Periodic Drawings.
_A Series of Cheques: their Advantages and Drawbacks.--An Unknown
Factor.--Uncompleted Confidences.--Ibsen, with Intervals.--A
Disappointment.--A "Search-question" from Sophia.--Confidence
Restored'._
Whether it was natural sin on Peter's part, or an excusable
spirit of revolt against the oppression of an orrery which Sophia
succeeded in picking up a great bargain at an auction somewhere,
his drafts on the Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank Limited
did not end with the one recorded in the preceding chapter.
And, which was more discreditable still, he no longer pretended
to himself that he meant to stop until his balance was completely
exhausted. His only care now was to economise, to regulate his
expenditure by spreading his drawings over as long a period as
possible. With this object he made a careful calculation, and found
there were still several hours to his credit; whereupon, lest he
should yield to the temptation of drawing too much at any one time,
he made out a number of cheques for fifteen minutes apiece, and
limited himself to one a week--an allowance which, even under the
severest provocation, he rarely permitted himself to exceed.
These weekly excursions, short as they were, were a source of the
greatest comfort to him, especially now that he had thrown off any
idea of moral responsibility.
By degrees he possessed himself of most of the back-numbers,
if they may be so termed, of his dual romance. At one time, he
found himself being presented by the grateful Sir William to
his daughter; and now that he knew what service he had rendered
the Judge, he was less at sea than he would certainly have been
otherwise. Another time, he discovered himself in the act of
dragging Miss Davenport unceremoniously back from the bulwarks;
but here again his memory furnished him with the proper excuse
for conduct which, considering that he was not supposed to be
acquainted with her, he might have found it difficult to account
for satisfactorily. So, after all, there did seem to be a sort
of method in the operation of the Time Cheques, arbitrary as it
appeared.
One fact that went far to reconcile him to his own conscience
was the circumstance that, though the relations he stood in
towards both young ladies varied at each interview with the most
bewildering uncertainty, so that one week he would be upon the
closest and most confidential terms, and the next be thrown back
into the conventional formality of a first introduction--these
relations never again approached the dangerous level of sentiment
which had so alarmed him.
He flattered himself that the judicious attitude he was adopting to
both was correcting the false impressions which might have--and for
that matter actually had--been given.
He was always pleased to see them again, whichever one it was; they
were simply charming friends--frank, natural, unaffected girls--and
not too clever. Sometimes, indeed, he recognised, and did his best
to discourage, symptoms of a dawning tenderness on their part which
it was not in his power to reciprocate.
Peter was in no danger of losing his heart to either; possibly the
attractions of each served as a conductor to protect him from the
influence of the other. He enjoyed their society, their evident
appreciation of all he said and did, but that was all; and as they
recognised that there could be no closer bond than that of cordial
friendship between them, he was relieved of all misgivings.
Surely it was a blameless and legitimate manner, even for a married
man, of spending the idle moments which belonged properly to the
days of his bachelorhood! Still, he did not confide this harmless
secret of his to Sophia; he might tell her when it was all over,
but not so long as her disapproval could affect his plans. And he
had an instinct that such a story as he had to tell would fail to
appeal to a person of her accurately logical habit of mind.
So, on one occasion when he discovered that he had lost one of the
loose cheques he now carried constantly about with him, it was with
a feeling very like panic that he reflected that he might have
dropped it about the house, where its unusual form would inevitably
provoke Sophia's curiosity; and he was much reassured when he was
able to conclude, from the fact that she made no reference to it,
that he must have lost it out of doors.
It must have been some time after this before his serenity again
met with a slight shock: he was walking up and down the deck with
Miss Davenport--it happened to be one of the days when he knew her
very well indeed.
"Sometimes," she was saying, "I feel as if I _must_ speak to
somebody!"
"You know where you will always find a very willing listener!" he
said, with a kind of fatherly floweriness that he felt sat well
upon him.
"I didn't mean you," she said,--"to some girl of my own age, I
meant."
"Oh!" said Peter, "well, that's a very natural feeling, I'm sure. I
can quite understand it!"
"Then you wouldn't mind--you wouldn't be angry if I did?" she said,
looking up at him with her great childishly serious eyes.
"My dear child," said Peter, getting more fatherly every moment,
"how could I possibly object to your speaking to any lady on board
if you want to?"
He would have liked to make one or two exceptions, perhaps; but he
thought he had better not.
"I am so glad," she said, "because I did--this very morning. I did
so want someone to advise me--to tell me what a girl ought to do,
what she would do herself in my place."
"Ah!" said Peter, sympathetically, "it is--er--a difficult position
for you, no doubt."
"And for you, too!" she said quickly; "remember that."
"And for me _too_, of course," said Peter, assenting, as he always
did now from habit, to anything he did not understand at the
moment. "My position might be described as one of--er--difficulty,
certainly. And so you asked advice about yours, eh?"
"I couldn't very well help myself," she said. "There was a girl,
a little older than I am, perhaps, sitting next to me on deck,
and she mentioned your name, and somehow--I hardly know how it
came about--but she seemed so kind, and so interested in it all,
that--that I believe I told her everything.... You aren't _angry_
with me, are you, Peter?"
She had been making a _confidante_ of Miss Tyrrell! It was awkward,
extremely awkward and annoying, if, as he began to fear, her
confidences were of a tender character.
"I--I am not exactly angry," he said; "but I do think you might be
more careful whom you speak to. What did you tell her?"
"_All!_" she said, with the same little quiver in her underlip he
had noticed before.
"That is no answer," said Peter (it certainly was none for him).
"Tell me _what_ you said?"
"I--I told her about you, and about me ... and--and about _him!_"
"Oh!" said Peter, "about me, and you, and him? Well, and--and how
did she _take_ it?"
"She didn't say very much; she turned very pale. It was rather
rough at the time, and I don't think she can be a very good sailor;
for before I had even finished she got up and went below, and I
haven't seen her since."
"But you told her about 'him'?" he persisted; "and when you say
'him,' I presume you refer to----?"
Here he paused expectantly.
"Of course!" she answered, with a touch of impatience. "Whom else
should I be _likely_ to refer to?"
"It's excessively absurd!" said Peter, driven to candour at last.
"I--I remember perfectly that you did mention all the circumstances
at the time: but I've a shocking memory for names; and, just for
the minute, I--I find it difficult to recall where 'he' comes in
exactly. Curious, isn't it?"
"Curious?" she said, passionately; "it's _abominable!_"
"It is," agreed Peter; "I quite admit that I _ought_ to know--only,
I _don't_."
"This is cruel, unmanly!" she said, brokenly. "How _could_ you
forget--how can you insult me by _pretending_ that you could forget
such a thing as that? It is odious of you to make a--a joke of it
all, when you know perfectly well that----"
"My--my dear young lady!" he declared, as she left her speech
unfinished, "I am as far from any disposition to be jocular as ever
I was in my life. Let me beg you to be a little more explicit. We
seem to have got into a trifling misunderstanding, which, I am
sure, a little patience will easily put right." ...
"Put right?" said Sophia, behind him. "I was not aware, Peter, that
the clock was out of order. What is the matter with it?"
He almost staggered back from the chimneypiece, upon which he had
found himself leaning in an attitude of earnest persuasion.
"I--I was only thinking, my love," he said, "that it wanted
regulating."
"If it does," said Sophia, "you are hardly the proper person to do
it, Peter. The less you meddle with it the better, I should think!"
"Perhaps so, my dear Sophia, perhaps so!" said Peter, sitting down
with the utmost docility.
He had narrowly escaped exciting suspicion. It was fortunate that
there was nothing compromising in the few words she had overheard,
but he must not allow himself to be caught so near the clock again.
He was not a little disturbed by the tenor of this last interview.
It was bad enough that in some way he seemed to have seriously
displeased Miss Davenport; but, besides that, he could not
contemplate without uneasiness the probable effect which her
confidences, whatever their exact purport, might have upon Miss
Tyrrell. For hitherto he had seen no necessity to mention to one
young lady that he was even distantly acquainted with the other.
As he never by any chance drew them both together, there seemed no
object in volunteering such information.
But this only made him more apprehensive of a scene when his next
turn with Miss Tyrrell arrived. Perhaps, he thought, it would be
wiser to keep away from the _Boomerang_ for a week or two, and give
them all time to calm down a little.
However, he had the moral, or rather the immoral, courage to
present a cheque as usual at the end of the next week, with results
that were even less in accordance with his anticipations than
before.
It came about in this way: He was comfortably seated by the
fireplace opposite Sophia in a cosy domesticated fashion, and was
reading to her aloud; for he had been let off the orrery that
evening. The book he was reading by Sophia's particular request was
Ibsen's _Doll's House_, and it was not the fault of the subject
(which interested her deeply), but of Peter's elocution, which was
poor, that, on glancing from the text, he found that she had sunk
into a profound and peaceful slumber.
It was a chance he had been waiting for all day. He was rather
tired of Nora, with her innocence and her macaroons, her tarantella
and her taradiddles, her forgery and her fancy dress, and he had
the cheque by him in readiness; so he stole on tiptoe to the
mantelpiece, slipped the paper under the clock, and was just in
time to sink back into his easy-chair, before it turned out to be
one of the revolving-seats in the dining-saloon on the _Boomerang_.
There was a tumbler of whisky-and-seltzer on the table in front
of him, and he was sitting in close confabulation with his former
acquaintance, Mr. Perkins, the Bank Manager.
"That's precisely what I don't know, sir, and what I'm determined
to find out!" were the first words he heard from the latter
gentleman, who looked flushed and angry. "But it's a scandalous
thing, isn't it?"
"Very," said Peter, rather bored and deeply disappointed; for the
Manager was but an indifferent substitute for the companion he had
been counting upon. "Oh, very!"
"Have you happened to hear anything said about it yourself?"
inquired his friend.
"Not a word!" said Peter, with the veracity he always endeavoured
to maintain on these occasions.
"To go and shift a statement of that kind on to my shoulders like
that, it's like the fellow's confounded impudence!"
For the moment Peter felt a twinge: could the other be referring to
anything he had said himself in the music-room? But the Manager was
evidently not angry with _him_, so it must be some other fellow.
Only, Peter decided not to allude to the faulty working of the Time
Cheques, as he had half-intended to do. Perkins was not in the
mood for remonstrances just then.
"Most impudent, I must say," he replied. "By-the-way," he added
carelessly, "what was the statement exactly?"
"Why, God bless my soul, sir!" cried the Manager, with unnecessary
vehemence, "haven't I been telling you the whole story? Didn't
you just ask me who the fellow was who has brought me into this
business?"
"So I did," said Peter, "and--and who _was_ he?"
"Your attention seems very wandering this evening! Why, I told you
the old woman wouldn't give me his name."
Peter's alarm returned at this allusion to an old woman: what old
woman could it be but the terrible matron whom he had encountered
in the music-room? However, it was fortunate that she had not
mentioned any names: if Perkins knew that he had put all the blame
of his entanglements upon the Manager's broad shoulders, he would
certainly consider it an ungrateful return for what was intended as
a kindness.
"So you said before," he remarked; "some old women are so
obstinate!"
"Obstinate? That's the first sensible remark you've made for a
long while!" said his candid friend. "I should think she was
obstinate! Why, I talked myself hoarse trying to make that old
harridan believe that I was as innocent as an unborn babe of any
responsibility for this precious scandal--that I'd never so much as
heard it breathed till she told me of it: but it wasn't any good,
sir; she would have it that I was the originator!"
("So you were!" thought Peter, though he prudently refrained from
saying so.)
"She's going to kick up the dooce's own delight as soon as she
meets her brother; and all I could get her to say was that then,
and not till then, she would give me an opportunity of having it
out with the cowardly villain, whoever he may be, that has dared to
lay all this gossip at _my_ door!"
Peter did not quarrel with this arrangement of the old lady's, for
he would certainly not be on board the _Boomerang_ when she arrived
at Plymouth.
"Ah!" he said, with as much interest as he could display in a
subject that did not concern him, "he'll find that unpleasant, I
daresay."
"I think he will!" said Mr. Perkins, emphatically. "Unless he
retracts his infamous calumny, I--I'll kick him from one end of
the ship to the other!"
Involuntarily Peter's eyes sought his friend's boots, which, as he
sat in a corner seat with his feet extended, were much in evidence;
they were strong, suitable boots, stouter than those generally worn
on a sea-voyage, and Peter could not repress a slight shudder.
"From one end of the ship to the other," he repeated; "that--that's
rather a long way!"
"Quite long enough for him, though not nearly long enough for me!"
said the Manager. "I'll teach him to mix me up in these squabbles,
when I find him, sir--when I find him! Here, steward, bring some
more of these dry biscuits: you'll have some more, won't you?"
But Peter was not in the vein for dry biscuits at that moment, and
the Manager continued:
"By-the-by, _you_ might help me in this if you only will. I want to
find out if I can before we reach Gib, who this fellow is, but the
less I talk about the affair the better."
"Oh! yes," said Peter. "I--I wouldn't talk about it at all, if I
were you."
"No, I daresay you're right--can't be too careful with an old
cat like that. Well, what I want you to do is to try and find
out--quietly, you know--who this infernal fellow is!"
"Well, I daresay I could do that," said Peter.
"No one would think a mild, innocent-looking little chap like you
had any particular motive for asking: you might ask some of the men
in the smoking-room, and pick up some clue or other."
"So I might," said Peter,--"good idea!"
"Or, I'll tell you what--you might pump the old lady for me, eh?"
"I don't think I quite care about pumping the old lady," said
Peter, "but anything else I'll do with pleasure."
"Thanks," said the Manager; "that's a good fellow. I knew I could
depend upon you!"
"You can," replied Peter, "though, I fancy," he added,
soothingly,--"indeed, I am sure you will find that the old woman
has made a good deal out of nothing at all." ...
"_What_ old woman, Peter?" asked Sophia with drowsy asperity. "Not
Mrs. Linden, surely!"
Mrs. Linden! Was that the name of the old she-dragon of the
music-room? Why, of course not; he was in his arm-chair by his own
fire, reading Ibsen to his wife!
"I don't know, indeed, my love--it _may_ be Mrs. Linden," he
answered cautiously.
"Nonsense!" said Sophia, crossly. "She's not meant to be old in the
play, and _who_ says 'the old woman has made a good deal out of
nothing'? Helmer, or Doctor Rank, or Krogstad, or who? You do read
so badly, it's quite impossible to make out!"
"_No_ one says it, my dear Sophia; at least, it's not in my edition
of the text. You--you must have imagined it, I think!"
"I certainly thought I heard you read it out," she replied; "but
your voice is so monotonous, that it's just possible I dropped off
for a minute or two."
"I dropped off myself about the same time," he confessed
hypocritically.
"You wouldn't drop off, or allow me to drop off either, Peter,"
said Sophia, who was now thoroughly awake again, "if you felt a
more intelligent interest in the tremendous problem Ibsen has set
in this play. I don't believe you realise in the least what the
lesson is that he means to teach; now _do_ you, Peter?"
"Well, I'm not sure that I do altogether, my love," he admitted.
"I thought as much! What Ibsen insists upon is, the absolute
necessity of one-ness between man and wife, Peter. They must belong
to each other, complete each other--they must be Twin Souls. Are
_you_ a Twin Soul, Peter?"
"Upon my word, my dear, I can't say!" he replied, in some
perplexity. In the present very divided state of his sympathies, he
could not help thinking that his Soul was more like a Triplet.
"But think," persisted Sophia, earnestly: "have you shared all your
Past with me? Is there nothing you have kept back--no feelings, no
experiences, which you confine to your own bosom? When you left me
to take that voyage, you promised that nothing should induce you to
be more than civil to any woman, however young and attractive, with
whom Fate might bring you in contact. I want you to tell me, Peter,
whether, when you were returning home on board the _Boomerang_, you
kept that promise or not?"
Fortunately for him, she put her question in a form which made it
easy to give a satisfactory and a truthful answer.
"When I was returning home on board the _Boomerang_," he said, "I
did not, to the best of my recollection and belief, exchange two
words with any female whatever, attractive or otherwise--until,"
he added, with a timely recollection that she had come on board at
Gibraltar,--"until I met you. You pain me with these suspicions,
Sophia--you do, indeed!"
"I believe you, Peter," she said, moved by his sincerity, which,
paradoxical as it may sound, was quite real; for his intentions had
been so excellent throughout, that he felt injured by her doubts.
"You have never told me a falsehood yet; but for some time I have
been tormented by a fancy that you were concealing something from
me. I can hardly say what gave me such an impression,--a glance, a
tone, trifles which, I am glad to think now, had not the importance
I invested them with. Ah, Peter, never treat me as Helmer did Nora!
Never shut me out from the serious side of your life, and think to
make amends by calling me your 'little lark,' or your 'squirrel;'
you must not look upon me as a mere doll!"
"My _dear_ Sophia!" he exclaimed, "I should never think of
addressing you as either a squirrel or a lark; and anyone less like
a doll in every respect, I never met!"
"I hope you will always think so, Peter," she said; "for I tell you
frankly, that if I once discovered that you had ceased to trust me,
that you lived in a world apart into which I was not admitted,
that very moment, Peter, I should act just as Nora did--I should
leave you; for our marriage would have ceased to be one in any true
sense of the word!"
The mere idea of being abandoned by Sophia made him shiver. What a
risk he had been running, after all! Was it worth while to peril
his domestic happiness for the sake of a few more conversations
with two young ladies, whose remarks were mostly enigmatic, and
for whom he was conscious in his heart of hearts of not caring two
straws?
"Sophia," he said plaintively, "don't talk of leaving me! What
should I do without you? Who would teach me Astronomy and things?
You know I don't care for anybody but you! Why will you dwell on
such unpleasant subjects?"
"I was wrong, Peter," she confessed,--"indeed, I doubt you no
longer. It was all my morbid imagination that led me to do you such
injustice. Forgive me, and let us say no more about it!"
"I do forgive you," was his generous reply to this appeal, which,
coming from Sophia, was a very handsome apology, "and we _will_ say
no more about it."
And, upon the whole, Peter thought he had got out of a particularly
tight place with more credit than he had any reason to expect--a
conclusion in which the reader, however much he or she may
disapprove of his conduct on moral grounds, will probably be
inclined to agree with him.