Mr. Pelly stopped with a jerk. He found himself talking uncomfortably and inexplicably to space, beside the embers of a dying fire, and in the distance he could hear the carriage bringing the absentees back through the wintry night, and the ringing tread of the horses on the hard ground.
"Poor Uncle Christopher all by himself, and the fire out!" said the first comer into the Library. It was the young lady who came to see the Italian picture at the restorer's Studio in Chelsea, a little over six months past. She had changed for the older since then, out of measure with the lapse of time. But her face was beautiful—none the less that it was sad and pale—in the glow as she brought the embers together to make life worth living to one or two more faggots, just for a little blaze before we went to bed.
"I was asleep and dreaming," said the old gentleman. "Such a queer dream!"
"You must tell it us to-morrow, Uncle Christopher. I like queer dreams." This young lady, Madeline Upwell, always made use of this mode of address, although the old gentleman was no uncle of hers, but only a very old friend of the family who knew her father before she was born, and called him George, which was his Christian Christian-name, so to speak, "Stopleigh" being outside family recognitions—a mere Bartitude!
But the picture, which might reasonably have protested against Mr. Pelly's statement, remained silent. So, when his waking judgment set the whole down as a dream, it was probably right.
A Retrospective Chapter. How Fortune's Toy and the Sport of Circumstances fell in love with one of his Nurses. Prose composition. Lady Upwell's majesty, and the Queen's. No engagement. The African War, and Justifiable Fratricide. Cain. Madeline's big dog Cæsar. Cats. Ormuzd and Ahriman. A handy little Veldt. Madeline's Japanese kimono. A discussion of the nature of Dreams. Never mind Athenæus. Look at the Prophet Daniel. Sir Stopleigh's great-aunt Dorothea's twins. The Circulating Library and the potted shrimps. How Madeline read the manuscript in bed, and took care not to set fire to the curtains.
The story of Madeline, the young lady who is going one day to inherit the picture Mr. Pelly thought he was talking to last night, along with the Surley Stakes property—for there is no male heir—is an easy story to tell, and soon told. There were a many stories of the sort, just as the clock of last century struck its hundred.
Whether the young Captain Calverley, whom the picture alluded to, was a hero because, when, one day in the hunting-field, our young heiress and her quadruped came to grief over a fence, he made his horse swerve suddenly to avoid disastrous complications, and thereby came to greater grief himself, Mr. Pelly, at any rate, could form no judgment. It was out of his line, he said. So, according to him, was the sequel, in which the sadly mauled mortal portion of the young soldier, with a doubt if the immortal portion was still in residence, was carried to Surley Stakes and qualified—though rather slowly—to resume active service, by the skill of the best of surgeons and the assiduity of an army of nurses. But, hero or not, he was credited with heroism by the young lady, with all the natural consequences. And no doubt his convalescence was all the more rapid that he found himself, when he recovered his senses forty-eight hours after his head struck the corner of a stone wall in his involuntary dismount, in such very delightful company, with such opportunities of improving his relations with it. In fact, the scheme for his removal must have developed very soon, to give him a text for a sermon to the effect that he was Fortune's Toy and the Sport of Circumstances, that he accounted concussion of the brain and a fractured thigh-bone the only real blessings his lot had ever vouchsafed to him, and that happiness would become a Thing of the Past as soon as he rejoined his regiment. He would, however, devote the remainder of his life to treasuring the memories of this little hour of unalloyed bliss, and hoping that his cherished recollections would at almost the rarest possible intervals find an echo somehow and somewhere that his adoration—badly in love as he was—failed in finding a description for, as the climax of a long sentence. And perhaps it was just as well that his resources in prose composition gave out when they did, as nothing was left then but to become natural, and say, "You'll forget all about me, Miss Upwell, you know you will. That's what I meant"—the last with a consciousness that when we are doing prose composition we are apt to say one thing and mean another.
Madeline wasn't prepared to be artificial, with this young dragoon or anyone else. She gave him the full benefit of her large blue eyes—because, you see, she had got him down, as it were, and he couldn't possibly become demonstrative with a half-healed fracture of the thigh—and said, "I hope Ishan't. I shall try not to, anyhow." But this seemed not to give entire satisfaction, as the patient said, rather ruefully, "You could, if you tried, Miss Upwell!" To which the young lady, who was not without a mischievous side to her character, answered, "Of course I could!" but immediately repented, and added. "One can do anything one likes, if one tries hard enough, you know!"
It would only be the retelling of a very old story, the retreading of very old ground, to follow these young people through the remainder of their interview, which was interrupted by the appearance of Madeline's mamma; who, to say the truth, had been getting apprehensive that so manytêtes-à-têtewith this handsome patient might end seriously. And though his family was good, he was only a younger son; and she didn't want her daughter to marry a soldier. Fancy "Mad" being carried off to India! For in the bosom of her family this most uncomfortable of namelets had caught on naturally, without imputation of Hanwell or Colney Hatch.
However, her ladyship was too late, this time. No clinical practice of any Hospital includes kissing or being kissed by the patient, and "Mad" and her lover were fairly caught. Nothing was left for it but confession at high tension, and throwing ourselves on the mercy of the Court. But always with the distinct reservation that neither of us could ever love another.
Lady Upwell, a very beautiful woman in her day, was indulging in a beautiful sunset, and meant to remain fine till midnight. There was a gleam of the yellow silver of a big harvest moon in the hair that had been gold. She was good, but very majestic; in fact,hermajesty, when she presented her daughter to her Queen, competed with that of the latter, which has passed into the language. To do her justice, she let it lapse on hearing the full disclosure of these two culprits, and had the presence of mind to ask them if they had no suspicion that they might be a couple of young fools, to fancy they could know their own minds on so short an acquaintance, etc. For this was barely seven weeks after the hunting-field accident. "You silly geese!" she said. "Go your own way—but you'll quarrel in a fortnight. See if you don't!"Sheknew all about this sort of thing, though Mr. Pelly didn't.
The latter was right, however, and prudent, when in his dream he laid stress on the wish of Madeline's parents that there should be "no engagement." This stipulation seemed to be accounted by both of them—but especially by the Baronet—as a sort of panacea for all parental responsibilities. It could not be reiterated too often. The consequence was that there were two concurrent determinations of the relative positions of Madeline and the Captain; one an esoteric one—a sort of sacramental service of perpetual vows of fidelity; the other the exoteric proclamations of a kind of many-headed town-crier, who went about ringing his bell and shouting that it was "distinctly understood that there was no engagement." Mr. Pelly's repetition of this in his dream may have had an intransitive character; but he was good and prudent, just the same. How we behave in dreams shows whether the high qualities we pride ourselves on are more than skin-deep.
But all the efforts of the exoteric town-crier were of no avail against the esoteric sacramental services. The most unsettling condition lovers can have imposed upon them—that of being left entirely to their own devices, and never stimulated by so much as a hint of achaperon—failed to bring about a coolness. And when within a year after his accident Jack Calverley was ordered away with his Company to South Africa, where war had all but broken out, the sacramental service the picture—or someone—had witnessed, just by the glass case with the big fish in it, was the farewell of a couple of heartbreaks, kept under by the upspring of Hope in youth, that clings to the creed that the stricken classes, the mourning classes, are Other People, and that to them pity shall be given from within our pale of well-fenced security. It was a wrench to part, certainly, but Jack would come back, and be a great soldier and wear medals. And the Other People would die for their country.
And then came the war, and the many unpleasant discoveries that always come with a war, the most unpleasant of all being the discovery of the strength of the enemy. The usual recognitions of the obvious, too late; and the usual denunciations of everybody else for not having foreseen it all the time. The usual rush to the money-chest of unexhausted Credit, to make good with pounds deficiencies shillings spent in time would have supplied; the usual storms of indignation against the incompetence in high places that never spent, in time, the shillings we refused to provide. The usual war-whoops from sheltered corners, safe out of gunshot; and the usual deaths by scores of men on both sides who never felt a pang of ill-feeling to each other, or knew the cause of quarrel—yes, a many of whom, had they known a quarrel was pending, would have given their lives to avert it! The usual bearing, on both sides, of the brunt of the whirlwind by those who never sowed a wind-seed, and the usual reaping of a golden harvest by the Judicious Investor, he who buys and sells, but makes and meddles not with what he sells or buys, measuring its value alone by what he can get and must give for it. And a very respectable person he is, too.
The history of Madeline's next few months made up for her a tale of anxious waitings for many mails; of pangs of unendurable tension over journals that, surrendered by the postman, would not open; that, opened at last, seemed nothing but advertisements; that, run to earth and convicted of telegrams, only yielded new food for anxiety. A tale of three periods of expectation of letters from Jack, by every mail. The first of expectation fulfilled; of letters full of hope and confidence, of forecast of victories easily won and a triumphant quick return. The second of expectation damped and thwarted; of victories revised; of Hope's rebukes to Confidence, the coward who fails us at our need; of the slow dawn of the true horrors of war—mere death on the battlefield the least of them—that will one day change the reckless young soldier to an old grave man that has learned his lesson, and knows that the curse of Cain is on him who stirs to War, and that half the great names of History have been borne by Devils incarnate. And then the third—a weary time of waiting for a letter that came not, for only one little word of news to sayyesornoto the question we hardly dare to ask:—"Is he dead?" For our poor young friend, after distinguishing himself brilliantly, and yet coming almost scathless out of more than one action, wasmissing. When the roll was called after a memorable action from which the two opponent armies retreated simultaneously, able to bear the slaughter by unseen guns no longer, no answer came to the name—called formally—of Captain Calverley. The survivors who still had breath to answer to their names already knew that he was missing—knew that he was last seen apparently carried away by his horse, having lost control over it—probably wounded, said report. That was all—soon told! And then followed terrible hours that should have brought more news and did not. And the hearts of those who watched for it went sick with the fear that no news would ever come, that none would ever know the end of that ride and the vanished rider. But each heart hid away its sickness from its neighbour, and would not tell.
And so the days passed, and each day's end was the grafting of a fresh despair in the tree nourished in the soil of buried hopes; and each morning Madeline would try to reason it away and discover some new calendar rule, bringing miscalculation to book—always cutting short the tale of days, never lengthening them. She talked very little to anyone about it, for fear her houses of cards should be shaken down by stern common sense; or, worse still, that she should be chilled by the hesitating sympathy of half-hearted Hope. But her speech was free to her great dog Cæsar, when they were alone together.
Cæsar was about the size of a small cart-horse, and when he had a mind—and he often had—to lie on the hearthrug, and think with his eyes shut, he was difficult to move. Not that he had an opposive or lazy disposition, but that it was not easy to make him understand. The moment he knew what was wanted of him he was only too anxious to comply. As, for instance, if he could be convinced of Cats, he would rise and leave the room abruptly, knocking several persons down, and leaving behind him the trail of an earthquake. But his heart was good and pure, and he impressed his admirers somehow that he was always on the side of Ormuzd against Ahriman: he always took part with the Right.
So Madeline, when she found herself alone with Cæsar, in those days, would cry into his fur as he lay on the rug, and would put sentiments of sympathy and commiseration into his mouth, which may have been warranted by the facts, only really there was nothing to show it. In these passages she alleged kinship with Cæsar, claiming him as her son.
"Was he," she would say, "his own mamma's precious Angel? And the only person in the house that had any real feeling! All the other nasty people keep on being sorry for her, and he says he knows Jack's coming back, and nobody need be sorry at all. And when Jack comes home safe and well, his mamma's own Heavenly Angel shall run with the horses all over Household Common—he shall! And he shall catch a swallow at last, he shall, and bring it to his own mamma. Bless him! Only he mustn't scratch his darling head too suddenly; at least, not till his mamma can get her own out of the way, because she's not a bull or an elephant, and able to stand anything.... That's right, my pet! Now he shall try and get a little sleep, he shall." This was acknowledgment of a deep sigh, as of one who had at last deservedly found rest. But it called for a recognition of its unselfish nature, too. "And he never so much as thought of going to sleep till he'd consoled his poor mamma—the darling!" And really her interviews with Cæsar grew to be almost Madeline's only speech about her lost lover; for her father and mother, though they talked to each other, scarcely dared to say a word to her, lest their own disbelief in the possibility of Jack's return should show itself.
And so the hours passed and passed, and the days grew to weeks, and the weeks to months; and now, at the time of the cold January night when Mr. Pelly dreamed the picture talked, the flame of Hope was dying down in the girl's tired heart like the embers he sat by, and none came bringing fuel and a new lease of life.
But the way she nursed the flame that flickered still was brave. She kept up her spirits entirely on the knowledge that there was no direct proof of Jack's death. She fostered a conception in her mind of a perfectly imaginary Veldt, about the size of Hyde Park, and carefully patrolled day and night. They would have been certain to find him if he were dead—was her thought. What a handy little Veldt that was!—and, oh, the intolerable leagues of the reality! But it did help towards keeping her spirits up, somehow or other.
Her father and mother ascribed more than a fair share of these kept-up spirits to their great panacea. They laid to their souls the flattering unction that if therehadbeen a regular engagement their daughter would have given way altogether. Think what a difference it would have made if she had had to go into mourning! Lady Upwell took exception to the behaviour of Jack's family at Calverley Court, who had rushed into mourning six weeks after his disappearance, and advertised their belief in his death, really before there was any need for it. Her daughter, on the contrary, rather made a parade of being out of mourning. Perhaps it seemed to her to emphasize and consolidate her own hopes, as well as to rebuke dispositions towards premature despair in others.
Therefore, when this young lady came upon old Mr. Pelly, just aroused from his dream, she was certainly not clad in sackcloth and ashes. She had on her rose colourvoile de soie; only, of course, Mr. Pelly didn't see it until she took off her seal-colour musquash wrap, which was quite necessary because of the cold. And the third evening after that, which was to be a quiet one at home for Mr. Pelly to read them the memoranda of his dream in the Library, she put on her Jap kimono with the embroidered storks, which was really nearly as smart as thevoile de soie; and, of course, there was no need to fig up, when it was only Mr. Pelly. And whatever tale her looks might tell, no one could have guessed from her manner she had such a sorrow at heart, so successfully did she affect, from fear of it, a cheerfulness she was far from feeling; knowing perfectly well that if she made any concession, she must needs break down altogether.
"Fancy your being able to remember it all, and write it out like that!" said she to Mr. Pelly when they adjourned into the Library after dinner.
"We must bear in mind," he replied, "that the story is a figment of my own mind, and therefore easier to recall than a communication from another person. Athenæus refers to an instance of..."
"Never mind Athenæus! How do you know it is a figment of your imagination?"
"What else can it be?"
"Lots of things. Besides, it doesn't matter. Look here, now, you say it was a dream, don't you?"
"I certainly think so."
"Well!—and aren't dreams the hardest things to recollect there are? Look at the Prophet Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar." Mr. Pelly thought to himself that he would much sooner look at the speaker. But he only said, "Suppose we do!" To which the reply was, "Well, then—of course!..."
"Of course what?"
"Why—of course when you can recollect things that proves they're not dreams."
"Then, when Daniel recollected—or, I should rather say, recalled his dream to Nebuchadnezzar—did that prove that it wasn't a dream?"
"Certainly not, because he was a Prophet. The Chaldeanscouldn'trecollect, and that proved that it was."
The Baronet and his Lady remained superiorly silent, smiling over the heads of the discussion. The attitude of Debrett towards human weaknesses—such as Philosophical Speculation, or the Use of the Globes—was indicated.
When Mr. Pelly had finished reading his account of the dream—on which our relation of it, already given, was founded—discussion ensued. It embodied, intelligently enough, all the things that it is dutiful to say when we are disconcerted at the inscrutable.
The Baronet said we must guard ourselves carefully against being carried away by two or three things; superstition was one of them. It did not require a Scientific Eye to see that there was nothing in this narrative which might not be easily ascribed to the subconscious action of Mr. Pelly's brain. It was quite otherwise in such a case as that of his great-aunt, Dorothea, whose wraith undoubtedly appeared and took refreshment at Knaresborough Copping at the very time that she was confined of twins here in this house. The testimony to the truth of this had never been challenged. But when people came and told him stories of substantial tables floating in the air and accordions being played, he always asked this one question, "Was it in the dark?" That question always proved a poser, etc., etc.—and so forth. From which it will be seen that Sir Stopleigh belonged to that numerous class of persons which, when its attention turns towards wondermongering of any sort, loses its heads promptly, and runs through the nearest available gamut of accepted phrases.
Her ladyship said she was not the least surprised at anything happening in a dream. She herself dreamed only the other night that Lady Pirbright had gone up in a balloon shaped like a gridiron, and the very next day came the news that old Canon Pirbright, at Trenchards Plaistowe, had had a paralytic stroke. It was impossible to account for these things. The only wonder to her was that Mr. Pelly should have recollected the whole so plainly, and been able to write it down. She would give anything to recollect that dream about the Circulating Library and the potted shrimps. Her ladyship discoursed for some time about her own dreams.
Mr. Pelly entirely concurred in the view that the whole thing was a dream. In fact, it would be absurd to suppose it anything else. When he got an opportunity to read Professor Schrudengesser's translation of the Italian MS. to his friends, they would readily see the source of most of the events his mind had automatically woven into a continuous narrative for the picture-woman to tell. He would rather read it to them himself than leave them the MS. to read, as there were points that would require explanation. He could not offer to do so till he came back from his great-grandniece Constance's wedding at Cowcester. A little delay would not matter. They would not have forgotten the dream-story in a fortnight. To this, assent was given in chorus.
But Madeline was not going to have the story pooh-poohed and made light of. "I believe it was aghost, Uncle Christopher," said she. "The ghost of the woman in the picture. And you christened her after me by subconscious thingummy.Maddalena'sItalian for Madeline. But they never give their names right. Ask anyone that has phenomena." Then she lit candles for all parties to go to bed, and kissed them all, including her alleged uncle, who laid stress on his claim for this grace in duplicate, as he had no one to kiss him at home. "Poor Uncle Christopher," said she, "he's been shut up in the dark with a ghost.... Oh yes!—I'm in earnest, and you're all a parcel of sillies." Then she borrowed his written account of the dream to re-read in bed, and take care the lamp didn't set fire to the curtains. She said she particularly wanted to look at that last sentence or two, about when the picture was in Chelsea.
Mr. Aiken's sequel. Pimlico Studios. Mr. Hughes's Idea. Aspects of Nature. Mr. Hughes's foot. What had Mr. Aiken been at?NotFanny Smith. It was Sairah!! Who misunderstood and turned vermilion? Her malice. The Regent's Canal. Mr. Aiken's advice from his friends. Woman and her sex. How Mr. Hughes visited Mr. Aiken one evening, and the Post came, with something too big for the box, while Mrs. Parples slept. Mr. Aiken's very sincerely Madeline Upwell. Her transparency. How the picture's photo stood on the table. Interesting lucubrations of Mr. Hughes. What was that? But it was nothing—only an effect of something. The Vernacular Mind. Negative Juries. How Mr. Aiken stopped an echo, so it was Mr. Hughes's fancy.
The story's brief reference to Mr. Aiken's life after his good lady forsook him, may be sufficient for its purposes, but the author is in a certain sense bound to communicate to the reader any details that have come to his knowledge.
Mr. Aiken's first step was to take an intimate friend or two into his confidence. But his intimate friend or two had a quality in common with the Pickwickian bottle or two. An intimate friend or six would be nearer the mark—or even twelve. He did not tell his story separately to each; there was no need. If the mention of a private affair within the hearing of cat or mouse leads to its being shouted at once from the top of the house—and that was the experience of Maud's young man who went to the Crimea—how much more public will your confidences become if you make them to a tenant of a Studio that is one of a congeries.
Pimlico Studios was a congeries, built to accommodate the Artists of a great age of Art, now pending, as though to meet the needs of locusts. For there can be no doubt that such an age is at hand, if we are to judge by the workshop accommodation that appears to be anticipating it.
An ingenious friend of the author—you must have noticed how many authors have ingenious friends?—has been able to determine by a system of averages of a most convincing nature, that the cubic area of the Studios in Chelsea and Kensington alone exceeds that of the Lunatic Asylums of the Metropolis by nearly seven and a quarter per cent. This gentleman's researches on the subject are consequent upon his singular conviction that the output of the Fine Arts, broadly speaking, is small in proportion to the amount of energy and capital devoted to them. We have reasoned with him in vain on the subject, pointing out that the Fine Arts have nothing in common with the economics of Manufacture, least of all in any proportions between the labour expended and the results attained. Were it otherwise, the estimation of a painter's merit would rise or fall with his colourman's bill and the rent of his studio. This gentleman—although he is a friend of the author—has no Soul. If he had, the spectacle of the life-struggle which is often the lot of Genius would appeal to him, and cause him to suspend his opinion. It is always, we understand, desirable to suspend one's opinion.
He would do so, for instance, in the case of an Artist, a common acquaintance of ours, whom at present he condemns freely, calling him names. This Artist has five Studios, each of them full of easels and thrones. The number of his half-used colour tubes that won't squeeze out is as the sands of the sea, while his bundles of brushes that only want washing to be as good as new, may be likened to corn-sheaves, in so far as their stems go—a mere affair of numeration. But their business ends are another pair of shoes altogether; for the hairs of the brushes have become a coagulum as hard as agate, calling aloud for Benzine Collas to disintegrate them—to the tune, this Artist admits, of threepence each—whereas the ear of corn yields to less drastic treatment. Contrivances of a specious nature in japanned tin and celluloid abound, somewhat as spray abounds on oceans during equinoxes, and each of these has at one time fondly imagined it was destined to become that Artist's great resource and stand-by, the balustrade his genius would not scorn to be indebted to. But he has never drawn a profile with the copying-machine that has legs, nor availed himself of the powers of the graphoscope—if that is its name—that does perspective, nor done anything with the countless wooden figures except dislocate their universal joints; nor, we fear, for a long time paid anything on account of the quarterly statements that flutter about, with palette-knives full of colour wiped off on them, that are not safe to sit down upon for months. But no impartial person could glance at any of the inaugurations of pictures on the thousand canvases in these five Studios without at once exclaiming, "This is Genius!" The Power of the Man is everywhere visible, and no true lover of Art ever regrets that so few of them have been carried into that doubtful second stage where one spoils all the moddlin' and the colour won't hold up, and somehow you lose the first spirit of the Idear and don't get any forwarder. It never occurs to any mature Critic to question the value of this Artist's results, even of his least elaborated ones. And, indeed, an opinion is current among his friends that restriction of materials and of the area of his Studios might have cramped and limited the free development of a great mind. They are all unanimous that a feller like Tomkins must have room to turn round, or where are you! And, if, as we must all hope, the growth of genius such as his is to be fostered as it deserves, no one should look with an ungenerous eye upon such agglomerations of Art-workshops as the Pimlico Studios, or sneer at them as uncalled for, merely because a Philistine Plutocracy refuses to buy their produce, and has no walls to hang it on if it did. We for our part can only note with regret that any Studios should be so badly adapted to their purpose, and constructed with so little consideration for the comfort of their occupants, as these same Pimlico Studios.
We have, however, been tempted away from our subject, which at present is the community of Artists that occupied them; and must return to it to say that these very drawbacks were not altogether without their compensations. For though these Studios were, like the arguments of Dissent, unsound—being constructed to admit rainwater and retain products of combustion, each of its own stove and the Studio beneath it—these structural shortcomings were really advantages, in so far as they promoted interchange of social amenities between the resident victims of the speculative builder who ran up the congeries. Sympathy against their common enemy, the landlord, brought all the occupants of Pimlico Studios into a hotchpot of brotherly affection, and if the choruses of execration in which they found comfort have reached the ears for which they were intended, that builder will catch it hot, one of these odd-come-shortlies. This expression is not our own.
When Mr. Reginald Aiken, with his domestic perplexity burning his tongue's end and crying aloud for utterance, called upon the Artist from whom we have borrowed it, that gentleman, Mr. Hughes, one of his most intimate friends, was thinking. He had been thinking since breakfast—thinking about some new Aspects of Nature, which had been the subject of discussion with some friends the evening before. They were those new Aspects of Nature which have been presented so forcibly by Van Schronk and Le Neutre; and of which, in this Artist's opinion, more than a hint is to be found in Hawkins. He was thinking deeply when Mr. Aiken came in, and not one stroke of work had he done, would that gentleman believe him, since he set out his palette. Mr. Aiken's credulity was not overtaxed.
Mr. Hughes wanted to talk about himself, and said absently, "You all right, Crocky?" addressing Mr. Aiken by a familiar name in use among his intimate friends. He was not well disposed towards a negative answer when Mr. Aiken gave one; an equivocal one certainly, but not one to whose meaning it was possible to affect blindness. The words were "Middlin'—considerin'!" But Mr. Hughes was not going to be too coming.
"Wife well?" said he remotely.
Mr. Aiken sprang at his inattentive throat, and nailed him. "Ah, that's it," said he. "That's the point."
Mr. Hughes was forced to inquire further, and stand his Idea over, for later discussion. But he might just as well have let it alone—better, if you come to that. He really was a stupid feller, Hughes, don't you know? "I say," said he, "don't you run away and say I didn't tell you what would happen." For he had interpreted his friend's agitated demeanour and equivocal speech as the result of a recent insight into futurity, showing him in the position of a detected and convicted parent, without the means of providing for an increasing family. For they do that, families do.
"Don't be an ass, Stumpy," said he, using a familiar name no fact in real life warranted. "It's not that sort of thing, thank God! No—I'll tell you what it is, only you mustn't on any account mention it."
"All right, Crocky! I never mention things. Honest Injun! Go ahead easy." Mr. Hughes was greatly relieved that his surmise had been wrong. Good job for Mr. Aiken, as also for his wife! Mr. Hughes desired his congratulations to this lady, but withdrew them on second thoughts. Because, you see, her escape from the anxieties of maternity was entirely constructive. Mr. Hughes felt that he had put his foot in it, and that his wisest course would be to take it out. He did so. But Mr. Aiken had something to say about his wife, and made it a corollary to her disappearance from the conversation.
"She's bolted!" said he lugubriously. "Went away Thursday, and wrote to say she wasn't coming back, Friday. It's a fact."
Mr. Hughes put back his foot in it. "Who's she bolted with? Who's the feller?"
Mr. Aiken flushed up quite red, like any turkey-cock. "Damn it, Stump!" said he, "you really ought to take care what you're saying. I should like to see any fellow presume to run away with Euphemia. Draw it mild!" He became calmer, and it is to be hoped was ashamed of his irritability. But really it was Mr. Hughes's fault—talking just like as if it was in a novel, and Euphemia a character.
"I beg your pardon," said that offender humbly. "It was the way you put it. Besides, they are generally supposed to."
Mr. Aiken responded, correctively and loftily: "Yes, my dear fellow, on the stage and in novels." He added, with something of insular pride, "Chiefly French and American."
"What's her little game, then?" asked Mr. Hughes. "If it's not some other beggar,whatis it she's run away with?"
"She has not run away with anybody," said Mr. Aiken with dignity. "Nor anything. Perhaps I should explain myself better by saying that she has refused to return from her Aunt's."
"Any reason?" said Mr. Hughes, who wanted to get back to his Idea.
"I'm sorry to say it was my fault, Stumpy," came very penitently from the catechumen.
Interest was roused. "I say, young man," said Mr. Hughes, with a tendency of one eye to close, "what have you been at?"
"Absolutely nothing whatever!"
"Yes, of course! But along of who? Who's the young woman youhaven'tbeen making love to? Tell up and have done with it."
"You are under a complete misconception, Stump. Reallynobody!"
Mr. Hughes thought a moment, as though he were at work on a conundrum. Then he pointed suddenly. "Fanny Smith!" said he convictingly.
Mr. Aiken quite lost his temper, and got demonstrative. "Fanny Smith—Fanny grandmother!" he exclaimed meaninglessly! "How can you talk such infernal rot, Stumpy. Do be reasonable!"
"Then it wassomebody," said his tormentor, and Mr. Aiken felt very awkward and humiliated.
However, he saw inevitable confession ahead, and braced himself to the task. "Really, Stump," said he, "it would make you cry with laughing to know who it was that was at the bottom of it. I said 'Fanny grandmother,' just now, but at any rate Fanny Smith's a tailor's wife with no legs to speak of, who sits on the counter, and a very nice girl if you know her. I mean there's no fundamental absurdity in Fanny Smith. This was." Which wasn't good speechwork, but, oh dear, how little use accuracy is!
"Who was it then?" Mr. Hughes left one eye shut, under an implied contract to reopen it as soon as the answer came to his question.
"Well!" said Mr. Aiken reluctantly. "If youmusthave it, it was Sairah!" He was really relieved when his friend looked honestly puzzled, repeating after him "Sairah! What!—the gurl!" in genuine astonishment. It was now evident that the Idea would have to stand over.
Mr. Hughes said farewell to it, almost audibly; then said "Stop a minute!" and lit a pipe; then settled down in a rocking chair to listen, saying, "Now, my boy!—off you go." He was a long and loose-limbed person who picked his knees up alternately with both hands, as though to hold his legs on. Whenever he did this, the slipper in that connexion came off, with the effect of bringing its owner's sock into what is called keeping with the rest of the Studio, one which many persons would have considered untidy.
After which Mr. Aiken went off, or on—whichever you prefer. "Of course I don't expect you fellers to do anything but chaff, you know. But it's jolly unpleasant, for all that. It was like this, don't you see? A young female swell had brought her sweetheart—I suppose, unless he was her cousin—to see a picture I'm cleaning for her parent, who's a Bart. In Worcestershire. Know him? Sir Stopleigh Upwell."
Mr. Hughes didn't, that he could call to mind, after a mental search which seemed to imply great resources in Barts.
"Well—she was an awfully jolly girl, but quite that sort." Mr. Aiken tried to indicate by gesture, a fashionably dressed young lady with a stylish figure, and failed. But Mr. Hughes, an Impressionist Artist, could understand, and nodded prompt appreciation. So Mr. Aiken continued:
"When they cleared out, Euphemia said the young woman was 'up-to-date.' And I suppose she was...."
"Oh certainly—quite up to date—not a doubt of it!"
"Well—I made believe not to know the meaning of the expression, just to take a rise out of Euphemia. And you know she has justonefault—she's so matter-of-fact! She said everyone knew the meaning of 'up-to-date,' that knew anything. Ask anybody! Ask her Aunt Priscilla—and I certainly wasn't going to run the risk—like bearding a tigress in her den with impertinent questions!—or Mrs. Verity the landlady. Or, for that matter, ask the gurl, Sairah! That's whereshecame in, Stump." Mr. Aiken seemed to hang fire.
"But," said Mr. Hughes, "she only comes in as an abstraction, so far. I can't see her carcass in it." From which we may learn that Mr. Hughes thought that abstract meant incorporeal; or, at least, imponderable. It is a common error. "What didyousay?" he asked.
"I said 'Suppose I ask Sairah!' and rang for her, for a lark. Euphemia was in an awful rage and pretended to go, but stopped outside to listen." The speaker's hesitation appeared to increase.
"Well—and when she came?..."
"Why, the stupid idiot altogether misunderstood me. Damn fool! What the dooce she thought I meant, I don't know...."
"What did you say? Out with it, old chap!" Mr. Hughes seemed to be holding intense amusement back, with a knowledge that it would get the bit in its teeth in the end.
Mr. Aiken, seeing this, intensified and enlarged his manner. "Imerelysaid—no, really it's the simple honest truth, every word—Imerelysaid, 'Your mistress says you know the meaning of "up-to-date," Sairah.' And what does the beast of a girl do but turn vermilion and stand staring like a stuck pig!"
Mr. Hughes began shaking his head slowly from side to side. But he did not get to the directionaccelerando, for he stopped short, and said abruptly, "Well—what next?"
Mr. Aiken assumed a responsible and mature manner, rather like that of a paterfamilias on his beat. "I reasoned with the girl. Pointed out that her mistress wouldn't say things to turn vermilion about. I tried to soothe her suspicions...."
Mr. Hughes interrupted, saying dubiously: "I see. No tong-dresses, of course?"
Mr. Aiken explained that that was just where the misapprehension had come in. If his wife had been inside the room instead of on thestairs, she would have seen that there was absolutelynothing. Mr. Hughes looked incredulous.
"There must have been somethin', old chap, to set your missis off. Don't tell me!"
But Mr. Aikenwouldtell Mr. Hughes—would insist on doing so. "It was the horrible, shameless brute's diabolical malice!" he shouted. "Nothing more nor less! What does she do but say out loud just as my wife was coming into the room, 'You keep your 'ands off of me, Mr. Aching!' and of course, when Euphemia came in, she thought I had just jumped half a mile off. And it was rough on me, Stump, because really my motive was to save my wife having to get another house-and-parlourmaid."
"Motive for what?" said Mr. Hughes shrewdly. He had touched the weak point of the story. "Did you, or did you not, young man, take this young person round the waist or chuck her under the chin?"
"My dear Hughes," said Mr. Aiken, with undisguised impatience, "I wouldn't chuck that odious girl under the chin with the end of a barge-pole. Nor," he added after reflection, "take her round the waist with one of the drags in readiness at the Lodge." The barge-pole had conducted his imagination to the Regent's Canal, and left it there.
Mr. Aiken had had no intention when he called on his friend Hughes to take the whole of Pimlico Studios into his confidence. But what was he to do when another Artist dropped in and Mr. Hughes said, "You won't mind Triggs? The most discreet beggarIever came across!" What could he say that would arrest the entry of Mr. Triggs into the discussion of his family jar that would not appear to imply that that gentleman was an indiscreet beggar? And what course was open to him when Mr. Hughes told yet another artist, whose name was Dolly, that he might come in, but he wasn't to listen? And yet another, whose name was Doddles?
Even if there had been no other chance visitors to the Studio during the conclave on Mr. Aiken's private affairs, there would have been every likelihood of complete publicity for them in the course of a day or two at most. For nothing stimulates Rumour like affidavits of secrecy. It's such fun telling what is on no account to go any farther. But as a matter of fact more than one gentleman who would have resented being called aflâneur, looked in at Mr. Hughes's Studio casually that morning to talk over that gentleman's Idea, mooted yesterday at The Club, and found himself outside a circle whose voices subsided down to inaudible exchanges of postscripts to finish up. As each newcomer acted upon this in the sweet and candid manner of this community, saying unaffectedly, "What's the fun?" and some friend of his within the circle usually said to him, "Shut up! Tell you after!" and as moreover it was invariably felt that a single exclusion only embarrassed counsel, no opportunity was really lost of making Europe acquainted with the disruption of Mr. Aiken's household. And it was a pity, because so much gossip doesn't do any good. Besides, the time might have been profitably employed ventilating Mr. Hughes's Idea, and getting a sort of provisional insight into the best means of carrying it out. As it was, when, some time after midday, someone said, "I say, Stump, my boy, how about that Idea of yours we were talking about at The Club yesterday?" everyone else looked at his watch, and said it was too late to get on to that now; we must have lunch, and have a real serious talk about it another time. Then we went to lunch at Machiavelli's, and it was plenty early enough if we were back by three.
Mr. Aiken received a good deal of very sound advice from his friends as to how he might best deal with his emergency. He turned this over in his mind as he turned himself over on his couch when he got home about three in the morning, and was rather at a loss to select from it any samples from different Mentors which agreed upon a course. In fact, the only one thing they had in common was the claim made by their respective promulgators to a wider and deeper knowledge of that mysterious creature Woman than Mr. Aiken's inexperience could boast. One said to him—speaking as from long observation of a Sex you couldn't make head or tail of—that, depend upon it, she would come round, you see if she didn't. They always did. Another, that this said Sex was obstinacy itself, and you might depend upon it she would stick out. They always did. Another, that a lot the best thing for a husband in like case to do was to go and cosset the offended lady over with appropriate caresses, before which she would be sure to soften. They always did. Another, that if you could convince her by some subtle machinations that you didn't care a twopenny damn how long she stayed away, back she would come on the nail. They always did. In the multitude of counsellors there is Wisdom, no doubt, but when the multitude is large enough to advise every possible course, it is just as easy to run through all the courses open to adoption by oneself, and choose one on the strength of its visible recommendations. More particularly because so many advisers insist on your taking their advice, and go on giving it, cataballatively, if you don't. Mr. Aiken felt, when he retired for the night, like the sheet Aunt Sally hangs up behind her when she folds it up at the end of a busy day on Epsom Downs.
It was a great pity that Mr. Aiken's domestic upset did not occur a few days later, because then Mr. Hughes's Idea would have had such a much clearer stage for itsdébut. As it was, what with one thing and what with another, the mature discussion of this subject was delayed a full week. Next day Triggs had to go to Paris, and of course it was nonsense to attempt anything without him—for look at the clearness of that man's head! Then, when Triggs came back, a day later than expected, his aunt must needs invite her nephew down to Suddington Park, which is her place in Shropshire, which had earned for Mr. Triggs the name of The Pobble—you remember Aunt Jopiska's Park, if you read your Lear in youth—and which was an expectation of his, if he kept in favour with the old lady. Of course, the Idea didn't depend on Triggs, or any one man. No, thank you! But Triggs had a good business head on his shoulders, and was particularly sound on the subject of Premises. It is a singular and noticeable thing that whenever any great motive or scheme germinates in the human brain, that brain, before it has formulated the conditions thereof, or fully defined its objects, will begin to look at Premises, and while it is examining some very much beyond its means—in Piccadilly, for instance, or Old Bond Street—will feel that the project is assuming form, and that now we shall get on to reallydoingsomething, and come to the end of this everlasting talk, talk, talk, that leads to nothing, and only sets people against us. So really very little could be done till The Pobble came back from Aunt Jopiska. When he did come back there was some other delay, but it's always well to be beforehand. The enthusiasts of this Idea could look at Premises; and did so.
All this has little or nothing to do with the story. But it serves to individualize Mr. Hughes, who, but for it, would be merely a long artist with a goatee beard, who not infrequently looked in to smoke a pipe on the split wild boar whose head endangered the safety of self-warmers on Mr. Aiken's floor in the Studio near the stove where he found the Vestas that were all stuck together.
Mr. Hughes was standing there, a good many weeks after our last date, chatting with Mr. Aiken, who was becoming quite slovenly and dirty with nobody to look after him—because, of course, Mrs. Parples, who came in by the day, hadn't the sense to see to anything; and, moreover, he was that snappy at every turn, there wasn't, according to Mrs. Parples, many would abear him.
He had been hoping that the first of his advisers whom we cited was right, and that if he waited a reasonable time he would see if his wife wouldn't come round. If they always did, she would. But he was beginning to be afraid they sometimes didn't. He had even impatiently expressed a view equivalent to that which identified her with obstinacy itself, the quality. But this was only temper, though no doubt she might stick out. They might sometimes, those curious examples of a perfectly unique Sex. He really wanted to go to her with persuasive arts and procure a reconciliation. But he was too proud.
Besides, if that was possible now, it would be equally so three months hence. As to the fourth alternative, that of showing he didn't care, that would be capital on the stage, but he wasn't going to burn his fingers with it in real life. So he passed his days working, in his own conceit; and smoking in a chair opposite to his work, in Mrs. Parples'. Perhaps neither conception was quite correct. His evenings he mostly passed seeing bad plays well acted, or good plays ill acted—these are the only sorts you can get free paper for. It was ridiculous for him, knowing such a lot of actors, to pay at the door. Now and again, however, he stayed at home, and a friend came in for a quiet smoke. Even so Mr. Hughes, this evening.
"Things improvin' at all, Crocky?" said he, not exactly as if he thought he wasn't inquisitive.
Mr. Aiken kept an answer, which was coming, back for consideration. He appeared to reject it, going off at a tangent by preference. He had made up his mind, he said, not to fret his kidneys any more over his wife's absence. She would come round before long, and eat humble-pie for having made such a fool of herself. He preferred the expression "damn fool," but chivalry limited its utterance to a semi-sotto voce. "I might get a letter from her any minute," said he. "Why, when the post came just now, I fully expected it was a letter from her." He appeared to confuse between expectation's maximum and its realization. "There he is again. I shouldn't be the least surprised if this onewas."
He left the room with a transparent parade of deliberation. But before he had reached the staircase the postman knocked again, and Mr. Aiken came back saying: "It isn't her. It's something that won't go in the box." This was slack language and slack reasoning—confusion confounded. But Mr. Aiken retired on it with dignity, saying: "Mrs. Parples attends to the door."
The something continued to refuse, audibly, to go in the box, and Mrs. Parples didn't attend to the door. The postman put all his soul into a final knock, which seemed to say, "I am leaving, half-out, what may be only an advertisement, or may be vital to your hereafter, or somebody's;" and then washed his hands of it and took up Next Door's case. Mr. Aiken listened for Mrs. Parples, who remained in abeyance, and then went out again and returned with a very ill-made-up consignment indeed, and a normal square envelope with a bespoken "M" embossed on its flap, directed in an upright hand, partly robust, partly æsthetic, an expression applied nowadays to anything with a charm about it. This handwriting had one.
"Parples is sleeping peacefully," said Mr. Aiken. "It would be a shame to disturb Parples. I know who this is." He opened the envelope with difficulty, but looked stroked and gratified. The latter was from his very sincerely Madeline Upwell. Just you notice any male friend of yours next time you have a chance of seeing one open a letter from youth and beauty which remains—however theoretically—his very sincerely, and see if he doesn't look stroked and gratified.
Mr. Hughes picked up the delivery that had given the letter-box so much trouble, and looked through it at each end. Mr. Aiken was busy reading his letter over and over; so he could only throw out a sideways carte-blanche to Mr. Hughes to unpack the inner secret of the roll. This was what he was reading:
"DEAR MR. AIKEN,
"I think you may like a copy of the photo Captain Calverley (who perhaps you will remember came with me to your Studio) made of this beautiful picture, which I am never tired of looking at. I think it so good. Please accept it from us if you care to have it. Believe me, dear Mr. Aiken, with kind regards to yourself and Mrs. Aiken, in which my mother joins,
"Yours very sincerely,"MADELINE UPWELL.
"P.S.—I know you will be sorry to hear that Captain Calverley's regiment is ordered out to South Africa. Of course, it makes us very anxious."
"Transparent sort of gurl!" said Mr. Hughes, when Mr. Aiken read the letter aloud to him. "Of course, Captain Carmichael's her sweetheart. Anybody can see that with half an eye."
"Calverley," said Mr. Aiken. "Yes—they get like that when it's like that." And both pondered a little, smoking, over the peculiarities of humanity, especially that inexplicable female half of it. "Chuck it over here and let's have a look at it," he added, and Mr. Hughes chucked him over the photograph. He contemplated it for a moment in silence; then said: "I expect she wasn't far out, after all. Euphemia, I mean."
"Chuck it back again and let's have another look," said Mr. Hughes. Mr. Aiken did so, and let him have the other look. "Yes," said he. "They went it in Italy about that time, don't you know! Fifteenth or sixteenth century. That sort of thing!" For Mr. Hughes knew a lot about Italy, and could quote Browning. He uncrickled a result of the shape of that letter-box, or tried to, and then stood the photograph so that they could both see it, while they talked of something else, against the gres-de-Flandres straight-up pot that was so handy to stand brushes in, like umbrellas.
They had plenty to talk about, because at this time the Idea of Mr. Hughes that was destined to fill so important an horizon in the History of Modern Art, and was also pregnant with incalculable consequences to several things or persons, besides having an indirect bearing on several others, and challenging the bedrock of Modern Art Criticism—for it had the courage of its convictions, and stuck at nothing—this Idea was taking form slowly but surely, and was already making itself felt in more ways than one. It was easy to laugh at it—this was indisputable—but he who lived longest would see most. It had a future before it, and if you would only just wait twenty years, you would see if it hadn't. You mark the words of its disciple, whoever he was you were talking to—that was all he said—and see if he wasn't right! He was a little indignant—some samples of him—with audiences who decided to wait, his own enthusiasm believing that the results might be safely anticipated. However, the Idea prospered, there is no doubt of that, and the circle of enthusiasts who had leagued themselves together to foster it and promote a true understanding of it had already taken premises, and their telephone number was 692,423 Western.
"It's true," said Mr. Hughes, "that the light in the galleries is bad, and the hot-air system of warming will destroy any ordinary oil-picture in a month. But altering all that is the merest question of money—comes off the guarantee fund, in fact. And one thing nobody but a fool can help seein', at the first go off, is that the Galleries are rum. Rumness is half the battle." This expressed so deep and indisputable a truth that Mr. Aiken could not assent strongly enough in mere words. He nodded rapidly and most expressively, without speech. However, when he had reached the natural limits of a nod's assenting power, he added, "Right you are, Stumpy, my boy. Gee up!" and Mr. Hughes resumed:
"I ain't sayin', mind you, Crocky, that any sort of hocus-pocus is justifiable in any case. When I use the expression 'rum,' I am keepin' in view the absolute necessity for a receptive attitude of mind in the visitor to the Galleries. Tell me such an attitude of mind is possible without a measure of rumness as a stimulant, and I say 'Humbug!'"
Mr. Aiken said again, "Right you are, Stumpy." But he did not rise to enthusiasm—seemed low and depressed.
"It all connects with the fundamental root of the Idea," Mr. Hughes continued. "No one would be more repugnant than myself to any ramification in the direction of Wardour Street ... you understand me?..."
"Rather!" said Mr. Aiken. And he seemed to do so. It is not necessary for the purposes of this story to prove that either of these gentlemen understood what they were talking about, or anything else, but their conversation has a bearing on their respective characters and their preoccupations at this moment, which are part of it.
Mr. Hughes had mounted a rhetorical hobby, and wished to have his ride. He rigged up three fingers of his left hand, holding them in front of him to check off three heads on, as soon as he should come to that inevitable stage. He did not know what they would be, but his instinctive faith made nothing of that. They would be needed, all in good time.
"I am not saying," he pursued, "that Wardour Street, in its widest sense, has nothing to recommend it. I am not saying that it makes no appeal. I am not disputing its historical and ethical standpoints ... you see what I mean?"
This was a concession to the difficulties that await the orator who expects to round up his sentences. Mr. Aiken interjected, to help this one out of an embarrassment: "Couldn't be better put! Let it go at that;" and knocked some ashes out of his pipe.
Mr. Hughes was grateful, because he had had no idea what to say next. His indebtedness, however, had to be ignored; else, what became of Dignity? An enlarged manner accepted a laurel or two due to lucidity, as he continued: "But I do say this, that, considered as a basis—perhaps I should say a fulcrum—or shall I say as a working hypothesis of the substratum or framework of the Idea?..." The speaker hesitated.
"That's the safest way to put it," said Mr. Aiken, but rather gloomily. He was re-lighting his pipe.
"I think so," said Mr. Hughes judicially. "Considered as ... what I said just now ... Wardour Street is, to my thinkin', played out. Quite distinctly played out.... What's that?"
"What's what?" The questions seemed to refer to something heard and unheard, by each speaker respectively. Mr. Aiken did not press for an answer, but went to the door, persuading his pipe to draw by the way. "Want anything, Mrs. Parples?" said he, looking out. But no answer came. "Mrs. P. is sleeping happily in the kitchen," said he, returning. "It wasn't her. It was an effect of something."
"I suppose it was. Thought I heard it, too!"
Perhaps, if you ever chanced to hear a conversation about nobody could exactly say what, you noticed that nobody did say anything very exactly, and everybody talked like these two gentlemen, who certainly had heard something, but who decided that they hadn't, because they couldn't find out what it was. It was too slight to discuss.
They each said "Rum!" and settled down to chat again, after turning down the gas, which made a beastly glare. Mr. Hughes had forgotten about the three heads, though, and taken his fingers down. He did, however, pursue the topic which claimed his attention, having embarked upon it, and feeling bound to conduct it to a close. He said something to this effect, and we hope our report is fairly accurate. He certainly appeared to say that something, which could hardly have been anything, grammatically, but the close to which he conducted the topic, embodied the point which underlay the whole of the extensive area which the Idea opened up for development, and turned upon the indisputable truth that the Highest Art—sculpture, music, painting, poetry—is never intelligible to the Vernacular Mind. How could any inference be more incontestable than that no Art could rise above mediocrity until a quorum of commonplace persons should be found honestly incapable of attaching any meaning to it? By making unintelligibility to the banal mind a criterion of superiority in Art, we established a Standard of Criticism, and eliminated from consideration a wilderness of insipidity which Mr. Hughes did not hesitate to call a nightmare. For his part, he was so confident that the system of Negative Juries, as they had been called, was sounder than any appeal to popular applause that he was quite willing that his own work should stand or fall by the decision of the Commonplace Intelligence as to which side up the picture should be looked at. He would go that length, and take the consequences. Let the Selection Committee of their proposed Annual Exhibition consist entirely of such Intelligences, and let the Hanging Committee hang all the pictures they were unable to make head or tail of, and such a galaxy of productions of Genius would be accumulated every year on their walls as the World had never before seen.
"Not work in practice?" said Mr. Hughes, replying to a morose doubt of Mr. Aiken's. "Just you redooce it to practice. Take the case that your Jury guesses the subject of a picture. Out it goes! Did you ever know that class able to make head or tail of the subject of a work of Genius? Gradual and infallible elimination, my boy—that's the ticket!" The speaker, who, though perhaps rather an idiot—only, mind you, he was subject now and then to something almost like Inspiration—threw himself back in his chair as though he had exhausted the subject, and might rest.
"Don't b'lieve it would work," said Mr. Aiken, sucking at his pipe. But he was evidently in a temper this evening, and Mr. Hughes paid no attention to his nonsense. However, it was no use talking about the Idea to him until he was more sympathetic. He would come right presently.
To cajole him into a better frame of mind, Mr. Hughes began talking of something else. "Queer sort of Studio, this of yours, Crocky," said he.
"What do you make out's queer about it, Stumpy?" said Mr. Aiken.
"Such peculiar echoes!"
"I don't hear any echoes."
"Well, when you went to the door—you heard that?"
"Oh, that wasn't an echo: that was somebody spoke outside."
"Somebody spoke outside? What did she say? What was it you heard?"
"Couldn't say. What did you?"
"Well, what I heard sounded like a sort of bastard Italian." Mr. Hughes said this to sound grand. "You shut up and listen a minute." Mr. Aiken shut up, and the two sat listening in the half-dark.
Now, whenever sounds are listened for, they show a most obliging spirit, becoming audible where you thought silence was going on peacefully alone. The first sound that made Mr. Hughes say "There now!—what's that?" turned out to be the gas, which, at a carefully chosen point, rippled. The next proved to be an intermittent spring fizzing on the hot stove from a water-jar placed upon it. The third was a spontaneous insect unknown to Entomology, which had faced the difficulties of self-making, behind the skirting, and evidently was not going to remain a mere cipher. The fourth was something or other that squeaked on the table, and if one changed the places of things, noises like that always stopped. So Mr. Aiken shifted the things about, and said Mr. Hughes would see that would stop it. He faced the responsibilities of the Investigator by quenching the phenomenon, a time-honoured method. He wrapped up the photograph, and put it away in a drawer to show to Euphemia. It would be interestin' to see if she recognized it.... Oh yes! she would be back in the next few days—sure to!
And Mr. Hughes saw that the shifting about of the things on the tablehadstopped the noise he called an echo, and what more could he or anybody want? So he sat down again and had some toddy, and talked about the Idea. And towards one in the morning he got the opportunity of checking off three heads on his three fingers, and feeling that he ought to have been in Parliament. He had felt previously rather like a Seneschal with three spears vacant over his portcullis, longing for a healthy decapitation to give them employment.
The foregoing chapter, apart from the way in which it emphasizes Mr. Aiken's loneliness and discontent as a bachelor, would be just as well left out of the story, but for the seemingly insignificant incident of the echo, or whatever it was, which might have been unintelligible if referred to hereafter, without its surroundings.
Follows Mrs. Euphemia Aiken to Coombe and Maiden. Proper pride. You cannot go back on a railway ticket, however small its price. One's Aunts. How Miss Priscilla Bax was not surprised when she heard it was Reginald. Of the Upas Tree of reputations—the Pure Mind. How Aunt Prissy worked her niece up. Of the late Prince Regent, and Tiberius. Never write a letter, if you want the wind to lull. Ellen Jane Dudbury and her mamma. Of Ju-jutsu as an antidote to tattle. Of the relative advantages of Immorality to the two Sexes. Of good souls and busy bodies, and of the Groobs. How that odious little Dolly was the Modern Zurbaran. But he had never so much as called. Colossians three-eighteen. Miss Jessie Bax and her puppy. Miss Volumnia Bax. The delicacy of the female character. Of the Radio-Activity of Space and how Mr. Adolphus Groob sat next to Mrs. Aiken. The Godfrey Pybuses. But they have nothing to do with the story. How Time slipped by, and how Mr. Aiken employed him till the year drew to an end.
Euphemia Aiken, be it understood, had not brought definition to bear on her motives for running away to her Aunt Priscilla at Coombe. It seemed the nearest handy way of expressing her indignation at her profligate husband's conduct—that was all.
By the time she had got to Clapham Junction her indignation had begun to cool. But no ruction would hold out for five minutes if it depended on legitimate indignation. Unfortunately, when that emotion gets up, it always awakens pride, with whom—or which—it has been sleeping. And pride, once roused—and she or it is not a sound sleeper—won't go to bed again on any terms, not even when indignation is quite tired out, and ready for another snooze. So when Euphemia got to Clapham Junction, it was not her drowsy indignation that made up its mind she should take a third-class single ticket, but her proper pride, which said peremptorily that even a weekly return would be absurd. Besides, there weren't any weekly returns. Besides, it was only threepence difference. Anyhow, she wasn't going to come back till she had given Reginald a severe lesson. Her condition of mind was no doubt the one her husband described by an expression obscure in itself, but too widely accepted to be refused a place in the language. He said that her monkey was up.
There is a sense of the irrevocable about the taking of a railway ticket. Even when it is only ninepence-halfpenny—the sum Euphemia paid to go third to Coombe and Maiden—one's soul says, as the punch bites a piece viciously out of it, that the die is cast. If you were to hear suddenly that bubonic plague had broken out at, for instance, Pegwell Bay, you having booked to Ramsgate, would not you feel committed to your visit, plague or no? Would not your wife say, "But we have taken our tickets"? Ours would. Was it any wonder that, with Pride at her elbow and her ticket inside her glove. Mrs. Reginald Aiken resisted a faint temptation to get out at Wimbledon and go back by the next up-train that would promise to stop at Clapham Junction? The story cannot pretend it is sorry she did not, because it would have lost much interest for the general reader by her doing so.
We ourselves believe that if it had not been for Miss Priscilla Bax, she might have returned to her husband next day. The human race has, however, to stand or fall by its Aunts, as it finds them, they being almost alwaysfaits accompliswhen its component individuals are born. Miss Bax had been one some forty years when her niece Euphemia came on the scene, and one of the good lady's strong points was the low opinion she had of persons who married into her family. She was, however, a kind-hearted old lady, in spite of her disapproval of her niece's choice of a husband, and his choice of a profession; and had not only countenanced the marriage, but had allowed the couple, as above related, a hundred a year. Being the only well-off member of her family, she was expected to do this sort of thing. Like the well-off members of other families, she was only permitted to have property on condition that she did not keep it for herself.
When Euphemia's cab from the station drove her up to Athabasca Villa, her aunt's residence, this lady had got through her seven o'clock dinner, and couldn't imagine who that could possibly be. It was such a queer time for visitors. It must be a mistake. She was so satisfied of this that she inaugurated a doze, listening through its preamble for something to explain the mistake. She was betrayed by the doze, which might have had a minute's patience, and was roused from what it insidiously became by a voice saying groundedly: "Oh dear, I'm afraid I waked you up!"
"I was not asleep," said Miss Priscilla, with dignity, kissing the owner of the voice. "I was listening." However, it took time to wake quite up, and until that happened the old lady did not fully grasp the surprising character of so late a visit; and indeed, until she became aware that a box was being carried upstairs, had but dreamy impressions of the event. In time reality dawned, and she showed it by saying: "I suppose, Euphemia, you will want your bed made up."
As this was the case, and no human ingenuity could soften the fact, Mrs. Aiken only said: "I know it's very troublesome."
To which Miss Priscilla replied: "Nothing is troublesome, so long as you only say distinctly. Now, do you want anything to eat? Because dinner is taken away." Reviving decision, after sleep, became emphatic. Self-respect called for self-assertion.
Mrs. Aiken shuffled. She wasn't hungry, she said.
"Have youhaddinner? Because if you have not had dinner, you must have dinner. Ring the bell twice, and Pemphridge will come."
Pemphridge came, and could warm the chicken. Pemphridge did warm the chicken, and Mrs. Aiken hardly touched it. After which she returned, looking extremely miserable, to her aunt in the drawing-room, who said majestically: "And now perhaps, Euphemia, you will tell me what all this means."
"It's Reginald," said Euphemia.
"I am not surprised," said her aunt.
"But you don'tknowyet."
"I know nothing whatever. But I am not surprised. Is it reasonable, Euphemia, to expect me to be surprised? After what I have so frequently had occasion to say. But I am quite prepared to hear that I have said no such thing. Pray tell me anything you like. I will not contradict you." Aunt Priscilla assumed a rigid continuousness, as of one who forms to receive aspersions. Truth will triumph in the end; meanwhile there is no harm in portending that triumph by an aggressive stony patience.
"Only you don't know what it is, Aunt Prissy," said her niece. No more she did, speaking academically. She was, however, quite prepared for every contingency.
"I do not thinkyouare the person to say that to me, Euphemia, seeing that you have told me nothing—absolutely nothing! But I can wait." She waited. As she lay face upwards on the sofa—the nearest approach to an Early Victorian recumbent effigy that the Nature of Things permits—she presented the appearance of a deserving person floating on her back in a sea of exasperation. Unless this image justifies itself, it must be condemned. Nothing in literature can excuse it.
Mrs. Euphemia was so used to her aunt, with whom she had lived since the death of her parents fifteen years since, that she knew she might never get a better moment than this for telling the story of her passage of arms with her husband. She therefore embarked on a narrative of the events we know, and contrived to get them told, in spite of interruptions, the nature of which, after the foregoing sample of Aunt Priscilla, we can surmise. Neither need be repeated.
Thereafter followed a long conversation, the substance of which has already been given. Its effect was to try Mrs. Euphemia's faith in her husband—which still existed, mind you!—very severely. Have you ever noticed—but of course you have—that when Inexperience testifies to the sinfulness of the human racepassim, Average Experience hides her diminished head, and does not venture on whatever there is to be said on behalf of the culprit. A shocking race, no doubt, but scarcely so bad as pure minds paint it! Old single ladies have pure minds, as often as not, and wield them with a fiendish dexterity, polishing off Lancelot and Galahad, Mordred and Arthur himself, all in a breath. Which of us dares to try a fall with a pure-minded person, in defence of his sex, or anyone else's? Miss Priscilla, having a pure mind and getting the bit in her teeth in connexion with her nephew-in-law's shortcomings, bolted, and dragged her niece after her through an imaginary Society compounded of London in the days of the Regency and Rome in the days of Tiberius, with a touch of impending Divine vengeance in the bush, justifying reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. She succeeded in making the young woman thoroughly uncomfortable, and causing the quarrel to assume proportions—which is what things that get bigger are understood to do nowadays—such as it never dreamed of at first. For Mrs. Euphemia's scheme of life allowed for everlasting bickerings, never-ending recriminations, last wordsad libitum, short tiffs, long tiffs, tempersomeness and proper spirit—all, in fact, that makes life drag in families—but always under chronic conditions that precluded a crisis. If her worthy aunt's suggestion that this incident of Sairah was the merest spark fromignes suppositos cineri, and that her husband had never been even as good as he should be—if this indicated a true view of his character, she for one wasn't going to put up with such conduct. Corinthians or no! Thiswasa crisis, only it was one that never would have come about but for Miss Priscilla. So, as we mentioned some time since, Mrs. Euphemia cried herself to sleep, and next day, galled by ill-considered moral precepts about the whole duty of Woman, wrote an infuriated letter to her dear Reginald—not her dearest; she might have any number of dearer Reginalds on draught—stating at a very high figure the amount of penance she would make a necessary condition of reconciliation, and even then it would never be the same thing underlined. She was, however, so completely the slave of a beautiful disposition, that no course was open to her but forgiveness, subject only to a reduction of some ninety-per-cent. at the dictation of a rarely sensitive consciousness of obligation to Duty, which she gave him to understand was her ruling passion. The letter demanded the assimilation of an amount of humble-pie outside practical politics—so Mr. Aiken said to a friend after reading it; the phraseology is his. He hadn't done anything to deserve the character imputed to him in language he could identify by the style as Aunt Priscilla's, shorn of much of its Scriptural character. It incensed him, and caused him to write a letter which widened the breach between them. Then she wrote back, and the breach fairly yawned. There is nothing so effective as correspondence to consolidate a quarrel.