HALF WAY TOWARDS LITTLE GO
‘Sixties’ and ‘forties’ are traditions, happily, of the past.
Although Sarnian spinsters may still go out to tea with a maid and a
hand-lanthorn, the number of their candles is no longer a rigorous type
of their social condition.
But the society of an island, twelve miles long by four broad, must
always be cousin-german to the society of a ship. Wherever choice is
circumscribed, human nature tends to eclecticism. Sixties and forties
may have had their day. A stranger is amazed, still, at the number of
island families who do not visit other island families, seemingly from
hereditary topographical reasons. The Eastern people have not much to
say to those of the West. The country districts hold scanty intercourse
with the townsfolk.
At the time I write of the remote little peninsula of Tintajeux was
probably the most exclusive parish in the island.
‘While we were on terms with the Rector of Noirmont we had four people
in our set,’ Marjorie would say. ‘The Rector of Noirmont, his wife,
the Seigneur of Tintajeux, Marjorie Bartrand. Since grandpapa and
M. Noirmont had their big Latin fight we have split up into further
faction. Our set consists of the Seigneur of Tintajeux and Marjorie
Bartrand. We are a nation of two.’
Of the things done and left undone by the Petersport inhabitants,
this nation of two was ofttimes as ignorant as though some dark
continent divided them. The dances, picnics, military bands, garden
parties, and general gossip of urban life, concerned the Bartrands
languidly. Old Andros had his farming, his dogs, his classic authors,
and a curiously mixed performance which he called parochial work, to
occupy him. Marjorie had her study, a boat, fishing-tackle, gardening
tools; in days not so very far distant, had a carpenter’s bench;
all the wholesome outdoor interests of a country-nurtured child. If
Cassandra Tighe chanced occasionally to rattle round in her village
cart and communicate to them the last town news, they heard it; rarely,
otherwise.
It thus happened, Cassandra remaining away with her nets and her
sea-monsters in Sark, that the comedy in course of rehearsal between
Geff and Marjorie went on for several days without interruption. The
master and pupil met seldom, save during the hours of work, when Geff,
professionally severe, discouraged idle conversation. It did not become
easier to Marjorie than it had seemed on the first night of their
acquaintance to say the words, Your wife. The terms on which they met
were frank; slightly stiffer, perhaps, under the broad sun of noon than
they had been among the syringa blossoms by starlight! They stood, on
the outside, at least, in the position of any commonly dense freshman,
and of a coach, conscientiously minded to get his man, if possible,
through Previous.
On the outside. Growing to know Marjorie’s transparent nature better
and better, deriving keen refreshment from the badly-trained, fine
intelligence which might have risen so high above the commonly dense
freshman’s level, Geoffrey grew, hourly, more sensible that their
seasons for meeting were ’ower lang o’ comin’,’ that each intervening
day was a space of time to be lived through! At this point stood Geff.
Secure, she was fain to think contented, in the knowledge of a Mrs.
Arbuthnot’s existence, Marjorie worked with an unstinted zeal, a vivid
delight, such as the whole defunct race of governesses, morning or
resident, had failed to awaken in her.
So things progressed through half a dozen lessons. Then, one sunless
afternoon, sky and sea and speck of island painted in half-tones,
misty, dubious as the happiness of human life, came the rattle as of
a score of chained captives along the avenue of Tintajeux. Marjorie,
pacing up and down the schoolroom as she boldly struggled with the
irregularities of a Greek verb, recognised the sound of Cassandra’s
cart-wheels. Pushing Delectus and exercise books aside, she ran forth
joyfully to meet her friend. Had not important news to be told? Our
Cambridge B.A. thinking good things possible in the direction of
Girton, the emancipation of those benighted Spanish women, who only
know how to manage their house or fold their mantilla gracefully, a few
prospective inches advanced!
‘You are inkier than ever, Marjorie Bartrand.’
This was Miss Tighe’s first personal observation, thrown back over her
shoulder as she knotted Midge, the unkempt Brittany pony, to a rail,
with one of the sundry odds and ends of rope stowed away in readiness
within that all-containing cart of hers.
‘Only about the wrists,’ Marjorie pleaded, holding out the sleeve of
her holland pinafore.
‘But I don’t see that University teaching puts flesh on your bones.
You are growing too much like that picture of your mother. Eyes are
all very well, especially handsome ones, but one wants something more
than eyes in a face. You would have done much better’--who shall say
Cassandra was not right--‘much better to come with Annette and me to
Sark, jelly-fish hunting.’
The speech gave an impression of being double-shotted. But Marjorie,
with unwonted meekness, made no retort until she and her visitor were
within shelter of the drawing-room. There, in the familiar presence of
the buhl Cupids, of the miniature Bartrands, who had danced, loved or
hated each other, and gone to the guillotine with such easy grace, the
girl felt herself protected--oh, Marjorie, from what dim vision of a
sin could that white soul need protection? She began the story of her
days, and of her intercourse with Geff Arbuthnot, bravely.
‘I feel half way towards Little Go, Miss Tighe. I get my six hours’
teaching a week, and----’
‘You have always had teaching in abundance,’ remarked Cassandra,
wilfully misinterpreting her. ‘Since you were twelve, you have had
Madame Briquebec six hours a week.’
‘Madame Briquebec--a music mistress!’
‘Six hours’ lessons, and twelve hours’ practice. It would require a
Cambridge mathematician,’ observed Cassandra, ‘to reckon how many
years’ solid capital, out of a lifetime, are given by young women to
such an instrument as the piano!’
‘I am not talking of the piano, as you know, Miss Tighe,’ cried
Marjorie, the heart within her rallying at the scent of coming strife.
‘I never practised less for poor old Madame Briquebec than I do now. I
talk of my six hours’ solid reading with Mr. Arbuthnot.’
‘Ah! I trust you find Mr. Arbuthnot solidly satisfactory?
‘My tutor thinks well of my staying power. Mr. Arbuthnot sees no reason
why, if I gave my life up to it for four years, I should not, some day,
come out low in a Tripos.’
‘Mr. Arbuthnot, like the rest of the world, knows perhaps upon which
side his bread is buttered.’
The suggestion was Cassandra’s.
‘Bread--buttered! Let me tell you, ma’am, I think that a most harsh
speech! Yes!’ cried Marjorie Bartrand, her face aflame, ‘and verging
on spiteful. A speech most unworthy of Cassandra Tighe.’
‘To my mind the subject scarcely necessitates so much indignation,
Marjorie.’
‘And to mine, it does. If you implied anything, it must be that Mr.
Arbuthnot flatters me from motives of self-interest, which is vile.’
Old Cassandra took off her leather driving gloves; she pressed out
their folds slowly. Then she examined a signet-ring, masculine in size
and device, which was always worn by her on the third finger of the
left hand.
‘Mr. Arbuthnot comes to visit you, professionally, three days a week.’
Speaking thus she did not lift her eyes to the young girl’s face. ‘He
comes to Tintajeux at other times, naturally?’
‘He came on that first evening when we engaged him--I mean, when Mr.
Arbuthnot was good enough to promise to read with me. It was fine
warm weather, you must remember--the night before you left for Sark.
Grandpapa invited Mr. Arbuthnot to drink tea with us, and afterwards I
walked as far as the Hüets, to put him on the right track for getting
home by Gros Nez.’
‘He speaks to you, frequently, of the poor, stay-at-home Griselda wife,
I make no doubt.’
The blood rose up, less at the question than at Cassandra’s way of
putting it, to Marjorie’s cheeks.
‘My tutor has never spoken to me of Mrs. Arbuthnot. You decided, Miss
Tighe, that day when we talked it over under the cedars, that there
might be an indelicacy in my mentioning her too abruptly. And during
our hours of reading we work, and work hard. I think,’ said Marjorie,
lifting her small face aloft, ‘that as regards the learning of classics
and Euclid, it matters nothing to me whether Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot
stay at home or walk abroad.’
‘Mrs. _Geoffrey_!’ repeated Cassandra. ‘Oh, that certainly is not the
name. I may have led you wrong in the first instance. Geoffrey is not
the name of the man people talk so much about.’
Marjorie walked off to the schoolroom, from whence she presently
returned with Geoffrey’s card, one that he had enclosed in his first
stiff business note to the heiress of Tintajeux.
‘Samson, Samuel, Cyril. I am nearly sure of Samson,’ mused Cassandra.
‘Accuracy as to names and dates was a kind of heirloom in our family.’
‘The name of my coach is Geoffrey,’ said Marjorie Bartrand. ‘Behold it,
Miss Tighe, in black and white--Geoffrey Arbuthnot, B.A., Cantab.’
‘I cannot make this out at all. The whole thing is so fresh in my
memory. Coming up from the harbour I called in at Miller’s. It was
but human to ask that poor, weak, unreliable woman about her throat.
Well, although she has swallowed Dr. Thorne’s drugs, Marjorie, she is
recovering. Nature is so perverse in these chronic invalids.’
‘Recovering sufficiently to retail a fruity bit of gossip, which
Miss Tighe enjoyed. I wonder whether the world was as scandal-loving
in _your_ days?’ said Marjorie, addressing the calm-eyed group of
Bartrands beside the chimneypiece. ‘You were not a moral generation.
Perhaps when glass heads were universal, stone-throwing was less in
vogue.’
‘Poor Mrs. Miller threw no stones. She told me plain and sad facts
about these young Arbuthnot people. The husband for ever philandering
in the train of certain idle ladies belonging to our island society,
the wife watching up for him till all hours of the morning, people,
very naturally, speculating right and left----’
But Cassandra Tighe stopped short. Like an arrow from a bow Marjorie’s
slip of a figure had shot across the drawing-room. She stood at her old
friend’s knee. A pair of eyes glowing with all the force of strong,
fiery, yet most generous temper, looked down upon Cassandra’s face.
‘I hate the speculations of malicious tongues, Miss Tighe. I will
never believe that Geoffrey Arbuthnot “philanders,” whatever the
term means, or treats his wife neglectfully. I know him to be manly,
straightforward, true. I think Griselda ought to be happy, oh! happy
quite beyond the common lot.’
The last words were not uttered without a quiver of Marjorie Bartrand’s
lip.
Miss Tighe finished, we may well believe, with the theme of love and
lovers some thirty-five or forty years before the present time. Was
the subject ever of vital personal moment to her? A jealously worn
signet-ring, the portrait of a scarlet-coated, dark-eyed lad that
hung in her drawing-room, were the only evidence to warrant intimate
friends in hazarding a tentative ‘yes.’ Her present interests, said
the people of a young and irreverent generation, were of fish, fishy.
Are fibres discernible under the microscope in a dogfish’s brain? Can
a mollusc see, or only distinguish, between light and darkness? One
thing was certain. In Cassandra Tighe’s breast lingered all tender, all
womanly sympathy in the troubles of humanity at large. And something
in Marjorie’s voice touched her, not to distrust, but compassion. She
looked, with the pain that is half foreboding, at the young girl’s
ardent, indignant face.
‘Marjorie Bartrand, we are old friends. You always take the lectures I
give you in good part.’
‘I may do so occasionally, Miss Tighe, very occasionally. Let us keep
to facts.’
‘I hope you will take a little lecture in good part now. Drive to
Petersport to-morrow, and call on Mrs. Samson Arbuthnot.’
‘Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot. With so many fables afloat, let us snatch,
ma’am, pray, at whatever truth we may.’
‘Mrs. Geoffrey, if you choose. Although my conviction is unshaken.
Drive in to Petersport to-morrow. Call upon your tutor’s wife. Remember
her want of birth and education, imagine a little excusable jealousy.
Put yourself, in short, in her place, and I am sure your good heart----’
‘I have no heart. Grandpapa, the whole of my governesses have impressed
that upon me often.’
‘Your good common sense, then, will teach you how you can best befriend
her. That is my lecture.’
Marjorie moved away into the nearest window. She looked out, athwart
garden, orchard, moor, towards the Atlantic, gray, sullen, as though
the season had gone back from June to December. A sense of deeply
wounded pride, of cruel, inexplicable disappointment mingled in the
girl’s heart.
‘I ought to have done the right thing,’ so she communed with herself.
‘I ought to have done it at once. I have just drifted into meanness.
As though it could matter to us Bartrands if every woman in the island
declined to call on Mrs. Arbuthnot. It was you, Miss Tighe,’ she turned
round incisively on Cassandra, ‘who preached to me the gospel of
Mammon.’
‘And one hears such nice things said of her, poor dear. The faults are
so obviously the husband’s. Really, if I could have known all one knows
now, my wisest advice would have been--keep clear of them both! In
these prickly affairs, in anything connected with a _mésalliance_, you
are pretty sure to get your hand stung, whichever way you grasp your
nettle.’
‘Too late in the day for pensive regrets, Miss Tighe. I have not kept
clear of Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot.’
‘The more the pity. As matters stand, Marjorie, I know that your
conduct will be full of the sweetest tact. We have a few old-fashioned
rules,’ said good, well-meaning Cassandra, ‘to guide us in our
perplexities. The first is, to do unto others as we would they should
do unto us.’
‘To-day is not Sunday.’ Marjorie’s foot tapped a quick little tune on
the polished floor. ‘Please don’t let us have Sunday talk.’
‘How should we feel if we were Mrs. Arbuthnot? If you were Mrs.
Arbuthnot, how would you wish Marjorie Bartrand should do unto you?’
Cassandra’s tone was plaintively sentimental, infalliblest tone of all
to stir up mischief, never far from the surface, in Marjorie Bartrand’s
heart.
‘How should I feel if I were Mrs. Arbuthnot? Wish that I had my
precious liberty back, of course, and envy every girl I met hers--the
natural feelings, one would hope, of all well-conducted, sensible
married women. Ah,’ ejaculated Marjorie, folding her lithe arms, and
with darkness like that of a swiftly-gathered thunder-cloud on her
Southern face, ‘and to hear people talk as though such things as
roaming husbands and weeping wives were _necessities_, as though the
doom of the serpent was laid upon every son and daughter of Adam. _A
Dieu ne plaise_ that it should be so! There is one girl,’ striking her
breast emphatically, ‘in Her British Majesty’s dominions who will shed
tears for no man while she lives!’
‘We will hope so, Marjorie,’ said Cassandra, as she put on her driving
gloves. ‘A good many of us have held the same opinions at seventeen,
and yet had occasion to modify them later on.’