“Slugs,” said Elsie in a wavering voice.
Her eyes fell before the accusatory ones of Mr. Gubbins. He was thinking
how true, how painfully true, Onoria’s theory was, as to the
prevarication of women.
Whatever the consequences might have been, he could not have told a lie
to Onoria. He would not have dared.
CHAPTER V
Jealousy is one of the faults which it is hardest for human beings to
confess.
It is the least successful of the vices, for by its nature it implies
that you find yourself less attractive than somebody else, and you are
conscious that in the exercise of it, you become less attractive still.
Fortunately righteous indignation often looks very like it.
Miss Onoria Strickland never dreamed that she suffered from jealousy.
She considered it a slave vice confined to women and exceptionally
feeble men.
She knew that her sisters-in-law were monsters of human iniquity; she
realised that the other school teachers belonged to a bygone age and
were unfortunate products even of that debased period. She saw that
modernity and youth had lost alike their innocence and their ardour, at
about the time when she herself had ceased to be young; and she despised
women: but she did not realise that there was a connecting link between
these criticisms, and that her own self-love was the connecting link.
She was taken completely by surprise when Peter Gubbins and Elsie
Andrews conspired behind her back to make a fool of her.
This was her instant definition of their timid attempts to form a
separate relation. Onoria might not have been so astonished if she had
been a quicker hand at reading the silences of others. But like most
great talkers, she was apt to take for granted, unless directly
contradicted, that some form of agreement had taken place. She did not
realise that the silence which gives consent is only one out of many
others far less accommodating.
Neither Elsie nor Peter had ever openly disagreed with Onoria, but their
souls had rebelled in a wordless determination—rather like that which
precedes the back kick of a mule.
They could not, for instance, see the harm of Peter Gubbins singing, to
Elsie’s accompaniment, old Scotch ballads. Peter Gubbins had a great
fancy for Scotch ballads, no knowledge of the dialect, and a tenor voice
liable to those spasmodic interludes which sometimes take place upon a
gramophone.
Onoria had, not without justice, decided that he ought not to sing in
public. She had put it to him perfectly plainly. “You only make a
painful noise,” she had asserted, “disagreeable to listen to and bad for
your weak throat, and you live in a semi-detached villa. The sooner you
break yourself of a bad habit like this, the better!”
Peter had broken himself of the habit, but he still indulged in
occasional orgies which took place while Onoria was at school.
He could only pick out the air with one finger on the piano by himself;
and to his great delight Elsie agreed to accompany him.
She arranged to come early to Onoria’s before school hours were over and
meet Peter in Onoria’s music room.
When Onoria became due, Peter hurried out of the window into the garden,
and crossed by the wall into his own domain. On Onoria’s arrival, she
found Elsie, punctual and passive, waiting for her usual rites upon the
piano.
Ostriches would have known better than Peter and Elsie. They do not,
when they plunge their heads in the sand to escape an enemy (even while
exposing the rest of their person to view), sing Scotch dialect songs
with voices like a damaged kettle.
Peter’s voice carried, and on one still day it reached Onoria coming up
the road. She had a faultless ear and she knew it was Peter’s voice, and
that it came, not out of his window, which would have been a
misdemeanour, but out of her own, which was a crime; and she knew that
Peter could not play his own accompaniments.
She hastened to the gate, but by the time she had reached it Peter had
already vanished—he did not know what he was leaving his accomplice to
face, but there is no reasonable doubt that if he had known he would
still have left her.
Onoria rushed into the music room, breathless and terrific.
“What,” she cried with piercing incisiveness, “are you doing here?”
Elsie was in the act of lifting her muff to her face—it was not much of
a protection, but she had seized upon it when she heard the front door
bang. She felt that it was the bang of a discovered crime. It took Elsie
a long time to say “Nothing—” but at last she said it; and then she
looked all round the room for a way of escape, but there was none.
It would be difficult to say which of the two criminals Onoria was
angriest with. She had been angry with Peter Gubbins all her life—for
being Peter Gubbins; his character irritated and at times eluded Onoria.
Elsie she loved; probably she was angriest with Elsie.
“Please don’t tell me lies,” she exclaimed with deadly patience. “I
heard perfectly well what you were doing, as I came up the road. I could
no more mistake Peter’s voice than a donkey braying. It came from my
room—and _you—you_, Elsie, were playing his accompaniments!”
Elsie bit a piece of fur out of her muff in anguish.
The situation was too large for her. She cowered under it, speechless
and overwhelmed. But something at the bottom of her heart told her it
was not fair and she would not be overwhelmed.
“What do you mean by such atrocious behaviour?” went on Onoria with
fluent passion. “Using my house, behind my back, to do what you _know_ I
have forbidden? How _dared_ you do such a thing, Elsie? How can you come
here now and look me in the face with that treacherous secret upon you?”
Elsie made a gesture of despair: she put the muff down; it had protected
her from nothing.
It was a late autumn evening, a river fog had crept into the room,
everything was a little indistinct, like a scene in a nightmare; only
the bitter, sharp voice of Onoria pelting at her was as distinct as a
succession of stones flung against a wall.
“Oh,” she gasped, “I didn’t mean—we didn’t think!”
“Mean! think!” cried Onoria. “What have you ever thought or meant,
either of you? How can I tell now? How can I believe you? Don’t you see
what you’ve done? You’ve undermined my confidence! How many times have
you played here without my knowledge? I don’t believe this is the
first!”
“He did like singing the Scotch ballads so,” Elsie murmured defensively.
“It was an accident the first time. We just tried them over: it didn’t
seem any harm. He had come in to dust your books for you and I was
early, so we just tried them over.”
Onoria changed her ground. She felt for a moment as if it was not so
firm as she had expected.
The crime did not stand out well against the background of Peter’s
services.
“Of course,” she said more mildly, “you mustn’t think I mind for
myself.” (What jealous person has ever minded for themselves? It is the
lowering of the beloved object which afflicts them most—and the beloved
object is always lowered by a shared dominion.) “People do not as a rule
care to have their houses used for other people’s meetings, without
their consent, but I overlook all that. Has it never occurred to you
what a scandal such performances produce? No doubt you are being talked
about all over Ticklington at this moment. If your parents knew of it
they would very rightly prevent your coming here again. And since it is
my house I am in a sense responsible for you. I have never been placed
in such an invidious position in my life—and by _you_, Elsie!”
Elsie was in tears now. She picked up the muff again, and wept bitterly
into it. She was not an easy crier and the fur choked her.
“I didn’t mean any harm,” she sobbed. “We only played ‘Over the Sea to
Skye.’ I don’t see why people should talk about it.”
“You were alone here with Peter in my absence,” said Onoria coldly.
“That is what they will talk about.”
It was very unfair of Onoria to say this because she was constantly
alone with Peter herself, and nobody in Little Ticklington had ever
talked about it. Nobody in Little Ticklington thought any more about
being alone with Peter than they would have thought of being alone with
Prendergast.
“I am speaking for your own good,” added Onoria, more gently and even
less truthfully, for like most people who think they are speaking for
the good of others, she was merely speaking to relieve her own spiteful
feelings.
The sight of Elsie’s tears softened her a little, but she mistook their
meaning. They were not tears of penitence, as Onoria believed—they were
the tears of an outraged sense of justice.
“I don’t see what particular good you think this is going to do me!”
Elsie observed between her sobs. Onoria opened her mouth to reply and
then shut it again. It took time to produce any tangible advantage to
Elsie out of the vortex of her own bad temper—finally, however, she did
produce it.
“I hope it will check you!” she said with dignity. “Before you do
something more compromising still.
“My advice to you is not to see Peter Gubbins again. I will deal with
him later, and let him know what I think of him for taking advantage of
a young and I _hope_ innocent girl!”
“I don’t see where the advantage comes,” persisted Elsie, who had
unaccountably stopped crying, “if he isn’t to sing his songs any more.”
“Don’t be puerile!” said Onoria sharply. “You know perfectly well what I
mean. None of your green girl prevarications with me!”
“No I don’t,” replied Elsie with astounding obstinacy.
“You’ve often told me, it was always women who took advantage of men,
and dragged them into things, and then complained about them afterwards.
Well, if it is—Peter couldn’t have dragged me into anything, could he?
And I’m _not_ complaining!”
Nobody likes to be convicted out of his own mouth, and Onoria liked it
less than most people.
“Please don’t make such an absurd exhibition of yourself,” she said,
with heightened colour and reduced softness. “I have told you what I
think, and how I intend to act. I am always perfectly direct and
straightforward. It is a pity that you cannot be the same. We will
discuss this question no further! Do you wish to take your music lesson
or do you not?”
Of course Elsie did not wish to take her music lesson, but habit is very
powerful, and the habit of surrender to a stronger will is probably more
difficult to break than any other habit. She gasped, put her muff down
and took her lesson, as if it were a dose of medicine.
She even kissed Onoria good-bye when she left—but if Onoria had been an
adept in kisses (which she was not) she would have felt something wrong
about it.
The complete kiss lingers—Elsie’s was without warmth and swift.
It was not accompanied by any form of apology, but Onoria felt that she
had the whip hand of the situation, and that those who hold the whip do
not need to exact apologies. She patted Elsie on the back and told her
to be a sensible girl. Elsie made a non-committal sound in her throat
and vanished hurriedly into the fog.
The fog was very dense, and she may or she may not have met Peter
Gubbins at the post box.
The scene between Peter and Onoria was far less drastic.
Onoria had quieted down before she saw him and she spoke as man to man.
She pointed out to Peter that he had taken an unwarrantable liberty with
her premises, and that he had acted in a compromising way with a girl
very nearly thirty years younger than himself.
Peter did not tell her, as the more virile type of man whom Onoria
admired might have told her, that she was a bad-minded old hen and was
talking a pack of nonsense; he took what she said with extreme
seriousness.
Peter quite saw her point about her premises and apologised.
He would not enter them again unless she were there herself.
He hoped that he had not done Elsie any harm: the practises had only
taken place six times with interludes of a week, and it had never
occurred to him that any one would dream of coupling their names
together. The bare idea of it was painful to him. Still, he quite saw
what Onoria meant. An unmarried man, even of his age, could not be too
careful, and he hoped the whole thing would blow over and not bring any
further trouble to any of them.
Onoria was quite genial and they smoked several cigarettes together and
discussed whether it was any use taking Prendergast to the vet. for a
tonic or not. They came to the conclusion that it was not.
Then Peter went home.
It was quite true that he meant to be careful, very careful indeed; but
the person of whom he meant to be careful was Onoria.
CHAPTER VI
Peter Gubbins had always taken great care of his broken heart.
In a place like Little Ticklington full of marriageable women, it was a
very important asset.
It played the part of a chaperone. No one could expect to marry a man
whose heart was as steadily and obviously broken as Peter’s.
It had never occurred to Peter to marry any one but Onoria.
He had a pleasant income for a single man, reinforced by certain small
cheques for his articles.
He lived well under his income and his cheques went into the garden. As
he often romantically said (when there was no danger of Onoria
overhearing him), his ideas literally created flowers.
He would never have confessed it even to himself, but he knew he was a
great deal better off as he was.
If he had had his heart’s desire, he would never have been able to get
rid of it afterwards, and this was equally the case with the few quiet
twinges in the direction of domesticity which had assailed him since.
There was nothing in Elsie Andrews which led Peter to change this
opinion.
At first he thought her a nice, quiet little girl; then when she shot up
into long skirts, and grew half a head taller than Onoria, he thought of
her as a sensible young woman, who never said things before you did, and
did not know what you had not told her.
Elsie made no effort, conscious or unconscious, to attract Peter, and
Peter (like many not very attractive men) was very suspicious of efforts
made to attract him.
Elsie was simply there in a pleasant, non-committal way, like a table
napkin or a bottle of ink. She was useful in the garden and sympathetic
at the piano; Samson liked her.
Peter Gubbins did not very often grasp new subjects, but when he did his
mind played upon them with the effect of a magnifying glass. It excited
him to be told that he had compromised Elsie; he had never compromised
any one before, and he was not quite sure what it involved.
Was he expected to act upon it? Or would it automatically react upon
him? Would the Andrewses mind? If they did, what form would their
minding take?
Fortunately there was nothing in writing. He remembered that he had once
sent Elsie a picture post card of a waterfall when he was away on a
holiday, but there had been no space upon it for anything but the
briefest allusion to the weather.
He hunted up old copies of an excellent magazine for which he had often
written, “Answers to Gardeners,” to see if upon another of its pages
under the heading of “Questions of Etiquette” there might not be some
case which would throw light upon his own.
But no one seemed to have gone quite so far. There was a suggestion that
no man should propose to two girls at the same time, a feat of
legerdemain perfectly foreign to Peter’s tastes; but nothing was said as
to the circumstances in which you are morally bound to propose to one.
Peter wished to continue to meet Elsie but he did not wish to be morally
bound.
He gave the matter a great deal of quiet study and reflection, but he
did nothing to precipitate the event of seeing Elsie again; he felt that
if they met by chance it would rob their meeting of any dangerous
intensity which it might otherwise have.
The meeting took place at the Post Office precisely a week later.
Elsie was standing with her back to Peter reading the notice of an
oratorio which was to be performed at a neighbouring Cathedral town.
Peter bought three ha’penny stamps and a packet of post cards before
anything striking happened.
Then Elsie turned round and gasped “Oh, Mr. Gubbins!”
Peter kept his head and paid for the post cards before he answered her.
“Oh, it’s you, Elsie, is it?” he remarked guardedly, having counted his
change. “Have you ever heard the Messiah?”
Elsie said she hadn’t, balancing first on one foot, and then on the
other.
She didn’t know whether to go out of the Post Office into the street
where anything might happen, or to remain in the shelter of the Post
Office where it would be more difficult to get away if anything did
happen.
“Do you want any stamps?” Mr. Gubbins asked kindly. Elsie flew to the
counter and bought six, then she opened her purse and found she had
already purchased a shilling’s worth.
Eventually they got into the street.
“It must be splendid,” said Elsie, referring to the Messiah. “Only I
believe Onoria said it wasn’t, so of course it can’t be. Have you ever
heard it?”
“Oh, time and time again,” said Mr. Gubbins lightly. “It is one of my
favourite entertainments, the Messiah. As a young man I went regularly
to hear it every Christmas Eve at the Albert Hall. I only gave it up
after an attack of tonsillitis I had one winter—I may have told you
about it? I date all my throat trouble from then.”
He had told Elsie about it several times, but as she merely murmured
sympathetically, he told her about it again.
After he had finished he came back to the Messiah.
“How would you like to go and hear it at the Cathedral?” he enquired.
“The organist is a friend of mine—he is going to get the soloists from
town, and I expect he’ll have got quite a good chorus together. The Dean
is allowing him to have it in the Cathedral.”
“Like it!” exclaimed Elsie. “Oh, frightfully, but you see Mother and
Father hate music, except bands on the beach, and Onoria says local
renderings of oratorios should be put down by law.”
“Well!” said Mr. Gubbins with unflinching courage. “Opinions differ
about oratorios of course. How would it be if I took you myself? I
daresay we could arrange something about it.”
Elsie looked at him as if he had suggested an expedition to Central
Africa. It was a most inspiriting look. Mr. Gubbins found it so, and a
lukewarm desire to do something desperate took possession of him.
But he meant to be very careful about it. He stage-managed this plunge
into the Forbidden Land with infinite precaution.
As human plans go it was perfect; there was nothing unarranged for
except Fate. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were to be told part of the truth.
Elsie was to break to them that she was going to hear the Messiah at
Mellingham. Mr. Gubbins did not suggest a downright lie to Elsie, but
when he said, “I daresay they’ll suppose it means with Onoria?” he paved
the way for a leakage in accuracy of which Elsie took full advantage.
Onoria was not to be told anything at all.
Elsie was to leave the Station of Little Ticklington by a one o’clock
train, and Mr. Gubbins by a one-thirty.
The journey took half an hour.
Elsie was to wait for him in a baker’s shop opposite the Cathedral; she
could have a bun and milk while she waited.
They were to come back in the same train but in a different compartment.
Short of an unfavourable interposition on the part of Providence, they
were safe.
But those who rely upon Providence to remain inactive in their favour
should not tempt it by displaying any activity of their own.
Miss Bretherton, without consulting Onoria beforehand, arranged for her
to take six pupils to the Messiah, whether she liked it or not.
She sprang this shabby trick upon her subordinate on the actual morning
of the performance.
Forty girls, in white dresses with blue sashes, upon one side and twenty
men in a variety of semi-evening clothes upon the other had scarcely
sung through the first chorus a trifle raggedly (first choruses are apt
to be a trifle ragged) before Elsie and Peter became aware of Onoria’s
eyes.
They knew they were Onoria’s eyes although she was sitting at some
little distance to the right of them, much as those who looked upon the
Medusa’s head must have been conscious that it was her head before they
turned into stone. No fate so happy awaited Peter and Elsie—if they had
been turned into stone they could have stared back. As it was they
twitched and trembled under Onoria’s ruthless gaze, conscious with a
cowering intensity of their flesh and blood.
Peter sank from terror to terror, till from the lowest depth of
cowardice, in which he contemplated leaving Elsie to her fate, he rose
to a state of rage. He became as savage and determined as a very timid
animal at bay. He would not be caught. That was what it came to. He set
his lips firmly together—Onoria or no Onoria, he would simply _not_ be
caught. It was a free country and no one could stop you if you ran away
fast enough. Of course there was Elsie; Elsie wept.
“Stop crying!” he hissed at Elsie with a snarl.
Elsie swallowed a sob abruptly and retreated into a large pocket
handkerchief.
The people sitting next to her thought she had a sensitive musical
temperament and admired her for it. They did not know what kind of a
temperament Peter had, but they did not admire him nearly so much.
The six girls, followed by Onoria with the face of an awakened Fury,
advanced down the aisle.
“We must get out of this!” said Peter hurriedly.
He grasped Elsie firmly by the arm and dragged her after him.
Onoria saw the action, and said “Elsie!” out loud in the Cathedral over
the six girls’ heads. Several people turned round. Elsie stiffened into
instant obedience, but Peter’s clutch of manly terror was greater than
Elsie’s power of womanly resistance. He had her out of the Cathedral and
half way to the Railway Station before she could turn round.
Onoria could not run after them. She had her dignity to preserve, and
the six girls to return intact.
Peter and Elsie had nothing to think of but their personal safety. They
preserved this by the skin of their teeth, and by getting, without
tickets, into a train destined for London.
They sat gasping and staring wild-eyed at each other, incapable of
further speech even if they had dared to give utterance to what was in
their hearts, in the presence of a clergyman, a market gardener, and two
elderly ladies who looked at them as if they thought that people in such
a hurry must have done something wrong.
When Elsie had got her breath again, she began to cry in gulps, as if
she were swallowing tabloids without water.
Peter stared desperately out of the window. He was trying to make up his
mind to the idea of never going back to his home, and he was remembering
Samson and the sweet peas. Oh, how wise cats were! Samson was never
involved in any social contacts beyond the point of a torn ear!
How gladly Mr. Gubbins would have let his ear be torn (in moderation) to
escape from the weeping heap of femininity opposite to him!
What nonsense it was for a man to be expected to defend women, when they
were always either the danger itself—like Onoria—or could melt out of
it into a mist of tears—like Elsie?
Every one in the railway carriage was sorry for Elsie. No one was sorry
for Mr. Gubbins. Indeed, the clergyman was beginning to be highly
suspicious of him. He was not at all sure that he was not, for the first
time in his well-chosen career, confronted by a Social Evil.
Several of our most prominent daily newspapers, during the early autumn
before the opening of Parliament, had taken up the subject of the White
Slave Traffic.
Mr. Gubbins looked ferocious, Elsie sobbed on.
The clergyman leaned forward and said tentatively, as it was surely his
duty to do, “I am afraid this young lady is somewhat distressed?”
Peter Gubbins rose to the occasion; a flash of inspiration shot through
him.
“She’s just had a tooth out,” he explained with unswerving duplicity.
Elsie stopped crying. She could not believe that Peter Gubbins had told
a lie like that at a moment’s notice.
With the natural depravity of women, she had never admired him so much
before. She gave a watery smile of affirmation.
The market gardener said sympathetically:
“Shock to the nerves, that’s what it is! I had an aunt once that had a
tooth out, she never got over it. Had hysterics she had, one after the
other, and died that day fortnight.”
“This,” said Mr. Gubbins, without moving a muscle of his face, “was only
a wisdom tooth. They come out easier.”
CHAPTER VII
Miss Strickland had great self-control, and she needed it. When her
amazed eyes rested upon Elsie and Peter Gubbins, she could hardly
believe them. Disobedience and deceit united for purposes of pleasure
had never so flaunted themselves before her in the whole course of her
career. For a week she had believed Elsie and Peter to be crushed.
Crushed as flat as a black beetle under the heel of a self-respecting
cook.
For a moment she was almost too astonished to be angry. How had they
dared? They who in general dared so little—to rush upon the knife?
But her surprise was swiftly reinforced by anger. She was in a
consecrated building and the oratorio had begun—so she remained
perfectly still although her figure became charged like an electric
battery. All the six pupils of Miss Bretherton received small
invigorating shocks from it.
They knew something was wrong—and not with them. After all the Messiah
was not going to be such a bore as they had feared.
They followed the direction of Miss Strickland’s eyes and arrived at
Elsie and Peter.
The opening chorus might have been a Salute to Adventurers. Solemnly and
gloatingly the pupils gazed at the desperate couple. Peter and Elsie
felt all these hostile eyes converging upon them, and they saw nothing
else.
The tenderness of the massed violins in the Pastoral Symphony (they were
not quite tender enough, but it is difficult for amateur violins to be
tender, and it is even more difficult for them to be sufficiently
massed) did nothing whatever to soften the atmosphere. It would have
been as useful to try the effect of Handel’s music upon terriers in a
rat hunt.
The hunt went on from end to end of the Messiah. It was conducted in
silence by seven pairs of eyes, led by Miss Strickland.
The girls ought to have been upon the side of the rats. They had no
quarrel with Elsie Andrews, who had left School before their time, they
knew Mr. Gubbins by sight and were without personal claims upon him even
in the realms of fancy. All of them disliked Miss Strickland, and yet
none of them refrained from the pursuit of the stricken quarry.
They could barely wait for the unearthly shrieks of the Hallelujah
Chorus, the separate clauses of which went off like corks from a bottle,
before they knelt for a respectful and non-committal moment in the
direction of the Altar, and proceeded to bear down upon the delinquents
through the main aisle of the Cathedral.
They thrilled with ecstasy at the resonant and piercing voice of Miss
Strickland when she said aloud in the sacred building “Elsie!” In
another moment they would have been upon the culprits had not a
remorseless family of nine interfered between them and their prey.
Breathless, they hacked their way to the door, only to see Elsie and
Peter arm-in-arm disappearing round a corner.
Then Miss Strickland reined them in.
She said with perfect self-control and extreme unfairness, “I don’t know
what you girls are hurrying for. There is plenty of time to catch the
train. Please walk at your usual pace and in your usual order.”
Miss Strickland never spoke twice. She had only once said “Elsie.” When
this command failed, her lips and her heart had simultaneously closed.
She had made a mistake in tactics. She saw in a flash, too late to
rectify her action, that she should have called “Peter!” not “Elsie!”
Peter had had the strength to deny her claim upon Elsie, but he would
never have had strength to deny a direct command made to himself, in a
Cathedral. Onoria knew theoretically that it is always wisest to tackle
the strongest of two culprits first. It was indeed her invariable and
most successful practise, but her heart had betrayed her, she had struck
out at her Beloved—and her Beloved had in consequence got clean away.
Onoria pulled herself together when she reached the street, and made no
more mistakes.
Her duty was to her pupils, and she did it.
Methodically, though with a heart on fire, she arranged their return
tickets and marshalled them into the train. If Elsie and Peter had been
on the Station, Onoria would have seen them but she would not have
noticed them.
She put her charges into a third class carriage marked “Ladies Only,”
took a corner seat by the window, and proceeded to bone “the Messiah”
for the delectation of her pupils.
Her trained ear had after all enabled her to listen to it sufficiently
for her to be capable of stating its faults.
Onoria had no great passion for Handel at the best of times and the
average grasp of a Local Orchestral Society is not the best of times for
Handel, but on this occasion she was vitriolic.
The girls heard her with awe.
Somebody was catching it, even if they were great and dead. They would
have preferred to see Elsie and Peter catching it because they were
alive and lived at Little Ticklington, but they could not have
everything.
Destruction always appeals to the young, and on the whole they had a far
better time than they had had any right to expect at an oratorio in a
Cathedral.
Miss Strickland saw them safely back to their respective homes. Two of
the girls were boarders and these she dropped at the School gates.
Then she turned hastily homewards.
Samson was at her door. He was a gloomy and outraged cat, wet by the
autumn mist and deprived of his invariable tea, with Mr. Gubbins’ share
of cream, and a fire-warmed knee to rest up against afterwards.
He did not so much miss Mr. Gubbins as actively resent him. He miaued
coarsely. Miss Strickland subdued a temptation to hit him sharply on the
head with her umbrella.
It was quite open to her to hit him and it would serve Peter right. But
Miss Strickland was a just woman; she reminded herself that the soul
that sinneth it shall die.
Samson was not an accessory either before or after the fact, and it was
a fact which had postponed his tea, and to which he would therefore have
definitely refused his consent if consulted.
She opened the door and Samson flew past her and consumed loudly and
without hesitation Prendergast’s neglected dinner.
Prendergast had not wanted his dinner, and he did not want it now, but
still less did he wish to see a low cat indulging itself with his sacred
rites. There had always been a state of armed neutrality between the two
animals: neither was strong enough to wholly destroy the other, so they
wisely avoided combat, but they were not friends.
Prendergast growled feebly from his basket, and gazed at his mistress
expecting her instant and effectual intervention, but Miss Strickland
sank down on a chair beside him with all her things on and her hands in
her lap.
Bridget had let the fire go out and Prendergast shivered sharply to
remind Onoria to relight it. What had she come home for if not to
relight the fire and restore comfort? But still she did not raise her
eyes—she murmured “There, there,” and “Poor old Prendie—” but her mind
was not on him. She was sitting in a curiously bowed position, as if
something within her was refusing to fight.
Samson finished the last mouthful of Prendergast’s meal, wiped his
whiskers ostentatiously in front of the basket and disappeared lightly
through a back window. He was quite willing to eat a meal in Miss
Strickland’s house but he had no intention of giving her the benefit of
his company in return.
A person who kept a moribund pug in a basket was hardly the kind of
society a cat of Samson’s standing in the neighbourhood would care to
choose as a friend.
Miss Strickland did not notice the defection of Samson; she did not for
a long while notice anything. There was an inward drama in her heart
which held her whole attention.
Something implored her to let her pride go, and keep her friends. It
told her that she was getting old and had few earthly ties, that Elsie
was dearer to her than she knew, and even Peter was a treasured habit
left over from the richer years, and that if she used her anger too
ruthlessly against them she would be condemning herself to perpetual
loneliness.
One cannot make new ties at fifty-three, too much of life has gone, too
many hopes have passed into too many memories.
One cannot explain oneself to new friends, and they cannot know how the
early generosities and charms of our characters have staled and wearied
with the weight of time.
They do not excuse our scars or realise our finished struggles. How can
they dream that our egoism was once a winged idealism set to reach the
stars? That our irritability was a vivacity of intellect condemned to a
provincial vocabulary, that even our dogmatism is but an old loyalty
stiffened into bad temper?
It is in middle age that we most need the mercy of a contemporary, and
the memory of a friend.
Onoria really wanted Elsie to be happy. She didn’t want her to grow up
into a dull, lonely old woman with a pet animal. But it was hard to give
her up to Peter.
If Peter had only been a _man_! It wasn’t, Onoria assured herself, that
she minded about her old relation to Peter. After all she never had
valued it; still he was the only man it would have been any use Onoria’s
minding.
She despised Peter, and the worst of it was that Elsie, whom she loved,
cared more for this Peter whom Onoria despised than she did for Onoria’s
opinion of him. That was the sting of stings.
Onoria had laid out Peter on the dissecting table of her wit over and
over again before Elsie, and Elsie had connived at these spiritual
post-mortems without a qualm, and all the while she planned this hideous
treachery!
Miss Strickland looked facts in the face: if she gave in, Elsie and
Peter would come back to her. They would come gladly into her sphere
again. There would be no bitterness and no reproaches. They would
just—all three of them—settle down.
But there would be one difference, one fatal difference to Onoria’s
pride. They would both of them know that they had got the better of her.
They would give her love and even respect, but it would never be “glad,
confident morning” again.
If they wanted something else which Onoria disapproved of their having,
they would combine to get it.
They might marry or not—Onoria was above the petty sting of wincing at
the legal ceremony—but they would combine—that was what she winced at.
She must choose once and for all. There are moments in life when choice
is within our own hands—though they are very rare—when we can decide
with the finality of an earthquake or a volcano what we intend to do
with our future. Pride pushed Onoria into resistance and love drew her
towards surrender.
Love urged that she would be glad to see Elsie happy, that she could not
want to hurt Elsie, that nothing but not hurting Elsie really mattered.
Love is always immoral. It slays pride, it urges that law is only a
letter and possession a bitter illusion of the senses, and that only
Freedom—the freedom to serve the beloved—counts in the eternal scheme
of things.
Love ignored Peter Gubbins and how necessary it was to give him a
lesson; it made specious excuses for Elsie’s flagrant treachery; it said
“She only deceived you because she didn’t want to hurt you—she only
disobeyed you to be happy, and after all that is what you want, isn’t
it? You want Elsie to be happy?”
Miss Strickland wavered under the pressure of love; but she only
wavered. Righteousness and self-respect rose up afresh in her.
Self-respect at the touch of which Love always dwindles out of sight and
Righteousness which so often consists in carrying out our own will, in
an imagined connection with the Deity.
“I shall do right, whatever it costs me,” Onoria said to herself at
last, and she did not know that she might as well have said, “I shall do
what I like, whatever it costs anybody else.”
It would have meant precisely the same thing.
CHAPTER VIII
It was at this point in her meditations that Prendergast moved. He
wanted attention and at last he received it. Miss Strickland made up the
fire and brought him a little warm milk with a dash of brandy in it.
Prendergast responded to the stimulant and began to wander restlessly
about the room. He could not make up his mind what he wanted. He moved
about vaguely and stiffly as one who is practising the art of walking.
His desires broke in him; and Miss Strickland, with a divine patience
gratified in turn and without hurry, each of his passing fancies.
No one who knew Onoria Strickland as she was to the world, to her
pupils, or even to her friends, could have believed in this tender,
ministering Onoria, carrying out with anxious solicitude the whims of an
old dog.
She did not leave Prendergast till he had finally decided on a return to
his basket. When his feeble snores told her that he was at rest, she
groped her way to the mantelpiece for matches, and tidied herself for
going out once more.
Miss Strickland had never in her life looked untidy and she was not
going to begin now.
She had decided to make an appeal to Elsie’s parents.
Hitherto she had considered parents unreasonable and obstructive people
who paid the piper and considered themselves entitled to call for
inappropriate tunes.
Miss Bretherton and Miss Strickland together railed and laughed in turn
at the delinquencies of parents—their ineffectual hankerings, their odd
explosions of indignation and their ineradicable faith in the production
of figs from thistles.
None of them knew what their children were really like, and all of them
thought they did. Nevertheless, Providence had provided parents with a
little brief authority, and there were moments when it came in very
usefully.
It had flashed through Onoria’s mind, at the first instant when she saw
her will defied by the truant couple, that perhaps Mrs. Andrews might be
able to do something with Elsie.
Miss Strickland did not know the Andrewses very well. She often said
that they were like glass to her and that she could read them like a
book; but Mrs. Andrews only came to tea with Miss Strickland once a
year; and Miss Strickland returned her call within a fortnight.
She had met Mr. Andrews twice, and they had had on both these occasions
acrimonious disputes on politics.
Mr. Andrews described Miss Strickland as a “strong-minded female for
whom he had no manner of use,” and Miss Strickland said Mr. Andrews was
“nothing but a hen-headed old grocer.”
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were eating their supper when Miss Strickland was
announced.
They were not surprised that Elsie was late as they neither of them knew
how long oratorios lasted; but they were frightened when they saw that
Miss Strickland was alone.
Mrs. Andrews exclaimed at once, “Where’s Elsie? Has she been run over?”
and Mr. Andrews said, “Nonsense, Mother! Of course not. Where _is_ the
child, Miss Strickland? We hold you responsible you know! We hold you
_strictly_ responsible!”
“I don’t know,” said Onoria firmly.
She took an armchair and faced the questioning parents with her usual
deliberate self-assurance. “That is what I came to ask you.”
“But surely—” Mr. and Mrs. Andrews began together. “Surely you took
Elsie to the oratorio?—she said, didn’t she, she was going this
afternoon over to Mellingham?”
“I was,” said Miss Strickland, “at the oratorio in Mellingham this
afternoon, and so was Elsie, but she was not with me.”
“Well I never!” said Mr. Andrews. “Fancy her going off like that all by
herself! It’s certainly time she was back. Girls are so independent
nowadays.”
“She was _not_ alone,” Miss Strickland said significantly.
Mr. Andrews leaned forward, “Who was she with?” he asked truculently.
“She was with Peter Gubbins,” said Miss Strickland, leaning back in her
chair.
If she had intended to create a sensation she had succeeded beyond her
wildest dreams; but the incredible part of it was the type of sensation
she had created. She had expected shame, indignation and alarm. Mr. and
Mrs. Andrews were quite obviously pleased.
Once more Onoria was confronted by the inexplicable nature of parents.
They did not wish to show their satisfaction too plainly, but the tone
in which Elsie’s mother said, “Well I never!” was one of flattered
maternal pride, and Mr. Andrews, when he had drawn a long breath,
exclaimed, “I never would have thought it!” in much the way in which he
would have greeted a smart trick of the trade.
“You can never tell with the quiet kind,” Mrs. Andrews continued
reminiscently. “I was like that myself as a girl, I never went out of my
way to attract anybody, and as to mentioning it at home—well—I’d have
been ashamed! I just let things take their course as it were—and here I
am! Dear me!”
“Shouldn’t you say Peter Gubbins was a warm man?” enquired Mr. Andrews,
ignoring this revelation of his wife’s tactics. “I’ve always understood
he had a tidy little sum put by.”
“I couldn’t possibly tell you,” said Miss Strickland, who had, during
this outburst of vulgarity, recovered her secret poise. “To tell the
truth, the idea of Elsie’s having arrived at any notion of matrimony had
not occurred to me. I merely thought that it was unfortunate she should
appear in public unchaperoned with a man who is old enough to be her
father, but who is not her father.”
“Oh, well, you know,” said Mr. Andrews, “young people will be young
people, won’t they Mother? And we all know Peter Gubbins about here.
Peter Gubbins is as safe as the Bank of England. I don’t call fifty old
for a man.”
“Appearances,” said Miss Strickland coldly, “are never safe. I had not
intended to mention it, but I see I had better put you in command of all
the facts.
“Peter Gubbins has been in the habit of meeting Elsie at my house, in my
absence, without my knowledge or consent.”
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews looked at each other. Mr. Andrews whistled.
“Dear! dear!” said Mr. Andrews after an awkward pause.
“I’m sure we’re very sorry, Miss Strickland. Elsie oughtn’t to have done
it, I allow, but if you won’t mind my saying so, you should have thought
of it before! What I mean to say is—it’s a little late in the day,
isn’t it—for you to mind what Peter Gubbins does?”
“It’s only natural,” interposed Mrs. Andrews, “for him to take to a
young girl like Elsie. We each have our turn, you know, Miss Strickland,
and then we have to stand aside and let the young ones have theirs! It’s
hard lines I know, but there it is——”
“You quite misunderstand me,” said Onoria, who had turned brick red
under this last onslaught of a parent’s imagination.
“What Peter Gubbins does, or what he fancies, is, and always has been, a
matter of perfect indifference to me. In this case, my sole concern has
been Elsie and the compromising position to which such clandestine
meetings give rise.”
It was a good sentence with a swing that took the wind out of Mr.
Andrews’ sails. Still, Miss Strickland would have preferred to fling the
vulgar truth upon the table. She wanted to say:
“My dear good people, I’ve refused Peter Gubbins dozens of times, and
Elsie is merely taking my leavings, if she does take them, but that
seems to me no good reason for carrying on behind my back!”
But education takes from us our most effective weapons. It would have
been ill-bred to make this statement, and Miss Strickland, though she
never minded being rude, did not wish to appear ill-bred; and in spite
of the excellence of her sentence she knew that the Andrewses, still
believed that Elsie had cut her out.
“Since you are not alarmed at Elsie’s having failed to return at the
termination of the oratorio,” she said, rising to her feet, “or at the
fact that she has apparently vanished into space with Peter Gubbins at
eight o’clock at night—there is nothing further to be said. I can only
congratulate you on the strength of your nerves.”
“It is a _little_ late,” Mrs. Andrews admitted. “Still——”
There was a sound at the garden gate; a moment later a loud knock
heralded the telegraph boy.
Mr. Andrews put on his glasses and read out loud: “Missed train after
oratorio—too late to return—staying with Aunt Anne—Elsie.”
“Her Aunt Anne,” explained Mr. Andrews with restored satisfaction, “is a
clergyman’s widow, who lives at Clapham. Elsie won’t come to any harm
staying with her Aunt Anne—Peter Gubbins or no Peter Gubbins.”
“Probably he’s come home,” said Mrs. Andrews comfortably. “He never was
much of a gadabout. I’m sure we’re just as grateful to you, Miss
Strickland, for coming in to tell us what you knew. You couldn’t have
been kinder if you’d been a parent yourself.”
“Thank God I’m not!” Miss Strickland energetically and rather shockingly
declared (though in a sense it would have been more shocking had she
wished to be a parent). “If I _were_ I should hardly take my
responsibilities as lightly as you do.”
“I shall write to my sister to-morrow,” said Mr. Andrews with dignity,
“and my wife will write to Elsie.”
Miss Strickland walked to the door. Her last hope had flickered out with
the mention of Aunt Anne at Clapham. A situation occupied by Aunt Anne
was impregnable.
Onoria knew herself outwitted by the ponderous stupidity of facts.
It was a cold, foggy evening, the streets of Little Ticklington were
badly lighted and empty.
It seemed a long way home. A curious stifling sense of dread overtook
Onoria. She told herself sharply that when a thing has already happened
it is silly to be afraid of its happening again.
Nevertheless she hurried, as if she might by hurrying escape what was to
overtake her.
Bridget had lit the gas in the hall, and the fire in the drawing room
burnt brightly.
Prendergast lay a little on one side in his basket.
He was not snoring as he usually did. Miss Strickland leaned over him
anxiously. He did not open his eyes or turn his head to look at her, and
then she saw that he never would again. He had made up his mind what he
wanted.
A wild impulse to rush across and tell Peter Gubbins shook Miss
Strickland.
Nobody else loved Prendergast, but Peter had loved him. He had loved him
nearly as much as he loved Samson.
Miss Strickland looked down with quivering lips at the obese form of the
dead pug. He was all she had in the world, and he had taken this
opportunity to slip out of it.
Miss Strickland was a fighter. She was a very fine fighter and up till
this moment no wave of disaster had ever been beyond her power to
surmount. But you cannot fight the memory of a dead dog.
Prendergast overwhelmed Miss Strickland. She sank on the floor beside
his basket sobbing as if her heart, which was already broken, could
break again.
“They might have left me this!” she said between her sobs.
She spoke as if Elsie and Peter between them had killed Prendergast,
although she knew that this was nonsense.
CHAPTER IX
Peter Gubbins had the type of mind which invariably sees danger in the
most unlikely places.
He apprehended it from every wayside flower. Nothing was too trivial or
too transitory for Peter to snatch from it in passing a whiff of
disaster.
He never mounted a tram without expecting to break his leg, and he never
ate a meal in a strange place without anticipating typhoid.
And yet the mere sound of Onoria’s voice had driven him helter skelter
towards the abyss of matrimony.
He raced from the Cathedral to the Station as a man flees from a burning
building: his one idea was not to be caught by Onoria. Even if he had
envisaged Onoria’s face at one end of the race and matrimony at the
other, it is probable he would have continued running in the direction
of matrimony. The true coward can only see one danger at a time, and
falls light-heartedly into any other which lies in the opposite
direction.
It says a great deal for Peter Gubbins’ heart that even in that awful
moment of panic he dragged Elsie after him.
It was not till they were safe in the train that he began to wonder how
on earth he was going to get rid of her.
The chief obstacle to murder has always been the disposal of the
body—and the problem of rescue is very similar to it; but it is easier
to dispose of a victim than to dispose of a sacred charge; villains, not
knight errants, escape the due reward of their deeds.
Peter wished with a burning longing that he could deposit Elsie in the
Cloak Room at Paddington Station, even if it involved his paying
twopence a day on her for ever.
After the tooth episode it was wonderful how Elsie cheered up.
She had found in Mr. Gubbins a prop and stay and that was all she
wanted. A flower grows without the support of a stick—but its carriage
depends on being tied to one.
Elsie held her head up, and her mind (which if timorous was always
practical) turned to Aunt Anne at Clapham.
They had a late tea in the Station and sent off Elsie’s telegram; and
then they took a taxi to Clapham.
They could have gone as conveniently and more cheaply by train, but a
taxi appealed to them both, as more buccaneerish.
Peter enjoyed feeling buccaneerish until they reached the Common; then
he began to tremble before the idea of explaining things to Aunt Anne.
He knew that he had done right, but he was aware that flight and guilt
are to many people synonymous; and few men like to explain that they
found it safer to run away.
Elsie with incredible finesse relieved him of this difficulty. She said
she thought it would be better if he left her at the door, and came back
next day. “You’ll have time then,” she explained, “to think things over,
and I know authors and people think of their plots better alone.
Whatever you decide is sure to be wonderful, and Aunt Anne will be more
likely to listen to me if you’re not there.”
Peter gave a sigh of relief. “Yes—yes,” he agreed, “perhaps the
explanation had better come from you direct. I know from personal
experience that the way to tackle a difficult situation is easier to me
if I am left alone face to face with it, as it were. Perhaps this is
merely because I am a man. Onoria would say so—but roughly speaking, I
should say that women have the same gift.”
“I don’t know if it’s a gift,” said Elise modestly, “but I can’t say
anything if other people are there—and I can’t say much if they aren’t;
but I’ll do what I can.”
Aunt Anne required a good many explanations. She had never received a
niece before at seven o’clock in the evening without a tooth-brush.
It would have been difficult for her to grasp that the survivors of
earthquakes are denuded of this effective article of toilette, and she
knew that Little Ticklington was not an earthquake district.
She followed every explanation given by Elsie with—“Still I can’t quite
see, dear, how you have arrived without your night things. I am very
glad to see you, of course, but it all sounds so precipitate.”
It was on the edge of this precipice that Elsie fell asleep.
She wisely kept Mr. Gubbins for breakfast. When they were eating kidneys
and bacon—after porridge, but before marmalade—she confessed to her
Aunt Anne that she had not only run away from the oratorio because Miss
Strickland did not like oratorios, but because Mr. Gubbins was with her
and Miss Strickland would have liked his presence even less than an
oratorio.
Aunt Anne laid down her knife and fork and gazed at Elsie—the mystery
was solved. It had been a mystery—it was now simply a crime. Aunt Anne
had not understood before why Miss Strickland should object to certain
parts of the Bible set to music. She was herself doubtful of Opera, even
if it had not been so expensive; but sacred music was surely both
educational and devout, and not even very interesting. It was
unreasonable for a high school teacher to object to such a
performance—but a young man!
Her gaze was awful, and Elsie shuddered under it, and swallowing her tea
too hurriedly, choked.
When she had stopped choking, Aunt Anne said portentously, “Is Mr.
Gubbins a young man, Elsie?”
Elsie said that that depended on what you meant by young; she had known
him for years and years, and he had grey hair and wore spectacles.
“Spectacles,” said Aunt Anne solemnly, “do not prevent youth though they
may disguise it. Grey hair is neither here nor there. Am I to gather
that there is some understanding between you and this—this Mr. Gubbins,
Elsie—perhaps unknown to your dear parents?”
Elsie wriggled and twisted. “They wouldn’t mind him,” she murmured
forlornly. “At least I don’t think so. Of course we understand each
other in a way. I play his accompaniments.”
“Elsie, you are hedging!” exclaimed Aunt Anne majestically. “I must see
this young man for myself.”
Elsie was not really hedging; if she had seen a hedge she would most
certainly have taken shelter under it, but she was not aware of the
exact danger her aunt supposed her to be avoiding.
She felt that there was something ominous in the air connected with Mr.
Gubbins, and she wriggled to appease it.
The idea of marriage conveyed nothing personal to Elsie. Marriage was
merely something that happened to other people—with a cake. She helped
herself to marmalade and hoped that Peter Gubbins would blow over.
Her aunt pursed up her lips and said, “This is dreadful!” but as Elsie
refused to fall into the trap of asking what was dreadful, she could not
follow it up in any way, except by telling Mary, the parlour-maid, to
show Mr. Gubbins, when he arrived, into her dead husband’s study.
The study of a dead clergyman is not usually an invigorating spot.
Aunt Anne was a massive lady and she sat between Peter and the door. All
the windows were closed as if on purpose. Even if Peter had had the
courage to try to escape it would have been very difficult. You cannot
get out of dead people’s rooms briskly without appearing heartless;
besides he had not the courage.
Peter was not as surprised at Aunt Anne’s attitude as Elsie would have
been, but he was more frightened.
He saw in Aunt Anne’s eye that matrimony had fallen upon him like a bolt
from the blue.
You cannot put bolts back into the blue when they have fallen, and you
could not dislodge the idea of matrimony from Aunt Anne’s mind once it
had taken root there. If young people would go to oratorios together
they ought to be married—she saw that quite plainly, even without the
lawless journey at the other end, which made the prospect, as she
explained to Peter, “simply compulsory.”
“You see,” she explained, “Elsie arrived here literally without a
tooth-brush—need I say more?”
Peter assured her that there really was no need. It contained the case
against them in a nutshell.
On the whole he was not averse to being frightened into marriage with
Elsie. One or two things had to be made perfectly plain before he would
consent to it. One was that they should not go back to Little
Ticklington on any account, and the other that the marriage should take
place as quietly as possible without wedding guests. They might have
relatives, but not friends.
It was all terribly uncertain and disintegrating, but it was not as
terrible as having to face Onoria.
Peter’s own plan had been the idea of going abroad alone, assisted by
Thomas Cook.
Of course it was a very dangerous plan, open to obvious disasters at
practically every turn, still Cook’s was a most reliable agency, and
many people had been known to return alive from trips to the Continent.
He could take a hot water bottle, Keating’s, and a small medicine chest.
But marriage would be less complicated, and it would have the advantage
of including Elsie.
Peter proposed to Elsie quite easily. He simply said, “On the whole, I
think the best way out for both of us is to be married. For a long time
I have been feeling Little Ticklington too restricted for me mentally.
One needs to be nearer the great pulse of life—not too near, of course!
I thought somewhere in the suburbs—Chiswick, for instance—there are
some nice little houses in that direction, or Turnham Green.
“I could cultivate sweet peas there, and yet attend literary causeries
in London. Of course it’s a great upheaval for both of us, especially at
my age, but looking at it all round, it appears to me the wisest course
to take—what do you feel about it?”
Elsie nodded, she wasn’t looking at it all round. She was seeing that it
involved her not having to meet Onoria just yet.
She said, yes, she thought it was the best plan, if Peter didn’t mind.
Peter said, “You must take the rough with the smooth.” Of course he had
not contemplated such a step for many years, but he thought if they were
very careful and took things quietly they might be able to manage.
He understood from Aunt Anne that you wrote to the Bishop’s Chaplain for
a license, and did not have to see the Bishop.
The conversation came to an abrupt pause, their eyes met guiltily, and
they looked away from each other.
What were they going to do about Onoria?
Peter hummed and Elsie twiddled her fingers. Onoria never allowed these
physical mitigations of self-control to take place. It was a great
relief to them.
They decided—in silence—to do nothing. It was as if they had been
married already.
Peter said he had one or two little things to do, and left her.
Aunt Anne came in and wept on Elsie’s neck; and they decided to go out
and do a little shopping.
Everything went quite smoothly. Elsie’s parents came up to town and were
very pleased when they discovered that Peter had six hundred a year in
trust funds without counting what he made by his articles.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews privately thought that marriage from Clapham was
absurd, but Peter was unexpectedly firm upon the subject.
He simply asserted that at Little Ticklington no such marriage would
ever take place.
He would marry Elsie at Clapham or he would not marry Elsie at all.
Mrs. Binns (Peter’s former housekeeper) brought Samson up to town in a
basket. Samson would not speak to Peter for several days, but he ate
heartily.
It was the night before the wedding that Peter and Elsie heard of the
death of Prendergast.
Mrs. Binns had bought Peter a China dog as a wedding present and it put
it into her head.
Elsie and Peter concealed their emotion until they were alone, then they
gazed at each other in sympathetic anguish—they could no longer keep
silence about Onoria.
“Oh!” said Elsie, “if only we could give Onoria another pug. Perhaps she
would see then that we aren’t really doing anything to upset her—and
besides she wouldn’t mind so much if she had something—you know what I
mean—something of her own to fall back upon.”
“I was thinking the same thing myself,” agreed Peter. “Between you and
me, Onoria never had quite the subtlety for cats—Samson would never
look at her—but dogs she knew through and through. I think she would
appreciate our getting her a dog. It might heal any little breach that
our—our coming together—may have appeared to cause.”
They bought a pug puppy directly after the marriage—on the way to
Chiswick. (Peter had always understood honeymoons were dangerous, so
they had decided to avoid one.)
It was an expensive animal and it relieved their feelings very much.
Onoria would have returned it to them, had she not discovered on opening
the basket that, with their usual inefficiency, they had sent the poor
little creature to her in a most deplorable condition.
First it had to be fed, and then a carbolic bath was more than
indicated, and after Onoria had spent several hours over the puppy with
a fine tooth comb and a large bath sheet, she began to feel that it
would be cruelty to send it back. It was obvious that neither of the
Gubbinses could take proper care of a dog.
Onoria never altogether lost touch with Peter and Elsie. She told them
what she thought of them when she acknowledged the pug; but letters do
not carry sound. They became used to the idea of what Onoria thought of
them; it seemed less significant at Chiswick.
Onoria spent a night with them every now and then, and once a year they
visited her for a week-end at Little Ticklington.
Of course it was not the same thing. Onoria was just the same and the
Gubbinses were not really very different; but they were more critical of
Onoria.
They did not stand up to her before her face, but they stood up to her
behind her back quite easily.
When Onoria got the better of them in argument, as she invariably did,
they would wait until she was out of earshot. Then they would smile and
say to each other with the secret consciousness of superior achievement,
“It stands to reason that an unmarried woman like Onoria can’t
understand things as we do. She hasn’t had the experience.”
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
A few obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected
without note. When multiple spellings occurred, majority use has been
employed.
A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public
domain.
[End of _The Victim and The Worm_ by Phyllis Bottome]