Impossible to tell how far will spread the ripples from the lightest action that we may toss into the sea of life.
Life is a game of consequences. A throws a stone, and the widening ripples wreck the little boats of X and Y and Z who never have even heard of A. Every day and every night, every hour of every day and night, ripples from unknown splashes are setting towards us—perhaps to swamp us, perhaps to bear us into some pleasant stream. One calls it luck, another fate. “This is my just punishment,” cries one. “By my good works I have merited this,” exclaims another; but it is merely the ripple from some distant splash—merely consequences. Consequences.
A sleepy maid in Mr. City Merchant's suburban mansion leaves the dust-pan on the stairs after sweeping. That is the little action she has tossed into the sea of life, and the ripples will wreck a boat or two now snug and safe in a cheap and happy home many miles away. Mr. City Merchant trips over the dustpan, starts for office fuming with rage, vents his spleen upon Mr. City Clerk—dismisses him.
Mr. City Clerk seeks work in vain; the cheap but happy home he shares with pretty little Mrs. City Clerk and plump young Master City Clerk is abandoned for a dingy lodging. Grade by grade the lodging they must seek grows dingier. Now there is no food. Now they are getting desperate. Now pneumonia lays erstwhile plump Master City Clerk by the heels and carries him off—consequences, consequences; that is one boat wrecked. Now Mr. City Clerk is growing mad with despair; Mrs. City Clerk is well upon the road that Master City Clerk has followed. Mr. City Clerk steals, is caught, is imprisoned—consequences, consequences; another boat wrecked. Mrs. City Clerk does not hold out long, follows Master City Clerk—consequences, consequences. Three innocent craft smashed up because the housemaid left the dustpan on the stairs.
Impossible to tell how far will speed the ripples from the lightest action that we may toss into the sea of life. Solely and wholly because George abducted the Rose of Sharon, Miss Pridham, who keeps the general drapery in Angel Street, Marylebone Road, sold a pair of green knitted slippers, each decorated with a red knitted blob, that had gazed melancholy from her shop window for close upon two years.
It was Mrs. Major who purchased them.
Since that terrible morning on which, throat and mouth parched, head painfully throbbing through the overnight entertainment of Old Tom, Mrs. Major had been driven from Mr. Marrapit's door, this doubly distressed gentlewoman had lived in retirement in a bed-sitting-room in Angel Street. She did not purpose immediately taking another situation. This woman had sipped the delights of Herons' Holt; her heart was there, and for a month or two, as, sighing over her lot, she determined, she would brood in solitude upon the paradise she had lost before challenging new fortunes.
The ripples of the abduction of the Rose reached her. This was a masterly woman, and instanter she took the tide upon the flood.
Mrs. Major was not a newspaper reader. The most important sheet of theDaily, however, she one day carried into her bed-sitting-room wrapped about a quartern of Old Tom. It was the day when first “Country House Outrage” shouted from theDaily'scolumns.
Idly scanning the report her eye chanced upon familiar names. A common mind would have been struck astonished and for some hours been left fluttering. Your masterly mind grasps at once and together a solution and its possibilities. Without pause for thought, without even sniff of the new quartern of Old Tom, Mrs. Major sought pen and paper; wrote with inspired pen to Mr. Marrapit:
“I do not even dare begin 'Dear Mr. Marrapit.' I have forfeited the right even to address you; but in the moment of your great tribulation something stronger than myself makes me take up my pen—”
Here Mrs. Major paused; read what she had written; without so much as a sigh tore the sheet and started afresh. That “something stronger than myself makes me” she felt to be a mistake. Something decidedly stronger than herself sat in the quartern bottle a few inches from her nose, and it occurred to her that a cruel mind might thus interpret her meaning. She tore the sheet. This was a masterly woman.
“I dare not even begin 'Dear Mr. Marrapit.' I have forfeited the right even to address you; but in the moment of your tribulation I feel that I must come forward with my sympathy. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, may I say with my aid? I feel I could help you if only I might come to dear, dear Herons' Holt. When I think of my angel darling Rose of Sharon straying far from the fold my heart bleeds. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I cannot rest, I cannot live, while my darling is wandering on the hillside, or is stolen, and I am unable to search for her. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, think of me, I implore you, not as Mrs. Major, but as one whom your sweet darling Rose loved. If the Rose is anywhere near Herons' Holt, she would come to me if I called her, I feel sure, more readily than she would come to anyone else except yourself, and you are not strong enough to search as I would search. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, let me come to Herons' Holt in this terrible hour. Do not speak to me, do not look at me, Mr. Marrapit. I do not ask that. I only beg on my bended knees that you will let me lay myself at night even in the gardener's shed, so that I may be there to tend my lamb when she is found, and by day will be able to search for her. That is all I ask.
“Of myself I will say nothing. I will not force upon you the explanations of that dreadful night which you would not take from my trembling lips. I will not tell you that, maddened by the toothache, I was advised to hold a little drop of spirit in the tooth, and that, never having touched anything but water since I and my dear little brother promised my dying mother we would not, the spirit went to my head and made me as you saw me. I will not write any of those things, Mr. Marrapit; only, oh, Mr. Marrapit, I implore you to let me come and look for my Rose. Nor will I tell you how fondly, since I left you, I have thought of all your nobility of character and of your goodness to me, Mr. Marrapit. Wronged, I bear no resentment. I have received too much kindness at your hands. Ever since I left you I have thought of none but the Rose and you. Shall I prove that? I will, Mr. Marrapit—”
Here again Mrs. Major paused; thoughtfully scratched her head with her penholder. Like authors more experienced, her emotions had driven her pen to a point demanding a special solution which was not immediately forthcoming. She had galloped into a wood. How to get out of it?
Mrs. Major scratched thoughtfully; gazed at Old Tom; gazed round the room; on a happy inspiration gazed from the window. Miss Pridham's general drapery was immediately opposite. A bright patch of green in the window caught Mrs. Major's eye. She recognised it as the knitted slippers she had once or twice noticed in passing.
The very thing! Laying down her pen the masterly woman popped across to Miss Pridham's; in two minutes, leaving that lady delighted and one-and-eleven-three the richer, was back with the green knitted slippers with the red knitted blobs.
She took up her pen and continued:
“Ever since I left I have thought of none but the Rose and you. Shall I prove that? I will, Mr. Marrapit. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I make so bold as to send you in a little parcel a pair of woollen slippers that I have knitted for you.”
Mrs. Major examined them. Such sun as creeps into Angel Street, Marylebone Road, jealous of rival brightness had filched their first delicate tint of green, had stolen the first passionate scarlet of the red blobs. She continued:
“They are a little faded because on every stitch a bitter tear has fallen. Yes, Mr. Marrapit, my tears of sorrow have rained upon these slippers as I worked. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, they are not damp, however. Every evening since they were finished I have had my little fire lighted and have stood the slippers up against the fender; and then, sitting on the opposite side of the hearth, just as I used to sit for a few minutes with you after we had brought in the darling cats, I have imagined that your feet were in the slippers and have imagined that I am back where I have left my bleeding heart. I never meant to dare send them to you, Mr. Marrapit, but in this moment of your tribulation I make bold to do so. Do not open the parcel, Mr. Marrapit, if you would rather not. Hurl it on the fire and let the burning fiery furnace consume them, tears and all. But I feel I must send them, whatever their fate.
“Oh, Mr. Marrapit, let me come to Herons' Holt to find my darling Rose!—then without a word I will creep away and die.—LUCY MAJOR.”
Upon the following morning there sped to Mrs. Major from Herons' Holt a telegram bearing the message “Come.”
Frantic to clutch at any straw that might bring to him this Rose, Mr. Marrapit eagerly clutched at Mrs. Major. He felt there to be much truth, in her contention that his Rose, if secreted near by, would come quicker at her call than at the call of another. His Rose had known and loved her for a full year. His Rose, refined cat, did not take quickly to strangers, and had not—he had noticed it—given herself to Miss Humfray. Therefore Mr. Marrapit eagerly clutched at Mrs. Major.
As to the remainder of her letter—it considerably perturbed him. Had he misjudged this woman, whom once he had held estimable? All the delectable peace of his household during her reign, as contrasted with the turmoil that now had taken its place, came back to him and smote his heart. He opened the slippers, noted the tear-stains. Had he misjudged her? What more likely than her story of the racking tooth that must be lulled with a little drop of spirit? Had he misjudged her? But as against that little drop of spirit, how account for the vast and empty bottle of Old Tom found in her room? Had he misjudged her?
In much conflict of mind this man paced the breakfast room, a green knitted slipper with red knitted blob in either hand.
It was thus that Margaret, entering, found him.
With a soft little laugh, “Oh, father!” she cried, “what have you got there?”
Mr. Marrapit raised the green knitted slippers with the red knitted blobs. “A contrite heart,” he answered. “A stricken and a contrite heart.”
He resumed his pacing. Margaret squeezed round the door which happily she had left ajar; fled breakfastless. Quick at poetic image though she was, the symbol of a contrite heart in a pair of green knitted slippers with red knitted blobs was not clear to this girl. In her father it alarmed her. This great sorrow was perchance turning his brain.
Mr. Marrapit laid the slippers upon his dressing-table; that afternoon greeted Mrs. Major with a circumspect reserve. Combining the vast and empty bottle of Old Tom with the fact that never had his judgment of man or matter failed him, he determined that Mrs. Major was guilty. But not wilfully guilty. Tempted to drown pain, she had succumbed; but the slippers were the sign of a contrite heart.
The masterly possessor of the contrite heart betrayed no signs of its flutterings and its exultant boundings at being once more in paradise. This was a masterly woman, and, masterly, she grasped at once her position—without hesitation started to play her part.
In Mr. Marrapit's study she stood humbly before him with bowed head; did not speak. Her only sounds were those of repressed emotion as Mr. Marrapit recited the history of the abduction. The white handkerchief she kept pressed against her chin punctuated the story with sudden little dabs first to one eye then the other. Little sniffs escaped her; little catches of the breath; tiny little moans.
She choked when he had finished: “Let me see—my darling's—bed.”
Mr Marrapit led the way. Above the silk-lined box whence George had snatched the Rose, the masterly woman knelt. She fondled the silken coverlet; her lips moved. Suddenly she dashed her handkerchief to her eyes; with beautiful moans fled hurriedly to the bedroom that had been allotted her.
It was an exquisitely touching sight. Mr. Marrapit, greatly moved, went to his room; took out the green knitted slippers with the red knitted blobs. Had he misjudged this woman?
Ten minutes later he again encountered Mrs. Major. Now she was girt against the weather and against exercise. Beneath her chin were firmly knotted the strings of her sober bonnet; a short skirt hid nothing of the stout boots she had donned; her hand grasped the knob of a bludgeon-like umbrella.
The masterly woman had removed all traces of her emotion. In a voice humble yet strong, “I start to search, Mr. Marrapit,” she said. “I will find the Rose if she is to be found.”
So deep sincerity was in her speech, so strong she seemed, so restful in this crisis, that Mr. Marrapit, watching her stride the drive, again fell to pacing and cogitation—had he misjudged her? Almost unconsciously he moved upstairs to his room; drew those green slippers with red blobs from their drawer.
Had Mr. Marrapit doubted the sincerity of Mrs. Major's search, assuredly he would have misjudged her. In her diary that night the masterly woman inscribed:
“Am here; must stick.”
Her best chance of sticking, as well she knew, lay in finding the Rose. Could she but place that creature's exquisite form in Mr. Marrapit's arms, she felt that her reward would be to win back to the paradise from which Old Tom had driven her.
Therefore most strenuously she scoured the countryside; pried into houses; popped her head into stable doors. This woman nothing spared herself; in the result, at the end of two days, was considerably dejected. For it was clear to her that the Rose had not strayed, but had been stolen; was not concealed in the vicinity of Herons' Holt, but had been spirited to the safety of many miles. She was driven to accept Mr. Brunger's opinion—the Rose had been stolen by some eager and unscrupulous breeder to be used for gross purposes.
It was upon the evening of the second day in paradise that this woman settled upon this gloomy conclusion. Gloomy it was, and desperately, sitting in her bedroom that night, the masterly woman battled for some way to circumvent it. To that entry made in her diary on the night of her arrival she had added two further sentences:
“Hate that baby-faced Humfray chit.”
“Certain cannot stick unless find cat.”
Opening her diary now she gazed upon these entries; chewed them. They were bitter to the taste. To agony at what she had lost was added mortification at seeing another in her place; and rankling in this huge wound was the poison of the knowledge that she could not win back. Circumstances were too strong. The cat was not to be found, and—stabbing thought—“certain cannot stick unless find cat.”
This way and that the masterly woman twisted in search of a means to circumvent her position. It might be done by accomplishing the overthrow of this baby-faced chit. If the baby-faced chit could be made to displease Mr. Marrapit and be turned out, it would surely be possible, being ready at hand, to take her place. But how could the baby-faced chit be made to err?
This way and that Mrs. Major twisted and could find no means. Always she was forced back to the brick-wall fact—salvation lay only in finding the cat. That would accomplish everything. She would have succeeded where the baby-faced chit had failed; she would have proved her devotion; she, would have earned, not a doubt of it, the reward of re-entry into paradise that Mr. Marrapit in his gratitude would more than offer—would press upon her.
But the cat was not to be found.
Beating up against the desperate barrier of that thought, Mrs. Major groaned aloud as she paced the room, threw up her arms in her despair. The action caused her to swerve; with hideous violence she crashed her stockinged foot against the leg of the wash-stand.
Impossible to tell how far will spread the ripples of the lightest action we may toss upon the sea of life. The stunning agony in this woman's toes, as, hopping to the bed, she sat and nursed them, with the swiftness of thought presented to her a solution of her difficulty that struck her staring with excitement.
Her first thought in her throbbing pain was of remedy for the bruise. “Bruise” brought involuntarily to her mind the picture of a chemist's shop in the Edgware Road, not far from Angel Street, whose window she had seen filled with little boxes of “Bruisine,” the newest specific for abrasions. Thence her thoughts, by direct passage, jumped to the time when last she had noticed the shop—she had been returning from a stroll by way of Sussex Gardens. And it was while mentally retracing that walk down Sussex Gardens that Mrs. Major lit plump upon the solution of her difficulty. She had noticed, let out for a run from No. 506, an orange cat that was so precisely the image of the Rose of Sharon that she had stopped to stroke it for dear memory's sake. Often since then she had spoken to it; every time had been the more struck by its extraordinary resemblance to the Rose. She had reflected that, seen together, she could not have told them apart.
Mrs. Major forgot the throbbing of her abrased toes. Her brows knitted by concentration of thought, very slowly the masterly woman concluded her disrobing. Each private garment that she stripped and laid aside marked a forward step in the indomitable purpose she had conceived. As her fingers drew the most private from her person, leaving it naked, so from her plan did her masterly mind draw the last veil that filmed it, leaving it clear. When the Jaeger nightdress fell comfortably about her, her purpose too was presentable and warm.
Every day and every night, every hour of every day and night, ripples from unknown splashes are setting towards us. From this masterly woman, in process of toilet, ripples were setting towards a modest and unsuspecting cat lying in sweet slumber at 506 Sussex Gardens, off the Edgware Road.
For the masterly woman had thus determined—she would have that cat that was the Rose's second self. The Rose was in the hands of some villain breeder and would never be returned; small fear of discovery under that head. This cat was the Rose's second self; differences that Mr. Marrapit might discover, lack of affection that he might notice, could be attributed to the adventures through which the Rose had passed since her abduction. Under this head, indeed, Mrs. Major did not anticipate great difficulty. Similar cats are more similar than similar dogs. They have not, as dogs have, the distinguishing marks of character and demonstrativeness. In any event, as the masterly woman assured herself, she ran no peril even if her plot failed. She would say she had found the cat, and if Mr. Marrapit were convinced it was not his Rose—well, she had made a mistake, that was all.
Upon the morrow, playing her hand with masterly skill, Mrs. Major sought interview with Mr. Marrapit. With telling dabs of her pocket handkerchief at her eyes, with telling sniffs of her masterly nose, she expressed the fear that she had outstayed his kindness in receiving her. He had granted her request—he had let her come to Herons' Holt; but two days had passed and she had not found his Rose. True, if she had longer she could more thoroughly search; but as an honest woman she must admit that she had been given her chance, had failed.
Upon a wailing note she ended: “I must go.”
“Cancel that intention,” Mr. Marrapit told her. Her honesty smote this man. Had he misjudged her?
She smothered a sniff in her handkerchief: “I must go. I must go. I have seen that you regard me with suspicion. Oh, you have reason, I know; but I cannot bear it.”
“Remove that impression,” spoke Mr. Marrapit. Hehadmisjudged this woman; he was convinced of it.
Mrs. Major gave her answer in the form of two smothered sniffs and a third that, eluding her handkerchief, escaped free and loud—a telling sniff that advertised her distress; wrung Mr. Marrapit's emotions.
He continued: “Mrs. Major, at a future time we will discuss the painful affair to which you make reference. At present I am too preoccupied by the calamity that has desolated my hearth. Meanwhile, I suspend judgment. I place suspicion behind me. I regard you only as she whom my Rose loved.”
“Do you wish me to stay a little longer?” asked Mrs. Major, trembling.
“That is my wish. Continue to prosecute your search.”
Trembling yet more violently Mrs. Major said: “I will stay. I had not dared to suppose I might stop more than two days. I brought nothing with me. May I go to London to get clothes? I will return to-morrow morning.”
“Why not to-night?”
“Early to-morrow would be more convenient. I have other things to do in London.”
“To-morrow, then,” Mr. Marrapit agreed.
At the door Mrs. Major turned. Her great success at this interview emboldened her to a second stroke. “There is one other thing I would like to say, if I dared.”
“Be fearless.”
She plunged. “If Heaven should grant that I may find the Rose, I implore you not to distress me by offering me the reward you are holding out. I could not take it. I know you can ill afford it. Further than that, to have the joy of giving you back your Rose would be reward enough for me. And to know that she was safe with you, though I—I should never see her again, that would make me happy till the end of my days.”
Her nobility smote Mr. Marrapit. Cruelly, shamefully, hehadmisjudged her. Her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, very gently Mrs. Major closed the door; very soberly mounted the stairs.
Out of earshot, she walked briskly to her room; drew forth her diary; in a bold hand inscribed:
“Absolutely certain shall stick.”
The masterly woman lunched in town.
By six o'clock Mrs. Major had all ready for her adventure. In the little room at Angel Street she deposited a newly purchased basket; at eight o'clock started for Sussex Gardens.
Twice, while passing down the terrace at about nine, she had seen the cat she now pursued let out for what was doubtless its nightly run.
On each occasion she had observed the same order of events, and she judged them to be of regular occurrence. Out from No. 506 had stepped a tall man, long-haired, soft-hatted, poetically bearded. Behind him had followed the cat. The cat had trotted across the road to the gardens; the tall man had walked slowly round the enclosure. Returning, he had called. The cat had walked soberly forth from the railings and the pair had re-entered the house.
Matters fell this night precisely as the sapient woman had conjectured. Shortly before nine she took up position against the railings in a dark patch that marked the middle point between two lamps, some doors above 506. No tremor agitated her form; in action this woman was most masterly.
A church clock struck a full clear note, another and another. The after-humming of the ninth had scarcely died when the blackness that lay beneath the fanlight of 506 was split by a thin rod of yellow light. Instantly this widened, served for a moment to silhouette a tall figure, then vanished as the door slammed. The tall figure stepped on to the pavement; a cat at its feet trod sedately across the road. The tall figure turned; in a moment was meditatively pacing the pavement opposite where Mrs. Major stood.
Mrs. Major gave him twenty yards. Then she hurried along the railings to where the cat had tripped. Six feet inwards, delicately scratching the soil beneath a bush, she espied it.
The masterly woman pressed her face between the rails; stretched a snapping finger and thumb; in an intense voice murmured, “Tweetikins puss!”
Tweetikins puss continued thoughtfully to turn the soil. This was a nicely mannered cat.
“Tweety little puss!” cooed Mrs. Major. “Tweety pussikins! puss, puss!”
Tweety pussikins turned to regard her. Mrs. Major moistened her finger and thumb; snapped frantically. “Puss, puss—tweety pussy!”
Tweety pussy advanced till the snapping fingers were within an inch of its nose.
“Pussikins, pussikins!” implored Mrs. Major.
Pussikins very deliberately seated itself; coiled its fine tail about its feet; regarded Mrs. Major with a sphinx-like air.
Mrs. Major pressed till the iron railings cut her shoulders. She stretched the forefinger of her extended arm; at great peril of slipping forward and rasping her nose along the rails effected to scratch the top of the sphinx's head.
“Puss, puss! Tweety,tweetypuss!”
By not so much as a blink did tweety puss stir a muscle.
Mrs. Major was in considerable pain. Her bent legs were cramped; the railings bit her shoulder; her neck ached: “Tweety little puss! Tweety puss! Puss!Dratthe beast!”
In great physical agony and in heightening mental distress—since time was fleeting and the cat as statuesque as ever,—Mrs. Major again dratted it twice with marked sincerity and a third time as a sharp sound advertised the splitting of a secret portion of her wear against the tremendous strain her unnatural position placed upon it. Unable longer to endure the pain of her outstretched arm, she dropped her hand to earth; with a masterly effort resumed her smiling face and silky tone. Repeating her endearing cooings, she scratched the soil, enticing to some hidden mystery.
The demon of curiosity impelled this cat's doom. For a moment it eyed the scratching fingers; then stretched forward its head to investigation.
The time for gentle methods was gone. Mrs. Major gripped the downy scruff of the doomed creature's neck; dragged the surprised animal forward; rudely urged it through the railings; tucked it beneath her cloak; sped down the road in the same direction that the tall figure had taken.
But where the tall figure had turned round the gardens Mrs. Major kept straight. Along a main street, into a by-street, round a turning, across a square, up a terrace, over the Edgware Road—so into the bed-sitting-room at Angel Street.
Speeding by train to Herons' Holt upon the following morning, beside her the basket wherein lay the key that was to open paradise, Mrs. Major slightly altered her plans. It had been her intention at once to burst upon Mr. Marrapit with her prize—at once to put to desperate test whether or no he would accept it as the Rose. But before Paltley Hill was reached the masterly woman had modified this order. The cat she had abducted was so much the facsimile of the Rose that for the first time it occurred to her that, like the Rose, it might be valuable, and that a noisy hue and cry might be raised upon its loss.
If this so happened, and especially if Mr. Marrapit were doubtful that the cat was his Rose, it would be dangerous to let him know that she had made her discovery in London. Supposing he heard that a London cat, similar to the Rose in appearance, were missing, and remembered that this cat—of which from the first he had had doubts—was filched from London? That might turn success into failure. The chances of such events were remote, but the masterly woman determined to run no risks. She decided that on arrival at
Paltley Hill she would conceal her cat; on the morrow, starting out from Herons' Hill to renew her search, would find it and with it come bounding to the house.
As to where she should hide it she had no difficulty in determining. She knew of but one place, and she was convinced she could not have known a better. The ruined hut in the copse off the Shipley Road, whither in the dear, dead days beyond recall she had stolen for Old Tommish purposes, was in every way safe and suitable. None visited there at ordinary times; now that the country-side was no longer being searched for the Rose save by herself, it was as safe as ever. She would leave her cat there this day and night.
Upon this determination the remarkable woman acted; before proceeding to Herons' Holt secured her cat in that inner room of the hut where, but a few days previously, the Rose herself had lain.
When she reached the house a maid told her that Mr. Marrapit was closeted with young Mr. Wyvern.
During the afternoon Mrs. Major visited her cat, taking it milk. That evening, Mary and Margaret being elsewhere together, she was able to enjoy a quiet hour with Mr. Marrapit.
He was heavily depressed: “A week has passed, Mrs. Major. Something tells me I never again will see my Rose. This day I have sent young Mr. Wyvern and Mr. Brunger after my nephew George. The clue he claims to know is my last chance. I have no faith in it. Put not your trust—” Mr. Marrapit allowed a melancholy sigh to conclude his sentence. This man had suffered much.
Mrs. Major clasped her hands. “Oh, do not give up hope, Mr. Marrapit. Something tells me youwillsee her—soon, very soon.”
Mr. Marrapit sighed. “You are always encouraging, Mrs. Major.”
“Something tells me that I have reason to be, Mr. Marrapit. Last night I dreamed that the Rose was found.” The encouraging woman leaned forward; said impressively, “I dreamed that I found her.”
Mr. Marrapit did not respond to her tone. Melancholy had this man in leaden grip. “I lose hope,” he said. “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. Do not trust in dreams.”
“Oh, but Ido!” Mrs. Major said with girlish impulsiveness. “Ido. I always have. My dreams so often come true. Do not lose hope, Mr. Marrapit.” She continued with a beautiful air of timidity: “Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I know I am only here on sufferance, but your careworn air emboldens me to suggest—it might keep your poor mind from thinking—a game of backgammon such as we used to play before—” She sighed.
“I should like it,” Mr. Marrapit answered.
Mrs. Major arranged the board; drew Mr. Marrapit's favourite chair to the table; rattled the dice. After a few moves, “Oh, you're not beating me as you used to,” she said archly.
“I am out of practice,” Mr. Marrapit confessed.
Mrs. Major paused in the act of throwing her dice. “Out of practice! But surely Miss Humfray plays with you?”
“She does not.”
Mrs. Major gave a sigh that suggested more than she dared say.
She sighed again when the game was concluded. Mr. Marrapit sat on. “Quite like old times,” Mrs. Major murmured. “Good night, Mr. Marrapit; and don't lose hope. Remember my dream.”
“Quite like old times,” Mr. Marrapit murmured.
The masterly woman ascended the stairs rubbing her hands.
Mrs. Major ate an excellent breakfast upon the following morning. She was upon the very threshold of winning into paradise, but not a tremor of nervousness did she betray or feel. This was a superb woman.
At eleven she left the house and took a walk—rehearsing the manner in which she had arranged to burst in upon Mr. Marrapit with the cat, checking again the arguments with which she would counter and lull any doubts he might raise.
At twelve she entered the hut.
Mrs. Major was in the very act of leaving the building, the cat beneath her arm, when a sound of voices and footsteps held her upon the threshold. She listened; the sounds drew near. She closed the door; the sounds, now loud, approached the hut. She ran to the inner room; a hand was laid upon the outer latch. She closed the door; applied her eye to a crack; George and Mary entered.
George carried a basket. He laid it upon the floor. Then he turned and kissed his Mary. He put his arms about her; held her to him for a moment in a tremendous hug; pressed his lips to hers; held her away, drinking love from her pretty eyes; again kissed her and again hugged.
She gasped: “I shall crack in half in a minute if you will be so ridiculous.”
He laughed; let her free. He led to the tottering bench that stood across the room, sat her there, and taking her little gloved hand patted it between his.
“Fine, Mary,” he said, “to see you again! Fine! It seems months!”
“Years,” Mary whispered, giving one of the patting hands a little squeeze. “Years. And you never sent me a line. I've not had a word with you since you came up on the lawn that day and said you had passed your exam. You simplyboltedoff, you know.”
“You got my letter, though, this morning?” George said. He dropped her hand; fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. He was becoming a little nervous at the matter before him.
Mary told him: “Well, that wasnothing. It was such afranticletter! What is all the mystery about?”
“I'll tell you the whole story.” George got from the bench and began to pace, filling his pipe.
With a tender little smile Mary watched her George's dear face. Then, as he still paced, lit his pipe, gustily puffed, but did not speak, a tiny troubled pucker came between her eyes. There was a suspicion of a silly little tremor in her voice when at last she asked: “Anything wrong, old man?”
George inhaled a vast breath of smoke; let it go in a misty cloud. With a quick action he laid his pipe upon the table; sprang to her side. His right arm he put about her, in his left hand he clasped both hers. “Nothing wrong,” he cried brightly; “not a bit wrong. Mary, it's a game, a plot, a dickens of a game.”
“Well, tell me,” she said, beaming.
“It wants your help.”
“Well, tell me, tell me, stupid.”
“You will help?”
“Of course, if I can. Oh, do tell me, Georgie!”
“I'll show you, that's quicker.”
He sprang to the basket; unstrapped the lid; threw it back. A most exquisite orange head upreared. A queenly back arched. A beautiful figure stepped forth.
“George!” Mary cried. “George!The Rose!You've found her!”
George gave a nervous little crack of laughter. “I never lost her.”
“Never lost her! No, but she's been—”
“I've had her all the time!”
“All the—”
“I took her!”
“Youtookher!You—took her! Oh, George, speak sense! Whatever can you mean?” Mary had jumped to her feet when first the Rose stepped forth; now was close to her George—face a little white, perplexed; hands clasped.
He cried: “Sweetest dove of a Mary, don't talk like that. Sit down and I'll tell you.”
“But what have you done?—what have youdone?”
The true woman was in that question. How they jostle us, these women, with their timid little flutterings when we are trying to put a case before them in our manlike way!—first spoiling their palate with all the sugar, so that they may not taste the powder.
“I'll tell you what I've done if you'll only sit down.”
She went to the seat.
“Now laugh, Mary. You simply must laugh. I can't tell you while you look like that. Laugh, or I shall tickle you.”
She laughed merrily—over her first bewilderment. “But, Georgie, it's something fearful that you've done, isn't it?”
He sat beside her; took her hands. “It's terrific. Look here. From the beginning. When I told old Marrapit I'd passed my exam. I asked for that 500 pounds—you know—to start us.”
She nodded.
“He refused. He got in an awful state at the bare idea. I asked him to lend it—he got worse. Mary, he simply would not give or advance a penny: you know what that meant?”
The dejected droop of her mouth gave answer.
“Well, then, I concocted a plot. Old Wyvern helped me—Professor Wyvern, you know. I thought that if I took his cat, his beloved Rose, and lay low with her for a bit, he would—”
“Oh,George!”
“Well?”
“Nothing—finish.”
“—He would be certain to offer a reward. And I guessed he wouldn't mind what he paid. So I thought I'd take the cat and hang on till he offered L500, or till I thought he'd be so glad to get the Rose back that he'd do what I want out of pure gratitude. Then I'd bring it back and get the money—say I'd found it, you see, and—and—wait a bit—for heaven's sake don't speak yet.” George saw his Mary was bursting with words; as he judged the look in her eyes they were words he had reason to fear. Shirking their hurt, he hurried along. “Don't speak yet. Get the money, and then we'd save up and pay him back and then tell him. There!”
She burst out: “But, George—howcouldyou? Oh, it's wrong—it'sawful!Why, do you know what people would call you? They'd say you're a—yes, they'd say you're a—”
He snatched the terrible word from her lips with a kiss.
“They'd say I was a fool if I let Marrapit do me out of what is my own. That's the point, Mary. It's my money. I'm only trying to get what is my own. I felt all along you would see that; otherwise—” He hesitated. He was in difficulties. Manlike, he suddenly essayed to shoot the responsibility upon the woman. “—Otherwise I wouldn't have done it,” he ended.
His Mary had the wit to slip from the net, to dig him a vital thrust with the trident: “If you thought that, why didn't you tell me?”
The thrust staggered him; set him blustering: “Tell you! Tell you! How could I tell you? I did it on the spur of the moment.”
“You could have written. Oh, Georgie, it's wrong. Itiswrong.”
He took up the famous sex attack. “Wrong! Wrong! That's just like a woman to say that! You won't listen to reason. You jump at a thing and shut your eyes and your ears.”
“Iwilllisten to reason. But you haven'tgotany reason. If you had, why didn't you tell me before you did it?”
He continued the sex assault; flung out a declamatory hand. “There you go! Why didn't I tell you? I've told you why. I tell you I did it on the spur of the moment—”
But she still struggled. “Yes, that's just it. You didn't think. Now that you are thinking you must see it in its proper light. Youmustsee it's wrong.”
“I don't. I don't in the least.”
“Well, why are you getting in such a state about it?”
“I'm not getting in a state!”
“You are.” His Mary fumbled at her waist-belt. “You are. You're—saying—all sorts—of—things. You—said—I—was—just—like—a—woman.” Out came this preposterous Mary's pocket handkerchief; into it went Mary's little nose.
George sprang to her. “Oh, Mary! Oh, I say, don't cry, old girl!”
The nose came out for a minute, a very shiny little nose. “I can't help crying. This is an—anawfulbusiness.” The shiny little nose disappeared again.
George tried to pull away the handkerchief, tried to put his face against hers. A bony little shoulder poked obstinately up and prevented him. He burst out desperately. “Oh, damn! Oh, what a beast I am! I'm always making you cry. Oh, damn! Oh, Mary! I can't do anything right. I've had an awful time these days—and I was longing to see you,—and now I've called you names and been a brute.”
His Mary gulped the tears that were making the shiny little nose every minute more shiny. Never could she bear to hear her George accuse himself. Upon a tremendous sniff, “You haven't been a brute,” she said, “—a bit. It's my—my fault for annoying you when I don't properly understand. Perhaps I don't understand.”
He put an arm about her. “You don't, Mary. Really and truly you don't. Let me tell you. Don't say a word till I've done. I'll tell you first why I've brought the Rose here. You see, I can't keep her anywhere else. I'm being chased about all over England. Bill and that infernal detective are after me now, and I simply must hide the beastly cat where it will be safe. Well, it's safest here—here, right under their noses, where nobody will ever look because everyone thinks it miles away by now. I can't stop near it, because I must be away on this clue they think I've got—especially now I've got mixed up with the detectives: see? So I want you just to come up from the house every day and feed the cat. You'll be perfectly safe, and it can't be for very long. You would do that, wouldn't you? Oh, Mary, think what it means to us!”
She polished the shiny little nose: “I'd do anything that would help you. But, Georgie, it's notright; it'swrong. Oh, it is wrong! I don't carewhatyou say.”
“But you haven't heard what I've got to say.”
“I have. I've been listening for hours.”
“No, no, Mary. No, I haven't explained yet. You're too serious about it. It isn't a bit serious. It's only a frightful rag. And nobody will suffer, because he'll get his money back. And, think—think what it means. Now, do listen!”
She listened, and her George poured forth a flood of arguments that were all mixed and tangled with love. She could not separate the two. This argument that he was right was delectably sugared with the knowledge that the thing was done for her; that delicious picture of the future, when it was swallowed, proved to be an argument in favour of his purpose. Love and argument, argument and love—she could not separate them, and they combined into a most exquisite sweetmeat. The arm her George had about her was a base advantage over her. How doubt her George was right when against her she could feel his heart! How be wiser than he when both her hands were in that dear brown fist?
She was almost won when with a “So there you are!” he concluded. She had been won if she had much longer remained beneath the drug of his dear, gay, earnest words.
But when he ceased she came to. The little awakening sigh she gave was the little fluttering sigh of a patient when the anesthetic leaves the senses clear.
She looked at her George. Horrible to dim the sparkling in those dear eyes, radiant with excitement, with love. Yet she did it. The goody-goody little soul of her put its hands about the little weakness of her and held it tight.
She said: “I do,dosee what you mean, Georgie. But I do,dothink it's wrong.”
And then the little hands and the brown fist changed places. For she put one hand below the fist, and with the other patted as she gave her little homily—goody-goody little arguments, Sunday-school little arguments, mother-and-child little arguments. And very timidly she concluded: “You are not angry, Georgie, are you?”
This splendid George of hers gave her a tremendous kiss. “You're a little saint; you're a little idiot; you're a little angel; you're a little goose,” he told her. “But I love you all the more for it, although I'd like to shake you. Iwouldlike to shake you, Mary. You're ruining the finest joke that ever was tried; and you're ruining our only chance of marrying; and goodness only knows what's going to happen now.”
She laughed ever so happily. It was intoxicating to bend this dear George; intoxicating to have the love that came of bending him.
“But Iamright, am I not?” she asked.
George said: “Look here, saint and goose. I'm simply not going to chuck the thing and all our happiness like this. I'll make a bargain. Saint and goose, we'll say you are right, but you shall have one night to think over it. One night. And this afternoon you will go to Professor Wyvern and tell him everything and hear what he thinks about it—what an outsider thinks: see? Yes, that's it. Don't even spend a night over it. Have a talk with Professor Wyvern, and if you still think I ought to chuck it, write to me at once, and to-morrow I'll come down and creep in unto my uncle with the cat, and say: 'Uncle, I have sinned.' There, Mary, that's agreed, isn't it?”
“That's agreed,” she joined. “Yes, that's fair.”
He looked at his watch. “I must cut. I must catch the one-thirty train. I must calm Bill and the 'tec. in case you—Mary,doweigh whatever Wyvern says, won't you?”
She promised; gave her George her hope that the Professor would make her see differently.
“That's splendid of you!” George cried. “Saint and goose, that's sweet of you. Mary, I'm sure he will. Look here, I must fly; come half-way to the station. The cat's all right here. Pop up and feed her this afternoon.”
They pressed the door behind them; hurried down the path.
It was precisely as they turned from the lane into the high-road, that Mrs. Major, a cat beneath her arm, went bounding wildly through the copse towards Herons' Holt.