Discussion about the fancy dress ball, as Mrs. Altham had said, was
paramount over all other topics for at least a fortnight after the
event, and the great question which annually became of such absorbing
interest during July--namely, as to where to spend August, was dwarfed
and never attained to its ordinary proportions till quite late on in the
month. These discussions did not, as a rule, bear fruit of any kind,
since, almost without exception, everybody spent August exactly where
August had been spent by him for the last dozen years or so, but it was
clearly wise to consider the problem afresh every year, and be prepared,
in case some fresh resort suggested itself, to change the habit of
years, or at least to consider doing so. The lists of hotels at the end
of Bradshaw, and little handbooks published by the South-Eastern Railway
were, as a rule, almost the only form of literature indulged in during
these evenings of July, and Mr. Altham, whose imagination was always
fired by pictures of ships, often studied the sailings of River Plate
steamers, and considered that the fares were very reasonable, especially
steerage. The fact that he was an appallingly bad sailor in no way
diminished the zest with which he studied their sailings and the prices
thereof. Subsequently he and Mrs. Altham always spent August at
Littlestone-on-Sea, in a completely detached villa called Blenheim,
where a capable Scotchwoman, who, to add colour to the illusion,
maintained that her name really was Churchill, boarded and lodged them
on solid food and feather beds. During July, it may be remarked, Mrs.
Altham usually contrived to quarrel with her cook, who gave notice. Thus
there was one mouth less to feed while they were away, and yearly, on
their return, they had the excitement of new and surprising confections
from the kitchen.
Mrs. Ames, it may be remembered, had already enjoyed a fortnight’s
holiday at Overstrand this year, and the last week of July saw her still
disinclined to make holiday plans. They had taken a sort of bungalow
near Deal for the last year or two, which, among other advantages, was
built in such a manner that any remark made in any part of the house
could be heard in any other part of the house. It was enough almost for
her to say, as she finished dressing, “We are ready for breakfast,” to
hear Parker replying from the kitchen, “The kettle’s just on the boil,
ma’am.” This year, however, she had been late in inquiring whether it
was vacant for August, and she found, when her belated letter was
answered, that it was already engaged.
This fact she broke to her husband and Harry, who had returned from
Cambridge with hair unusually wild and lank, with tempered indignation.
“Considering how many years we have taken it,” she said, “I must say
that I think they should have told us before letting it over our heads
like this. But I always thought that Mrs. Mackenzie was a most grasping
sort of person who would be likely to take the first offer that turned
up, and I’m sure the house was never very comfortable. I have no doubt
we can easily find a better without much bother!”
“My bedroom ceiling always leaked,” said Harry; “and there was nowhere
to write at!”
Mrs. Ames had finished her breakfast and got up. She felt faintly in her
mind that after the fancy dress ball it was time for her to do something
original. Yet the whole idea was so novel.... Riseborough would be sure
to say that they had not been able to afford a holiday. But, after all,
that mattered very little.
“I really don’t know why we always take the trouble to go away to an
uncomfortable lodging during August,” she said, “and leave our own
comfortable house standing vacant.”
Major Ames, had he been a horse, would have pricked up his ears at this.
But the human ear being unadapted to such movements, he contented
himself with listening avidly. He had seen little of Millie this last
fortnight, and was beginning to realize how much he missed her presence.
Between them, it is true, they had come near to an intimacy which had
its dangers, which he really feared more than he desired, but he felt,
with that self-deception that comes so easily to those who know nothing
about themselves, that he was on his guard now. Meantime, he missed her,
and guessed quite truly that she missed him. And, poor prig, he told
himself that he had no right to cut off that which gave her pleasure. He
could be Spartan over his own affairs, if so minded, but he must not
play Lycurgus to others. And an idea that had privately occurred to him,
which at the time seemed incapable of realization, suddenly leaped into
the possible horizons.
“And you always complain of the dampness of strange houses, Lyndhurst,”
she added; “and as Harry says, he has no place for writing and study.
Why should we go away at all? I am sure, after the excitement of the
last month, it would be a complete rest to remain here when everybody
else is gone. I have not had a moment to myself this last month, and I
should not be at all sorry to stop quietly here.”
Major Ames knew with sufficient accuracy the influence he had over his
wife. He realized, that is to say, as far as regarded the present
instance, that slight opposition on his part usually produced a
corresponding firmness on hers. Accentuated opposition produced various
results; sometimes he won, sometimes she. But mild remonstrance always
confirmed her views in opposition to his. He had a plan of his own on
this occasion, and her determination to remain in Riseborough would
prove to be in alliance with it. Therefore he mildly remonstrated.
“You would regret it before the month was out,” he said. “For me, I’m an
old campaigner, and I hope I can make myself comfortable anywhere. But
you would get bored before the end of August, Amy, and when you get
bored your digestion is invariably affected.”
“I should like to stop in Riseborough,” said Harry. “I hate the sea.”
“You will go wherever your mother settles to go, my boy,” said Major
Ames, still pursuing his plan. “If she wishes to go to Sheffield for
August, you and I will go too, and--and no doubt learn something useful
about cutlery. But don’t try stopping in Riseborough, my dear Amy. At
least, if you take my advice, you won’t.”
Major Ames was not very intelligent, but the highest intelligence could
not have done better. He had learned the trick of slight opposition,
just as a stupid dog with a Conservative master can learn to growl for
Asquith by incessant repetition. When it has learned it, it does it
right. The Major had done it right on this occasion.
“I do not see why Harry should not have a voice in the question of where
we spend his vacation,” she said. “Certainly your room at the bungalow,
Lyndhurst, was comfortable enough, but that was the only decent room in
the house. In any case we cannot get the bungalow for this August. Have
you any other plans as to where we should go?”
There was room for a little more of his policy of opposition.
“Well, now, Brighton,” he said. “Why not Brighton? There’s a club there;
I dare say I should get a little Bridge in the evening, and no doubt you
would pick up some acquaintances, Amy. I think the Westbournes went
there last year.”
This remarkable reason for going to Brighton made Mrs. Ames almost
epigrammatic.
“And then we could go on to Margate,” she remarked, “and curry favour
there.”
“By all means, my dear,” said he. “I dare say the curry would be quite
inexpensive.”
Mrs. Ames opened the door on to the verandah.
“Pray let me know, Lyndhurst,” she said, “if you have any serious
proposition to make.”
It was Major Ames’ custom to start work in the garden immediately after
breakfast, but this morning he got out one of his large-sized cheroots
instead (these conduced to meditation), and established himself in a
chair on the verandah. His mental development was not, in most regards,
of a very high or complex order, but he possessed that rather rare
attainment of being able to sit down and think about one thing to the
exclusion of others. With most of us to sit down and think about one
thing soon resolves itself into a confused survey of most other things;
Major Ames could do better than that, for he could, and on this occasion
did exclude all other topics from his mind, and at the end return, so to
speak, “bringing his sheaves with him.” He had made a definite and
reasonable plan.
* * * * *
Harry had communicated the interesting fact of his passion for Mrs.
Evans to the Omar Khayyam Club, and was, of course, bound to prosecute
his nefarious intrigue. He had already written several galloping lyrics,
a little loose in grammar and rhyme, to his enchantress, which he had
copied into a small green morocco note-book, the title-page of which he
had inscribed as “Dedicated to M. E.” This looked a Narcissus-like
proceeding to any one who did not remember what Mrs. Evans’ initials
were. This afternoon, feeling the poetic afflatus blowing a gale within
him, but having nothing definite to say, he decided to call on the
inspirer of his muse, in order to gather fresh fuel for his fire.
Arrayed in a very low collar, which showed the full extent of his rather
scraggy neck, and adorned with a red tie, for socialism was no less an
orthodoxy in the club than atheistic principles and illicit love, he set
secretly out, and had the good fortune to find the goddess alone, and
was welcomed with that rather timid, childlike deference that he had
found so adorable before.
“But how good of you to come and see me,” she said, “when I’m sure you
must have so many friends wanting you. I think it is so kind.”
Clearly she was timid; she did not know her power. Her eyes were bluer
than ever; her hair was of palest gold, “As I remembered her of old,” he
thought to himself, referring to the evening at the end of June. Indeed,
there was a poem dated June 28, rather a daring one.
“The kindness is entirely on your side,” he said, “in letting me come,
and”--he longed to say--“worship,” but did not quite dare--“and have tea
with you.”
“Dear me, that is a selfish sort of kindness,” she said. “Let us go into
the garden. I think it was very unkind of you, Mr. Harry, not to come to
my dance last week. But of course you Cambridge men have more serious
things to think about than little country parties.”
“I thought about nothing else but your dance for days,” said he; “but my
tutor simply refused to let me come down for it. A narrow, pedantic
fellow, who I don’t suppose ever danced. Tell me about your dress; I
like to picture you in a fancy dress.”
She could not help appearing to wish to attract. It was as much the
fault of the way her head was set on to her neck, of the colour of her
eyes, as of her mind.
“Oh, quite a simple white frock,” she said; “and a few pearls.
They--they wanted me to go as Cleopatra. So silly--me with a grown-up
daughter. But my husband insisted.”
The fancy dress ball had not been talked about at Mrs. Ames’ lately, and
he had heard nothing about it in the two days he had been at home. Both
his parents had reason for letting it pass into the region of things
that are done with.
“Did mother and father go?” he asked. “I suppose they felt too old to
dress up?”
“Oh, no. They came as Antony and Cleopatra. Have they not told you?
Cousin Amy looked so--so interesting. And your father was splendid as
Mark Antony.”
“Then was Dr. Evans Mark Antony too?” asked Harry.
“No; he was Timon of Athens.”
“Then who was your Mark Antony?” he asked.
Mrs. Evans felt herself flushing, and her annoyance at herself made her
awkward in the pouring out of tea. She felt that Harry’s narrow,
gimlet-like eyes were fixed on her.
“See how stupid I am,” she said. “I have spilled your tea in the saucer.
Dear Mr. Harry, we had heaps of Cleopatras: Mrs. Altham was one, Mrs.
Brooks was another. We danced with Hamlets, and--and anybody.”
But this crude, ridiculous youth, she felt, had some idea in his head.
“And did father and mother dance together all the evening?” he asked.
She felt herself growing impatient.
“Of course not. Everybody danced with everybody. We had quadrilles; all
sorts of things.”
Then, with the mistaken instinct that makes us cautious in the wrong
place, she determined to say a little more.
“But your father was so kind to me,” she said. “He helped me with all
the arrangements. I could never have managed it except for him. We had
tremendous days of talking and planning about it. Now tell me all about
Cambridge.”
But Harry was scenting a sonnet of the most remarkable character. It
might be called The Rivals, and would deal with a situation which the
Omar Khayyam Club would certainly feel to be immensely “parful.”
“I suppose mother helped you, too?” he said.
This was Byronic, lacerating. She had to suffer as well as he ... there
was a pungent line already complete. “But who had suffered as much as
me?” was the refrain. There were thrills in store for the Omar Khayyam
Club. After a sufficiency of yellow wine.
“Cousin Amy was away,” said Mrs. Evans. “She was staying at Cromer till
just before my little dance. That is not far from Cambridge, is it? I
suppose she came over to see you.”
Harry spared her, and did not press these questions. But enough had been
said to show that she had broken faith with him. “Rivals” could suitably
become quite incoherent towards the close. Incoherency was sometimes a
great convenience, for exclamatory rhymes were not rare.
He smoothed the lank hair off his forehead, and tactfully changed the
subject.
“And I suppose you are soon going away now,” he said. “I am lucky to
have seen you at all. We are going to stop here all August, I think. My
mother does not want to go away. Nor do I; not that they either of them
care about that.”
Mrs. Evans’ slight annoyance with him was suddenly merged in interest.
“How wise!” she said. “It is so absurd to go to stay somewhere
uncomfortably instead of remaining comfortably. I wish we were doing the
same. But my husband always has to go to Harrogate for a few weeks. And
he likes me to be with him. I shall think of you all and envy you
stopping here in this charming Riseborough.”
“You like it?” asked Harry.
“How should I not with so many delightful people being friendly to me?
Relations too; Cousin Amy, for instance, and Major Ames, and, let me
see, if Mrs. Ames is my cousin, surely you are cousin Harry?”
Harry became peculiarly fascinating, and craned his long neck forward.
“Oh, leave out the ‘cousin,’” he said.
“How sweet of you--Harry,” she said.
That, so to speak, extracted the poison-fangs from the projected
“Rivals,” and six mysterious postcards were placed by the author’s hand
in the pillar-box that evening. Each consisted of one mystic sentence.
“She calls me by my Christian name.” By a most convenient circumstance,
too apt to be considered accidental, there had here come to birth an
octo-syllabic line, of honeyed sweetness and simplicity. He was not slow
to take advantage of it, and the moon setting not long before daybreak
saw another completed gem of the M. E. series.
* * * * *
Mrs. Evans that afternoon, like Major Ames that morning, “sat and
thought,” after Harry had left her. Independently of the fact that all
admirers, even the weirdest, always found welcome in her pale blue eyes,
she felt really grateful to Harry, for he had given her the information
on which she based a plan which was quite as sound and simple as Major
Ames’, and was designed to secure the same object. Since the night of
the fancy dress ball she had only seen him once or twice, and never
privately, and the greater vitality which, by the wondrous processes of
affinity, he had stirred in her, hungered for its sustenance. It cannot
be said that she was even now really conscious in herself of disloyalty
to her husband, or that she actually contemplated any breach of faith.
She had not at present sufficient force of feeling to imagine a decisive
situation; but she could at most lash her helm, so to speak, so that the
action of the wind would take her boat in the direction in which she
wished to go, and then sit idly on deck, saying that she was not
responsible for the course she was pursuing. The wind, the tide, the
currents were irresistibly impelling her; she had nothing to do with the
rudder, having tied it, she did not touch it. Like the majority in this
world of miserable sinners, she did not actively court the danger she
desired, but she hung about expectant of it. At the same time she kept
an anxious eye on the shore towards which she was driving. Was it really
coming closer? If so, why did she seem to have made no way lately?
To-day her plan betokened a more active hand in what she thought of as
fate, but unfortunately, though it was as sound in itself as Major
Ames’, it was made independently and ignorantly of that which had
prompted his slight opposition this morning, so that, while each plan
was admirable enough in itself, the two, taken in conjunction, would, if
successful, result in a fiasco almost sublime in its completeness. The
manner of which was as follows.
Elsie, it so happened, was not at home that evening, and she and her
husband dined alone, and strolled out in the garden afterwards.
“You will miss your chess this evening, dear,” she said. “Or would it
amuse you to give me a queen and a few bishops and knights, and see how
long it takes you to defeat me? Or shall we spend a little cosy chatty
evening together? I hope no horrid people will be taken ill, and send
for you.”
“So do I, little woman,” he said (she was getting to detest
appellation). “And as if I shouldn’t enjoy a quiet evening of talk with
you more than fifty games of chess! But, dear me, I shall be glad to get
away to Harrogate this year! I need a month of it badly. I shall
positively enjoy the foul old rotten-egg smell.”
She gave a little shudder.
“Oh, don’t talk of it,” she said. “It is bad enough without thinking of
it beforehand.”
“Poor little woman! Almost a pity you are not gouty too. Then we should
both look forward to it.”
She sat down on one of the shrubbery seats, and drew aside her skirts,
making room for him to sit beside her.
“Yes, but as I am not gouty, Wilfred,” she said. “It is no use wishing I
was. And I do hate Harrogate so. I wonder----”
She gave a little sigh and put her arm within his.
“Well, what’s the little woman wondering now?” he asked.
“I hardly like to tell you. You are always so kind to me that I don’t
know why I am afraid. Wilfred, would you think it dreadful of me, if I
suggested not going with you this year? I’m sure it makes me ill to be
there. You will have Elsie; you will play chess as usual with her all
evening. You see all morning you are at your baths, and you usually are
out bicycling all afternoon with her. I don’t think you know how I hate
it.”
She had begun in her shy, tentative manner. But her voice grew more cold
and decided. She put forward her arguments like a woman who has thought
it all carefully over, as indeed she had.
“But what will you do with yourself, my dear?” he said. “It seems a
funny plan. You can’t stop here alone.”
She sat up, taking her hand from his arm.
“Indeed, I should not be as lonely here as I am at Harrogate,” she said.
“We don’t know anybody there, and if you think of it, I am really alone
most of the time. It is different for you, because it is doing you good,
and, as I say, you are bicycling with Elsie all the afternoon, and you
play chess together in the evening.”
A shade of trouble and perplexity came over the doctor’s face; the
indictment, for it was hardly less than that, was as well-ordered and
digested as if it had been prepared for a forensic argument. And the
calm, passionless voice went on.
“Think of my day there,” she said, going into orderly detail. “After
breakfast you go off to your baths, and I have to sit in that dreadful
sitting-room while they clear the things away. Even a hotel would be
more amusing than those furnished lodgings; one could look at the people
going in and out. Or if I go for a stroll in the morning, I get tired,
and must rest in the afternoon. You come in to lunch, and go off with
Elsie afterwards. That is quite right; the exercise is good for you, but
what is the use of my being there? There is nobody for me to go to see,
nobody comes to see me. Then we have dinner, and I have the excitement
of learning where you and Elsie have been bicycling. You two play chess
after dinner, and I have the excitement of being told who has won. Here,
at any rate, I can sit in a room that doesn’t smell of dinner, or I can
sit in the garden. I have my own books and things about me, and there
are people I know whom I can see and talk to.”
He got up, and began walking up and down the path in front of the bench
where they had been sitting, his kindly soul in some perplexity.
“Nothing wrong, little woman?” he asked.
“Certainly not. Why should you think that? I imagine there is reason
enough in what I have told you. I do get so bored there, Wilfred. And I
hate being bored. I am sure it is not good for me, either. Try to
picture my life there, and see how utterly different it is from yours.
Besides, as I say, it is doing you good all the time, and as you
yourself said, you welcome the thought of that horrible smelling water.”
He still shuffled up and down in the dusk. That, too, got on her nerves.
“Pray sit down, Wilfred,” she said. “Your walking about like that
confuses me. And surely you can say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to me. If you insist
on my going with you, I shall go. But I shall think it very unreasonable
of you.”
“But I can’t say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ like that, little woman,” he said. “I
don’t imagine you have thought how dull Riseborough will be during
August. Everybody goes away, I believe.”
For a moment she thought of telling him that the Ames’ were going to
stop here: then, with entirely misplaced caution, she thought wiser to
keep that to herself. She, guilty in the real reason for wishing to
remain here, though coherent and logical enough in the account she had
given him of her reason, thought, grossly wronging him, that some seed
of suspicion might hereby enter her husband’s mind.
“There is sure to be some one here,” she said. “The Althams, for
instance, do not go away till the middle of August.”
“You do not particularly care for them,” said he.
“No, but they are better than nobody. All day at Harrogate I have
nobody. It is not companionship to sit in the room with you and Elsie
playing chess. Besides, the Westbournes will be at home. I shall go over
there a great deal, I dare say. Also I shall be in my own house, which
is comfortable, and which I am fond of. Our lodgings at Harrogate
disgust me. They are all oilcloth and plush; there is nowhere to sit
when they are clearing away.”
His face was still clouded.
“But it is so odd for a married woman to stop alone like that,” he said.
“I think it is far odder for her husband to want her to spend a month of
loneliness and boredom in lodgings,” she said. “Because I have never
complained, Wilfred, you think I haven’t detested it. But on thinking it
over it seems to me more sensible to tell you how I detest it, and ask
you that I shouldn’t go.”
He was silent a moment.
“Very well, little woman,” he said at length. “You shall do as you
please.”
Instantly the cold precision of her speech changed. She gave that little
sigh of conscious content with which she often woke in the morning, and
linked her arm into his again.
“Ah, that is dear of you,” she said. “You are always such a darling to
me.”
He was not a man to give grudging consents, or spoil a gift by offering
it except with the utmost cordiality.
“I only hope you’ll make a great success of it, little woman,” he said.
“And it must be dull for you at Harrogate. So that’s settled, and we’re
all satisfied. Let us see if Elsie has come in yet.”
She laughed softly.
“You are a dear,” she said again.
* * * * *
Wilfred Evans was neither analytical regarding himself nor curious about
analysis that might account for the action of others. Just as in his
professional work he was rather old-fashioned, but eminently safe and
sensible, so in the ordinary conduct of his life he did not seek for
abstruse causes and subtle motives. It was quite enough for him that his
wife felt that she would be excruciatingly bored at Harrogate, and less
acutely desolate here. On the other hand, it implied violation of one of
the simplest customs of life that a wife should be in one place and her
husband in another. That was vaguely disquieting to him. Disquieting
also was the cold, precise manner with which she had conducted her case.
A dozen times only, perhaps, in all their married life had she assumed
this frozen rigidity of demeanour; each time he had succumbed before it.
In the ordinary way, if their inclinations were at variance, she would
coax and wheedle him into yielding or, though quietly adhering to her
own opinion, she would let him have his way. But with her calm rigidity,
rarely assumed, he had never successfully combated; there was a
steeliness about it that he knew to be stronger than any opposition he
could bring to it. Nothing seemed to affect it, neither argument nor
conjugal command. She would go on saying “I do not agree with you,” in
the manner of cool water dripping on a stone. Or with the same
inexorable quietness she would repeat, “I feel very strongly about it: I
think it very unkind of you.” And a sufficiency of that always had
rendered his opposition impotent: her will, when once really aroused,
seemed to paralyse his. Once or twice her line had turned out
conspicuously ill. That seemed to make no difference: the cold, precise
manner was on higher plane than the material failure which had resulted
therefrom. She would merely repeat, “But it was the best thing to do
under the circumstances.”
In this instance he wondered a little that she had used this manner over
a matter that seemed so little vital as the question of Harrogate, but
by next morning he had ceased to concern himself further with it. She
was completely her usual self again, and soon after breakfast set off to
accomplish some little errands in the town, looking in on him in his
laboratory to know if there were any commissions she could do for him.
His eye at the moment was glued to his microscope: a culture of
staphylococcus absorbed him, and without looking up, he said--
“Nothing, thanks, little woman.”
He heard her pause: then she came across the room to him, and laid her
cool hand on his shoulder.
“Wilfred, you are such a dear to me,” she said. “You’re not vexed with
me?”
He interrupted his observations, and put his arm round her.
“Vexed?” he said. “I’ll tell you when I’m vexed.”
She smiled at him, dewily, timidly.
“That’s all right, then,” she said.
So her plan was accomplished.
* * * * *
The affair of the staphylococcus did not long detain the doctor, and
presently after Major Ames was announced. He had come to consult Dr.
Evans with regard to certain gouty symptoms into which the doctor
inquired and examined.
“There’s nothing whatever to worry about,” he said, after a very short
investigation. “I should recommend you to cut off alcohol entirely, and
not eat meat more than once a day. A fortnight’s dieting will probably
cure you. And take plenty of exercise. I won’t give you any medicine.
There is no use in taking drugs when you can produce the same effect by
not taking other things.”
Major Ames fidgeted and frowned a little.
“I was thinking,” he said at length, “of taking myself more thoroughly
in hand than that. I’ve never approved of half-measures, and I can’t
begin now. If a tooth aches have it out, and be done with it. No
fiddling about for me. Now my wife does not want to go away this August,
and it seemed to me that it would be a very good opportunity for me to
go, as you do, I think, and take a course of waters. Get rid of the
tendency, don’t you know, eradicate it. What do you say to that?
Harrogate now; I was thinking of Harrogate, if you approved. Harrogate
does wonders for gout, does it not?”
The doctor laughed.
“I am certainly hoping that Harrogate will do wonders for me,” he said.
“I go there every year. And no doubt many of us who are getting on in
years would be benefited by it. But your symptoms are very slight. I
think you will soon get rid of them if you follow the course I suggest.”
But Major Ames showed a strange desire for Harrogate.
“Well, I like to do things thoroughly,” he said. “I like getting rid of
a thing root and branch, you know. You see I may not get another
opportunity. Amy likes me to go with her on her holiday in August, but
there is no reason why I should stop in Riseborough. I haven’t spoken to
her yet, but if I could say that you recommended Harrogate, I’m sure she
would wish me to go. Indeed, she would insist on my going. She is often
anxious about my gouty tendencies, more anxious, as I often tell her,
than she has any need to be. But an aunt of hers had an attack which
went to her heart quite unexpectedly, and killed her, poor thing. I
think, indeed, it would be a weight off Amy’s mind if she knew I was
going to take myself thoroughly in hand, not tinker and peddle about
with diet only. So would you be able to recommend me to go to
Harrogate?”
“A course of Harrogate wouldn’t be bad for any of us who eat a good
dinner every night,” said Dr. Evans. “But I think that if you tried----”
Major Ames got up, waving all further discussion aside.
“That’s enough, doctor,” he said. “If it would do me good, I know Amy
would wish me to go; you know what wives are. Now I’m pressed for time
this morning, and so I am sure are you. By the way, you needn’t mention
my plan till I’ve talked it over with Amy. But about lodgings, now. Do
you recommend lodgings or an hotel?”
Dr. Evans did not mention that his wife was not going to be with him
this year, for, having obtained permission to say that Harrogate would
do him good, Major Ames had developed a prodigious hurry, and a few
moments after was going jauntily home, with the address of Dr. Evans’
lodgings in his pocket. He trusted to his own powers of exaggeration to
remove all possible opposition on his wife’s part, and felt himself the
devil of a diplomatist.
So his plan was arranged.
The third factor in this network of misconceived plots occurred the same
morning. Mrs. Ames, visiting the High Street on account of an advanced
melon, met Cousin Millie on some similar errand to the butcher’s on
account of advanced cutlets, for the weather was trying. It was natural
that she announced her intention of remaining in Riseborough with her
family during August: it was natural also that Cousin Millie signified
the remission from Harrogate. Cousin Amy was cordial on the subject, and
returned home. Probably she would have mentioned this fact to her
husband, if he had given her time to do it. But he was bursting with a
more immediate communication.
“I didn’t like to tell you before, Amy,” he said, “because I didn’t want
to make you unnecessarily anxious. And there’s no need for anxiety now.”
Mrs. Ames was not very imaginative, but it occurred to her that the
newly-planted magnolia had not been prospering.
“No real cause for anxiety,” he said. “But the fact is that I went to
see Dr. Evans this morning--don’t be frightened, my dear--and got
thoroughly overhauled by him, thoroughly overhauled. He said there was
no reason for anxiety, assured me of it. But I’m gouty, my dear, there’s
no doubt of it, and of course you remember about your poor Aunt
Harriet. Well, there it is. And he says Harrogate. A bore, of course,
but Harrogate. But no cause for anxiety: he told me so twice.”
Mrs. Ames gave one moment to calm, clear, oyster-like reflection,
unhurried, unalarmed. There was no shadow of reason why she should tell
him what Mrs. Evans’ plans were. But it was odd that she should suddenly
decide to stop in Riseborough, instead of going to Harrogate, having
heard from Harry that the Ames’ were to remain at home, and Lyndhurst as
suddenly be impelled to go to Harrogate, instead of stopping in
Riseborough. A curious coincidence. Everybody seemed to be making plans.
At any rate she would not add to their number, but only acquiesce in
those which were made.
“My dear Lyndhurst, what an upset!” she said. “Of course, if you tell me
there is no cause for anxiety, I will not be anxious. Does Dr. Evans
recommend you to go to Harrogate now? You must tell me all he said. They
always go in August, do they not? That will be pleasant for you. But I
am afraid you will find the waters far from palatable.”
Major Ames felt that he had not made a sufficiently important
impression.
“Of course, I told Dr. Evans I could decide nothing till I had consulted
you,” he said. “It seems a great break-up to leave you and Harry here
and go away like this. It was that I was thinking of, not whether waters
a palatable or not. I have more than half a mind not to go. I daresay I
shall worry through all right without.”
Again Mrs. Ames made a little pause.
“You must do as Dr. Evans tells you to do,” she said. “I am sure he is
not faddy or fussy.”
Major Ames’ experience of him this morning fully endorsed this.
Certainly he had been neither, whatever the difference between the two
might be.
“Well, my dear, if both you and Dr. Evans are agreed,” he said, “I
mustn’t set myself up against you.”
“Now did he tell you where to go?”
“He gave me the address of his own lodgings.”
“What a convenient arrangement! Now, my dear, I beg you to waste no
time. Send off a telegram, and pay the reply, and we’ll pack you off
to-morrow. I am sure it is the right thing to do.”
* * * * *
A sudden conviction, painfully real, that he was behaving currishly,
descended on Major Ames. The feeling was so entirely new to him that he
would have liked to put it down to an obsession of gout in a new
place--the conscience, for instance, for he could hardly believe that he
should be self-accused of paltry conduct. He felt as if there must be
some mistake about it. He almost wished that Amy had made difficulties;
then there would have been the compensatory idea that she was behaving
badly too. But she could not have conducted herself in a more
guilelessly sympathetic manner; she seemed to find no inherent
improbability in Dr. Evans having counselled Harrogate, no question as
to the advisability of following his advice. It was almost unpleasant to
him to have things made so pleasant.
But then this salutary impression was effaced, for anything that
savoured of self-reproach could not long find harbourage in his mind.
Instead, he pictured himself at Harrogate station, welcoming the Evans’.
She would probably be looking rather tired and fragile after the
journey, but he would have a cab ready for her, and tea would be
awaiting them when they reached the lodgings....