BATHING WEATHER AGAIN, AND A LETTER FROM TISHY BRADSHAW. THE TRIUMPH OF ORPHEUS. BUT WAS IT EURYDICE OR THE LITTLE BATTERY? THE REV. MR. HERRICK. OF A REVERIE UNDER A BATHING-MACHINE, AND OF GWENDOLEN'S MAMMA'S CONNECTING-LINK. OF DR. CONRAD'S MAMMA'S DONKEY-CHAIR, AND HIS GREAT-AUNT ELIZA. HOW SALLY AND HE STARTED FOR THEIR LAST WALK AT ST. SENNANS
The next day the morning was bright and the sea was clear of Poseidon's ponies. They had gone somewhere else. Therefore, it behooved Mrs. Lobjoit to get breakfast quick, because it was absurd to expect anybody to go in directly after, and the water wouldn't be good later than half-past ten. Which Sally, coming downstairs at eight, impressed on Mrs. Lobjoit, who entered her own recognisances that it should appear as by magic the very minute your mamma came down. For it is one of the pleasures of anticipation-of-a-joy-to-come to bring about its antecedents too soon, and so procure a blank period of unqualified existence to indulge Hope in without alloy. Even so, when true prudence wishes to catch a train, she orders her cab an hour before, and takes tickets twenty minutes before, and arrives on the platform eighteen minutes before there is the slightest necessity to do so; and then she stands on the said platform and lives for the train that is to be, and inquires of every guard, ticket-taker, and pointsman with respect to every linear yard of the platform edge, whether her train is going to come up there; and they ask each other questions, and give prismatic information; and then the train for Paradise (let us say) comes reluctantly backwards into the station with friends standing on its margin, and prudence seizes her valise and goes at a hand-gallop to the other end, where thenth class is, and is only just in time to get a corner seat.
So, though there was no fear of the tide going out as fast as the train for Paradise, Sally, relying on Mrs. Lobjoit, who had become a very old friend in eight weeks, felt she had done well tobe beforehand, and, as breakfast would be twenty minutes, sat down to write a letter to Tishy. She wrote epistle-wise, heedless of style and stops, and as her mother was also twenty minutes—we are not responsible for these expressions—she wrote a heap of it. Then events thickened, as Fenwick, returning from an early dip, met the postman outside, and came in bearing an expected letter which Sally pounced upon.
"All about the row!" said she, attacking an impregnable corner of the envelope with a fork-point, in a fever of impatience to get at the contents. "Hang these envelopes! There, that's done it! Whatever they want to sticky them up so for I can't imagine...."
"Get your breakfast, kitten, and read it after."
"I dare say. Catch me! No, I'm the sort that never waits for anything.... No, mummy darling; it shan't get cold. I can gormandize and read aloud both at once."
But she doesn't keep her promise, for she dives straight into an exploration ahead, and meanly says, "Just half a minute till I see what's coming," or, "Only to the end of this sentence," and also looks very keen and animated, and throws in short notes of exclamation andwell's andthere's andthink of that's till Fenwick enters a protest.
"Don't cheat, Sarah!" he says. "Play fair! If you won't read it aloud yourself, let somebody else."
"There's the first sheet to keep you quiet, Jeremiah!" Who, however, throws it over to Rosalind, who throws it back with a laugh.
"What a couple of big babies you two are!" she exclaims. "As if I couldn't possess my soul in peace for five minutes! Do put the letter by till you've had your breakfasts."
But this course was not approved, and the contents of Lætitia's epistle came out by fits and jerks and starts, and may be said to have been mixed with tea and coffee and eggs and bacon and toast. Perhaps we had better leave these out, and give the letter intact. Here it is:
"Dearest Sally,"I am going to keep my promise, and write you a long letter at once, and tell you all about our reception at home. You will sayit wasn't worth writing, especially as you will be back on Monday. However, a promise is a promise!"We got to Victoria at seven, and were not so very late considering at G. Terrace; but when we had had something to eat I propounded my idea I told you of, that we should just go straight on, and beard mamma in her own den, and have it out. I knew I shouldn't sleep unless we did. Paggy said, 'Wouldn't it do as well if he called there to-morrow for the Strad—which we had left behind last time as a connecting-link to go and fetch away—and me to meet him as he came from the shop?' But surprise-tactics were better—I knew they would be—and now Paggy admits I was right."Of course, Thomas stared when he saw who it was, and was going to sneak off without announcing us, and Fossett, who just crossed us in the passage, was perfectly comic. Pag said afterwards she was bubbling over with undemonstrativeness, which was clever for him. I simply said to Thomas that I thought he had better announce us, as we weren't expected, and he asked who he was to announce, miss! Actually, I was rather relieved when Pag said, 'Say Mr. and Mrs. Julius Bradshaw.' I should have laughed, I know. Thomas looked a model of discretion that wouldn't commit itself either way, and did as he was bid in an apologetic voice; but he turned round on the stairs to say to me, 'I suppose you know, msam, there's two ladies and a gentleman been dining here?' Because he began miss and ended ma'am, and then turned scarlet. Pag said after he thought Thomas wanted to caution us against a bigamist mamma was harbouring."Papa was very nice, really. His allusion to our little escapade was the only one made, and might have meant nothing at all. 'Well, you're a nice couple of people, upon my word!' and then, seeing that mamma remained a block (which she can), he introduced Paggy to one of the two ladies as 'My son-in-law, Mr. Julius Bradshaw.' I'm sure mamma gave a wooden snort and was ashamed of it before visitors, because she did another rather more probable one directly after, and pretended it was only that sort. Really, except a peck for me and sayinghowdand nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to herself. But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it quite made me jump—Imean the way the lady Pag was introduced to rushed into his arms. I wasn't sure I hadn't better take him away at once. She was a celebrated German pianiste that had accompanied him in Paris. Mamma was at school with her at Frankfort. She had been inconsolable at the disappearance of the great Carissimi, whose playing of the Kreutzer was the only perfectly sympathetic one she had ever met. Was she never to play it with him again? Alas, no! for she was off to Vienna to-morrow, and then to New York, and if the ship went down she would never play the Kreutzer with Signore Carissimi again!"I saw papa's eye looking mischievous, and then he pointed to the Strad, where it was lying on the piano—locked up safe; we saw to that—and said there was Paganini's fiddle, why not play theCruet-stand, or whatever you called it,now? Mamma found her voice, but lost her judgment, for she tried to block the performance on a fibby ground. Think how late it was, and how it would be keeping Madame von Höfenhoffer! She put her head in the lion's mouth there, for the Frau immediately said she would play all night rather than lose a note of Signore Carissimi. The other two went, and nobody wanted them. I've forgotten the woman's second husband's name—he's dead—but her son's the man I told you about. Of course, he hadn't expected to meet me, and I hope he felt like a fool. I was so glad it wasn't him, but Paggy. They played right through the Kreutzer, and didn't want the music, which couldn't be found, and then did bits again, and it was absolutely glorious. Even mamma (she's fond of music—it's her only good quality—and where should I get mine from if she wasn't?) couldn't stop quite stony, though she did her best, I promise you. As for papa, he was chuckling so over mamma's dilemma—because she wanted to trample on Paggy, and itwasa dilemma—that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you know, dear, itdidgo on—one thing after another, that Frau glued to the clavier like a limpet not detachable without violence—till nearly one in the morning, having begun at ten about! And there was papa and Egerton and Theeny all sniggering at mamma, I know, in secret, and really proud of the connexion, if the truth were known. Mamma tried to get a little revenge by saying to me freezingly when the Höfenhoffer had gone: 'I suppose you are going home withMr. Bradshaw, Lætitia? Good-night.' And then she saidgoodnto Paggy just as she had saidhowd. I thought Paggy behaved so nicely. However, I'll tell you all about that on Monday."Papa wasverynice—came out on the doorstep to say good-night, and, do you know—it reallyisvery odd; it must be the sea air—papa said to Paggy as we were starting: 'How's the head—the nerves, you know—eh, Master Julius?' And actually Paggy said: 'Why, God bless my soul, I had forgotten all about them!' Oh, Sally darling, just think! Suppose they got well, and all because I treated him to a honeymoon! Oh, my gracious, what a long letter!"
"Dearest Sally,
"I am going to keep my promise, and write you a long letter at once, and tell you all about our reception at home. You will sayit wasn't worth writing, especially as you will be back on Monday. However, a promise is a promise!
"We got to Victoria at seven, and were not so very late considering at G. Terrace; but when we had had something to eat I propounded my idea I told you of, that we should just go straight on, and beard mamma in her own den, and have it out. I knew I shouldn't sleep unless we did. Paggy said, 'Wouldn't it do as well if he called there to-morrow for the Strad—which we had left behind last time as a connecting-link to go and fetch away—and me to meet him as he came from the shop?' But surprise-tactics were better—I knew they would be—and now Paggy admits I was right.
"Of course, Thomas stared when he saw who it was, and was going to sneak off without announcing us, and Fossett, who just crossed us in the passage, was perfectly comic. Pag said afterwards she was bubbling over with undemonstrativeness, which was clever for him. I simply said to Thomas that I thought he had better announce us, as we weren't expected, and he asked who he was to announce, miss! Actually, I was rather relieved when Pag said, 'Say Mr. and Mrs. Julius Bradshaw.' I should have laughed, I know. Thomas looked a model of discretion that wouldn't commit itself either way, and did as he was bid in an apologetic voice; but he turned round on the stairs to say to me, 'I suppose you know, msam, there's two ladies and a gentleman been dining here?' Because he began miss and ended ma'am, and then turned scarlet. Pag said after he thought Thomas wanted to caution us against a bigamist mamma was harbouring.
"Papa was very nice, really. His allusion to our little escapade was the only one made, and might have meant nothing at all. 'Well, you're a nice couple of people, upon my word!' and then, seeing that mamma remained a block (which she can), he introduced Paggy to one of the two ladies as 'My son-in-law, Mr. Julius Bradshaw.' I'm sure mamma gave a wooden snort and was ashamed of it before visitors, because she did another rather more probable one directly after, and pretended it was only that sort. Really, except a peck for me and sayinghowdand nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to herself. But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it quite made me jump—Imean the way the lady Pag was introduced to rushed into his arms. I wasn't sure I hadn't better take him away at once. She was a celebrated German pianiste that had accompanied him in Paris. Mamma was at school with her at Frankfort. She had been inconsolable at the disappearance of the great Carissimi, whose playing of the Kreutzer was the only perfectly sympathetic one she had ever met. Was she never to play it with him again? Alas, no! for she was off to Vienna to-morrow, and then to New York, and if the ship went down she would never play the Kreutzer with Signore Carissimi again!
"I saw papa's eye looking mischievous, and then he pointed to the Strad, where it was lying on the piano—locked up safe; we saw to that—and said there was Paganini's fiddle, why not play theCruet-stand, or whatever you called it,now? Mamma found her voice, but lost her judgment, for she tried to block the performance on a fibby ground. Think how late it was, and how it would be keeping Madame von Höfenhoffer! She put her head in the lion's mouth there, for the Frau immediately said she would play all night rather than lose a note of Signore Carissimi. The other two went, and nobody wanted them. I've forgotten the woman's second husband's name—he's dead—but her son's the man I told you about. Of course, he hadn't expected to meet me, and I hope he felt like a fool. I was so glad it wasn't him, but Paggy. They played right through the Kreutzer, and didn't want the music, which couldn't be found, and then did bits again, and it was absolutely glorious. Even mamma (she's fond of music—it's her only good quality—and where should I get mine from if she wasn't?) couldn't stop quite stony, though she did her best, I promise you. As for papa, he was chuckling so over mamma's dilemma—because she wanted to trample on Paggy, and itwasa dilemma—that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you know, dear, itdidgo on—one thing after another, that Frau glued to the clavier like a limpet not detachable without violence—till nearly one in the morning, having begun at ten about! And there was papa and Egerton and Theeny all sniggering at mamma, I know, in secret, and really proud of the connexion, if the truth were known. Mamma tried to get a little revenge by saying to me freezingly when the Höfenhoffer had gone: 'I suppose you are going home withMr. Bradshaw, Lætitia? Good-night.' And then she saidgoodnto Paggy just as she had saidhowd. I thought Paggy behaved so nicely. However, I'll tell you all about that on Monday.
"Papa wasverynice—came out on the doorstep to say good-night, and, do you know—it reallyisvery odd; it must be the sea air—papa said to Paggy as we were starting: 'How's the head—the nerves, you know—eh, Master Julius?' And actually Paggy said: 'Why, God bless my soul, I had forgotten all about them!' Oh, Sally darling, just think! Suppose they got well, and all because I treated him to a honeymoon! Oh, my gracious, what a long letter!"
"There now! thatisa letter and a half. 'With love from us both,' mine affectionately. And twelve pages! And Tishy's hand's not so large, neither, as all that." This is Sally, as epilogue; but her mother puts in a correction:
"It's thirteen pages. There's a bit on a loose page you haven't read." Sally has seen that, and it was nothing—so she says; but Fenwick picks it up and reads it aloud:
"P.S.—Just a line to say I've remembered that name. She's Herrick—married a parson in India soon after her Penderfield husband died. She's great on reformatories."
Sally reread her letter with a glow of interest on her face and a passing approval or echo now and then. She noticed nothing unusual in either her mother or her stepfather; but she did not look up, so absorbed was she.
Had she done so she might have wondered why her mother had gone so pale suddenly, and why there should be that puzzled absent look on the handsome face her eyes remained fixed on across the table; but her own mind was far away, deep in her amusement at her friend's letter, full of her image of the disconcerted Dragon and the way Paganini and Beethoven in alliance had ridden rough-shod over Mrs. Grundy and social distinctions. She saw nothing, and finished a cup of coffee undisturbed, and asked for more.
Fenwick, caught by some memory or association he could not define or give its place to, for the moment looked at neither of his companions. Rosalind, only too clear about all the postscript of the letter had brought before her own mind, saw reason todread its effect on his. The linking of the name of Penderfield and that of the clergyman who had married them at Umballa—a name that, two days since, had had a familiar sound to him when she incautiously uttered it—was using Suggestion to bait a trap for Memory. She felt she was steering through shoal-waters perilously near the wind; but she made no attempt to break his reverie. She might do as much harm as good. She only watched his face, feeling its contrast to that of the absorbed and happy merpussy, rejoicing in the fortunate outcome of her friend's anxieties.
It was a great relief when, with a deep breath and a shake, akin to a horse's when the flies won't take a hint, Fenwick flung off the oppression, whatever it was, and came back into the living world on a stepping-stone of the back-talk.
"Well done, Paganini! Nothing like it since Orpheus and Eurydice—only this time it was Proserpine, not Pluto, that had to be put to sleep.... What's the matter, darling? Anything wrong?"
"Nothing at all. I was looking at you."
"Well,I'mall right!" And Sally looked up from her letter for a moment to say, "There's nothing the matter with Jeremiah," and went on reading as before. Sally's attitude about him always implied a kind of proprietorship, as in a large, fairly well-behaved dog. Rosalind felt glad she had not looked ather.
Presently Fenwick said: "Now, who's coming for a walk with me?" But Sally was off directly to find the Swiss girl she sometimes bathed with, and Rosalind thought it would be nice in a sheltered place on the beach. She really wanted to be alone, and knew the shortest way to this was to sit still, especially in the morning; but Gerry had better get Vereker to go for a walk. Perhaps she would look in at his mother's later. So Fenwick, after a customary caution to Sally not to drown herself, went away to find Conrad, as he generally called him now.
Rosalind was shirking a problem she dared not face from a cowardly conviction of its insolubility. What would she do if Gerry should, without some warning, identify her? She had to confess to herself that she had no clue at all to the effect it would have, coming suddenly, on him. She could at least imagine aspects, attitudes, tones of voice for him if it came slowly; but shecould not supply any image of him, under other circumstances, not more or less founded on her recollections of twenty years ago. Might she not lose him again, as she lost him then? Shemustget nearer to safety than she was now. Was she not relying on the house not catching fire instead of negotiating insurance policies or providing fire extinguishers?
She would go and sit under the shelter of one of the many unemployed machines—for only a few daring spirits would follow Sally's example to-day—and try to think it out. Just a few instructions to Mrs. Lobjoit, and a word or two of caution to Gerry not to fall over cliffs, or to get run over at level-crossings or get sunstrokes, or get cold, etc., and she would fall back on her own society and think....
Yes, that was the question! Might she not lose him again? And if she did, how live without him?... Oh yes, she would be no worse off than before, in a certain sense. She would have Sally still ... but....
Which would be the worse? The loss of the husband whom every day taught her to love more dearly, or the task of explaining the cause of her loss to Sally? The one she fixed her mind on always seemed intolerable. As for the other contingencies—difficulties of making all clear to friends, and so forth—let them go; they were not worth a thought. But shemustbe beforehand, and know how to act, how to do her best to avert both, if the thing she dreaded came to pass....
There now! Here she was settled under the lee of a machine—happily the shadow-side, for the sun was warm—and the white foam of the undertow was guilty of a tremendous glare—the one the people who can't endure the seaside get neuralgia from—and Sally was going to come out of the second machine directly in the Turkey-twill knickers, and find her way through the selvage-wave and the dazzle, or get knocked down and have to try back. Surely Rosalind, instead of saying over and over again that shemustbe ready to meet the coming evil, possibly close at hand, ought to make a serious effort to become so. She found herself, even at this early hour of the day, tired with the strain of a misgiving that an earthquake was approaching; and as those who have lived through earthquakes become unstrung at every slightest tremor of the earth's crust beneath them, so she felt thatthe tension begun with that recurrence of two days ago had grown and grown, and threatened to dominate her mind, to the exclusion of all else. Every little thing, such as the look on her husband's face half an hour ago, made her say to herself, as the earthquake-haunted man says at odd times all through the day and night, "Is thisit? Has it come?" and she saw before her no haven of peace.
What was it now she really most feared? Simply the effect of the revelation on her husband's mind—an effect no human creature could make terms with. She was not the least afraid of anything he could say or do, delirium apart; but see what delirium had made of him—she was sure it was so—in that old evil hour when he had flung her from him and gone away in anger to try to get her sentence of banishment ratified. How could she guard against a repetition, in some form or other, of the disastrous errors of that unhappy time?
As we know, she was still in ignorance of all the revived memories he had told to Vereker; but she knew there had been something—disjointed, perhaps, and not to be relied on, as the doctor had said, but none the less to be feared on that account. She had seen the effect of his sleepless night before he went away with Vereker, and knew it to be connected with mental disturbance outside and beyond mere loss of rest; and she had an uneasy sense that something was being kept from her. She could not but believe Gerry's cheerfulness was partly assumed. Had he been quite at ease about his recollections, surely he would have told them toher. Then this had all come on the top of that Kreutzkammer one. The most upsetting thing of all, though, was the change that had come over him suddenly at breakfast, just after he had read aloud the name Herrick—a name he had seemed not free from memory of when her tongue was betrayed into speaking it—and the name Penderfield. If it was due to this last, so much the worse! It was the name of all others that was best for oblivion.
How hard it seemed that it must needs force itself to the fore in this way! Its present intrusion into her life and surroundings was utterly unconnected with anything in the past. Sally's friendship with Lætitia began in a music-class six years ago. The Sales Wilsons were people to all appearance as un-Indian asany folk need be. Why must Sally's friend, of all others, be the object of its owner's unwelcome admiration? To think, too, how near she had been to a precipice without knowing it! Suppose she had come face to face with that woman again! To be sure, her intercourse with Ladbroke Grove Road was limited to one stiff exchange of calls in "the season." Still, it might have happened ... but where was the use of begging and borrowing troubles?
Was it, or was it not, the fact, she asked herself, that now, after all these years, she thought of this woman as worse than her husband, the iniquity of the accomplice as more diabolical than that of the principal? She found she could not answer this in the negative off-hand. The paradox was also before her that that incorrigible amphibious treasure of hers, whose voice was even now shouting to her more timorous friend from beyond the selvage-wave she had just contemptuously dived through—that that Sally, inexchangeable for anything she could conceive or imagine, must needs have been something quite other than she was, had she come of any other technical paternity than the accursed one she had to own to. Was there some terrible law in Nature that slow forgiveness of the greatest wrong that can be wrought must perforce be granted to its inflictor, through the gracious survivor of a brutal indifference that would almost add to his crime, if that were possible? If, so, surely the Universe must be the work of an Almighty Fiend, a Demiurgus with a cruel heart, and this the masterstroke of all his cunning. But what, in Heaven's name, was the use of bruising her brains against the conundrums of the great unanswered metaphysical sphinx? Better be contented with the easy vernacular solution of the rhymester:
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,Evils from circumstances grow."
Because she felt she was getting no nearer the solution of her own problem, and was, if anything, wandering from the point.
Another way of looking at the matter was beginning to take form: had hung about her mind and forsaken it more than once. Might it not be better, after all, to dash at the position and capture it while her forces were well under control? To pursue themetaphor, the commissariat might not hold out. Better endure the ills we have—of course, Rosalind knew all that—than fly to others that we know not of. But suppose we have a chance of flying to others we can measure the length and breadth of, and staving off thereby an uncalculable unknown? She felt she almost knew the worst that could come of taking Gerry into her confidence, telling him boldly all about himself, provided she could choose her opportunity and make sure Sally was well out of the way. The concealment from Sally was the achievement whose failure involved the greatest risk. Her husband's mind would bear the knowledge of his story well or ill according to the way in which it reached him; but the necessity of keeping her girl in ignorance of it was a thing absolute. Any idea that Sally's origin could be concealed from her, and her stepfather's identity made known, Rosalind dismissed as simply fantastic.
A lady who had established herself below high-water mark with many more books than she could read, and plant capable of turning out much more work than she could do, at this point fled for safety from a rush of white foam. It went back for more, meaning to wet her through next time; but had to bear its disappointment. Mrs. Arkwright—for it was Gwendolen's mamma—being driven from the shadow of the breakwater, cast about her for a new lodgment, and perceived one beside Mrs. Fenwick, whom she thought very well for the seaside, but not to leave cards on.Mightshe come up there, beside you? Rosalind didn't want her, but had to pretend she did, to encourage her advent. It left behind it a track of skeins and volumes, which had trickled from the fugitive, but were recovered by a domestic, and pronounced dry. Besides, they were only library books, and didn't matter.
"I haven't seen you since the other day on the pier, Mrs. Fenwick, or I wanted to have asked you more about that charming young couple, the Julian Attwoods. Oh dear! I knew I should get the name wrong....Bradshaw!Yes, of course." Her vivid perception of what the name really is, when apprised of it, almost amounts to a paroxysm. You see, on the pier that day, she made a bad blunder over those Bradshaw people, and though she had consoled her conscience by admitting to her husbandthat she had "mis le pied dans le plat," still, she thought, if she was actually going to plump down on Mrs. Fenwick's piece of beach, she ought to do a little more apology. By-the-bye, why is it that ladies of her sort always resort to snippets of French idiom, whenever they get involved in a quagmire of delicacy—or indelicacy, as may be? Will Gwendolen grow like her mother? However, that doesn't concern us now.
A little stiffness on Rosalind's part was really due to her wish to be by herself, but Mrs. Arkwright ascribed it to treasured resentment against her blunders of two days since. Now, she was a person who could never let anything drop—a tugging person. She proceeded to develop the subject.
"Really a most interesting story! I need hardly say that my informants had given me no particulars. Very old friends of my husband's. Quite possible they really knew nothing of this young gentleman's musical gifts. Simply told my husband the tale as I told it to you. Just that the daughter of an old friend of theirs, Professor Sales Wilson—theProfessor Sales Wilson—of course, quite a famous name in literature—scholarship—that sort of thing—had run away with a shopman! That was what my husband heard, you know.Imerely repeated it."
"Wasn't it, as things go, rather a malicious way of putting it—on their part?"
Mrs. Arkwright gave sagacious nods, indicative of comfortable "we-know-the-world-we-live-in-and-won't-pretend" relationships between herself and the speaker. They advertised perfect mutual understanding on a pinnacle of married experience. Fancy there being any need for anything else betweenus! they said. Their editor then supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been asoupçonof personal feeling in the case—bias, pique, whatever one likes to call it.Youknow, dear Mrs. Fenwick?" But Mrs. Fenwick waited for further illumination. "Well, you know ... I suppose it's rather a breach of confidence, only I know I shall be safe withyou...."
"Don't tell me any secrets, Mrs. Arkwright. I'm not safe." But Mrs. Arkwright was not a person to be put off in this way. Not she! She meant elucidation, and nothing short of bayonets would stop her.
"Well, really, perhaps I'm making it of too much importance totalk of breaches of confidence. After all, it only amounts to a gentleman having been disappointed. Of course, his relations would ... don't you see?..."
"Was it some man that was after Tishy?" asked Rosalind, wondering how many more rejected suitors were wearing the willow about the haberdasher's bride. She had heard of one, only last night. She was not putting two and two together.
"I dare say everybody knows it, and it's only my nonsensical caution. But one does getsotimorous of saying anything.Youknow, dear Mrs. Fenwick! However, it's better to say it out now—of course, quite between ourselves, you know. It was Mrs. Samuel Herrick's son, Sir Charles Penderfield. He's the present baronet, you know. Father was in the army—rather distinguished man, I fancy. Her second husband was a clergyman...." Here followed social analysis, some of which Rosalind could have corrected. The speaker floundered a little among county families, and then resumed the main theme. "Mrs. Herrick is a sort of connexion of my husband's (I don't exactly know what; but then, I neverdoknow—family is such a bore), and it wasshetoldhimall about this. I always forget these things when they're toldme. But I can quite understand that the young man's mother, in speaking of it ...youunderstand?..."
"Oh, of course, naturally. I think my daughter's coming out. I saw her machine-door move." Rosalind began collecting herself for departure.
"But, of course, you won't repeat any of this—but, of course, I know I can rely upon you—but, of course, it doesn't really matter...." A genial superior tone of toleration for mankind's foibles as seen by the two speakers from an elevation comes in at this point juicily. It meets an appreciative response in the prolonged first syllable of Rosalind's "Certainly. I never should dream," etc., whose length makes up for an imperfect finish—a dispersal of context from which a farewell good-morning emerges clear, hand-in-hand with a false statement that the speaker has enjoyed sitting there talking.
Rosalind had not enjoyed it at all. She was utilising the merpussy's return to land as a means of escape, because, had there been no Mrs. Arkwright, and no folk-chatter, Sally would have comescranching up the shingle, and flung herself down beside her mother. As it was, Rosalind's "Oh,I amso glad to get away from that woman!" told a tale. And Sally's truthful soul interpreted the upshot of that tale as prohibitive of merely going away and sitting down elsewhere. She and her mother were in honour bound to have promised to meet somebody somewhere—say, for instance, Mrs. Vereker and her son and donkey-chair. Sally said it, for instance, seeing something of the sort would soothe the position; and the two of them met the three, or rather the three and a half, for we had forgotten the boy to whom the control of the donkey was entrusted, and whose interpretation of his mission was to beat the donkey incessantly like a carpet, and to drag it the other way. The last held good of all directions soever. Which the donkey, who was small, but by nature immovable, requited by taking absolutely no notice whatever of his exertions.
"What's become of my step-parent? I thought he was going to take you for a walk." So spoke Sally to Dr. Conrad as she and her mother met the three others, and the half. The doctor replied:
"He's gone for a walk along the cliff by himself. I would have gone...." The doctor pauses a moment till the donkey-chair is a few paces ahead, accompanied by Mrs. Fenwick. "I would have gone, only, you see, it's just mother's last day or two...." Sally apprehends perfectly. But he shouldn't have dropped his voice. He was quite distant enough to be inaudible by the Octopus as far as overhearing words went. But any one can hear when a voice is dropped suddenly, and words are no longer audible. Dr. Conrad is a very poor Machiavelli, when all is said and done.
"I can hearevery wordmy boy is saying to your girl, Mrs. Fenwick." This is delivered with exemplary sweetness by the Octopus, who then guesses with diabolical acumen at almost the exact wording of her son's speech. Apparently, no amount of woollen wraps, no double thickness of green veil to keep the glare out, no smoked glasses with flanges to make it harmless if it gets in, can obscure the Goody's penetrative powers when invoked for the discomfiture of her kind. "But does not my dear boy know," she continues gushily, "that I amalways content to bealoneas longas I can besurethat he is happily employedelsewhere. I am adull old woman, I know; but, at least, my wish is not to be a burden. That was the wish of my great-aunt Eliza—your great-great-aunt, Conrad; you never saw her—in her last illness. I borrow her expression—'not to be a burden.'" The Octopus, having seized her prey in this tentacle, was then at liberty to enlarge upon the unselfish character of her great-aunt, reaping the advantages of a vicarious egoism from an hypnotic suggestion that that character was also her own. The great-aunt had, it appeared, lost the use, broadly speaking, of her anatomy, and could only communicate by signs; but when she died she was none the less missed by her own circle, whose grief for her loss took the form of a tablet. The speaker paused a moment for her hearers to contemplate the tablet, and perhaps ask for the inscription, when Sally saw an opening, and took advantage of it.
"Dr. Conrad's going to be very selfish this afternoon, Mrs. Vereker, and come with us to Chalke, where that dear little church is that looks like a barn. I mean to find the sexton and get the key this time."
"My dear, I shall beperfectly happy knitting. Do not trouble about me for one moment. I shall think how you are enjoying yourselves. When I was a girl there was nothing I enjoyed more than ransacking old churches...."
And so forth. Rosalind felt almost certain that Sally either said or telegraphed to the doctor, who was wavering, "You'll come, you know. Now, mind; two-thirty punc.," and resolved, if he didnotcome, to go to Iggulden's and extract him from the tentacles of his mamma, and remain entangled herself, if necessary.
In fact, this was how the arrangement for the afternoon worked out. Dr. Conrad didnotturn up, as expected, and Rosalind carried out her intention. She rescued the doctor, and sent him round to join her husband and Sally, promising to follow shortly and catch them up. The three started to walk, but Fenwick, after a little slow walking to allow Rosalind to overtake them, had misgivings that she had got caught, and went back to rescue her, telling Sally and the doctor it was no use to wait—they would follow on, and take their chance. And the programme so indicated was acted on.
OF LOVE, CONSIDERED AS A THUNDERSTORM, AND OF AGUR, THE SON OF JAKEH (PROV. XXX.). OF A COUNTRY WALK AND A JUDICIOUSLY RESTORED CHURCH. OF TWO CLASPED HANDS, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. NOTHING SO VERY REMARKABLE AFTER ALL!
Love, like a thunderstorm, is very much more intelligible in its beginnings—to its chronicler, at least—than it becomes when it is, so to speak, overhead. We all know the clear-cut magnificence of the great thundercloud against the sky, its tremendous deliberation, its hills and valleys of curdling mist, fraught with God knows what potential of destruction in volts and ohms; the ceaseless muttering of its wrath as it speaks to its own heart, and its sullen secrets reverberate from cavern to cavern in the very core of its innermost blackness. We know the last prismatic benedictions of the sun it means to hide from us—the strange gleams of despairing light on the other clouds—clouds that are not in it, mere outsiders or spectators. We can remember them after we have got home in time to avoid a wetting, and can get our moist water-colours out and do a recollection of them before they go out of our heads—or think we can.
But we know, too, that there comes a time of a sudden wind and agitated panic of the trees, and then big, warm preliminary drops, and then the first clap of thunder, clear in its own mind and full of purpose. Then the first downpour of rain, that isn't quite so clear, and wavers for a breathing-space, till the tart reminder of the first swift, decisive lightning-flash recalls it to its duty, and it becomes a steady, intolerable torrent that empties roads and streets of passers-by, and makes the gutters rivulets. And then the storm itself—flash upon flash—peal upon peal—up to the blinding and deafening climax, glare and thunderbolt in a breath. And then it's overhead, and we are sure something has been struck that time.
It was all plain sailing, two days since, in the love-storm we wantthe foregoing sketch of a thunderstorm to illustrate, that was brewing in the firmament of Conrad Vereker's soul. At the point corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder—wherever it was—Chaos set in in that firmament. And Chaos was developing rapidly at the time when the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity from the maternal clutch, started on what he believed would be his last walk with his idol at St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he got back to London, though there might be, academically speaking, opportunities of seeing Sally, it wasn't going to be the same thing. That was the phrase his mind used, and we know quite well what it meant.
Of course, when some peevish author or invalid sends out a servant to make you take your organ farther off, a good way down the street, you can begin again exactly where you left off, lower down. But a barrel-organ has no soul, and one has one oneself, usually. Dr. Vereker's soul, on this occasion, was the sport of the love-storm of our analogy, and was tossed and driven by whirlwinds, beaten down by torrents, dazzled by lightning and deafened by thunder, out of reach of all sane record by the most eloquent of chroniclers. It was not in a state to accept calmly the idea of transference to Shepherd's Bush. A tranquil mind would have said, "By all means, go home and start afresh." But no; the music in this case refused to welcome the change. Still, he would forget it—make light of it and ignore it—to enjoy this last little expedition with Sally to the village church across the downs, that had been so sweetly decorated for the harvest festival. A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.Carpe diem!
So Dr. Conrad seemed to have grown younger than ever when he and Sally got away from all the world, after Fenwick had fallen back to rescue the captive, octopus-caught. Whereat Sally's heart rejoiced; for this young man's state of subordination to his skilful and overwhelming parent was a constant thorn in her side. To say she felt for him is to say nothing. To say that she would have jumped out of her skin with joy at hearing that he was engaged to that young lady, unknown; and that that young lady had successfully made terms of capitulation, involving the disbanding of the Goody, and her ultimate dispersal to Bedford Park with a companion—to vouch for this actually happening mightbe rash. But Sally told herself—and her mother, for that matter—that she should so jump out of her skin; and you may believe her, perhaps. We happen not to; but it may have been true, for all that.
Agur, the son of Jakeh (Prov. xxx.), evidently thought the souls of women not worth analysis, and the way of a maid with a man not a matter for Ithiel and Ucal to spend time and thought over, as they seem to have said nothing to King Solomon on the subject. But then Agur candidly admitted that he was more brutish than any man, and had not the understanding of a man. So he contented himself with wondering at the way of a man with a maid, and made no remarks about the opposite case. Even with the understanding of a man, would he have been any nearer seeing into the mystery of a girl's heart? As for ourselves, we give it up. We have to be content with watching what Miss Sally will do next, not trying to understand her.
She certainlybelievedshe believed—we may go that far—when she started to walk to Chalke Church with a young man she felt a strong interest in, and wanted to see happily settled in life—(all her words, please, not ours)—that she intended, this walk, to get out of Prosy who the young lady was that he had hinted at, and, what was more, she knew exactly how she was going to lead up to it. Only she wouldn't rush the matter; it would do just as well, or better, after they had seen the little church, and were walking back in the twilight. They could be jolly and chatty then. Oh yes, certainly a good deal better. As for any feeling of shyness about it, of relief at postponing it—whatnonsense! Hadn't they as good as talked it all over already? But, for our own part, we believe that this readiness to let the subject wait was a concession Sally made towards admitting a personal interest in the result of her inquiry—so minute a one that maybe you may wonder why we call it a concession at all. Dr. Conrad was perhaps paltering a little with the truth, too, when he said to himself that he was quite prepared to fulfil his half-promise to Fenwick and reveal his mind to Sally; but not till quite the end of this walk, in case he should spoil it, and upset Sally. Or, perhaps, to-morrow morning, on the way to the train. Our own belief is, he was frightened, and it was an excuse.
"We shall go by the beech-forest," was Sally's last speech to Fenwick,as he turned back on his mission of rescue. And twenty minutes later she and Dr. Conrad were crossing the smooth sheep-pasture that ended at the boundary of the said forest—a tract of woodland that was always treated with derision on account of its acreage. It was small, for a forest, certainly; but, then, it hadn't laid claim to the name itself. Sally spoke forgivingly of it as they approached it.
"It's a handy little forest," said she; "only you can't lie down in it without sticking out. If you don't expect to, it doesn't matter." This was said without a trace of a smile, Sally-fashion. It took its reasonableness for granted, and allowed the speaker to continue without a pause into conversation sane and unexaggerated.
"What were you and Jeremiah talking about the day before yesterday, when you went that long walk?"
"We talked about a good many things. I've forgotten half."
"Which was the one you don't want me to know about? Because you haven't forgotten that, you know." Vereker thinks of Sally's putative parents, the Arcadian shepherdess and the thunderbolt. Obviously a reality! Besides—so ran the doctor's thought—with her looking likethat, what can I do? He felt perfectly helpless, but wouldn't confess it. He would make an effort. One thing he was certain of: that evasion, with those eyes looking at him, would mean instant shipwreck.
"We had a long talk, dear Miss Sally, about how much Jeremiah"—a slight accent on the name has the force of inverted commas in text—"can really recollect of his own history." But Sally's reply takes a form of protest, without seeming warranty.
"I say, Dr. Conrad, I wish you wouldn't.... However, never mind that now. I want to know about Jeremiah. Has he remembered a lot more, and not told?"
"He goes on recovering imperfect versions of things. He told me a good many such yesterday—so imperfect that I am convinced as his mind clears he will find that some of them, though founded on reality, are little better than dreams. He can't rely on them himself.... But what is it you wish I wouldn't?"
"Oh, nothing!—I'll tell you after. Never mind that now. What are the things—I mean, the things he recovers the imperfect versions of? You needn't tell me the versions, you know,but you might tell me what they were versions of, without any breach of confidence." Dr. Conrad has not time for more than a word or two towards the obvious protest against this way of stating the case, before Sally becomes frankly aware of her own unfairness. "No, I won't worm out and inquisit," she says—and we are bound to give her exact language. "It isn't fair on a general practitioner to take him for a walk and get at his professional secrets." The merry eyebrows and the pearly teeth, slightly in abeyance for a serious moment or two, are all in evidence again as the black eyes flash round on the doctor, and, as it were, convey his reprieve to him. He acknowledges it in this sense.
"I'm glad you don't insist upon my telling, Miss Sally. If you had insisted, I should have had to tell." He paused a second, drawing an inference from an expression of Sally's face, then added: "Well, it's true...."
"I wasn't thinking of that." This refers to her intention to say something, which never fructified; but somehow got communicated, magnetically perhaps, to Dr. Conrad. "Never mind what, now. Because if your soles are as slippy as mine are, we shall never get up. Catch hold!"
This last refers to the necessity two travellers are under, who, having to ascend a steep escarpment of slippery grass, can only do so by mutual assistance. Sally and the doctor got to the top, and settled down to normal progress on a practicable gradient, and all the exhilaration of the wide, wind-swept downland. But what had been to the unconscious merpussy nothing but a mutual accommodation imposed by a common lot—common subjection to the forces of gravitation and the extinction of friction by the reaction of short grass on leather—had been to her companion a phase of stimulus to the storm that was devastating the region of his soul; a new and prolonged peal of thunder swift on the heels of a blinding lightning-flash, and a deluge to follow such as a real storm makes us run to shelter from. On Dr. Conrad's side of the analogy, there was no shelter, and he didn't ask for it. Had he asked for anything, it would have been for the power to tell Sally what she had become to him, and a new language he did not now know in which to tell it. And such a vocabulary!
But Dr. Conrad didn't know how simple the language was that hefelt the want of—least of all, that there was only one word in its vocabulary. And when the two of them got to the top of their slippery precipice, breathless, he was no nearer the disclosure he had made up his mind to, and as good as promised Fenwick to make, than when they were treading the beechmast and listening to the wood-doves in the handy little forest they had left below. But oh, the little things in this life that are the big ones all the while, and no one ever suspects them!
A very little thing indeed was to play a big part, unacknowledged till after, in the story of this walk. For it chanced that as they reached the hill-top the diminution of the incline was so gradual that at no exact point could the lease of Sally's hand to that of the doctor be determined by either landlord or tenant. We do not mean that he refused to let go, nor that Sally consciously said to herself that it would be rude to snatch back the gloveless six-and-a-half that she had entrusted to him, the very minute she didn't want his assistance. It was anuanceof action or demeanour far, far finer than that on the part of either. But it was real all the same. And the facts of the case were as clear to Sally's subconsciousness, unadmitted and unconfessed, as though Dr. Conrad had found his voice then and there, and said out boldly: "There isnoyoung lady I am wavering about except it be you; she's a fiction, and a silly one. There is no one in the world I care for as I do for you. There is nothing in the world that I can name or dream of so precious to me as this hand that I now give up with reluctance, under the delusion that I have not held it long enough to make you guess the whole of the story." All that was said, but what an insignificant little thing it was that said it!
As for Miss Sally, it was only her subself that recognised that any one had said anything at all. Her superself dismissed it as a fancy; and, therefore, being put on its mettle to justify that action, it pointed out to her that, after that, it would be the merest cowardice to shirk finding out about Dr. Conrad's young lady. She would manage it somehow by the end of this walk. But still an element of postponement came in, and had its say. Yet it excited no suspicions in her mind, or she ignored them. She was quite within her rights, technically, in doing so.
It was necessary, though, to tide over the momentary reciprocity—theslight exchange of consciousnesses that, if indulged, must have ended in a climax—with a show of stiffness; a little pretence that we were a lady and gentleman taking a walk, otherwise undescribed. When the doctor relinquished Sally's hand, he felt bound to ignore the fact that hers went on ringing like a bell in the palm of his, and sending musical messages up his arm; and to talk about dewponds. They occur on the tops of downs, and are very scientific. High service and no rate are the terms of their water-supply. Dr. Conrad knew all about them, and was aware that one they passed was also a relic of prehistoric man, who had dug it, and didn't live long enough, poor fellow! to know it was a dewpond, or prehistoric. Sally was interested. A little bird with very long legs didn't seem to care, and walked away without undue hurry, but amazingly quickly, for all that.
"What a little darling!" Sally said. "Did you hear that delicious little noise he made? Isn't he a water-ouzel?" Sally took the first name that she thought sounded probable. She really was making talk, to contribute her share to the fiction about the lady and gentleman. So was her companion. He reflected for a moment whether he could say anything about Grallæ and Scolopacidæ, or such like, but decided against heaping up instructive matter on the top of the recent dewponds. He gave it up, and harked back quite suddenly to congenial personalities.
"What was it you wished I wouldn't, Miss Sally?"
Our Sally had it on her lips to say, "Why, dothat—call meMissSally, of course! I can'ttellyou how I hate it." But, this time, she was seized with a sudden fit of shyness. She could have said it quite easily before that trivial hand-occurrence, and the momentary stiffness that followed it. Now she backed out in the meanest way, and even sought to fortify the lady and gentleman pretext. She looked back over the panorama they were leaving behind, and discerned that that was Jeremiah and her maternal parent coming through the clover-field. But it wasn't, palpably. Nevertheless, Sally held tight to her groundless opinion long enough for the previous question to be droppable, without effrontery. Then her incorrigible candour bubbled up, and she refused to take advantage of her own subterfuge.
"Never mind, Dr. Conrad; I'll tell you presently. I've a bone to pick with you. Wait till we've seen the little churchy-wurchy—thereit is, over there, with a big weathercock—and then we can quarrel and go home separate."
Even Agur, the son of Jakeh, would have seen, at this point, the way that this particular maid, in addressing this particular man, was exaggerating a certain spirit of bravado; and if he had been accompanying them unseen from St. Sennans, would certainly have deserved his own self-censure if he had failed to trace this spirit to its source—the hand-incident. We believe it was only affectation in Agur, and that he knew all about the subject, men, maids, and every other sort; only he didn't think any of the female sorts worth his Oriental consideration. It was a far cry to the dawn of Browning in those days.
Down the hill to the flatlands was a steep pathway, where talk paused naturally. When you travel in single file on a narrow footway with a grass slide to right or left of you, which it does not do to tread on with shoe-soles well polished on two miles of previous grass, you don't talk—especially if you have come to some point in talk where silence is not unwelcome. Sally and the doctor said scarcely a dozen words on the way down to the little village that owned the name and the church of Chalke. When they arrived in its seclusion they found, for purposes of information and reference, no human creatures visible except some absolutely brown, white-haired ones whose existence dated back only a very few years—not enough to learn English in. So, when addressed, they remained a speechless group, too unaccustomed to man to be able to say where keys of churches were to be had, or anything else. But the eldest, a very little girl in a flexible blue bonnet, murmured what Sally, with insight, interpreted into a reference.
"Yes, dear, that's right. You go and tell moarther t' whoam that a lady and gentleman want to see inside the church, and ask for the key." Whereupon the little maid departs down a passage into a smell of wallflowers, and is heard afar rendering her message as a long narrative—so long that Dr. Conrad says the child cannot have understood right, and they had better prosecute inquiry further. Sally thinks otherwise, and says men are impatient fidgets.
The resolute dumbness of one of the small natives must have been aparti-pris, for it suddenly disappeared during his sister's absence,and he gave a narrative of a family dissension, not necessarily recent. He appears proud of his own share in it, which Sally nevertheless felt she could not appear to sanction by silence.
"You bad little boy," she said. "You smacked your sister Elizabeth in t' oy, and your foarther smacked you. I hope he hurt." The bad little boy assented with a nod, and supplied some further details. Then he asked for a penny before his sister Elizabeth came back. He wanted it to buy almond-rock, but he wouldn't give any of it to Jacob, nor to his sister Elizabeth, nor to Reuben, nor to many others, whom he seemed to exclude from almond-rock with rapture. Asked to whom he would give some, then, he replied: "Not you—eat it moyself!" and laughed heartlessly. Sally, we regret to say, gave this selfish little boy a penny for not being hypocritical. And then his sister Elizabeth reappeared with the key, which was out of scale with her, like St. Peter's.
The inward splendours of this church had been inferred by Sally from a tiptoe view through the window, which commanded its only archaic object of interest—the monument of a woolstapler who, three hundred and odd years ago, had the effrontery to have two wives and sixteen children. He ought to have had one or two more wives, thought Dr. Conrad. However, the family was an impressive one now, decorated as it was with roses cut out of turnips, and groups of apples and carrots and cereals. And no family could have kneeled down more symmetrically, even in 1580.
But there was plenty to see in that church, too. Indeed, it was for all the world like the advertisement sheets ofArchitectonic Ecclesiology(ask for this paper at your club), and every window was brim full of new stained glass, and every inch of floor-space was new encaustic tiles. And, what was more, there was a new mosaic over the chancel-arch—a modest and wobbly little arch in itself, that seemed afflicted with its position, and to want to get away into a quiet corner and meditate. Sally said so, and added so should she, if she were it.
"I wonder if the woolstapler was married here to one or other of the little square women," said she.
"I wonder why the angels up there look so sulky," said Dr. Conrad. And then Sally, who seemed absent-minded, found somethingelse to wonder about—a certain musical whistling noise that filled the little church. But it was only a big bunch of moonwort on a stained-glass-window sill, and the wind was blowing through a vacancy that should have been a date, and making Æolian music. The little maid with the key found her voice over this suddenly. Her bruvver had done that, she said with pride. He had oymed a stoo-an when it was putten up, and brokken t' glass. So that stained glass was very new indeed, evidently.
"I wonder why they call that stuff 'honesty,' Miss Sally?" said the doctor. Sally, feeling that the interest of either in the church was really perfunctory, said vaguely—did they? And then, recoiling from further wonderment, and, indeed, feeling some terror of becoming idiotic if this sort of thing went on much longer, she exclaimed, with reality in her voice: "Because it's not pretending to take an interest when it doesn't, like us. But I wish you wouldn't, Dr. Conrad; I do hate it so."
"Hate what? Taking an interest or calling it honesty?Ididn't call it honesty.Theydid, whoever they are!"
"No, no—I don't mean that. Never mind. I'll tell you when we're out. Come along—that is, if you've seen enough of the tidy mosaic and the tidy stained glass, and the tidy nosegays on the tidy table." The doctor came along—seemed well satisfied to do so. But this was the third time Sally had wished that Dr. Conrad wouldn't, and this time she felt she must explain. She wasn't at all sure that the name of that herb hadn't somehow got into the atmosphere—caught on, as it were, and twitted her. After all, why shouldn't she speak a plain thought to an old friend, as poor Prosy was now? Who could gainsay it? Moreover—now, surely this was an inspiration—why shouldn't she kill two birds with one stone, and work in her inquiry about the other young lady with this plain thought that was on her tongue to speak?
The sun was a sheer blaze of golden light as they stepped out of the little church into its farewell efforts on behalf of the hill-shadowed land of premature sunsets, and the merpussy looked her best in its effulgence. Sally's good looks had never been such as to convince her she was a beauty; and we suppose she wasn't, critically speaking. But youth and health, and an arrow-straightbearing, and a flawless complexion, in a flood of evening light, make a bold bid for beauty even in the eyes of others than young men already half-imbecile with love. Sally's was, at any rate, enough to dumbfounder the little janitress with the key, who stood at gaze with violet eyes in her sunbrowned face in the shadow, looking as though for certain they would never close again; while, as for Dr. Conrad, he was too far gone to want a finishing touch, and if he had been, the faintest animation of an extra flush due to embarrassment at what she was meaning to say would have done the business for him. What could he do but wonder and idolize, even while he almost flinched before his idol; and wait to know what it was she wished he wouldn't? What was there in earth or heaven he would not, if Sally wished it?
"Dr. Conrad, I'm sure you must know what I mean. I do so hate being called 'Miss Sally.' Do make it 'Sally,' and have done with it."
The breezy freshness of her spontaneous ease was infectious, and the shy man's answering laugh showed how it had caught his soul. "Is that all?" says he. "That's soon done—Sally! You know, Idocall you Sally when I speak to your mother and...."
"Now,dosay father. You've no idea how I like it when people call Jeremiah my father, instead of step."
"Well—father, then. I mean,theysaid call you Sally; so of course I do. But speaking to you—don't you see?..." The doctor hesitates—doesn't actually blush, perhaps. A slight pause in the conversation eases off the context. The little maiden has to lock up the church-door with the big key, and to receive sixpence and a kiss from Sally. The violet eyes follow the lady and gentleman, fixed in wonderment, as they move off towards the hill, and the last glint of the sun vanishes. Then Sally goes on where they left off:
"No, I don't see. Speaking to me, what? Be an explicit little general practitioner, or we shall quarrel, after all, and go home different ways."
"Well, look here! You know Bailey, the young man that drives me round in London?"
"Yes. How does he come in?"
"Why, just this way; I've known the youth for years, and the otherday if it doesn't turn out that he's been married ever so long! And when I taxed him with needless secrecy and mistrust of an old friend, what does the young humbug say? 'The fact is, sir, I hadn't the cheek to tell you.' Well,Iwas like that. I hadn't the cheek."
"At any rate, you have the grace to call him a young humbug. I'm glad you're repentant, Dr. Conrad."
"Come—I say, now—Sally! That's not fair."
"What's not fair?"
"Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You called me 'Dr. Conrad.'"
"We-ell, I don't see anything inthat. Of course, it's quite a different thing—you and me."
"Very well, then. I shall say Miss Sally. Miss Sally!"
Here was Sally's opportunity, clear enough. She had never had a chance till now of bringing back the mysterious young lady of the jetty-interview into court, and examining her. She felt quite sure of herself and her powers of conducting the case—and she was mistaken. She knew nothing of the traps and pitfalls that were gaping for her. Her opening statement went easily though; it was all prepared.
"Don't you see, Dr. Conrad dear, the cases are quite different? When you're married, your wife will callmeSally, of course. But ... well, if I had a husband, you know,hewould callyouDr. Vereker. Sure to!" Sally felt satisfied with the sound of her voice. But the doctor said never a word, and his face was grave. She would have to go on, unassisted, and she had invented nothing to say, so far. So a wavering crept in—nothing in itself at first, apart from her consciousness of it. "Besides, though, of courseshewould callmeSally, she mightn't quite—not altogether, you know—I mean, she might think it...." But ambushes revealed themselves in every hedge, ready to break out if she ended this sentence. Dr. Conrad made completion unnecessary.
"Whom do you mean byshe, Sally?"
"Why, of course! Who could I mean but the girl you told me about that you think wouldn't agree with your mother?"
"I thought so. See what a mess I made of it! No, Sally, there's no such person. Now I shall have to speak the truth, and thenI shall have to go away from you, and it will all be spoiled...." But Sally interposes on the tense speech, and sound of growing determination in the doctor's voice:
"Oh no, don't—no, don't! Don't say anything that will change it fromnow. See how happy we are! How could it be better? I'll call you Conrad, or anything you like. Only,don'tmake it different."
"Very well, I won't. I promise!" The doctor calms down. "But, Sally dearest—I may say Sally dearest, mayn't I?..."
"Well, perhaps. Only you must make that do for the present."
But there is a haunting sense of the Octopus in the conscientious soul of her son, and even though he is allowed to say "Sally dearest," the burden is on him of knowing that he has been swept away in the turmoil of this whirlwind of self, and he is feeling round to saypeccavi, and make amends by confession. He makes "Sally dearest" do for the moment, but captures as a set-off the hand that slips readily enough into the arm he offers for it, with a caressing other hand, before he speaks again. He renews his promise—but with such a compensation in the hand that remains at rest in his! and then continues:
"Dearest Sally, I dare say you see how it was—about mother. It was very stupid of me, and I did it very badly. I got puzzled, and lost my head."
"I thought it was a real young lady, anyhow."
"I saw you did. And I do think—just now—I should have let you continue believing in the real young lady ... only when you said that...."
"Said what?"
"Said that about your husband, and calling me Conrad. I couldn't stand it. It was just like a knife ... no, I'm in earnest, itwas. How could I have borne it—gone on at all—with you married to any one else?" He asks this in a tone of serious conviction, of one who is diagnosing a strange case, conscientiously. Sally declines consultation—won't be too serious over it.
"You would have had to. Men get on capitally when they have to. But very likely I won't marry you. Don't be too sure! I haven't committed myself, you know." Nevertheless, the hand remains passive in the doctor's, as he continues his diagnosis: