OF A RECURRENCE FROM _AS YOU LIKE IT_ AND HOW FENWICK DIDN'T. WHY A
SAILOR WOULD NOT LEARN TO SWIM. THE BARON AGAIN. OF A CUTTLE-FISH
AND HIS SQUIRT. OF THE POWER OF _A PRIORI_ REASONING. OF SALLY'S
CONFESSION, AND HOW FENWICK WENT TO A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL
When Fenwick turned back towards home, ostensibly to shorten
Rosalind's visit to the doctor's mother, he had no intention of doing
so early enough to allow of his rejoining his companions, however
slowly they might walk. Neither did he mean to deprive old Mrs.
Vereker of Rosalind until she had had her full allowance of her. In an
hour would do--or three-quarters. He discounted twenty-five per cent.,
owing to a recollection of the green veil and spectacles. Then he felt
unkind, and said to himself, that, after all, the old woman couldn't
help it.
Fenwick felt he was making a great concession in giving up
three-quarters of an hour of Rosalind. As soon as he had had exercise
enough for the day, and was in a mood to smoke and saunter about idly,
he wanted Rosalind badly, and was little disposed to give her up. But
the old Goody was going away to-morrow, and he would be liberal. He
would take a turn along the sea-front--would have time to get down to
the jetty--and then would invade the cave of the Octopus and extract
the prisoner from its tentacles.
His intention in forsaking Sally and the doctor was half suspected by
the latter, quite clear to himself, and only unperceived by his opaque
stepdaughter. As he idled down towards the old fisher-dwellings and
the net-huts, he tried to picture the form the declaration would take,
and the way it would be received. That this would be favourable he
never doubted for a moment; but he recalled the speech of Benedict
to Beatrice, "By my troth I take thee for pity," and fancied Sally's
response might be of the same complexion. His recollection of these
words produced a mental recurrence, a distressing and imperfect one,
connected with the earlier time he could not reach back to, of the
words being used to himself by a girl who ascribed them to Rosalind
in _As You Like It_, and a discussion after of their whereabouts in
Shakespeare.
The indescribable wrench this gave his mind was so painful that he
was quite relieved to recall Vereker's opinion that it was always
the imperfection of the memory and the effort that gave pain, not the
thing remembered. And in this case there could be no doubt that it
was a mere dream, for the girl not only took the form of his Rosey
he was going back to directly, but actually claimed her name, saying
distinctly, "like my namesake, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare." Could
any clearer proof be given that it was mere brain-froth?
The man with "Bessie" and "Elinor" tattooed on his arm was enjoying
a pipe and mending a net, not to be too idle. The glass might be
rising--or not. He was independent of Science. A trifle of wind in
the night was his verdict, glass or no! The season was drawing nigh
to a close now for a bathing-resort, as you might say. Come another
se'nnight, you wouldn't see a machine down, as like as not. But you
could never say, to a nicety. He'd known every lodging in the old town
full, times and again, to the end of September month, before now. But
this year was going to fall early, and your young lady would lose her
swimming.
"She's a rare lass, too, for the water," he concluded, without any
consciousness of familiarity in the change of phrase. "Not that I know
much myself, touching swimming and the like. For I can't swim myself,
never a stroke."
"That's strange, too, for a seaman," said Fenwick.
"No, sir! Not so strange as you might think it. You ask up and down
among we, waterside or seafaring, and you'll find a many have never
studied it, for the purpose. Many that would make swimmers, with a bit
of practice, will hold off, for the reason I tell you. Overboard in
mid-ocean, and none to help, and not a spar, would you soonest drown,
end on, or have to fight for it, like it or no?"
"Drown! The sooner the better." Fenwick has no doubt about the matter.
"Why, sure! So I say, master. And I've put no encouragement on young
Benjamin, over yonder, to give study to the learning of it, for the
same reason. And not a stroke can he swim, any more than his father."
"Well! I can't swim myself, so there's three of us!" said Fenwick. "My
daughter swims enough for the lot." It gave him such pleasure to speak
thus of Sally boldly, where there need be no exact definition of their
kinship. The net-mender pursued the subject with the kind of gravity
on him that always comes on a seaman when drowning is under discussion.
"She's a rare one, for sure. Never but three, or may be fower, have
I seen in my time to come anigh to her--man nor woman. The best swimmer
a long way I've known--Peter Burtenshaw by name--I helped bring to
after drowning. He'd swum--at a guess--the best part of six hours
afower we heard the cry of him on our boat. Too late a bit we were,
but we found him, just stone-dead like, and brought him round. It was
what Peter said of that six hours put me off of letting 'em larn yoong
Benjamin to swim when he was a yoongster. And when he got to years of
understanding I told him my mind, and he never put himself to study it."
Fenwick would have liked to go on talking with the fisherman, as his
mental recurrence about Shakespeare had fidgeted him, and he found
speech a relief. But some noisy visitors from the new St. Sennans
on the cliff above had made an irruption into the little old
fishing-quarter, and the attention of the net-mender was distracted
by possibilities of a boat-to-day being foisted on their simplicity;
it was hardly rough enough to forbid the idea. Fenwick, therefore,
sauntered on towards the jetty, but presently turned to go back, as
half his time had elapsed.
As he repassed the net-mender with a short word or two for
valediction, his ear was caught by a loud voice among the party of
visitors, who were partly sitting on the beach, partly throwing
stones in the water. Something familiar about that voice, surely!
"I gannod throw stoanss. I am too vat. I shall sit on the peach and
see effrypotty else throw stoanss. I shall smoke another cigar. Will
you haff another cigar, Mr. Prown? You will not? Ferry well! Nor you,
Mrs. Prown? Not for the worlt? Ferry well! Nor you, Mr. Bilkington?
Ferry well! I shall haff one myself, and you shall throw stoanss."
And then, as though to remove the slightest doubt about the identity
of the speaker, the voice broke into song:
"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,
Einen bessern findst du nicht--"
but ended on "Mein guter Kamerad," exclaiming stentorianly, "Opleitch
me with a madge," and lighting his cigar in spite of his companions'
indignation at the music stopping.
Fenwick stood hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. His inclination
was to go straight down the beach to his old friend, whom--of course,
you understand?--he now remembered quite well, and explain the strange
circumstances that had rendered their meeting in Switzerland abortive.
But then!--what would the effect be on his present life, in his
relation to Rosalind and (almost as important) to Sally? Diedrich
Kreutzkammer had been, for some time in California, a most intimate
friend. Fenwick had made him the confidant of his marriage and his
early life, all that he had since forgotten, and he had it now in his
power to recover all this from the past. Strange to say, although he
could remember the telling of these things, he could only remember
weak, confused snatches of what he told. It was unaccountable--but
there!--he could not try to unravel that skein now. He must settle,
and promptly, whether to speak to the Baron or to run.
He was not long in coming to a decision, especially as he saw
that hesitation was sure to end in the adoption of the former
course--probably the wrong one. He just caught the Baron's last
words--a denunciation of the hotel he was stopping at, loud enough
to reach the new St. Sennans, of which it was the principal
constituent--and then walked briskly off. He arrived at Iggulden's
within the hour he had first conceded to the Octopus, and got
Rosalind out for a walk, as originally proposed.
There was no apparent reason why the impossibility of overtaking Sally
and the doctor should be interpreted into an excuse for going in the
opposite direction; but each accepted it as such, or as a justification
at least. Rosalind had not so distinct a reason as her husband for
wishing not to break in upon them, as he had not reported the whole of
his last talk with Vereker. But though she did not know that Dr. Conrad
had as good as promised to make a clean breast of it before returning
to London, she thought nothing was more likely than that he should do
so, and resolved to leave the stage clear for the leading parts. She
may even have flattered herself that she was showing tact--keeping
an unconscious Gerry out of the way, who might else interfere with
the stars in their courses, in the manner of the tactless. Rosalind
suspected this of Sally, that whatever she might think she thought,
and whatever parade she made of an even mind no sentiments whatever
prevailed in, there was in her inmost heart another Sally, locked in
and unconfessed, that had strong views on the subject. And she wanted
this Sally to be let out for a spell, or for poor Prosy to be allowed
into her cell long enough to speak for himself. Anyhow, this was their
last chance here, and she wasn't going to spoil it.
She had gone near to making up her mind--after her sufferings from
Gwenny's mamma in the morning--to attempt, at any rate, a communication
of their joint story to her husband. But it _must_ depend on
circumstances and possibilities. She foresaw a long period of
resolutions undermined by doubts, decisions rescinded at the last
moment, and suddenly-revealed ambushes, and perhaps in the end
self-reproach for a mismanaged revelation that might have been so much
more skilfully done. Never mind--it was all in the day's work! She
had borne much, and would bear more.
"How do you know they are all nonsense, Gerry darling?" We catch their
conversation in the middle as they walk along the sands the tide is
leaving clear, after accommodating the few morning-bathers with every
opportunity to get out of their depths. "How do you _know_? Surely
the parts that you _do_ seem to remember clearly _must_ be all right,
however confused the rest is."
Fenwick gives his head the old shake, dashes his hair across his brow
and rubs it, then replies: "The worst of the job is, you see, that
the bits I remember clearest are the greatest gammon. What do you make
of that?"
Rosalind's hand closes on her nettle. "Instance, Gerry!--give me an
instance, and I shall know what you mean."
Fenwick is outrageously confident of the safety of his last imperfect
recollection. He can trust to its absurdity if he can trust to
anything.
"Well! For instance, just now--an hour ago--I recollected something
about a girl who would have it Rosalind in _As You Like It_ said,
'By my troth I take thee for pity,' to Orlando. And all the while it
was Benedict said it to Beatrice in _All's Well that Ends Well_."
The hand on the nettle tightens. "Gerry _dearest_!" she remonstrates.
"There's nothing in _that_, as Sallykin says. Of course it _was_
Benedict said it to Beatrice."
"Yes--but the gammon wasn't in that. It was the girl that said it.
When I tried to think who it was, she turned into _you_! I mean, she
became exactly like you."
"But I'm a woman of forty." This was a superb piece of
nettle-grasping; and there was not a tremor in the voice that said
it, and the handsome face of the speaker was calm, if a little pale.
Fenwick noticed nothing.
"Like what I should suppose you were as a girl of eighteen or twenty.
It's perfectly clear how the thing worked. It was from something else
I seem to recollect her saying, 'Like my namesake, Celia's friend in
Shakespeare.' The moment she said that, of course the name Rosalind
made me think you into the business. It was quite natural."
"Quite natural! And when I was that girl that was what I said." She
had braced herself up, in all the resolution of her strong nature,
to the telling of her secret, and his; and she thought this was her
opportunity. She was mistaken. For as she stood, keeping, as it were,
a heartquake in abeyance, till she should see him begin to understand,
he replied without the least perceiving her meaning--evidently
accounting her speech only a variant on "If I _had_ been that girl,"
and so forth--"Of course you did, sweetheart," said he, with a laugh
in his voice, "_when_ you were that girl. And I expect that girl said
it when she was herself, whoever she was, and the name Rosalind turned
her into you? Look at this cuttlefish before he squirts."
For a moment Rosalind Fenwick was almost two people, so distinctly did
the two aspects or conditions of herself strike her mind. The one was
that of breath drawn freely, of a respite, a reprieve, a heartquake
escaped; for, indeed, she had begun to feel, as she neared the crisis,
that the trial might pass her powers of endurance. The other of a new
terror--that the tale, perhaps, _could not be told at all_! that,
unassisted by a further revival of her husband's memory, it would
remain permanently incredible by him, with what effect of a
half-knowledge of the past God only knew. The sense of reprieve got
the better of the new-born apprehension--bid it stand over for a
while, at least. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.
Meanwhile, Gerry, absolutely unconscious of her emotion, and seeming
much less disconcerted over this abortive recollection than over
previous ones, stood gazing down into the clear rock-pool that
contained the cuttlefish. "Do come and look at him, Rosey love," said
he. "His manners are detestable, but there can be no doubt about the
quality of his black."
She leaned a bit heavily on the arm she took as they left the
cuttlefish to his ill-conditioned solitude. "Tired, dearest?" said
her husband; and she answered, "Just a little!" But his mind was a
clean sheet on which his story would have to be written in ink as
black as the cuttlefish's Parthian squirt, and in a full round hand
without abbreviations, unless it should do something to help itself.
Let it rest while she rested and thought.
She thought and thought--happy for all her strain of nerve and mind,
on the quiet stretch of sand and outcrop of chalk, slippery with weed,
that the ebbing tide would leave safe for them for hours to come.
So thinking, and seeing the way in which her husband's reason was
entrenched against the facts of his own life, in a citadel defended by
human experience at bay, she wavered in her resolution of a few hours
since--or, rather, she saw the impossibility of forcing the position,
thinking contentedly that at least if it was so impracticable to
her it would be equally so to other agencies, and he might be relied
on to remain in the dark. The _status quo_ would be the happiest,
if it could be preserved. So when, after a two hours' walk through
the evening glow and the moonrise, Rosalind came home to Sally's
revelation, as we have seen, the slight exception her voice took
to universal rejoicing was the barest echo of the tension of her
absolutely unsuccessful attempt to get in the thin end of the wedge
of an incredible revelation.
Quite incredible! So hopeless is the case of a mere crude,
unadulterated fact against an irresistible _a priori_ belief in its
incredibility.
Sally was reserved about details, but clear about the outcome of her
expedition with Prosy. They perfectly understood each other, and it
wasn't anybody else's concern; present company's, of course, excepted.
Questioned as to plans for the future--inasmuch as a marriage did not
seem inconsequent under the circumstances--Sally became enigmatical.
The word "marriage" had not been so much as mentioned. She admitted
the existence of the institution, but proposed--now and for the
future--to regard it as premature. Wasn't even sure she would tell
anybody, except Tishy; and perhaps also Henriette Prince, because she
was sure to ask, and possibly Karen Braun if she did ask. But she
didn't seem at all clear what she was going to say to them, as she
objected to the expression "engaged." A thing called "it" without
an antecedent, got materialised, and did duty for something more
intelligible. Yes!--she would tell Tishy about It, and just those
one or two others. But if It was going to make any difference, or
there was to be any fuss, she would just break It off, and have done
with It.
Sentiments of this sort provoked telegraphic interchanges of
smile-suggestion between her hearers all through the evening meal
that was so unusually late. This lateness received sanction from the
fact that Mr. Fenwick would very likely have letters by the morning
post that would oblige him to return to town by the afternoon train.
If so, this was his last evening, and clearly nothing mattered.
Law and order might be blowed, or hanged.
It was, under these circumstances, rather a surprise to his hearers
when he said, after smoking half through his first cigar, that he
thought he should walk up to the hotel in the new town, because he
fancied there was a man there he knew. As to his name, he thought it
was Pilkington, but wasn't sure. Taunted with reticence, he said it
was nothing but business. As Rosalind could easily conceive that Gerry
might not want to introduce all the Pilkingtons he chanced across to
his family, she didn't press for explanation. "He'll very likely call
round to see your young man, chick, when he's done with Pilkington."
To which Sally replied, "Oh, _he'll_ come round here. Told him to!"
Which he did, at about ten o'clock. But Fenwick had never called at
Iggulden's, neither had he come back to his own home. It was after
midnight before his foot was on the stairs, and Sally had retired
for the night, telling her mother not to fidget--Jeremiah would be
all right.