“One afternoon, about a month later, the servant came to me with a card on which was engraved the name of ‘Mr. Joseph Smythe.’ I requested her to show him up. He entered with his usual air of languid superciliousness, and seated himself in a graceful attitude upon the sofa.
“‘Well,’ I said, as soon as the girl had closed the door behind her, ‘so you’ve got rid of Smith?’
“A sickly smile passed over his face. ‘You have not mentioned it to any one?’ he asked anxiously.
“‘Not to a soul,’ I replied; ‘though I confess I often feel tempted to.’
“‘I sincerely trust you never will,’ he said, in a tone of alarm. ‘You can have no conception of the misery the whole thing causes me. I cannot understand it. What possible affinity there can be between myself and that disgusting little snob passes my comprehension. I assure you, my dear Mac, the knowledge that I was a ghoul, or a vampire, would cause me less nausea than the reflection that I am one and the same with that odious little Whitechapel bounder. When I think of him every nerve in my body—’
“‘Don’t think about him any more,’ I interrupted, perceiving his strongly-suppressed emotion. ‘You didn’t come here to talk about him, I’m sure. Let us dismiss him.’
“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘in a certain roundabout way it is slightly connected with him. That is really my excuse for inflicting the subject upon you. You are the only man Icanspeak to about it—if I shall not bore you?’
“‘Not in the least,’ I said. ‘I am most interested.’ As he still hesitated, I asked him point-blank what it was.
“He appeared embarrassed. ‘It is really very absurd of me,’ he said, while the faintest suspicion of pink crossed his usually colourless face; ‘but I feel I must talk to somebody about it. The fact is, my dear Mac, I am in love.’
“‘Capital!’ I cried; ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ (I thought it might make a man of him.) ‘Do I know the lady?’
“‘I am inclined to think you must have seen her,’ he replied; ‘she was with me on the pier at Yarmouth that evening you met me.’
“‘Not ’Liza!’ I exclaimed.
“‘That was she,’ he answered; ‘Miss Elizabeth Muggins.’ He dwelt lovingly upon the name.
“‘But,’ I said, ‘you seemed—I really could not help noticing, it was so pronounced—you seemed to positively dislike her. Indeed, I gathered from your remark to a friend that her society was distinctly distasteful to you.’
“‘To Smith,’ he corrected me. ‘What judge would that howling little blackguard be of a woman’s worth! The dislike of such a man as that is a testimonial to her merit!’
“‘I may be mistaken,’ I said; ‘but she struck me as a bit common.’
“‘She is not, perhaps, what the world would call a lady,’ he admitted; ‘but then, my dear Mac, my opinion of the world is not such as to renderitsopinion of much value to me. I and the world differ on most subjects, I am glad to say. She is beautiful, and she is good, and she is my choice.’
“‘She’s a jolly enough little girl,’ I replied, ‘and, I should say, affectionate; but have you considered, Smythe, whether she is quite—what shall we say—quite as intellectual as could be desired?’
“‘Really, to tell the truth, I have not troubled myself much about her intellect,’ he replied, with one of his sneering smiles. ‘I have no doubt that the amount of intellect absolutely necessary to the formation of a British home, I shall be able to supply myself. I have no desire for an intellectual wife. One is compelled to meet tiresome people, but one does not live with them if one can avoid it.’
“‘No,’ he continued, reverting to his more natural tone; ‘the more I think of Elizabeth the more clear it becomes to me that she is the one woman in the world for whom marriage with me is possible. I perceive that to the superficial observer my selection must appear extraordinary. I do not pretend to explain it, or even to understand it. The study of mankind is beyond man. Only fools attempt it. Maybe it is her contrast to myself that attracts me. Maybe my, perhaps, too spiritual nature feels the need of contact with her coarser clay to perfect itself. I cannot tell. These things must always remain mysteries. I only know that I love her—that, if any reliance is to be placed upon instinct, she is the mate to whom Artemis is leading me.’
“It was clear that he was in love, and I therefore ceased to argue with him. ‘You kept up your acquaintanceship with her, then, after you’—I was going to say ‘after you ceased to be Smith,’ but not wishing to agitate him by more mention of that person than I could help, I substituted, ‘after you returned to the Albany?’
“‘Not exactly,’ he replied; ‘I lost sight of her after I left Yarmouth, and I did not see her again until five days ago, when I came across her in an aerated bread shop. I had gone in to get a glass of milk and a bun, andshebrought them to me. I recognised her in a moment.’ His face lighted up with quite a human smile. ‘I take tea there every afternoon now,’ he added, glancing towards the clock, ‘at four.’
“‘There’s not much need to askherviews on the subject,’ I said, laughing; ‘her feelings towards you were pretty evident.’
“‘Well, that is the curious part of it,’ he replied, with a return to his former embarrassment; ‘she does not seem to care for me now at all. Indeed, she positively refuses me. She says—to put it in the dear child’s own racy language—that she wouldn’t take me on at any price. She says it would be like marrying a clockwork figure without the key. She’s more frank than complimentary, but I like that.’
“‘Wait a minute,’ I said; ‘an idea occurs to me. Does she know of your identity with Smith?’
“‘No,’ he replied, alarmed, ‘I would not have her know it for worlds. Only yesterday she told me that I reminded her of a fellow she had met at Yarmouth, and my heart was in my mouth.’
“‘How did she look when she told you that?’ I asked.
“‘How did she look?’ he repeated, not understanding me.
“‘What was her expression at that moment?’ I said—‘was it severe or tender?’
“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘now I come to think of it, she did seem to soften a bit just then.’
“‘My dear boy,’ I said, ‘the case is as clear as daylight. She loves Smith. No girl who admired Smith could be attracted by Smythe. As your present self you will never win her. In a few weeks’ time, however, you will be Smith. Leave the matter over until then. Propose to her as Smith, and she will accept you. After marriage you can break Smythe gently to her.’
“‘By Jove!’ he exclaimed, startled out of his customary lethargy, ‘I never thought of that. The truth is, when I am in my right senses, Smith and all his affairs seem like a dream to me. Any idea connected with him would never enter my mind.’
“He rose and held out his hand. ‘I am so glad I came to see you,’ he said; ‘your suggestion has almost reconciled me to my miserable fate. Indeed, I quite look forward to a month of Smith, now.’
“‘I’m so pleased,’ I answered, shaking hands with him. ‘Mind you come and tell me how you get on. Another man’s love affairs are not usually absorbing, but there is an element of interest about yours that renders the case exceptional.’
“We parted, and I did not see him again for another month. Then, late one evening, the servant knocked at my door to say that a Mr. Smith wished to see me.
“’Smith, Smith,’ I repeated; ‘what Smith? didn’t he give you a card?’
“‘No, sir,’ answered the girl; ‘he doesn’t look the sort that would have a card. He’s not a gentleman, sir; but he says you’ll know him.’ She evidently regarded the statement as an aspersion upon myself.
“I was about to tell her to say I was out, when the recollection of Smythe’s other self flashed into my mind, and I directed her to send him up.
“A minute passed, and then he entered. He was wearing a new suit of a louder pattern, if possible, than before. I think he must have designed it himself. He looked hot and greasy. He did not offer to shake hands, but sat down awkwardly on the extreme edge of a small chair, and gaped about the room as if he had never seen it before.
“He communicated his shyness to myself. I could not think what to say, and we sat for a while in painful silence.
“‘Well,’ I said, at last, plunging head-foremost into the matter, according to the method of shy people, ‘and how’s ’Liza?’
“‘Oh,she’sall right,’ he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on his hat.
“‘Have you done it?’ I continued.
“‘Done wot?’ he asked, looking up.
“‘Married her.’
“‘No,’ he answered, returning to the contemplation of his hat.
“‘Has she refused you then?’ I said.
“‘I ain’t arst ’er,’ he returned.
“He seemed unwilling to explain matters of his own accord. I had to put the conversation into the form of a cross-examination.
“‘Why not?’ I asked; ‘don’t you think she cares for you any longer?’
“He burst into a harsh laugh. ‘There ain’t much fear o’ that,’ he said; ‘it’s like ’aving an Alcock’s porous plaster mashed on yer, blowed if it ain’t. There’s no gettin’ rid of ’er. I wish she’d giv’ somebody else a turn. I’m fair sick of ’er.’
“‘But you were enthusiastic about her a month ago!’ I exclaimed in astonishment.
“‘Smythe may ’ave been,’ he said; ‘there ain’t no accounting for that ninny, ’is ’ead’s full of starch. Anyhow, I don’t take ’er on while I’m myself. I’m too jolly fly.’
“‘That sort o’ gal’s all right enough to lark with,’ he continued; ‘but yer don’t want to marry ’em. They don’t do yer no good. A man wants a wife as ’e can respect—some one as is a cut above ’imself, as will raise ’im up a peg or two—some one as ’e can look up to and worship. A man’s wife orter be to ’im a gawddess—a hangel, a—’
“‘You appear to have met the lady,’ I remarked, interrupting him.
“He blushed scarlet, and became suddenly absorbed in the pattern of the carpet. But the next moment he looked up again, and his face seemed literally transformed.
“‘Oh! Mr. MacShaughnassy,’ he burst out, with a ring of genuine manliness in his voice, ‘you don’t know ’ow good, ’ow beautiful she is. I ain’t fit to breathe ’er name in my thoughts. An’ she’s so clever. I met ’er at that Toynbee ’All. There was a party of toffs there all together. You would ’ave enjoyed it, Mr. MacShaughnassy, if you could ’ave ’eard ’er; she was makin’ fun of the pictures and the people round about to ’er pa—such wit, such learnin’, such ’aughtiness. I follered them out and opened the carriage door for ’er, and she just drew ’er skirt aside and looked at me as if I was the dirt in the road. I wish I was, for then perhaps one day I’d kiss ’er feet.’
“His emotion was so genuine that I did not feel inclined to laugh at him. ‘Did you find out who she was?’ I asked.
“‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘I ’eard the old gentleman say “’Ome” to the coachman, and I ran after the carriage all the way to ’Arley Street. Trevior’s ’er name, Hedith Trevior.’
“‘Miss Trevior!’ I cried, ‘a tall, dark girl, with untidy hair and rather weak eyes?’
“‘Tall and dark,’ he replied ‘with ’air that seems tryin’ to reach ’er lips to kiss ’em, and heyes, light blue, like a Cambridge necktie. A ’undred and seventy-three was the number.’
“‘That’s right,’ I said; ‘my dear Smith, this is becoming complicated. You’ve met the lady and talked to her for half an hour—as Smythe, don’t you remember?’
“‘No,’ he said, after cogitating for a minute, ‘carn’t say I do; I never can remember much about Smythe. He allers seems to me like a bad dream.’
“‘Well, you met her,’ I said; ‘I’m positive. I introduced you to her myself, and she confided to me afterwards that she thought you a most charming man.’
“‘No—did she?’ he remarked, evidently softening in his feelings towards Smythe; ‘and didIlike ’er?’
“‘Well, to tell the truth,’ I answered, ‘I don’t think you did. You looked intensely bored.’
“‘The Juggins,’ I heard him mutter to himself, and then he said aloud: ‘D’yer think I shall get a chance o’ seein’ ’er agen, when I’m—when I’m Smythe?’
“‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I’ll take you round myself. By the bye,’ I added, jumping up and looking on the mantelpiece, ‘I’ve got a card for a Cinderella at their place—something to do with a birthday. Will you be Smythe on November the twentieth?’
“‘Ye—as,’ he replied; ‘oh, yas—bound to be by then.’
“‘Very well, then,’ I said, ‘I’ll call round for you at the Albany, and we’ll go together.’
“He rose and stood smoothing his hat with his sleeve. ‘Fust time I’ve ever looked for’ard to bein’ that hanimated corpse, Smythe,’ he said slowly. ‘Blowed if I don’t try to ’urry it up—’pon my sivey I will.’
“‘He’ll be no good to you till the twentieth,’ I reminded him. ‘And,’ I added, as I stood up to ring the bell, ‘you’re sure it’s a genuine case this time. You won’t be going back to ’Liza?’
“‘Oh, don’t talk ’bout ’Liza in the same breath with Hedith,’ he replied, ‘it sounds like sacrilege.’
“He stood hesitating with the handle of the door in his hand. At last, opening it and looking very hard at his hat, he said, ‘I’m goin’ to ’Arley Street now. I walk up and down outside the ’ouse every evening, and sometimes, when there ain’t no one lookin’, I get a chance to kiss the doorstep.’
“He disappeared, and I returned to my chair.
“On November twentieth, I called for him according to promise. I found him on the point of starting for the club: he had forgotten all about our appointment. I reminded him of it, and he with difficulty recalled it, and consented, without any enthusiasm, to accompany me. By a few artful hints to her mother (including a casual mention of his income), I manoeuvred matters so that he had Edith almost entirely to himself for the whole evening. I was proud of what I had done, and as we were walking home together I waited to receive his gratitude.
“As it seemed slow in coming, I hinted my expectations.
“‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think I managed that very cleverly for you.’
“‘Managed what very cleverly?’ said he.
“‘Why, getting you and Miss Trevior left together for such a long time in the conservatory,’ I answered, somewhat hurt; ‘Ifixed that for you.’
“‘Oh, it wasyou, was it,’ he replied; ‘I’ve been cursing Providence.’
“I stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, and faced him. ‘Don’t you love her?’ I said.
“‘Love her!’ he repeated, in the utmost astonishment; ‘what on earth is there in her to love? She’s nothing but a bad translation of a modern French comedy, with the interest omitted.’
“This ‘tired’ me—to use an Americanism. ‘You came to me a month ago,’ I said, ‘raving over her, and talking about being the dirt under her feet and kissing her doorstep.’
“He turned very red. ‘I wish, my dear Mac,’ he said, ‘you would pay me the compliment of not mistaking me for that detestable little cad with whom I have the misfortune to be connected. You would greatly oblige me if next time he attempts to inflict upon you his vulgar drivel you would kindly kick him downstairs.’
“‘No doubt,’ he added, with a sneer, as we walked on, ‘Miss Trevior would be his ideal. She is exactly the type of woman, I should say, to charm that type of man. For myself, I do not appreciate the artistic and literary female.’
“‘Besides,’ he continued, in a deeper tone, ‘you know my feelings. I shall never care for any other woman but Elizabeth.’
“‘And she?’ I said
“‘She,’ he sighed, ‘is breaking her heart for Smith.’
“‘Why don’t you tell her you are Smith?’ I asked.
“‘I cannot,’ he replied, ‘not even to win her. Besides, she would not believe me.’
“We said good-night at the corner of Bond Street, and I did not see him again till one afternoon late in the following March, when I ran against him in Ludgate Circus. He was wearing his transition blue suit and bowler hat. I went up to him and took his arm.
“‘Which are you?’ I said.
“‘Neither, for the moment,’ he replied, ‘thank God. Half an hour ago I was Smythe, half an hour hence I shall be Smith. For the present half-hour I am a man.’
“There was a pleasant, hearty ring in his voice, and a genial, kindly light in his eyes, and he held himself like a frank gentleman.
“‘You are certainly an improvement upon both of them,’ I said.
“He laughed a sunny laugh, with just the shadow of sadness dashed across it. ‘Do you know my idea of Heaven?’ he said.
“‘No,’ I replied, somewhat surprised at the question.
“‘Ludgate Circus,’ was the answer. ‘The only really satisfying moments of my life,’ he said, ‘have been passed in the neighbourhood of Ludgate Circus. I leave Piccadilly an unhealthy, unwholesome prig. At Charing Cross I begin to feel my blood stir in my veins. From Ludgate Circus to Cheapside I am a human thing with human feeling throbbing in my heart, and human thought throbbing in my brain—with fancies, sympathies, and hopes. At the Bank my mind becomes a blank. As I walk on, my senses grow coarse and blunted; and by the time I reach Whitechapel I am a poor little uncivilised cad. On the return journey it is the same thing reversed.’
“‘Why not live in Ludgate Circus,’ I said, ‘and be always as you are now?’
“‘Because,’ he answered, ‘man is a pendulum, and must travel his arc.’
“‘My dear Mac,’ said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, ‘there is only one good thing about me, and that is a moral. Man is as God made him: don’t be so sure that you can take him to pieces and improve him. All my life I have sought to make myself an unnaturally superior person. Nature has retaliated by making me also an unnaturally inferior person. Nature abhors lopsidedness. She turns out man as a whole, to be developed as a whole. I always wonder, whenever I come across a supernaturally pious, a supernaturally moral, a supernaturally cultured person, if they also have a reverse self.’
“I was shocked at his suggested argument, and walked by his side for a while without speaking. At last, feeling curious on the subject, I asked him how his various love affairs were progressing.
“‘Oh, as usual,’ he replied; ‘in and out of acul de sac. When I am Smythe I love Eliza, and Eliza loathes me. When I am Smith I love Edith, and the mere sight of me makes her shudder. It is as unfortunate for them as for me. I am not saying it boastfully. Heaven knows it is an added draught of misery in my cup; but it is a fact that Eliza is literally pining away for me as Smith, and—as Smith I find it impossible to be even civil to her; while Edith, poor girl, has been foolish enough to set her heart on me as Smythe, and as Smythe she seems to me but the skin of a woman stuffed with the husks of learning, and rags torn from the corpse of wit.’
“I remained absorbed in my own thoughts for some time, and did not come out of them till we were crossing the Minories. Then, the idea suddenly occurring to me, I said:
“‘Why don’t you get a new girl altogether? There must be medium girls that both Smith and Smythe could like, and that would put up with both of you.’
“‘No more girls for this child,’ he answered ‘they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Those yer want yer carn’t get, and those yer can ’ave, yer don’t want.’
“I started, and looked up at him. He was slouching along with his hands in his pockets, and a vacuous look in his face.
“A sudden repulsion seized me. ‘I must go now,’ I said, stopping. ‘I’d no idea I had come so far.’
“He seemed as glad to be rid of me as I to be rid of him. ‘Oh, must yer,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Well, so long.’
“We shook hands carelessly. He disappeared in the crowd, and that is the last I have ever seen of him.”
* * * * *
“Is that a true story?” asked Jephson.
“Well, I’ve altered the names and dates,” said MacShaughnassy; “but the main facts you can rely upon.”
The final question discussed at our last meeting been: What shall our hero be? MacShaughnassy had suggested an author, with a critic for the villain. My idea was a stockbroker, with an undercurrent of romance in his nature. Said Jephson, who has a practical mind: “The question is not what we like, but what the female novel-reader likes.”
“That is so,” agreed MacShaughnassy. “I propose that we collect feminine opinion upon this point. I will write to my aunt and obtain from her the old lady’s view. You,” he said, turning to me, “can put the case to your wife, and get the young lady’s ideal. Let Brown write to his sister at Newnham, and find out whom the intellectual maiden favours, while Jephson can learn from Miss Medbury what is most attractive to the common-sensed girl.”
This plan we had adopted, and the result was now under consideration. MacShaughnassy opened the proceedings by reading his aunt’s letter. Wrote the old lady:
“I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a soldier. You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to America with thatwickedMrs. Featherly, the banker’s wife, was a soldier, and so was your poor cousin Robert, who lost eight thousand pounds at Monte Carlo. I have always felt singularly drawn towards soldiers, even as a girl; though your poor dear uncle could not bear them. You will find many allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old Testament (see Jer. xlviii. 14). Of course one does not like to think of their fighting and killing each other, but then they do not seem to do that sort of thing nowadays.”
“I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a soldier. You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to America with thatwickedMrs. Featherly, the banker’s wife, was a soldier, and so was your poor cousin Robert, who lost eight thousand pounds at Monte Carlo. I have always felt singularly drawn towards soldiers, even as a girl; though your poor dear uncle could not bear them. You will find many allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old Testament (see Jer. xlviii. 14). Of course one does not like to think of their fighting and killing each other, but then they do not seem to do that sort of thing nowadays.”
“So much for the old lady,” said MacShaughnassy, as he folded up the letter and returned it to his pocket. “What says culture?”
Brown produced from his cigar-case a letter addressed in a bold round hand, and read as follows:
“What a curious coincidence! A few of us were discussing this very subject last night in Millicent Hightopper’s rooms, and I may tell you at once that our decision was unanimous in favour of soldiers. You see, my dear Selkirk, in human nature the attraction is towards the opposite. To a milliner’s apprentice a poet would no doubt be satisfying; to a woman of intelligence he would he an unutterable bore. What the intellectual woman requires in man is not something to argue with, but something to look at. To an empty-headed woman I can imagine the soldier type proving vapid and uninteresting; to the woman of mind he represents her ideal of man—a creature strong, handsome, well-dressed, and not too clever.”
“What a curious coincidence! A few of us were discussing this very subject last night in Millicent Hightopper’s rooms, and I may tell you at once that our decision was unanimous in favour of soldiers. You see, my dear Selkirk, in human nature the attraction is towards the opposite. To a milliner’s apprentice a poet would no doubt be satisfying; to a woman of intelligence he would he an unutterable bore. What the intellectual woman requires in man is not something to argue with, but something to look at. To an empty-headed woman I can imagine the soldier type proving vapid and uninteresting; to the woman of mind he represents her ideal of man—a creature strong, handsome, well-dressed, and not too clever.”
“That gives us two votes for the army,” remarked MacShaughnassy, as Brown tore his sister’s letter in two, and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket. “What says the common-sensed girl?”
“First catch your common-sensed girl,” muttered Jephson, a little grumpily, as it seemed to me. “Where do you propose finding her?”
“Well,” returned MacShaughnassy, “I looked to find her in Miss Medbury.”
As a rule, the mention of Miss Medbury’s name brings a flush of joy to Jephson’s face; but now his features wore an expression distinctly approaching a scowl.
“Oh!” he replied, “did you? Well, then, the common-sensed girl loves the military also.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed MacShaughnassy, “what an extraordinary thing. What reason does she give?”
“That there’s a something about them, and that they dance so divinely,” answered Jephson, shortly.
“Well, you do surprise me,” murmured MacShaughnassy, “I am astonished.”
Then to me he said: “And what does the young married woman say? The same?”
“Yes,” I replied, “precisely the same.”
“Doesshegive a reason?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” I explained; “because you can’t help liking them.”
There was silence for the next few minutes, while we smoked and thought. I fancy we were all wishing we had never started this inquiry.
That four distinctly different types of educated womanhood should, with promptness and unanimity quite unfeminine, have selected the soldier as their ideal, was certainly discouraging to the civilian heart. Had they been nursemaids or servant girls, I should have expected it. The worship of Mars by the Venus of the white cap is one of the few vital religions left to this devoutless age. A year or two ago I lodged near a barracks, and the sight to be seen round its huge iron gates on Sunday afternoons I shall never forget. The girls began to assemble about twelve o’clock. By two, at which hour the army, with its hair nicely oiled and a cane in its hand, was ready for a stroll, there would be some four or five hundred of them waiting in a line. Formerly they had collected in a wild mob, and as the soldiers were let out to them two at a time, had fought for them, as lions for early Christians. This, however, had led to scenes of such disorder and brutality, that the police had been obliged to interfere; and the girls were now marshalled inqueue, two abreast, and compelled, by a force of constables specially told off for the purpose, to keep their places and wait their proper turn.
At three o’clock the sentry on duty would come down to the wicket and close it. “They’re all gone, my dears,” he would shout out to the girls still left; “it’s no good your stopping, we’ve no more for you to-day.”
“Oh, not one!” some poor child would murmur pleadingly, while the tears welled up into her big round eyes, “not even a little one. I’ve been waitingsucha long time.”
“Can’t help that,” the honest fellow would reply, gruffly, but not unkindly, turning aside to hide his emotion; “you’ve had ’em all between you. We don’t make ’em, you know: you can’t have ’em if we haven’t got ’em, can you? Come earlier next time.”
Then he would hurry away to escape further importunity; and the police, who appeared to have been waiting for this moment with gloating anticipation, would jeeringly hustle away the weeping remnant. “Now then, pass along, you girls, pass along,” they would say, in that irritatingly unsympathetic voice of theirs. “You’ve had your chance. Can’t have the roadway blocked up all the afternoon with this ’ere demonstration of the unloved. Pass along.”
In connection with this same barracks, our char-woman told Amenda, who told Ethelbertha, who told me a story, which I now told the boys.
Into a certain house, in a certain street in the neighbourhood, there moved one day a certain family. Their servant had left them—most of their servants did at the end of a week—and the day after the moving-in an advertisement for a domestic was drawn up and sent to theChronicle. It ran thus:
WANTED, GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven. Wages, £6; no beer money. Must be early riser and hard worker. Washing done at home. Must be good cook, and not object to window-cleaning. Unitarian preferred.—Apply, with references, to A. B., etc.
WANTED, GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven. Wages, £6; no beer money. Must be early riser and hard worker. Washing done at home. Must be good cook, and not object to window-cleaning. Unitarian preferred.—Apply, with references, to A. B., etc.
That advertisement was sent off on Wednesday afternoon. At seven o’clock on Thursday morning the whole family were awakened by continuous ringing of the street-door bell. The husband, looking out of window, was surprised to see a crowd of about fifty girls surrounding the house. He slipped on his dressing-gown and went down to see what was the matter. The moment he opened the door, fifteen of them charged tumultuously into the passage, sweeping him completely off his legs. Once inside, these fifteen faced round, fought the other thirty-five or so back on to the doorstep, and slammed the door in their faces. Then they picked up the master of the house, and asked him politely to conduct them to “A. B.”
At first, owing to the clamour of the mob outside, who were hammering at the door and shouting curses through the keyhole, he could understand nothing, but at length they succeeded in explaining to him that they were domestic servants come ill answer to his wife’s advertisement. The man went and told his wife, and his wife said she would see them, one at a time.
Which one should have audience first was a delicate question to decide. The man, on being appealed to, said he would prefer to leave it to them. They accordingly discussed the matter among themselves. At the end of a quarter of an hour, the victor, having borrowed some hair-pins and a looking-glass from our char-woman, who had slept in the house, went upstairs, while the remaining fourteen sat down in the hall, and fanned themselves with their bonnets.
“A. B.” was a good deal astonished when the first applicant presented herself. She was a tall, genteel-looking girl. Up to yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton’s, and before that she had been under-cook for two years to the Duchess of York.
“And why did you leave Lady Stanton?” asked “A. B.”
“To come here, mum,” replied the girl. The lady was puzzled.
“And you’ll be satisfied with six pounds a year?” she asked.
“Certainly, mum, I think it ample.”
“And you don’t mind hard work?”
“I love it, mum.”
“And you’re an early riser?”
“Oh yes, mum, it upsets me stopping in bed after half-past five.”
“You know we do the washing at home?”
“Yes, mum. I think it so much better to do it at home. Those laundries ruin good clothes. They’re so careless.”
“Are you a Unitarian?” continued the lady.
“Not yet, mum,” replied the girl, “but I should like to be one.”
The lady took her reference, and said she would write.
The next applicant offered to come for three pounds—thought six pounds too much. She expressed her willingness to sleep in the back kitchen: a shakedown under the sink was all she wanted. She likewise had yearnings towards Unitarianism.
The third girl did not require any wages at all—could not understand what servants wanted with wages—thought wages only encouraged a love of foolish finery—thought a comfortable home in a Unitarian family ought to be sufficient wages for any girl.
This girl said there was one stipulation she should like to make, and that was that she should be allowed to pay for all breakages caused by her own carelessness or neglect. She objected to holidays and evenings out; she held that they distracted a girl from her work.
The fourth candidate offered a premium of five pounds for the place; and then “A. B.” began to get frightened, and refused to see any more of the girls, convinced that they must be lunatics from some neighbouring asylum out for a walk.
Later in the day, meeting the next-door lady on the doorstep, she related her morning’s experiences.
“Oh, that’s nothing extraordinary,” said the next-door lady; “none of us on this side of the street pay wages; and we get the pick of all the best servants in London. Why, girls will come from the other end of the kingdom to get into one of these houses. It’s the dream of their lives. They save up for years, so as to be able to come here for nothing.”
“What’s the attraction?” asked “A. B.,” more amazed than ever.
“Why, don’t you see,” explained the next door lady, “our back windows open upon the barrack yard. A girl living in one of these houses is always close to soldiers. By looking out of window she can always see soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her or even call up to her. They never dream of asking for wages. They’ll work eighteen hours a day, and put up with anything just to be allowed to stop.”
“A. B.” profited by this information, and engaged the girl who offered the five pounds premium. She found her a perfect treasure of a servant. She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a sofa in the kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her dinner.
The truth of this story I cannot vouch for. Myself, I can believe it. Brown and MacShaughnassy made no attempt to do so, which seemed unfriendly. Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache. I admit there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average intellect. As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by Ethelbertha, who had it from Amenda, who got it from the char-woman, and exaggerations may have crept into it. The following, however, were incidents that came under my own personal observation. They afforded a still stronger example of the influence exercised by Tommy Atkins upon the British domestic, and I therefore thought it right to relate them.
“The heroine of them,” I said, “is our Amenda. Now, you would call her a tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?”
“She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability,” answered MacShaughnassy.
“That was my opinion also,” I replied. “You can, therefore, imagine my feelings on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a Panama hat upon her head (myPanama hat), and a soldier’s arm round her waist. She was one of a mob following the band of the Third Berkshire Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate. There was an ecstatic, far-away look in her eyes. She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand she beat time to the music.
“Ethelbertha was with me at the time. We stared after the procession until it had turned the corner, and then we stared at each other.
“‘Oh, it’s impossible,’ said Ethelbertha to me.
“‘But that was my hat,’ I said to Ethelbertha.
“The moment we reached home Ethelbertha looked for Amenda, and I looked for my hat. Neither was to be found.
“Nine o’clock struck, ten o’clock struck. At half-past ten, we went down and got our own supper, and had it in the kitchen. At a quarter-past eleven, Amenda returned. She walked into the kitchen without a word, hung my hat up behind the door, and commenced clearing away the supper things.
“Ethelbertha rose, calm but severe.
“‘Where have you been, Amenda?’ she inquired.
“‘Gadding half over the county with a lot of low soldiers,’ answered Amenda, continuing her work.
“‘You had on my hat,’ I added.
“‘Yes, sir,’ replied Amenda, still continuing her work, ‘it was the first thing that came to hand. What I’m thankful for is that it wasn’t missis’s best bonnet.’
“Whether Ethelbertha was mollified by the proper spirit displayed in this last remark, I cannot say, but I think it probable. At all events, it was in a voice more of sorrow than of anger that she resumed her examination.
“‘You were walking with a soldier’s arm around your waist when we passed you, Amenda?’ she observed interrogatively.
“‘I know, mum,’ admitted Amenda, ‘I found it there myself when the music stopped.’
“Ethelbertha looked her inquiries. Amenda filled a saucepan with water, and then replied to them.
“‘I’m a disgrace to a decent household,’ she said; ‘no mistress who respected herself would keep me a moment. I ought to be put on the doorstep with my box and a month’s wages.’
“‘But why did you do it then?’ said Ethelbertha, with natural astonishment.
“‘Because I’m a helpless ninny, mum. I can’t help myself; if I see soldiers I’m bound to follow them. It runs in our family. My poor cousin Emma was just such another fool. She was engaged to be married to a quiet, respectable young fellow with a shop of his own, and three days before the wedding she ran off with a regiment of marines to Chatham and married the colour-sergeant. That’s what I shall end by doing. I’ve been all the way to Sandgate with that lot you saw me with, and I’ve kissed four of them—the nasty wretches. I’m a nice sort of girl to be walking out with a respectable milkman.’
“She was so deeply disgusted with herself that it seemed superfluous for anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed her tone and tried to comfort her.
“‘Oh, you’ll get over all that nonsense, Amenda,’ she said, laughingly; ‘you see yourself how silly it is. You must tell Mr. Bowles to keep you away from soldiers.’
“‘Ah, I can’t look at it in the same light way that you do, mum,’ returned Amenda, somewhat reprovingly; ‘a girl that can’t see a bit of red marching down the street without wanting to rush out and follow it ain’t fit to be anybody’s wife. Why, I should be leaving the shop with nobody in it about twice a week, and he’d have to go the round of all the barracks in London, looking for me. I shall save up and get myself into a lunatic asylum, that’s what I shall do.’
“Ethelbertha began to grow quite troubled. ‘But surely this is something altogether new, Amenda,’ she said; ‘you must have often met soldiers when you’ve been out in London?’
“‘Oh yes, one or two at a time, walking about anyhow, I can stand that all right. It’s when there’s a lot of them with a band that I lose my head.’
“‘You don’t know what it’s like, mum,’ she added, noticing Ethelbertha’s puzzled expression; ‘you’ve never had it. I only hope you never may.’
“We kept a careful watch over Amenda during the remainder of our stay at Folkestone, and an anxious time we had of it. Every day some regiment or other would march through the town, and at the first sound of its music Amenda would become restless and excited. The Pied Piper’s reed could not have stirred the Hamelin children deeper than did those Sandgate bands the heart of our domestic. Fortunately, they generally passed early in the morning when we were indoors, but one day, returning home to lunch, we heard distant strains dying away upon the Hythe Road. We hurried in. Ethelbertha ran down into the kitchen; it was empty!—up into Amenda’s bedroom; it was vacant! We called. There was no answer.
“‘That miserable girl has gone off again,’ said Ethelbertha. ‘What a terrible misfortune it is for her. It’s quite a disease.’
“Ethelbertha wanted me to go to Sandgate camp and inquire for her. I was sorry for the girl myself, but the picture of a young and innocent-looking man wandering about a complicated camp, inquiring for a lost domestic, presenting itself to my mind, I said that I’d rather not.
“Ethelbertha thought me heartless, and said that if I would not go she would go herself. I replied that I thought one female member of my household was enough in that camp at a time, and requested her not to. Ethelbertha expressed her sense of my inhuman behaviour by haughtily declining to eat any lunch, and I expressed my sense of her unreasonableness by sweeping the whole meal into the grate, after which Ethelbertha suddenly developed exuberant affection for the cat (who didn’t want anybody’s love, but wanted to get under the grate after the lunch), and I became supernaturally absorbed in the day-before-yesterday’s newspaper.
“In the afternoon, strolling out into the garden, I heard the faint cry of a female in distress. I listened attentively, and the cry was repeated. I thought it sounded like Amenda’s voice, but where it came from I could not conceive. It drew nearer, however, as I approached the bottom of the garden, and at last I located it in a small wooden shed, used by the proprietor of the house as a dark-room for developing photographs.
“The door was locked. ‘Is that you, Amenda?’ I cried through the keyhole.
“’Yes, sir,’ came back the muffled answer. ‘Will you please let me out? you’ll find the key on the ground near the door.’
“I discovered it on the grass about a yard away, and released her. ‘Who locked you in?’ I asked.
“‘I did, sir,’ she replied; ‘I locked myself in, and pushed the key out under the door. I had to do it, or I should have gone off with those beastly soldiers.’
“‘I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you, sir,’ she added, stepping out; ‘I left the lunch all laid.’”
* * * * *
Amenda’s passion for soldiers was her one tribute to sentiment. Towards all others of the male sex she maintained an attitude of callous unsusceptibility, and her engagements with them (which were numerous) were entered into or abandoned on grounds so sordid as to seriously shock Ethelbertha.
When she came to us she was engaged to a pork butcher—with a milkman in reserve. For Amenda’s sake we dealt with the man, but we never liked him, and we liked his pork still less. When, therefore, Amenda announced to us that her engagement with him was “off,” and intimated that her feelings would in no way suffer by our going elsewhere for our bacon, we secretly rejoiced.
“I am confident you have done right, Amenda,” said Ethelbertha; “you would never have been happy with that man.”
“No, mum, I don’t think I ever should,” replied Amenda. “I don’t see how any girl could as hadn’t the digestion of an ostrich.”
Ethelbertha looked puzzled. “But what has digestion got to do with it?” she asked.
“A pretty good deal, mum,” answered Amenda, “when you’re thinking of marrying a man as can’t make a sausage fit to eat.”
“But, surely,” exclaimed Ethelbertha, “you don’t mean to say you’re breaking off the match because you don’t like his sausages!”
“Well, I suppose that’s what it comes to,” agreed Amenda, unconcernedly.
“What an awful idea!” sighed poor Ethelbertha, after a long pause. “Do you think you ever really loved him?”
“Oh yes,” said Amenda, “I loved him right enough, but it’s no good loving a man that wants you to live on sausages that keep you awake all night.”
“But does he want you to live on sausages?” persisted Ethelbertha.
“Oh, he doesn’t say anything about it,” explained Amenda; “but you know what it is, mum, when you marry a pork butcher; you’re expected to eat what’s left over. That’s the mistake my poor cousin Eliza made. She married a muffin man. Of course, what he didn’t sell they had to finish up themselves. Why, one winter, when he had a run of bad luck, they lived for two months on nothing but muffins. I never saw a girl so changed in all my life. One has to think of these things, you know.”
But the most shamefully mercenary engagement that I think Amenda ever entered into, was one with a ’bus conductor. We were living in the north of London then, and she had a young man, a cheesemonger, who kept a shop in Lupus Street, Chelsea. He could not come up to her because of the shop, so once a week she used to go down to him. One did not ride ten miles for a penny in those days, and she found the fare from Holloway to Victoria and back a severe tax upon her purse. The same ’bus that took her down at six brought her back at ten. During the first journey the ’bus conductor stared at Amenda; during the second he talked to her, during the third he gave her a cocoanut, during the fourth he proposed to her, and was promptly accepted. After that, Amenda was enabled to visit her cheesemonger without expense.
He was a quaint character himself, this ’bus conductor. I often rode with him to Fleet Street. He knew me quite well (I suppose Amenda must have pointed me out to him), and would always ask me after her—aloud, before all the other passengers, which was trying—and give me messages to take back to her. Where women were concerned he had what is called “a way” with him, and from the extent and variety of his female acquaintance, and the evident tenderness with which the majority of them regarded him, I am inclined to hope that Amenda’s desertion of him (which happened contemporaneously with her jilting of the cheesemonger) caused him less prolonged suffering than might otherwise have been the case.
He was a man from whom I derived a good deal of amusement one way and another. Thinking of him brings back to my mind a somewhat odd incident.
One afternoon, I jumped upon his ’bus in the Seven Sisters Road. An elderly Frenchman was the only other occupant of the vehicle. “You vil not forget me,” the Frenchman was saying as I entered, “I desire Sharing Cross.”
“I won’t forget yer,” answered the conductor, “you shall ’ave yer Sharing Cross. Don’t make a fuss about it.”
“That’s the third time ’ee’s arst me not to forget ’im,” he remarked to me in a stentorian aside; “’ee don’t giv’ yer much chance of doin’ it, does ’ee?”
At the corner of the Holloway Road we drew up, and our conductor began to shout after the manner of his species: “Charing Cross—Charing Cross—’ere yer are—Come along, lady—Charing Cross.”
The little Frenchman jumped up, and prepared to exit; the conductor pushed him back.
“Sit down and don’t be silly,” he said; “this ain’t Charing Cross.”
The Frenchman looked puzzled, but collapsed meekly. We picked up a few passengers, and proceeded on our way. Half a mile up the Liverpool Road a lady stood on the kerb regarding us as we passed with that pathetic mingling of desire and distrust which is the average woman’s attitude towards conveyances of all kinds. Our conductor stopped.
“Where d’yer want to go to?” he asked her severely—“Strand—Charing Cross?”
The Frenchman did not hear or did not understand the first part of the speech, but he caught the words “Charing Cross,” and bounced up and out on to the step. The conductor collared him as he was getting off, and jerked him back savagely.
“Carn’t yer keep still a minute,” he cried indignantly; “blessed if you don’t want lookin’ after like a bloomin’ kid.”
“I vont to be put down at Sharing Cross,” answered the Frenchman, humbly.
“You vont to be put down at Sharing Cross,” repeated the other bitterly, as he led him back to his seat. “I shall put yer down in the middle of the road if I ’ave much more of yer. You stop there till I come and sling yer out. I ain’t likely to let yer go much past yer Sharing Cross, I shall be too jolly glad to get rid o’ yer.”
The poor Frenchman subsided, and we jolted on. At “The Angel” we, of course, stopped. “Charing Cross,” shouted the conductor, and up sprang the Frenchman.
“Oh, my Gawd,” said the conductor, taking him by the shoulders and forcing him down into the corner seat, “wot am I to do? Carn’t somebody sit on ’im?”
He held him firmly down until the ’bus started, and then released him. At the top of Chancery Lane the same scene took place, and the poor little Frenchman became exasperated.
“He keep saying Sharing Cross, Sharing Cross,” he exclaimed, turning to the other passengers; “and it isnoSharing Cross. He is fool.”
“Carn’t yer understand,” retorted the conductor, equally indignant; “of course I say Sharing Cross—I mean Charing Cross, but that don’t mean that itisCharing Cross. That means—” and then perceiving from the blank look on the Frenchman’s face the utter impossibility of ever making the matter clear to him, he turned to us with an appealing gesture, and asked:
“Does any gentleman know the French for ‘bloomin’ idiot’?”
A day or two afterwards, I happened to enter his omnibus again.
“Well,” I asked him, “did you get your French friend to Charing Cross all right?”
“No, sir,” he replied, “you’ll ’ardly believe it, but I ’ad a bit of a row with a policeman just before I got to the corner, and it put ’im clean out o’ my ’ead. Blessed if I didn’t run ’im on to Victoria.”
Said Brown one evening, “There is but one vice, and that is selfishness.”
Jephson was standing before the fire lighting his pipe. He puffed the tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then said:
“And the seed of all virtue also.”
“Sit down and get on with your work,” said MacShaughnassy from the sofa where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; “we’re discussing the novel. Paradoxes not admitted during business hours.”
Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood.
“Selfishness,” he continued, “is merely another name for Will. Every deed, good or bad, that we do is prompted by selfishness. We are charitable to secure ourselves a good place in the next world, to make ourselves respected in this, to ease our own distress at the knowledge of suffering. One man is kind because it gives him pleasure to be kind, just as another is cruel because cruelty pleases him. A great man does his duty because to him the sense of duty done is a deeper delight than would be the case resulting from avoidance of duty. The religious man is religious because he finds a joy in religion; the moral man moral because with his strong self-respect, viciousness would mean wretchedness. Self-sacrifice itself is only a subtle selfishness: we prefer the mental exaltation gained thereby to the sensual gratification which is the alternative reward. Man cannot be anything else but selfish. Selfishness is the law of all life. Each thing, from the farthest fixed star to the smallest insect crawling on the earth, fighting for itself according to its strength; and brooding over all, the Eternal, working forHimself: that is the universe.”
“Have some whisky,” said MacShaughnassy; “and don’t be so complicatedly metaphysical. You make my head ache.”
“If all action, good and bad, spring from selfishness,” replied Brown, “then there must be good selfishness and bad selfishness: and your bad selfishness is my plain selfishness, without any adjective, so we are back where we started. I say selfishness—bad selfishness—is the root of all evil, and there you are bound to agree with me.”
“Not always,” persisted Jephson; “I’ve known selfishness—selfishness according to the ordinarily accepted meaning of the term—to be productive of good actions. I can give you an instance, if you like.”
“Has it got a moral?” asked MacShaughnassy, drowsily,
Jephson mused a moment. “Yes,” he said at length; “a very practical moral—and one very useful to young men.”
“That’s the sort of story we want,” said the MacShaughnassy, raising himself into a sitting position. “You listen to this, Brown.”
Jephson seated himself upon a chair, in his favourite attitude, with his elbows resting upon the back, and smoked for a while in silence.
“There are three people in this story,” he began; “the wife, the wife’s husband, and the other man. In most dramas of this type, it is the wife who is the chief character. In this case, the interesting person is the other man.
“The wife—I met her once: she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the most wicked-looking; which is saying a good deal for both statements. I remember, during a walking tour one year, coming across a lovely little cottage. It was the sweetest place imaginable. I need not describe it. It was the cottage one sees in pictures, and reads of in sentimental poetry. I was leaning over the neatly-cropped hedge, drinking in its beauty, when at one of the tiny casements I saw, looking out at me, a face. It stayed there only a moment, but in that moment the cottage had become ugly, and I hurried away with a shudder.
“That woman’s face reminded me of the incident. It was an angel’s face, until the woman herself looked out of it: then you were struck by the strange incongruity between tenement and tenant.
“That at one time she had loved her husband, I have little doubt. Vicious women have few vices, and sordidness is not usually one of them. She had probably married him, borne towards him by one of those waves of passion upon which the souls of animal natures are continually rising and falling. On possession, however, had quickly followed satiety, and from satiety had grown the desire for a new sensation.
“They were living at Cairo at the period; her husband held an important official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her own beauty and tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-Saxon society ever drifting in and out of the city. The women disliked her, and copied her. The men spoke slightingly of her to their wives, lightly of her to each other, and made idiots of themselves when they were alone with her. She laughed at them to their faces, and mimicked them behind their backs. Their friends said it was clever.
“One year there arrived a young English engineer, who had come out to superintend some canal works. He brought with him satisfactory letters of recommendation, and was at once received by the European residents as a welcome addition to their social circle. He was not particularly good-looking, he was not remarkably charming, but he possessed the one thing that few women can resist in a man, and that is strength. The woman looked at the man, and the man looked back at the woman; and the drama began.
“Scandal flies swiftly through small communities. Before a month, their relationship was the chief topic of conversation throughout the quarter. In less than two, it reached the ears of the woman’s husband.
“He was either an exceptionally mean or an exceptionally noble character, according to how one views the matter. He worshipped his wife—as men with big hearts and weak brains often do worship such women—with dog-like devotion. His only dread was lest the scandal should reach proportions that would compel him to take notice of it, and thus bring shame and suffering upon the woman to whom he would have given his life. That a man who saw her should love her seemed natural to him; that she should have grown tired of himself, a thing not to be wondered at. He was grateful to her for having once loved him, for a little while.
“As for ‘the other man,’ he proved somewhat of an enigma to the gossips. He attempted no secrecy; if anything, he rather paraded his subjugation—or his conquest, it was difficult to decide which term to apply. He rode and drove with her; visited her in public and in private (in such privacy as can be hoped for in a house filled with chattering servants, and watched by spying eyes); loaded her with expensive presents, which she wore openly, and papered his smoking-den with her photographs. Yet he never allowed himself to appear in the least degree ridiculous; never allowed her to come between him and his work. A letter from her, he would lay aside unopened until he had finished what he evidently regarded as more important business. When boudoir and engine-shed became rivals, it was the boudoir that had to wait.
“The woman chafed under his self-control, which stung her like a lash, but clung to him the more abjectly.
“‘Tell me you love me!’ she would cry fiercely, stretching her white arms towards him.
“‘I have told you so,’ he would reply calmly, without moving.
“‘I want to hear you tell it me again,’ she would plead with a voice that trembled on a sob. ‘Come close to me and tell it me again, again, again!’
“Then, as she lay with half-closed eyes, he would pour forth a flood of passionate words sufficient to satisfy even her thirsty ears, and afterwards, as the gates clanged behind him, would take up an engineering problem at the exact point at which half an hour before, on her entrance into the room, he had temporarily dismissed it.
“One day, a privileged friend put bluntly to him this question: ‘Are you playing for love or vanity?’
“To which the man, after long pondering, gave this reply: ‘’Pon my soul, Jack, I couldn’t tell you.’
“Now, when a man is in love with a woman who cannot make up her mind whether she loves him or not, we call the complication comedy; where it is the woman who is in earnest the result is generally tragedy.
“They continued to meet and to make love. They talked—as people in their position are prone to talk—of the beautiful life they would lead if it only were not for the thing that was; of the earthly paradise—or, maybe, ‘earthy’ would be the more suitable adjective—they would each create for the other, if only they had the right which they hadn’t.
“In this work of imagination the man trusted chiefly to his literary faculties, which were considerable; the woman to her desires. Thus, his scenes possessed a grace and finish which hers lacked, but her pictures were the more vivid. Indeed, so realistic did she paint them, that to herself they seemed realities, waiting for her. Then she would rise to go towards them only to strike herself against the thought of the thing that stood between her and them. At first she only hated the thing, but after a while there came an ugly look of hope into her eyes.
“The time drew near for the man to return to England. The canal was completed, and a day appointed for the letting in of the water. The man determined to make the event the occasion of a social gathering. He invited a large number of guests, among whom were the woman and her husband, to assist at the function. Afterwards the party were to picnic at a pleasant wooded spot some three-quarters of a mile from the first lock.
“The ceremony of flooding was to be performed by the woman, her husband’s position entitling her to this distinction. Between the river and the head of the cutting had been left a strong bank of earth, pierced some distance down by a hole, which hole was kept closed by means of a closely-fitting steel plate. The woman drew the lever releasing this plate, and the water rushed through and began to press against the lock gates. When it had attained a certain depth, the sluices were raised, and the water poured down into the deep basin of the lock.
“It was an exceptionally deep lock. The party gathered round and watched the water slowly rising. The woman looked down, and shuddered; the man was standing by her side.
“‘How deep it is,’ she said.
“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it holds thirty feet of water, when full.’
“The water crept up inch by inch.
“‘Why don’t you open the gates, and let it in quickly?’ she asked.
“‘It would not do for it to come in too quickly,’ he explained; ‘we shall half fill this lock, and then open the sluices at the other end, and so let the water pass through.’
“The woman looked at the smooth stone walls and at the iron-plated gates.
“‘I wonder what a man would do,’ she said, ‘if he fell in, and there was no one near to help him?’
“The man laughed. ‘I think he would stop there,’ he answered. ‘Come, the others are waiting for us.’
“He lingered a moment to give some final instructions to the workmen. ‘You can follow on when you’ve made all right,’ he said, ‘and get something to eat. There’s no need for more than one to stop.’ Then they joined the rest of the party, and sauntered on, laughing and talking, to the picnic ground.
“After lunch the party broke up, as is the custom of picnic parties, and wandered away in groups and pairs. The man, whose duty as host had hitherto occupied all his attention, looked for the woman, but she was gone.
“A friend strolled by, the same that had put the question to him about love and vanity.
“‘Have you quarrelled?’ asked the friend.
“‘No,’ replied the man.
“‘I fancied you had,’ said the other. ‘I met her just now walking with her husband, of all men in the world, and making herself quite agreeable to him.’
“The friend strolled on, and the man sat down on a fallen tree, and lighted a cigar. He smoked and thought, and the cigar burnt out, but he still sat thinking.
“After a while he heard a faint rustling of the branches behind him, and peering between the interlacing leaves that hid him, saw the crouching figure of the woman creeping through the wood.
“His lips were parted to call her name, when she turned her listening head in his direction, and his eyes fell full upon her face. Something about it, he could not have told what, struck him dumb, and the woman crept on.
“Gradually the nebulous thoughts floating through his brain began to solidify into a tangible idea, and the man unconsciously started forward. After walking a few steps he broke into a run, for the idea had grown clearer. It continued to grow still clearer and clearer, and the man ran faster and faster, until at last he found himself racing madly towards the lock. As he approached it he looked round for the watchman who ought to have been there, but the man was gone from his post. He shouted, but if any answer was returned, it was drowned by the roar of the rushing water.
“He reached the edge and looked down. Fifteen feet below him was the reality of the dim vision that had come to him a mile back in the woods: the woman’s husband swimming round and round like a rat in a pail.
“The river was flowing in and out of the lock at the same rate, so that the level of the water remained constant. The first thing the man did was to close the lower sluices and then open those in the upper gate to their fullest extent. The water began to rise.
“‘Can you hold out?’ he cried.
“The drowning man turned to him a face already contorted by the agony of exhaustion, and answered with a feeble ‘No.’
“He looked around for something to throw to the man. A plank had lain there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and complaining of its having been left there; he cursed himself now for his care.
“A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two hundred yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there he might even find a rope.
“‘Just one minute, old fellow!’ he shouted down, ‘and I’ll be back.’
“But the other did not hear him. The feeble struggles ceased. The face fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary indifference. There was no time for him to do more than kick off his riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it sank.
“Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with Death for the life that stood between him and the woman. He was not an expert swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown with his long race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the water rose slowly enough to make his torture fit for Dante’s hell.
“At first he could not understand why this was so, but in glancing down he saw to his horror that he had not properly closed the lower sluices; in each some eight or ten inches remained open, so that the stream was passing out nearly half as fast as it came in. It would be another five-and-twenty minutes before the water would be high enough for him to grasp the top.
“He noted where the line of wet had reached to, on the smooth stone wall, then looked again after what he thought must be a lapse of ten minutes, and found it had risen half an inch, if that. Once or twice he shouted for help, but the effort taxed severely his already failing breath, and his voice only came back to him in a hundred echoes from his prison walls.
“Inch by inch the line of wet crept up, but the spending of his strength went on more swiftly. It seemed to him as if his inside were being gripped and torn slowly out: his whole body cried out to him to let it sink and lie in rest at the bottom.
“At length his unconscious burden opened its eyes and stared at him stupidly, then closed them again with a sigh; a minute later opened them once more, and looked long and hard at him.
“‘Let me go,’ he said, ‘we shall both drown. You can manage by yourself.’
“He made a feeble effort to release himself, but the other held him.
“‘Keep still, you fool!’ he hissed; ‘you’re going to get out of this with me, or I’m going down with you.’
“So the grim struggle went on in silence, till the man, looking up, saw the stone coping just a little way above his head, made one mad leap and caught it with his finger-tips, held on an instant, then fell back with a ‘plump’ and sank; came up and made another dash, and, helped by the impetus of his rise, caught the coping firmly this time with the whole of his fingers, hung on till his eyes saw the stunted grass, till they were both able to scramble out upon the bank and lie there, their breasts pressed close against the ground, their hands clutching the earth, while the overflowing water swirled softly round them.
“After a while, they raised themselves and looked at one another.
“‘Tiring work,’ said the other man, with a nod towards the lock.
“‘Yes,’ answered the husband, ‘beastly awkward not being a good swimmer. How did you know I had fallen in? You met my wife, I suppose?’
“‘Yes,’ said the other man.
“The husband sat staring at a point in the horizon for some minutes. ‘Do you know what I was wondering this morning?’ said he.
“‘No,’ said the other man.
“‘Whether I should kill you or not.’
“‘They told me,’ he continued, after a pause, ‘a lot of silly gossip which I was cad enough to believe. I know now it wasn’t true, because—well, if it had been, you would not have done what you have done.’
“He rose and came across. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, holding out his hand.
“‘I beg yours,’ said the other man, rising and taking it; ‘do you mind giving me a hand with the sluices?’
“They set to work to put the lock right.
“‘How did you manage to fall in?’ asked the other man, who was raising one of the lower sluices, without looking round.
“The husband hesitated, as if he found the explanation somewhat difficult. ‘Oh,’ he answered carelessly, ‘the wife and I were chaffing, and she said she’d often seen you jump it, and’—he laughed a rather forced laugh—‘she promised me a—a kiss if I cleared it. It was a foolish thing to do.’
“‘Yes, it was rather,’ said the other man.
“A few days afterwards the man and woman met at a reception. He found her in a leafy corner of the garden talking to some friends. She advanced to meet him, holding out her hand. ‘What can I say more than thank you?’ she murmured in a low voice.