I had been told nothing about it, but I would have wagered my boot-trees
that Carrie and Bassishaw had had a tiff. In the first place, Carrie had
invited me to accompany them to the opera when she knew that my
acceptance was possible, which was contrary to her usual practice. My
presence on such occasions had of late been not indispensable; and these
young people had gone about together with an aggressive air of
sufficiency in each other’s company that had insulated them from my
attentions and led me to muse on the thanklessness of youth.
“Are you going out with Arthur this evening, my dear?” I had asked.
“Well, yes, Rollo,” she had replied diffidently, “Arthur particularly
wanted to take me to St. James’s Hall.”
“It is a refining entertainment. I haven’t heard Moore and Burgess for a
long time. I think I’ll come with you.”
My sister evaded the main point, and countered on the inessential.
“It’s not Moore and Burgess,” she replied. “It’s a ballad concert.”
“'On the banks of the Wabash far away,’” I answered. “A simple sentiment
would suit me exactly this evening. Yes, I think I’ll come, thank you,
Caroline.”
“I should like you to, Rol, dear, you know; but your cold----”
Of course, my cold; I didn’t know I had one, but they had made a chronic
asthmatic of me lately.
“And besides, Rol, Mr. Chatterton said he might call this evening. I’m
awfully sorry, dear; but can you come to-morrow to the Globe matinée?”
They knew my prospective engagements better than I knew them myself.
There was a trifling foolish committee meeting toward to-morrow, and
with that I had to be content.
But a tiff is the Compleat Bachelor’s opportunity, and in the invitation
to _Tristan_ I spied entertainment.
Carrie had sunk gently on my knee, and had placed a small finger through
a buttonhole of my coat. Bassishaw had just called, dressed with the
immaculate precision of one who has made up his mind to sulk in his
stall, and had taken up a book on jurisprudence which I kept
conscientiously on my table, an imposing reminiscence of my younger
days. He watched Carrie furtively over the top of it.
“Please, Rol,” she said, the finger working detrimentally through the
buttonhole. “You know you love _Tristan_, and Jean and Edouard----”
“But three cannot listen to _Tristan_,” I replied. “Whose hand am I
to----”
She came closer, and a mute look in her eyes said that an Irrevocable
Destiny had made of her life a Blighted Tract.
“But my cold, Caroline?” I asked consumptively.
“Oh, Rollo, you shall have hot rum directly you come in, and I’ll nurse
you. _Do_ come.”
I acceded with secret joy, on the condition of being spared the remedy
she suggested.
“Then we will dine out,” I added.
We did so, in a gloomy depression of spirits that was eminently
desirable. Carrie’s humor was not improved by the sight of a man at the
next table, apparently chastely-minded, but who took chutney to a
grilled steak. She has an instinct for dietetic refinements, and looks
on culinary barbarity as worse than untruthfulness.
I had to do most of the talking, which I did, I think, in a naïve
unconsciousness of the summer cloudlet that loomed glowering over the
party. I spoke of youth. I said, Heaven forgive me, that it was the
happiest period of life; that when the heart smiled in love the skies
had a blueness; and much more of the same kind. Bassishaw grunted
remarks on the Transvaal prospect, and for Carrie’s benefit muttered
something about shipment of troops and leave-taking at Waterloo.
“I’m going to see about my kit to-morrow,” he added, and drank three
liqueurs recklessly. Three liqueurs is a great compliment to the girl
you love; four the very abandonment of careless devilry.
Carrie tried feebly to show unconcern as to their effect on his
constitution, and I took coffee in huge enjoyment.
Bassishaw tipped the waiter with imprudent extravagance, hailed a
passing hansom cabby--“Passing, not passing handsome,” I ventured to
observe, but got no response--and magnanimously bowed Carrie and myself
into the cab, saying he would follow. I told Carrie on the way that I
could not have wished a more desirable brother-in-law.
At the opera I modestly took the end stall of the three, but Carrie
moved me along. She then settled herself listlessly on my right, while
Bassishaw, who had arrived, glowered at the side-drums on my left.
He was utterly indifferent to the entrance of the conductor, and the
overture to _Tristan_ evidently brought no peace to his soul. He fumed
unholily, and threw himself about in his seat in a way that drew a
remonstrating remark from an ardent Vaaagnerite on his left. At the end
of the first act he went out for a cigarette, apologising with formality
as Carrie gathered up her gown to allow him to pass. Carrie’s pretty
neck bowed a graceful aloofness. When his straight back disappeared
behind the curtain, my sister throwing a slanting glance to see if he
turned round, I sought her eyes, and leaned over, speaking softly.
“Was it about your writing, my literary little sister?” I asked.
She assented with a little gulp.
“Tell me, my dear,” I said, turning my back on the Vaaagnerite next
Arthur’s empty seat, who was talking the cult rather stridently.
She told me in pure innocence of the Conflict between Literature and
Love. She spoke of the Devotion to Work and the Sacredness of a Mission.
The dear little soul was going to enlighten the peoples!
“And I asked Arthur’s opinion,” she said, her breast rising.
Never till then had I realised the forgetfulness of love.
Arthur’s opinion on literature!
“And what did Arthur say, Caroline?” I asked, composing myself as best I
could.
“He said he didn’t want women to be clever, and they had no business to
be. He thought they only ought to be pretty, and I was only inking my
fingers. Then I told him what George Eliot said, and he said I’d been
reading _Half Hours with the Best Authors_.”
“And then you quarrelled?”
“Ssh--yes.”
Arthur entered at this moment, and stumbled back to his seat. The
Vaaagnerite broke off Götterdammerung at the third syllable, and I fancy
Arthur had trodden on his toes. I had great sympathy with Arthur. I
particularly liked his views on the art question; but he would have to
unbend to this poor little child on my right.
She had turned her head on her shoulder during the love duet, and I
could not see her face. I held out my hand for her opera-glasses, and
raised them to my eyes. The lenses were wet with tears--I suspected it.
I quietly passed them on to Bassishaw, with the message still moist upon
them. It is only once in a lifetime you see _Tristan_ through such a
medium.
The next interval Bassishaw did not smoke, but remained in his stall. He
had heard the love duet, too. I turned to him.
“That was wonderful music, Bassishaw,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “Do you know, Butterfield, I think it’s awful fine,
by Jove. I can understand Johnnies doing that kind of thing, you know.”
“Quite so,” I answered. “To the Artist-Soul”--(I capitalised the words
pompously with my voice)--“to the Artist-Soul, creation is not a choice,
but a need. The French realise that in their word _besogne_----”
He was not listening, and broke in:
“You know, Butterfield, a Johnny must have a darned useful brain-box on
him to do that--that sort of thing. It made me feel no end queer.
There’s an awful lot in it, don’t you think?”
Poor Bassishaw thought he understood the music, but it was the
opera-glasses that had fetched him. He went on:
“It’s darned funny that a chap should do that instead of drill and depôt
work, you know, Butterfield. You know, I always thought too confounded
much of curves and trajectory, and all that stuff. I always thought a
chap was a bit of a muff who fooled with music and verses and all that,
do you know.”
The confession was not without a touch of the pathetic, but I maintained
a diplomatic silence.
After a thoughtful pause he continued:
“Do you think, Rollo--do you think--would--would Carrie ever do anything
of that sort?--I--I--mean, something that makes a chap feel--oh, hang
it, you know what I mean.”
What could I say? My little sister was looking very miserable--abstract
truth is all very well--I temporised.
“Well, Bassishaw, it can’t be done without trying. You’ve got to stick
at it. The continual _enfantement_----”
“I know,” he interrupted, “sort of keep it up steady, like these gunnery
Johnnies. It must be darned hard. Do you know, Butterfield,” he said,
dropping his voice suddenly, “Carrie and I--we’ve had a kind
of--nothing, you know--but--a bit of a split.”
“You surprise me,” I replied.
“Yes, we have, really; and I think I was a bit of a brute.”
He rambled in explanations, which I punctuated with “Dear, dear.” Carrie
laid her hand on my sleeve, and I turned to her.
“Rol,” she whispered, “do send Arthur for some coffee. I want to talk to
you.”
Arthur was despatched to find a waiter, and I attended Carrie’s pleasure
while she twisted her fingers nervously through the opera-glasses.
“Rol,” she said, “I’m so unhappy.”
“The Wings of Sorrow have brushed your life and left it an Arid Waste,”
I replied sententiously, hugely amused. She didn’t divine the raillery.
“But surely, Rol, the heart is ripened through suffering,” she replied
unconsciously.
“Yes,” I replied. “The Separation of Souls is not Eternal. Those we love
are severed from us in the flesh, but in Heaven----”
She looked suspiciously, but my face was very grave. The waiter appeared
with coffee, and Arthur resumed his seat, this time without apology. He
was anxious to make it up, but I didn’t offer him my seat. I wanted to
see the particular kind of _finesse_ he would adopt, so lay low and
watched him.
The music recommenced, and Caroline, by some inattentiveness, retained
her coffee cup, which I believe she mentally identified with Isolde’s
love potion. Bassishaw was revolving ways and means, but the cup hint
was not obvious to him. Isolde began the Liebestod song, while the head
of the Vaaagnerite beyond Arthur was sunk in his hands, possibly not to
see the corpulent heroine, whose presence was somewhat disturbing to the
music. The Wagner hush was over all.
It was broken by Bassishaw. Unable to solve the difficulty, he cut the
knot. His hand came over my knee, and took the hand of Caroline that was
hanging in limp appeal nearest him. She turned her face away, but
allowed the hand to remain. It was all over, and I leaned back to
commune with my thoughts, and to adjust my mind to the prospect of being
once more a superfluity.
“I say, Butterfield, old chap,” Bassishaw whispered to me, “do you mind
changing places? This is rather awkward, you know.”
“It is conspicuous,” I replied, “but commendably frank. I rather admire
your way of doing these things, Bassishaw. But we can’t change now.
You’ll have to wait your opportunity of giving me the slip in the
foyer--I’ve no doubt you’ll attempt it.”
It would do them no harm to wait a while.