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 the _n_th 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 to be
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
and _well_'s and _there_'s and _think 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
say it 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 saying
_howd_ and nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to herself.
But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it
quite made me jump--I mean 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 the _Cruet-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 it _was_
a dilemma--that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you
know, dear, it _did_ go 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 with Mr. Bradshaw,
Lætitia? Good-night.' And then she said _goodn_ to Paggy just
as she had said _howd_. I thought Paggy behaved so nicely.
However, I'll tell you all about that on Monday.
"Papa was _very_ nice--came out on the doorstep to say
good-night, and, do you know--it really _is_ very 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! that _is_ a 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 to dread 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'm_ all 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 at _her_.
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 she could 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? She _must_ get 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 she _must_ be 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 she _must_ be 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 that the
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 this _it_? 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 to _her_. 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 as any 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 the metaphor, 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. _Might_ she 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 husband that 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--_the_ Professor 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. _I_ merely
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 between _us_! they said. Their editor then
supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been a _soupçon_
of personal feeling in the case--bias, pique, whatever one likes to
call it. _You_ know, 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 with _you_...."
"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 to talk
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 get _so_ timorous of saying anything. _You_ know, 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
never _do_ know--family is such a bore), and it was _she_ told _him_
all about this. I always forget these things when they're told _me_.
But I can quite understand that the young man's mother, in speaking
of it ... _you_ understand?..."
"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 "_Cer_tainly. 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 come scranching up
the shingle, and flung herself down beside her mother. As it was,
Rosalind's "Oh, _I am_ so 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 hear _every word_ my 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 am _al_ways
content to be _alone_ as long as I can be _sure_ that he is happily
employed _elsewhere_. I am a _dull 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 be _per_fectly 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 did _not_ come,
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 did _not_ turn 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.