CONCERNING PEOPLE'S PASTS, AND THE SEPARATION OF THE SHEEP FROM THE
GOATS. OF YET ANOTHER MAJOR, AND HOW HE GOSSIPPED AT THE HURKARU
CLUB. SOME TRUSTWORTHY INFORMATION ABOUT AN ALLEGED DIVORCE
You who read this may have met with some cross-chance such as we are
going to try to describe to you; possibly with the same effect upon
yourself as the one we have to confess to in our own case--namely,
that you have been left face to face with a problem to which you have
never been able to supply a solution. You have given up a conundrum
in despair, and no one has told you the answer.
Here are the particulars of an imaginary case of the sort. You have
made acquaintance--made friends--years ago with some man or woman
without any special introduction, and without feeling any particular
curiosity about his or her antecedents. No inquiry seemed to be
called for; all concomitants were so very usual. You may have felt a
misgiving as to whether the easy-going ways of your old papa, or the
innocent Bohemianisms of his sons and daughters will be welcome to
your new friend, whom you credit with being a little old-fashioned
and strait-laced, if anything. But it never occurs to you to doubt or
investigate; why should you, when no question is raised of any great
intimacy between you and the So-and-sos, which may stand for the name
of his or her family. They ask no certificate from you, of whom they
know just as little. Why should you demand credentials of a passer-by
because he is so obliging as to offer to lend you a Chinese vocabulary
or Whitaker? Why should your wife try to go behind the cheque-book and
the prayer-book of a married couple when all she has had to do with
the lady was, suppose, to borrow a square bottle of her, marked off
in half-inch lengths, to be shaken before taken? Why not accept her
unimpeachable Sunday morning as sufficient warranty for talking to
her on the beach next day, and finding what a very nice person she is?
Because it would very likely be at the seaside. But suppose any sort
of introduction of this sort--you know what we mean!
Well, the So-and-sos have slipped gradually into your life; let this
be granted. We need not imagine, for our purpose, any extreme
approaches of family intimacy, any love affairs or deadly quarrels.
A tranquil intercourse of some twenty years is all we need, every year
of which has added to your conviction of the thorough trustworthiness
and respectability of the So-and-sos, of their readiness to help you
in any little difficulty, and of the high opinion which the rest of
the world has of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so--the world which knew them
when it was a boy, and all their connexions and antecedents, which,
you admit, you didn't....
And then, after all these years, it is suddenly burst upon you that
there was a shady story about So-and-so that never was cleared
up--something about money, perhaps; or, worse still, one of those
stories your informant really doesn't like to be responsible for the
particulars of; you must ask Smith yourself. Or your wife comes to you
in fury and indignation that such a scandalous falsehood should have
got about as that Clara So-and-so was never married to So-and-so at
all till ever so long after Fluffy or Toppy or Croppy or Poppy was
born! We take any names at random of this sort, merely to dwell on
your good lady's familiarity with the So-and-so family.
Well, then--there you are! And what can you make of it? There you are
face to face with the fact that a man who was a black sheep twenty or
thirty years ago has been all this time making believe to be a white
sheep so successfully as never was. Or, stranger still, that a woman
who has brought up a family of model daughters--daughters whom it
would be no exaggeration to speak of as on all fours with your own,
and who is quite one of the nicest and most sympathetic people your
wife has to go to in trouble--this woman actually--_actually_--if this
tale is true, was guilty in her youth ... there--that will do! Suppose
we say she was no better than she should be. She hadn't even the
decency to be a married woman before she did it, which always makes it
so much easier to talk to strange ladies and girls about it. You can
say all the way down a full dinner-table that Lady Polly Andrews got
into the Divorce Court without doing violence to any propriety at all.
But the story of Mrs. So-and-so's indiscretion while still Miss
Such-and-such must be talked of more guardedly.
And all the while behold the subjects of these stories, in whom, but
for this sudden revelation of a shady past, you can detect no moral
difference from your amiable and respectable self! They puzzle you, as
they puzzle us, with a doubt whether they really are the same people;
whether they have not changed their identity since the days of their
delinquency. If they really are the same, it almost throws a doubt on
how far the permanent unforgiveness of sins is expedient. We of
course refer to Human Expediency only--the construction of a working
hypothesis of Life, that would favour peace on earth and good-will
towards men; that would establish a _modus vivendi_, and enable us to
be jolly with these reprobates--at any rate, as soon as they had
served their time and picked their oakum. We are not intruding on the
province of the Theologian--merely discussing the problem of how we
can make ourselves pleasant to one another all round, until that final
separation of the sheep from the goats, when, however carefully they
may have patched up their own little quarrels, they will have to bid
each other farewell reluctantly, and make up their minds to the
permanent endurance of Heaven and Hell respectively.
We confess that we ourselves think there ought to be a Statute of
Limitations, and that after a certain lapse of time any offence,
however bad, against morality might be held not to have been
committed. If we feel this about culprits who tempted us, at the time
of their enormity, to put in every honest hand a whip to lash the
rascal naked the length of a couple of lamp-posts, how much more when
the offence has been one which our own sense of moral law (a perverted
one, we admit) scarcely recognises as any offence at all. And how much
more yet, when we find it hard to believe that they--actually _they
themselves_, that we know now--can have done the things imputed to
them. If the stories are really true, were they not possessed by evil
spirits? Or have they since come to be possessed by better ones than
their normal stock-in-trade?
What is all this prosy speculation about? Well, it's about our friend
in the last chapter, Sally's mother. At least, it is suggested by her.
She is one of those perplexing cases we have hinted at, and we
acknowledge ourselves unable to account for her at the date of the
story, knowing what we do of her twenty years previously. It's little
enough, mind, and much of it inferential. Suppose, instead of giving
you our inferences, we content ourselves with passing on to you the
data on which we found them. Maybe you will see your way to some
different life-history for Sally's mother.
The first insight we had into her past was supplied by a friend of
Sally's "old fossil," who was himself a Major, but with a difference.
For he was really a Major, whereas the fossil was only called so by
Krakatoa Villa, being in truth a Colonel. This one was Major Roper, of
the Hurkaru Club, an old schoolfellow of ours, who was giving us a cup
of coffee and a cigar at the said Club, and talking himself hoarse
about Society. When the Major gets hoarse his voice rises to a squeak,
and his eyes start out of his head, and he appears to swell. I forget
how Mrs. Nightingale came into the conversation, but she did, somehow.
"She's a very charming woman, that," squeaked the Major--"a _very_
charming woman! I don't mind tellin' _you_, you know, that I knew her
at Madras--ah! before the divorce. I wouldn't tell Horrocks, nor that
dam young fool Silcox, but I don't mind tellin' _you_! Only, look
here, my dear boy, don't you go puttin' it about that _I_ told you
anythin'. You know I make it a rule--a guidin' rule--_never to say
anythin'_. You follow that rule through life, my boy! Take the word
of an old chap that's seen a deal of service, and just you _hold your
tongue_! You make a point--you'll find it pay----" An asthmatic cough
came in here.
"There was a divorce, then?" we said. Terms had to be made with the
cough, but speech came in the end.
"Oh yes, of course--of course! Don't mind repeatin' that--thing was
in the papers at the time. What I was suggestin' holdin' your tongue
about was that story about Penderfield and her.... Well, as I said
just now, I don't mind repeatin' it to you; you ain't Horrocks nor
little Silcox--you can keep your tongue in your head. Remember, _I_
know nothing; I'm only tellin' what was said at the time.... Now,
whatever was her name? Was it Rayner, or was it Verschoyle? Pelloo!...
Pelloo!..." The Major tried to call the attention of a man who was deep
in an Oriental newspaper at the far end of the next room. But when the
Major overstrains his voice, it misses fire like a costermonger's,
and only a falsetto note comes on a high register. When this happens
he is wroth.
"It's that dam noise they're all makin'," he says, as soon as he has
become articulate. "That's the man I want, behind the 'Daily
Sunderbund.' If it wasn't for this dam toe, I'd go across and ask him.
No, don't you go. Send one of these dam jumpin' frogs--idlin' about!"
He requisitions a passing waiter, gripping him by the arm to give
him instructions. "Just--you--touch the General's arm, and ketch his
attention. Say Major Roper." And he liquidates his obligations to
a great deal of asthmatic cough, while the jumping frog does his
bidding.
The General (who is now Lord Pellew of Cutch, by-the-bye) came with
an amiable smile from behind the journal, and ended a succession
of good-evening nods to newcomers by casting an anchor opposite
the Major. The latter, having by now taken the surest steps towards
bringing the whole room into his confidence, stated the case he sought
confirmation for.
Oh yes, certainly; the General was in Umballa in '80; remembered the
young lady quite well, and the row between Penderfield and his wife
about her. As for Penderfield, everybody remembered _him_! _De mortuis
nil_, etc.--of course, of course. For all that, he was one of the
damnedest scoundrels that ever deserved to be turned out of the
service. Ought to have been cashiered long ago. Good job he's gone to
the devil! Yes, he was quite sure he was remembering the right girl.
No, no, he wasn't thinking of Daisy Neversedge--no, nor of little Miss
Wrennick: same sort of story, but he wasn't thinking of them at all.
Only the name wasn't either Rayner or Verschoyle. General Pellew stood
thoughtfully feeling about in a memory at fault, and looking at an
unlighted cigar he rolled in his fingers, as though it might help if
caressed. Then he had a flash of illumination. "Rosalind Graythorpe,"
he said.
There we had it, sure enough! The Major see-sawed in the air with
a finger of sudden corroboration. "Rosalind Graythorpe," he repeated
triumphantly, and then again, "Ros-a-lind Graythorpe," dwelling on the
syllables, and driving the name home, as it were, to the apprehension
of all within hearing. It was so necessary to a complete confidence
that every one should know whom he was holding his tongue about. Where
would be the merit of discretion else? But the enjoyment of details
should be _sotto voce_. The General dropped his voice to a good
sample, suggesting a like course to the more demonstrative secrecy
of the Major.
"I remember the whole story quite well," said he. "The girl was
going out by herself to marry a young fellow up the country at
Umballa, I think. They were _fiancés_, and on the way the news
came of the outbreak of cholera. So she got hung up for a while at
Penderfield's--sort of cousin, I believe, him or his wife--till the
district was sanitary again. Bad job for her, as it turned out! Nobody
there to warn her what sort of fellow Penderfield was--and if there
had been she wouldn't have believed 'em. She was a madcap sort of
a girl, and regularly in the hands of about as bad a couple as you'll
meet with in a long spell--India or anywhere! They used to say out
there that the she Penderfield winked at all her husband's affairs as
long as he didn't cut across _her_ little arrangements--did more than
wink, in fact--lent a helping hand; but only as long as she could rely
on his remaining detached, as you might say. The moment she suspected
an _entichement_ on her husband's part she was up in arms. And he
was just the same about her. I remember Lady Sharp saying that
if Penderfield had suspected his wife of caring about any of her
co-respondents he would have divorced her at once. They were a rum
couple, but their attitude to one another was the only good thing
about them." The General lighted his cigar, and seemed to consider
this was chapter one. The Major appended a foot-note, for our benefit.
"_Leave be_ was the word--the word for Penderfield. _You'll_
understand that, sir. No _meddlin'_! A good-lookin' Colonel's wife in
garrison has her choice, good Lard! Why, she's only got to hold her
finger up!" We entirely appreciated the position, and that a siren has
a much easier task in the entanglement of a confiding dragoon than
falls to the lot of Don Giovanni in the reverse case. But we were more
interested in the particular story of Mrs. Nightingale than in the
general ethics of profligacy.
"I suppose," we suggested, "that the young woman threatened to be a
formidable rival, as there was a row?" Each of the officers nodded at
the other, and said that was about it. The Major then started on
a little private curriculum of nods on his own account, backed by a
half-closed eye of superhuman subtlety, and added once or twice that
that _was_ about it. We inferred from this that the row had been
volcanic in character. The Major then added, repeating the air-sawing
action of his forefinger admonitorily, "But mind you, _I_ say nothin'.
And my recommendation to you is to say nothin' neither."
"The rest of the story's soon told," said the General, answering our
look of inquiry. "Miss Graythorpe went away to Umballa to be married.
It was all gossip, mind you, about herself and Penderfield. But gossip
always went one way about any girl he was seen with. I have my own
belief; so has Jack Roper." The Major underwent a perfect convulsion
of nods, winks, and acquiescence. "Well, she went away, and was
married to this young shaver, who was very little over twenty. He
wasn't in the service--civil appointment, I think. How long was it,
Major, before they parted? Do you recollect?"
"Week--ten days--month--six weeks! Couldn't say. They didn't part at
the church door; that's all I could say for certain. Tell him the
rest."
"They certainly parted very soon, and people told all sorts of
stories. The stories got fewer and clearer when it came out that the
young woman was in the family way. No one had any right _then_ to
ascribe the child that was on its road to any father except the young
man she had fallen out with. But they did--it was laid at Colonel
Penderfield's door, before there was any sufficient warrant. However,
it was all clear enough when the child was born."
"When was the divorce?"
"He applied for a divorce a twelvemonth after the marriage. The child
was then spoken of as being four months old. My impression is he did
not succeed in getting a divorce."
"Not he," said the Major, overtopping the General's quiet, restrained
voice with his falsetto. "I recollect _that_, bless you! The Court
commiserated him, but couldn't give him any relief. So he made a bolt
of it. And he's never been heard of since, as far as I know."
"What did the mother do? Where did she go?" we asked.
"Well, she might have been hard put to it to know what to do. But she
met with old Lund--Carrington Lund, you know, not Beauchamp; he'd
a civil appointment at Umritsur--comes here sometimes. You know him?
She's his Rosey he talks about. He was an old friend of her father,
and took her in and protected her--saw her through it. She came with
him to England. I was with them on the boat, part of the way. Then
she took the name of Macnaghten, I believe. The young husband's name
I can't remember the least. But it wasn't Macnaghten."
The Major squeaked in again:
"No--nor hers neither! Nightingale, General--that's the name she goes
by. Friend of this gentleman. Very charmin' person indeed! Introdooce
you? And a very charmin' little daughter, goin' nineteen." The two
officers interchanged glances over our young friend Sally. "She was
a nice baby on the boat," said the General; and the Major chuckled
wheezily, and hoped she didn't take after her father.
We left him to the tender mercies of gout and asthma, and the
enjoyment of a sherry-cobbler through a straw, looking rather too fat
for his snuff-coloured trousers with a cord outside, and his flowered
silk waistcoat; but very much too fat for the straw, the slenderness
of which was almost painful by contrast.
* * * * *
Perhaps you will see from this why we hinted at the outset of this
chapter why Mrs. Nightingale was a conundrum we had given up in
despair, of which no one had told us the answer. We wanted your
sympathy, you see, and to get it have given you an insight into the
way our information was gleaned. Having given you this sample, we will
now return to simple narrative of what we know of the true story, and
trouble you with no further details of how we came by it.