I
My cousin Melville is never very clear about his dates. Now this is
greatly to be regretted, because it would be very illuminating indeed if
one could tell just how many days elapsed before he came upon Chatteris
in intimate conversation with the Sea Lady. He was going along the front
of the Leas with some books from the Public Library that Miss Glendower
had suddenly wished to consult, and which she, with that entire
ignorance of his lack of admiration for her which was part of her want
of charm for him, had bidden him bring her. It was in one of those
sheltered paths just under the brow which give such a pleasant and
characteristic charm to Folkestone, that he came upon a little group
about the Sea Lady's bath chair. Chatteris was seated in one of the
wooden seats that are embedded in the bank, and was leaning forward and
looking into the Sea Lady's face; and she was speaking with a smile that
struck Melville even at the time as being a little special in its
quality--and she seems to have been capable of many charming smiles.
Parker was a little distance away, where a sort of bastion projects and
gives a wide view of the pier and harbour and the coast of France,
regarding it all with a qualified disfavour, and the bath chairman was
crumpled up against the bank lost in that wistful melancholy that the
constant perambulation of broken humanity necessarily engenders.
[Illustration: A little group about the Sea Lady's bath chair.]
My cousin slackened his pace a little and came up and joined them.
The conversation hung at his approach. Chatteris sat back a little, but
there seemed no resentment and he sought a topic for the three to
discuss in the books Melville carried.
"Books?" he said.
"For Miss Glendower," said Melville.
"Oh!" said Chatteris.
"What are they about?" asked the Sea Lady.
"Land tenure," said Melville.
"That's hardly my subject," said the Sea Lady, and Chatteris joined in
her smile as if he saw a jest.
There was a little pause.
"You are contesting Hythe?" said Melville.
"Fate points that way," said Chatteris.
"They threaten a dissolution for September."
"It will come in a month," said Chatteris, with the inimitable tone of
one who knows.
"In that case we shall soon be busy."
"And _I_ may canvass," said the Sea Lady. "I never have----"
"Miss Waters," explained Chatteris, "has been telling me she means to
help us." He met Melville's eye frankly.
"It's rough work, Miss Waters," said Melville.
"I don't mind that. It's fun. And I want to help. I really do want to
help--Mr. Chatteris."
"You know, that's encouraging."
"I could go around with you in my bath chair?"
"It would be a picnic," said Chatteris.
"I mean to help anyhow," said the Sea Lady.
"You know the case for the plaintiff?" asked Melville.
She looked at him.
"You've got your arguments?"
"I shall ask them to vote for Mr. Chatteris, and afterwards when I see
them I shall remember them and smile and wave my hand. What else is
there?"
"Nothing," said Chatteris, and shut the lid on Melville. "I wish I had
an argument as good."
"What sort of people are they here?" asked Melville. "Isn't there a
smuggling interest to conciliate?"
"I haven't asked that," said Chatteris. "Smuggling is over and past,
you know. Forty years ago. It always has been forty years ago. They
trotted out the last of the smugglers,--interesting old man, full of
reminiscences,--when there was a count of the Saxon Shore. He remembered
smuggling--forty years ago. Really, I doubt if there ever was any
smuggling. The existing coast guard is a sacrifice to a vain
superstition."
"Why!" cried the Sea Lady. "Only about five weeks ago I saw quite near
here----"
She stopped abruptly and caught Melville's eye. He grasped her
difficulty.
"In a paper?" he suggested.
"Yes, in a paper," she said, seizing the rope he threw her.
"Well?" asked Chatteris.
"There is smuggling still," said the Sea Lady, with an air of some one
who decides not to tell an anecdote that is suddenly found to be half
forgotten.
"There's no doubt it happens," said Chatteris, missing it all. "But it
doesn't appear in the electioneering. I certainly sha'n't agitate for a
faster revenue cutter. However things may be in that respect, I take the
line that they are very well as they are. That's my line, of course."
And he looked out to sea. The eyes of Melville and the Sea Lady had an
intimate moment.
"There, you know, is just a specimen of the sort of thing we do," said
Chatteris. "Are you prepared to be as intricate as that?"
"Quite," said the Sea Lady.
My cousin was reminded of an anecdote.
The talk degenerated into anecdotes of canvassing, and ran shallow. My
cousin was just gathering that Mrs. Bunting and Miss Bunting had been
with the Sea Lady and had gone into the town to a shop, when they
returned. Chatteris rose to greet them and explained--what had been by
no means apparent before--that he was on his way to Adeline, and after a
few further trivialities he and Melville went on together.
A brief silence fell between them.
"Who is that Miss Waters?" asked Chatteris.
"Friend of Mrs. Bunting," prevaricated Melville.
"So I gather.... She seems a very charming person."
"She is."
"She's interesting. Her illness seems to throw her up. It makes a
passive thing of her, like a picture or something that's--imaginary.
Imagined--anyhow. She sits there and smiles and responds. Her eyes--have
something intimate. And yet----"
My cousin offered no assistance.
"Where did Mrs. Bunting find her."
My cousin had to gather himself together for a second or so.
"There's something," he said deliberately, "that Mrs. Bunting doesn't
seem disposed----"
"What can it be?"
"It's bound to be all right," said Melville rather weakly.
"It's strange, too. Mrs. Bunting is usually so disposed----"
Melville left that to itself.
"That's what one feels," said Chatteris.
"What?"
"Mystery."
My cousin shares with me a profound detestation of that high mystic
method of treating women. He likes women to be finite--and nice. In
fact, he likes everything to be finite--and nice. So he merely grunted.
But Chatteris was not to be stopped by that. He passed to a critical
note. "No doubt it's all illusion. All women are impressionists, a
patch, a light. You get an effect. And that is all you are meant to get,
I suppose. She gets an effect. But how--that's the mystery. It's not
merely beauty. There's plenty of beauty in the world. But not of these
effects. The eyes, I fancy."
He dwelt on that for a moment.
"There's really nothing in eyes, you know, Chatteris," said my cousin
Melville, borrowing an alien argument and a tone of analytical cynicism
from me. "Have you ever looked at eyes through a hole in a sheet?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Chatteris. "I don't mean the mere physical
eye.... Perhaps it's the look of health--and the bath chair. A bold
discord. You don't know what's the matter, Melville?"
"How?"
"I gather from Bunting it's a disablement--not a deformity."
"He ought to know."
"I'm not so sure of that. You don't happen to know the nature of her
disablement?"
"I can't tell at all," said Melville in a speculative tone. It struck
him he was getting to prevaricate better.
The subject seemed exhausted. They spoke of a common friend whom the
sight of the Metropole suggested. Then they did not talk at all for a
time, until the stir and interest of the band stand was passed. Then
Chatteris threw out a thought.
"Complex business--feminine motives," he remarked.
"How?"
"This canvassing. _She_ can't be interested in philanthropic Liberalism."
"There's a difference in the type. And besides, it's a personal matter."
"Not necessarily, is it? Surely there's not such an intellectual gap
between the sexes! If _you_ can get interested----"
"Oh, I know."
"Besides, it's not a question of principles. It's the fun of
electioneering."
"Fun!"
"There's no knowing what won't interest the feminine mind," said
Melville, and added, "or what will."
Chatteris did not answer.
"It's the district visiting instinct, I suppose," said Melville. "They
all have it. It's the canvassing. All women like to go into houses that
don't belong to them."
"Very likely," said Chatteris shortly, and failing a reply from
Melville, he gave way to secret meditations, it would seem still of a
fairly agreeable sort.
The twelve o'clock gun thudded from Shornecliffe Camp.
"By Jove!" said Chatteris, and quickened his steps.
* * * * *
They found Adeline busy amidst her papers. As they entered she pointed
reproachfully, yet with the protrusion of a certain Marcella-like
undertone of sweetness, at the clock. The apologies of Chatteris were
effusive and winning, and involved no mention of the Sea Lady on the
Leas.
Melville delivered his books and left them already wading deeply into
the details of the district organisation that the local Liberal
organiser had submitted.