"No, no; not that! Shish! be quiet! I'm sure I heard Dr. Vereker's voice——"
"How could you? He's home by now."
"Do be quiet, child!" She continues listening.
"Why not look round the corner and see if it isn't him?"
"Well, I was going to; only you and the sparrows make such a chattering.... There, I knew it would be that! Why doesn't he bring him back here, at once?" For at the end of the short road are Dr. Vereker and Fenwick, the latter with his hand on the top of a post, as though resting. They must have been there some minutes.
"Fancy their having got no further than the fire-alarm!" says Sally, who takes account of her surroundings.
"Of course, I ought never to have let him go." Thus her mother, with decision in her voice. "Come on, child!"
She seems greatly relieved at the matter having settled itself—so Sally thinks, at least.
"We got as far as this," Dr. Vereker says—rather meaninglessly, if you come to think of it. It is so very obvious.
"And now," says Mrs. Nightingale, "how is he to be got back again? That's the question!" She seems not to have the smallest doubt about the question, but much about the answer. It is answered, however, with the assistance of the previous police-constable, who reappears like a ghost. And Mr. Fenwick is back again within the little white villa, much embarrassed at the trouble he is giving, but unable to indicate any other course. Clearly, it would never do to accept the only one he can suggest—that he should be left to himself, leaning on the fire-alarm, till the full use of his limbs should come back to him.
Mrs. Nightingale, who is the person principally involved, seems quite content with the arrangement. The doctor, in his own mind, is rather puzzled at her ready acquiescence; but, then, the only suggestion he could make would be that he should do precisely the same good office himself to this victim of an electric current of a good deal too many volts—too many for private consumption—or cab him off to the police-station or the workhouse. For Mr. Fenwick continues quite unable to give any account of his past or his belongings, and can only look forward to recollecting himself, as it were, to-morrow morning.
HOW THE STRANGER STOPPED ON AT KRAKATOA VILLA. OF THE FREAKS OF AN EXTINGUISHED MEMORY. OF HOW THE STRANGER GOT A GOOD APPOINTMENT, BUT NONE COULD SAY WHO HE WAS, NOR WHENCE
We must suppose that the personal impression produced by the man so strangely thrown on the hands of Mrs. Nightingale and her daughter was a pleasant one. For had the reverse been the case, the resources of civilisation for disposing of him elsewhere had not been exhausted when the decision was come to that he should remain where he was; till next morning, at any rate. The lady of the house—of course the principal factor in the solution of the problem—appeared, as we have seen, to have made up her mind on the subject. And probably her daughter had been enough influenced by the stranger's manner and appearance, even in the short period of the interview we have just described, to get rid of a feeling she had of self-reproach for her own rashness. We don't understand girls, but we ask this question of those who do: Is it possible that Miss Sally was impressed by the splendid arm with the name tattooed on it—an arm in which every muscle told as in a Greek statue, without infringing on its roundness—the arm of Theseus or Ilissus? Or was it the tone of his voice—a musical one enough? Or merely his generally handsome face and courteous manner?
He remained that night at the house, but next day still remembered nothing. He wished to go on his way—destination not known; butsomewhere—and would have done so had it not been for Mrs. Nightingale, whose opposition to his going was, thought Dr. Vereker, almost more decisive than the case called for. So he remained on, that day and the next, slowly regaining the use of his right hand. But his memory continued a blank; and though he was not unable to converse about passing events, he could not fix his attention, or only with a great effort. What was very annoying to Sally was that he was absolutely unable to accountfor his remark about her name and her mother's in the railway-carriage. He could not even remember making this. He could recall no reason why he should have made it, from any of the few things that came back to his mind now—hazily, like ghosts. Was he speaking the truth? Why not? Mrs. Nightingale asked. Why not forget that as readily as anything else?
His distress at this inability to remember, to account for himself, to himself or any one else, was almost painful to witness. The only consolatory circumstance was that his use and knowledge of words remained intact; it was his memory of actual incidents and people in the past that was in fault. Definite effort to follow slight clues remaining in his mind ended in failure, or only served to show that their origin was traceable to literary fiction. But his language-faculty seemed perfectly in order. It came out that he spoke French fluently, and a little Spanish, but he was just as ready with German. It seemed as if he had been recently among French people, if one could judge from such things as his calling his hostess "Madame" when he recovered. These facts came to light in the course of next day, the second of his stay in the house. The favourable impression he had produced on Miss Sally did not diminish, and it seemed much easier and more natural to acquiesce in his remaining than to cast about for a new whereabouts to transfer him to. So his departure was deferred—for a day, at least, or perhaps until the room he occupied should be wanted for other purposes. The postponements on the days that followed were a natural sequence so long as there remained any doubt of his ability to shift for himself.
But in about a month's time the effects of the nervous shock had nearly disappeared, and he had almost recovered the use of his hand—could, in fact, write easily. Besides, as long as he remained, it would be impossible for an old friend of Mrs. Nightingale's, who frequently stayed the night, when he came on an evening visit, to follow a custom which was in the winter almost invariable. In the summer it was less important; and as soon as this friend, an old military gentleman spoken of as "the Major," could be got to understand exactly what had taken place, he readily gave up his quarters at Krakatoa Villa, and returned to his own, at the top of a house in Ball Street, Mayfair.
Nevertheless, the inevitable time came for looking Fenwick's future in the face. It was difficult, as he was unable to contribute a solution of the question, except by his readiness to go out and find work for himself, promising not to come back till he found it.
"You'll see I shall come back to dinner," said he. "I shan't make you late."
Sally asked him what sort of work he should look for.
"I have a sort of inner conviction," he replied, "that I could do almost anything I turned my hand to. Probably it is only a diseased confidence bred of what you might call my artificial inexperience. Every sharp young man'sbona fideinexperience lands him in that delusion."
"But you must havesomekind of preference forsomething, however much you forget."
"If I were to choose, I think I should like horse-training.... Oh no, of course I can't recall the training of any specific horse. But I know I know all about it, for all that. I can feel the knowledge of it itching in my finger-ends. Yes—I could train horses. Fruit-farming would require capital."
"Who said anything about fruit-farming?"
Fenwick laughed aloud. It was a great big laugh, that made Rosalind, who was giving directions in the kitchen, just across the passage, call out to know what they were laughing at.
"I'll be hanged if I know," said he, "whyI said fruit-farming—I must have had something to do with it. It's all very odd."
"But the horses—the horses," said Sally, who did not want him to wander from the point. "How should you go about it? Should you walk into Tattersall's without a character, and ask for a place?"
"Not a bit of it! I should saunter into Tat's' like a swell, and ask them if they couldn't find me a raw colt to try my hand on for a wager. Say I had laid a hundred I would quiet down the most vicious quadruped they could find in an hour."
"But that would be fibs."
"Oh no! I could do it. But I don't know why I know...."
"I didn't mean that. I meant you wouldn't have laid the wager."
"Yes, I should. I lay it you now! Come, Miss Sally!—a hundred pounds to a brass farthing I knock all the vice out of the worst beast they can find in an hour. I shouldn't say the wager had been accepted, you know."
"Well, anyhow, I shan't accept it. You haven't got a hundred pounds to pay with. To be sure, I haven't got a brass farthing that I know of. It's as broad as it is long."
"Yes, it's that," he replied musingly—"as broad as it is long. Ihaven'tgot a hundred pounds, that I know of." He repeated this twice, becoming very absent and thoughtful.
Sally felt apologetic for reminding him of his position, and immediately said so. She was evidently a girl quite incapable of any reserves or concealments. But she had mistaken his meaning.
"No, no, dear Miss Sally," said he. "Not that—not that at all! I spoke like that because it all seemed so strange to me. Do you know?—of all the things I can't recollect, the one I can't recollectmost—can you understand?—is ever being in want of money. Imusthave had plenty. I am sure of it."
"I dare say you had. You'll recollect it all presently, and what a lark that will be!" Sally's ingenious optimism made matters very pleasant. She did not like to press the conversation on these lines, lest Mr. Fenwick should refer to a loan she knew her mother had made him; indeed, had it not been for this the poor man would have been hard put to it for clothes and other necessaries. All such little matters, which hardly concern the story, had been landed on a comfortable footing at the date of this conversation.
But Mr. Fenwick did not lend himself to the agreeable anticipation of Sally's "lark." There was a pained distraction on his handsome face as he gave his head a great shake, tossing about the mass of brown hair, which was still something of a lion's mane, in spite of the recent ministrations of a hairdresser. He walked to the window-bay that looked out on the little garden, shaking and rubbing his head, and then came back to where he had been sitting—always as one wrestling with some painful half-memory he could not trace. Then he spoke again.
"Whether the sort of flash that comes in my mind of writing my name in a cheque-book is really a recollection of doing so, or merelythe knowledge that Imusthave done so, I cannot tell. But it is disagreeable—thoroughly disagreeable—andstrangeto the last degree. I cannot tell you how—how torturing it is, always to be compelled to stop on the threshold of an uncompleted recollection."
"I have the idea, though, quite!" said Sally. "But of course one never remembers signing one's name, any particular time. One does it mechanically. So I don't wonder."
"Yes! But the nasty part of the flash is that I always know that it is notmyname. Last time it came—just now this minute—it was a name like Harrington or Carrington. Oh dear!" He shook and rubbed his head again, with the old action.
"Perhaps your name isn't Fenwick, but Harrington or Carrington?"
"No! That cock won't fight. In a flash, I know it's not myownname as I write it."
"Oh, but I see!" Sally is triumphant. "You signed for a firm you belonged to, of course. Peopledosign for firms, don't they?" added she, with misgivings about her own business capacity. But Mr. Fenwick did not accept this solution, and continued silent and depressed.
The foregoing is one of many similar conversations between Fenwick and Sally, or her mother, or all three, during the term of his stay at Krakatoa Villa. They were less encouraged by the older lady, who counselled Fenwick to accept his oblivion passively, and await the natural return of his mental powers. They would all come in time, she said; and young Dr. Vereker, though his studious and responsible face grew still more studious and responsible as time went on, and the mind of this case continued a blank, still encouraged passivity, and spoke confidently—whatever he thought—of an early and complete recovery.
When, in Fenwick's absence, Sally reported to Dr. Vereker and her mother the scheme for applying to "Tat's" for a wild horse to break in, the latter opposed and denounced it so strongly, on the ground of the danger of the experiment, that both Sally and the doctor promised to support her if Fenwick should broach the idea again. But when he did so, it was so clear that the disfavour Mrs. Nightingale showed for such a risky business would be sufficient to deter him from trying it that neither thought it necessaryto say a word in her support; and the conversation went off into a discussion of how it came about that Fenwick should remember Tattersall's. But, said he, he did not remember Tattersall's even now. And yet hearing the name, he had automatically called it "Tat's." Many other instances showed that his power of imagery, in relation to the past, was paralysed, while his language-faculty remained intact, just as many fluent speakers and writers spell badly. Only it was an extreme case.
A fortunate occurrence that happened at this time gave its quietus to the unpopular horse-breaking speculation. It happened that, as Mrs. Nightingale was shopping at a big "universal providing" stores not far away, one of the clerks had some difficulty in interpreting a French phrase in a letter just received from abroad. No one near him looked more likely to help than Mrs. Nightingale, but she could do nothing when applied to; although, she said, she had been taught French in her youth. But she felt certain Mr. Fenwick could be of use—at her house. French idiom was evidently unfamiliar in the neighbourhood, for the young gentleman from the office jumped at the opportunity. He went away with Mrs. Nightingale's card, inscribed with a message, and came back before she had done shopping (not that that means such a very short time), not only with an interpretation, but with an exhaustive draft of an answer in French, which she saw to be both skilful and scholarly. It was so much so that a fortnight later an inquiry came to know if Mr. Fenwick's services would be available for a firm in the City, which had applied to be universally provided with a man having exactly his attainments and no others. In less than a month he was installed in a responsible position as their foreign correspondent and in receipt of a very respectable salary. The rapidity of phrasing in this movement was abnormal—prestissimo, in fact, if we indulge our musical vocabulary. But the instrumentation would have seemed less surprising to Sally had she known the lengths her mother had gone in the proffer of a substantial guarantee for Fenwick's personal honesty. This seeming rashness did not transpire at the time; had it done so, it might have appeared unintelligible—to Sally, at any rate. She would not have been surprised at herself for backing the interestsof a man nearly electrocuted over her half-crown, but why should her mother endorse herprotégéso enthusiastically?
It is perhaps hardly necessary for us to dwell on the unsuccessful attempts that were made to recover touch with other actors on the stage of Fenwick's vanished past. Advertisement—variously worded—in the second column of the "Times," three times a week for a month, produced no effect. Miss Sally frequently referred with satisfaction to the case of John Williams, reported among the Psychical Researches of the past years, in which a man who vanished in England was found years after carrying on a goods-store in Chicago under another name, with a new wife and family, having utterly forgotten the first half of his life and all his belongings. Her mother seemed only languidly interested in this illustration, and left the active discussion of the subject chiefly to Sally, who speculated endlessly on the whole of the story; without, however, throwing any fresh light on it—unless indeed, the Chicago man could be considered one. And the question naturally arose, as long as his case continued to hold out hopes of a sudden return of memory, and until we were certain his condition was chronic, why go to expense and court publicity? By the time he was safely installed in his situation at the wine-merchant's, the idea of a police-inquiry, application to the magistrates, and so forth, had become distasteful to all concerned, and to none more so than Fenwick himself.
When Dr. Vereker, acting on his own account, and unknown to Mrs. Nightingale and Fenwick, made confidential reference to Scotland Yard, that Yard smiled cynically over the Chicago storekeeper, and expressed the opinion that probably Fenwick's game was a similar game, and that things of this sort were usually some game. The doctor observed that he knew without being told that nine such cases out of ten had human rascality at the bottom of them, but that he had consulted that Yard in the belief that this might be a tenth case. The Yard said very proper, and it would do its best, and no doubt did, but nothing was elucidated.
It is just possible that had Mr. Fenwick communicatedeveryclue he found, down to the smallest trifle, Dr. Vereker might have been able to get at something through the Criminal InvestigationDepartment. But it wasn't fair to Sherlock Holmes to keep anything back. Fenwick, knowing nothing of Vereker's inquiry, did so; for he had decided to say nothing about a certain pawn-ticket that was in the pocket of an otherwise empty purse or pocket-book, evidently just bought. He would, however, investigate it himself, and did so.
It was quite three weeks, though, before he felt safe to go about alone to any place distant from the house, more especially when he did not know what the expedition would lead to. When at last he got to the pawnbroker's, he found that that gentleman at the counter did not recognise him, or said he did not. Fenwick, of course, could not ask the question: "Did I pawn this watch?" It would have seemed lunacy. But he framed a question that answered as well, to his thinking.
"Would you very kindly tell me," he asked, dropping his voice, "whether the person that pawned this watch was at all like me—like a brother of mine, for instance?" Perhaps he was not a good hand at pretences, and the pawnbroker outclassed him easily.
"No, sir," replied he, without looking to see; "that I most certainly cannottell you." Fenwick was not convinced that this was true, but had to admit to himself that it might be. This man's life was one long record of an infinity of short loans, and its problem was the advancing of the smallest conceivable sums on the largest obtainable security. Whyshouldhe recollect one drop in the ocean of needy applicants? The only answer Fenwick could give to this was based on his belief that he looked quite unlike the other customers. More knowledge would have shown him that there was not one of those customers, scarcely, but had a like belief. It is the common form of human thought among those who seek to have pawns broked. They are a class made up entirely of exceptions.
Fenwick came away from the shop with the watch thatmust have beenhis. That was how he thought of it. As soon as he wore it again, it becamehiswatch, naturally. But he could remember nothing about it. And its recovery from the pawnbroker's he could not remember leaving it at became an absurd dream. Perhaps in Sherlock Holmes's hands it would have provided a valuable clue. Fenwick said nothing further about it; putit in a drawer until all inquiries about him had died into the past.
Another little thing that might have helped was the cabman's number written on his wristband. But here Fate threw investigation off her guard. The ciphers were, as it chanced, 3,600; and an unfortunate shrewdness of Scotland Yard, when Dr. Vereker communicated this clue, spotted the date in it—the third day of the sixth month of 1900. So no one dreamed of the cabby, who could at least have shown where the hat was lost that might have had a name or address inside it, and where he left its owner in the end. And there was absolutely no clue to anything elsewhere among his clothes. The Panama hat might have been bought anywhere; the suit of blue serge was ticketless inside the collar, and the shirt unmarked—probably bought for the voyage only. Fenwick had succeeded in forgetting himself just at a moment when he was absolutely without a reminder. And it seemed there was nothing for it but to wait for the revival of memory.
This, then, is how it came about that, within three months of his extraordinary accident, Mr. Fenwick was comfortably settled in an apartment within a few minutes' walk of Krakatoa Villa; and all the incidents of his original appearance were getting merged in the insoluble, and would soon, no doubt, under the influence of a steady ever-present new routine of life, be completely absorbed in the actual past.
THE CHRISTMAS AFTER. OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SATISFAX, AND A YOUNG IDIOT WHO CAME THERE
When one is called away in the middle of a street-fight, and misses seeing the end of it, how embittered one's existence is, and continues for some time after! Think what our friend the cabman would have felt had he missed thedénouement! And when one finds oneself again on its site—if that is the correct expression—how one wishes one was not ashamed to inquire about its result from the permanent officials on the spot—the waterman attached to the cab-rank, the crossing-sweeper at the corner, the neolithographic artist who didn't really draw that half-mackerel himself, but is there all day long, for all that; or even the apothecary's shop over the way, on the chance that the casualties went or were taken there for treatment after the battle. One never does ask, because one is so proud; but if one did ask, one would probably find that oblivion had drawn a veil over the event, and that none of one's catechumens had heard speak of any such an occurrence, and that it must have been another street. Because, if it had 'a been there, they would have seen to a certainty. And the monotonous traffic rolls on, on, on; and the two counter-streams of creatures, each with a story, divide and subdivide over the spot where the underneath man's head sounded on the kerbstone, which took no notice at the time, and now seems to know less than ever about it.
Are we, in thus moralising, merely taking the mean advantage the author is apt to imagine he has established over his reader when he ends off a chapter with a snap, and hopes the said reader will not dare to skip? No, we are not. We really mean something, and shall get to it in time. Let us only be clear what it is ourselves.
It refers, at any rate, to the way in which the contents of Chapters I. and II. had become records of the past six months later,when the snow was on the ground four inches thick on Christmas morning—two inches, at least, having been last night's contribution—and made it all sweet and smooth all over so that there need be no unpleasantness. As Sally looked out of her mother's bedroom window towards the front through the Venetian blind, she saw the footprints of cats alone on the snow in the road, and of the milk alone along the pavement. For the milk had preferred to come by hand, rather than plough its tricycle through the unknown depths and drifts of Glenmoira Road, W., to which it had found its way over tracks already palliated by the courage of the early 'bus—not plying for hire at that hour, but only seeking its equivalent of thecarceresof the Roman Coliseum, to inaugurate the carriage of twelve inside and fourteen out to many kinds of Divine Service early in the day, and one kind only of dinner-service late—the one folk eat too much pudding and mince-pie at, and have to take a dose after. During this early introductory movement of the 'bus its conductor sits inside like a lord, and classifies documents. But he has nothing to do with our story. Let us thank him for facilitating the milk, and dismiss him.
"My gracious goodness me!" said Sally, when she saw the snow. She did not say it quite from the bottom of her heart, and as her own form of expression; but in inverted commas, as it were, the primary responsibility being cook's or Jane's. "You mustn't think of getting up, mother."
"Oh, nonsense! I shall get up the minute the hot water comes."
"You won't do any good by getting up. You had much better lie in bed.Ishouldn't get up, if I was you," etc., etc.
"Oh, stuff! My rheumatism's better. Do you know, I really think the ringhasdone it good. Dr. Vereker may laugh as much as he likes——"
"Well, the proof of the pudding's in the eating. But wait till you see how thick the snow is.Come—in!" This is very staccato. Jane was knocking at the door with cans of really hot water this time. "I said come in before. Merry Christmas and happy New Year, Jane!... Oh, I say! What a dear little robin! He's such a little duck, I hope that cat won't get him!" And Sally, who is huddled up in a thick dressing-gown andis shivering, is so excited that she goes on looking through the blind, and the peep-hole she has had to make to see clear through the frosted pane, in spite of the deadly cold on the finger-tip she rubbed it with. Her mother felt interested, too, in the fate of the robin, but not to the extent of impairing her last two minutes in bed by admitting the slightest breath of cold air inside a well-considered fortress. She was really going to get up, though, that was flat! The fire would blaze directly, although at this moment it was blowing wood-smoke down Jane's throat, and making her choke.
Directly was five or six minutes, but the fire did blaze up royally in the end. You see, it wasn't a slow-combustion-grate, and it burned too much fuel, and flared away the coal, and did all sorts of comfortable, uneconomical things. So did Jane, who had put in a whole bundle of wood.
But now that the wood was past praying for, and Jane had departed, after thawing the hearts of two sponges, it was just as well to take advantage of the blaze while it lasted. And Mrs. Nightingale and her daughter, in the thickest available dressing-gowns, and pretending they were not taking baths only because the bath-room was thrown out of gear by the frost, took advantage of the said blaze to their heart's content and harked back—a good way back—on the conversation.
"You never said 'Come in,' chick."
"Idid, mother! Well, if I didn't, at any rate, I always tell her not to knock. She is the stupidest girl. Shewillknock!" Her mother doesn't press the point. There is no bad blood anywhere. Did not Sally wish the handmaiden a merry Christmas?
"The cat didn't get the robin, Sally?"
"Not he! The robin was too sharp by half. Such a little darling! But I was sorry for the cat."
"Poor pussy! Not our pussy, was it?"
"Oh no; it was that piebald Tom that lives in at the empty house next door."
"I know. Horrible beast!"
"Well, but just think of being out in the cold in this weather, with nothing to eat! Oo—oo—oogh!" Sally illustrates, with an intentional shudder. "I wonder who that is!"
"I didn't hear any one."
"You'll see, he'll ring directly. I know who it is; it's Mr. Fenwick come to say he can't come to-night. I heard the click of his skates. They've a sort of twinkly click, skates have, when they're swung by a strap. He'll go out and skate all day. He'll go to Wimbledon."
The girl's hearing was quite correct. A ring came at the bell—Krakatoa had no knocker—and a short colloquy followed between Jane and the ringer. Then he departed, with his twinkly click and noiseless footstep on the snow, slamming the front gate. Jane was able to include a card he had left in a recrudescence or reinforcement of hot water. Sally takes the card and looks at it, and her mother says, "Well, Sally?" with a slight remonstrance against the unfairness of keeping back information after you have satisfied your own curiosity—a thing people are odious about, as we all know.
"He'scoming all right," says Sally, looking at both sides of the card, and passing it on when she has quite done with it. Sally, we may mention, as it occurs to us at this moment,—thoughwhywe have no idea,—means to have a double chin when she is five years older than her mother is now. At present it—the chin—is merely so much youthful roundness and softness, very white underneath. Her mother is quite of a different type. Her daughter's father must have had black hair, for Sally can make huge shining coils, or close plaits, very wide, out of her inheritance. Or it will assume the form of a bush, if indulged, till Sally is almost hidden under it, as the Bosjesman under his version of Birnam Wood, that he shoots his assegai from. But the mother's is brown, with a tinge of chestnut; going well with her eyes, which have a claret tone, or what is so called; but we believe people really mean pale old port when they say so. She has had—still has, we might say—a remarkably fine figure, and we don't feel the same faith in Miss Sally's. That young lassie will get described as plump some day, if she doesn't take care.
But really it is a breach of confidence to get behind the scenes and describe two ladies in this way, when they are so very much indéshabille—have not even washed! We will look at them again when they have got their things on. However, they may goon talking now. The blaze has lost its splendour, and dressing cannot be indefinitely delayed. But they can and do talk from room to room, confident that cook and Jane are in the basement out of hearing.
"We shall do nicely, kitten! Six at table. I'm glad Mr. Fenwick can come. Aren't you?"
"Rather! Fancy having Dr. and Mrs. Vereker and the dear old fossil and nobody to help out!"
"My dear! You say 'Dr. and Mrs. Vereker' as if he was a married man!"
"Well—him and his mammy, then! He's good—but he's professional. Oh dear—his professional manner! You have to be forming square to receive cavalry every five minutes to prevent his writing you a prescription."
"Ungrateful little monkey! You know the last he wrote you did you no end of good."
"Yes, but I didn't ask him for it. He wrote it by force. I hate being hectored over and bullied. I say, mother!"
"What, kitten?"
"I hope, as Mr. Fenwick's coming, you'll wear your wedding-ring."
"Wearwhat?"
"Wear your wedding-ring.Hisring, you know! You know what I mean—the rheumatic one."
"Of course I know perfectly well what you mean," says her mother, with a shade of impatience in her voice. "But why?"
"Why? Because it gives him pleasure always to see it on your finger—he fancies it's doing good to the neuritis."
"Perhaps it is."
"Very well, then; why not wear it?"
"Because it's so big, and comes off in the soup, and is a nuisance. And, then, he didn't give it to me, either. He was to have had a shilling for it."
"But he neverdidhave it. And it wasn't a shilling. It was sixpence. And he says it's the only little return he's ever been able to make for what he calls our kindness."
"I couldn't shovel him out into the street."
"Put his wedding-ring on, mammy, to oblige me!"
"Very well, chick—I don't mind." And so that point is settled. But something makes the daughter repeat, as she comes into her mother's room dry-towelling herself, "You're sure you don't mind, mammy?" to which the reply is, "No, no!Whyshould I mind? It's all quite right," with a forced decision, equivalent to wavering, about it. Sally looks at her a moment in a pause of dry-towelling, and goes back to her room not quite convinced. Persons of the same blood, living constantly together, are sometimes quite embarrassed by their own brain-waves, and very often misled.
Exigencies of teeth and hair cut the talk short about Mr. Fenwick. But he gets renewed at breakfast, and, in fact, goes on more or less until brought up short by the early service at St. Satisfax, when he is extinguished by a preliminary hymn. But not before his whole story, so far as is known, has been passed in review. So that an attentive listener might have gathered from their disjointed chat most of the particulars of his strange appearance on the scene, and of the incidents of the next few weeks, and their result in the foundation of what seemed likely to be a permanent friendship between himself and Krakatoa Villa, and what certainly was (all things considered) that most lucrative and lucky post in a good wine-merchant's house in the City. For Mr. Fenwick had nothing to recommend him but his address and capacity, brought into notice by an accidental concurrence of circumstances.
It had been difficult to talk much about him to himself without seeming to wish to probe into his past life; and as Mrs. Nightingale impressed on Sally for the twentieth time, just as they arrived at St. Satisfax, they really knew nothing of it. How could they even know that this oblivion was altogether genuine? It might easily have been so at first, but who could say how much of his past had come back to him during the last six months? An unwelcome past, perhaps, and one he was glad to help Oblivion in extinguishing.
As this was on the semi-circular path in front of the Saint's shrine, between two ramparts of swept-up snow, and on a corrective of cinder-grit, Sally ascribed this speculation to a disposition on her mother's part to preach, she having come, as it were, within the scope and atmosphere of a pending decalogue. Also, shethought the ostentatious way in which Mr. Fenwick had gone away to skate had something to do with it.
But she was at all times conscious of a certain access of severity in her mother as she approached altars—rather beyond the common attitude of mind one ascribes to the bearer of a prayer-book when one doesn't mean to go to church oneself. (We are indebted for this piece of information to an intermittent church-goer; it is on a subject on which our own impressions have little value.) In the present case Sallywasgoing to church, so she had to account to herself for anuancein her mother's manner—after dwelling on the needlessness and inadvisability of pressing Mr. Fenwick as to his recollections—by ascribing it to the consciousness of some secularism elsewhere; and he was the nearest case of ungodliness to hand.
"I wonder whether he believes anything at all!" said Sally, assuming the consecutiveness of her remark.
"I don't see why he shouldn't.... Why should he disbelieve more than...? All I mean is, I don't know." The speaker ended abruptly; but then that may have been because they were at the church door. Possibly as a protest against having carried chat almost into the precinct, Mrs. Nightingale's preliminary burial of her face in her hands lasted a long time—in fact, Sally almost thought she had gone to sleep, and told her so afterwards. "Perhaps, though," she added, "it was me came up from under the bedclothes too soon." Then she thought her levity displeased her mother, and kissed her. But it wasn't that. She was thoughtful over something else.
This time, in the church, it may be Sally noticed her mother's abstraction (or was it, perhaps, devotional tension?) less than she had done when her attention had been caught once or twice lately by a similar strained look. For Miss Sally had her eyes on a little gratifying incident of her own—a trifle that would already have appeared as an incident in her diary, had she kept one, somewhat thus:—"Saw that young idiot from Cattley's Stores again in church to-day, in a new scarlet necktie. I wonder whether it's me, or Miss Peplow that gollops, or the large Miss Baker." Which would have shown that she was not always a nun breathless with adoration during religious exercises. The fact is, Sally would have made a very poor St. Teresa indeed.
The young idiot was the same young man who had brought the difficult French idiom to Krakatoa, while Mr. Fenwick was still without an anchorage of his own. Martha the cook, who admitted him, not feeling equal to the negotiation, had merely said—would he mind steppin' in the parlour, and she would send Miss Sally up? and had departed bearing Mrs. Nightingale's credential-card in a hand as free from grease as an apron so deeply committed could make it, and brought Miss Nightingale in from the garden, where she was gardening—possibly effectually, but what do we know? When you are gardening on a summer afternoon, you may look very fetching, if you are nineteen, and the right sex for the adjective. Miss Sally did, being both, and for our own part we think it was inconsiderate and thoughtless of cook. Sally was sprung upon that young man like a torpedo on a ship with no guards out, saying with fascinating geniality through a smile (as one interests oneself in a civility that means nothing) that Mr. Fenwick had just gone out, and she didn't know when he would be back. But why not ask Mrs. Prince at the school, opposite St. Satisfax, where we went to church; she was French, and would be sure to know what it meant.Shewouldn't mind! "Say I sent you." And the youth, whom the torpedo had struck amidships, was just departing, conscious of reluctance, when Mr. Fenwick appeared, having come back for his umbrella.
Sally played quite fair. She didn't hang about as she might have done, to rub her pearly teeth and merry eyebrows into her victim. She went back and gardened honourably, while Mr. Fenwick solved the riddle and supplied the letter. But for all that, the young man appeared next Sunday at St. Satisfax's, with an extremely new prayer-book that looked as if his religious convictions were recent, and never took his eyes off Sally all through the service—that is, if he did as she supposed, and peeped all the while that his head ought to have been, as she metaphorically expressed it, "under the clothes."
Now, this was naturally a little unaccountable to Sally, after such a very short interview; and on the part, too, of a young gentleman who passed all the working hours of the day among working houris, as it were soaked and saturated in their fascinations, and not at liberty to squeeze their hands or ask them for onelittle lock of hair all through shop-time. Sally did not realise the force of sameness, nor the amount of contempt familiarity will breed. Perhaps the houris got tired and snappish, poor things! and used up their artificial smiles on the customers. Perhaps it had leaked out that the trying-on hands contributed only length, personally, to the loveliness of the trying-on figures. All sorts of things might have happened to influence this young man towards St. Satisfax; and how did Sally know how often he had seen the other young lady communicants she had speculated about? Her mind had certainly thrown in the large Miss Baker with something of derision. But that Sylvia Peplow was just the sort of girl men run after, like a big pale gloire-de-Dijon rose all on one side, with pale golden wavy hair, and great big goggly blue eyes, looking as if she couldn't help it! Now that we have given you details, from Sally's inner consciousness, of Miss Peplow's appearance, we hope you will perceive why she said she "golloped." We don't, exactly.
However, on this Christmas morning it was made clear whom this young donkey was hankering after—this is Sally's way of putting it—as Miss Peplow failed to get her usual place through being late, and had to sit in a side-aisle, instead of the opposite of her to the idiot—we are again borrowing from Sally—and now the Idiot would have to glare round over his shoulder at her or go without! It was soon evident that he was quite content to go without, and that Sally herself had been his lode-star. The certainty of this was what prevented her taking so much notice of her mother as she might otherwise have done.
Had she done so closely, she would hardly have put down her preoccupation, or tension, or whatever it was, to displeasure at Mr. Fenwick's going to skate on Christmas morning instead of going to church. What concern was it of theirs what Mr. Fenwick did?
OF BOXING DAY MORNING AT KRAKATOA VILLA, AND WHAT OBSERVANT CREATURES FOSSILS ARE
The "dear old fossil" referred to by Miss Sally was one of those occurrences—auxiliaries or encumbrances, as may be—whom one is liable to meet with in almost any family, who are so forcibly taken for granted by all its members that the infection of their acceptance catches on, and no new-comer ever asks that they should be explained. If they were relatives, they would be easy of explanation; but the only direct information you ever get about them is that they are not. This seems to block all avenues of investigation, and presently you find yourself taking them as a matter of course, like the Lion and Unicorn, or the image on a stamp.
Fenwick accepted "the Major," as the old fossil was called, so frankly and completely under that name that he was still uncertain about his real designation at the current moment of the story. Nobody ever called him anything but "the Major," and he would as soon have asked "Major what?" as called in question the title of the King of Hearts instead of playing him on the Queen, and taking the trick. So far as he could conjecture, the Major had accepted him in the same way. When the railway adventure was detailed to him, the fossil said many times, "Howperfectly extraordinary!" "God bless my soul!" "You don't meanthat!" and so on; but his astonishment always knocked his double eyeglass off, and, when he couldn't find it, it had to be recovered before he could say, "Eh—eh—what was that?" and get in line again; so he made a disjointed listener.
But these fossils see more than they hear sometimes; and this old Major, for all he was so silent, must have noticed many little things that Christmas evening to cause him to say what he did next day to Sally. For, of course, the Major couldn't go back to his lodgings in Ball Street in weather like this; so hestayed the night in the spare room, where Mr. Fenwick had been put up tempory, cook said—a room which was, in fact, usually spoken of as "the Major's room."
Of course, Sally was the sort of girl who would never see anything of that sort—you'll see what sort directly—though she was as sharp as a razor in a general way. What made her blind in this case was that, in certain things, aspects, relations of life, she had ruled mother out of court as an intrinsically grown-up person—one to whom some speculations would not apply. So she saw nothing in the fact that when Mr. Fenwick's knock came at the door, her mother said, "There he is," and went out to meet him; nor even in her stopping with him outside on the landing, chatting confidentially and laughing. Why shouldn't she?
She saw nothing—nothing whatever—in Mr. Fenwick's bringing her mother a beautiful sealskin jacket as a Christmas present. Why shouldn't he? The only thing that puzzled Sally was, where on earth did he get the money to buy it? But then, of course, he was "in the City," and the City is a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground. Sally found that enough, on reflection.
She saw nothing, either, in her mother's carrying her present away upstairs, and saying nothing about it till afterwards. Nor did she notice any abnormal satisfaction on Mr. Fenwick's countenance as he came into the drawing-room by himself, such as one might discern in a hen—if hens had countenances—after a special egg. Nor did she attach any particular meaning to an expression on the elderly face of the doctor's mother that any student of Lavater would at once have seen to mean thatwesaw what was going on, but were going to be maternally discreet about it, and only mention it to every one we met in the very strictest confidence. This lady, who had rather reluctantly joined the party—for she was a martyr to ailments—was somewhat grudgingly admitted by Sally to be a comfortable sort of old thing enough, if only she didn't "goozle" over you so. She had nolocus standifor goozling, whatever it was; for had not Sally as good as told her son that she didn't want to marry him or anybody else? If you ask us what would be the connecting link between Sally's attitude towards the doctor and the goozlings of a third party, we have no answer ready.