and season tickets, and the destiny of +the universe—to say nothing of a small bottle of Perrier Jouet. It was +reprehensibly extravagant, but this would be their last unmarried +excursion, and so they drank to the dear days of the past, and the dearer +ones of the future. Good comrades as well as lovers, they talked freely, +and with pleasure. Frank never made the common mistake of talking down, +and Maude justified his confidence by eagerly keeping up. To both of +them silence was preferable to conventional small talk. + +‘We’ll just get down there after lunch,’ said Frank, as he paid his bill. +‘You have not seen the Australians, have you?’ + +‘Yes, dear, I saw them at Clifton four years ago.’ + +‘But this is a new lot. There are nine of the present team who have +never played in England before.’ + +‘They are very good, are they not?’ + +‘Very good indeed. And the dry summer has helped them. It is the sticky +English wickets which put them off. The wickets are very fast over +there. Giffen is their best all-round man, but Darling and Iredale and +young Hill are good enough for anything. Well, then—O Lord, what a +pity!’ + +He had turned towards the window as he rose, and saw one of those little +surprises by which Nature relieves the monotony of life in these islands. +The sun had gone, a ragged slate-coloured cloud was drifting up from over +the river, and the rain was falling with a soft persistency which is more +fatal than the most boisterous shower. There would be no more cricket +that day. + +‘Two coffees and two benedictines,’ cried Frank, and they relapsed into +their chairs. But a half-hour passed and the grey cloud was thicker and +the rain more heavy. The cheerless leaden river flowed slowly under +drifting skies. Beyond an expanse of shining pavement the great black +Abbey towered amidst the storm. + +‘Have you ever done the Abbey, Maude?’ + +‘No, Frank; I should love to.’ + +‘I have only been once—more shame to me to say so! Is it not a sin that +we young Englishmen should be familiar with every music-hall in London +and should know so little of this which is the centre of the British +race, the most august and tremendous monument that ever a nation owned. +Six hundred years ago the English looked upon it as their holiest and +most national shrine, and since then our kings and our warriors and our +thinkers and our poets have all been laid there, until there is such an +accumulation that the huge Abbey has hardly space for another monument. +Let us spend an hour inside it.’ + +They made for Solomon’s porch, since it was the nearest and they had but +the one umbrella. Under its shelter they brushed themselves dry before +they entered. + +‘Whom does the Abbey belong to, Frank?’ + +‘To you and me!’ + +‘Now you are joking!’ + +‘Not at all. It belongs in the long-run to the British taxpayer. You +have heard the story of the Scotch visitor who came on board one of our +battleships and asked to see the captain. “Who shall I say?” said the +sentry. “One of the proprietors,” said the Scotchman. That’s _our_ +position towards the Abbey. Let us inspect our property.’ + +They were smiling as they entered, but the smile faded from their lips as +the door closed behind them. In this holy of holies, this inner +sanctuary of the race, there was a sense of serene and dignified +solemnity which would have imposed itself upon the most thoughtless. +Frank and Maude stood in mute reverence. The high arches shot up in long +rows upon either side of them, straight and slim as beautiful trees, +until they curved off far up near the clerestory and joined their sister +curves to form the lightest, most delicate tracery of stone. In front of +them a great rose-window of stained glass, splendid with rich purples and +crimsons, shone through a subdued and reverent gloom. Here and there in +the aisles a few spectators moved among the shadows, but all round along +the walls two and three deep were ranged the illustrious dead, the +perishable body within, the lasting marble without, and the more lasting +name beneath. It was very silent in the home of the great dead—only a +distant footfall or a subdued murmur here and there. Maude knelt down +and sank her face in her hands. Frank prayed also with that prayer which +is a feeling rather than an utterance. + +Then they began to move round the short transept in which they found +themselves—a part of the Abbey reserved for the great statesmen. Frank +tried to quote the passage in which Macaulay talks about the men worn out +by the stress and struggle of the neighbouring parliament-hall, and +coming hither for peace and rest. Here were the men who had been strong +enough to grasp the helm, and who, sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly, +but always honestly, had tried to keep the old ship before the wind. +Canning and Peel were there, with Pitt, Fox, Grattan and Beaconsfield. +Governments and oppositions moulder behind the walls. Beaconsfield alone +among all the statues showed the hard-lined face of the self-made man. +These others look so plump and smooth one can hardly realise how strong +they were, but they sprang from those ruling castes to whom strength came +by easy inheritance. Frank told Maude the little which he knew of each +of them—of Grattan, the noblest Irishman of them all, of Castlereagh, +whose coffin was pursued to the gates of the Abbey by a raging mob who +wished to tear out his corpse, of Fox the libertine philosopher, of +Palmerston the gallant sportsman, who rode long after he could walk. +They marvelled together at the realism of the sculptor who had pitted +Admiral Warren with the smallpox, and at the absurdity of that other one +who had clad Robert Peel in a Roman toga. + +Then turning to the right at the end of the Statesmen’s Transept, they +wandered aimlessly down the huge nave. It was overwhelming, the grandeur +of the roof above and of the contents below. Any one of hundreds of +these tombs was worth a devout pilgrimage, but how could one raise his +soul to the appreciation of them all. Here was Darwin who revolutionised +zoology, and here was Isaac Newton who gave a new direction to astronomy. +Here were old Ben Jonson, and Stephenson the father of railways, and +Livingstone of Africa, and Wordsworth, and Kingsley, and Arnold. Here +were the soldiers of the mutiny—Clyde and Outram and Lawrence,—and +painters, and authors, and surgeons, and all the good sons who in their +several degrees had done loyal service to the old mother. And when their +service was done the old mother had stretched out that long arm of hers +and had brought them home, and always for every good son brought home she +had sent another forth, and her loins were ever fruitful, and her +children loving and true. Go into the Abbey and think, and as the +nation’s past is borne in upon you, you will have no fear for its future. + +Frank was delighted with some of the monuments and horrified by others, +and he communicated both his joy and his anger to Maude. They noticed +together how the moderns and the Elizabethans had much in common in their +types of face, their way of wearing the hair, and their taste in +monuments, while between them lie the intolerable affectations—which +culminated towards the end of last century. + +‘It all rings false—statue, inscription, everything,’ said Frank. ‘These +insufferable allegorical groups sprawling round a dead hero are of the +same class as the pompous and turgid prose of Doctor Johnson. The +greatest effects are the simplest effects, and so it always was and so it +always will be. But that little bit of Latin is effective, I confess.’ + +It was a very much defaced inscription underneath a battered Elizabethan +effigy, whose feet had been knocked off, and whose features were blurred +into nothing. Two words of the inscription had caught Frank’s eye. + +‘_Moestissima uxor_! It was his “most sad wife” who erected it! Look at +it now! The poor battered monument of a woman’s love. Now, Maude, come +with me, and we shall visit the famous Poets’ Corner.’ + +What an assembly it would be if at some supreme day each man might stand +forth from the portals of his tomb. Tennyson, the last and almost the +greatest of that illustrious line, lay under the white slab upon the +floor. Maude and Frank stood reverently beside it. + + ‘“Sunset and evening Star + And one clear call for me.”’ + +Frank quoted. ‘What lines for a very old man to write! I should put him +second only to Shakespeare had I the marshalling of them.’ + +‘I have read so little,’ said Maude. + +‘We will read it all together after next week. But it makes your reading +so much more real and intimate when you have stood at the grave of the +man who wrote. That’s Chaucer, the big tomb there. He is the father of +British poetry. Here is Browning beside Tennyson—united in life and in +death. He was the more profound thinker, but music and form are +essential also.’ + +‘What a splendid face!’ cried Maude. + +‘It is a bust to Longfellow, the American.’ They read the inscription. +‘This bust was placed among the memorials of the poets of England by +English admirers of an American poet.’ + +‘I am so glad to have seen that. I know his poems so well,’ said Maude. + +‘I believe he is more read than any poet in England.’ + +‘Who is that standing figure?’ + +‘It is Dryden. What a clever face, and what a modern type. Here is +Walter Scott beside the door. How kindly and humorous his expression +was! And see how high his head was from the ear to the crown. It was a +great brain. There is Burns, the other famous Scot. Don’t you think +there is a resemblance between the faces? And here are Dickens, and +Thackeray, and Macaulay. I wonder whether, when Macaulay was writing his +essays, he had a premonition that he would be buried in Westminster +Abbey. He is continually alluding to the Abbey and its graves. I always +think that we have a vague intuition as to what will occur to us in +life.’ + +‘We can guess what is probable.’ + +‘It amounts to more than that. I had an intuition that I should marry +you from the first day that I saw you, and yet it did not seem probable. +But deep down in my soul I knew that I should marry you.’ + +‘I knew that I should marry you, Frank, or else that I should never marry +at all.’ + +‘There now! We both had it. Well, that _is_ really wonderful!’ + +They stood among the memorials of all those great people, marvelling at +the mysteries of their own small lives. A voice at their elbows brought +them back to the present. + +‘This way, if you please, for the kings,’ said the voice. ‘They are now +starting for the kings.’ + +‘They’ proved to be a curiously mixed little group of people who were +waiting at the entrance through the enclosure for the arrival of the +official guide. There were a tall red-bearded man with a very Scotch +accent and a small gentle wife, also an American father with his two +bright and enthusiastic daughters, a petty-officer of the navy in his +uniform, two young men whose attention was cruelly distracted from the +monuments by the American girls, and a dozen other travellers of various +sexes and ages. Just as Maude and Frank joined them the guide, a young +fresh-faced fellow, came striding up, and they passed through the opening +into the royal burying-ground. + +‘This way, ladies and gentlemen,’ cried the hurrying guide, and they all +clattered over the stone pavement. He stopped beside a tomb upon which a +lady with a sad worn face was lying. ‘Mary, Queen of Scots,’ said he, +‘the greatest beauty of her day. This monument was erected by her son, +James the First.’ + +‘Isn’t she just perfectly sweet?’ said one of the American girls. + +‘Well, I don’t know. I expected more of her than that,’ the other +answered. + +‘I reckon,’ remarked the father, ‘that if any one went through as much as +that lady did, it would not tend to improve her beauty. Now what age +might the lady be, sir?’ + +‘Forty-four years of age at the time of her execution,’ said the guide. + +‘Ah weel, she’s young for her years,’ muttered the Scotchman, and the +party moved on. Frank and Maude lingered to have a further look at the +unfortunate princess, the bright French butterfly, who wandered from the +light and warmth into that grim country, a land of blood and of psalms. + +‘She was as hard as nails under all her gentle grace,’ said Frank. ‘She +rode eighty miles and hardly drew rein after the battle of Langside.’ + +‘She looks as if she were tired, poor dear!’ said Maude; ‘I don’t think +that she was sorry to be at rest.’ + +The guide was narrating the names of the owners of the tombs at the +further end of the chapel. ‘Queen Anne is here, and Mary the wife of +William the Third is beside her. And here is William himself. The king +was very short and the queen very tall, so in the sculptures the king is +depicted standing upon a stool so as to bring their heads level. In the +vaults beyond there are thirty-eight Stuarts.’ + +Thirty-eight Stuarts! Princes, bishops, generals, once the salt of the +earth, the mightiest of men, and now lumped carelessly together as +thirty-eight Stuarts. So Death the Republican and Time the Radical can +drag down the highest from his throne. + +They had followed the guide into another small chapel, which bore the +name of Henry VII. upon the door. Surely they were great builders and +great designers in those days! Had stone been as pliable as wax it could +not have been twisted and curved into more exquisite spirals and curls, +so light, so delicate, so beautiful, twining and turning along the walls, +and drooping from the ceiling. Never did the hand of man construct +anything more elaborately ornate, nor the brain of man think out a design +more absolutely harmonious and lovely. In the centre, with all the pomp +of mediæval heraldry, starred and spangled with the Tudor badges, the two +bronze figures of Henry and his wife lay side by side upon their tomb. +The guide read out the quaint directions in the king’s will, by which +they were to be buried ‘with some respect to their Royal dignity, but +avoiding damnable pomp and outrageous superfluities!’ There was, as +Frank remarked, a fine touch of the hot Tudor blood in the adjectives. +One could guess where Henry the Eighth got his masterful temper. Yet it +was an ascetic and priest-like face which looked upwards from the tomb. + +They passed the rifled tombs of Cromwell, Blake, and Ireton—the +despicable revenge of the men who did not dare to face them in the +field,—and they marked the grave of James the First, who erected no +monument to himself, and so justified in death the reputation for +philosophy which he had aimed at in his life. Then they inspected the +great tomb of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as surprising and as +magnificent as his history, cast a glance at the covering of plucky +little George the Second, the last English king to lead his own army into +battle, and so onwards to see the corner of the Innocents, where rest the +slender bones of the poor children murdered in the Tower. + +But now the guide had collected his little flock around him again, with +the air of one who has something which is not to be missed. ‘You will +stand upon the step to see the profile,’ said he, as he indicated a +female figure upon a tomb. ‘It is the great Queen Elizabeth.’ + +It was a profile and a face worth seeing—the face of a queen who was +worthy of her Shakespeares upon the land and her Drakes upon the sea. +Had the Spanish king seen her, he would have understood that she was not +safe to attack—this grim old lady with the eagle nose and the iron lips. +You could understand her grip upon her cash-box, you could explain her +harshness to her lovers, you could realise the confidence of her people, +you could read it all in that wonderful face. + +‘She’s splendid,’ said Frank. + +‘She’s terrible,’ said Maude. + +‘Did I understand you to say, sir,’ asked the American, ‘that it was this +lady who beheaded the other lady, Queen of Scotland, whom we saw ’way +back in the other compartment?’ + +‘Yes, sir, she did.’ + +‘Well, I guess if there was any beheading to be done, this was the lady +to see that it was put through with promptness and despatch. Not a +married lady, I gather?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘And a fortunate thing for somebody. That woman’s husband would have a +mean time of it, sir, in my opinion.’ + +‘Hush, poppa,’ said the two daughters, and the procession moved on. They +were entering the inner chapel of all, the oldest and the holiest, in +which, amid the ancient Plantagenet kings, there lies that one old Saxon +monarch, confessor and saint, the holy Edward, round whose honoured body +the whole of this great shrine has gradually risen. A singular erection +once covered with mosaic work, but now bare and gaunt, stood in the +centre. + +‘The body of Edward the Confessor is in a case up at the top,’ said the +guide. ‘This hollow place below was filled with precious relics, and the +pilgrims used to kneel in these niches, which are just large enough to +hold a man upon his knees. The mosaic work has been picked out by the +pilgrims.’ + +‘What is the date of the shrine?’ asked Frank. + +‘About 1250, sir. The early kings were all buried as near to it as they +could get, for it was their belief in those days that the devil might +carry off the body, and so the nearer they got to the shrine the safer +they felt. Henry the Fifth, who won the battle of Agincourt, is there. +Those are the actual helmet, shield, and saddle which he used in the +battle upon the crossbeam yonder. That king with the grave face and the +beard is Edward the Third, the father of the Black Prince. The Black +Prince never lived to ascend the throne, but he was the father of the +unfortunate Richard the Second, who lies here—this clean-shaven king with +the sharp features. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will turn this +way, I will show you one of the most remarkable objects in the Abbey.’ + +The object in question proved to be nothing more singular than a square +block of stone placed under an old chair. And yet as the guide continued +to speak, they felt that he had justified his words. + +‘This is the sacred stone of Scone upon which the kings of Scotland have +been crowned from time immemorial. When Edward the First overran +Scotland 600 years ago, he had it brought here, and since then every +monarch of England has also sat upon it when crowned.’ + +‘The present Queen?’ asked some one. + +‘Yes, she also. The legend was that it was the stone upon which Jacob +rested his head when he dreamed, but the geologists have proved that it +is red sandstone of Scotland.’ + +‘Then I understand, sir, that this other throne is the Scottish throne,’ +said the American gentleman. + +‘No, sir, the Scottish throne and the English throne are the same throne. +But at the time of William and Mary it was necessary to crown her as well +as him, and so a second throne was needed. But that of course was +modern.’ + +‘Only a couple of hundred years ago. I wonder they let it in. But I +guess they might have taken better care of it. Some one has carved his +name upon it.’ + +‘A Westminster boy bet his schoolfellows that he would sleep among the +tombs, and to prove that he had done it, he carved his name upon the +throne.’ + +‘You don’t say!’ cried the American. ‘Well, I guess that boy ended +pretty high up.’ + +‘As high as the gallows, perhaps,’ said Frank, and every one tittered, +but the guide hurried on with a grave face, for the dignity of the Abbey +was in his keeping. + +‘This tomb is that of Queen Eleanor,’ said he. + +Frank twitched Maude by the sleeve. ‘Eleanor of Charing Cross,’ said he. +‘See how one little bit of knowledge links on with another.’ + +‘And here is the tomb of her husband, Edward the First. It was he who +brought the stone from Scone. At the time of his death the conquest of +Scotland was nearly done, and he gave orders that his burial should be +merely temporary until Scotland was thoroughly subdued. He is still, as +you perceive, in his temporary tomb.’ + +The big Scotchman laughed loudly and derisively. All the others looked +sadly at him with the pitying gaze which the English use towards the more +excitable races when their emotion gets the better of them. A stream +from a garden hose could not have damped him more. + +‘They opened the grave last century,’ said the guide. ‘Inside was an +inscription, which said, “Here lies the hammer of the Scots.” He was a +fine man, six feet two inches from crown to sole.’ + +They wandered out of the old shrine where the great Plantagenet kings lie +like a bodyguard round the Saxon saint. Abbots lay on one side of them +as they passed, and dead crusaders with their legs crossed, upon the +other. And then, in an instant, they were back in comparatively modern +times again. + +‘This is the tomb of Wolfe, who died upon the Heights of Abraham,’ said +the guide. ‘It was due to him and to his soldiers that all America +belongs to the English-speaking races. There is a picture of his +Highlanders going up to the battle along the winding path which leads +from Wolfe’s Cove. He died in the moment of victory.’ + +It was bewildering, the way in which they skipped from age to age. The +history of England appeared to be not merely continuous, but +simultaneous, as they turned in an instant from the Georgian to the +Elizabethan, the one monument as well preserved as the other. They +passed the stately de Vere, his armour all laid out in fragments upon a +marble slab, as a proof that he died at peace with all men; and they saw +the terrible statue of the onslaught of Death, which, viewed in the +moonlight, made a midnight robber drop his booty and fly panic-stricken +out of the Abbey. So awful and yet so fascinating is it, that the +shuffling feet of the party of sightseers had passed out of hearing +before Maude and Frank could force themselves away from it. + +In the base of the statue is an iron door, which has been thrown open, +and the sculptor’s art has succeeded wonderfully in convincing you that +it has been thrown open violently. The two leaves of it seem still to +quiver with the shock, and one could imagine that one heard the harsh +clang of the metal. Out of the black opening had sprung a dreadful +thing, something muffled in a winding-sheet, one bony hand clutching the +edge of the pedestal, the other upraised to hurl a dart at the woman +above him. She, a young bride of twenty-seven, has fallen fainting, +while her husband, with horror in his face, is springing forward, his +hand outstretched, to get between his wife and her loathsome assailant. + +‘I shall dream of this,’ said Maude. She had turned pale, as many a +woman has before this monument. + +‘It is awful!’ Frank walked backwards, unable to take his eyes from it. +‘What pluck that sculptor had! It is an effect which must be either +ludicrous or great, and he has made it great.’ + +‘Roubillac is his name,’ said Maude, reading it from the pedestal. + +‘A Frenchman, or a man of French descent. Isn’t that characteristic! In +the whole great Abbey the one monument which has impressed us with its +genius and imagination is by a foreigner. We haven’t got it in us. We +are too much afraid of letting ourselves go and of giving ourselves away. +We are heavy-handed and heavy-minded.’ + +‘If we can’t produce the monuments, we can produce the men who deserve +them,’ said Maude, and Frank wrote the aphorism down upon his shirt-cuff. + +‘We are too severe both in sculpture and architecture,’ said he. ‘More +fancy and vigour in our sculptors, more use of gold and more ornament in +our architects—that is what we want. But I think it is past praying for. +It would be better to subdivide the work of the world, according to the +capacity of the different nations. Let Italy and France embellish us. +We might do something in exchange—organise the French colonies, perhaps, +or the Italian exchequer. That is our legitimate work, but we will never +do anything at the other.’ + +The guide had already reached the end of his round, an iron gate +corresponding to that by which they had entered, and they found him +waiting impatiently and swinging his keys. But Maude’s smile and word of +thanks as she passed him brought content into his face once more. A ray +of living sunshine is welcome to the man who spends his days among the +tombs. + +They walked down the North Transept and out through Solomon’s Porch. The +rain-cloud had swept over, and the summer sun was shining upon the wet +streets, turning them all to gold. This might have been that fabled +London of which young Whittington dreamed. In front of them lay the +lawns of vivid green, with the sunlit raindrops gleaming upon the grass. +The air was full of the chirping of the sparrows. Across their vision, +from the end of Whitehall to Victoria Street, the black ribbon of traffic +whirled and circled, one of the great driving-belts of the huge city. +Over it all, to their right, towered those glorious Houses of Parliament, +the very sight of which made Frank repent his bitter words about English +architecture. They stood in the old porch gazing at the scene. It was +so wonderful to come back at one stride from the great country of the +past to the greater country of the present. Here was the very thing +which these dead men lived and died to build. + +‘It’s not much past three,’ said Frank. ‘What a gloomy place to take you +to! Good heavens, we have one day together, and I take you to a +cemetery! Shall we go to a matinée to counteract it?’ + +But Maude laid her hand upon his arm. + +‘I don’t think, Frank, that I was ever more impressed, or learned more in +so short a time, in my life. It was a grand hour—an hour never to be +forgotten. And you must not think that I am ever with you to be amused. +I am with you to accompany you in whatever seems to you to be highest and +best. Now before we leave the dear old Abbey, promise me that you will +always live your own highest and never come down to me.’ + +‘I can very safely promise that I will never come down to you,’ said +Frank. ‘I may climb all my life, and yet there are parts of your soul +which will be like snow-peaks in the clouds to me. But you will be now +and always my own dear comrade as well as my sweetest wife. And now, +Maude, what shall it be, the theatre or the Australians?’ + +‘Do you wish to go to either very much?’ + +‘Not unless you do.’ + +‘Well, then, I feel as if either would be a profanation. Let us walk +together down to the Embankment, and sit on one of the benches there, and +watch the river flowing in the sunshine, and talk and think of all that +we have seen.’ + + + + +TWO SOLOS AND A DUET + + +THE night before the wedding, Frank Crosse and his best man, Rupton Hale, +dined at the Raleigh Club with Maude’s brother, Jack Selby, who was a +young lieutenant in a Hussar regiment. Jack was a horsy, slangy young +sportsman who cared nothing about Frank’s worldly prospects, but had +given the match his absolute approval from the moment that he realised +that his future brother had played for the Surrey Second. ‘What more can +you want?’ said he. ‘You won’t exactly be a Mrs. W. G., but you will be +on the edge of first-class cricket.’ And Maude, who rejoiced in his +approval, without quite understanding the grounds for it, kissed him, and +called him the best of brothers. + +The marriage was to be at eleven o’clock at St. Monica’s Church, and the +Selbys were putting up at the Langham. Frank stayed at the Metropole, +and so did Rupton Hale. They were up early, their heads and nerves none +the better for Jack Selby’s hospitality of the night before. + +Frank could eat no breakfast, and he shunned publicity in his +wedding-garments, so they remained in the upstairs sitting-room. He +stood by the window, drumming his fingers upon the pane, and looking down +into Northumberland Avenue. He had often pictured this day, and +associated it with sunshine and flowers and every emblem of joy. But +Nature had not risen to the occasion. A thick vapour, half smoke half +cloud, drifted along the street, and a thin persistent rain was falling +steadily. It pit-patted upon the windows, splashed upon the sills, and +gurgled in the water-pipes. Far down beneath him on the drab-coloured +slimy road stood the lines of wet cabs, looking like beetles with +glistening backs. Round black umbrellas hurried along the shining +pavements. A horse had fallen at the door of the Constitutional Club, +and an oil-skinned policeman was helping the cabman to raise it. Frank +watched it until the harness had been refastened, and it had vanished +into Trafalgar Square. Then he turned and examined himself in the +mirror. His trim black frock-coat and pearl grey trousers set off his +alert athletic figure to advantage. His glossy hat, too, his lavender +gloves, and dark-blue tie, were all absolutely irreproachable. And yet +he was not satisfied with himself. Maude ought to have something better +than that. What a fool he had been to take so much wine last night! On +this day of all days in their lives she surely had a right to find him at +his best. He was restless, and his nerves were all quivering. He would +have given anything for a cigarette, but he did not wish to scent himself +with tobacco. He had cut himself in shaving, and his nose was peeling +from a hot day on the cricket-field. What a silly thing to expose his +nose to the sun before his wedding! Perhaps when Maude saw it she +would—well, she could hardly break it off, but at least she might be +ashamed of him. He worked himself into a fever over that unfortunate +nose. + +‘You are off colour, Crosse,’ said his best man. + +‘I was just thinking that my nose was. It’s very kind of you to come and +stand by me.’ + +‘That’s all right. We shall see it through together.’ + +Hale was a despondent man, though the most loyal of friends, and he spoke +in a despondent way. His gloomy manner, the London drizzle, and the +nervousness proper to the occasion, were all combining to make Frank more +and more wretched. Fortunately Jack Selby burst like a gleam of sunshine +into the room. The sight of his fresh-coloured smiling face—or it may +have been some reminder of Maude which he found in it—brought consolation +to the bridegroom. + +‘How are you, Crosse? How do, Hale? Excuse my country manners! The old +Christmas-tree in the hall wanted to send for you, but I knew your +number. You’re looking rather green about the gills, old chap.’ + +‘I feel a little chippy to-day.’ + +‘That’s the worst of these cheap champagnes. Late hours are bad for the +young. Have a whisky and soda with me. No? Hale, you must buck him up, +for they’ll all be down on you if you don’t bring your man up to time in +the pink of condition. We certainly did ourselves up to the top hole +last night. Couldn’t face your breakfast, eh? Neither could I. A +strawberry and a bucket of soda-water.’ + +‘How are they all at the Langham?’ asked Frank eagerly. + +‘Oh, splendid! At least I haven’t seen Maude. She’s been getting into +parade order. But mother is full of beans. We had to take her up one +link in the curb, or there would have been no holding her.’ + +Frank’s eyes kept turning to the slow-moving minute-hand. It was not ten +o’clock yet. + +‘Don’t you think that I might go round to the Langham and see them?’ + +‘Good Lord, no! Clean against regulations. Stand by his head, Hale! +Wo, boy, steady!’ + +‘It won’t do, Crosse, it really won’t!’ said Hale solemnly. + +‘What rot it is! Here am I doing nothing, and I might be of some use or +encouragement to her. Let’s get a cab!’ + +‘Wo, laddie, wo then, boy! Keep him in hand, Hale! Get to his head.’ + +Frank flung himself down into an armchair, and muttered about absurd +conventions. + +‘It can’t be helped, my boy. It is correct.’ + +‘Buck up, Crosse, buck up! We’ll make the thing go with a buzz when we +do begin. Two of our Johnnies are coming, regular fizzers, and full of +blood both of them. We’ll paint the Langham a fine bright solferino, +when the church parade is over.’ + +Frank sat rather sulkily watching the slow minute-hand, and listening to +the light-hearted chatter of the boy-lieutenant, and the more deliberate +answers of his best man. At last he jumped up and seized his hat and +gloves. + +‘Half-past,’ said he. ‘Come on. I can’t wait any longer. I must do +_something_. It is time we went to the church.’ + +‘Fall in for the church!’ cried Jack. ‘Wait a bit! I know this game, +for I was best man myself last month. Inspect his kit, Hale. See that +he’s according to regulations. Ring? All right. Parson’s money? Right +oh! Small change? Good! By the right, quick march!’ + +Frank soon recovered his spirits now that he had something to do. Even +that drive through the streaming streets, with the rain pattering upon +the top of their four-wheeler, could not depress him any longer. He rose +to the level of Jack Selby, and they chattered gaily together. + +‘Ain’t we bringing him up fighting fit?’ cried Jack exultingly. ‘Shows +that all the care we have taken of him in the last twenty-four hours has +not been wasted. That’s the sort I like—game as a pebble! You can’t buy +’em, you have to breed ’em. A regular fizzer _he_ is, and full of blood. +And here we are on the ground.’ + +It was a low, old-fashioned, grey church, with a Gothic entrance and two +niches on either side, which spoke of pre-Lutheran days. Cheap modern +shops, which banked it in, showed up the quaint dignity of the ancient +front. The side-door was open, and they passed into its dim-lit +interior, with high carved pews, and rich, old, stained glass. Huge +black oak beams curved over their heads, and dim inscriptions of mediæval +Latin curled and writhed upon the walls. A single step seemed to have +taken them from the atmosphere of the nineteenth to that of the fifteenth +century. + +‘What a ripping old church!’ Jack whispered. + +‘You can’t buy ’em. But it’s as festive as an ice-house. There’s a +friendly native coming down the aisle. He’s your man, Hale, if you want +the news.’ + +The verger was not in the best of tempers. ‘It’s at a quarter to four,’ +said he, as Hale met him. + +‘No, no, at eleven.’ + +‘Quarter to four, I tell you. The vicar says so.’ + +‘Why, it’s not possible.’ + +‘We have them at all hours.’ + +‘Have what?’ + +‘Buryin’s.’ + +‘But this is a marriage.’ + +‘I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir. I thought when I looked at you as you +was the party about the child’s funeral.’ + +‘Good heavens, no.’ + +‘It was something in your expression, sir, but now that I can see the +colour of your clothes, why of course I know better. There’s three +marriages—which was it?’ + +‘Crosse and Selby are the names.’ + +The verger consulted an old crumpled notebook. + +‘Yes, sir, I have it here. Mr. or Miss Crosse to Mr. or Miss Selby. +Eleven o’clock, sir, _sharp_. The vicar’s a terrible punctual man, and I +should advise you to take your places.’ + +‘Any hitch?’ asked Frank nervously, as Hale returned. + +‘No, no.’ + +‘What was he talking about?’ + +‘Oh, nothing. Some little confusion of ideas.’ + +‘Shall we go up?’ + +‘Yes, I think that we had better.’ + +Their steps clattered and reverberated through the empty church as they +passed up the aisle. They stood in an aimless way before the altar +rails. Frank fidgeted about, and made sure that the ring was in his +ticket-pocket. He also took a five-pound note and placed it where he +knew he could lay his hands upon it easily. Then he sprang round with a +flush upon his cheeks, for one of the side-doors had been flung open with +a great bustle and clanging. A stout charwoman entered with a tin pail +and a mop. + +‘Put up the wrong bird that time,’ whispered Jack, and sniggered at +Frank’s change of expression. + +But almost at the same instant, the Selbys entered the church at the +further end. Mr. Selby, with his red face and fluffy side-whiskers, had +Maude upon his arm. She looked very pale and very sweet, with downcast +eyes and solemn mouth, while behind her walked her younger sister Mary +and her pretty friend Nelly Sheridan, both in pink dresses with broad +pink hats and white curling feathers. The bride was herself in the grey +travelling-dress with which Frank was already familiar by its description +in her letter. Its gentle tint and her tenderly grave expression made a +charming effect. Behind them was the mother, still young and elegant, +with something of Maude’s grace in her figure and carriage. As the party +came up the aisle, Frank was to be restrained no longer. ‘Get to his +head!’ cried Jack to Hale in an excited whisper, but their man was +already hurrying to shake hands with Maude. He walked up on her right, +and they took their position in two little groups, the happy couple in +the centre. At the same moment the clang of the church-clock sounded +above them, and the vicar, shrugging his shoulders to get his white +surplice into position, came bustling out of the vestry. To him it was +all the most usual, commonplace, and unimportant thing in the world, and +both Frank and Maude were filled with amazement at the nonchalant way in +which he whipped out a prayer-book, and began to rapidly perform the +ceremony. It was all so new and solemn and all-important to them, that +they had expected something mystic and overpowering in the function, and +yet here was this brisk little man, with an obvious cold in his head, +tying them up in as business-like a fashion as a grocer uniting two +parcels. After all, he had to do it a thousand times a year, and so he +could not be extravagant in his emotions. + +The singular service was read out to them, the exhortations, and the +explanations, sometimes stately, sometimes beautiful, sometimes odious. +Then the little vicar turned upon Frank—‘_Wilt thou have this woman to +thy wedded wife_, _to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy +estate of matrimony_? _Wilt thou love her_, _comfort her_, _honour her_, +_in sickness and in health_, _and forsaking all other_, _keep thee only +unto her as long as ye both shall live_?’ + +‘_I will_,’ cried Frank, with conviction. + +‘_And wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband_, _to live together +after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony_? _Wilt thou obey +him_, _and serve him_, _love_, _honour_, _and keep him_, _in sickness and +in health_, _and forsaking all other_, _keep thee only unto him so long +as ye both shall live_?’ + +‘_I will_,’ said Maude, from her heart. + +‘_Who giveth this woman to be married to this man_?’ + +‘_I do_. Mr. John Selby—her father, you know.’ + +And then in turn they repeated the fateful words—‘_I take thee to have +and to hold from this day forward_, _for better_, _for worse_, _for +richer_, _for poorer_, _in sickness and in health_, _to love_, _cherish_, +_and obey_, _till death us do part_, _according to God’s holy ordinance_, +_and thereto I give thee my troth_.’ + +‘Ring! Ring!’ said Hale. + +‘Ring, you Juggins!’ whispered Jack Selby. + +Frank thrust his hands frantically into all his pockets. The ring was in +the last one which he attempted. But the bank-note was not to be found. +He remembered that he had put it in some safe place. Where could it have +been? Was it in his boot, or in the lining of his hat? No, surely he +could not have done anything so infatuated. Again he took his pockets +two at a time, while a dreadful pause came in the ceremony. + +‘Vestry—afterwards,’ whispered the clergyman. + +‘Here you are!’ gasped Frank. He had come upon it in a last desperate +dive into his watch-pocket, in which he never by any chance kept +anything. Of course it was for that very reason, that it might be alone +and accessible, that he had placed it there. Ring and note were handed +to the vicar, who deftly concealed the one and returned the other. Then +Maude’s little white hand was outstretched, and over the third finger +Frank slipped the circlet of gold. + +‘_With this ring I thee wed_,’ said Frank, ‘_and with my body I thee +worship_ (he paused, and made a mental emendation of ‘with my soul +also’), _and with all my worldly goods I thee endow_.’ + +There was a prayer, and then the vicar joined the two hands, the muscular +sunburned one and the dainty white one, with the new ring gleaming upon +it. + +‘_Those whom God hath joined together_, _let no man put asunder_,’ said +he. ‘_Forasmuch as Francis Crosse and Maude Selby have consented +together in holy wedlock_, _and have witnessed the same before God and +this company_, _and thereto have given and pledged their troth_, _either +to other_, _and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a +ring_, _and by joining of hands; I pronounce that they be man and wife +together_.’ + +There now, it was done! They were one, never more to part until the +coffin-lid closed over one or the other. They were kneeling together +now, and the vicar was rapidly repeating some psalms and prayers. But +Frank’s mind was not with the ritual. He looked slantwise at the +graceful, girlish figure by his side. Her hair hung beautifully over her +white neck, and the reverent droop of her head was lovely to his eyes. +So gentle, so humble, so good, so beautiful, and all his, his sworn +life-companion for ever! A gush of tenderness flowed through his heart +for her. His love had always been passionate, but, for the instant, it +was heroic, tremendous in its unselfishness. Might he bring her +happiness, the highest which woman could wish for! God grant that he +might do so! But if he were to make her unhappy, or to take anything +from her beauty and her goodness, then he prayed that he might die now, +at this supreme moment, kneeling at her side before the altar rails. So +intense was his prayer that he looked up expectantly at the altar, as if +in the presence of an imminent catastrophe. But every one had risen to +their feet, and the service was at an end. The vicar led the way, and +they all followed him, into the vestry. There was a general murmur all +round them of congratulation and approval. + +‘Heartiest congratulations, Crosse!’ said Hale. + +‘Bravo, Maude, you looked ripping!’ cried Jack, kissing his sister. ‘By +Jove, it simply went with a buzz from the word “go.”’ + +‘You sign it here and here,’ said the vicar, ‘and the witnesses here and +here. Thank you very much. I am sure that I wish you every happiness. +I need not detain you by any further formality.’ + +And so, with a curious dream-like feeling, Frank Crosse and Maude found +themselves walking down the aisle, he very proud and erect, she very +gentle and shy, while the organ thundered the wedding-march. Carriages +were waiting: he handed in his wife, stepped in after her, and they drove +off, amidst a murmur of sympathy from a little knot of idlers who had +gathered in the porch, partly from curiosity, and partly to escape the +rain. + +Maude had often driven alone with Frank before, but now she felt suddenly +constrained and shy. The marriage-service, with all its half-understood +allusions and exhortations, had depressed and frightened her. She hardly +dared to glance at her husband. But he soon led her out of her graver +humour. + +‘Name, please?’ said he. + +‘O Frank!’ + +‘Name, if _you_ please?’ + +‘Why, you know.’ + +‘Say it.’ + +‘Maude.’ + +‘That all?’ + +‘Maude Crosse—O Frank!’ + +‘You blessing! How grand it sounds! O Maude, what a jolly old world it +is! Isn’t it pretty to see the rain falling? And aren’t the shining +pavements lovely? And isn’t everything splendid, and am I not the +luckiest—the most incredibly lucky of men. Dear girlie, give me your +hand! I can feel _it_ under the glove. Now, sweetheart, you are not +frightened, are you?’ + +‘Not now.’ + +‘You were?’ + +‘Yes, I was a little. O Frank, you won’t tire of me, will you? I should +break my heart if you did.’ + +‘Tire of you! Good heavens! Now you’ll never guess what I was doing +while the parson was telling us about what Saint Paul said to the +Colossians, and all the rest of it.’ + +‘I know perfectly well what you were doing. And you shouldn’t have done +it.’ + +‘What was I doing, then?’ + +‘You were staring at me.’ + +‘Oh, you saw that, did you?’ + +‘I felt it.’ + +‘Well, I was. But I was praying also.’ + +‘Were you, Frank?’ + +‘When I saw you kneeling there, so sweet and pure and good, I seemed to +realise how you had been given into my keeping for life, and I prayed +with all my heart that if I should ever injure you in thought, or word, +or deed, I might drop dead now before I had time to do it.’ + +‘O Frank, what a dreadful prayer!’ + +‘But I felt it and I wished it, and I could not help it. My own darling, +there you are just a living angel, the gentlest, most sensitive, and +beautiful living creature that walks the earth, and please God I shall +keep you so, and ever higher and higher if such a thing is possible, and +if ever I say a word or do a deed that seems to lower you, then remind me +of this moment, and send me back to try to live up to our highest ideal +again. And I for my part will try to improve myself and to live up to +you, and to bridge more and more the gap that is between us, that I may +feel myself not altogether unworthy of our love. And so we shall act and +re-act upon each other, ever growing better and wiser, and dating what is +best and brightest in our minds and souls from the day that we were +married. And that’s _my_ idea of a marriage-service, and here endeth the +first lesson, and the windows are blurred with rain, and hang the +coachman, and it’s hard lines if a man may not kiss his own wife—you +blessing!’ + +A broad-brimmed hat with a curling feather is not a good shape for +driving with an ardent young bridegroom in a discreetly rain-blurred +carriage. Frank demonstrated the fact, and it took them all the way to +the Langham to get those pins driven home again. And then after an +abnormal meal, which was either a very late breakfast or a very early +lunch, they drove on to Victoria Station, from which they were to start +for Brighton. Jack Selby and the two regimental fizzers, who had secured +immortality for the young couple, if the deep and constant drinking of +healths could have done it, had provided themselves with packages of +rice, old slippers, and other time-honoured missiles. On a hint from +Maude, however, that she would prefer a quiet departure, Frank coaxed the +three back into the luncheon-room with a perfectly guileless face, and +then locking the door on the outside, handed the key and a half-sovereign +to the head-waiter, with instructions to release the prisoners when the +carriage had gone—an incident which in itself would cause the judicious +observer to think that, given the opportunity, Mister Frank Crosse had it +in him to go pretty far in life. And so, quietly and soberly, they +rolled away upon their first journey—the journey which was the opening of +that life’s journey, the goal of which no man may see. + + + + +KEEPING UP APPEARANCES + + +IT was in the roomy dining-room of the Hotel Metropole at Brighton. +Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near the +window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a +snowy-white tablecloth with a shining centre dish of foppish little +cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank of +mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it seemed, +there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its soothing mass +of colour broken only by a few white leaning sails upon the furthest +horizon. Along the sky-line the white clouds lay in carelessly piled +cumuli, like snow thrown up from a clearing. It was restful and +beautiful, that distant view, but just at the moment it was the near one +which interested them most. Though they lose from this moment onwards +the sympathy of every sentimental reader, the truth must be told that +they were thoroughly enjoying their lunch. + +With the wonderful adaptability of women—a hereditary faculty, which +depends upon the fact that from the beginning of time the sex has been +continually employed in making the best of situations which were not of +their own choosing—Maude carried off her new character easily and +gracefully. In her trim blue serge dress and sailor hat, with the warm +tint of yesterday’s sun upon her cheeks, she was the very picture of +happy and healthy womanhood. Frank was also in a blue serge +boating-suit, which was appropriate enough, for they spent most of their +time upon the water, as a glance at his hands would tell. Their +conversation was unhappily upon a very much lower plane than when we +overheard them last. + +‘I’ve got such an appetite!’ + +‘So have I, Frank.’ + +‘Capital. Have another cutlet.’ + +‘Thank you, dear.’ + +‘Potatoes?’ + +‘Please.’ + +‘I always thought that people on their honeymoon lived on love.’ + +‘Yes, isn’t it dreadful, Frank? We must be so material.’ + +‘Good old mother Nature! Cling on to her skirt and you never lose your +way. One wants a healthy physical basis for a healthy spiritual emotion. +Might I trouble you for the pickles?’ + +‘Are you happy, Frank?’ + +‘Absolutely and completely.’ + +‘Quite, _quite_ sure?’ + +‘I never was quite so sure of anything.’ + +‘It makes me so happy to hear you say so.’ + +‘And you?’ + +‘O Frank, I am just floating upon golden clouds in a dream. But your +poor hands! Oh, how they must pain you!’ + +‘Not a bit.’ + +‘It was that heavy oar.’ + +‘I get no practice at rowing. There is no place to row in at Woking, +unless one used the canal. But it was worth a blister or two. By Jove, +wasn’t it splendid, coming back in the moonlight with that silver lane +flickering on the water in front of us? We were so completely alone. We +might have been up in the interstellar spaces, you and I, travelling from +Sirius to Arcturus in one of those profound gulfs of the void which Hardy +talks about. It was overpowering.’ + +‘I can never forget it.’ + +‘We’ll go again to-night.’ + +‘But the blisters!’ + +‘Hang the blisters! And we’ll take some bait with us and try to catch +something.’ + +‘What fun!’ + +‘And we’ll drive to Rottingdean this afternoon, if you feel inclined. +Have this last cutlet, dear!’ + +‘No, thank you.’ + +‘Well, it seems a pity to waste it. Here goes! By the way, Maude, I +must speak very severely to you. I can’t if you look at me like that. +But really, joking apart, you must be more careful before the waiters.’ + +‘Why, dear?’ + +‘Well, we have carried it off splendidly so far. No one has found us out +yet, and no one will if we are reasonably careful. The fat waiter is +convinced that we are veterans. But last night at dinner you very nearly +gave the thing away.’ + +‘Did I, Frank?’ + +‘Don’t look so sweetly penitent, you blessing. The fact is that you make +a shocking bad conspirator. Now I have a kind of talent for that, as I +have for every other sort of depravity, so it will be pretty safe in my +hands. You are as straight as a line by nature, and you can’t be crooked +when you try.’ + +‘But what did I say? Oh, I _am_ so sorry! I tried to be so careful.’ + +‘Well, about the curry, you know. It was an error of judgment to ask if +I took chutnee. And then . . . ’ + +‘Something else?’ + +‘About the boots. Did I get them in London or Woking.’ + +‘Oh dear, dear!’ + +‘And then . . . ’ + +‘Not another! O Frank!’ + +‘Well, the use of the word “my.” You must give that word up. It should +be “our.”’ + +‘I know, I know. It was when I said that the salt water had taken the +curl out of the feather in my—no, in our—well, in _the_ hat.’ + +‘That was all right. But it is _our_ luggage, you know, and _our_ room, +and so on.’ + +‘Of course it is. How foolish I am! Then the waiter knows! O Frank, +what shall we do?’ + +‘Not he. He knows nothing. I am sure of it. He is a dull sort of +person. I had my eye on him all the time. Besides, I threw in a few +remarks just to set the thing right.’ + +‘That was when you spoke about our travels in the Tyrol?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘O Frank, how _could_ you? And you said how lonely it was when we were +the only visitors at the Swiss hotel.’ + +‘That was an inspiration. That finished him.’ + +‘And about the closeness of the Atlantic staterooms. I blushed to hear +you.’ + +‘But he listened eagerly to it all. I could see it.’ + +‘I wonder if he really believed it. I have noticed that the maids and +the waiters seem to look at us with a certain interest.’ + +‘My dear girlie, you will find as you go through life that every man will +always look at you with a certain interest.’ + +Maude smiled, but was unconvinced. + +‘Cheese, dear?’ + +‘A little butter, please.’ + +‘Some butter, waiter, and the Stilton. You know the real fact is, that +we make the mistake of being much too nice to each other in public. +Veterans don’t do that. They take the small courtesies for granted—which +is all wrong, but it shows that they _are_ veterans. That is where we +give ourselves away.’ + +‘That never occurred to me.’ + +‘If you want to settle that waiter for ever, and remove the last +lingering doubt from his mind, the thing is for you to be rude to me.’ + +‘Or you to me, Frank.’ + +‘Sure you won’t mind?’ + +‘Not a bit.’ + +‘Oh, hang it, I can’t—not even for so good an object.’ + +‘Well, then, I can’t either.’ + +‘But this is absurd. It is only acting.’ + +‘Quite so. It is only fun.’ + +‘Then why won’t you do it?’ + +‘Why won’t you?’ + +‘He’ll be back before we settle it. Look here! I’ve a shilling under my +hand. Heads or tails, and the loser has to be rude. Do you agree?’ + +‘Very well.’ + +‘Your call.’ + +‘Heads.’ + +‘It’s tails.’ + +‘Oh goodness!’ + +‘You’ve got to be rude. Now mind you are. Here he comes.’ + +The waiter had come up the room bearing the pride of the hotel, the grand +green Stilton with the beautiful autumn leaf heart shading away to rich +plum-coloured cavities. He placed it on the table with a solemn air. + +‘It’s a beautiful Stilton,’ Frank remarked. + +Maude tried desperately to be rude. + +‘Well, dear, I don’t think it is so very beautiful,’ was the best that +she could do. + +It was not much, but it had a surprising effect upon the waiter. He +turned and hurried away. + +‘There now, you’ve shocked him?’ cried Frank. + +‘Where _has_ he gone, Frank?’ + +‘To complain to the management about your language.’ + +‘No, Frank. Please tell me! Oh, I wish I hadn’t been so rude. Here he +is again.’ + +‘All right. Sit tight,’ said Frank. + +A sort of procession was streaming up the hall. There was their fat +waiter in front with a large covered cheese-dish. Behind him was another +with two smaller ones, and a third with some yellow powder upon a plate +was bringing up the rear. + +‘This is Gorgonzola, main,’ said the waiter, with a severe manner. ‘And +there’s Camembert and Gruyère behind, and powdered Parmesan as well. I’m +sorry that the Stilton don’t give satisfaction.’ + +Maude helped herself to Gorgonzola and looked very guilty and +uncomfortable. Frank began to laugh. + +‘I meant you to be rude to _me_, not to the cheese,’ said he, when the +procession had withdrawn. + +‘I did my best, Frank. I contradicted you.’ + +‘Oh, it was a shocking display of temper.’ + +‘And I hurt the poor waiter’s feelings.’ + +‘Yes, you’ll have to apologise to his Stilton before he will forgive +you.’ + +‘And I don’t believe he is a bit more convinced that we are veterans than +he was before.’ + +‘All right, dear; leave him to me. Those reminiscences of mine must have +settled him. If they didn’t, then I feel it is hopeless.’ + + * * * * * + +It was as well for his peace of mind that Frank could not hear the +conversation between the fat waiter and their chambermaid, for whom he +nourished a plethoric attachment. They had half an hour off in the +afternoon, and were comparing notes. + +‘Nice-lookin’ couple, ain’t they, John?’ said the maid, with the air of +an expert. ‘I don’t know as we’ve ‘ad a better since the spring +weddin’s.’ + +‘I don’t know as I’d go as far as that,’ said the fat waiter critically. +‘’E’d pass all right. ’E’s an upstandin’ young man with a good sperrit +in ’im.’ + +‘What’s wrong with ’er, then?’ + +‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ said the waiter. ‘I likes ’em a bit more +full-flavoured myself. And as to ’er taste, why there, if you ’ad seen +’er turn up ’er nose at the Stilton at lunch.’ + +‘Turn up ’er nose, did she? Well, she seemed to me a very soft-spoken, +obligin’ young lady.’ + +‘So she may be, but they’re a queer couple, I tell you. It’s as well +they are married at last.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Because they ’ave been goin’ on most owdacious before’and. I ’ave it +from their own lips, and it fairly made me blush to listen to it. Awful, +it was, _awful_!’ + +‘You don’t say that, John!’ + +‘I tell you, Jane, I couldn’t ’ardly believe my ears. They was married +on Tuesday last, as we know well, and to-day’s _Times_ to prove it, and +yet if you’ll believe me, they was talkin’ about ’ow they ’ad travelled +alone abroad—’ + +‘Never, John!’ + +‘And alone in a Swiss ’otel!’ + +‘My goodness!’ + +‘And a steamer too.’ + +‘Well, there! I’ll never trust any one again.’ + +‘Oh, a perfec’ pair of scorchers. But I’ll let ’im see as I knows it. +I’ll put that _Times_ before ’im to-night at dinner as sure as my name’s +John.’ + +‘And a good lesson to them, too! If you didn’t say you’d ’eard it from +their own lips, John, I never could ’ave believed it. It’s things like +that as shakes your trust in ’uman nature.’ + +Maude and Frank were lingering at the _table d’hôte_ over their walnuts +and a glass of port wine, when their waiter came softly behind them. + +‘Beg pardon, sir, but did you see it in the _Times_?’ + +‘See what?’ + +‘_That_, sir. I thought that it might be of interest to you and to your +good lady to see it.’ + +He had laid one page of the paper before them, with his forefinger upon +an item in the left-hand top corner. Then he discreetly withdrew. Frank +stared at it in horror. + +‘Maude, your people have gone and put it in.’ + +‘Our marriage!’ + +‘Here it is! Listen! “Crosse—Selby. 30th June, at St. Monica’s Church, +by the Rev. John Tudwell, M.A., Vicar of St. Monica’s, Frank Crosse, of +Maybury Road, Woking, to Maude Selby, eldest daughter of Robert Selby, +Esq., of St. Albans.” Great Scot, Maude! what shall we do?’ + +‘Well, dear, does it matter?’ + +‘Matter! It’s simply awful!’ + +‘I don’t mind much if they do know.’ + +‘But my reminiscences, Maude! The travels in the Tyrol! The Swiss +Hotel! The Stateroom! Great goodness, how I have put my foot into it.’ + +Maude burst out laughing. + +‘You old dear!’ she cried, ‘I don’t believe you are a bit better as a +conspirator than I am. There’s only one thing you can do. Give the +waiter half a crown, tell him the truth, and don’t conspire any more.’ + +And so ignominiously ended the attempt which so many have made, and at +which so many have failed. Take warning, gentle reader, and you also, +gentler reader still, when your own turn comes. + + + + +THE HOME-COMING + + +THE days of holiday were over, and for each of them the duties of life +were waiting. For him it was his work, and for her, her housekeeping. +They both welcomed the change, for there was a rush and a want of privacy +about the hotel life which had been amusing at first, but was now +becoming irksome. It was pleasant, as they rolled out of Waterloo +Station that summer night, to know that their cosy little home was +awaiting them just five-and-twenty miles down the line. They had a +first-class carriage to themselves—it is astonishing how easy it is for +two people to fit into one of those armchair partitions,—and they talked +all the way down about their plans for the future. Golden visions of +youth, how they can glorify even a suburban villa and four hundred a +year! They exulted together over the endless vista of happy days which +stretched before them. + +Mrs. Watson, Frank’s trusty housekeeper, had been left in charge of The +Lindens, and he had sent her a telegram the evening before to tell her +that they were coming. She had already engaged the two servants, so +everything would be ready for them. They pictured her waiting at the +door, the neat little rooms with all their useful marriage-presents in +their proper places, the lamplight and the snowy cloth laid for supper in +the dining-room. It would be ten o’clock before they got there, and that +supper would be a welcome sight. It was all delightful to look forward +to, and this last journey was the happiest of all their wanderings. +Maude wanted to see her kitchen. Frank wanted to see his books. Both +were eager for the fight. + +But they found a small annoyance waiting for them at Woking. A crowded +train had preceded them, and there was not a single cab left at the +station. Some would be back soon, but nobody could tell when. + +‘You don’t mind walking, Maude?’ + +‘I should prefer it.’ + +So a friendly porter took charge of their trunks, and promised to send +them up when a conveyance had arrived. In the meantime they started off +together down an ill-lit and ill-kept road, which opened into that more +important thoroughfare in which their own villa was situated. They +walked quickly, full of eager anticipations. + +‘It’s just past the third lamp-post on the right,’ said Frank. ‘Now it’s +only the second lamp-post. You see it will not be far from the station. +Those windows among the trees are where Hale lives—my best man, you know! +Now it is only one lamp-post!’ They quickened their pace almost to a +run, and so arrived at the gate of The Lindens. + +It was a white gate leading into a short path—‘carriage sweep’ the +house-agent called it,—and so to a low but comfortable-looking little +house. The night was so dark that one could only see its outline. To +their surprise, there was no sign of a light either above the door or at +any of the windows. + +‘Well, I’m blessed!’ cried Frank. + +‘Never mind, dear. They live at the back, no doubt.’ + +‘But I gave them the hour. This is too bad. I am so sorry.’ + +‘It will be all the more cosy inside. What a dear little gate this is! +The whole place is perfectly charming.’ + +But in spite of her brave attempts at making the best of it, it could not +be denied that this black house was not what they had pictured in their +dreams. Frank strode angrily up the path and pulled at the bell. There +was no answer, so he knocked violently. Then he knocked with one hand +while he rang with the other, but no sound save that of the clanging bell +came from the gloomy house. As they stood forlornly in front of their +own hall-door, a soft rain began to rustle amidst the bushes. At this +climax of their troubles Maude burst into such a quiet, hearty, +irresistible fit of laughter, that the angry Frank was forced to laugh +also. + +‘My word, it will be no laughing matter for Mrs. Watson if she cannot +give a good reason for it,’ said he. + +‘Perhaps the poor woman is ill.’ + +‘But there should be two other people, the cook and the housemaid. It is +just as well that we did not bring up our trunks, or we should have had +to dump them down in the front garden. You wait here, dear, under the +shelter of the porch, and I will walk round and see if I can burgle it.’ + +He tried the back, but it was as dark as the front, and the kitchen-door +was locked. Then he prowled unhappily in the rain from window to window. +They were all fastened. He came back to the kitchen-door, poked his +stick through the glass which formed the upper panel, and then putting +his hand through the hole, he turned the key, and so stumbled into the +obscurity of his own hall. He passed through it, unlocked the front +door, and received Maude into his open arms. + +‘Welcome to your home, my own darling girl. May you never have one sad +hour under this roof! What a dismal home-coming! What can I do to make +amends? But good comes out of evil, you see, for in no other possible +way could I have been inside to welcome you when you entered.’ + +They stayed in the hall in the dark some time, these wet and foolish +young people. Then Frank struck a match, and tried to light the +hall-lamp. There was no oil in it. He muttered something vigorous, and +carried his burning vesta into the dining-room. Two candles were +standing on the sideboard. He lit them both, and things began to look a +little more cheerful. They took a candle each and began to explore their +own deserted house. + +The dining-room was excellent—small, but very snug. The Tantalus +spirit-stand—stood upon the walnut sideboard, and the bronzes from the +cricket-club looked splendid upon each side of the mantelpiece. Beside +the clock in the centre lay an open telegram. Frank seized it eagerly. + +‘There now!’ he cried. ‘Listen to this. “Expect us on Thursday evening +about ten.” It was _Tuesday_ evening, I said. That’s the telegraphic +clerk. We’ve come two days before our time.’ + +It was good to have any sort of explanation, although it left a great +deal unexplained. They passed through the hall with its shining +linoleum, and into the drawing-room. It was not a very good room, too +square for elegance, but they were in no humour for criticism, and it was +charming to see all the old knick-knacks, and the photographs of friends +in their frames. A big wrought-iron and brass-work standing lamp towered +up near the fireplace, but again there was no oil. + +‘I think that Mrs. Watson has arranged it all splendidly,’ said Maude, +whose active fingers were already beginning to reconstruct. ‘But where +can she be?’ + +‘She must be out, for, of course, she lives in the house. But it is the +absence of the servants which amazes me, for I understood that they had +arrived. What would you like to do?’ + +‘Aren’t you hungry, Frank?’ + +‘Simply starving.’ + +‘So am I.’ + +‘Well, then, let us forage and see if we cannot find something to eat.’ + +So hand in hand, and each with a candle in the other hand, like a pair of +young penitents, they continued their explorations with more purpose than +before. The kitchen, into which they penetrated, had clearly been much +used of late, for there were dirty dishes scattered about, and the fire +had been lighted, though it was now out. In one corner was what seemed +to be a pile of drab-coloured curtains. In the other, an armchair lay +upon its side with legs projecting. A singular disorder, very alien to +Mrs. Watson’s habits, pervaded the apartment. A dresser with a cupboard +over it claimed the first attention of the hungry pair. With a cheer +from Frank and hand-clapping from Maude, they brought out a new loaf of +bread, some butter, some cheese, a tin of cocoa, and a bowl full of eggs. +Maude tied an apron over her pretty russet dress, seized some sticks and +paper, and had a fire crackling in a very few minutes. + +‘Put some water in the kettle, Frank.’ + +‘Here you are! Anything else?’ + +‘Some in the small saucepan for the eggs.’ + +‘I believe they are “cookers,”’ said he, sniffing at them suspiciously. + +‘Hold them up to the light, sir. There, they are quite bright and nice. +In with them! Now, if you will cut some bread and butter it, we shall +soon have our supper ready.’ + +‘It’s too new to cut,’ cried Frank, sawing away upon the kitchen table. +‘Besides, new bread is better in chunks. Here are some cloths and knives +and forks in the dresser drawer. I will go and lay the table.’ + +‘And leave me here alone. No please, Frank, if I am cook, you must be +scullery-maid. Get the cups down and put the cocoa in them. What fun it +all is! I think it is simply _splendid_ to be mistress of a house.’ + +‘With one scullery-maid.’ + +‘And she perfectly incompetent, and much given to embracing her mistress. +I must take my hat off. Get the sugar for the cocoa out of the cupboard. +The kettle is singing, so it won’t be long. Do you know, Frank’—she +paused, listening, with the egg-saucepan in her hands. ‘There’s a dog or +something in the room.’ + +They had both become aware of a sort of sibilant breathing, and they +looked round them in bewilderment. + +‘Where is it?’ asked Maude. ‘Frank, I believe it’s a mouse.’ + +‘Hope for the best. Don’t frighten yourself unnecessarily. I fancy it +comes from under these curtains.’ He approached them with his candle, +and was suddenly aware of a boot which was projecting from them. ‘Great +Scot!’ he cried, ‘there’s a woman here asleep.’ + +Reassured as to the mouse, Maude approached with her saucepan still +clutched in her hand. There could be no doubt either as to the woman or +the sleep. She lay in an untidy heap, her head under the table, and her +figure sprawling. She appeared to be a very large woman. + +‘Hullo!’ cried Frank, shaking her by the shoulder. ‘Hullo, you there!’ + +But the woman slumbered peacefully on. + +‘Heh, wake up, wake up!’ he shouted, and pulled her up into a sitting +position. But she slept as soundly sitting as lying. + +‘The poor thing must be ill,’ said Maude. ‘O Frank, shall I run for a +doctor?’ + +‘Wake up, woman, wake up!’ Frank yelled, and danced her up and down. She +flopped about like a sawdust doll, with her arms swinging in front of +her. He panted with his exertions, but she was serenely unconscious. At +last he had to lower her on to the floor again, putting a footstool under +her head. + +‘It’s no go,’ said he. ‘I can make nothing of her. She will sleep it +off.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say, Frank, that she is—’ + +‘Indeed I do.’ + +‘How horrible!’ + +‘That kettle is boiling now. Suppose we have our supper.’ + +‘Dear Frank, I could not enjoy my supper with that unfortunate woman +lying there. O Frank, I know that you could not either.’ + +‘Bless her!’ said Frank bitterly, as he gazed at the inert lump. ‘I +really don’t see why we should put ourselves out for her. She is quite +comfortable.’ + +‘Oh I couldn’t, Frank. It would seem inhuman.’ + +‘What are we to do, then?’ + +‘We must put her to bed.’ + +‘Great heavens!’ + +‘Yes, dear, it is our duty to put her to bed.’ + +‘But look here, my dear girl, we must be practical. The woman weighs +half a ton, and the bedrooms are at the top of the house. It’s simply +impossible.’ + +‘Don’t you think, Frank, that if you took her head and I took her feet, +we might get her up?’ + +‘Not up the stair, dear. She is enormous.’ + +‘Well, then, on to the drawing-room sofa,’ said Maude. ‘I could have my +supper, if I knew that she was safe upon the sofa.’ + +So Frank, seeing that there was no help for it, seized her under the +arms, and Maude took her ankles, and they bore her, bulging but serene, +down the passage. They staggered exhausted into the drawing-room, and +the new sofa groaned beneath the weight. It was a curious and unsavoury +inaugural ceremony. Maude put a rug over the prostrate form, and they +returned to their boiling kettle and their uncooked eggs. Then they laid +the table, and served the supper, and enjoyed this picnic meal of their +own creating as no conventional meal could ever have been enjoyed. +Everything seemed beautiful to the young wife—the wall-paper, the +pictures, the carpet, the rug; but to him, she was so beautiful in mind, +and soul, and body, that her presence turned the little room into an +enchanted chamber. They sat long together, and marvelled at their own +happiness—that pure serene happiness of mere companionship, which is so +much more intimate and deeper than all the transports of passion. + +But suddenly he sprang from his chair. There was the sound of steps, of +several steps, outside upon the gravel path. Then a key clicked, and a +burst of cold air told them that the door was open. + +‘It’s agin’ the law for me to enter,’ said a gruff voice. + +‘I tell you she’s very strong and violent,’ said a second voice, which +Frank recognised as that of Mrs. Watson. ‘She chased the maid out of the +house, and I can do nothing with her.’ + +‘Very sorry, mum, but it’s clean agin’ the law of England. Give me a +warrant, and in I come. If you will bring her to the doorstep, I will be +answerable for her removal.’ + +‘She’s in the dining-room. I can see the lights,’ said Mrs. Watson; and +then, ‘Good Lord, Mr. Crosse, what a fright you gave me! Oh dear me, +that you should have come when I was out, and I not expecting you for +another two days yet. Well, now, I shall never forgive myself for this.’ + +But all the mistakes and misfortunes were very quickly explained. The +telegram was the root of the evil. And then the new cook had proved to +be a violent, intermittent drunkard. She had chased the other maid out +of the house, and then, while Mrs. Watson rushed for the police, she had +drunk herself into the stupor in which she had been found. But now, in +the nick of time, the station cab came up with the luggage, and so the +still placidly slumbering culprit was carried out to it, and sent off in +the charge of the policeman. Such was the first entry of Mr. and Mrs. +Crosse into their home at The Lindens. + + + + +LAYING A COURSE + + +FRANK CROSSE was a methodical young man—his enemies might sometimes have +called him pedantic,—and he loved to reduce his life to rule and order. +It was one of his peculiarities. But how about this new life into which +he was entering? It took two to draw up the rules for that. The little +two-oared craft who put out upon that voyage have to lay their own +course, each for itself; and all round them, as they go, they see the +floating timbers and broken keels of other little boats, which had once +started out full of hope and confidence. There are currents and eddies, +low sand-banks and sunken reefs, and happy the crews who see them ahead, +and trim their course to avoid them. Frank brooded over it all. He had +seen something of life, for his years. He was observant and reflective. +He had watched his friends who were happy, and he had watched his friends +who were not. And now, as a result of all this wise cogitation, he sat +down at a table one evening, with a solemn face, and a sheet of foolscap. + +‘Now, Maude,’ said he, ‘I want to have a serious talk.’ + +Maude looked up in surprise from the linen which she was marking. + +‘Oh dear!’ she cried. + +‘Why “oh dear”?’ + +‘There’s something wrong?’ + +‘Nothing in the world.’ + +‘You looked so solemn, Frank. I thought you had been looking at the +tradesman’s books. What is it, dear?’ + +‘Well, Maude, I have been thinking of married life in general. Don’t you +think it would be a good thing if we were to make some resolutions as to +how it should be conducted—some fundamental principles, as it were?’ + +‘Oh do, dear, do! What fun it will be!’ + +‘But it’s serious, Maude.’ + +‘Yes, dear, I am quite serious.’ + +‘It seemed to me, that if we could reduce it to certain rules, then, +whatever came upon us in the future, we should always know exactly how to +act.’ + +‘What are the rules, dear?’ + +‘Well, we can only arrive at them by talking it over between ourselves. +I could not draw up a set of rules, and ask you to submit to them. That +is not my idea of a partnership. But if we found that we were agreed +upon certain points, then we could both adopt them by mutual consent.’ + +‘How charming, Frank! Do please tell me some of the points.’ + +‘I have a few in my mind, and I should like to hear any which you may +have—any ideas, you know, how to get the very highest and best out of our +life. Now, first of all, there is the subject of quarrelling.’ + +‘O Frank, how horrid!’ + +‘Dear girl, we must look into the future. We are going to live all our +lives together. We must foresee and prepare for all the chances of +life.’ + +‘But that is absurd.’ + +‘You can’t live all your life and never be in a bad temper!’ + +‘But not with _you_, Frank.’ + +‘Oh, I can be very aggravating sometimes. Now, my idea is this. +Ill-humour passes and hurts nobody. But if two people are ill-humoured, +then each excites the other, and they say ever so much more than they +mean. Let us make a compact never both to be ill-humoured at the same +time. If _you_ are cross, then it is your turn, and I stand clear. If +_I_ am cross, you let me work it off. When either hoists the +danger-signal, the other is on guard. What do you think of that?’ + +‘I think you are the funniest old boy—’ + +‘Do you agree?’ + +‘Yes, dear, of course I agree.’ + +‘Article number one,’ said Frank, and scribbled upon his paper. + +‘Your turn, now.’ + +‘No, dear, I have not thought of anything.’ + +‘Well, then, here is another point. Never take each other for granted.’ + +‘What do you mean by that?’ + +‘Never relax those attentions which one lover shows to another. Some +husbands seem to forget that their wives are ladies. Some wives speak to +their husbands with less courtesy and consideration than to any casual +male visitor. They mean no harm, but they get into a slack way. We must +not do that.’ + +‘I don’t think we are likely to.’ + +‘People get into it unconsciously. Pull me up sharply at the first +sign.’ + +‘Yes, sir, I will.’ + +‘The next point that I have noted is an extension of the last. Let each +strive to be worthy of the love of the other. People get slovenly and +slipshoddy, as if it didn’t matter now that they were married. If each +were very keen to please the other, that would not be so. How many women +neglect their music after marriage.’ + +‘My goodness, I haven’t practised for a week!’ cried Maude. + +‘And their dress and their hair’—Maude’s hand flew up to her curls. ‘My +darling, yours is just perfect. But you know how often a woman grows +careless. “He will love me anyhow,” she says to herself, and perhaps she +is right, but still it is not as it should be.’ + +‘Why, Frank, I had no idea you knew so much.’ + +‘I have heard my friends’ experiences.—And the man too: he should +consider his wife’s feelings as much as he did his sweetheart’s. If she +dislikes smoke, he should not smoke. He should not yawn in her presence. +He should keep himself well-groomed and attractive. Look at that dirty +cuff! I have no business to have it.’ + +‘As if it could make any difference to me.’ + +‘There now! That is what is so demoralising. You should stand out for +the highest. When I came to you at St. Albans, I had not dirty cuffs.’ + +‘You forgive me the music, Frank, and I’ll forgive you the cuff. But I +agree to all you say. I think it is so wise and good. Now I’ve got +something to add.’ + +‘Good. What is it?’ + +‘Each should take an interest in the other’s department.’ + +‘Why, of course they should.’ + +‘But it is not done.’ + +‘Why naturally, dear, you take an interest in my City work.’ + +‘Yes, sir, but do you take as keen an interest in my housekeeping?’ + +‘Perhaps I have been a little thoughtless.’ + +‘No, no, dear, you haven’t. You are always full of consideration. But I +have noticed it with mother, and with others also. The husband pulls out +his cheque-book at the end of the week or month, and he says, “Well, this +is rather more than we can afford,” or “This is less than I expected,” +but he never really takes any interest in his wife’s efforts to keep +things nice on a little. He does not see it with her eyes and try to +realise her difficulties. Oh, I wish I could express myself better, but +I know that the interest is one-sided.’ + +‘I think what you say is quite right. I’ll try to remember that. How +shall we enter it upon our list?’ + +‘That Interests should be mutual.’ + +‘Quite right. I have it down. Well, any more points?’ + +‘It is your turn.’ + +‘Well, there is this, and I feel that it is just the holiest thing in +matrimony, and its greatest justification—that love should never +degenerate into softness, that each should consciously stimulate the +better part of the other and discourage the worse, that there should be a +discipline in our life, and that we should brace each other up to a +higher ideal. The love that says, “I know it is wrong, but I love him or +her so much that I can’t refuse,” is a poor sort of love for the +permanent use of married life. The self-respect which refuses to let the +most lofty ideal of love down by an inch is a far nobler thing, and it +wears better too.’ + +‘How will you express all that?’ + +‘Mutual respect is necessary for mutual love.’ + +‘Yes, I am sure that that is right.’ + +‘It sounds obvious, but the very intensity of love makes love soft and +blind. Now I have another, which I am convinced that you will not agree +with.’ + +‘Let me hear it.’ + +‘I have put it in this way, “The tight cord is the easiest to snap.”’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Well, I mean that married couples should give each other a certain +latitude and freedom. If they don’t, one or other will sooner or later +chafe at the restriction. It is only human nature, which is an older and +more venerable thing than marriage.’ + +‘I don’t like that at all, Frank.’ + +‘I feared you wouldn’t, dear, but I believe you’ll see it with me when I +explain what I mean. If you don’t, then I must try to see it with you. +When one talks of freedom in married life, it means, as a rule, freedom +only for the man. He does what he likes, but still claims to be a strict +critic of his wife. That, I am sure, is wrong. To take an obvious +example of what I mean, has a husband a right to read his wife’s letters? +Certainly not, any more than she has a right to read his without his +permission. To read them as a matter of course would be stretching the +chain too tight.’ + +‘Chain is a horrid word, Frank.’ + +‘Well, it is only a metaphor. Or take the subject of friendships. Is a +married man to be debarred from all friendship and intimacy with another +woman?’ + +Maude looked doubtful. + +‘I should like to see the woman first,’ she said. + +‘Or is a married woman to form no friendship with another man who might +interest or improve her? There is such a want of mutual confidence in +such a view. People who are sure of each other should give each other +every freedom in that. If they don’t, they are again stretching it +tight.’ + +‘If they do, it may become so slack that it might as well not be there at +all.’ + +‘I felt sure that we should have an argument over this. But I have seen +examples. Look at the Wardrops. _There_ were a couple who were never +apart. It was their boast that everything was in common with them. If +he was not in, she opened his letters, and he hers. And then there came +a most almighty smash. The tight cord had snapped. Now, I believe that +for some people, it is a most excellent thing that they should take their +holidays at different times.’ + +‘O Frank!’ + +‘Yes, I do. No, not for us, by Jove! I am generalising now. But for +some couples, I am sure that it is right. They reconsider each other +from a distance, and they like each other the better.’ + +‘Yes, but these rules are for our guidance, not for that of other +people.’ + +‘Quite right, dear. I was off the rails. “As you were,” as your brother +Jack would say. But I am afraid that I am not going to convince you over +this point.’ + +Maude looked charmingly mutinous. + +‘No, Frank, you are not. I don’t think marriage can be too close. I +believe that every hope, and thought, and aspiration should be in common. +I could never get as near to your heart and soul as I should wish to do. +I want every year to draw me closer and closer, until we really are as +nearly the same person as it is possible to be upon earth.’ + +When you have to surrender, it is well to do so gracefully. Frank +stooped down and kissed his wife’s hand, and apologised. ‘The wisdom of +the heart is greater than the wisdom of the brain,’ said he. But the +love of man comes from the brain, far more than the love of woman, and so +it is that there will always be some points upon which they will never +quite see alike. + +‘Then we scratch out that item.’ + +‘No, dear. ‘Put “The cord which is held tight is the easiest to snap.” +That will be all right. The cord of which I speak is never held at all. +The moment it is necessary to hold it, it is of no value. It must be +voluntary, natural, unavoidable.’ + +So Frank amended his aphorism. + +‘Anything more, dear?’ + +‘Yes, I have thought of one other,’ said she. ‘It is that if ever you +had to find fault with me about anything, it should be when we are +alone.’ + +‘And the same in your case with me. That is excellent. What can be more +vulgar and degrading than a public difference of opinion? People do it +half in fun sometimes, but it is wrong all the same. Duly entered upon +the minutes. Anything else?’ + +‘Only material things.’ + +‘Yes, but they count also. Now, in the matter of money, I feel that +every husband should allow his wife a yearly sum of her own, to be paid +over to her, and kept by her, so that she may make her own arrangements +for herself. It is degrading to a woman to have to apply to her husband +every time she wants a sovereign. On the other hand, if the wife has any +money, she should have the spending of it. If she chooses to spend part +of it in helping the establishment, that is all right, but I am sure that +she should have her own separate account, and her own control of it.’ + +‘If a woman really loves a man, Frank, how can she grudge him everything +she has? If my little income would take one worry from your mind, what a +joy it would be to me to feel that you were using it!’ + +‘Yes, but the man has his self-respect to think of. In a great crisis +one might fall back upon one’s wife—since our interests are the same, but +only that could justify it. So much for the wife’s money. Now for the +question of housekeeping.’ + +‘That terrible question!’ + +‘It is only hard because people try to do so much upon a little. Why +should they try to do so much? The best pleasures of life are absolutely +inexpensive. Books, music, pleasant intimate evenings, the walk among +the heather, the delightful routine of domestic life, my cricket and my +golf—these things cost very little.’ + +‘But you must eat and drink, Frank. And as to Jemima and the cook, it is +really extraordinary the amount which they consume.’ + +‘But the tendency is for meals to become much too elaborate. Why that +second vegetable?’ + +‘There now! I knew that you were going to say something against that +poor vegetable. It costs so little.’ + +‘On an average, I have no doubt that it costs threepence a day. Come +now, confess that it does. Do you know what threepence a day comes to in +a year? There is no use in having an accountant for a husband, if you +can’t get at figures easily. It is four pounds eleven shillings and +threepence.’ + +‘It does not seem very much.’ + +‘But for that money, and less, one could become a member of the London +Library, with the right to take out fifteen books at a time, and all the +world’s literature to draw from. Now just picture it: on one side, all +the books in the world, all the words of the wise, and great, and witty; +on the other side, a lot of cauliflowers and vegetable-marrows and French +beans. Which is the better bargain?’ + +‘Good gracious, we shall never have a second vegetable again!’ + +‘And pudding?’ + +‘My dear, you always eat the pudding.’ + +‘I know I do. It seems an obvious thing to do when the pudding is there +in front of me. But if it were not there, I should neither eat it nor +miss it, and I know that you care nothing about it. There would be +another five or six pounds a year.’ + +‘We’ll have a compromise, dear. Second vegetable one day, pudding the +next.’ + +‘Very good.’ + +‘I notice that it is always after you have had a substantial meal that +you discuss economy in food. I wonder if you will feel the same when you +come back starving from the City to-morrow? Now, sir, any other +economy?’ + +‘I don’t think money causes happiness. But debt causes unhappiness. And +so we must cut down every expense until we have a reserve fund to meet +any unexpected call. If you see any way in which I could save, or any +money I spend which you think is unjustifiable, I do wish that you would +tell me. I got into careless ways in my bachelor days.’ + +‘That red golfing-coat.’ + +‘I know. It was idiotic of me.’ + +‘Never mind, dear. You look very nice in it. After all, it was only +thirty shillings. Can you show me any extravagance of mine?’ + +‘Well, dear, I looked at that dressmaker’s bill yesterday.’ + +‘O Frank, it is such a pretty dress, and you said you liked it, and you +have to pay for a good cut, and you said yourself that a wife must not +become dowdy after marriage, and it would have cost double as much in +Regent Street.’ + +‘I didn’t think the dress dear.’ + +‘What was it, then?’ + +‘The silk lining of the skirt.’ + +‘You funny boy!’ + +‘It cost thirty shillings extra. Now, what can it matter if it is lined +with silk or not?’ + +‘Oh, doesn’t it? Just you try one and see.’ + +‘But no one can know that it is lined with silk.’ + +‘When I rustle into a room, dear, every woman in it knows that my skirt +is lined with silk.’ + +Frank felt that he had ventured out of his depth, so he struck out for +land again. + +‘There’s only one economy which I don’t think is justifiable,’ said he, +‘and that is, to cut down your subscriptions to charities. It is such a +very cheap way of doing things. Not that I do much in that line—too +little, perhaps. But to say that because _we_ want to economise, +therefore some poor people are to suffer, is a very poor argument. We +must save at our own expense.’ + +So now Frank, in his methodical fashion, had all his results tabulated +upon his sheet of foolscap. It was not a very brilliant production, but +it might serve as a chart for the little two-oared boats until a better +one is forthcoming. It ran in this way— + + _Maxims for the Married_ + + 1. Since you are married, you may as well make the best of it. + + 2. So make some maxims and try to live up to them. + + 3. And don’t be discouraged if you fail. You will fail, but perhaps + you won’t always fail. + + 4. Never both be cross at the same time. Wait your turn. + + 5. Never cease to be lovers. If you cease, some one else may begin. + + 6. You were gentleman and lady before you were husband and wife. + Don’t forget it. + + 7. Keep yourself at your best. It is a compliment to your partner. + + 8. Keep your ideal high. You may miss it, but it is better to miss + a high one than to hit a low one. + + 9. A blind love is a foolish love. Encourage the best in each + other’s nature. + + 10. Permanent mutual respect is necessary for a permanent mutual + love. A woman can love without respect, but a man cannot. + + 11. The tight cord is the easiest to snap. + + 12. Let there be one law for both. + + 13. There is only one thing worse than quarrels in public. That is + caresses. + + 14. Money is not essential to happiness, but happy people usually + have enough. + + 15. So save some. + + 16. The easiest way of saving is to do without things. + + 17. If you can’t, then you had better do without a wife. + + 18. The man who respects his wife does not turn her into a + mendicant. Give her a purse of her own. + + 19. If you save, save at your own expense. + + 20. In all matters of money, prepare always for the worst and hope + for the best. + +Such was their course as far as this ambitious young couple could lay it. +They may correct it by experience, and improve it by use, but it is good +enough to guide them safely out to sea. + + + + +CONFESSIONS + + +‘TELL me, Frank, did you ever love any one before me?’ + +‘How badly trimmed the lamp is to-night!’ said he. It was so bad that he +went off instantly into the dining-room to get another. It was some time +before he returned. + +She waited inexorably until he had settled down again. + +‘Did you, Frank?’ she asked. + +‘Did I what?’ + +‘Ever love any one else?’ + +‘My dear Maude, what _is_ the use of asking questions like that?’ + +‘You said that there were no secrets between us.’ + +‘No, but there are some things better left alone.’ + +‘That is what I should call a secret.’ + +‘Of course, if you make a point of it—’ + +‘I do.’ + +‘Well, then, I am ready to answer anything that you ask. But you must +not blame me if you do not like my answers.’ + +‘Who was she, Frank?’ + +‘Which?’ + +‘O Frank, more than one!’ + +‘I told you that you would not like it.’ + +‘Oh, I wish I had not asked you!’ + +‘Then do let us drop it.’ + +‘No, I can’t drop it now, Frank. You have gone too far. You must tell +me everything.’ + +‘Everything?’ + +‘Yes, everything, Frank.’ + +‘I am not sure that I can.’ + +‘Is it so dreadful as that?’ + +‘No, there is another reason.’ + +‘Do tell me, Frank.’ + +‘There is a good deal of it. You know how a modern poet excused himself +to his wife for all his pre-matrimonial experiences. He said that he was +looking for her.’ + +‘Well, I do like that!’ she cried indignantly. + +‘I was looking for you.’ + +‘You seem to have looked a good deal.’ + +‘But I found you at last.’ + +‘I had rather you had found me at first, Frank.’ He said something about +supper, but she was not to be turned. + +‘How many did you really love?’ she asked. ‘Please don’t joke about it, +Frank. I really want to know.’ + +‘If I choose to tell you a lie—’ + +‘But you won’t!’ + +‘No, I won’t. I could never feel the same again.’ + +‘Well, then, how many did you love?’ + +‘Don’t exaggerate what I say, Maude, or take it to heart. You see it +depends upon what you mean by love. There are all sorts and degrees of +love, some just the whim of a moment, and others the passion of a +lifetime; some are founded on mere physical passion, and some on +intellectual sympathy, and some on spiritual affinity.’ + +‘Which do you love me with?’ + +‘All three.’ + +‘Sure?’ + +‘Perfectly sure.’ + +She came over and the cross-examination was interrupted. But in a few +minutes she had settled down to it again. + +‘Well, now—the first?’ said she. + +‘Oh, I can’t, Maude—don’t.’ + +‘Come, sir—her name?’ + +‘No, no, Maude, that is going a little too far. Even to you, I should +never mention another woman’s name.’ + +‘Who was she, then?’ + +‘Please don’t let us go into details. It is perfectly _horrible_. Let +me tell things in my own way.’ + +She made a little grimace. + +‘You are wriggling, sir. But I won’t be hard upon you. Tell it your own +way.’ + +‘Well, in a word, Maude, I was always in love with some one.’ + +Her face clouded over. + +‘Your love must be very cheap,’ said she. + +‘It’s almost a necessity of existence for a healthy young man who has +imagination and a warm heart. It was all—or nearly all—quite +superficial.’ + +‘I should think all your love was superficial, if it can come so easily.’ + +‘Don’t be cross, Maude. I had never seen you at the time. I owed no +duty to you.’ + +‘You owed a duty to your own self-respect.’ + +‘There, I knew we should have trouble over it. What do you want to ask +such questions for? I dare say I am a fool to be so frank.’ + +She sat for a little with her face quite cold and set. In his inmost +heart Frank was glad that she should be jealous, and he watched her out +of the corner of his eye. + +‘Well!’ said she at last. + +‘Must I go on?’ + +‘Yes, I may as well hear it.’ + +‘You’ll only be cross.’ + +‘We’ve gone too far to stop. And I’m not cross, Frank. Only pained a +little. But I do appreciate your frankness. I had no idea you were such +a—such a Mormon.’ She began to laugh. + +‘I used to take an interest in every woman.’ + +‘“Take an interest” is good.’ + +‘That was how it began. And then if circumstances were favourable the +interest deepened, until at last, naturally—well, you can understand.’ + +‘How many did you take an interest in?’ + +‘Well, in pretty nearly all of them.’ + +‘And how many deepened?’ + +‘Oh, I don’t know.’ + +‘Twenty?’ + +‘Well—rather more than that, I think.’ + +‘Thirty?’ + +‘Quite thirty.’ + +‘Forty?’ + +‘Not more than forty, I think.’ + +Maude sat aghast at the depths of his depravity. + +‘Let me see: you are twenty-seven now, so you have loved four women a +year since you were seventeen.’ + +‘If you reckon it that way,’ said Frank, ‘I am afraid that it must have +been more than forty.’ + +‘It’s dreadful,’ said Maude, and began to cry. + +Frank knelt down in front of her and kissed her hands. She had sweet +little plump hands, very soft and velvety. + +‘You make me feel such a brute,’ said he. ‘Anyhow, I love you now with +all my heart and mind and soul.’ + +‘Forty-firstly and lastly,’ she sobbed, half laughing and half crying. +Then she pulled his hair to reassure him. + +‘I can’t be angry with you,’ said she. ‘Besides, it would be ungenerous +to be angry when you tell me things of your own free will. You are not +forced to tell me. It is very honourable of you. But I do wish you had +taken an interest in me first.’ + +‘Well, it was not so fated. I suppose there are some men who are quite +good when they are bachelors. But I don’t believe they are the best men. +They are either archangels upon earth—young Gladstones and Newmans—or +else they are cold, calculating, timid, un-virile creatures, who will +never do any good. The first class must be splendid. I never met one +except in memoirs. The others I don’t want to meet.’ + +Women are not interested in generalities. + +‘Were they nicer than me?’ she asked. + +‘Who?’ + +‘Those forty women.’ + +‘No, dear, of course not. Why are you laughing?’ + +‘Well, it came into my head how funny it would be, if the forty were all +gathered into one room, and you were turned loose in the middle of them.’ + +‘Funny!’ Frank ejaculated. Women have such extraordinary ideas of +humour. Maude laughed until she was quite tired. + +‘It doesn’t strike you as comic?’ she cried at last. + +‘No, it doesn’t,’ he answered coldly. + +‘Of course it wouldn’t,’ said she, and went off into another ripple of +pretty contralto laughter. There is a soft, deep, rich laugh, which some +women have, that is the sweetest sound in Nature. + +‘When you have quite finished,’ said he huffily. Her jealousy was much +more complimentary than her ridicule. + +‘All right now. Don’t be cross. If I didn’t laugh I should cry. I’m so +sorry if I have annoyed you.’ He had gone back to his chair, so she paid +him a flying visit. ‘Satisfied?’ + +‘Not quite.’ + +‘Now?’ + +‘All right. I forgive you.’ + +‘That’s funny too. Fancy _you_ forgiving _me_ after all these +confessions. But you never loved one of them all as you love me.’ + +‘Never.’ + +‘Swear it.’ + +‘I do swear it.’ + +‘Morally, and what do you call it, and the other?’ + +‘Not one of them.’ + +‘And never will again?’ + +‘Never.’ + +‘Good boy for ever and ever?’ + +‘For ever and ever.’ + +‘And the forty were horrid?’ + +‘No, hang it, Maude, I can’t say that.’ + +She pouted and hung her head. + +‘You do like them better, then?’ + +‘How absurd you are, Maude! If I had liked one better, I should have +married her.’ + +‘Well, yes, I suppose you would. You must have taken a deeper interest +in me than in the others, since you married me. I hadn’t thought of +that.’ + +‘Silly old girl! Of course I liked you best. Let us drop the thing, and +never talk about it any more.’ + +‘Have you their photographs?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘None of them?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘What did you do with them?’ + +‘I never had most of them.’ + +‘And the others?’ + +‘I destroyed some when I married.’ + +‘That was nice of you. Aren’t you sorry?’ + +‘No, I thought it was only right.’ + +‘Were you fondest of dark women or fair?’ + +‘Oh, I don’t know. _I_ was never pernickety in _my_ tastes. You know +those lines I read you from Henley: “Handsome, ugly—all are women.” +That’s a bachelor’s sentiment.’ + +‘But do you mean to say, sir—now, you are speaking on your honour, that +out of all these forty, there was not one who was prettier than I am?’ + +‘Do let us talk of something else.’ + +‘And not one as clever?’ + +‘How absurd you are to-night, Maude!’ + +‘Come, answer me.’ + +‘I’ve answered you already.’ + +‘I did not hear you.’ + +‘Oh yes, you did. I said that I had married you, and that shows that I +liked you best. I don’t compare you quality for quality against every +one in the world. That would be absurd. What I say is that your +combination of qualities is the one which is most dear to me.’ + +‘Oh, I see,’ said Maude dubiously. ‘How nice and frank you are!’ + +‘Now I’ve hurt you!’ + +‘Oh no, not in the least. I like you to be frank. I should hate to +think that there was anything you did not dare to tell me.’ + +‘And you, Maude—would you be equally frank with me?’ + +‘Yes, dear, I will. I feel that I owe it to you after your confidence in +me. I have had my little experiences too.’ + +‘You!’ + +‘Perhaps you would rather that I said nothing about them. What good can +there be in raking up these old stories?’ + +‘No, I had rather you told me.’ + +‘You won’t be hurt?’ + +‘No, no—certainly not.’ + +‘You may take it from me, Frank, that if any married woman ever tells her +husband that until she saw him she never felt any emotion at the sight of +another man, it is simple nonsense. There may be women of that sort +about, but I never met them. I don’t think I should like them, for they +must be dry, cold, unsympathetic, unemotional, unwomanly creatures.’ + +‘Maude, you have loved some one else!’ + +‘I won’t deny that I have been interested deeply interested in several +men.’ + +‘Several!’ + +‘It was before I had met you, dear. I owed you no duty.’ + +‘You have loved several men.’ + +‘The feeling was for the most part quite superficial. There are many +different sorts and degrees of love.’ + +‘Good God, Maude! How many men inspired this feeling in you?’ + +‘The truth is, Frank, that a healthy young woman who has imagination and +a warm heart is attracted by every young man. I know that you wish me to +be frank and to return your confidence. But there is a certain kind of +young man with whom I always felt my interest deepen.’ + +‘Oh, you did discriminate?’ + +‘Now you are getting bitter. I will say no more.’ + +‘You have said too much. You must go on now.’ + +‘Well, I was only going to say that dark men always had a peculiar +fascination for me. I don’t know what it is, but the feeling is quite +overpowering.’ + +‘Is that why you married a man with flaxen hair?’ + +‘Well, I couldn’t expect to find every quality in my husband, could I? +It would not be reasonable. I assure you, dear, that taking your _tout +ensemble_, I like you far the best of all. You may not be the +handsomest, and you may not be the cleverest—one cannot expect one’s +absolute ideal,—but I love you far, far the best of any. I do hope I +haven’t hurt you by anything I have said.’ + +‘I am sorry I am not your ideal, Maude. It would be absurd to suppose +myself anybody’s ideal, but I hoped always that the eyes of love +transfigured an object and made it seem all right. My hair is past +praying for, but if you can point out anything that I can mend—’ + +‘No, no, I want you just as you are. If I hadn’t liked you best, I +shouldn’t have married you, Frank, should I?’ + +‘But those other experiences?’ + +‘Oh, we had better drop them. What good can it possibly do to discuss my +old experiences? It will only annoy you.’ + +‘Not at all. I honour you for your frankness in speaking out, although I +acknowledge that it is a little unexpected. Go on.’ + +‘I forget where I was.’ + +‘You had just remarked that before your marriage you had love-affairs +with a number of men.’ + +‘How horrid it sounds, doesn’t it?’ + +‘Well, it did strike me in that way.’ + +‘But that’s because you exaggerate what I said. I said that I had been +attracted by several men.’ + +‘And that dark men thrilled you.’ + +‘Exactly.’ + +‘I had hoped that I was the first.’ + +‘It was not fated to be so. I could easily tell you a lie, Frank, and +say that you were, but I should never forgive myself if I were to do such +a thing. You see I left school at seventeen, and I was twenty-three when +I became engaged to you. There are six years. Imagine all the dances, +picnics, parties, visitings of six years. I could not help meeting young +men continually. A good many were interested in me, and I—’ + +‘You were interested in them.’ + +‘It was natural, Frank.’ + +‘Oh yes, perfectly natural. And then I understand that the interest +deepened.’ + +‘Sometimes. When you met a young man who was interested several times +running, at a dance, then in the street, then in the garden, then a walk +home at night—of course your interest began to deepen.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘And then—’ + +‘Well, what was the next stage?’ + +‘Sure you’re not angry?’ + +‘No, no, not at all. Why don’t you keep the key in the spirit-stand?’ + +‘It might tempt Jemima. Shall I get it?’ + +‘No, no, go on! The next stage was?’ + +‘Well, when you have been deeply interested some time, then you begin to +have experiences.’ + +‘Ah!’ + +‘Don’t shout, Frank.’ + +‘Did I shout? Never mind. Go on! You had experiences.’ + +‘Why go into details?’ + +‘You must go on. You have said too much to stop. I insist upon hearing +the experiences.’ + +‘Not if you ask for them in that way, Frank.’ Maude had a fine dignity +of her own when she liked. + +‘Well, I don’t insist. I beg you to have confidence in me, and tell me +some of your experiences.’ + +She leaned back in her armchair with her eyes half closed, and a quiet +retrospective smile upon her face. + +‘Well, if you would really like to hear, Frank, as a proof of my +confidence and trust, I will tell you. You will remember that I had not +seen you at the time.’ + +‘I will make every excuse.’ + +‘I will tell you a single experience. It was my first of the sort, and +stands out very clearly in my memory. It all came through my being left +alone with a gentleman who was visiting my mother.’ + +‘Yes!’ + +‘Well, we were alone in the room, you understand.’ + +‘Yes, yes, go on!’ + +‘And he paid me many little compliments: kept saying how pretty I was, +and that he had never seen a sweeter girl, and so on. You know what +gentlemen would say?’ + +‘And you?’ + +‘Oh, I hardly answered him, but of course I was young and inexperienced, +and I could not help being flattered and pleased at his words. I may +have shown him what I felt, for he suddenly—’ + +‘Kissed you!’ + +‘Exactly. He kissed me. Don’t walk up and down the room, dear. It +fidgets me.’ + +‘All right. Go on. Don’t stop. After this outrage what happened next?’ + +‘You really want to know?’ + +‘I must know. What did you do?’ + +‘I am so sorry that I ever began, for I can see that it is exciting you. +Light your pipe, dear, and let us talk of something else. It will only +make you cross if I tell you the truth.’ + +‘I won’t be cross. Go on. What did you do?’ + +‘Well, Frank, since you insist—I kissed him back.’ + +‘You—you kissed him back!’ + +‘You’ll have Jemima up if you go on like that.’ + +‘You kissed him back!’ + +‘Yes, dear; it may be wrong, but I did.’ + +‘Good God! why did you do that?’ + +‘Well, I liked him.’ + +‘A dark man?’ + +‘Yes, he was dark.’ + +‘O Maude! Maude! Well, don’t stop. What then?’ + +‘Then he kissed me several times.’ + +‘Of course he would, if you kissed him. What else could you expect? And +then?’ + +‘O Frank, I can’t.’ + +‘Go on. I am ready for anything!’ + +‘Well, do sit down, and don’t run about the room. I am only agitating +you.’ + +‘There, I am sitting. You can see that I am not agitated. For Heaven’s +sake, go on!’ + +‘He asked me if I would sit upon his knee.’ + +‘Yek!’ + +Maude began to laugh. + +‘Why, Frank, you are croaking like a frog.’ + +‘I am glad you think it a laughing matter. Go on! Go on! You yielded +to his very moderate and natural request. You sat upon his knee.’ + +‘Well, Frank, I did.’ + +‘Good heavens!’ + +‘Don’t be so excitable, dear. It was long before I ever saw you.’ + +‘You mean to sit there and tell me in cold blood that you sat upon this +ruffian’s knee!’ + +‘What else could I do?’ + +‘What could you do? You could have screamed, you could have rung the +bell, you could have struck him—you could have risen in the dignity of +your insulted womanhood and walked out of the room.’ + +‘It was not so easy for me to walk out of the room.’ + +‘He held you?’ + +‘Yes, he held me.’ + +‘Oh, if I had been there!’ + +‘And there was another reason.’ + +‘What was that?’ + +‘Well, I wasn’t very good at walking at that time. You see, I was only +three years old.’ + +Frank sat for a few minutes absorbing it. + +‘You little wretch!’ he said at last. + +‘Oh you dear old goose! I feel so much better.’ + +‘You horror!’ + +‘I had to get level with you over my forty predecessors. You old +Bluebeard! But I did harrow you a little—didn’t I?’ + +‘Harrow me! I’m raw all over. It’s a nightmare. O Maude, how could you +have the heart?’ + +‘Oh, it was lovely—beautiful!’ + +‘It was dreadful.’ + +‘And how jealous you were! Oh, I _am_ so glad!’ + +‘I don’t think,’ said Frank, as he put his arms round her, ‘that I ever +quite realised before—’ + +And just then Jemima came in with the tray. + + + + +CONCERNING MRS. BEETON + + +FRANK CROSSE had only been married some months when he first had occasion +to suspect that his wife had some secret sorrow. There was a sadness and +depression about her at times, for which he was unable to account. One +Saturday afternoon he happened to come home earlier than he was expected, +and entering her bedroom suddenly, he found her seated in the +basket-chair in the window, with a large book upon her knees. Her face, +as she looked up at him with a mixed expression of joy and of confusion, +was stained by recent tears. She put the book hastily down upon the +dressing-stand. + +‘Maude, you’ve been crying.’ + +‘No, Frank, no!’ + +‘O Maude, you fibber! Remove those tears instantly.’ He knelt down +beside her and helped. ‘Better now?’ + +‘Yes, dearest, I am quite happy.’ + +‘Tears all gone?’ + +‘Quite gone.’ + +‘Well, then, explain!’ + +‘I didn’t mean to tell you, Frank!’ She gave the prettiest, most +provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. ‘I wanted +to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you. +But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am +not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing all the same.’ + +Frank took the bulky book off the table. It was Mrs. Beeton’s _Book of +Household Management_. The open page was headed, ‘General Observations +on the Common Hog,’ and underneath was a single large tear-drop. It had +fallen upon a woodcut of the Common Hog, in spite of which Frank solemnly +kissed it, and turned Maude’s trouble into laughter. + +‘Now you are all right again. I do hate to see you crying, though you +never look more pretty. But tell me, dear, what was your ambition?’ + +‘To know as much as any woman in England about housekeeping. To know as +much as Mrs. Beeton. I wanted to master every page of it, from the first +to the last.’ + +‘There are 1641 of them,’ said Frank, turning them over. + +‘I know. I felt that I should be quite old before I had finished. But +the last part, you see, is all about wills, and bequests, and homeopathy, +and things of that kind. We could do it later. It is the early part +that I want to learn now—but it _is_ so hard.’ + +‘But why do you wish to do it, Maude?’ + +‘Because I want you to be as happy as Mr. Beeton.’ + +‘I’ll bet I am.’ + +‘No, no, you can’t be, Frank. It says somewhere here that the happiness +and comfort of the husband depend upon the housekeeping of the wife. +Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world. +Therefore, Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable +man. But why should Mr. Beeton be happier and more comfortable than my +Frank? From the hour I read that I determined that he shouldn’t be—and +he won’t be.’ + +‘And he isn’t.’ + +‘Oh, you think so. But then you know nothing about it. You think it +right because I do it. But if you were visiting Mrs. Beeton, you would +soon see the difference.’ + +‘What an awkward trick you have of always sitting in a window,’ said +Frank, after an interval. ‘I’ll swear that the wise Mrs. Beeton never +advocates that—with half a dozen other windows within point-blank range.’ + +‘Well, then, you shouldn’t do it.’ + +‘Well, then, you shouldn’t be so nice.’ + +‘You really still think that I am nice?’ + +‘Fishing!’ + +‘After all these months?’ + +‘Nicer and nicer every day.’ + +‘Not a bit tired?’ + +‘You blessing! When I am tired of you, I shall be tired of life.’ + +‘How wonderful it all seems!’ + +‘Does it not?’ + +‘To think of that first day at the tennis-party. “I hope you are not a +very good player, Mr. Crosse!”—“No, Miss Selby, but I shall be happy to +make one in a set.” That’s how we began. And now!’ + +‘Yes, it is wonderful.’ + +‘And at dinner afterwards. “Do you like Irving’s acting?”—“Yes, I think +that he is a great genius.” How formal and precise we were! And now I +sit curling your hair in a bedroom window.’ + +‘It _does_ seem funny. But I suppose, if you come to think of it, +something of the same kind must have happened to one or two people +before.’ + +‘But never quite like us.’ + +‘Oh no, never quite like us. But with a kind of family resemblance, you +know. Married people do usually end by knowing each other a little +better than on the first day they met.’ + +‘What _did_ you think of me, Frank?’ + +‘I’ve told you often.’ + +‘Well, tell me again.’ + +‘What’s the use when you know?’ + +‘But I like to hear.’ + +‘Well, it’s just spoiling you.’ + +‘I love to be spoiled.’ + +‘Well, then, I thought to myself—If I can only have that woman for my +own, I believe I will do something in life yet. And I also thought—If I +don’t get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man +again.’ + +‘Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?’ + +‘Yes, the very first day.’ + +‘And then?’ + +‘And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and +stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and +ambitions, and interests. I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have +happened to me if you had refused me.’ + +She laughed aloud with delight. + +‘How sweet it is to hear you say so! And the wonderful thing is that you +have never seemed disappointed. I always expected that some day after +marriage—not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so—you +would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised, +and you would say, “Why, I used to think that she was pretty! I used to +think that she was sweet! How could I be so infatuated over a little, +insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting—” O Frank, the +neighbours will see you?’ + +‘Well, then, you mustn’t provoke me.’ + +‘What _will_ Mrs. Potter think?’ + +‘You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.’ + +‘Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.’ + +‘Well, then, tell me what you thought.’ + +‘I thought you were a very good tennis-player.’ + +‘Anything else?’ + +‘And you talked nicely.’ + +‘Did I? I never felt such a stick in my life. I was as nervous as a +cat.’ + +‘That was so delightful. I do hate people who are very cool and assured. +I saw that you were disturbed, and I even thought—’ + +‘Yes?’ + +‘Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.’ + +‘And you liked me?’ + +‘I was very interested in you.’ + +‘Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over. You, with +your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at +your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor +prospects, nor—’ + +‘Be quiet, sir! Yes, you shall! Now?’ + +‘By Jove, there _is_ old Mrs. Potter at the window! We’ve done it this +time. Let us get back to serious conversation again.’ + +‘How did we leave it?’ + +‘It was that hog, I believe. And then Mr. Beeton. But where does the +hog come in? Why should you weep over him? And what are the Lady’s +Observations on the Common Hog?’ + +‘Read them for yourself.’ + +Frank read out aloud: ‘“The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genus +_sus scrofa_, and the species _pachydermata_, or thick-skinned. Its +generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven +feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and +twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage is altogether +wanting.”—But what on earth has all this to do with housekeeping?’ + +‘That’s what _I_ want to know. It is so disheartening to have to +remember such things. What does it matter if the hog _has_ forty-two +toes. And yet, if Mrs. Beeton knew it, one feels that one ought to know +it also. If once I began to skip, there would be no end to it. But it +really is such a splendid book in other ways. It doesn’t matter what you +want, you will find it here. Take the index anywhere. Cream. If you +want cream, it’s all there. Croup. If you want—I mean, if you don’t +want croup, it will teach you how not to get it. Crumpets—all about +them. Crullers—I’m sure you don’t know what a cruller is, Frank.’ + +‘No, I don’t.’ + +‘Neither do I. But I could look it up and learn. Here it is—paragraph +2847. It is a sort of pancake, you see. That’s how you learn things.’ + +Frank Crosse took the book and dropped it. It fell with a sulky thud +upon the floor. + +‘Nothing that it can teach you, dear, can ever make up to me if it makes +you cry, and bothers you.—You bloated, pedantic thing!’ he cried, in +sudden fury, aiming a kick at the squat volume. ‘It is to you I owe all +those sad, tired looks which I have seen upon my wife’s face. I know my +enemy now. You pompous, fussy old humbug, I’ll kick the red cover off +you!’ + +But Maude snatched it up, and gathered it to her bosom. ‘No, no, Frank, +I don’t know what I should do without it. You have no idea what a wise +old book it is. Now, sit there on the footstool at my feet, and I will +read to you.’ + +‘Do, dear; it’s delightful.’ + +‘Sit quiet, then, and be good. Now listen to this pearl of wisdom: “As +with the commander of an army, so it is with the mistress of a house. +Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment, and, just in +proportion as she performs her duties thoroughly, so will her domestics +follow in her path.”’ + +‘From which it follows,’ said her husband, ‘that Jemima must be a perfect +paragon.’ + +‘On the contrary, it explains all Jemima’s shortcomings. Listen to this: +“Early rising is one of the most essential qualities. When a mistress is +an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be orderly and +well managed.”’ + +‘Well, you are down at nine—what more do you want?’ + +‘At nine! I am sure that Mrs. Beeton was always up at six.’ + +‘I have my doubts about Mrs. B. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. +I should not be very much surprised to learn that she had breakfast in +bed every morning.’ + +‘O Frank! You have no reverence for anything.’ + +‘Let us have some more wisdom.’ + +‘“Frugality and Economy are home virtues without which no household can +prosper. Dr. Johnson says, ‘Frugality may be termed—’” + +‘Oh, bother Dr. Johnson! Who cares for a man’s opinion. Now, if it had +been Mrs. Johnson—!’ + +‘Johnson kept house for himself for years—and a queer job he made of it.’ + +‘So I should think.’ Maude tossed her pretty curls. ‘Mrs. Beeton is all +right, but I will not be lectured by Dr. Johnson. Where was I? Oh +yes—“‘We must always remember that to manage a little well, is a great +merit in housekeeping.”’ + +‘Hurrah! Down with the second vegetable! No pudding on fish days. +_Vive la bière de Pilsen_!’ + +‘What a noisy boy you are!’ + +‘This book excites me. Anything more?’ + +“Friendships should not be hastily formed, nor the heart given at once to +every newcomer—”’ + +‘Well, I should hope not! Don’t let me catch you at it! You don’t mind +my cigarette? Has Mrs. Beeton a paragraph about smoking in bedrooms?’ + +‘Such an enormity never occurred to her as a remote possibility. If she +had known you, dear, she would have had to write an appendix to her book +to meet all the new problems which you would suggest. Shall I go on?’ + +‘Please do!’ + +‘She next treats conversation. “In conversation, trifling occurrences +such as small disappointments, petty annoyances, and other everyday +incidents, should never be mentioned to friends. If the mistress be a +wife, never let a word in connection with her husband’s failings pass her +lips—”’ + +‘By Jove, this book has more wisdom to the square inch than any work of +man,’ cried Frank, in enthusiasm. + +‘I thought that would please you. “Good temper should be cultivated by +every mistress, as upon it the welfare of the household may be said to +turn.”’ + +‘Excellent!’ + +‘“In starting a household, it is always best in the long-run to get the +very best articles of their kind.”’ + +‘That is why I got you, Maude.’ + +‘Thank you, sir. We have a dissertation then upon dress and fashion, +another upon engaging domestics, another about daily duties, another +about visiting, another about fresh air and exercise—’ + +‘The most essential of any,’ cried Frank, jumping up, and pulling his +wife by the arms out of her low wicker-chair. ‘There is just time for +nine holes at golf before it is dark, if you wilt come exactly as you +are. But listen to this, young lady. If ever again I see you fretting +or troubling yourself about your household affairs—’ + +‘No, no, Frank, I won’t!’ + +‘Well, if you do, Mrs. Beeton goes into the kitchen-fire. Now remember?’ + +‘You are sure you don’t envy Mr. Beeton?’ + +‘I don’t envy a man upon earth.’ + +‘Then why should I try to be Mrs. Beeton?’ + +‘Why indeed?’ + +‘O Frank, what a load off my mind! Those sixteen hundred pages have just +lain upon it for months. Dear old boy! come on!’ + +And they clattered downstairs for their golf-clubs. + + + + +MR. SAMUEL PEPYS + + +THERE were few things which Maude liked so much as a long winter evening +when Frank and she dined together, and then sat beside the fire and made +good cheer. It would be an exaggeration to say that she preferred it to +a dance, but next to that supreme joy, and higher even than the theatre +in her scale of pleasures, were those serene and intimate evenings when +they talked at their will, and were silent at their will, within their +home brightened by those little jokes and endearments and allusions which +make up that inner domestic masonry which is close-tiled for ever to the +outsider. Five or six evenings a week, she with her sewing and Frank +with his book, settled down to such enjoyment as men go to the ends of +the earth to seek, while it awaits them, if they will but atune their +souls to sympathy, beside their own hearthstones. Now and again their +sweet calm would be broken by a ring at the bell, when some friend of +Frank’s would come round to pay them an evening visit. At the sound +Maude would say ‘bother,’ and Frank something shorter and stronger, but, +as the intruder appeared, they would both break into, ‘Well, really now +it _was_ good of you to drop in upon us in this homely way.’ Without +such hypocrisy, the world would be a hard place to live in. + +I may have mentioned somewhere that Frank had a catholic taste in +literature. Upon a shelf in their bedroom—a relic of his bachelor +days—there stood a small line of his intimate books, the books which +filled all the chinks of his life when no new books were forthcoming. +They were all volumes which he had read in his youth, and many times +since, until they had become the very tie-beams of his mind. His tastes +were healthy and obvious without being fine. Macaulay’s _Essays_, +Holmes’ _Autocrat_, Gibbons’ _History_, Jefferies’ _Story of my Heart_, +Carlyle’s Life, Pepys’ _Diary_, and Borrow’s _Lavengro_ were among his +inner circle of literary friends. The sturdy East Anglian, half +prize-fighter, half missionary, was a particular favourite of his, and so +was the garrulous Secretary of the Navy. One day it struck him that it +would be a pleasant thing to induce his wife to share his enthusiasms, +and he suggested that the evenings should be spent in reading selections +from these old friends of his. Maude was delighted. If he had proposed +to read the rig-vedas in the original Sanskrit, Maude would have listened +with a smiling face. It is in such trifles that a woman’s love is more +than a man’s. + +That night Frank came downstairs with a thick well-thumbed volume in his +hand. + +‘This is Mr. Pepys,’ said he solemnly. + +‘What a funny name!’ cried Maude. ‘It makes me think of indigestion. +Why? Oh yes, pepsine, of course.’ + +‘We shall take a dose of him every night after dinner to complete the +resemblance. But seriously, dear, I think that now that we have taken up +a course of reading, we should try to approach it in a grave spirit, and +endeavour to realise—Oh, I say, don’t!’ + +‘I _am_ so sorry, dear! I do hope I didn’t hurt, you!’ + +‘You did—considerably.’ + +‘It all came from my having the needle in my hand at the time—and you +looked so solemn—and—well, I couldn’t help it.’ + +‘Little wretch—!’ + +‘No, dear; Jemima may come in any moment with the coffee. Now, do sit +down and read about Mr. Pepys to me. And first of all, would you mind +explaining all about the gentleman, from the beginning, and taking +nothing for granted, just as if I had never heard of him before.’ + +‘I don’t believe—’ + +‘Never mind, sir! Be a good boy and do exactly what you are told. Now +begin!’ + +‘Well, Maude, Mr. Pepys was born—’ + +‘What was his first name?’ + +‘Samuel.’ + +‘Oh dear, I’m sure I should not have liked him.’ + +‘Well, it’s too late to change that. He was born—I could see by looking, +but it really doesn’t matter, does it? He was born somewhere in sixteen +hundred and something or other, and I forget what his father was.’ + +‘I must try to remember what you tell me.’ + +‘Well, it all amounts to this, that he got on very well in the world, +that he became at last a high official of the navy in the time of Charles +the Second, and that he died in fairly good circumstances, and left his +library, which was a fine one, to one of the universities, I can’t +remember which.’ + +‘There is an accuracy about your information, Frank—’ + +‘I know, dear, but it really does not matter. All this has nothing to do +with the main question.’ + +‘Go on, then!’ + +‘Well, this library was left as a kind of dust-catcher, as such libraries +are, until one day, more than a hundred years after the old boy’s death, +some enterprising person seems to have examined his books, and he found a +number of volumes of writing which were all in cipher, so that no one +could make head or tail of them.’ + +‘Dear me, how very interesting!’ + +‘Yes, it naturally excited curiosity. Why should a man write volumes of +cipher? Imagine the labour of it! So some one set to work to solve the +cipher. This was about the year 1820. After three years they +succeeded.’ + +‘How in the world did they do it?’ + +‘Well, they say that human ingenuity never yet invented a cipher which +human ingenuity could not also solve. Anyhow, they did succeed. And +when they had done so, and copied it all out clean, they found they had +got hold of such a book as was never heard of before in the whole history +of literature.’ + +Maude laid her sewing on her lap, and looked across with her lips parted +and her eyebrows raised. + +‘They found that it was an inner Diary of the life of this man, with all +his impressions, and all his doings, and all his thoughts—not his +ought-to-be thoughts, but his real, real thoughts, just as he thought +then at the back of his soul. You see this man, and you know him very +much better than his own wife knew him. It is not only that he tells of +his daily doings, and gives us such an intimate picture of life in those +days, as could by no other means have been conveyed, but it is as a piece +of psychology that the thing is so valuable. Remember the dignity of the +man, a high government official, an orator, a writer, a patron of +learning, and here you have the other side, the little thoughts, the mean +ideas which may lurk under a bewigged head, and behind a solemn +countenance. Not that he is worse than any of us. Not a bit. But he is +frank. And that is why the book is really a consoling one, for every +sinner who reads it can say to himself, “Well, if this man who did so +well, and was so esteemed, felt like this, it is no very great wonder +that I do.”’ + +Maude looked at the fat brown book with curiosity. ‘Is it really all +there?’ she asked. + +‘No, dear, it will never all be published. A good deal of it is, I +believe, quite impossible. And when he came to the impossible places, he +doubled and trebled his cipher, so as to make sure that it should never +be made out. But all that is usually published is here.’ Frank turned +over the leaves, which were marked here and there with pencilings. + +‘Why are you smiling, Frank?’ + +‘Only at his way of referring to his wife.’ + +‘Oh, he was married?’ + +‘Yes, to a very charming girl. She must have been a sweet creature. He +married her at fifteen on account of her beauty. He had a keen eye for +beauty had old Pepys.’ + +‘Were they happy?’ + +‘Oh yes, fairly so. She was only twenty-nine when she died!’ + +‘Poor girl!’ + +‘She was happy in her life—though he _did_ blacken her eye once.’ + +‘Not really?’ + +‘Yes, he did. And kicked the housemaid.’ + +‘Oh, the brute!’ + +‘But on the whole he was a good husband. He had a few very good points +about him.’ + +‘But how does he allude to his wife?’ + +‘He has a trick of saying, “my wife, poor wretch!”’ + +‘Impertinent! Frank, you said to-night that other men think what this +odious Mr. Pepys says. Yes, you did! Don’t deny it! Does that mean +that you always think of me as “poor wretch”?’ + +‘We have come along a little since then. But how these passages take you +back to the homely life of those days!’ + +‘Do read some.’ + +‘Well, listen to this, “And then to bed without prayers, to-morrow being +washing-day.” Fancy such a detail coming down to us through two +centuries.’ + +‘Why no prayers?’ + +‘I don’t know. I suppose they had to get up early on washing-days, and +so they wanted to go to sleep soon.’ + +‘I’m afraid, dear, you do the same without as good an excuse. Read +another!’ + +‘He goes to dine with some one—his uncle, I think. He says, “An +excellent dinner, but the venison pasty was palpable beef, which was not +handsome.”’ + +‘How beautiful! Mrs. Hunt Mortimer’s sole last week was palpable plaice. +Mr. Pepys is right. It was not handsome.’ + +‘Here’s another grand entry: “Talked with my wife of the poorness and +meanness of all that the people about us do, compared with what we do.” +I dare say he was right, for they did things very well. When he dined +out, he says that his host gave him “the meanest dinner of beef, shoulder +and umbles of venison, and a few pigeons, and all in the meanest manner +that ever I did see, to the basest degree.” + +‘What are umbles, dear?’ + +‘I have no idea.’ + +‘Well, whatever they are, it sounds to me a very good dinner. People +must have lived very well in those days.’ + +‘They habitually over-ate and over-drank themselves. But Pepys gives us +the menu of one of his own entertainments. I’ve marked it somewhere. +Yes, here it is. “Fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton +boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of +roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a +most rare pie!), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all +things mighty noble and to my great content.”’ + +‘Good gracious! I told you that I associated him with indigestion.’ + +‘He did them pretty well that time.’ + +‘Who cooked all this?’ + +‘The wife helped in those days.’ + +‘No wonder she died at twenty-nine. Poor dear! What a splendid +kitchen-range they must have had! I never understood before why they had +such enormous grates in the old days. Naturally, if you have six +pigeons, and a lamprey, and a lobster, and a side of lamb, and a leg of +mutton, and all these other things cooking at the same time, you would +need a huge fire.’ + +‘The wonderful thing about Pepys,’ said Frank, looking thoughtfully over +the pages, ‘is that he is capable of noting down the mean little impulses +of human nature, which most men would be so ashamed of, that they would +hasten to put them out of their mind. His occasional shabbiness in money +matters, his jealousies, his envies, all his petty faults, which are +despicable on account of their pettiness. Fancy any man writing this. +He is describing how he visited a friend and was reading a book from his +library. “A very good book,” says he, “especially one letter of advice +to a courtier, most true and good, which made me once resolve to tear out +the two leaves that it was writ in, but I forbore it.” Imagine recording +such a vile thought.’ + +‘But what you have never explained to me yet, dear, or if you did, I +didn’t understand—you don’t mind my being a little stupid, do you?—is, +what object Mr. Pepys had in putting down all this in such a form that no +one could read it.’ + +‘Well, you must bear in mind, dear, that he could read it himself. +Besides he was a fellow with a singularly methodical side to his mind. +He was, for example, continually adding up how much money he had, or +cataloguing and indexing his library, and so on. He liked to have +everything shipshape. And so with his life, it pleased him to have an +exact record which he could turn to. And yet, after all, I don’t know +that that is a sufficient explanation.’ + +‘No, indeed, it is not. My experience of man—’ + +‘_Your_ experience, indeed!’ + +‘Yes, sir, my experience of men—how rude you are, Frank!—tells me that +they have funny little tricks and vanities which take the queerest +shapes.’ + +‘Indeed! Have I any?’ + +‘You—you are compounded of them. Not vanity—no, I don’t mean that. But +pride—you are as proud as Lucifer, and much too proud to show it. That +is the most subtle form of pride. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what I +mean. But in this man’s case, it took the form of wishing to make a +sensation after his death. He could not publish such a thing when he +lived, could he?’ + +‘Rather not.’ + +‘Well, then, he had to do it after his death. He had to write it in +cipher, or else some one would have found him out during his lifetime. +But, very likely, he left a key to the cipher, so that every one might +read it when he was gone, but the key and his directions were in some way +lost.’ + +‘Well, it is very probable.’ + +The fire had died down, so Maude shipped off her chair, and sat on the +black fur rug, with her back against Frank’s knees. ‘Now, dear, read +away!’ said she. + +But the lamp shone down upon her dainty head, and it gleamed upon her +white neck, and upon the fluffy, capricious, untidy, adorable, little +curlets, which broke out along the edges of the gathered strands of her +chestnut hair. And so, after the fashion of men, his thoughts flew away +from Mr. Pepys and the seventeenth century, and all that is lofty and +instructive, and could fix upon nothing except those dear little +wandering tendrils, and the white column on which they twined. Alas, +that so small a thing can bring the human mind from its empyrean flights! +Alas, that vague emotions can drag down the sovereign intellect! Alas, +that even for an hour, a man should prefer the material to the spiritual! + +But the man who doesn’t misses a good deal. + + + + +A VISIT TO MR. SAMUEL PEPYS + + +THERE are several unjustifiable extravagances which every normal man +commits. There are also several unjustifiable economies. Among others, +there is that absurd eagerness to save the striking of a second match, +which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language. +And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the +minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence, +when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be +stylists in our telegrams. + +A week after the conversation about Mr. Pepys, when some progress had +been made with the reading of the _Diary_, Maude received the following +wire from Frank— + + ‘MRS. CROSSE. Woking.—Pepys buttered toast suède gloves four + Monument wait late.’ + +As a sixpennyworth it was a success, but as a message it seemed to leave +something to be desired. Maude puzzled over it, and tried every possible +combination of the words. The nearest approach to sense was when it was +divided in this way—Pepys—buttered toast—suède gloves—four—Monument, wait +late. + +She wrote it out in this form, and took it section by section. ‘Pepys,’ +that was unintelligible. ‘Buttered toast,’ no sense in that. ‘Suède +gloves,’ yes, she had told Frank that when she came to town, she would +buy some suède gloves at a certain shop in the City, where she could get +for three and threepence a pair which would cost her three and ninepence +in Woking. Maude was so conscientiously economical, that she was always +prepared to spend two shillings in railway fares to reach a spot where a +sixpence was to be saved, and to lavish her nerve and energy freely in +the venture. Here, then, in the suède gloves, was a central point of +light. And then her heart bounded with joy, as she realised that the +last part could only mean that she was to meet Frank at the Monument at +four, and that she was to wait for him if he were late. + +So, now, returning to the opening of the message, with the light which +shone from the ending, she realised that buttered toast might refer to a +queer little City hostel, remarkable for that luxury, where Frank had +already taken her twice to tea. And so leaving Mr. Pepys to explain +himself later, Maude gave hurried orders to Jemima and the cook, and +dashed upstairs to put on her new fawn-coloured walking-dress—a garment +which filled her with an extraordinary mixture of delight and remorse, +for it was very smart, cost seven guineas, and had not yet been paid for. + +The rendezvous was evidently a sudden thought upon the part of Frank, for +he had left very little time for her to reach the trysting-place. +However, she was fortunate in catching a train to Waterloo, and another +thence to the City, and so reached the Monument at five minutes to four. +The hour was just striking when Frank, with his well-brushed top-hat and +immaculate business frock-coat, came rushing from the direction of King +William Street. Maude held out her hand and he shook it, and then they +both laughed at the formality. + +‘I am so glad you were able to come, dearest. How you do brighten up the +old City!’ + +‘Do I? I felt quite lonely until you came. Nothing but droves of +men—and all staring.’ + +‘It’s your dress.’ + +‘Oh, thank you, sir!’ + +‘Entirely that pretty brown—’ + +‘Brown! Fawn colour.’ + +‘Well, that’s brown. Anyhow, it looks charming. And so do you—by Jove +you do, Maude! Come this way!’ + +‘Where are we going?’ + +‘By underground. Here we are.—Two second singles, Mark Lane, please!—No, +that’s for the west-end trains. Down here! Next train, the man says.’ + +They were in the mephitic cellar, with the two long wooden platforms +where the subterranean trains land or load their freights. A strangling +gas tickled their throats and set them coughing. It was all dank and +dark and gloomy. But little youth and love care for that! They were +bubbling over with the happiness of this abnormal meeting. Both talked +together in their delight, and Maude patted Frank’s sleeve with every +remark. They could even illuminate all that was around them, by the +beauty and brightness of their own love. It went the length of open +praise for their abominable surroundings. + +‘Isn’t it grand and solemn?’ said Maude. ‘Look at the black shadows.’ + +‘When they come to excavate all this some thousands of years hence, they +will think it was constructed by a race of giants,’ Frank answered. + +‘The modern works for the benefit of the community are really far greater +than those which sprang from the caprice of kings. The London and +North-Western Railway is an infinitely grander thing than the pyramids. +Look at the two headlights in the dark!’ + +Two sullen crimson discs glowed in the black arch of the tunnel. With a +menacing and sinister speed, they grew and grew until roaring they sprang +out of the darkness, and the long, dingy train, with a whining of brakes, +drew up at the platform. + +‘Here’s one nearly empty,’ said Frank, with his hand on the handle. + +‘Don’t you think—’ said Maude. + +‘Yes, I do,’ cried Frank. + +And they got into one which was quite empty. For the underground railway +is blessed as regards privacy above all other lines, and where could a +loving couple be more happy, who have been torn apart by cruel fate for +seven long hours or so? It was with a groan that Frank remarked that +they had reached Mark Lane. + +‘Bother!’ said Maude, and wondered if there were any shop near where she +could buy hairpins. As every lady knows, or will know, there is a very +intimate connection between hairpins and a loving husband. + +‘Now, Frank, about your telegram.’ + +‘All right, dear. Come along where I lead you, and you will understand +all about it.’ + +They passed out of Mark Lane Station and down a steep and narrow street +to the right. At the bottom lay an old smoke-stained church with a +square tower, and a small open churchyard beside it. + +‘That’s the church of Saint Olave,’ said Frank. ‘We are going into it.’ + +He pushed open a folding oaken door, and they found themselves inside it. +Rows of modern seats filled the body of it, but the walls and windows +gave an impression of great antiquity. The stained glass—especially that +which surmounted the altar—contained those rich satisfying purples and +deep deep crimsons which only go with age. It was a bright and yet a +mellow light, falling in patches of vivid colour upon the brown woodwork +and the grey floors. Here and there upon the walls were marble +inscriptions in the Latin tongue, with pompous allegorical figures with +trumpets, for our ancestors blew them in stone as well as in epitaphs +over their tombs. They loved to die, as they had lived, with dignity and +with affectation. White statues glimmered in the shadows of the corners. +As Frank and his wife passed down the side-aisle, their steps clanged +through the empty and silent church. + +‘Here he is!’ said Frank, and faced to the wall. + +He was looking up at the modern representation of a gentleman in a full +and curly wig. It was a well-rounded and comely face, with shrewd eyes +and a sensitive mouth. The face of a man of affairs, and a good fellow, +with just that saving touch of sensuality about it which makes an +expression human and lovable. Underneath was printed— + + SAMUEL PEPYS + + Erected by public subscription + + 1883. + +‘Oh, isn’t he nice?’ said Maude. + +‘He’s not a bad-looking chap, is he?’ + +‘I don’t believe that man ever could have struck his wife or kicked the +maid.’ + +‘That’s calling him a liar.’ + +‘Oh dear, I forgot that he said so himself. Then I suppose he must have +done it. What a pity it seems.’ + +‘Cheer up! We must say what the old heathen lady said when they read the +gospels to her.’ + +‘What did she say?’ + +‘She said, “Well, it was a long time ago, and we’ll hope that it wasn’t +true!”’ + +‘O Frank, how can you tell such stories in a church. Do you really +suppose that Mr. Pepys is in that wall?’ + +‘I presume that the monument marks the grave.’ + +‘There’s a little bit of plaster loose. Do you think I might take it?’ + +‘It isn’t quite the thing.’ + +‘But it can’t matter, and it isn’t wrong, and we are quite alone.’ She +picked off the little flake of plaster, and her heart sprang into her +mouth as she did so, for there came an indignant snort from her very +elbow, and there was a queer little smoke-dried, black-dressed person who +seemed to have risen, like the Eastern genii or a modern genius, in a +single instant. A pair of black list slippers explained the silence of +his approach. + +‘Put that back, young lady,’ said he severely. + +Poor Maude held out her guilty relic on the palm of her hand. ‘I am so +sorry,’ said she. ‘I am afraid I cannot put it back.’ + +‘We’ll ’ave the ’ole church picked to pieces at this rate,’ said the +clerk. ‘You shouldn’t ’ave done it, and it was very wrong.’ He snorted +and shook his head. + +‘It’s of no consequence,’ said Frank. ‘The plaster was hanging, and must +have fallen in any case. Don’t make a fuss about a trifle.’ + +The clerk looked at the young gentleman and saw defiance in one of his +eyes and half a crown in the other. + +‘Well, well!’ he grumbled. ‘It shows as the young lady takes an +interest, and that’s more than most. Why, sir, if you’ll believe me, +there’s not one in a hundred that comes to this church that ever ’eard of +Pepys. “Pepys!” says they. “’Oo’s Pepys?” “The Diarist,” says I. +“Diarist!” says they, “wot’s a Diarist?” I could sit down sometimes an’ +cry. But maybe, miss, you thought as you were picking that plaster off +’is grave?’ + +‘Yes, I thought so.’ + +The clerk chuckled. + +‘Well, it ain’t so. I’ll tell you where ’e really lies, if you’ll +promise you won’t pick another chunk off that. Well, then, it’s +there—beside the communion. I saw ’im lyin’ there with these very eyes, +and ’is wife in the coffin beneath ’im.’ + +‘You saw him?’ + +‘Yes, sir, I saw ’im, an’ that’s more than any livin’ man could say, for +there were only four of us, and the other three are as dead as Pepys by +now.’ + +‘Oh do tell us about it!’ cried Maude. + +‘Well, it was like this, miss. We ’ad to examine to see ’ow much room +there was down there, and so we came upon them.’ + +‘And what did you see?’ + +‘Well, miss, ’is coffin lay above, and ’is wife’s below, as might be +expected, seeing that she died thirty years or so before ’im. The +coffins was very much broken, an’ we could see ’im as clear us I can see +you. When we first looked in I saw ’im lying quite plain—a short thick +figure of a man—with ’is ’ands across ’is chest. And then, just as we +looked at ’im, ’e crumbled in, as you might say, across ’is breast bone, +an’ just quietly settled down into a ’uddle of dust. It’s a way they ’as +when the fresh air strikes ’em. An’ she the same, an’ ‘is dust just fell +through the chinks o’ the wood and mixed itself with ’ers.’ + +‘O Frank!’ Maude’s ready tears sprang to her eyes. She put her hand +upon her husband’s and was surprised to find how cold it was. Women +never realise that the male sex is the more sensitive. He had not said, +‘O Maude!’ because he could not. + +‘They used some powder like pepper for embalmin’ in those days,’ said the +clerk. ‘And the vicar—it was in old Bellamy’s time—’e took a sniff into +the grave, an’ ’e sneezed an’ sneezed till we thought we should ’ave to +fetch a doctor. ’Ave you seen Mrs. Pepys’ tomb?’ + +‘No, we have only just come.’ + +‘That’s it on the left of the common.’ + +‘With the woman leaning forward?’ + +‘Yes, sir. That’s Mrs. Pepys herself.’ + +It was an arch laughing face, the face of a quite young woman; the +sculptor had depicted her as leaning forward in an animated and natural +attitude. Below was engraved— + + Obiit + + Xo Novembris + + Ætatis 29 + + Conjugii 15 + + Anno Domini 1669. + +‘Poor dear!’ whispered Maude. + +‘It was hard that she should die just as her husband was becoming famous +and successful,’ said Frank. ‘She who had washed his shirts, and made up +the coal fires, when they lived in a garret together. What a pity that +she could not have a good time!’ + +‘Ah well, if she loved him, dear, she had a good time in the garret.’ + +Maude was leaning forward with her face raised to look at the bust of the +dead woman, which also leaned forward as if to look down upon her. A +pair of marble skulls flanked the lady’s grave. A red glow from the +evening sun struck through a side-window and bathed the whole group in +its ruddy light. As Frank, standing back in the shadow, ran his eyes +from the face of the dead young wife to that of his own sweet, girlish +bride, with those sinister skulls between, there came over him like a +wave, a realisation of the horror which lies in things, the grim close of +the passing pageant, the black gloom, which swallows up the never-ending +stream of life. Will the spirit wear better than the body; and if not, +what infernal practical joke is this to which we are subjected! + +‘It will. It must,’ he said. + +‘_Why_, Frank—Frank dear, what is the matter? You are quite pale.’ + +‘Come out into the air, Maude. I have had enough of this stuffy old +church.’ + +‘Stuffy!’ said the clerk. ‘Well, we’ve ’ad the Lord Mayor ’ere at least +once a year, an’ ’e never found it stuffy. A cleaner, fresher church you +won’t find in the city of London. It’s ’ad its day, I’ll allow. There +was a time—and I can remember it—when folk used to spend their money +where they made it, and the plate would be full of paper and gold, where +now we find it ’ard enough to get coppers. That was fifty year ago, when +I was a young clerk. You might not think it, but I’ve seen a Lord Mayor, +a past Lord Mayor, and a Lord Mayor elect of the city of London, all +sitting on one bench in this very church. And _you_ call it stuffy!’ + +Frank soothed the wounded feelings of the old clerk, and explained that +by stuffy he meant interesting. He also shook hands with him in a +peculiar way as he held his palm upturned in the small of his back. Then +Maude and he retraced their steps up the narrow street which is called +Seething Lane. + +‘Poor old boy! What was it, then?’ asked Maude, looking up with her +sympathetic eyes. It is at such moments that a man realises what the +companionship of women means. The clouds melted before the sun. + +‘What an ass I was! I began to think of all sorts of horrible things. +Never mind, Maude! We are out for a holiday. Hang the future! Let us +live in the present.’ + +‘I always do,’ said Maude, and she spoke for her sex. + +‘Well, what now? Buttered toast or suède gloves?’ + +‘Business first!’ said Maude primly, and so proceeded to save her +sixpence on the gloves. As she was tempted, however (‘such a civil +obliging shopman, Frank!’), to buy four yards of so-called Astrakhan +trimming, a frill of torchon lace, six dear little festooned +handkerchiefs, and four pairs of open-work stockings—none of which were +contemplated when she entered the shop—her sixpenny saving was not as +brilliant a piece of finance as she imagined. + +And then they finished their excursion in the dark, wainscotted, +low-ceilinged coffee-room of an old-fashioned inn, once the mother of +many coaches, and now barren and deserted, but with a strange cunning in +the matter of buttered toast which had come down from more prosperous +days. It was a new waiter who served them, and he imagined them to be +lovers and scented an intrigue; but when they called for a second plate +of toast and a jug of boiling water, he recognised the healthy appetite +of the married. And then, instead of going home like a good little +couple, Maude suddenly got it into her head that it would cheer away the +last traces of Frank’s gloom if they went to see ‘Charley’s Aunt’ at the +Globe. So they loitered and shopped for a couple of hours, and then +squeezed into the back of the pit; and wedged in among honest, hearty +folk who were not ashamed to show their emotions, they laughed until they +were tired. And so home, as their friend Pepys would have said, after +such a day as comes into the memory, shining golden among the drab, when +old folk look back, and think of the dear dead past. May you and I, +reader, if ever we also come to sit in our final armchairs in the chimney +corners, have many such to which our minds may turn, sweet and innocent +and fragrant, to cheer us in those darksome hours to come. + + + + +TROUBLE + + +ONE evening Frank came home with a clouded face. His wife said nothing, +but after dinner she sat on a footstool beside his chair and waited. She +knew that if it were for the best, he would tell her everything, and she +had confidence enough in his judgment to acquiesce in his silence if he +thought it best to be silent. As a matter of fact, it was just this +telling her which made his trouble hard to bear. And yet he thought it +wiser to tell. + +‘I’ve had something to worry me, dear.’ + +‘Poor old boy, I know you have. What was it?’ + +‘Why should I bother you with it?’ + +‘A nice wife I should be, if I shared all your joys and none of your +sorrows! Anyhow, I had rather share sorrow with you than joy within any +one else.’ She snuggled her head up against his knee. ‘Tell me about +it, Frank.’ + +‘You remember my telling you just before our marriage that I was surety +for a man?’ + +‘I remember perfectly well.’ + +‘His name was Farintosh. He was an insurance-agent, and I became surety +for him in order to save his situation.’ + +‘Yes, dear, it was so noble of you.’ + +‘Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he +turned on his heel and hurried out of the station. I read guilt in his +eyes. I am sure that his accounts are wrong again.’ + +‘Oh, what an ungrateful wretch!’ + +‘Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time. But I was a fool not to +draw out of that. It was all very well when I was a bachelor. But here +I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to +meet it with. I don’t know what is to become of us, Maude.’ + +‘How much is it, dearest?’ + +‘I don’t know. That is the worst of it.’ + +‘But surely your own office would not be so hard upon you?’ + +‘It is not my own office. It is another office—the Hotspur.’ + +‘Oh dear! What have you done about it, Frank?’ + +‘I called at their office in my lunch-hour, and I requested them to send +down an accountant to examine Farintosh’s books. He will be here +to-morrow morning, and I have leave of absence for the day.’ + +And so they were to spend an evening and a night without knowing whether +they were merely crippled or absolutely ruined. Frank’s nature was +really a very proud one, and the thought of failing in his engagements +wounded his self-respect most deeply. His nerves winced and quivered +before it. But her sweet, strong soul rose high above all fear, and bore +him up with her, into the serenity of love and trust and confidence. The +really precious things, the things of the spirit, were permanent, and +could not be lost. What matter if they lived in an eight-roomed villa, +or in a tent out on the heath? What matter if they had two servants, or +if she worked for him herself? All this was the merest trifle, the +outside of life. But the intimate things, their love, their trust, their +pleasures of mind and soul, these could not be taken away from them while +they had life to enjoy them. And so she soothed Frank with sweet +caresses and gentle words, until this night of gloom had turned to the +most beautiful of all his life, and he had learned to bless the +misfortune which had taught him to know the serene courage and the +wholehearted devotion which can only be felt, like the scent of a +fragrant leaf, when Fate gives us a crush between its iron fingers. + +Shortly after breakfast Mr. Wingfield, the accountant from London, +arrived—a tall, gentlemanly man, with a formal manner. + +‘I’m sorry about this business, Mr. Crosse,’ said he. + +Frank made a grimace. ‘It can’t be helped.’ + +‘We will hope that the amount is not very serious. We have warned Mr. +Farintosh that his books will be inspected to-day. When you are ready we +shall go round.’ + +The agent lived in a side-street not far off. A brass plate, outside a +small brick house, marked it out from the line of other small brick +houses. A sad-faced woman opened the door, and Farintosh himself, +haggard and white, was seated among his ledgers in the little front room. +A glance at the man’s helpless face turned all Frank’s resentment to +pity. + +They sat down at the table, the accountant in the centre, Farintosh on +the right, and Frank on the left. There was no talk save an occasional +abrupt question and answer. For two hours the swish and rustle of the +great blue pages of the ledgers were the chief sound, with the scratching +of Mr. Wingfield’s pen as he totalled up long columns of figures. +Frank’s heart turned to water as he saw the huge sums which had passed +through this man’s hands. How much had remained there? His whole future +depended upon the answer to that question. How prosaic and undramatic +are the moments in which a modern career is made or marred! In this +obscure battlefield, the squire no longer receives his accolade in public +for his work well done, nor do we see the butcher’s cleaver as it hacks +off the knightly spurs, but failure and success come strangely and +stealthily, determined by trifles, and devoid of dignity. Here was the +crisis of Frank’s young life, in this mean front room, amongst the +almanacs and the account-books. + +‘Can I rely upon these figures?’ asked Wingfield at last. + +‘You can, sir.’ + +‘In that case I congratulate you, Mr. Crosse. I can only find a +deficiency of fifty pounds.’ + +Only enough to swallow the whole of their little savings, which they had +carefully invested! However, it was good news, and Frank shook the +proffered hand of the accountant. + +‘I will stay for another hour to check these figures,’ said Wingfield. +‘But there is no need to detain you.’ + +‘You will come round and lunch with us?’ + +‘With pleasure.’ + +‘_Au revoir_, then.’ Frank ran all the way home, and burst in upon his +wife. ‘It is not so very bad, dear—only fifty pounds.’ They danced +about in their joy like two children. + +But Wingfield came to his lunch within a solemn face. + +‘I am very sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but the matter is more +serious than I thought. We have entered some sums as unpaid which he has +really received, but the receipts for which he has held back. They +amount to another hundred pounds.’ + +Maude felt inclined to cry as she glanced at Frank, and saw his resolute +effort to look unconcerned. + +‘Then it’s a hundred and fifty.’ + +‘Certainly not less. I have marked the items down upon this paper for +your inspection.’ + +Frank glanced his practised eyes over the results of the accountant’s +morning’s work. + +‘You have credited him within a hundred and twenty pounds in the bank, I +see.’ + +‘Yes, his bank-book shows a balance of that amount.’ + +‘When was it made out?’ + +‘Last Saturday.’ + +‘He may have drawn it since them.’ + +‘It is certainly possible.’ + +‘We might go round after lunch and make sure.’ + +‘Very good.’ + +‘And in any case, as it is the Company’s money, don’t you think we had +better take it out of his hands?’ + +‘Yes, I think you are right.’ + +It was a miserable meal, and they were all glad when it was finished. +Maude drew Frank into the other room before he started. + +‘I could not let you go without _that_, dearest. Keep a brave heart, my +own laddie, for I know so well that we shall come through it all right.’ + +So Frank set out with a higher courage, and they both returned to the +agent’s house. His white face turned a shade whiter when he understood +their errand. + +‘Is this necessary, Mr. Wingfield?’ he pleaded. ‘Won’t you take my word +for this money?’ + +‘I am sorry to have to say it, sir, but we have trusted in your word too +often.’ + +‘But the money is there, I swear it.’ + +‘It is the Company’s money, and we must have it.’ + +‘It will ruin my credit locally if I draw out my whole account under +compulsion.’ + +‘Then let him keep ten pounds in,’ said Frank. Farintosh agreed with an +ill grace to the compromise, and they all started off for the bank. When +they reached the door the agent turned upon them with an appealing face. + +‘Don’t come in with me, gentlemen. I could never hold up my head again.’ + +‘It is for Mr. Crosse to decide.’ + +‘I don’t want to be unreasonable, Farintosh. Go in alone and draw the +money.’ + +They could never understand why he begged for that extra five minutes. +Perhaps it was that he had some mad hope of persuading the bank manager +to allow him to overdraw to that amount. If so, the refusal was a curt +one, for he reappeared with a ghastly face and walked up to Frank. + +‘I may as well confess to you, Mr. Crosse, I have nothing in the bank.’ + +Frank whistled and turned upon his heel. He could not by reproaches add +to the wretched man’s humiliation. After all, he had himself to blame. +He had incurred a risk with his eyes open, and he was not the man to +whine now that the thing had gone against him. Wingfield walked home +with him and murmured some words of sympathy. At the gate the accountant +left him and went on to the station. + +So their liability had risen from fifty to two hundred and seventy +pounds. Even Maude was for an instant daunted by the sum. The sale of +their furniture would hardly meet it. It was the blackest hour of their +lives, and yet, always a strange sweet undercurrent of joy was running +through it, for it is only sorrow, fairly shared and bravely borne, which +can weld two human souls together. + +Dinner was over when there came a ring at the bell. + +‘If you please, sir, Mr. Farintosh would like to see you,’ said the maid +Jemima. + +‘Show him in here.’ + +‘Don’t you think, Frank, that I had better go?’ + +‘No, I don’t. I never asked him to come. If he comes, let him face us +both. I have not made much of my dealings with him alone.’ + +He was shown in, downcast, shifty-eyed, and ill at ease. He laid his hat +upon the floor, and crept humbly towards the chair which Frank pushed +towards him. + +‘Well, Farintosh?’ + +‘Well, Mr. Crosse, I have come round to tell you, and you too, missus, +the sorrow I feel that I have brought this trouble upon you. I hoped all +would have gone right after that last time, but I’ve had to pay up back +debts, and that’s what has put me wrong. I’ve never had what one may +call a fair chance. But I’m really sorry, sir, that you who have, as one +might say, befriended me, should have to suffer for it in this way.’ + +‘Words won’t mend it, Farintosh. I only blame you for not coming to me +when first things began to go wrong.’ + +‘Well, sir, I was always hoping that I could turn them right again, so as +you wouldn’t need to be troubled at all. And so it went from bad to +worse until we find ourselves here. But what I wanted to ask you, Mr. +Crosse, was what you meant to do about it?’ + +Frank writhed before this home question. + +‘Well, I suppose I am responsible,’ said he. + +‘You mean to pay the money, sir?’ + +‘Well, somebody must pay it.’ + +‘Do you remember the wording of the bond, Mr. Crosse?’ + +‘Not the exact wording.’ + +‘Well, sir, I should advise you to get your lawyer to read it. In my +opinion, sir, you are not liable at all.’ + +‘Not liable!’ Frank felt as if his heart had turned suddenly from a +round-shot to an air-balloon. ‘Why not liable?’ + +‘You were a little slapdashy, if one might say so, in matters of +business, sir, and perhaps you read that bond less carefully than I did. +There was a clause in it by which the Company agreed frequently and +periodically to audit my accounts, so as to prevent your liability being +at any time a very high one.’ + +‘So there was!’ cried Frank. ‘Well, didn’t they?’ + +‘No, sir, they didn’t.’ + +‘By Jove—Maude, do you hear that?—if that is right, they brought their +own misfortunes upon themselves. Do you mean to say they never audited +you?’ + +‘Yes, sir, they did so four times.’ + +‘In how long?’ + +‘In fourteen months.’ + +The air-balloon was gone and the cannon-ball back in its place once more. + +‘That will be held to exonerate them.’ + +‘No, sir, I think not. “Frequently and periodically” does not mean four +times in fourteen months.’ + +‘A jury might take it so.’ + +‘Consider, sir, that the object was that your liability should be +limited. Thousands of pounds were passing through my hands in that time, +and therefore these four audits were, as one might say, insufficient for +the object of the bond.’ + +‘So I think,’ cried Maude, with conviction. ‘Frank, we’ll have the best +advice upon the subject to-morrow.’ + +‘And meanwhile, Mr. Crosse,’ said Farintosh, rising from his chair, ‘I am +your witness, whether the Company prosecutes me or not. And I hope that +this will be some humble atonement for the trouble that I have brought +you.’ + +And so a first rift of light began to shine in the dark place. But it +was not broadened by the letter which he found waiting upon his +breakfast-table— + + _Re_ Farintosh’s Accounts. + + HOTSPUR INSURANCE OFFICE. + + DEAR SIR,—On arriving in London I came here at once, and checked + Farintosh’s accounts from the books of the head office. I am sorry + to say that I find a further discrepancy of seventy pounds. I am + able, however, to assure you that we have now touched bottom. The + total amount is three hundred and forty pounds, and a cheque for that + sum at your early convenience would oblige us, as we are anxious to + bring so unpleasant a business to a conclusion.—Yours truly, + + JAMES WINGFIELD. + +To which Frank and Maude in collaboration— + + DEAR SIR,—I note your claim for £340 on account of the affairs of + your agent Farintosh. I am advised, however, that there have been + certain irregularities in the matter, about which I must make some + investigation before paying the claim.—Yours truly, + + FRANK CROSSE. + +To which the Hotspur Insurance Office— + + SIR,—Had your letter been a plea for more time to fulfil your + engagement, we should have been content to wait; but since you appear + disposed to dispute your liability, we have no alternative but to + take immediate steps to enforce payment.—Yours truly, + + JOHN WATERS, _Secretary_. + +To which Frank and Maude— + + SIR,—My solicitor, A. C. R. Owen, of 14 Shirley Lane, E.C., will be + happy to accept service. + +Which is the correct legal English for ‘You may go to the devil!’ + +But this is an anticipation. In the meantime, having received the +original letter and answered it, Frank went up to town as usual, while +Maude played the more difficult part of waiting quietly at home. In his +lunch-hour Frank went to see his friend and solicitor, who in turn +obtained leave to see the bond, and came back with a grave face. + +‘You have a case,’ said he, ‘but by no means a certainty. It all depends +upon how the judge might read the document. I think that it would +strengthen our case very materially if we had counsel’s opinion. I’ll +copy the bond and show it to Manners, and have his opinion before you go +back to-night.’ + +So Frank went round again after office-hours, and found Owen waiting in +very low spirits, for their relations were closer than those of mere +solicitor and client. + +‘Very sorry,’ said he. + +‘Opinion against us.’ + +‘Dead against us.’ + +Frank tried to look as if he didn’t mind. + +‘Let me see it.’ + +It was a long blue document with the heading, ‘The Hotspur Insurance +Company, Limited, _v._ Frank Crosse.’ + +‘I have perused the case submitted to me, and the papers accompanying the +same,’ said the learned counsel, ‘and in my opinion the Hotspur Insurance +Company, Limited, are entitled to recover from Mr. Crosse under his +guarantee, the sum of £340, being monies received by Mr. Farintosh, and +not paid over by him to the said Company.’ There was a great deal more, +but it was anticlimax. + +‘Well, what shall we do?’ asked Frank helplessly. The British law makes +one feel so. + +‘Well, I should stand out, if I were you. There is certainly a chance.’ + +‘Look here, old chap,’ said Frank, ‘I may as well be honest with you. If +this thing goes against me, I am stony broke. I don’t know where your +costs are coming from.’ + +‘Don’t bother about that,’ said Owen kindly. ‘After all, Manners is not +infallible. Let us have Holland, and see what he can make of it.’ + +So twenty-four hours later Frank found Owen radiant with another opinion +in his hand. + +‘Dead for us this time. Look here!’ + +And he read out, ‘I have carefully considered the case submitted to me +for my opinion, and the documents sent therewith. In my opinion the +Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited, are not entitled to recover against +Mr. Crosse the sum claimed by them or any part thereof, as there has been +a breach on their part of an essential condition of the guarantee.’ ‘He +reads “frequently and periodically” as we do,’ continued Owen, glancing +over the long document, ‘and he is very clear as to our case.’ + +‘Suppose we have another, and try the best of three,’ said Frank. + +‘It’s too expensive a game. No, Holland is a sound man, and his opinion +would weigh with any judge. I think we have enough to go on with.’ + +‘And you think it is safe?’ + +‘No, no, nothing is ever safe in the law. But we can make a fight of it +now.’ + +And now Frank was to learn what it meant to be entangled in an intricate +clumsy old machine, incredibly cumbrous and at the same time incredibly +powerful, jolting along with its absurd forms and abominable English +towards an end which might or might not be just, but was most certainly +ruinously expensive. The game began by a direct letter from the Queen, +of all people, an honour which Frank had never aspired to before, and +certainly never did again. + +Victoria, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, remarked abruptly to Frank Crosse +of Woking, in the county of Surrey, ‘We command you that within eight +days of the service of this writ on you, inclusive of the day of such +service, you cause an appearance to be entered for you in an action at +the suit of the Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited.’ If he didn’t do so, +Her Majesty remarked that several very unpleasant things might occur, and +Hardinge Stanley, Earl of Halsbury, corroborated Her Majesty. Maude was +frightened to death when she saw the document, and felt as if unawares +they must have butted up against the British Constitution, but Owen +explained that it was only a little legal firework, which meant that +there might be some trouble later. + +‘Well, at any rate,’ said Frank, ‘it means that in eight days it will all +be over.’ + +Owen laughed heartily at the remark. + +‘It means,’ said he, ‘that in eight days we must promise that at some +future date we will begin to make preparations for something to happen in +the future. That is about the meaning of it. All you can do now is to +be perfectly philosophic, and leave the rest to me.’ + +But how is a man with a capital of fifty pounds going to be philosophic +when he is fighting an opponent whose assets, as a certain hoarding near +Clapham Junction told him every morning, exceeded three millions of +pounds. He treated it lightly to Maude, and she to him, but each +suffered horribly, and each was well aware of the other’s real feelings. +Sometimes there was a lull, and they could almost believe that the whole +thing was over. And then the old machine gave a creak, and the rusty +cog-wheels took one more turn, and they both felt the horrid thing which +held them. + +First of all, they had to enter appearances, which meant that they would +dispute the action. Then the other side had to make an affidavit +verifying their claim. Then a Master had to pronounce whether the action +should be treated offhand, or whether he would listen to what they had to +say about it. He decided to listen to what was to be said. Then each +side claimed to see the other’s documents, ‘discovery’ they called it, as +if the documents were concealed, and they had to hunt for them stealthily +with lanterns. Then each made remarks about the other’s documents, and +claimed to see the remarks so made. Then the lawyers of the Company made +a statement of their claim, and when she read it Maude burst into tears, +and said that it was all over, and they must make the best of it, and she +should never forgive herself for that new dress in the spring. And then +Frank’s lawyer drew up a defence, and when Frank heard it, he said, ‘Why, +what a silly business it seems! They have not got a leg to stand upon.’ +And so, after all these flourishes and prancings, the two parties did +actually begin to show signs of coming to a hearing after all, and a day +was fixed for the trial. By a coincidence it was Frank’s birthday. +‘There’s a good omen!’ cried Maude. + +The first herald of the approaching conflict was a seedy person, who +thrust a paper into Frank’s hand as he emerged from The Lindens in the +morning. It was another letter from Her Majesty, in which sub pœnâ (Her +Majesty has not a gracious way of putting things in these documents), Mr. +Frank Crosse had ‘to attend at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, at +the sittings of the Queen’s Bench Division of our High Court of Justice, +to give evidence on behalf of the Hotspur Company.’ + +This seemed to Frank to be a most unexpected and fearsome stroke, but +Owen simply laughed. + +‘That is mere bluff,’ said he. ‘It makes me think that they are +weakening. They want to frighten you.’ + +‘They did,’ said Frank. + +‘Two can play at that game. We must keep a bold front.’ + +‘What do you mean to do?’ + +‘To subpœna all their crowd.’ + +‘Capital!’ cried Frank. So a clerk was sent across to the Hotspur office +with a whole bundle of subpœnas, and served them liberally out. And in +two days’ time was the day of battle. + + + + +A RESCUE + + +AS the day fixed for the hearing drew near, Ruin lived with them by day +and slept with them by night. Its dark shadow covered their lives, and +they moved in the gloom of its presence. If the trial went against them, +and Owen in his most hopeful moods did not disguise from them that it +might, they would have to pay the double costs as well as the original +claim. All that they possessed would not cover it. On the other hand, +if they won, this rich Company might carry the matter to a higher Appeal +Court, and so involve them in a fresh succession of anxieties and +expenses. Do what they would, there was always danger. Frank said +little, and he slept little also. + +One night, just before the trial, Wingfield, the accountant of the +Society, came down to Woking. He had managed the case all through for +the directors. His visit was a sort of ultimatum. + +‘We are still ready to pay our own law-costs,’ said he, ‘if you will +allow the original claim.’ + +‘I can’t do that,’ said Frank doggedly. + +‘The costs are piling up at a furious rate, and some one will have to pay +them.’ + +‘I hope that it will be you.’ + +‘Well, don’t say afterwards that I did not warn you. My dear Crosse, I +assure you that you are being misled, and that you have not really got a +leg to stand upon.’ + +‘That’s what the trial is about,’ said Frank. + +He kept a bold face to the enemy, but after Wingfield’s departure, Maude +saw that his confidence was greatly shaken. + +‘He seemed very sure of their case,’ said he. ‘He would not speak like +that if he did not know.’ + +But Maude took quite another view. + +‘If they know that they can recover their money in court, why should they +send Mr. Wingfield down in this way.’ + +‘He is such a good chap—he wants to save us expense.’ + +Maude was less trusting. + +‘He is doing the best for his own side,’ said she. ‘It is his duty, and +we can’t blame him. But if he thought it best to get behind his own +lawyers and come down here, then he must have some doubts about going +into court. Perhaps he would be willing to consider some compromise.’ + +But Frank only shook his head. + +‘We have drawn the cork, and we must drink the wine,’ said he. ‘We have +gone too far to stop. Any compromise which they would accept would be as +much out of our power to pay as the whole sum would be, and so we may +just as well see it through.’ But for once Maude did not take his +opinion as final, but lay awake all night and thought it over. She had +determined to begin acting upon her own account, and she was so eager to +try what she could do that she lay longing for the morning to break. +When she came down to breakfast, her plan of campaign was formed. + +‘I am coming up to town with you, Frank.’ + +‘Delighted to hear it, dear.’ When she had shopping to do, she +frequently went up with him, so it did not surprise him. What would have +surprised him was to know that she had despatched three telegrams, by +means of Jemima, before he was up. + + ‘To John Selby, 53 Fenchurch Street, E.C. Will call eleven o’clock. + Important business.— + + MAUDE.’ + + ‘To Lieutenant Selby, the Depôt, Canterbury. Please come up next + train, meet me Fenchurch Street, eleven thirty. Important.—MAUDE.’ + + ‘To Owen, 14 Shirley Lane, E.C. Will call twelve o’clock. + Important.—MRS. CROSSE.’ + +So she had opened her campaign. + +‘By the way, Frank,’ said she, as they travelled up together, ‘to-morrow +is your birthday.’ + +‘Yes, dear, it is,’ he answered lugubriously. + +‘Dear me! What shall I give my boy for a birthday present? Nothing you +particularly want?’ + +‘I have all I want,’ said he, looking at her. + +‘Oh, but I think I could find something. I must look round when I am in +town.’ + +She began her looking round by a visit to her father in Fenchurch Street. +It was something new for him to get telegrams from Maude upon business, +and he was very much surprised. + +‘Looking remarkably well, my dear. Your appearance is a certificate of +character to your husband. Well, and how is all at Woking? I hope the +second cook proved to be a success.’ + +But Maude was not there for small talk. ‘Dear dad,’ said she, ‘I want +you to stand by me, for I am in trouble. Now, my dear good dad, please +see things from my point of view, and don’t make objections, and do +exactly what I ask you.’ She threw her arms round his neck and gave him +a hearty squeeze. + +‘Now I call that exerting undue pressure,’ said he, extricating his white +head. ‘If this sort of thing is allowed in the city of London, there is +an end of all business.’ However, his eyes twinkled and looked as if he +liked it. ‘Now madame, what can I do for you?’ + +‘I’m going to be perfectly business-like,’ said she, and gave him another +squeeze before sitting down. ‘Look here, dad. You give me an income of +fifty pounds a year, don’t you?’ + +‘My dear girl, I can’t raise it. Jack’s expenses in the Hussars—’ + +‘I don’t want you to raise it.’ + +‘What do you want?’ + +‘I seem to remember, dad, that you told me that this fifty pounds was the +interest on a thousand pounds which was invested for me.’ + +‘So it is—five per cent. debentures.’ + +‘Well, dad, if I were content with an income of twenty-five pounds a year +instead of fifty pounds, then I could take five hundred pounds out of my +money, and nobody would be the worse.’ + +‘Except yourself.’ + +Maude laughed at that. + +‘I want the use of the money just for one day. I certainly won’t need it +all. I just want to feel that I have as much as that in case I need it. +Now, my dear old daddy, do please not ask any questions, but be very nice +and good, and tell me how I can get these five hundred pounds.’ + +‘And you won’t tell me why you want them?’ + +‘I had rather not—but I will if you insist.’ + +Old Selby looked into the brave, clear eyes of his daughter, and he did +not insist. + +‘Look here! You’ve got your own little banking account, have you not?’ + +‘Yes, dad.’ + +‘That’s right. Never mix it up with your husband’s.’ He scribbled a +cheque. ‘Pay that in! It is for five hundred pounds. I will sell half +your debentures and charge you with brokerage. I believe in strict +business between relatives. When you pay back the five hundred pounds, +your allowance will be fifty a year once more.’ + +Maude then and there endorsed the cheque and posted it to her bank. Then +with a final embrace to her father, she hastened out to further +victories. Jack Selby was smoking a cigarette upon the doorstep. + +‘Hullo, Maude! Calling up the reserves? What’s the matter? Jolly lucky +it wasn’t my day on duty. You girls think a soldier has nothing to do. +It was so once, but we are all scientific blokes now. No, thank you, I +won’t see the dad! He’d think I had come for money, and it would upset +him for the day.’ + +Maude took her brother in the cab with her, and told him the whole story +of Frank’s misfortune, with some account of her own intentions. Jack was +vastly interested. + +‘What did dad say about it?’ + +‘I didn’t tell him. I thought Frank would rather not.’ + +‘Quite right. He won’t mind me. He knows I’m a bit of a business man +myself. Only signed a paper once in my life, and quite a small paper +too, and I haven’t heard the last of it yet. The thing wasn’t much +bigger than a postcard, but the fuss those people made afterwards! I +suppose they’ve been worrying Frank.’ + +‘We have had no peace for months.’ + +‘Worry is bad for the young. But he should not mind. He should go on +fizzing like I did. Now we’ll put this thing through together, Maude. I +see your line, and I’ll ride it with you.’ + +They found Mr. Owen at home, and Maude did the talking. + +‘I am convinced, Mr. Owen, that they don’t want to go into court. Mr. +Wingfield coming down like that proves it. My husband is too proud to +bargain with them, but I have no scruples. Don’t you think that I might +go to Mr. Wingfield myself, and pay the three hundred and forty pounds, +and so have done with the worry for ever?’ + +‘Speaking as a lawyer,’ said Owen, ‘I think that it is very irregular. +Speaking as a man, I think no harm could come of it. But I should not +like you to offer the whole sum. Simply say that you are prepared for a +reasonable compromise, and ask them to suggest what is the lowest sum +which the office would accept to close the business.’ + +‘You leave it with me,’ said Jack, winking at the lawyer. ‘I am seeing +her through. I’ll keep her on the rails. I am Number 1, Class A, at +business. We’ll take ’em up one link in the curb if they try any games +with us! Come on, Maude, and get it over.’ + +He was an excellent companion for her, for his buoyancy turned the whole +thing into fun. She could not take it too seriously in his company. +They called at the Hotspur office and asked to see Mr. Wingfield. He was +engaged, but Mr. Waters, the secretary, a very fat, pompous man, came in +to them. + +‘I am very sorry,’ said he, ‘very sorry, indeed, Mrs. Crosse, but it is +too late for any compromise of the sort. We have our costs to consider, +and there is no alternative but for the case to go into court.’ + +Poor Maude nearly burst into tears. + +‘But suppose that we were to offer—’ + +‘To give you an hour to think it over,’ cried Jack. + +Mr. Waters shook, his head despondently. + +‘I do not think that we should alter our decision. However, Mr. +Wingfield will be here presently, and he will, of course, listen to any +representations which you may have to make. In the meantime you must +excuse me, as I have matters of importance to attend to.’ + +‘Why, Maude, you little Juggins,’ cried Jack, when the door was shut, +‘you were just going to offer to pay their costs. I only just headed you +off in time.’ + +‘Well, I was going to inquire about it.’ + +‘Great Scot, it’s lucky you’ve got a business man at your elbow. I +couldn’t stand that chap at any price. A bit too hairy in the fetlocks +for my taste. Couldn’t you see that he was only bluffing?’ + +‘How do you know, Jack?’ + +‘It was shining all over him. Do you suppose a man has bought as many +hairies as I have, and can’t tell when a dealer is bluffing? He was +piling it on so that when the next Christmas-tree comes along, he may +find a soft job waiting for him. I tell you you want a friendly native, +like me, when you get into this kind of country. Now ride this one on +the curb, and don’t let him have his head for a moment.’ + +Mr. Wingfield had entered, and his manner was very different to that of +the secretary. He had great sympathy with the Crosses, and no desire to +wash the Company’s dirty linen in public. He was, therefore, more +anxious than he dared to show to come to some arrangement. + +‘It is rather irregular for me to see you. I should refer you to our +solicitors,’ said he. + +‘Well, we saw you when you came to Woking,’ said Maude. ‘I believe that +we are much more likely to come to an arrangement if we talk it over +ourselves.’ + +‘I am sure I earnestly hope so,’ Wingfield answered. ‘I shall be +delighted to listen to anything which you may suggest. Do you, in the +first place, admit your liability?’ + +‘To some extent,’ said Maude, ‘if the Company will admit that they are in +the wrong also.’ + +‘Well, we may go so far as to say that we wish the books had been +inspected more often, and that we regret our misplaced confidence in our +agent. That should satisfy you, Mrs. Crosse. And now that you admit +_some_ liability, that is a great step in advance. We have no desire to +be unreasonable, but as long as no liability was admitted, we had no +course open to us but litigation. We now come to the crucial point, +which is, how much liability should fall upon you. My own idea is, that +each should pay their own costs, and that you should, in addition, pay +over to the Company—’ + +‘Forty pounds,’ said Jack firmly. + +Maude expected Mr. Wingfield to rise up and leave the room. As he did +not do so, nor show any signs of violence, she said, ‘Yes, forty pounds.’ + +He shook his head. + +‘Dear me, Mrs. Crosse, this is a very small sum.’ + +‘Forty pounds is our offer,’ said Jack. + +‘But on what is this offer based?’ + +‘We have worked it out,’ said Jack, ‘and we find that forty pounds is +right.’ + +Mr. Wingfield rose from his chair. + +‘Well,’ said he, ‘of course any offer is better than no offer. I cannot +say what view the directors may take of this proposal, but they will hold +a board meeting this afternoon, and I will lay it before them.’ + +‘And when shall we know?’ + +‘I could send you round a line by hand to your solicitor.’ + +‘No hurry about it! Quite at your own convenience!’ said Jack. When he +got outside, in the privacy of their hansom, he was convulsed with the +sense of his own achievements. + +‘Class A, Number 1, and mentioned at the Agricultural Hall,’ he cried, +hugging himself in his delight. His sister hugged him also, so he was a +much-embraced young man. ‘Am I not a man of business, Maude? You can’t +buy ’em—you must breed ’em. One shilling with the basket. I shook him +in the first round, and he never rallied after.’ + +‘You are a dear good boy. You did splendidly.’ + +‘That’s the way to handle ’em. He saw that I was a real fizzer and full +of blood. One business man can tell another at a glance.’ + +Maude laughed, for Jack, with his cavalry swagger and a white weal all +round his sunburned face to show where his chin-strap hung, looked the +most unbusiness-like of mortals. + +‘Why did you offer forty pounds?’ she asked. + +‘Well, you have to begin somewhere.’ + +‘But why forty?’ + +‘Because it is what we offer when we are buying the hairies—trooper’s +chargers, you know. It’s a great thing to have a fixed rule in business. +I never go higher than forty—rule one, section one, and no exceptions in +the margin.’ + +They lunched together at the Holborn, and Jack took Maude afterwards to +what he called ‘a real instructive show,’ which proved to be a horse-sale +at Tattersall’s. They then drove back to the lawyer’s, and there they +found a letter waiting addressed to Mrs. Crosse. Maude tore it open. + +‘Dear Mrs. Crosse,’ said this delightful note, ‘I am happy to be able to +inform you that the directors have decided to stop the legal proceedings, +and to accept your offer of forty pounds in full satisfaction of all +claims due against your husband.’ + +Maude, Jack, and the good Owen performed a triumphant _pas de trois_. + +‘You have done splendidly, Mrs. Crosse, splendidly!’ cried Owen. ‘I +never heard a better day’s work in my life. Now, if you will give me +your cheque and wait here, I will go over and settle everything.’ + +‘And please bring the bond back with you,’ said Maude. + + * * * * * + +So it was that Frank, coming down upon the morning of his birthday, +perceived a pretty silver cigarette-box laid in front of his plate. + +‘Is this for me, my darling?’ + +‘Yes, Frank, a wee present from your wife.’ + +‘How sweet of you! I never saw such a lovely case. Why, there’s +something inside it.’ + +‘Cigarettes, I suppose. + +‘No, it is a paper of some kind. “Hotspur Insurance Company.” Good +Lord, I never seem for one instant to be able to shake that infernal +thing off! How on earth did it get in there? What’s this?—“I hereby +guarantee to you—” What’s this? Maude, Maude, what have you been +doing?’ + +‘Dear old boy,’ she cried, as she put her arms round him. ‘Dear old boy! +Oh, I _do_ feel so happy!’ + + + + +THE BROWNING SOCIETY + + +IT all began by Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, the smart little up-to-date wife of +the solicitor, saying to Mrs. Beecher, the young bride of the banker, +that in a place like Woking it was very hard to get any mental friction, +or to escape from the same eternal grooves of thought and conversation. +The same idea, it seemed, had occurred to Mrs. Beecher, fortified by a +remark from the _Lady’s Journal_ that an internal intellectual life was +the surest method by which a woman could preserve her youth. She turned +up the article—for the conversation occurred in her drawing-room—and she +read extracts from it. ‘Shakespeare as a Cosmetic’ was the title. Maude +was very much struck, and before they separated they had formed +themselves into a Literary Society which should meet and discuss +classical authors every Wednesday afternoon at each other’s houses. That +one hour of concentrated thought and lofty impulse should give a dignity +and a tone to the whole dull provincial week. + +What should they read? It was well that they should decide it before +they separated, so as to start fair upon the next Wednesday. Maude +suggested Shakespeare, but Mrs. Hunt Mortimer thought that a good deal of +it was improper. + +‘Does it matter?’ said Mrs. Beecher. ‘We are all married.’ + +‘Still I don’t think it would be quite nice,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. +She belonged to the extreme right on matters of propriety. + +‘But surely Mr. Bowdler made Shakespeare quite respectable,’ Mrs. Beecher +argued. + +‘He did his work very carelessly. He left in much that might be +dispensed with, and he omitted a good deal which was quite innocent.’ + +‘How do you know?’ + +‘Because I once got two copies and read all the omissions.’ + +‘Why did you do that?’ asked Maude mischievously. + +‘Because I wanted to make sure that they _had_ been omitted,’ said Mrs. +Hunt Mortimer severely. + +Mrs. Beecher stooped and picked an invisible hairpin out of the rug. +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer continued. + +‘There is Byron, of course. But he is so very suggestive. There are +passages in his works—’ + +‘I could never see any harm in them,’ said Mrs. Beecher. + +‘That is because you did not know where to look,’ said Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer. ‘If you have a copy in the house, Mrs. Beecher, I will +undertake to make it abundantly clear to you that he is to be eschewed by +those who wish to keep their thoughts unsullied. Not? I fancy that even +quoting from memory I could convince you that it is better to avoid him.’ + +‘Pass Byron,’ said Mrs. Beecher, who was a very pretty little kittenish +person, with no apparent need of any cosmetics, literary or otherwise. +‘How about Shelley?’ + +‘Frank raves about Shelley,’ observed Maude. + +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer shook her head. + +‘His work has some dreadful tendencies. He was, I am informed, either a +theist or an atheist, I cannot for the moment recall which—I think that +we should make our little course as improving as possible.’ + +‘Tennyson,’ Maude suggested. + +‘I have been told that his meaning is too clear to entitle him to rank +among the great thinkers of our race. The lofty thought is necessarily +obscure. There is no merit in following a poem which is perfectly +intelligible. Which leads us to—’ + +‘Browning!’ cried the other ladies. + +‘Exactly. We might form a little Browning Society of our own.’ + +‘Charming! Charming!’ + +And so it was agreed. + +There was only one other point to be settled at this their inaugural +meeting, which was, to choose the other ladies who should be admitted +into their literary circle. There were to be no men. + +‘They do distract one so,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. + +The great thing was to admit no one save those earnest spirits who would +aspire to get the full benefit from their studies. Mrs. Fortescue could +not be thought of, she was much too talkative. And Mrs. Jones had such a +frivolous mind. Mrs. Charles could think and talk of nothing but her +servants. And Mrs. Patt-Beatson always wanted to lay down the law. +Perhaps on the whole it would be better to start the society quietly +among themselves, and then gradually to increase it. The first meeting +should be next Wednesday, at Mrs. Crosse’s house, and Mrs. Hunt Mortimer +would bring her complete two-volume edition with her. Mrs. Beecher +thought that one volume would be enough just at first, but Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer said that it was better to have a wide choice. Maude went home +and told Frank in the evening. He was pleased, but rather sceptical. + +‘You must begin with the simpler things first,’ said he. ‘I should +recommend _Hervé Riel_ and _Gold Hair_.’ + +But Maude put on the charming air of displeasure which became her so +well. + +‘We are serious students, sir,’ said she. ‘We want the very hardest poem +in the book. I assure you, Frank, that one of your little faults is that +you always underrate a woman’s intelligence. Mrs. Hunt Mortimer says +that though we may be less original than men, we are more assim— more +assmun—’ + +‘Assimulative.’ + +‘That’s what I say—assimulative. Now, you always talk as if—oh yes, you +do! No, you mustn’t! How absurd you are, Frank! Whenever I try to +speak seriously to you, you always do that and spoil everything. How +would you like to discuss Browning if at the end of every sentence +somebody came and kissed you? You wouldn’t mind! No, I dare say not. +But you would feel that you were not being taken seriously. Wait till +the next time _you_ are in earnest about anything—you’ll see!’ + + * * * * * + +The meeting was to be at three o’clock, and at ten minutes to the hour +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer arrived with two large brown volumes under her arm. +She had come early, she said, because there was to be a rehearsal of the +amateur theatricals at the Dixons’ at a quarter-past four. Mrs. Beecher +did not appear until five minutes after the hour. Her cook had +quarrelled with the housemaid, and given instantaneous notice, with five +people coming to dinner on Saturday. It had upset the lady very much, +and she explained that she would not have come if she had not promised. +It was so difficult to follow poetry when you were thinking about the +entrée all the time. + +‘Why the entrée?’ asked Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, looking up from the book +which she held open in front of her. + +‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Beecher, who had the art of saying the most simple +things as if they were profoundly confidential secrets,—‘My dear, my +parlourmaid is really an excellent cook, and I shall rely upon her if +Martha really goes. But she is limited, very limited, and entrées and +savouries are the two things in which I cannot entirely trust her. I +must, therefore, find some dish which is well within her capacity.’ + +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer prided herself upon her housekeeping, so the problem +interested her. Maude also began to feel the meeting less dull than she +had expected. + +‘Of course there are many things to be considered,’ said Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer, with the air of a Q.C. giving an opinion. ‘Oyster patties or +oyster vol-au-vents—’ + +‘Oysters are out of season,’ said Maude. + +‘I was about to say,’ Mrs. Hunt Mortimer continued, with admirable +presence of mind, ‘that these entrées of oysters are inadmissible because +they are out of season. Now curried prawns—’ + +‘My husband loathes them.’ + +‘Well, well! What do you say to sweetbreads en caisse? All you want are +chopped mushrooms, shalots, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, salt, breadcrumb, +bacon fat—’ + +‘No, no,’ cried Mrs. Beecher despairingly. ‘Anne would never remember +all that.’ + +‘Cutlets à la Constance,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘I am sure that they +are simple enough. Cutlets, butter, fowls’ livers, cocks’ combs, +mushrooms—’ + +‘My dear, my dear, remember that she is only a parlourmaid. It is +unreasonable.’ + +‘Ragout of fowl, chicken patties, croquettes of veal with a little +browning—’ + +‘We’ve got back to Browning after all,’ cried Maude. + +‘Dear me,’ said Mrs. Beecher, ‘it is all my fault, and I am so sorry. +Now, Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, do please read us a little of that delightful +poetry.’ + +‘You can always get small entrées sent down from the Stores,’ cried +Maude, as a happy thought. + +‘You dear, good girl, how sweet of you to think of it. Of course one +can. That is really an admirable idea. There now, we may consider the +entrée as being removed, so we proceed to—’ + +‘The _pièce de résistance_,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer solemnly, glancing +down the index of the first volume. ‘I confess that my acquaintance with +the poet has up to now been rather superficial. Our ambition must be to +so master him that he becomes from this time forward part and parcel of +ourselves. I fancy that the difficulties in understanding him have been +very much exaggerated, and that with goodwill and perseverance we shall +manage to overcome them.’ + +It was a relief to Mrs. Beecher and to Maude to realise that Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer knew no more about the matter than themselves. They both +ventured upon a less diffident air now that it was clear that it might be +done in safety. Maude frowned thoughtfully, and Mrs. Beecher cast up her +pretty brown eyes at the curtain-rod, as if she were running over in her +memory the whole long catalogue of the poet’s works. + +‘I will tell you what we should do,’ said she. ‘We must make a vow that +we shall never pass a line until we understand it. We will go over it +again and again until we grasp its meaning.’ + +‘What an excellent idea!’ cried Maude, with one of her little bursts of +enthusiasm. ‘Now that is really splendid, Mrs. Beecher.’ + +‘My friends always call me Nellie,’ said the little brunette. + +‘How nice of you to say so! I should love to call you so, if you don’t +mind. It is such a pretty name too. Only you must call me Maude.’ + +‘You look like a Maude,’ said Mrs. Beecher. ‘I always picture a Maude as +bright and pretty and blonde. Isn’t it strange how names associate +themselves with characters. Mary is always domestic, and Rose is a +flirt, and Elizabeth is dutiful, and Evelyn is dashing, and Alice is +colourless, and Helen is masterful—’ + +‘And Matilda is impatient,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, laughing. ‘Matilda +has reason to be, seated here with an index in front of her while you two +are exchanging compliments.’ + +‘Why, we were waiting for you to begin,’ said Mrs. Beecher reproachfully. +‘Do let us have something, for really the time is slipping away.’ + +‘It would be a pity to begin at the beginning, because that represents +his immature genius,’ remarked Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘I think that on this +the opening day of the Society, we should have the poet at his best.’ + +‘How are we to know which _is_ his best?’ Maude asked. + +‘I should be inclined to choose something with a title which suggests +profundity—“A Pretty Woman,” “Love in a Life,” “Any Wife to any +Husband”—’ + +‘Oh, what _did_ she say to him?’ cried Maude. + +‘Well, I was about to say that all these subjects rather suggested +frivolity.’ + +‘Besides, it really is a very absurd title,’ remarked Mrs. Beecher, who +was fond of generalising from her six months’ experience of matrimony. +‘_A_ husband to _a_ wife’ would be intelligible, but how can you know +what _any_ husband would say to _any_ wife? No one can really foretell +what a man will do. They really are such extraordinary creatures.’ + +But Mrs. Hunt Mortimer had been married for five years, and felt as +competent to lay down the law about husbands as about entrées. + +‘When you have had a larger experience of them, dear, you will find that +there is usually a reason, or at least a primitive instinct of some sort, +at the root of their actions. But, seriously, we must really concentrate +our attention upon the poet, for my other engagement will call me away at +four, which only leaves me ten minutes to reach Maybury.’ + +Mrs. Beecher and Maude settled down with anxious attention upon their +faces. + +‘Do please go on!’ they cried. + +‘Here is “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.”’ + +‘Now that interests me more than I can tell,’ cried Maude, with her eyes +shining with pleasure. ‘Do please read us everything there is about that +dear piper.’ + +‘Why so?’ asked her two companions. + +‘Well, the fact is,’ said Maude, ‘Frank—my husband, you know—came to a +fancy-dress at St. Albans as the Pied Piper. I had no idea that it came +from Browning.’ + +‘How did he dress for it?’ asked Mrs. Beecher. ‘We are invited to the +Aston’s dress ball, and I want something suitable for George.’ + +‘It was a most charming dress. Red and black all over, something like +Mephistopheles, you know, and a peaked hat with a bell at the top. Then +he had a flute, of course, and a thin wire from his waist with a stuffed +rat at the end of it.’ + +‘A rat! How horrid!’ + +‘Well, that was the story, you know. The rats all followed the Pied +Piper, and so this rat followed Frank. He put it in his pocket when he +danced, but once he forgot, and so it got stood upon, and the sawdust +came out all over the floor.’ + +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer was also invited to the dress ball, and her thoughts +flew away from the book in front of her. + +‘How did you go, Mrs. Crosse?’ she asked. + +‘I went as “Night.”’ + +‘What! you with your brown hair!’ + +‘Well, father said that I was not a very dark night. I was in black, you +know, just my ordinary black silk dinner-dress. Then I had a silver +half-moon over my head, and black veils round my hair, and stars all over +my bodice and skirt, with a long comet right across the front. Father +upset a cup of milk over me at supper, and said afterwards that it was +the milky way.’ + +‘It is simply maddening how men _will_ make jokes about the most +important subjects,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘But I have no doubt, +dear, that your dress was an exceedingly effective one. Now, for my own +part, I had some idea of going as the “Duchess of Devonshire.”’ + +‘Charming!’ cried Mrs. Beecher and Maude. + +‘It is not a very difficult costume, you know. I have some old Point +d’Alençon lace which has been in the family for a century. I make it the +starting-point of my costume. The gown need not be very elaborate—’ + +‘Silk?’ asked Mrs. Beecher. + +‘Well, I thought that perhaps a white-flowered brocade—’ + +‘Oh yes, with pearl trimming.’ + +‘No, no, dear, with my lace for trimming.’ + +‘Of course. You said so.’ + +‘And then a muslin fichu coming over here.’ + +‘How perfectly sweet!’ cried Maude. + +‘And the waist cut high, and ruffles at the sleeves. And, of course, a +picture hat—you know what I mean—with a curling ostrich feather.’ + +‘Powdered hair, of course?’ said Mrs. Beecher. + +‘Powdered in ringlets.’ + +‘It will suit you admirably—beautifully. You are tall enough to carry it +off, and you have the figure also. How I wish I was equally certain +about my own!’ + +‘What had you thought of, dear?’ + +‘Well, I had some idea about “Ophelia.” Do you think that it would do?’ + +‘Certainly. Had you worked it out at all?’ + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Beecher, relapsing into her pleasant +confidential manner. ‘I had some views, but, of course, I should be so +glad to have your opinion about it. I only saw _Hamlet_ once, and the +lady was dressed in white, with a gauzy light nun’s-veiling over it. I +thought that with white pongee silk as an under-dress, and then some sort +of delicate—’ + +‘Crepe de Chine,’ Maude suggested. + +‘But in Ophelia’s day such a thing had never been heard of,’ said Mrs. +Hunt Mortimer. ‘A net of silver thread—’ + +‘Exactly,’ cried Mrs. Beecher, ‘with some sort of jewelling upon it. +That was just what I had imagined. Of course it should be cut +classically and draped—my dressmaker is such a treasure—and I should have +a gold embroidery upon the white silk.’ + +‘Crewel work,’ said Maude. + +‘Or a plain cross-stitch pattern. Then a tiara of pearls on the head. +Shakespeare—’ + +At the name of the poet their three consciences pricked simultaneously. +They looked at each other and then at the clock with dismay. + +‘We must—we really _must_ go on with our reading,’ cried Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer. ‘How did we get talking about these dresses?’ + +‘It was my fault,’ said Mrs. Beecher, looking contrite. + +‘No, dear, it was mine,’ said Maude. ‘You remember it all came from my +saying that Frank had gone to the ball as the Pied Piper.’ + +‘I am going to read the very first poem that I open,’ said Mrs. Hunt +Mortimer remorselessly. ‘I am afraid that it is almost time that I +started, but we may still be able to skim over a few pages. Now then! +There! _Setebos_! What a funny name!’ + +‘What _does_ it mean?’ asked Maude. + +‘We shall find out, no doubt, as we proceed,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. +‘We shall take it line by line and draw the full meaning from it. The +first line is— + + ‘Will sprawl now that the heat of day is best—’ + +‘Who will?’ asked Mrs. Beecher. + +‘I don’t know. That’s what it says.’ + +‘The next line will explain, no doubt.’ + + ‘Flat on his—’ + +‘Dear me, I had no idea that Browning was like this!’ + +‘Do read it, dear.’ + +‘I couldn’t possibly think of doing so. With your permission we will +pass on to the next paragraph.’ + +‘But we vowed not to skip.’ + +‘But why read what cannot instruct or elevate us. Let us begin this next +stanza, and hope for something better. The first line is—I wonder if it +really can be as it is written.’ + +‘Do please read it!’ + + ‘Setebos and Setebos and Setebos.’ + +The three students looked sadly at each other. ‘This is worse than +anything I could have imagined,’ said the reader. + +‘We mast skip that line.’ + +‘But we are skipping everything.’ + +‘It’s a person’s name,’ said Mrs. Beecher. + +‘Or three persons.’ + +‘No, only one, I think.’ + +‘But why should he repeat it three times?’ + +‘For emphasis!’ + +‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs. Beecher, ‘it was Mr. Setebos, and Mrs. Setebos, and +a little Setebos.’ + +‘Now, if you are going to make fun, I won’t read. But I think we were +wrong to say that we would take it line by line. It would be easier +sentence by sentence.’ + +‘Quite so.’ + +‘Then we will include the next line, which finishes the sentence. It is, +“thinketh he dwelleth in the cold of the moon.”’ + +‘Then it _was_ only one Setebos!’ cried Maude. + +‘So it appears. It is easy to understand if one will only put it into +ordinary language. This person Setebos was under the impression that his +life was spent in the moonlight.’ + +‘But what nonsense it is!’ cried Mrs. Beecher. Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked +at her reproachfully. ‘It is very easy to call everything which we do +not understand “nonsense,”’ said she. ‘I have no doubt that Browning had +a profound meaning in this.’ + +‘What was it, then?’ + +Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked at the clock. + +‘I am very sorry to have to go,’ said she, ‘but really I have no choice +in the matter. Just as we were getting on so nicely—it is really most +vexatious. You’ll come to my house next Wednesday, Mrs. Crosse, won’t +you? And you also, Mrs. Beecher. Good-bye, and thanks for _such_ a +pleasant afternoon!’ + +But her skirts had hardly ceased to rustle in the passage before the +Browning Society had been dissolved by a two-thirds’ vote of the total +membership. + +‘What is the use?’ cried Mrs. Beecher. ‘Two lines have positively made +my head ache, and there are two volumes.’ + +‘We must change our poet.’ + +‘His verbosity!’ cried Mrs. Beecher. + +‘His Setebosity!’ cried Maude. + +‘And dear Mrs. Hunt Mortimer pretending to like him! Shall we propose +Tennyson next week?’ + +‘It would be far better.’ + +‘But Tennyson is quite simple, is he not?’ + +‘Perfectly.’ + +‘Then why should we meet to discuss him if there is nothing to discuss?’ + +‘You mean that we might as well each read him for herself.’ + +‘I think it would be easier.’ + +‘Why, of course it would.’ + +And so after one hour of precarious life, Mrs. Hunt Mortimer’s Mutual +Improvement Society for the elucidation of Browning came to an untimely +end. + + + + +AN INVESTMENT + + +‘I WANT your advice, Maude.’ + +She was looking very sweet and fresh in the morning sunlight. She wore a +flowered, French print blouse—little sprigs of roses on a white +background—and a lace frill round her pretty, white, smooth throat. The +buckle of her brown leather belt just gleamed over the edge of the +table-cloth. In front of her were a litter of correspondence, a white +cup of coffee, and two empty eggshells—for she was a perfectly healthy +young animal with an excellent appetite. + +‘Well, dear, what is it?’ + +‘I shall take the later train. Then I need not hurry, and can walk down +at my ease.’ + +‘How nice of you!’ + +‘I am not sure that Dinton will think so.’ + +‘Only one little hour of difference—what can it matter?’ + +‘They don’t run offices on those lines. An hour means a good deal in the +City of London.’ + +‘Oh, I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes +between us.’ + +‘I suppose that it separates a good many loving couples every morning.’ + +He had come across and an egg-cup had been upset. Then he had been +scolded, and they sat together laughing upon the sofa. When he had +finished admiring her little, shining, patent-leather, Louis shoes and +the two charming curves of open-work black stocking, she reminded him +that he had asked for her advice. + +‘Yes, dear, what was it?’ She knitted her brows and tried to look as her +father did when he considered a matter of business. But then her father +was not hampered by having a young man’s arm round his neck. It is so +hard to be business-like when any one is curling one’s hair round his +finger. + +‘I have some money to invest.’ + +‘O Frank, how clever of you!’ + +‘It is only fifty pounds.’ + +‘Never mind, dear, it is a beginning.’ + +‘That is what I feel. It is the foundation-stone of our fortunes. And +so I want Her Majesty to lay it—mustn’t wrinkle your brow though—that is +not allowed.’ + +‘But it is a great responsibility, Frank.’ + +‘Yes, we must not lose it.’ + +‘No, dear, we must not lose it. Suppose we invest it in one of those +modern fifty-guinea pianos. Our dear old Broadwood was an excellent +piano when I was a girl, but it is getting so squeaky in the upper notes. +Perhaps they would allow us something for it.’ + +He shook his head. + +‘I know that we want one very badly, dear. And such a musician as you +are should have the best instrument that money can buy. I promise you +that when we have a little to turn round on, you shall have a beauty. +But in the meantime we must not buy anything with this money—I mean +nothing for ourselves—we must invest it. We cannot tell what might +happen. I might fall ill. I might die.’ + +‘O Frank, how horrid you are this morning!’ + +‘Well, we have to be ready for anything. So I want to put this where we +can get it on an emergency, and where in the meantime it will bring us +some interest. Now what shall we buy?’ + +‘Papa always bought a house.’ + +‘But we have not enough.’ + +‘Not a little house?’ + +‘No, not the smallest.’ + +‘A mortgage, then?’ + +‘The sum is too small.’ + +‘Government stock, Frank—if you think it is safe.’ + +‘Oh, it is safe enough. But the interest is so low.’ + +‘How much should we get?’ + +‘Well, I suppose the fifty pounds would bring us in about thirty +shillings a year.’ + +‘Thirty shillings! O Frank!’ + +‘Rather less than more.’ + +‘Fancy a great rich nation like ours taking our fifty pounds and treating +us like that. How _mean_ of them! Don’t let them have it, Frank.’ + +‘No, I won’t.’ + +‘If they want it, they can make us a fair offer for it.’ + +‘I think we’ll try something else.’ + +‘Well, they have only themselves to thank. But you have some plan in +your head, Frank. What is it?’ + +He brought the morning paper over from the table. Then he folded it so +as to bring the financial columns to the top. + +‘I saw a fellow in the City yesterday who knows a great deal about +gold-mining. I only had a few minutes’ talk, but he strongly advised me +to have some shares in the El Dorado Proprietary Gold Mine.’ + +‘What a nice name! I wonder if they would let us have any?’ + +‘Oh yes, they are to be bought in the open market. It is like this, +Maude. The mine was a very good one, and paid handsome dividends. Then +it had some misfortunes. First, there was no water, and then there was +too much water, and the workings were flooded. So, of course, the price +of the shares fell. Now they are getting the mine all right again, but +the shares are still low. It certainly seems a very good chance to pick +a few of them up.’ + +‘Are they very dear, Frank?’ + +‘I looked them up in the _Mining Register_ before I came home yesterday. +The original price of each share was ten shillings, but as they have had +these misfortunes, one would expect to find them rather lower.’ + +‘Ten shillings! It does not seem much to pay for a share in a thing with +a name like that.’ + +‘Here it is,’ said he, pointing with a pencil to one name in a long +printed list. ‘This one, between the Royal Bonanza and the Alabaster +Consols. You see—El Dorado Proprietary! Then after it you have printed, +4¾—4⅞. I don’t profess to know much about these things, but that of +course means the price.’ + +‘Yes, dear, it is printed at the top of the column—“Yesterday’s prices.”’ + +‘Quito so. Well, we know that the original price of each share was ten +shillings, and of course they must have dropped with a flood in the mine, +so that these figures must mean that the price yesterday was four +shillings and nine-pence, or thereabouts.’ + +‘What a clear head for business you have, dear!’ + +‘I think we can’t do wrong in buying at that price. You see, with our +fifty pounds we could buy two hundred of them, and then if they went up +again we could sell, and take our profit.’ + +‘How delightful! But suppose they don’t go up.’ + +‘Well, they can’t go down. I should not think that a share at four +shillings and ninepence _could_ go down very much. There is no room. +But it may go up to any extent.’ + +‘Besides, your friend said that they would go up.’ + +‘Yes, he seemed quite confident about it. Well, what do you think, +Maude? Is it good enough or not?’ + +‘O Frank, I hardly dare advise you. Just imagine if we were to lose it +all. Do you think it would be wiser to get a hundred shares, and then we +could buy twenty-five pounds’ worth of Royal Bonanza as well. It would +be impossible for them both to go wrong.’ + +‘The Royal Bonanza shares are dear, and then we have had no information +about it. I think we had better back our own opinion.’ + +‘All right, Frank.’ + +‘Then that is settled. I have a telegraph-form here.’ + +‘Could you not buy them yourself when you are in town?’ + +‘No, you can’t buy things yourself. You have to do it through a broker.’ + +‘I always thought a broker was a horrid man, who came and took your +furniture away.’ + +‘Ah, that’s another kind of broker. He comes afterwards. I promised +Harrison that he should have any business which I could put in his way, +so here goes. How is that?’— + + ‘Harrison, 13a Throgmorton Street, E.C.—Buy two hundred El Dorado + Proprietaries. + + ‘CROSSE, Woking.’ + +‘Doesn’t it sound rather peremptory, Frank?’ + +‘No, no, that is mere business.’ + +‘I hope he won’t be offended.’ + +‘I think I can answer for that.’ + +‘You have not said the price.’ + +‘One cannot say the price because one does not know it. You see, it is +always going up and down. By this time it may be a little higher or a +little lower than yesterday. There cannot be much change, that is +certain. Great Scot, Maude, it is ten-fifteen. Three and a half minutes +for a quarter of a mile. Good-bye, darling! I just love you in that +bodice. O Lord—good-bye!’ + + * * * * * + +‘Well, has anything happened?’ + +‘Yes, you have come back. Oh I am so glad to see you, you dear old boy!’ + +‘Take care of that window, darling!’ + +‘Oh, my goodness, I hope he didn’t see. No, it’s all right. He was +looking the other way. We have the gold shares all right.’ + +‘Harrison has telegraphed?’ + +‘Yes, here it is.’— + + ‘Crosse, The Lindens, Woking.—Bought two hundred El Dorados at 4¾. + + HARRISON.’ + +‘That is capital. I rather expected to see Harrison in the train. I +shouldn’t be surprised if he calls on his way from the station. He has +to pass our door, you know, on his way to Maybury.’ + +‘He is sure to call.’ + +‘What are you holding there?’ + +‘It’s a paper.’ + +‘What paper?’ + +‘Who is it who talks about woman’s curiosity?’ + +‘Let me see it.’ + +‘Well, sir, if you must know, it is the _Financial Whisper_.’ + +‘Where in the world did you get it?’ + +‘I knew that the Montresors took a financial paper. I remember Mrs. +Montresor saying once how dreadfully dry it was. So when you were gone I +sent Jemima round and borrowed it, and I have read it right through to +see if there was anything about our mine in it—_our_ mine, Frank; does it +not sound splendid?’ + +‘Well, is there anything?’ + +She clapped her hands with delight. + +‘Yes, there is. “This prosperous mine—” that is what it says. Look +here, it is under the heading of Australian Notes,’ she held out the +paper and pointed, but his face fell as he looked. + +‘O Maude, it’s preposterous.’ + +‘What is preposterous?’ + +‘The word is preposterous and not prosperous—“this preposterous mine.”’ + +‘Frank!’ She turned her face away. + +‘Never mind, dear! What’s the odds?’ + +‘O Frank, our first investment—our fifty pounds! And to think that I +should have kept the paper as a surprise for you!’ + +‘Well, the print is a little slurred, and it was a very natural mistake. +After all, the paper may be wrong. Oh don’t, Maude, please don’t! It’s +not worth it—all the gold on the earth is not worth it. There’s a sweet +girlie! Now, are you better? Oh, damn those open curtains!’ + +A tall and brisk young man with a glossy hat was coming through the +garden. An instant later Jemima had ushered him in. + +‘Hullo, Harrison!’ + +‘How do you do, Crosse? How are you, Mrs. Crosse?’ + +‘How do you do? I’ll just order tea if you will excuse me.’ + +Ordering tea seemed to involve a good deal of splashing water. Maude +came back with a merrier face. + +‘Is this a good paper, Mr. Harrison?’ + +‘What is it? _Financial Whisper_! No, the most venal rag in the city.’ + +‘Oh, I am so glad!’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Well, you know, we bought some shares to-day, and it calls our mine a +preposterous one.’ + +‘Oh, is that all. Who cares what the _Financial Whisper_ says! It would +call the Bank of England a preposterous institution if it thought it +could bear Consols by doing so. Its opinion is not worth a halfpenny. +By the way, Crosse, it was about those shares that I called.’ + +‘I thought you might. I have only just got back myself, and I saw by +your wire that you had bought them all right.’ + +‘Yes, I thought I had better let you have your contract at once. +Settling day is on Monday, you know.’ + +‘All right. Thank you. I will let you have a cheque. What—what’s +this?’ + +The contract had been laid face upwards upon the table. Frank Crosse’s +face grew whiter and his eyes larger as he stared at it. It ran in this +way— + + 13a THROGMORTON STREET. + + Bought for Francis Crosse, Esq. + + (Subject to the Specific Rules and Regulations of the Stock + Exchange.) + +200 El Dorado Proprietaries at 4¾ £950 0 0 +Stamps and Fees 4 17 6 +Commission 7 10 0 + £962 7 6 + + For the 7th inst. + +‘I fancy there is some mistake here, Harrison,’ said he, speaking with a +very dry pair of lips. + +‘A mistake!’ + +‘Yes, this is not at all what I expected.’ + +‘O Frank! Nearly a thousand pounds!’ gasped Maude. + +Harrison glanced from one of them to the other. He saw that the matter +was serious. + +‘I am very sorry if there has been any mistake. I tried to obey your +instructions. You wanted two hundred El Dorados, did you not?’ + +‘Yes, at four and ninepence.’ + +‘Four and ninepence! They are four pound fifteen each.’ + +‘But I read that they were only ten shillings originally, and that they +had been falling.’ + +‘Yes, they have been falling for months. But they were as high as ten +pounds once. They are down at four pound fifteen now.’ + +‘Why on earth could the paper not say so?’ + +‘When a fraction is used, it always means a fraction of a pound.’ + +‘Good heavens! And I have to find this sum before Monday.’ + +‘Monday is settling day.’ + +‘I can’t do it, Harrison. It is impossible.’ + +‘Then there is the obvious alternative.’ + +‘No, I had rather die. I will never go bankrupt—never!’ + +Harrison began to laugh, and then turned stonily solemn as he met a pair +of reproachful grey eyes. + +‘It strikes me that you have not done much at this game, Crosse.’ + +‘Never before—and by Heaven, never again!’ + +‘You take it much too hard. When I spoke of an alternative, I never +dreamed of bankruptcy. All you have to do is to sell your stock +to-morrow morning, and pay the difference.’ + +‘Can I do that?’ + +‘Rather. Why not?’ + +‘What would the difference be?’ + +Harrison took an evening paper from his pocket. ‘We deal in rails +chiefly, and I don’t profess to keep in touch with the mining market. +We’ll find the quotation here. By Jove!’ He whistled between his teeth. + +‘Well!’ said Frank, and felt his wife’s little warm palm fall upon his +hand under the table. + +‘The difference is in your favour.’ + +‘In my favour?’ + +‘Yes, listen to this. “The mining markets, both the South African and +the Australian, opened dull, but grew more animated as the day proceeded, +prices closing at the best. Out crops upon the Rand mark a general +advance of one-sixteenth to one-eighth. The chief feature in the +Australian section was a sharp advance of five-eighths in El Dorados, +upon a telegram that the workings had been pumped dry.” Crosse, I +congratulate you.’ + +‘I can really sell them for more than I gave?’ + +‘I should think so. You have two hundred of them, and a profit of ten +shillings on each.’ + +‘Maude, we’ll have the whisky and the soda. Harrison, you must have a +drink. Why, that’s a hundred pounds.’ + +‘More than a hundred.’ + +‘Without my paying anything?’ + +‘Not a penny.’ + +‘When does the Exchange open to-morrow?’ + +‘The rattle goes at eleven.’ + +‘Well, be there at eleven, Harrison. Sell them at once.’ + +‘You won’t hold on and watch the market?’ + +‘No, no—I won’t have an easy moment until they are sold.’ + +‘All right, my boy. You can rely upon me. You will get a cheque for +your balance on Tuesday or Wednesday. Good evening! I am so glad that +it has all ended well.’ + +‘And the joke of it is, Maude,’ said her husband, after they had talked +over the whole adventure from the beginning. ‘The joke of it is that we +have still to find an investment for our original fifty pounds. I am +inclined to put it into Consols after all.’ + +‘Well,’ said Maude, ‘perhaps it would be the patriotic thing to do.’ + + * * * * * + +Two days later the poor old Broadwood with the squeaky treble and the +wheezy bass was banished for ever from The Lindens, and there arrived in +its place a ninety-five-guinea cottage grand, all dark walnut and +gilding, with notes in it so deep and rich and resonant that Maude could +sit before it by the hour and find music enough in simply touching one +here and one there, and listening to the soft, sweet, reverberant tones +which came swelling from its depths. Her El Dorado piano, she called it, +and tried to explain to lady visitors how her husband had been so clever +at business that he had earned it in a single day. As she was never very +clear in her own mind how the thing had occurred, she never succeeded in +explaining it to any one else, but a vague and solemn impression became +gradually diffused abroad that young Mr. Frank Crosse was a very +remarkable man, and that he had done something exceedingly clever in the +matter of an Australian mine. + + + + +A THUNDERCLOUD + + +BLUE skies and shining sun, but far down on the horizon one dark cloud +gathers and drifts slowly upwards unobserved. Frank Crosse was aware of +its shadow when coming down to breakfast he saw an envelope with a +well-remembered handwriting beside his plate. How he had loved that +writing once, how his heart had warmed and quickened at the sight of it, +how eagerly he had read it—and now a viper coiled upon the white +table-cloth would hardly have given him a greater shock. Contradictory, +incalculable, whimsical life! A year ago how scornfully he would have +laughed, what contemptuous unbelief would have filled his soul, if he had +been told that any letter of hers could have struck him cold with the +vague apprehension of coming misfortune. He tore off the envelope and +threw it into the fire. But before he could glance at the letter there +was the quick patter of his wife’s feet upon the stair, and she burst, +full of girlish health and high spirits, into the little room. She wore +a pink crepon dressing-gown, with cream guipure lace at the neck and +wrists. Pink ribbon outlined her trim waist. The morning sun shone upon +her, and she seemed to him to be the daintiest, sweetest tiling upon +earth. He had thrust his letter into his pocket as she entered. + +‘You will excuse the dressing-gown, Frank.’ + +‘I just love you in it. No, you mustn’t pass. Now you can go.’ + +‘I was so afraid that you would breakfast without me that I had no time +to dress. I shall have the whole day to finish in when you are gone. +There now—Jemima has forgotten to warm the plates again! And your coffee +is cold. I wish you had not waited.’ + +‘Better cold coffee with Maude’s society.’ + +‘I always thought men gave up complimenting their wives after they +married them. I am so glad you don’t. I think on the whole that women’s +ideas of men are unfair and severe. The reason is that the women who +have met unpleasant men run about and make a noise, but the women who are +happy just keep quiet and enjoy themselves. For example, I have not time +to write a book explaining to every one how nice Frank Crosse is; but if +he were nasty my life would be empty, and so of course I should write my +book.’ + +‘I feel such a fraud when you talk like that.’ + +‘That is part of your niceness.’ + +‘Oh don’t, Maude! It really hurts me.’ + +‘Why, Frank, what is the matter with you to-day?’ + +‘Nothing, dear.’ + +‘Oh yes, there is. I can tell easily.’ + +‘Perhaps I am not quite myself.’ + +‘No, I am sure that you are not. I believe that you have a cold coming +on. O Frank, do take some ammoniated quinine.’ + +‘Good heavens, no!’ + +‘Please! Please!’ + +‘My dear girlie, there is nothing the matter with me.’ + +‘But it is such splendid stuff.’ + +‘Yes, I know. But really I don’t want it.’ + +‘Have you had any letters, Frank?’ + +‘Yes, one.’ + +‘Anything important?’ + +‘I have hardly glanced at it yet.’ + +‘Glance at it now.’ + +‘Oh, I will keep it for the train. Good-bye, dearest. It is time that I +was off.’ + +‘If you would only take the ammoniated quinine. You men are so proud and +obstinate. Good-bye, darling. Eight hours, and then I shall begin to +live again.’ + +He had a quiet corner of a carriage to himself, so he unfolded his letter +and read it. Then he read it again with frowning brows and compressed +lips. It ran in this way— + + MY DEAREST FRANKIE,—I suppose that I should not address you like this + now that you are a good little married man, but the force of custom + is strong, and, after all, I knew you long before she did. I don’t + suppose you were aware of it, but there was a time when I could very + easily have made you marry me, in spite of all you may know about my + trivial life and adventures, but I thought it all over very + carefully, and I came to the conclusion that it was not good enough. + You were always a dear good chap yourself, but your prospects were + not quite dashing enough for your festive Violet. I believe in a + merry time even if it is a short one. But if I had really wanted to + settle down in a humdrum sort of way, you are the man whom I should + have chosen out of the whole batch of them. I hope what I say won’t + make you conceited, for one of your best points used to be your + modesty. + + But for all that, my dear Frankie, I by no means give you up + altogether, and don’t you make any mistake about that. It was only + yesterday that I saw Charlie Scott, and he told me all about you, and + gave me your address. Don’t you bless him? And yet I don’t know. + Perhaps you have still a kindly thought of your old friend, and would + like to see her. + + But you are going to see her whether you like or not, my dear boy, so + make up your mind to that. You know how you used to chaff me about + my whims. Well, I’ve got a whim now, and I’ll have my way as usual. + I am going to see you to-morrow, and if you won’t see me under my + conditions in London, I shall call at Woking in the evening. Oh my + goodness, what a bombshell! But you know that I am always as good as + my word. So look out! + + Now I’ll give you your orders for the day, and don’t you forget them. + To-morrow (Thursday, 14th, no excuses about the date) you will leave + your office at 3.30. I know that you can when you like. You will + drive to Mariani’s, and you will find me at the door. We shall go up + to our old private room, and we shall have tea together, and a dear + old chat about all sorts of things. So come! But if you don’t, + there is a train which leaves Waterloo at 6.10 and reaches Woking at + 7. I will come by it and be just in time for dinner. What a joke it + will be! + + Good-bye, old boy! I hope your wife does not read your letters, or + this will rather give her fits.—Yours as ever, + + VIOLET WRIGHT. + +At the first reading this letter filled him with anger. To be wooed by a +very pretty woman is pleasant even to the most austere of married men +(and never again trust the one who denies it), but to be wooed with a +very dangerous threat mixed up with the wooing is no such pleasant +experience. And it was no empty threat. Violet was a woman who prided +herself upon being as good as her word. She had laughingly said with her +accustomed frankness upon one occasion that it was her sole remaining +virtue. If he did not go to Mariani’s, she would certainly come to +Woking. He shuddered to think of Maude being annoyed by her. It was one +thing to speak in a general way to his wife of prematrimonial +experiences, and it was another to have this woman forcing herself upon +her and making a scene. The idea was so vulgar. The sweet, pure +atmosphere of The Lindens would never be the same again. + +No, there was no getting out of it. He must go to Mariani’s. He was +sufficiently master of himself to know that no harm could come of that. +His absolute love for his wife shielded him from all danger. The very +thought of infidelity nauseated him. And then, as the idea became more +familiar to him, other emotions succeeded that of anger. There was an +audacity about his old flame, a spirit and devilment, which appealed to +his sporting instincts. Besides, it was complimentary to him, and +flattering to his masculine vanity, that she should not give him up +without a struggle. Merely as a friend it would not be disagreeable to +see her again. Before he had reached Clapham Junction his anger had +departed, and by the time that he arrived at Waterloo he was surprised to +find himself looking forward to the interview. + +Mariani’s is a quiet restaurant, famous for its _lachryma christi +spumante_, and situated in the network of sombre streets between Drury +Lane and Covent Garden. The fact of its being in a by-street was not +unfavourable to its particular class of business. Its customers were +very free from the modern vice of self-advertisement, and would even take +some trouble to avoid publicity. Nor were they gregarious or luxurious +in their tastes. A small, simple apartment was usually more to their +taste than a crowded salon, and they were even prepared to pay a higher +sum for it. + +It was five minutes to four when Frank arrived, and the lady had not yet +appeared. He stood near the door and waited. Presently a hansom rattled +into the narrow street, and there she sat framed in its concavity. A +pretty woman never looks prettier than in a hansom, with the shadows +behind to give their Rembrandt effect to the face in front. She raised a +yellow kid hand, and flashed a smile at him. + +‘Just the same as ever,’ said she, as he handed her down. + +‘So are you.’ + +‘So glad you think so. I am afraid I can’t quite agree with you. +Thirty-four yesterday. It’s simply awful. Thank you, I have some +change. All right, cabby. Well, have you got a room?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘But you’ll come?’ + +‘Oh yes, I should like to have a chat.’ + +The clean-shaven, round-faced manager, a man of suave voice and +diplomatic manner, was standing in the passage. His strange life was +spent in standing in the passage. He remembered the pair at once, and +smiled paternally. + +‘Not seen you for some time, sir!’ + +‘No, I have been engaged.’ + +‘Married,’ said the lady. + +‘Dear me!’ said the proprietor. ‘Tea, sir?’ + +‘And muffins. You used to like the muffins.’ + +‘Oh yes, muffins by all means.’ + +‘Number ten,’ said the proprietor, and a waiter showed them upstairs. +‘All meals nine shillings each,’ he whispered, as Frank passed him at the +door. He was a new waiter, and so mistook every one for a new customer, +which is an error which runs through life. + +It was a dingy little room with a round table covered by a soiled cloth +in the middle. Two windows, discreetly blinded, let in a dim London +light. An armchair stood at each side of the empty fireplace, and an +uncomfortable, old-fashioned, horsehair sofa lined the opposite wall. +There were pink vases upon the mantelpiece, and a portrait of Garibaldi +above it. + +The lady sat down and took off her gloves. Frank stood by the window and +smoked a cigarette. The waiter rattled and banged and jingled with the +final effect of producing a tea-tray and a hot-water dish. ‘You’ll ring +if you want me, sir,’ said he, and shut the door with ostentatious +completeness. + +‘Now we can talk,’ said Frank, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. +‘That waiter was getting on my nerves.’ + +‘I say, I hope you’re not angry.’ + +‘What at?’ + +‘Well, my saying I should come down to Woking, and all that.’ + +‘I should have been angry if I thought you had meant it.’ + +‘Oh, I meant it right enough.’ + +‘But with what object?’ + +‘Just to get level with you, Frankie, if you threw me over too +completely. Hang it all, she has three hundred and sixty-five days in +the year! Am I to be grudged a single hour?’ + +‘Well, Violet, we won’t quarrel about it. You see I came all right. +Pull up your chair and have some tea.’ + +‘You haven’t even looked at me yet. I won’t take any tea until you do.’ + +She stood up in front of him, and pushed up her veil. It was a face and +a figure worth looking at. Hazel eyes, dark chestnut hair, a warm flush +of pink in her cheeks, the features and outline of an old Grecian +goddess, but with more of Juno than of Venus, for she might perhaps err a +little upon the side of opulence. There was a challenge and defiance +dancing in those dark devil-may-care eyes of hers which might have roused +a more cold-blooded man than her companion. Her dress was simple and +dark, but admirably cut. She was clever enough to know that a pretty +woman should concentrate attention upon herself, and a plain one divert +it to her adornments. + +‘Well?’ + +‘By Jove, Violet, you look splendid.’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘The muffins are getting cold.’ + +‘Frankie, what _is_ the matter with you?’ + +‘Nothing is the matter.’ + +‘Well?’ + +She put out her two hands and took hold of his. That well-remembered +sweet, subtle scent of hers rose to his nostrils. There is nothing more +insidious than a scent which carries suggestions and associations. +‘Frankie, you have not kissed me yet.’ + +She turned her smiling face upwards and sideways, and for an instant he +leaned forward towards it. But he had himself in hand again in a moment. +It gave him confidence to find how quickly and completely he could do it. +With a laugh, still holding her two hands, he pushed her back into the +chair by the table. + +‘There’s a good girl!’ said he. ‘Now we’ll have some tea, and I’ll give +you a small lecture while we do so.’ + +‘You are a nice one to give lectures.’ + +‘Oh, there’s no such preacher as a converted sinner.’ + +‘You really are converted then?’ + +‘Rather. Two lumps, if I remember right. You ought to do this, not I. +No milk, and very strong—how you keep your complexion I can’t imagine. +But you do keep it; my word, you do! Now please don’t look so crossly at +me.’ + +Her flushed cheeks and resentful eyes had drawn forth the remonstrance. + +‘You _are_ changed,’ she said, with surprise as well as anger in her +voice. + +‘Why, of course I am. I am married.’ + +‘For that matter Charlie Scott is married.’ + +‘Don’t give Charlie Scott away.’ + +‘I think I give myself away. So you have lost all your love for me. I +thought it was to last for ever.’ + +‘Now, do be sensible, Violet.’ + +‘Sensible! How I loathe that word! A man only uses it when he is going +to do something cold-blooded and mean. It is always the beginning of the +end.’ + +‘What do you want me to do?’ + +‘I want you to be my own Frankie—just the same as before. Ah do, +Franck—don’t leave me! You know I would give any of them up for you. +And you have a good influence over me—you have really! You call’t think +how hard I am with other people. Ask Charlie Scott. He will tell you. +I’ve been so different since I have lost sight of you. Now, Frankie, +don’t be horrid to me! Kiss and be nice!’ Again her soft warm hand was +upon his, and the faint sweet smell of violets went to his blood like +wine. He jumped up, lit another cigarette, and paced about the room. + +‘You shan’t have a cigarette, Frankie.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Because you said once it helped you to control yourself. I don’t want +you to control yourself. I want you to feel as I feel.’ + +‘Do sit down, like a good girl!’ + +‘Cigarette out!’ + +‘Don’t be absurd, Violet!’ + +‘Come, out with it, sir.’ + +‘No, no, leave it alone!’ + +She had snatched it from his lips and thrown it into the grate. + +‘What is the use of that? I have a case full.’ + +‘They shall all follow the first.’ + +‘Well, then, I won’t smoke.’ + +‘I’ll see that you don’t.’ + +‘Well, what the better are you for that?’ + +‘Now, be nice.’ + +‘Go back to your chair and have some more tea.’ + +‘Oh, bother the tea!’ + +‘Well, I won’t speak to you unless you sit down and behave yourself.’ + +‘There now! Speak away.’ + +‘Look here, dear Violet, you must not talk about this any more. Some +things are possible and some are impossible. This is absolutely, finally +impossible. We can never go back upon the past. It is finished and done +with.’ + +‘Then what did you come here for?’ + +‘To bid you good-bye.’ + +‘A Platonic good-bye.’ + +‘Of course.’ + +‘In a private room at Mariani’s.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +She laughed bitterly. + +‘You were always a little mad, Frankie.’ + +He leaned earnestly over the table. + +‘Look here, Violet, the chances are that we shall never meet again.’ + +‘It takes two to say that.’ + +‘Well, I mean that after to-day I should not meet you again. If you were +not quite what you are it would be easier. But as it is I find it a +little too much of a test. No, don’t mistake me or think that I am +weakening. That is impossible. But all the same I don’t want to go +through it again.’ + +‘So sorry if I have upset you.’ + +He disregarded her irony. + +‘We have been very good friends, Violet. Why should we part as enemies?’ + +‘Why should we part at all?’ + +‘We won’t go back over that. Now do please look facts in the face and +help me to do the right thing, for it would be so much easier if you +would help me. If you were a very good and kind girl you would shake my +hand, like any other old pal, and wish me joy of my marriage. You know +that I should do so if I knew that you were going to be married.’ + +But the lady was not to be so easily appeased. She took her tea in +silence or answered his remarks with monosyllables, while the occasional +flash of her dark eyes as she raised them was like the distant lightning +which heralds the storm. Suddenly, with a swift rustle of skirts, she +was between the door and his chair. + +‘Now, Frankie, we have had about enough of this nonsense,’ said she. +‘Don’t imagine that you are going to get out of this thing so easily. +I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you.’ + +He faced round in his chair and looked helplessly at her with a hand upon +each knee. + +‘O Lord! Don’t begin it all over again,’ said he. + +‘No, I won’t,’ she answered with an angry laugh. ‘I’ll try another line +this time, Master Frank. I’m not the sort of woman who lets a thing go +easily when once I have set my heart upon it. I won’t try coaxing any +longer—’ + +‘So glad,’ he murmured. + +‘You may say what you like, but you can’t do it, my boy. I knew you +before she did, and I’ll keep you, or else I’ll make such a row that you +will be sorry that you ever put my back up. It’s all very fine to sit +there and preach, but it won’t do, Frankie. You can’t slip out of things +as easily as all that.’ + +‘Why should you turn nasty like this, Violet? What do you think you will +gain by it?’ + +‘I mean to gain _you_. I like you, Frankie. I’m not sure that I don’t +really love you—real, real love, you know. Any way, I don’t intend to +let you go, and if you go against my will I give you my word that I shall +make it pretty sultry for you down at Woking.’ + +He stared moodily into his teacup. + +‘Besides, what rot it all is!’ she continued, laying her hand upon his +shoulder. ‘When did you begin to ride the high moral horse? You were +just as cheerful as the rest of them when last I saw you. You speak as +if a man ceased to live just because he is married. What has changed +you?’ + +‘I’ll tell you what has changed me,’ said he, looking up. ‘My wife has +changed me.’ + +‘Oh, bother your wife!’ + +A look which was new to her came over his face. + +‘Stop that!’ said he sharply. + +‘Oh, no harm! How has your wife made this wonderful change?’ + +His mood softened as his thoughts flew back to Woking. + +‘By her own goodness—the atmosphere that she makes round her. If you +knew how wholesome she was, how delicate in her most intimate thoughts, +how fresh and how sweet and how pure, you would understand that the +thought of being false to her is horrible. When I think of her as she +sat at breakfast this morning, so loving and so innocent—’ + +He would have been more discreet if he had been less eloquent. The +lady’s temper suddenly overflowed. + +‘Innocent!’ she cried. ‘As innocent as I am.’ + +He sprang to his feet with eyes which were more angry than her own. + +‘Hold your tongue! How dare you talk against my wife! You are not fit +to mention her name.’ + +‘I’ll go to Woking,’ she gasped. + +‘You can go to the devil!’ said he, and rang the bell for his bill. She +stared at him with a surprise which had eclipsed her anger, while she +pulled on her gloves with little sharp twitches. This was a new Frank +Crosse to her. As long as a woman gets on very well with a man, she is +apt, at the back of her soul, to suspect him of weakness. It is only +when she differs from him that she can see the other side, and it always +comes as a surprise. She liked him better than ever for the revelation. + +‘I’m not joking,’ she whispered, as they went down the stair. ‘I’ll go, +as sure as fate.’ + +He took no notice, but passed on down the street without a word of +farewell. When he came to the turning he looked back. She was standing +by the curb, with her proud head high in the air, while the manager +screamed loudly upon a whistle. A cab swung round a distant corner. +Crosse reached her before it did. + +‘I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings,’ said he. ‘I spoke too roughly.’ + +‘Trying to coax me away from Woking,’ she sneered. ‘I’m coming all the +same.’ + +‘That’s your affair,’ said he, as he handed her into the cab. + + + + +DANGER + + +AGAIN the bright little dining-room, with the morning sun gleaming upon +the high silver coffee pot and the electro-plated toast-rack—everything +the same, down to the plates which Jemima had once again forgotten to +warm. Maude, with the golden light playing upon the fringes of her +curls, and throwing two little epaulettes of the daintiest pink across +her shoulders, sat in silence, glancing across from time to time with +interrogative eyes at her husband. He ate his breakfast moodily, for he +was very ill at ease. There was a struggle within him, for his +conscience was pulling him one way and his instincts the other. +Instincts are a fine old conservative force, while conscience is a thing +of yesterday, so it is usually safe to prophesy which will sway the +other. + +The matter at issue was whether he should tell Maude about Violet Wright. +If she were going to carry out her threat, then certainly it would be +better to prepare her. But after all, his arguments of yesterday might +prevail with her when her first impetuous fit of passion was over. Why +should he go half-way to meet danger? If it came, nothing which he could +say would ward it off. If it did not come, there was no need for saying +anything. Conscience told him that it would be better to be perfectly +straight with his wife. Instinct told him that though she would probably +be sweet and sympathetic over it, yet it would rankle in her mind and +poison her thoughts. And perhaps for once, Instinct may have been better +than Conscience. Do not ask too many questions, you young wife! Do not +be too free with your reminiscences, you young husband. There are things +which can be forgiven, but never, never, can they be forgotten. That +highest thing on earth, the heart of a loving woman, is too tender, too +sacred, to be bruised by a wanton confidence. You are hers. She is +yours. The future lies with both of you. It is wiser to leave the past +alone. The couples who boast that they have never had a secret are +sometimes happy because the boast is sometimes untrue. + +‘You won’t be late to-day, Frank,’ said Maude at last, peeping round the +tall coffee-pot. + +‘No, dear, I won’t.’ + +‘You were yesterday, you know.’ + +‘Yes, I know I was.’ + +‘Were you kept at the office?’ + +‘No, I had tea with a friend.’ + +‘At his house?’ + +‘No, no, at a restaurant. Where has Jemima put my boots? I wonder if +she has cleaned them. I can never tell by looking. Here they are. And +my coat? Anything I can get you in town? Well, good-bye, dear, +good-bye!’ Maude had never seen him make so hurried an exit. + +It is always a mystery to the City man how his wife puts in the seven +hours a day of loneliness while the E.C. has claimed him for its own. +She cannot explain it to him, for she can hardly explain it to herself. +It is frittered away in a thousand little tasks, each trivial in itself, +and yet making in their sum the difference between a well-ordered and a +neglected household. Under the illustrious guidance of the omniscient +Mrs. Beeton there is the usual routine to be gone through. The cook has +to be seen, the larder examined, the remains cunningly transformed into +new and attractive shapes, the dinner to be ordered (anything will do for +lunch), and the new supplies to be got in. The husband accepts the +excellent little dinner, the fried sole, the _ris de veau en caisse_, the +lemon pudding, as if they had grown automatically out of the table-cloth. +He knows nothing of the care, the judgment, the prevision which ring the +changes with every season, which never relax and never mistake. He +enjoys the fruits, but he ignores the work which raised them. And yet +the work goes cheerfully and uncomplainingly on. + +Then when every preparation has been made for the dinner—that solemn +climax of the British day, there is plenty for Maude to do. There is the +white chiffon to be taken out of the neck of that dress, and the pink to +be put in. Amateur dressmaking is always going on at The Lindens, and +Frank has become more careful in his caresses since he found one evening +that his wife had a row of pins between her lips—which is not a pleasant +discovery to make with your own. Then there are drawers to be tidied, +and silver to be cleaned, and the leaves of the gutta-percha plant to be +washed, and the feather which was damped yesterday to be re-curled before +the fire. That leaves just time before lunch to begin the new novel by +glancing at the last two pages to see what _did_ happen, and then the +three minutes lunch of a lonely woman. So much for business, now for the +more trying social duties. The pink dressing-gown is shed and a trim +little walking dress—French grey cloth with white lisse in front and a +grey zouave jacket—takes its place. Visiting strangers is not nearly so +hard when you are pleased with your dress, and even entertaining becomes +more easy when your costumière lives in Regent Street. On Tuesdays Maude +is at home. Every other day she hunts through her plate of cards, and is +overwhelmed by the sense of her rudeness towards her neighbours. But her +task is never finished, though day after day she comes back jaded with +her exertions. Strangers still call upon her—‘hope it is not too late to +do the right thing, and to welcome,’ etc., etc.—and they have to be +re-visited. While she is visiting them, other cards appear upon her hall +table, and so the foolish and tiresome convention continues to exhaust +the time and the energies of its victim. + +Those original receptions were really very difficult. Jemima announced a +name which might or might not bear some relation to the visitor’s. The +lady entered. Her name might perhaps be Mrs. Baker. Maude had no means +of knowing who Mrs. Baker might be. The visitor seldom descended to an +explanation. Ten minutes of desultory and forced conversation about +pinewoods and golf and cremation. A cup of tea and a departure. Then +Maude would rush to the card-tray to try to find out whom it was that she +had been talking to, and what it was all about. + +Maude did not intend to go visiting that particular day, and she had +hoped that no one might visit her. The hours of danger were almost past, +and it was close upon four o’clock, when there came a brisk pull at the +bell. + +‘Mrs. White,’ said Jemima, opening the drawing-room door. + +‘Wright,’ said the visitor, as she walked in—‘Mrs. Violet Wright.’ + +Maude rose with her pleasant smile. It was a peculiarly sweet and kindly +smile, for it was inspired by a gentle womanly desire to make things +pleasant for all who were around her. Amiability was never artificial +with her, for she had the true instincts of a lady—those instincts so +often spoken of, so seldom, so very seldom seen. Like a gentleman, or a +Christian, or any other ideal, it is but a poor approximation which is +commonly attained. + +But the visitor did not respond to the pretty gesture of welcome, nor did +her handsome face return that sympathetic smile. They stood for an +instant looking at each other, the one tall, masterful, mature, the other +sweet, girlish, and self-distrustful, but each beautiful and engaging in +her own way. Lucky Master Frank, whose past and present could take such +a form; but luckier still if he could have closed the past when the +present opened. The visitor was silent, but her dark eyes looked +critically and fixedly at her rival. Maude, setting the silence down to +the shyness of a first visit, tried to make matters easier. + +‘Please try this armchair. No doubt you have had a tiring walk. It is +still very warm in the afternoons. I think it was so kind of you to +call.’ + +A faint smile flickered upon the dark face. + +‘Kind of me to call!’ said she. + +‘Yes; for in a rising place like Woking, with so many new arrivals, it +must be quite a task for the older inhabitants to welcome them. I have +been so surprised by the kindness which every one has shown.’ + +‘Oh, I see,’ said her visitor, ‘you think that I live here. I have +really just come down from London.’ + +‘Indeed,’ said Maude, and awaited an explanation. As none was +forthcoming, she added, ‘You will find Woking a very nice place.’ + +‘A nice place to be buried in, alive or dead,’ said her visitor. + +There was something peculiarly ungracious in her tone and manner. It +seemed to Maude that she had never before been alone with so singular a +person. There was, in the first place, her striking and yet rather +sinister and voluptuous beauty. + +Then there was the absolute carelessness of her manner, the quiet +assumption that she was outside the usual conventionalities of life. It +is a manner only to be met in English life, among some of the highest of +the high world, and some of the highest of the half world. It was new to +Maude, and it made her uncomfortable, while mingled with it there was +something else which made her feel for the first time in her life that +she had incurred the hostility of a fellow-mortal. It chilled her, and +made her unhappy. + +The visitor made no effort to sustain the conversation, but leaned back +in her chair and stared at her hostess with a very critical and searching +glance. Those two questioning dark eyes played eagerly over her from her +brown curls down to the little shining shoe-tips which peeped from under +the grey skirt. Especially they dwelt upon her face, reading it and +rereading it. Never had Maude been so inspected, and her instinct told +her that the inspection was not altogether a friendly one. + +Violet Wright having examined her rival, proceeded now with the same cool +attention to take in her surroundings. She looked round deliberately at +the furniture of the room, and reconstructed in her own mind the life of +the people who owned it. Maude ventured upon one or two conventional +remarks, but her visitor was not to be diverted to the weather or to the +slowness of the South-Western train service. She continued her quiet and +silent inspection. Suddenly she rose and swept across to the side-table. +A photograph of Frank in his volunteer uniform stood upon it. + +‘This is your husband, Mr. Frank Crosse?’ + +‘Yes, do you know him?’ + +‘Slightly. We have mutual friends.’ An ambiguous smile played across +her face as she spoke. ‘This must have been taken after I saw him.’ + +‘It was taken just after our marriage.’ + +‘Quite so. He looks like a good little married man. The photograph is +flattering.’ + +‘Oh, you think so!’ said Maude coldly. ‘My own impression is that it +fails to do him justice.’ + +Her visitor laughed. ‘Of course that _would_ be your impression,’ said +she. + +Maude’s gentle soul began to rise in anger. + +‘It is the truth,’ she cried. + +‘It is right that you should think so,’ the other answered, with the same +irritating laugh. + +‘You must have known him very slightly if you can’t see that it is the +truth.’ + +‘Then I must have known him very slightly.’ + +Maude was very angry indeed. She began to find sides to her own nature +the very existence of which she had never suspected. She tapped her +little shoe upon the ground, and she sat with a pale face, and compressed +lips, and bright eyes, quite prepared to be very rude indeed to this +eccentric woman who ventured to criticise her Frank in so free and easy a +style. Her visitor watched her, and a change had come over her +expression. Maude’s evident anger seemed to amuse and interest her. Her +eyes lost their critical coldness, and softened into approval. She +suddenly put her hand upon the other’s shoulder with so natural and yet +masterful a gesture, that Maude found it impossible to resent it. + +‘He is a lucky man to have such a warm little champion,’ said she. + +Her strong character and greater knowledge of the world gave her an +ascendency over the girlish wife such as age has over youth. There were +not ten years between them, and yet Maude felt that for some reason the +conversation between them could not quite be upon equal terms. The quiet +assurance of her visitor, whatever its cause, made resentment or +remonstrance difficult. Besides, they were a pair of very kindly as well +as of very shrewd eyes which now looked down into hers. + +‘You love him very much, then?’ + +‘Of course I love him. He is my husband.’ + +‘Does it always follow?’ + +‘You are married yourself. Don’t you love yours?’ + +‘Oh, never mind mine. _He’s_ all right. Did you ever love any one +else?’ + +‘No, not really.’ + +Maude was astonished at herself, and yet the questions were so frankly +put that a frank answer came naturally to them. It pleased her to lose +that cold chill of dislike, and to feel that for some reason her strange +visitor had become more friendly to her. + +‘You lucky girl, you actually married the one love of your life!’ + +Maude smiled and nodded. + +‘What a splendid thing to do! I thought it only happened in books. How +happy you must be!’ + +‘I _am_ very, very happy.’ + +‘Well, I dare say you deserve to be. Besides, you really are very +pretty. If ever you had a rival, I should think that it must be some +consolation to her to know that it was so charming a person who cut her +out.’ + +Maude laughed at the thought. + +‘I never had a rival,’ said she. ‘My husband never _really_ loved until +he met me.’ + +‘Did he—oh yes, quite so! That is so nice that you should both start +with a clean sheet! I thought you were very handsome just now when you +were angry with me, but you are quite delightful with that little flush +upon your cheeks. If I had been a man, your husband would certainly have +had one rival in his wooing. And so he really never loved any one but +you? I thought that also only happened in books.’ + +There was a hard and ironic tone in the last sentences which jarred upon +Maude’s sensitive nature. She glanced up quickly and was surprised at +the look of pain which had come upon her companion’s face. It relaxed +into a serious serenity. + +‘That fits in beautifully,’ said she. ‘But there’s one bit of advice +which I should like to give you, if you won’t think it a liberty. Don’t +be selfish in your married life.’ + +‘Selfish!’ + +‘Yes, there is a kind of family selfishness which is every bit as bad—I +am not sure that it is not worse—than personal selfishness. People love +each other, and they shut out the world, and have no thought for any one +else, and the whole universe can slide to perdition so long as their love +is not disturbed. That is what I call family selfishness. It’s a sin +and a shame.’ + +Maude looked at this strange woman in amazement. She was speaking fast +and hotly, like one whose bitter thoughts have been long penned up for +want of a suitable listener. + +‘Remember the women who have been less fortunate than you. Remember the +thousands who are starving, dying, for want of love, and no love comes +their way; whose hearts yearn and faint for that which Nature owes them, +but Nature never pays her debt. Remember the plain women. Remember the +lonely women. Above all, remember your unfortunate sisters; they, the +most womanly of all, who have been ruined by their own kindliness and +trust and loving weakness. It is that family selfishness which turns +every house in the land into a fort to be held against these poor +wanderers. They make them evil, and then they revile the very evil which +they have made. When I look back—’ + +She stopped with a sudden sob. Her forearm fell upon the mantelpiece, +and her forehead upon her forearm. In an instant Maude was by her side, +the tears running down her cheeks, for the sight of grief was always +grief to her, and her nerves were weakened by this singular interview. + +‘Dear Mrs. Wright, don’t cry!’ she whispered, and her little white hand +passed in a soothing, hesitating gesture over the coil of rich chestnut +hair. ‘Don’t cry! I am afraid you have suffered. Oh, how I wish I +could help you! Do tell me how I can help you.’ + +But Violet’s occasional fits of weakness were never of a very long +duration. She dashed her hand impatiently across her eyes, straightened +her tall figure, and laughed as she glanced at herself in the mirror. + +‘Madame Celandine would be surprised if she could see how I have treated +one of her masterpieces,’ said she, as she straightened her crushed hat, +and arranged her hair with those quick little deft pats of the palm with +which women can accomplish so much in so short a time. Rumpled finery +sets the hands of every woman within sight of it fidgeting, so Maude +joined in at the patting and curling and forgot all about her tears. + +‘There, that will have to do,’ said Violet at last. ‘I am so sorry to +have made such a fool of myself. I don’t err upon the sentimental side +as a rule. I suppose it is about time that I thought of catching my +train for town. I have a theatre engagement which I must not miss.’ + +‘How strange it is!’ said Maude, looking at her own pretty tear-marked +face in the mirror. ‘You have only been here a few minutes, as time +goes, and yet I feel that in some things I am more intimate with you than +with any woman I have ever met. How can it be? What bond can there be +to draw us together like this? And it is the more extraordinary, because +I felt that you disliked me when you entered the room, and I am sure that +you won’t be offended if I say that when you had been here a little I +thought that I disliked you. But I don’t. On the contrary, I wish you +could come every day. And I want to come and see you also when I am in +town.’ + +Maude, for all her amiability, was not gushing by nature, and this long +speech caused her great astonishment when she looked back upon it. But +at the moment it came so naturally from her heart that she never paused +to think of its oddity. Her enthusiasm was a little chilled, however, by +the way in which her advances were received. Violet Wright’s eyes were +more kindly than ever, but she shook her head. + +‘No, I don’t suppose we shall ever meet again. I don’t think I could ask +you to visit me in London. I wanted to see you, and I have seen you, but +that, I fear, must be the end of it.’ + +Maude’s lip trembled in a way which it had when she was hurt. + +‘Why did you wish to see me, then?’ she asked. + +‘On account of that slight acquaintance with your husband. I thought it +would be interesting to see what sort of wife he had chosen.’ + +‘I hope you are not disappointed,’ said Maude, making a roguish face. + +‘He has done very well—better than I expected.’ + +‘You had not much respect for his taste, then?’ + +‘Oh yes, I always thought highly of his taste.’ + +‘You have such a pretty way of putting things. You know my husband very +slightly, but still I can see that you know the world very well. I often +wonder if I am really the best kind of woman that he could have married. +Do you think I am, Mrs. Wright?’ + +Her visitor looked in silence for a little at the gentle grace and dainty +sympathetic charm of the woman before her. + +‘Yes,’ she said slowly, as one who weighs her words. ‘I think you are. +You are a lady with a lady’s soul in you. A woman can draw a man down +very low, or she can make him live at his very highest. Don’t be soft +with him. Don’t give way when you know that your way is the higher way. +Pull him up, don’t let him ever pull you down. Then his respect for you +will strengthen his love for you, and the two together are so much +greater than either one apart. Your instinct would be to do this, and +therefore you are the best sort of woman for him.’ + +Her opinion was given with so much thought, and yet so much decision, +that Maude glowed with pride and with pleasure. There was knowledge and +authority behind the words of this unaccountable woman. + +‘How sweet you are!’ she cried. ‘I feel that what you say is true. I +feel that that is what a wife should be to her husband. Please God, I +will be so to Frank!’ + +‘And one other piece of advice before I leave you,’ said Violet Wright. +‘Don’t ever take your husband for granted. Don’t ever accept his kiss or +caress as a routine thing. Don’t ever relax those little attentions +which you showed him in the earliest days. Don’t let the freshness go +out of love, for the love may soon follow it, even when duty keeps the +man true. It is the commonest mistake which married women make. It has +caused more unhappiness than any other. They do not realise it until it +is too late. Be keenly watchful for your husband’s wants and comforts. +It is not the comfort but the attention which he values. If it is not +there he will say nothing, if he is a good fellow, but he notices it all +the same. She has changed, he thinks. And from that moment he will +begin to change also. Be on your guard against that. It is very +unselfish of me to give you all this wise counsel.’ + +‘It is very good of you, and I feel that it is all so true. But why is +it unselfish of you?’ + +‘I only meant that I had no interest in the matter. What does it matter +to me whether you keep his love or not. And yet I don’t know.’ She +suddenly put her arms round Maude, and kissed her upon the cheek. ‘You +are a good little sort, and I hope you will be happy.’ + + * * * * * + +Frank Crosse had disentangled himself from the rush of City men emerging +from the Woking station, and he was walking swiftly through the gathering +gloom along the vile, deeply-rutted road, which formed a short cut to The +Lindens. Suddenly, with a sinking heart, he was aware of a tall graceful +figure which was sweeping towards him. There could not be two women of +that height, who carried themselves in that fashion. + +‘Violet!’ + +‘Hullo, Frankie! I thought it might be you, but those tall hats and +black overcoats make every one alike. Your wife will be glad to see +you.’ + +‘Violet! You have ruined our happiness. How could you have the heart to +do it! It is not for myself I speak, God knows. But to think of her +feelings being so abused, her confidence so shaken—’ + +‘All right, Frankie, there is nothing to be tragic about.’ + +‘Haven’t you been to my house?’ + +‘Yes, I have.’ + +‘And seen her?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Well then—’ + +‘I didn’t give you away, my boy. I was a model of discretion. I give +you my word that it is all right. And she’s a dear little soul, Frankie. +You’re not worthy to varnish those pretty patent leathers of hers. You +know you’re not. And by Jove, Frankie, if you had stayed with me +yesterday I should never have forgiven you—no, never! I’ll resign in her +favour. I will. But in no one else’s, and if ever I hear of your going +wrong, my boy, or doing anything but the best with that sweet trusting +woman, I’ll make you curse the day that ever you knew me—I will, by the +living Jingo.’ + +‘Do, Violet—you have my leave.’ + +‘All right. The least said the soonest mended. Give me a kiss before we +part.’ + +She raised her veil, and he kissed her. He was wearing some withered +flower in his overcoat, and she took it from him. + +‘It’s a souvenir of our friendship, Frankie, and rather a good emblem of +it also. So-long!’ said she, as she turned down the weary road which +leads to the station. A young golfer, getting in at Byfleet, was +surprised to see a handsome woman weeping bitterly in the corner of a +second-class carriage. ‘Comm’ up from roastin’ somebody at that damned +crematory place,’ was his explanation to his companion. + +Frank had a long and animated account from Maude of the extraordinary +visitor whom she had entertained. ‘It’s such a pity, dear, that you +don’t know her well, for I should really like to hear every detail about +her. At first I thought she was mad, and then I thought she was odious, +and then finally she seemed to be the very wisest and kindest woman that +I had ever known. She made me angry, and frightened, and grieved, and +grateful, and affectionate, one after the other, and I never in my life +was so taken out of myself by any one. She _is_ so sensible!’ + +‘Sensible, is she?’ + +‘And she said that I was—oh! I can’t repeat it—everything that is nice.’ + +‘Then she _is_ sensible.’ + +‘And such a high opinion of your taste.’ + +‘Had she indeed.’ + +‘Do you know, Frank, I really believe that in a quiet, secret, retiring +sort of way she has been fond of you herself.’ + +‘O Maude, what funny ideas you get sometimes! I say, if we are going out +for dinner, it is high time that we began to dress.’ + + + + +NO. 5 CHEYNE ROW + + +FRANK had brought home the _Life of Carlyle_, and Maude had been dipping +into it in the few spare half-hours which the many duties of a young +housekeeper left her. At first it struck her as dry, but from the moment +that she understood that this was, among other things, an account of the +inner life of a husband and a wife, she became keenly interested, and a +passionate and unreasonable partisan. For Frederick and Cromwell and the +other great issues her feelings were tolerant but lukewarm. But the +great sex-questions of ‘How did he treat her?’ and of ‘How did she stand +it?’ filled her with that eternal and personal interest with which they +affect every woman. Her gentle nature seldom disliked any one, but +certainly amongst those whom she liked least, the gaunt figure of the +Chelsea sage began to bulk largely. One night, as Frank sat reading in +front of the fire, he suddenly found his wife on her knees upon the rug, +and a pair of beseeching eyes upon his face. + +‘Frank, dear, I want you to make me a promise.’ + +‘Well, what is it?’ + +‘Will you grant it?’ + +‘How can I tell you when I have not heard it?’ + +‘How horrid you are, Frank! A year ago you would have promised first and +asked afterwards.’ + +‘But I am a shrewd old married man now. Well, let me hear it.’ + +‘I want you to promise me that you will never be a Carlyle.’ + +‘No, no, never.’ + +‘Really?’ + +‘Really and truly.’ + +‘You swear it?’ + +‘Yes, I do.’ + +‘O Frank, you can’t think what a relief that is to me. That dear, good, +helpful, little lady—it really made me cry this morning when I thought +how she had been used.’ + +‘How, then?’ + +‘I have been reading that green-covered book of yours, and he seemed so +cold and so sarcastic and so unsympathetic. He never seemed to +appreciate all that she did for him. He had no thought for her. He +lived in his books and never in her—such a harsh, cruel man!’ + +Frank went upstairs, and returned with a volume in his hand. + +‘When you have finished the ‘Life,’ you must read this, dear.’ + +‘What is it?’ + +‘It is her letters. They were arranged for publication after her death, +while her husband was still alive. You know that—’ + +‘Please take it for granted, darling, that I know nothing. It is so +jolly to have some one before whom it is not necessary to keep up +appearances. Now, begin at the beginning and go ahead.’ She pillowed +her head luxuriously against his knees. + +‘There’s nothing to tell—or very little. As you say, they had their +troubles in life. The lady could take particularly good care of herself, +I believe. She had a tongue like a lancet when she chose to use it. He, +poor chap, was all liver and nerves, porridge-poisoned in his youth. No +children to take the angles off them. Half a dozen little buffer states +would have kept them at peace. However, to hark back to what I was about +to say, he outlived her by fifteen years or so. During that time he +collected these letters, and he has annotated them. You can read those +notes here, and the man who wrote those notes loved his wife and +cherished her memory, if ever a man did upon earth.’ + +The graceful head beside his knee shook impatiently. + +‘What is the use of that to the poor dead woman? Why could not he show +his love by kindness and thought for her while she was alive?’ + +‘I tell you, Maude, there were two sides to that. Don’t be so +prejudiced! And remember that no one has ever blamed Carlyle as bitterly +as he has blamed himself. I could read you bits of these notes—’ + +‘Well, do.’ + +‘Here’s the first letter, in which she is talking about how they first +moved into the house at Cheyne Row. They spent their early years in +Scotland, you know, and he was a man going on to the forties when he came +to London. The success of _Sartor Resartus_ encouraged them to the step. +Her letter describes all the incoming. Here is his comment, written +after her death: “In about a week all was swept and garnished, fairly +habitable; and continued incessantly to get itself polished, civilised, +and beautified to a degree that surprised one. I have elsewhere alluded +to all that, and to my little Jeannie’s conduct of it; heroic, lovely, +pathetic, mournfully beautiful as in the light of Eternity that little +scene of time now looks to me. From birth upwards she had lived in +opulence, and now became poor for me—so nobly poor. No such house for +beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious +minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity, have I +anywhere looked upon where I have been.” Now, Maude, did that man +appreciate his wife?’ + +But the obstinate head still shook. + +‘Words, words,’ said she. + +‘Yes, but words with the ring of truth in them. Can’t you tell real +feeling from sham? I don’t believe women can, or they would not be so +often taken in. Here’s the heading of the next letter: “Mournfully +beautiful is this letter to me, a clear little household light shining +pure and brilliant in the dark obstructive places of the past”—a little +later comes the note: “Oh my poor little woman—become poor for me.”’ + +‘I like to hear him talk like that. Yes, I do like him better after what +you have said, Frank.’ + +‘You must remember two things about him, Maude. The first, that he was a +Scotchman, who are of all men the least likely to wear their hearts upon +their sleeves; the other, that his mind was always grappling with some +far-away subject which made him forget the smaller things close by him.’ + +‘But the smaller things are everything to a woman,’ said Maude. ‘If ever +you forget those smaller things, sir, to be as courteous to your wife as +you would be to any other lady, to be loving and thoughtful and +sympathetic, it will be no consolation to me to know that you have +written the grandest book that ever was. I should just hate that book, +and I believe that in her inmost heart this poor lady hated all the books +that had taken her husband away from her. I wonder if their house is +still standing.’ + +‘Certainly it is. Would you like to visit it?’ + +‘I don’t think there is anything I should like more.’ + +‘Why, Maude, we are getting quite a distinguished circle of +acquaintances. Mr. Pepys last month—and now the Carlyles. Well, we +could not spend a Saturday afternoon better, so if you will meet me +to-morrow at Charing Cross, we shall have a cosy little lunch together at +Gatti’s, and then go down to Chelsea.’ + + * * * * * + +Maude was a rigid economist, and so was Frank in his way, for with the +grand self-respect of the middle classes the thought of debt was +unendurable to them. A cab in preference to a ’bus gave both of them a +feeling of dissipation, but none the less they treated themselves to one +on the occasion of this, their little holiday. It is a delightful thing +to snuggle up in, is a hansom; but in order to be really trim and +comfortable one has to put one’s arm round one’s companion’s waist. No +one can observe it there, for the vehicle is built upon intelligent +principles. The cabman, it is true, can overlook you through a hole in +the roof. This cabman did so, and chuckled in his cravat. ‘If that +cove’s wife could see him—huddup, then!’ said the cabman. + +He was an intelligent cabman too, for having heard Frank say ‘Thomas +Carlyle’s house’ after giving the address 5 Cheyne Row, he pulled up on +the Thames Embankment. Right ahead of them was Chelsea Bridge, seen +through a dim, soft London haze—monstrous, Cyclopean, giant arches +springing over a vague river of molten metal, the whole daintily blurred, +as though out of focus. The glamour of the London haze, what is there +upon earth so beautiful? But it was not to admire it that the cabman had +halted. + +‘I beg your pardin’, sir,’ said he, in the softly insinuating way of the +Cockney, ‘but I thought that maybe the lidy would like to see Mr. +Carlyle’s statue. That’s ’im, sir, a-sittin’ in the overcoat with the +book in ’is ’and.’ + +Frank and Maude got out and entered the small railed garden, in the +centre of which the pedestal rose. It was very simple and plain—an old +man in a dressing-gown, with homely wornout boots, a book upon his knee, +his eyes and thoughts far away. No more simple statue in all London, but +human to a surprising degree. They stood for five minutes and stared at +it. + +‘Well,’ said Frank at last, ‘small as it is, I think it is worthy of the +man.’ + +‘It is so natural.’ + +‘You can see him think. By Jove, it is splendid!’ Frank had enough of +the true artist to be able to feel that rush of enthusiasm which adequate +work should cause. That old man, with his head shamefully defiled by +birds, was a positive joy to him. Among the soulless, pompous, +unspeakable London statues, here at last there was one over which it is +pleasant to linger. + +‘What other one is there?’ + +‘Gordon in Trafalgar Square.’ + +‘Well, Gordon, perhaps. But our Nelsons and Napiers and Havelocks—to +think that we could do no better than that for them! Now, dear, we have +seen the man—let us look at the house!’ + +It had evidently been an old-fashioned building when first they came to +it. 1708 was the date at the corner of the street. Six or seven +drab-coloured, flat-chested, dim-windowed houses stood in a line—theirs +wedged in the middle of them. A poor medallion with a profile head of +him had been clumsily let into the wall. Several worn steps led to the +thin high door with an old-fashioned fanlight above it. Frank rang the +bell, and a buxom cheerful matron came at the call. + +‘Names in this book, sir—_and_ address, if you please,’ said the cheery +matron. ‘One shilling each—thank you, sir. First door to the left, sir! +This was the dining-room, sir—’ + +But Frank had come to a dead stop in the dim, dull, wood-panelled hall. +In front of them rose the stairs with old-fashioned banisters, cracked, +warped, and dusty. + +‘It’s awful to think of, Maude—awful! To think that she ran up those +stairs as a youngish woman—that he took them two at a time as an active +man, and then that they hobbled and limped down them, old and weary and +broken, and now both dead and gone for ever, and the stairs standing, the +very rails, the very treads—I don’t know that I ever felt so strongly +what bubbles of the air we are, so fragile, so utterly dissolved when the +prick comes.’ + +‘How _could_ they be happy in such a house?’ said Maude. ‘I can feel +that there have been sorrow and trouble here. There is an atmosphere of +gloom.’ + +The matron-attendant approved of emotion, but in its due order. One +should be affected in the dining-room first, and then in the hall. And +so at her summons they followed her into the long, low, quaint room in +which this curious couple had lived their everyday life. Little of the +furniture was left, and the walls were lined with collected pictures +bearing upon the life of the Carlyles. + +‘There’s the fireplace that he smoked his pipe up,’ said Frank. + +‘Why up the fireplace?’ + +‘She did not like the smell in the room. He often at night took his +friends down into the kitchen.’ + +‘Fancy my driving you into the kitchen.’ + +‘Well, the habit of smoking was looked upon much less charitably at that +time.’ + +‘And besides, he smoked clay pipes,’ said the matron. ‘This is +considered a good print of Mrs. Carlyle.’ + +It was a peaky eager face, with a great spirit looking out of it, and +possibilities of passion both for good and evil in the keen, alert +features. Just beside her was the dour, grim outline of her husband. +Their life-histories were in those two portraits. + +‘Poor dear!’ said Maude. + +‘Ay, you may say so,’ said the matron, whose accent showed that she was +from the north of the Tweed. ‘He was gey ill to live wi’. His own +mither said so. Now, what think you that room was for?’ + +It was little larger than a cupboard, without window or skylight, opening +out of the end of the dining-room. + +‘I can’t imagine.’ + +‘Well, sir, it was the powdering-room in the days when folk wore wigs. +The powder made such a mess that they just had a room for nothing else. +There was a hole in the door, and the man put his head through the hole, +and the barber on the other side powdered him out of the flour-dredger.’ + +It was curious to be brought back in this fashion to those far-off days, +and to suddenly realise how many other people had played their +tragi-comedies within these walls. Wigs! Only the dressy people wore +wigs. So people of fashion in the days of the early Georges trod these +same rooms where Carlyle grumbled and his wife fretted. And they too had +grumbled and fretted—or worse perhaps. It was a ghostly old house. + +‘This,’ said the matron, when they had passed up the stair, ‘used to be +the drawing-room. That’s their sofa.’ + +‘Not _the_ sofa,’ said Frank. + +‘Yes, sir, the sofa that is mentioned in the letters.’ + +‘She was so proud of it, Maude. Gave eighteen shillings for it, and +covered and stuffed it herself. And that, I suppose, is _the_ screen. +She was a great housekeeper—brought up a spoiled child, according to her +own account, but a great housekeeper all the same. What’s that writing +in the case?’ + +‘It is the history that he was at work on when he died—something about +the kings of Norway, sir. Those are his corrections in blue.’ + +‘I can’t read them.’ + +‘No more could any one else, sir. Perhaps that’s why the book has never +been published. Those are the portraits of the kings of Prussia, about +whom he wrote a book.’ + +Frank looked with interest at the old engravings, one of the schoolmaster +face of the great Frederick, the other of the frog-like features of +Frederick William, the half-mad recruiter of the big Potsdam grenadiers. +When he had finished, the matron had gone down to open the door, and they +were alone. Maude’s hand grasped his. + +‘Is it not strange, dear?’ she said. ‘Here they lived, the most talented +couple in the world, and yet with all their wisdom they missed what we +have got—what perhaps that good woman who showed us round has got—the +only thing, as it seems to me, that is really worth living for. What are +all the wit and all the learning and all the insight into things compared +to love.’ + +‘By Jove, little woman, in all this house of wise sayings, no wiser or +deeper saying has been said than that. Well, thank God, we have that +anyhow!’ And he kissed his wife, while six grand electors of Brandenburg +and kings of Prussia looked fiercely out upon them from the wall. + +They sat down together in two old chairs in the window, and they looked +out into the dingy street, and Frank tried to recount all the great +men—‘the other great men, as Maude said, half chaffing and half +earnest—who had looked through those panes. Tennyson, Ruskin, Emerson, +Mill, Froude, Mazzini, Leigh Hunt—he had got so far when the matron +returned. + +There was a case in the corner with some of the wreckage from those +vanished vessels. Notes from old Goethe in a singularly neat boyish +writing inscribed upon little ornamented cards. Here, too, were small +inscriptions which had lain upon presents from Carlyle to his wife. It +was pleasant among all that jangling of the past to think of the love +which had written them, and that other love which had so carefully +preserved them. On one was written: ‘All good attend my darling through +this gulf of time and through the long ocean it is leading to. Amen. +Amen. T. C.’ On another, dated 1850, and attached evidently to some +birthday present, was: ‘Many years to my poor little Jeannie, and may the +worst of them be past. No good that is in me to give her shall ever be +wanting while I live. May God bless her.’ How strange that this apostle +of reticence should have such privacies as these laid open before the +curious public within so few years of his death! + +‘This is her bedroom,’ said the matron. + +‘And here is the old red bed,’ cried Frank. It looked bare and gaunt and +dreary with its uncurtained posts. + +‘The bed belonged to Mrs. Carlyle’s mother,’ the matron explained. ‘It’s +the same bed that Mrs. Carlyle talks about in her letters when she says +how she pulled it to pieces.’ + +‘Why did she pull it to pieces?’ asked Maude. + +‘Better not inquire, dear.’ + +‘Indeed you’re right, sir. If you get them into these old houses, it is +very hard to get them out. A cleaner woman than Mrs. Carlyle never came +out of Scotland. This little room behind was his dressing-room. There’s +his stick in the corner. Look what’s written upon the window!’ + +Decidedly it was a ghostly house. Scratched upon one of the panes with a +diamond was the following piece of information— + + ‘John Harbel Knowles cleaned all the windows in this house, and + painted part, in the eighteenth year of age. + + _March_ 7_th_, 1794.’ + +‘Who was _he_?’ asked Maude. + +‘Nobody knows, miss!’ It was characteristic of Maude that she was so +gentle in her bearing that every one always took it for granted that she +was Miss. Frank examined the writing carefully. + +‘He was the son of the house and a young aristocrat who had never done a +stroke of work before in his life,’ said he. + +The matron was surprised. + +‘What makes you say that, sir?’ + +‘What would a workman do with such a name as John Harbel Knowles, or with +a diamond ring for that matter? And who would dare to disfigure a window +so, if he were not of the family? And why should he be so proud of his +work, unless work was a new and wondrous thing to him. To paint _part_ +of the windows also sounds like the amateur and not the workman. So I +repeat that it was the first achievement of the son of the house.’ + +‘Well, indeed, I dare say you are right, though I never thought of it +before,’ said the matron. ‘Now this, up here, is Carlyle’s own room, in +which he slept for forty-seven years. In the case is a cast of his head +taken after death.’ + +It was strange and rather ghastly to see a plaster head in this room +where the head of flesh had so often lain. Maude and Frank stood beside +it, and gazed long and silently while the matron, half-bored and +half-sympathetic, waited for them to move on. It was an aquiline face, +very different from any picture which they had seen, sunken cheeks, an +old man’s toothless mouth, a hawk nose, a hollow eye—the gaunt timbers of +what had once been a goodly house. There was repose, and something of +surprise also, in the features—also a very subtle serenity and dignity. + +‘The distance from the ear to the forehead is said to be only equalled by +Napoleon and by Gladstone. That’s what they _say_,’ said the matron, +with Scotch caution. + +‘It’s the face of a noble man when all is said and done,’ said Frank. ‘I +believe that the true Thomas Carlyle without the dyspepsia, and the true +Jane Welsh without the nerves, are knowing and loving each other in some +further life.’ + +‘It is sweet to think so,’ cried Maude. ‘Oh, I do hope that it is so! +How dear death would be if we could only be certain of that!’ + +The matron smiled complacently in the superior wisdom of the Shorter +Catechism. ‘There is neither marriage nor giving in marriage,’ said she, +shaking her head. ‘This is the spare bedroom, sir, where Mr. Emerson +slept when he was here. And now if you will step this way I will show +you the study.’ + +It was the singular room which Carlyle had constructed in the hopes that +he could shut out all the noises of the universe, the crowing of cocks, +and the jingling of a young lady’s five-finger exercise in particular. +It had cost him a hundred odd pounds, and had ended in being unendurably +hot in summer, impossibly cold in winter, and so constructed acoustically +that it reverberated every sound in the neighbourhood. For once even his +wild and whirling words could hardly match the occasion—not all his +_kraft sprachen_ would be too much. For the rest it was at least a roomy +and lofty apartment, with space for many books, and for an irritable man +to wander to and fro. Prints there were of many historical notables, and +slips of letters and of memoranda in a long glass case. + +‘That is one of his clay pipes,’ said the matron. ‘He had them all sent +through to him from Glasgow. And that is the pen with which he wrote +_Frederick_.’ + +It was a worn, stubby old quill, much the worse for its monstrous task. +It at least of all quill pens might rest content with having done its +work in the world. Some charred paper beside it caught Frank’s eye. + +‘Oh look, Maude,’ he cried. ‘This is a little bit of the burned _French +Revolution_.’ + +‘Oh, I remember. He lent the only copy to a friend, and it was burned by +mistake.’ + +‘What a blow! What a frightful blow! And to think that his first +comment to his wife was, “Well, Mill, poor fellow, is very much cut up +about this.” There is Carlyle at his best. And here is actually a shred +of the old manuscript. How beautifully he wrote in those days!’ + +‘Read this, sir,’ said the matron. + +It was part of a letter from Carlyle to his publisher about his ruined +work. ‘Do not pity me,’ said he; ‘forward me rather as a runner that is +tripped but will not lie there, but run and run again.’ + +‘See what positive misfortune can do for a man,’ said Frank. ‘It raised +him to a hero. And yet he could not stand the test of a crowing cock. +How infinitely complex is the human soul—how illimitably great and how +pitiably small! Now, if ever I have a study of my own, this is what I +want engraved upon the wall. This alone is well worth our pilgrimage to +Chelsea.’ + +It was a short exclamation which had caught his eye. + +‘Rest! Rest! Shall I not have all eternity to rest in!’ That serene +plaster face down yonder gave force to the brave words. Frank copied +them down onto the back of one of Maude’s cards. + +And now they had finished the rooms, but the matron, catching a glow from +these enthusiastic pilgrims, had yet other things to show them. There +was the back garden. Here was the green pottery seat upon which the +unphilosophic philosopher had smoked his pipe—a singularly cold and +uncomfortable perch. And here was where Mrs. Carlyle had tried to build +a tent and to imagine herself in the country. And here was the famous +walnut tree—or at least the stumpy bole thereof. And here was where the +dog Nero was buried, best known of small white mongrels. + +And last of all there was the subterranean and gloomy kitchen, in which +there had lived that long succession of serving-maids of whom we gain +shadowy glimpses in the _Letters_ and in the _Journal_. Poor souls, +dwellers in the gloom, working so hard for others, so bitterly reviled +when by chance some weakness of humanity comes to break, for an instant, +the routine of their constant labour, so limited in their hopes and in +their pleasures, they are of all folk upon this planet those for whom a +man’s heart may most justly soften. So said Frank as he gazed around him +in the dark-cornered room. ‘And never one word of sympathy for them, or +of anything save scorn in all his letters. His pen upholding human +dignity, but where was the dignity of these poor girls for whom he has +usually one bitter line of biography in his notes to his wife’s letters? +It’s the worst thing I have against him.’ + +‘Jemima wouldn’t have stood it,’ said Maude. + +It was pleasant to be out in the open air once more, but they were in the +pine groves of Woking before Maude had quite shaken off the gloom of that +dark, ghost-haunted house. ‘After all, you are only twenty-seven,’ she +remarked as they walked up from the station. She had a way of +occasionally taking a subject by the middle in that way. + +‘What then, dear?’ + +‘When Carlyle was only twenty-seven I don’t suppose he knew he was going +to do all this.’ + +‘No, I don’t suppose so.’ + +‘And his wife—if he were married then—would feel as I do to you.’ + +‘No doubt.’ + +‘Then what guarantee have I that you won’t do it after all?’ + +‘Do what?’ + +‘Why, turn out a second Carlyle.’ + +‘Hear me swear!’ cried Frank, and they turned laughing into their own +little gateway at the Lindens. + + + + +THE LAST NOTE OF THE DUET + + +OUR young married couples may feel that two is company and three is none, +but there comes a little noisy intruder to break into their sweet +intimacy. The coming of the third is the beginning of a new life for +them as well as for it—a life which is more useful and more permanent, +but never so concentrated as before. That little pink thing with the +blinking eyes will divert some of the love and some of the attention, and +the very trouble which its coming has caused will set its mother’s heart +yearning over it. Not so the man. Some vague resentment mixes with his +pride of paternity, and his wife’s sufferings rankle in his memory when +she has herself forgotten them. His pity, his fears, his helplessness, +and his discomfort, give him a share in the domestic tragedy. It is not +without cause that in some societies it is the man and not the woman who +receives the condolence and the sympathy. + +There came a time when Maude was bad, and there came months when she was +better, and then there were indications that a day was approaching, the +very thought of which was a shadow upon her husband’s life. For her +part, with the steadfast, gentle courage of a woman, she faced the future +with a sweet serenity. But to him it was a nightmare—an actual nightmare +which brought him up damp and quivering in those gray hours of the dawn, +when dark shadows fall upon the spirit of man. He had a steady nerve for +that which affected himself, a nerve which would keep him quiet and +motionless in a dentist’s chair, but what philosophy or hardihood can +steel one against the pain which those whom we love have to endure. He +fretted and chafed, and always with the absurd delusion that his fretting +and chafing were successfully concealed. A hundred failures never +convince a man how impossible it is to deceive a woman who loves him. +Maude watched him demurely, and made her plans. + +‘Do you know, dear,’ said she, one evening, ‘if you can get a week of +your holidays now, I think it would be a very good thing for you to +accept that invitation of Mr. Mildmay’s, and spend a few days in golfing +at Norwich.’ + +Frank stared at her open-eyed. + +‘What! Now!’ + +‘Yes, dear, now—at once.’ + +‘But _now_ of all times.’ + +Maude looked at him with that glance of absolute obvious candour which a +woman never uses unless she has intent to deceive. + +‘Yes, dear—but only next week. I thought it would brace you up for—well, +for the week afterwards.’ + +‘You think the week afterwards?’ + +‘Yes, dear. It would help me so, if I knew that you were in your best +form.’ + +‘_I_! What can it matter what form _I_ am in. But in any case, it is +out of the question.’ + +‘But you could get leave.’ + +‘Oh yes, easily enough.’ + +‘Then do go.’ + +‘And leave you at such a time!’ + +‘No, no, you would be back.’ + +‘You can’t be so sure of that. No, Maude, I should never forgive myself. +Such an idea would never enter my head.’ + +‘But for my sake—!’ + +‘That’s enough, Maude. It is settled.’ + +Master Frank had a heavy foot when he did bring it down, and his wife +recognised a decisive thud this time. With a curious double current of +feeling, she was pleased and disappointed at the same time, but more +pleased than disappointed, so she kissed the marrer of her plots. + +‘What an obstinate old boy it is! But of course you know best, and I +should much rather have you at home. As you say, one can never be +certain.’ + +In a conflict of wits the woman may lose a battle, but the odds are that +she will win the campaign. The man dissipates over many things, while +she concentrates upon the one. Maude had made up her mind absolutely +upon one point, and she meant to attain it. She tried here, she tried +there, through a friend, through her mother, but Frank was still +immovable. The ordeal coming upon herself never disturbed her for an +instant. But the thought that Frank would suffer was unendurable. She +put herself in his place, and realised what it would be to him if he were +in the house at such a time. With many cunning devices she tried to lure +him off, but still, in his stubborn way, he refused to be misled. And +then suddenly she realised that it was too late. + +It was early one morning that the conviction came home to her, but he, at +her side, knew nothing of it. He came up to her before he left for the +City. + +‘You have not eaten anything, dear.’ + +‘No, Frank, I am not hungry.’ + +‘Perhaps, after you get up—’ + +‘Well, dear, I thought of staying in bed.’ + +‘You are not—?’ + +‘What nonsense, dear! I want to keep very quiet until next week, when I +may need all my strength.’ + +‘Dear girl, I would gladly give ten years of my life to have next week +past.’ + +‘Silly old boy! But I do think it would be wiser if I were to keep in +bed.’ + +‘Yes, yes, do.’ + +‘I have a little headache. Nothing to speak of, but just a little.’ + +‘Don’t you think Dr. Jordan had better give you something for it.’ + +‘Do you think so? Well, just as you like. You might call as you pass, +and tell him to step up.’ + +And so, upon a false mission, the doctor was summoned to her side, but +found a very real mission waiting for him when he got there. She had +written a note for Frank the moment that he had left the house, and he +found both it and a conspiracy of silence waiting for him when he +returned in the late afternoon. The note was upon the hall-table, and he +eagerly tore it open. + +‘My dear boy,’ said this mendacious epistle, ‘my head is still rather +bad, and Dr. Jordan thought that it would be wiser if I were to have an +undisturbed rest, but I will send down to you when I feel better. Until +then I had best, perhaps, remain alone. Mr. Harrison sent round to say +that he would come to help you to pot the bulbs, so that will give you +something to do. Don’t bother about me, for I only want a little +rest.—MAUDE.’ + +It seemed very unnatural to him to come back and not to hear the swift +rustle of the dress which followed always so quickly upon the creak of +his latch-key that they might have been the same sound. The hall and +dining-room seemed unhomely without the bright welcoming face. He +wandered about in a discontented fashion upon his tiptoes, and then, +looking through the window, he saw Harrison his neighbour coming up the +path with a straw basket in his hand. He opened the door for him with +his finger upon his lips. + +‘Don’t make a row, Harrison,’ said he, ‘my wife’s bad.’ + +Harrison whistled softly. + +‘Not—?’ + +‘No, no, not that. Only a headache, but she is not to be disturbed. We +expect _that_ next week. Come in here and smoke a pipe with me. It was +very kind of you to bring the bulbs.’ + +‘I am going back for some more.’ + +‘Wait a little. You can go back presently. Sit down and light your +pipe. There is some one moving about upstairs. It must be that +heavy-footed Jemima. I hope she won’t wake Maude up. I suppose one must +expect such attacks at such a time.’ + +‘Yes, my wife was just the same. No, thank you, I’ve just had some tea. +You look worried, Crosse. Don’t take things too hard.’ + +‘I can’t get the thought of next week out of my head. If anything goes +wrong—well there, what can I do? I never knew how a man’s nerves may be +harrowed before. And she is such a saint, Harrison—such an absolutely +unselfish saint! You’ll never guess what she tried to do.’ + +‘What, then?’ + +‘She knew what it would mean to me—what it will mean to me—to sit here in +impotence while she goes through this horrible business. She guessed in +some extraordinary way what my secret feelings were about it. And she +actually tried to deceive me as to when it was to occur—tried to get me +out of the house on one pretext or another until it was all over. That +was her plot, and, by Jove, she tried it so cleverly that she would have +managed it if something had not put me on my guard. She was a little too +eager, unnaturally so, and I saw through her game. But think of it, the +absolute unselfishness of it. To consider _me_ at such a time, and to +face her trouble alone and unsupported in order to make it easier for me. +She wanted me to go to Norwich and play golf.’ + +‘She must have thought you pretty guileless, Crosse, to be led away so +easily.’ + +‘Yes, it was a hopeless attempt to deceive me on such a point, or to +dream for an instant that my instincts would not tell me when she had +need of me. But none the less it was beautiful and characteristic. You +don’t mind my talking of these things, Harrison?’ + +‘My dear chap, it is just what you need. You have been bottling things +up too much. Your health will break down under it. After all, it is not +so serious as all that. The danger is very much exaggerated.’ + +‘You think so.’ + +‘I’ve had the experience twice now. You’ll go to the City some fine +morning, and when you come back the whole thing will be over.’ + +‘Indeed it won’t. I have made arrangements at the office, and from the +hour that she first seems bad I will never stir from the house. For all +she may say, I know very well that it gives her strength and courage to +feel that I am there.’ + +‘You may not know that it is coming on?’ + +Frank laughed incredulously. + +‘We’ll see about that,’ said he. ‘And you think from your experience, +Harrison, that it is not so very bad after all?’ + +‘Oh no. It soon passes.’ + +‘Soon! What do you mean by soon?’ + +‘Jordan was there six hours the first time.’ + +‘Good God! Six hours!’ Frank wiped his forehead. ‘They must have +seemed six years.’ + +‘They _were_ rather long. I kept on working in the garden. That’s the +tip. Keep on doing something and it helps you along wonderfully.’ + +‘That’s a good suggestion, Harrison. What a curious smell there is in +the air! Do you notice a sort of low, sweetish, spirity kind of scent? +Well, perhaps it’s my imagination. I dare say that my nerves are a bit +strung up these days. But that is a capital idea of yours about having +some work to do. I should like to work madly for those hours. Have +everything up out of the back garden and plant it all again in the +front.’ + +Harrison laughed. + +‘I’ll tell you something less heroic,’ said he; ‘you could keep all these +bulbs, and pot them then. By the way, I’ll go round and get the others. +Don’t bother about the door. I shall leave it open, for I won’t be five +minutes.’ + +‘And I’ll put these in the greenhouse,’ said Frank. He took the basket +of bulbs and he laid them all out on the wooden shelf of the tiny +conservatory which leaned against the back of the house. When he came +out there was a kitten making a noise somewhere. It was a low sound, but +persistent, coming in burst after burst. He took the rake and jabbed +with the handle amongst the laurel bushes under their bedroom window. +The beast might waken Maude, and so it was worth some trouble to dislodge +it. He could not see it, but when he had poked among the bushes and +cried ‘Skat!’ several times, the crying died away, and he carried his +empty basket into the dining-room. There he lit his pipe again, and +waited for Harrison’s return. + +There was that bothersome kitten again. He could hear it mewing away +somewhere. It did not sound so loud as in the garden, so perhaps it +would not matter. He felt very much inclined to steal upstairs upon +tiptoe and see if Maude were stirring yet. After all, if Jemima, or +whoever it was, could go clumping about in heavy boots over his head, +there was no fear that he could do any harm. And yet she had said that +she would ring or send word the moment she could see him, and so perhaps +he had better wait where he was. He put his head out of the window and +cried ‘Shoo!’ into the laurel bushes several times. Then he sat in the +armchair with his back to the door. Steps came heavily along the hall, +and he saw dimly with the back corner of his eye that some one was in the +doorway carrying something. He thought that really Harrison might have +brought the bulbs in more quietly, and so he treated him with some +coldness, and did not turn round to him. + +‘Put it in the out-house,’ said he. + +‘Why the out-house?’ + +‘We keep them there. But you can put it under the sideboard, or in the +coal-scuttle, or where you like as long as you don’t make any more +noise.’ + +‘Why, surely, Crosse—’ But Frank suddenly sprang out of his chair. + +‘I’m blessed if that infernal kitten isn’t somewhere in the room!’ + +And there when he turned was the grim, kindly face of old Doctor Jordan +facing him. He carried in the crook of his arm a brown shawl with +something round and small muffled up in it. There was one slit in front, +and through this came a fist about the size of a marble, the thumb +doubled under the tiny fingers, and the whole limb giving circular waves, +as if the owner were cheering lustily at his own successful arrival. +‘Here am I, good people, hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!’ cried the waving hand. +Then as the slit in the shawl widened Frank saw that behind the energetic +fist there was a huge open mouth, a little button of a nose, and two eyes +which were so resolutely screwed up that it seemed as if the owner had +made a resolution never under any circumstances to take the least notice +of this new world into which it had been transported. Frank dropped his +pipe and stood staring at this apparition. + +‘What! What’s that?’ + +‘The baby!’ + +‘Baby? Whose baby?’ + +‘Your baby, of course.’ + +‘My baby! Where—where did you get it?’ + +Doctor Jordan burst out laughing. + +‘You are like a man who has just been wakened out of his sleep,’ said he. +‘Why, Crosse, your wife has been bad all day, but she’s all right now, +and here’s your son and heir—a finer lad of the age I never saw—fighting +weight about seven pounds.’ + +Frank was a very proud man at the roots of his nature. He did not +readily give himself away. Perhaps if he had been quite alone he might +at that moment, as the great wave of joy washed through his soul, bearing +all his fears and forebodings away upon its crest, have dropped upon his +knees in prayer. But prayer comes not from the knee but from the heart, +and the whole strength of his nature breathed itself out in silent thanks +to that great Fate which goes its way regardless either of thanks or +reproaches. The doctor saw a pale self-contained young man before him, +and thought him strangely wanting in emotion. + +‘Well!’ said he, impatiently. ‘Is she all right?’ + +‘Yes. Won’t you take your son?’ + +‘Could she see me?’ + +‘I don’t suppose five minutes would do any harm.’ + +Dr. Jordan said afterwards that it was three steps which took Frank up +the fifteen stairs. The nurse who met him at the corner looks back on it +as the escape of her lifetime. Maude lay in bed with a face as pale as +the pillow which framed it. Her lips were bloodless but smiling. + +‘Frank!’ + +‘My own dear sweet girlie!’ + +‘You never knew. Did you, Frank? Tell me that you never knew.’ + +And at that anxious question the foolish pride which keeps the emotions +of the strong man buried down in his soul as though they were the least +honourable part of his nature, fell suddenly to nothing, and Frank +dropped with his head beside the white face upon the pillow, and lay with +his arm across the woman whom he loved, and sobbed as he had not sobbed +since his childhood. Her cheek was wet with his tears. He never saw the +doctor until he came beside him and touched him on the shoulder. + +‘I think you had better go now,’ said he. + +‘Sorry to be a fool, doctor,’ said Frank, blushing hotly in his clumsy +English fashion. ‘It’s just more than I can stand.’ + +‘Sir,’ the doctor answered, ‘I owe you an apology, for I had done you an +injustice. Meanwhile your son is about to be dressed, and there is +hardly room for three men in one bedroom.’ + +So Frank went down into the darkening room below, and mechanically +lighting his pipe, he sat with his elbows upon his knees and stared out +into the gathering gloom where one bright evening star twinkled in a +violet sky. The gentle hush of the gloaming was around him, and some +late bird was calling outside amongst the laurels. Above he heard the +shuffling of feet, the murmur of voices, and then amid it all those thin +glutinous cries, _his_ voice, the voice of this new man with all a man’s +possibilities for good and for evil, who had taken up his dwelling with +them. And as he listened to those cries, a gentle sadness was mixed with +his joy, for he felt that things were now for ever changed—that whatever +sweet harmonies of life might still be awaiting him, from this hour +onwards, they might form themselves into the subtlest and loveliest of +chords, but it must always be as a trio, and never as the dear duet of +the past. + + + + +THE TRIO + + + (_Extract from a letter to the Author from Mrs. Frank Crosse_.) + +‘IT is very singular that you should say with such confidence that you +know that our baby is a splendid one, and further on you say that in some +ways it differs from any other baby. It is so true, but neither Frank +nor I can imagine how you knew. We both think it so _clever_ of you to +have found it out. When you write to us, do please tell us how you +discovered it. + +‘I want to tell you something about baby, since you so kindly ask me, but +Frank says there is no use my beginning as there is only one quire of +paper in the house. As a matter of fact, I shall be quite short, which +is not because I have not plenty to say—you cannot think what a _dear_ he +is—but because he may wake up at any moment. After that happens I can +only write with one hand, while I wave a feather fan with the other, and +it is so difficult then to say exactly what you mean. In any case you +know that I have not the habit of collecting and writing down my ideas, +so please forgive me if this seems a stupid letter. Frank could have +done it splendidly. But he has so many sweet and quite _remarkable_ +ways, that I ought to be able to put some of them down for you. + +‘It will be easier perhaps if I imagine a day of him—and one of his days +is very much like another. No one could ever say that he was irregular +in his habits. First thing in the morning I go over to his cot to see if +he is awake yet—though, of course, I know that he can’t be, for he always +lets us know—the darling! However, I go over all the same, and I find +everything quiet and nothing visible of baby, but a tiny, turned-up nose. +It is so exactly Frank’s nose, only that his is curved the other way. +Then, as I bend over his cot, there is a small sigh, such a soft, +comfortable sound! Then a sort of earthquake takes place under the eider +down, and a tightly clenched fist appears and is waved in the air. He +has such a pleasant, cheerful way of waving his fists. Then one eye is +half opened, as if he were looking round to see if it were safe to open +the other one, and then he gives a long, sorrowful wail as he realises +that his bottle is not where he left it when he went to sleep. In a +moment he is in my arms and quite happy again, playing with the lace +round the neck of my pink dressing-gown. When he finds that his nice +warm bath is all ready for him, he becomes quite jovial, and laughs and +chuckles to himself. Something awfully funny must have happened to him +before ever he came into this world at all, for nothing that has occurred +since could account for the intense expression of amusement that one can +often see in his eyes. When he laughs, Frank says that he looks like +some jolly old clean-shaven toothless friar—so chubby and good-humoured. +He takes the greatest interest in everything in the room, watches the +nurse moving about, looks out of the window, and examines my hair and my +dress very critically. He loves to see untidy hair and a bright tie, or +a brooch will often catch his eye, and make him smile. His smile is the +most wonderful thing! As he lies gazing with his great serious blue +eyes, his whole face suddenly lights up, his mouth turns up at one corner +in the most irresistible way, and his cheeks all go off into dimples. He +looks so sweet and innocent, and at the same time so humorous and wicked, +that his foolish mother wants to laugh at him and to weep over him at the +same time. + +‘Then comes his bath, and there is a sad display of want of faith upon +his part. He enjoys the process, but he is convinced that only his own +exertions keep him from drowning, so his little fists are desperately +clenched, his legs kick up and down the whole time, and he watches every +movement of mother and nurse with suspicion. He enjoys being dressed, +and smiles at first, and then he suddenly remembers that he has not had +his breakfast. Then the smiles vanish, the small round face grows so red +and angry, and all covered with little wrinkles, and there is a dismal +wailing—poor darling! If the bottle is not instantly forthcoming he will +howl loudly, and beat the air with his fists until he gets it. He _does_ +remind me so of his father sometimes. He is always hunting for his +bottle, and will seize my finger, or a bit of my dress, or anything, and +carry it to his mouth, and when he finds it isn’t what he wants, he +throws it away very angrily. When finally he does get the bottle, he +becomes at once the most contented being in the whole world, and sucks +away with such great long pulls, and such dear little grunts in between. +Then afterwards, a well-washed, well-fed atom, he is ready to look about +him and observe things. I am sure that he has his father’s brains, and +that he is storing up all sorts of impressions and observations for +future use, for he notices _everything_. I used to think that babies +were stupid and indifferent—and perhaps other babies are—but _he_ is +never indifferent. Sometimes he is pleased and amused, and sometimes +angry, and sometimes gravely interested, but he is always wide awake and +taking things in. When I go into his room, he always looks at my head, +and if I have my garden hat with the flowers, he is so pleased. He much +prefers chiffon to silk. + +‘Almost the first thing that struck me when I saw him, and it strikes me +more and more, was, how could any one have got the idea of original sin? +The people who believe in it can never have looked into a baby’s eyes. I +love to watch them, and sometimes fancy I can see a faint shade of +reminiscence in them, as if he had still some memories of another life, +and could tell me things if he could only speak. One day as I sat beside +his cot—Oh dear! I hear his Majesty calling. So sorry! Good-bye.—Yours +very truly, + + MAUDE CROSSE.’ + +_P.S._—I have not time to read this over, but I may say, in case I +omitted it before, that he really is a very remarkable baby.’ + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + at the Edinburgh University Press + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DUET*** + + +******* This file should be named 5260-0.txt or 5260-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/2/6/5260 + + + +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. 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