I
"Auntie Iris has written a book!"
"A book!" echoed both auditors of the announcement, in keys varying
between astonishment and dismay.
"Yes, and it's going to be published, and put into a blue cover, and
sold, and Auntie Iris is going to make heaps and heaps of money!"
"What is it to be called?" said Lady Rossiter rather gloomily, fixing
an apprehensive eye on the exuberant niece of the authoress.
"It's called, 'Why, Ben!' and it's a Story of the Sexes," glibly
quoted that young lady, unaware of the shock inflicted by this brazen
announcement, delivered at the top of her squeaky, nine-year-old voice.
"Good God!" said Sir Julian Rossiter.
His wife said, "Hush, Julian!" in a rather automatic aside and turned
again to the herald of "Why, Ben!" now hopping exultantly round and
round the breakfast-table.
"Did you get a letter from Aunt Iris this morning, Ruthie?"
"Daddy did, and he said it was a secret before, but now the publishers
had accepted the book and everybody might know, and I said--I said----"
Ruthie consecrated the briefest possible instant to drawing a
sufficiently deep breath to enable her to resume her rapid,
high-pitched narrative. "I said, 'Me and Peekaboo must come and tell
you and Sir Julian, because you'd be so pleased and so excited, and
_so_ surprised!'"
"Is your little brother here as well?" said Sir Julian, gazing
distastefully through his eye-glasses at Ruthie, heated, breathless,
hopping persistently on one leg, and with a general air of having
escaped from the supervision of whoever might have charge of her
morning toilette before that toilette had received even the minimum of
attention. Ruthie cast a look of artless surprise about her.
"I thought he was here. He came with me--but you know how he dawdles.
He may be still in the drive."
A slow fumbling at the door-handle discredited the supposition.
"_There_ he is!" shrieked Ruthie joyfully, and violently turning the
handle of the door. "_Ow!_ I can't open the door!"
"Of course you can't, if he is holding the handle at the other side.
Let go."
"He won't be able to open it himself, he never can--and besides,
his hands are all sticky, I know, because he upset the treacle at
breakfast. Let go, Peekaboo!" bawled his sister through the keyhole.
"H'sh--sh. Don't shriek like that, he can hear quite well."
"But he won't let go----"
"Come away from the door, Ruthie, and don't make that noise."
Lady Rossiter herself went to the door of which the handle was being
ineffectually jerked from without, and said with that peculiar
distinctness of utterance characteristic of exasperation kept
consciously under control:
"Is that you, Ambrose? Turn the handle towards you--no, not that way,
_towards_ you, I said--right round----"
"Turn it towards you, Peekaboo!" shrieked Ruthie, suddenly thrusting
her head under Lady Rossiter's arm.
"Be quiet, Ruthie. There, that's right."
The door slowly opened, and a rather emaciated, seven-year-old edition
in knickerbockers of the stalwart Ruthie advanced languidly into the
room.
"How do you do?" he remarked, extending a treacle-glazed hand for the
morning greetings entirely omitted by his excited elder sister.
"Good morning, Ambrose dear. You're paying us a very early visit."
"Auntie Iris has written a book!" announced Ambrose, more deliberately
than, but quite as loudly and distinctly as, his senior. "And it's
called, 'Why, Ben! A Story of the Sexes.'"
"Yes, dear, Ruthie told us," said Lady Rossiter, a rather repressed
note in her voice indicating a renewed sense of outrage at the singular
title selected by Ambrose's aunt for her maiden attempt at literature.
Ambrose turned pallid eyes of fury behind a large pair of spectacles
upon his sister.
"You said you wouldn't tell them till I came.... It's very, very mean
of you.... I'll tell Daddy the minute I get home ... I ... I...."
His objurgations became incoherent, through none the less expressive
for that, and gaining steadily in volume as he sought, in vain, to
overpower the torrent of self-defence instantly emitted from Ruthie's
lungs of brass.
Sir Julian Rossiter laid down his paper, opened the French window, and
thrust both his visitors into the drive.
"Bolt the window, Julian," said his wife hastily. "And I will tell
Horber not to let them in at the front door. Much as I love children, I
can't have them rushing in on us at breakfast; it's really too much."
"Do you suppose all their morning calls end like this?" remarked Sir
Julian, as he watched their departing guests stagger down the drive,
Ambrose's large head still shaking with his wrath, and the voice of his
sister still audibly browbeating and calling him "Peekaboo."
"Why does she call her brother by that senseless and revolting
nickname?"
"I don't know. I think it's a nursery relic, and dates from the days of
their unfortunate mother."
"The dipsomaniac?"
Lady Rossiter said nothing. She was aware that Mrs. Easter's enforced
retirement into a home for inebriates was an ancient scandal, and
that Julian had only introduced a reference to it in the idle hope
of trapping her into disregarding her favourite touchstone in
conversation--"Is it kind, is it wise, is it true?"
Unlike his wife, but in common with many people less apt at analysing
the idiosyncrasy than himself, Sir Julian habitually preferred silence
to speech, unless he had anything unpleasant to say. It was one of the
many differences which did not make for unity between them.
"I wonder," Sir Julian presently observed, "what publisher is
undertaking the responsibility of 'Why, Ben!' How exactly like Auntie
Iris to choose such a preposterous name, and to call it 'A Story of the
Sexes' into the bargain! She can't be more than twenty."
"It rather made me shudder when those two poor children spoke the name
so glibly. 'A Story of the Sexes'--imagine their knowing such a word at
all, at their age!"
Sir Julian shrugged his shoulder. "Nothing could surprise me, from the
egregious Ruthie. I suppose I shall have to congratulate Mark Easter on
his half-sister's achievement this morning."
"Are you going to the College?"
"I must. There is a meeting of the directors, and I have to take the
chair."
"Not a General Committee meeting?" said Lady Rossiter quickly.
"No, Edna," replied her husband, with a great finality. "_Not_ a
General Committee meeting."
If he did not add an ejaculatory thanksgiving aloud to the statement,
his wife was none the less aware that he regarded with the extreme of
disfavour her presence at the general meetings of the committee which
presided over that venture known as the "Commercial and Technical
College for the South-West of England." On this reflection, Lady
Rossiter infused as much proprietary interest as possible into the tone
of her next enquiry.
"Have we got a Lady Superintendent yet? I can't bear to think of all
my girls without a woman to look after them. There are so many little
things for which women need a woman."
"One of the subjects before the meeting to-day is to discuss an
application for the post. Fuller thinks he has found some one."
Edna Rossiter raised her well-marked, dark eyebrows.
"Surely Mr. Fuller is hardly qualified to judge?"
"Probably not. That's why the question is to be laid before the
directors," said her husband drily.
Lady Rossiter, tall and beautiful, with the maturity of a woman whom
the years had left with auburn hair unfaded and opaque white skin
almost unlined, moved restlessly about the room.
Sir Julian, aware instantly that she was anxious to pursue the subject,
perversely remained silent behind the newspaper.
"Do you know anything about this woman? Is she a lady?"
"I have not the least idea."
"Is she from the West Country?"
"She writes from London."
"Ah, our Devonians won't take to her if she's a Cockney. I should
prefer some one _de nous autres_, Julian."
"So she may be, for all we know."
"You had better tell me her name, Julian."
"Why?" enquired Sir Julian childishly, and also disconcertingly.
_"Why?"_ echoed his wife, momentarily nonplussed.
She looked at him for a moment with black-fringed, amber-coloured eyes.
"Why not?" she demanded at last.
"It would convey nothing more to you than to the rest of us."
"Oh, the perversity of man!" cried Lady Rossiter playfully. "Here am
I backing up the great venture heart and soul, knowing every member
of the staff individually and offering prizes to every class in every
subject, and even putting all my savings into the concern--and then I'm
not allowed to hear what the high and mighty directors are going to
talk about! Really, Julian, you men are very childish sometimes."
"She is a Miss Marchrose."
"Marchrose!"
Sir Julian, perceiving recognition in the tone of the exclamation, and
recollecting his own prediction that the name would convey nothing to
his wife, looked annoyed.
"It is a most uncommon name."
Julian carefully refrained from questioning.
"I told you I might know something about her! The girl who jilted poor
Clarence Isbister in that abominable way was a Miss Marchrose."
"It doesn't seem probable that this girl could have any connection with
the woman who jilted your cousin Clarence; she is a certified teacher
of shorthand and typewriting."
"Well, Clarence's girl was nobody at all, and she was older than he,
poor boy--the Isbisters were not at all pleased about it, I remember.
But they'd made up their minds to it, and it was all arranged, and then
came this thunderbolt."
"If it was such an unpopular engagement, the Isbisters may owe her a
debt of gratitude for throwing him over."
"Ah, it was more than that. Don't you remember, Julian? They'd been
engaged six weeks, and Clarence was like a lunatic about her, and
simply _made_ his father and mother consent to it all, and they kept on
saying the girl wasn't good enough for him, and didn't seem to care for
him much. And then he had that appalling hunting smash."
"I remember," said Sir Julian, "when they thought he was going to be
paralysed for the rest of his life, poor chap."
"So he was, from the waist downwards, for nearly a year, and all the
doctors said that his recovery was a perfect miracle. But when he was
still helpless, and nobody knew if he had to be an invalid or not, he
offered to release Miss Marchrose from the engagement--and she gave him
up."
"H'm," said Julian noncommittally.
"There have been women," said Lady Rossiter, with tears in her eyes,
and in her voice that peculiar emotional quality which indicates that
the general is merely being used to indicate the particular, "there
have been women who have waited all their lives long for just such an
opportunity of _giving_."
"On the whole, I am of opinion that the majority of _fiancés_ would
prefer not to provide the opportunity."
"Ah, Julian, it's easy enough for you to be cynical. But to me it's
simply inconceivable--how she could do it. How any woman could be so
utterly heartless----"
"Didn't Clarence Isbister marry somebody else last year?"
"Thank God, yes."
Lady Rossiter was always ready, in a reverent and uplifted manner, to
render verbal recognition to her Maker. "Thank God, it didn't destroy
his faith in women. He married a true, pure, sweet, loving girl--and
one in his own class of life--just a well-bred English maiden."
"And what happened to the other one--Miss Marchrose?"
"I don't know, but she was very badly off, and had been teaching when
Clarence met her--of course, it was the money and position that made
her accept him, one supposes."
"Only the price was too high when it included attendance on an
invalid?" suggested Sir Julian, with a malicious satisfaction in thus
encouraging oblivion of the, "Is it kind, is it wise, is it true?"
axiom.
Perhaps a similar recollection flashed rather tardily across Lady
Rossiter's mind, for she replied with circumspection:
"God forbid that I should judge another! But one holds Love so
infinitely sacred, that it is unbelievable that, if she had once known
it, she could have profaned it so."
"I remember now; we heard about it at the time. Wasn't young Clarence
very much cut up?"
"Poor boy! He took it very hard. Don't you remember?--his nurse came
to me last year when I had influenza, and of course she talked--they
always do----"
"So long as they find anyone to listen."
"Do you know, Julian, that after she had thrown him over, they could do
nothing with him? The nurse told me herself that they thought he was
going mad. He actually beat his head against the wall of the bedroom in
the nursing-home."
"How sensible!"
In the face of this reverend and sympathetic comment, Lady Rossiter not
unnaturally ceased the recital of her relative's unfortunate _affaire
du cœur_.
"I suppose if this turns out to be the same woman, you will advise the
directors to refuse her application?"
"On what grounds? We did not advertise for a Lady Superintendent of
undeviating constancy and infinite capacity for self-sacrifice. If she
is a woman of business and has the experience necessary, I really don't
see how I can bring it up against her that she once gave the chuck to
Clarence Isbister and was responsible for his beating his head against
the walls of his nursing-home."
"I am only a woman, Julian," said Lady Rossiter incontrovertibly, but
with a certain pathetic smile which she reserved for that particular
statement, "but I somehow don't like to think that the Superintendent
who is to look after the staff to whom the girls and women and boys
whom I have grown to know, will turn to--that she has no higher ideal
of Life than poor Clarence's Miss Marchrose."
"Most probably it is not the same person at all."
"I could remember her Christian name, if I were to think a minute...."
"Then please don't, Edna. I have not the slightest wish to connect her
with the Clarence drama, if it should turn out to be the same woman. In
fact, I had much better not know it."
"It began with an 'L,' I'm almost sure," said Lady Rossiter, unheeding.
"I hear the car," said her husband, rising hastily.
"Laura--Lilian--Lena--Lucy--Louisa.... It was _Pauline_, Julian--I
remember it now."
"I have not the least idea what the Superintendent's Christian name may
be, Edna." Sir Julian went into the hall. "I shall not come back to
lunch. What time do you want the car this afternoon?"
"Oh, that doesn't matter," declared Lady Rossiter brightly. "Don't
think of that, dear. It's only my nature-class this afternoon, you
know, and I can quite well walk down to the meeting-place. It's only at
Duckpool Cove. I want the class to see some of those wonderful effects
in sepia and green in the rock-pools when the tide is out."
Sir Julian made the unwonted effort of restraining a strong inclination
to ask whether the class could not witness these natural phenomena
unchaperoned by their president.
"I will send the car back, then. I shall walk home."
"As you like, but it really isn't necessary."
Sir Julian began to pull on his driving-gloves.
"Don't forget, Julian, to say something about 'Why, Ben!' to Mark
Easter. I suppose he will be pleased. And couldn't one--without hurting
his feelings, of course--say something about the children being up and
about rather early? I mean to say, I'm fond of the little things, when
Ruthie behaves and Ambrose doesn't whine, and they don't quarrel--but
we can't have them getting into the habit of running in and out of the
house at breakfast-time."
"Heaven forbid!"
"Well, try and say something, if you can."
"I'll see."
Sir Julian took his place at the steering-wheel.
He was a tall, thin man, ten years older than his wife, his dark hair
already sparse upon the crown of his head, his clean-shaven hatchet
face wearing an habitual look of sardonic melancholy. His dark eyes,
set in a network of wrinkles, betrayed humour, but, nevertheless, they
seldom smiled.
At the bottom of the winding, shady drive he turned the car out of the
stone gateway and on to the high-road. A hundred yards further on he
stopped in front of a small slate-roofed villa standing in an enclosure
of raggedly-growing laurel hedge and untidy fencing, of which half the
wooden palings were tumbling down.
At the first sound of the horn hooting an announcement of arrival, the
small, pretentious-looking front door burst open, and Miss and Master
Easter precipitated themselves down the garden-path, vociferating
greetings in unresentfully complete oblivion of their recent
unceremonious ejection at the hands of their neighbour.
"Is your father ready?"
"Coming this minute," said Ruthie, and added in a sudden falsetto,
designed to penetrate to an upper window of the villa, "Aren't you,
Daddy?"
"I'll sound the horn to let him know you're ready," volunteered
Ambrose, outstretching a pair of hands, noted with disgust by Sir
Julian as displaying the identical traces of syrup proclaimed by his
sister an hour ago.
"No, Peekaboo! Not you--me!"
"Neither of you," said Sir Julian succinctly.
"May I get up beside you?"
"No."
"Will you take me into Culmouth too? Oh, do!"
"Certainly not. You are too dirty."
"There, Peekaboo," said Ruthie, with a sudden access of extreme virtue.
"What did I tell you? I've washed, Sir Julian."
"I am very glad to hear it."
"What's that?"
"Don't touch. It's the foot-brake."
"What's a foot-brake?"
"Is it a nice foot-brake?"
"Do you like having a foot-brake?"
"Have all motor-cars got foot-brakes?"
"Does Daddy like foot-brakes?"
The extreme idiocy of the questions launched at him drew forth a
stifled ejaculation from the owner of the foot-brake, but Ruthie and
Ambrose received no further enlightenment on the subject of their
enquiries.
"Here's Daddy!"
"Good morning, Sir Julian. Sorry to have kept you."
"Good morning."
"Go into the house, children. Sarah is looking for you."
"Oh, she wants to wash my hands," aggrievedly said the boy.
"Get under the laurels, flat, and I'll run and say that Daddy's
taken you in the motor to Culmouth," suggested his sister with great
readiness.
Mark Easter made no slightest attempt to cope with his offsprings'
ingenious admixture of uncleanliness, deceit and disobedience.
He took his place beside Sir Julian and the car started forward.
"I'm afraid those brats of mine came up at an unearthly hour to disturb
you this morning. I had no idea where they were, or I'd have fetched
them back."
"They didn't stay long," said Sir Julian, with perfect truth.
"The fact is, Lady Rossiter is much too good to them. But I'll see it
doesn't happen again. They were rather beyond themselves this morning."
Mark hesitated and Sir Julian waited, rather amused to hear how his
simple, straightforward agent and man of business would explain the
cause of his children's objectionable upliftedness.
"I daresay they told you I had a letter from my sister this morning.
It seems that she's written a novel, and Messrs. Blade have agreed to
publish it. Of course, she's very delighted about it, and asked me to
tell the kids, and the idea somehow took hold of them. I don't see
quite why it should appeal to them so much, but you know how excitable
children are."
"Have you read the book?"
"Good Lord, no! I never took her scribbling seriously."
Mark took off his cap and let the wind ruffle up his brown hair and
moustache. His blue eyes laughed, while his face was still screwed up
into a look of perplexity.
"She's given it a very odd name. I daresay the children told you."
"Yes. They did."
"I hope it's proper, I'm sure," said Mark Easter doubtfully. "They say
that girls always write the most improper books. I suppose because they
don't know what they're talking about."
"I daresay it's innocent enough."
Mark repeated thoughtfully, "It seems an odd thing to call a book,
'Why, Ben!' but I don't mind saying that I wish she hadn't added that
it was a story of the sexes--and the worst of it is that the children
have got hold of it, and I'm afraid that we shall never hear the last
of it."
Sir Julian, feeling quite unable to suggest an optimistic alternative,
wisely abandoned the subject.