It is impossible to divine what might have occurred for the delectation
of the very ancient borough of Oldcastle if that frivolous piece of
goods, Edith, had not taken it into her head to run down from London for
a few days, on the plea that London was too ridiculously hot. She was a
pretty girl, with fluffy honey-coloured hair and about thirty white
frocks. And she seemed to be quite as silly as her staid stepmother and
her prim step-aunt had said. She transformed the careful order of the
house into a wild disorder, and left a novel or so lying on the
drawing-room table between her stepmother's _Contemporary Review_ and
her step-aunt's _History of European Morals_. Her taste in music was
candidly and brazenly bad. It was a fact, as her elders had stated, that
she played nothing but waltzes. What was worse, she compelled Carl
Ullman to perform waltzes. And one day she burst into the drawing-room
when Carl was alone there, with a roll under her luscious arm, and said:
"What do you think I've found at Barrowfoot's?"
"I don't know," said Carl, gloomily smiling, and then smiling without
gloom.
"Waldteufel's waltzes arranged for four hands. You must play them with
me at once."
And he did. It was a sad spectacle to see the organist of St Placid's
galloping through a series of dances with the empty-headed Edith.
The worst was, he liked it. He knew that he ought to prefer the high
intellectual plane, the severe artistic tastes, of the elderly sisters.
But he did not. He was amazed to discover that frivolity appealed more
powerfully to his secret soul. He was also amazed to discover that his
gloom was leaving him. This vanishing of gloom gave him strange
sensations, akin to the sensations of a man who, after having worn
gaiters into middle-age, abandons them.
After the Waldteufel she began to tell him all about herself; how she
went slumming in the East End, and how jolly it was. And how she helped
in the Bloomsbury Settlement, and how jolly that was. And, later, she
said:
"You must have thought it very odd of me, Mr Ullman, not thanking you
for so bravely rescuing my poor cat; but the truth is I never heard of
it till to-day. I can't say how grateful I am. I should have loved to
see you doing it."
"Is Goldie your cat?" he feebly inquired.
"Why, of course?" she said. "Didn't you know? Of course you did! Goldie
always belonged to me. Grandpa bought him for me. But I couldn't do with
him in London, so I always leave him here for them to take care of. He
adores me. He never forgets me. He'll come to me before anyone. You must
have noticed that. I can't say how grateful I am! It was perfectly
marvellous of you! I can't help laughing, though, whenever I think what
a state mother and auntie must have been in that night!"
Strictly speaking, they hadn't a cent between them, except his hundred a
year. But he married her hair and she married his melancholy eyes; and
she was content to settle in Oldcastle, where there are almost no slums.
And her stepmother was forced by Edith to make the hundred up to four
hundred. This was rather hard on Mrs Ebag. Thus it fell out that Mrs
Ebag remained a widow, and that Miss Ebag continues a flower uncalled.
However, gossip was stifled.
In his appointed time, and in the fulness of years, Goldie died, and was
mourned. And by none was he more sincerely mourned than by the aged
bedridden Caiaphas.
"I miss my cat, I can tell ye!" said old Caiaphas pettishly to Carl, who
was sitting by his couch. "He knew his master, Goldie did! Edith did her
best to steal him from me when you married and set up house. A nice
thing considering I bought him and he never belonged to anybody but me!
Ay! I shall never have another cat like that cat."
And this is the whole truth of the affair.