I
The prologue to this somewhat dramatic history was of the simplest. The
affair came to a climax, if one may speak metaphorically, in fire and
sword and high passion, but it began like the month of March. Mr Bostock
(a younger brother of the senior partner in the famous firm of Bostocks,
drapers, at Hanbridge) was lounging about the tennis-court attached to
his house at Hillport. Hillport has long been known as the fashionable
suburb of Bursley, and indeed as the most aristocratic quarter strictly
within the Five Towns; there certainly are richer neighbourhoods not far
off, but such neighbourhoods cannot boast that they form part of the
Five Towns--no more than Hatfield can boast that it is part of London. A
man who lives in a detached house at Hillport, with a tennis-court, may
be said to have succeeded in life. And Mr Bostock had succeeded. A
consulting engineer of marked talent, he had always worked extremely
hard and extremely long, and thus he had arrived at luxuries. The chief
of his luxuries was his daughter Florence, aged twenty-three, height
five feet exactly, as pretty and as neat as a new doll, of expensive and
obstinate habits. It was Florence who was the cause of the episode, and
I mention her father only to show where Florence stood in the world. She
ruled her father during perhaps eleven months of the year. In the
twelfth month (which was usually January--after the Christmas bills)
there would be an insurrection, conducted by the father with much spirit
for a time, but ultimately yielding to the forces of the government.
Florence had many admirers; a pretty woman, who habitually rules a rich
father, is bound to have many admirers. But she had two in particular;
her cousin, Ralph Martin, who had been apprenticed to her father, and
Adam Tellwright, a tile manufacturer at Turnhill.
These four--the father and daughter and the rivals--had been playing
tennis that Saturday afternoon. Mr Bostock, though touching on fifty,
retained a youthful athleticism; he looked and talked younger than his
years, and he loved the society of young people. If he wandered solitary
and moody about the tennis-court now, it was because he had a great deal
on his mind besides business. He had his daughter's future on his mind.
A servant with apron-strings waving like flags in the breeze came from
the house with a large loaded tea-tray, and deposited it on a wicker
table on the small lawn at the end of the ash court. The rivals were
reclining in deck chairs close to the table; the Object of Desire, all
in starched white, stood over the table and with quick delicious
movements dropped sugar and poured milk into tinkling porcelain.
"Now, father," she called briefly, without looking up, as she seized the
teapot.
He approached, gazing thoughtfully at the group. Yes, he was worried.
And everyone was secretly worried. The situation was exceedingly
delicate, fragile, breakable. Mr Bostock looked uneasily first at Adam
Tellwright, tall, spick and span, self-confident, clever, shining, with
his indubitable virtues mainly on the outside. If ever any man of
thirty-two in all this world was eligible, Adam Tellwright was.
Decidedly he had a reputation for preternaturally keen smartness in
trade, but in trade that cannot be called a defect; on the contrary, if
a man has virtues, you cannot precisely quarrel with him because they
happen to be on the outside; the principal thing is to have virtues. And
then Mr Bostock looked uneasily at Ralph Martin, heavy, short, dark,
lowering, untidy, often incomprehensible, and more often rude; with
virtues concealed as if they were secret shames. Ralph was capricious.
At moments he showed extraordinary talent as an engineer; at others he
behaved like a nincompoop. He would be rich one day; but he had a
formidable temper. The principal thing in favour of Ralph Martin was
that he and Florence had always been "something to each other." Indeed
of late years it had been begun to be understood that the match was "as
good as arranged." It was taken for granted. Then Adam Tellwright had
dropped like a bomb into the Bostock circle. He had fallen heavily and
disastrously in love with the slight Florence (whom he could have
crushed and eaten). At the start his case was regarded as hopeless, and
Ralph Martin had scorned him. But Adam Tellwright soon caused gossip to
sing a different tune, and Ralph Martin soon ceased to scorn him. Adam
undoubtedly made a profound impression on Florence Bostock. He began by
dazzling her, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the glare, he
gradually showed her his good qualities. Everything that skill and tact
could do Tellwright did. The same could not be said of Ralph Martin.
Most people had a vague feeling that Ralph had not been treated fairly.
Mr Bostock had this feeling. Yet why? Nothing had been settled.
Florence's heart was evidently still open to competition, and Adam
Tellwright had a perfect right to compete. Still, most people
sympathized with Ralph. But Florence did not. Young girls are like that.
Now the rivals stood about equal. No one knew how the battle would go.
Adam did not know. Ralph did not know. Florence assuredly did not know.
Mr Bostock was quite certain, of a night, that Adam would win, but the
next morning he was quite certain that his nephew would win.
No wonder that the tea-party, every member of it tremendously
preoccupied by the great battle, was not distinguished by light and
natural gaiety. Great battles cannot be talked about till they are over
and the last shot fired. And it is not to be expected that people should
be bright when each knows the others to be deeply preoccupied by a
matter which must not even be mentioned. The tea-party was
self-conscious, highly. Therefore, it ate too many cakes and chocolate,
and forgot to count its cups of tea. The conversation nearly died of
inanition several times, and at last it actually did die, and the
quartette gazed in painful silence at its corpse. Anyone who has
assisted at this kind of a tea-party will appreciate the situation. Why,
Adam Tellwright himself was out of countenance. To his honour, it was he
who first revived the corpse. A copy of the previous evening's _Signal_
was lying on an empty deck-chair. It had been out all night, and was
dampish. Tellwright picked it up, having finished his tea, and threw a
careless eye over it. He was determined to talk about something.
"By Jove!" he said. "That Balsamo johnny is coming to Hanbridge!"
"Yes, didn't you know?" said Florence, agreeably bent on resuscitating
the corpse.
"What! The palmistry man?" asked Mr Bostock, with a laugh.
"Yes." And Adam Tellwright read: "'Balsamo, the famous palmist and
reader of the future, begs to announce that he is making a tour through
the principal towns, and will visit Hanbridge on the 22nd inst.,
remaining three days. Balsamo has thousands of testimonials to the
accuracy of his predictions, and he absolutely guarantees not only to
read the past correctly, but to foretell the future. Address: 22 Machin
Street, Hanbridge. 10 to 10. Appointment advisable in order to avoid
delay.' There! He'll find himself in prison one day, that gentleman
will!"
"It's astounding what fools people are!" observed Mr Bostock.
"Yes, isn't it!" said Adam Tellwright.
"If he'd been a gipsy," said Ralph Martin, savagely, "the police would
have had him long ago." And he spoke with such grimness that he might
have been talking of Adam Tellwright.
"They say his uncle and his grandfather before him were both
thought-readers, or whatever you call it," said Florence.
"Do they?" exclaimed Mr Bostock, in a different tone.
"Oh!" exclaimed Adam, also in a different tone.
"I wonder whether that's true!" said Ralph Martin.
The rumour that Balsamo's uncle and grandfather had been readers of the
past and of the future produced of course quite an impression on the
party. But each recognized how foolish it was to allow oneself to be so
impressed in such an illogical manner. And therefore all the men burst
into violent depreciation of Balsamo and of the gulls who consulted him.
And by the time they had done with Balsamo there was very little left of
him. Anyhow, Adam Tellwright's discovery in the _Signal_ had saved the
tea-party from utter fiasco.