OF A RAINY DAY AT ROYD. HOW A MOTOR-CAR CAME TO GRIEF. HOW MISS
ARKROYD'S MOTHER WENT TO THANES CASTLE AND SHE HERSELF DIDN'T
A little bit of duty done always seems at its best when it has taken
the form of a written letter. Because when the time comes for posting,
whatever the letter may contain--whether it be a lame apology for
breaking an engagement or a promise to send a cheque without fail next
week--the penny stamp and the direction are just the same as if it had
been to reproach Angela for not appearing yesterday at church-parade
in Hyde Park, or had enclosed a final discharge of your tailor's
account. So Mr. Challis's rather perfunctory line to catch the Post,
boldly stamped and directed, quite set his mind at ease about his home
obligations as soon as ever it was licked and stuck to, past recall.
In fact, so relieved was his conscience, after he had handed this
letter to Elphinstone the butler to see that it went to the Post for
him, that he felt quite at liberty to enjoy some more soul-brush the
next time the chance came. All the more from a conviction of the
importance of its contents conveyed by the professional manner of Mr.
Elphinstone's reception of it--a manner that said, "_This_ really
important letter _shall_ go, whatever other don't!" If this enjoyment
of the soul-brush became too oppressive to his conscience, he could
square accounts by an extra sheet or so of letter-paper.
Anyhow, he could now live for the present. He was rather disgusted to
find that, whatever he decided on to enjoy next, it would have to be in
the house, unless he was prepared to get wet out of doors. For, taking
a mean advantage of him while he was writing his short letter, it had
come on to rain.
In a country-house, when it comes on to rain after a fine early
morning, despair settles on the household, which wanders about moaning,
and looking for someone to come and have a game at billiards; or
lamenting the cruel fate which has beguiled it into putting its things
on, and now it supposes that it had better go and take them off again
and settle down to something, because it's going to pour; or asking
what was the name of that capital game we played every day at Fen
Grange, for instance, when it rained for three weeks on end, and nobody
was the least bored. It is in sad hours such as this that you seek for
a chess-opponent and find none, except a class of player that knows the
moves, whom you fly from candidly; and then, if fortunate, you may meet
with one of another class, who has forgotten the openings. Secure him,
but don't let him set you an interesting problem and run away.
"I've never played, but I should like to learn. Only I really don't
know where the men are. Nobody plays here, you see, and they get lost
or hidden in cupboards." Thus Judith in the second hour of a steady
downpour to Mr. Challis's inquiry, for he was always ready for a game
at chess, without being keen about it.
"You are not getting on with your book, anyhow!" said he. "Can't I
hunt about for the chessmen till I find them?" The book was one he had
recommended at the first coming of the rain, and it was when it was
closed in despair that Challis asked his question.
"I think we must ask Elphinstone. Would you ring?" Challis rang, and
a sub. who appeared was instructed to consult Mr. Elphinstone. Judith
continued: "No!--I hate sinners who are touched by the _Dies Iræ_ in
a cathedral and repent; especially when they've got too old to do any
real mischief. I would sooner they went to the Devil honestly...."
And so the chat ran on, Challis cordially concurring, and not hinting
at any joy whatever over the sinner that repenteth, until the young
man Samuel came back with chessmen. There was another set, of ivory,
it appeared, but Mr. Elphinstone had desired Samuel to say that a
prawn was defective, and one of the bishops was out of his socket, and
couldn't be got to screw in. Samuel had been put to it to charge his
memory with this obscure message; he was confident about the prawn,
but had misgiving about the bishop--feared it was disrespectful to the
Church perhaps; but went away relieved when nothing explosive came of
it. His situation was safe.
Many of us know that teaching chess is no sinecure. The _alumnus_
who refuses to accept the rules as they stand; who wants to know why
the pawns may not move backwards; why the pieces may not jump over,
like in draughts; why the queen should have such absurd latitude; who
thinks all the black pieces should remain on the black squares, and
_per contra_--how well we know him! And the difficulty a peculiar class
of intellect has in mastering the knight's move, condemning it on its
merits, as too much like squinting, or italics! And another yet,
which, on being shown how to make a particular move, makes it, and says
contentiously: "Well!--I don't see anything so very clever in that."
Miss Arkroyd did not quite do any of these things, but she was nearly
as bad. She remembered the moves, in the abstract, but forgot which of
the pieces made them; and this answered as well as forgetting the moves
for all purposes of confusion. With so beautiful a hand it couldn't
matter how much she fingered the pieces. And Mr. Challis seemed very
contented. The instruction was a farce, but it served its turn, and
a sort of appearance of a game developed while the rain outside came
steadily down, and checkmated everyone in the house. Desultory chat,
in which the question, "Whose move is it?" frequently occurred, helped
Challis to a further insight into family conditions and local history.
_En revanche_ the young lady added to her impressions of Challis's own
domestic circumstances and his literary career, and found that an image
was forming in her mind of Mrs. Challis. It wasn't a beautiful image,
but it was worthy. It was that of a good soul. But not a good sort of
body--nothing so bad as that! She felt glad, for Challis's sake. A good
soul and the best of wives; that kind of thing! You couldn't expect
education of very finished achievement in those sort of people, in the
class she came from. For Miss Arkroyd had got somehow a perfectly clear
impression of a class undefinable, but homogeneous and recognizable
by symptoms. A class that didn't dress for dinner, a class that liked
potatoes in their skins as a palliative to cold moist roast mutton
_d' obbligo_; and did not condemn, but merely looked coldly on, at
_menu_'s and finger-glasses. A class whose males smoked pipes and whose
females refused cigarettes; which, though its young learned French at
school, condemned France as the most salient foreign incident on an
incorrigibly foreign Continent, and a perfect moral plague-spot of
unfaithful wives and husbands.
But however good a soul this man's wife was, Judith caught herself
being sorry for him. Yesterday evening, when she went good-naturedly
to him, as to her mother's latest discovery, just to say a few words
and prevent his getting left out in the cold, he had seemed to her only
moderately interesting, and far from handsome. Now she began with a
discriminating eye to see that, though he was far from handsome, he was
just as far from ugly. Still, she perceived that it did credit to her
discriminating eye to find this out. She hadn't noticed it so much when
he turned up unexpectedly in the garden in the morning--unexpectedly,
because she was really unconscious of having said in his hearing
that she was going across the lawn to feed her birds. But now, in a
lucky half-light in the red drawing-room, with his eyes dropped on
the chess-board, his forehead and eye-framing had a look about them
that was certainly interesting, if not a good substitute for beauty.
Judith would have preferred the beauty, certainly; but she could look
contentedly at the good soul's property, and go on wondering what _she_
was like, while he considered knotty points connected with the game.
"You've put your king in check, Miss Arkroyd. You mustn't do that."
He looked up suddenly and caught her eyes. Her _rapport_ with the
game saved him from his vanity by good luck. "I see you thought you
had caught me," was his interpretation of her gaze. It was in token
of a supposed triumph, so he thought. Whatever it was, it became
disconcerted.
"Oh!--mustn't I do that? I think it oughtn't to count, when one does it
oneself. Don't you?" Challis said to himself that this woman was rather
a goose. Why he felt a little disappointed at her being rather a goose
he could not have said off-hand. He apologized for the stupidity of the
laws of games generally; said they were clearly wrong all round. But it
would make such a lot of fuss to alter them now that he doubted if it
was worth it.
"You're not in earnest, Mr. Challis?" So the lady spoke, and Challis
said to himself that Marianne would never have found that out. "Sharp,
by comparison!" was his comment to himself; and then aloud: "But I
can't have you bored, Miss Arkroyd. You don't care about this." To
which Judith replied: "It's not exciting, so far;" and both laughed.
The discovery that each had been thinking the same thing was full of
conductivities. It improved their footing.
"It can't be, you know, when you come to think of it," said he,
pushing his chair expressively three inches back--an expression of
renunciation--with a slight boredom-admitting stretch. "Chess requires
apprenticeship before it can be enjoyed, like smoking."
"I see. And this game has made me sick, like a boy's first cigar. Why
didn't you tell me?"
"One must begin some time.... Well! I don't know either. Must one?..."
"There was nothing else to do."
"We might have gone into the billiard-room and heard politics. I heard
them going on through the door a little while ago. Mr. ... what's his
name?--the politician...."
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes?"
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes. I gathered that he was giving details of his great
scheme of Reciprocal Interdependent Taxation of Imports--what he
touched upon at dinner last night...."
"Don't let me disturb the chess!" says a passer through the room. It
is Lady Arkroyd with an armful of some form of embroidery which no
one is on any account to assist her in carrying to the drawing-room
beyond. But what she means is, "Don't arrest my progress. Mind your
own business." Challis makes a convulsive suggestion of willingness to
assist the Universe, but doesn't mean anything at all by it; and her
ladyship floats away, leaving him normal. But his plunge, overdone from
dramatic motives, has knocked the board over. The Fates seem to league
together to throw cold water on this ill-starred game. Judith conveys
the fact by a shrug, but adds a smile, that it may be understood there
is no _amertume_ in the situation. Further, she says she can hear Tea.
A sense that Life's problem is solved for the moment mixes with a
consciousness of hairbrush-time come again, and Mr. Challis disperses
to reassemble presently and enjoy it.
How it is pouring, to be sure! And how grateful one feels to
it--abstraction though it be--for doing it in earnest, and making an
end of all doubts whether we may not get out for a turn later. Nobody
is going to do that to-day.
Challis encounters young Lord Felixthorpe on the stairs, coming from
the billiard-room. He is always amiable and well-mannered, this young
nobleman, and manages to make everyone think he has their good opinion
of him at heart. But he often seems to be seeking their sympathy with
his derision of someone else. Or of himself, for that matter--so
Challis goes on thinking, for all this is what passes in _his_ mind;
the story does not vouch for its truth. During their slow ascent of the
great staircase together, he is more than half-convinced that the young
toff really cares about his views on motoring.
"I am quite aware," says his lordship, pausing at a corner, as though
one might go upstairs at any slowness, even with the young man Samuel
and a colleague agglomerating gilded porcelain within hearing as
tea-factors. "I am quite aware, my dear Mr. Challis, that the motor-car
is at present an object of execration to the public. But I sympathize
so keenly that I feel bound to spend as much time as possible in the
only place in which I am not tempted to forget myself and use bad
language against motorists. I refer to the motor-car itself. Believe
me that the only thing that can reconcile a well-constituted mind to
any practice essentially damnable is the practice itself. I shall look
forward to your accompanying me in my Panhard, after a profusion of
curses perfectly reasonably directed against it--in which you will have
my sincerest sympathy."
"When do you expect the detestable contrivance--I make no disguises,
you see--to arrive? I shall be here for a week, if my hosts continue to
tolerate me."
"It ought to be here now. From the fact that it is _not_ here now, I am
led to infer that something has happened. In this cautious expression
you will kindly observe that it includes the possibility that my
chauffeur, Louis Bossier, has got drunk on the road, and has stopped
the night at an inn to become sober."
"Or he may have been poisoned by petroleum."
"Yes, or his head may have been cut off by a police-wire, stretched
across the road in the dark. But in that case I fancy we should have
heard."
* * * * *
When Challis descended the stairs, he paused to look out at the great
window with the quarried grisaille and armorial bearings in each light,
and saw through a quarry temporarily repaired with common window-glass
a clear view of the approach to the house, dutifully draining off the
deluge that continued to fall steadily--steadily--on the gravel road
the great beech avenue took such care of, standing on each side of
it all the way to just this side of the Lodge. How well he knew what
that soaked gravel would have to say to the pedestrian who ventured
out--what it _was_ saying to that unhappy man in some sort of oilskin
costume who was coming slowly, jadedly along, above his under-squelch
and below an umbrella that can have done him very little good. Mr.
Challis saw at a glance that he was not indigenous to the soil; a
second glance determined that he was a Frenchman; a third that he
was a chauffeur. Certainly Louis Rossier--who else? He smiled as a
non-motorist smiles when a motor comes to grief. When he reached the
drawing-room, Mr. Ramsey Tomes was already applying for a second cup.
That gentleman was thirsty, no doubt. He had talked for two hours. Not
that he meant to stop--far from it!
Challis had no one to talk to for the moment, so he listened to Mr.
Tomes, who went on again as soon as he had made sure there were two
lumps.
"I start from an aspect of the question that must compel the most
incredulous to admit that at least the matrix is ripe for solution."
As the orator paused a moment, everyone felt bound to fructify a
little, and said, "I see, you propose to ..." or, "I see your idea ..."
or merely got as far as "I see you ..." and remained stranded. All
except the disciple of Graubosch, who muttered knowingly, "The
Brandenbierenschreiligrath System. Graubosch's Appendix B deals with
it." He and Mr. Wraxall exchanged astute nods; the latter to oblige,
because he really knew nothing about it. But Mr. Tomes wasn't going to
leave anything vague. Not he!--a man with a fixed glare, and loaded to
the muzzle with exhaustive elucidation!
Challis did not wait for the next instalment. He cast about for an
anchorage, and had not found a satisfactory one when Lord Felixthorpe,
who had not appeared at the beginning of Tea, came into the room with
something to communicate written on his countenance.
"What's gone amiss, Scip?" said his friend, William Rufus.
"That idiot Rossier...."
"I told you he was a fool. What's he done now?"
"Left the machine in a ditch, and walked home through the mud....
Oh no, he hasn't hurt himself. I wish he had--in moderation." The
public becomes interested, and explanation spreads over the room. A
lady's voice says, afar, that its owner supposes now we shall lose our
excursion, and that place will be gone, and it would have been the very
thing. Challis doesn't understand this, and asks Judith the meaning. He
is in her neighbourhood somehow--seems to have sacrificed hearing more
about the accident. She supposes Sibyl meant the place for the Great
Idea. But they couldn't have gone to-morrow unless the weather mended,
anyhow.
People chatter so in a room full; you soon lose threads of
conversation. Challis knew little more about either the accident or
the Great Idea when he went away to dress for dinner an hour later.
He was only aware that Mr. Tomes was still at work on the Reciprocal
Interdependent Taxation of Imports, and that Miss Arkroyd was going to
play Halma with him if he came up soon enough after dinner.
* * * * *
In his letter to Marianne, written after he went up to his room rather
early--people are very apt to think it's getting on for bedtime after
rain-beleaguered days in country-houses--Mr. Challis merely mentioned
two games at Halma, and adduced the exciting character of that game
as a reason why very little was said. His letter implied that he was
being bored, which was untrue. However, the words "in the house all
day" would do that without an antidote. And we couldn't expect him to
mention the soul-brush, especially as he disallowed its existence. He
said a good deal of what he did know of the motor-car mishap, which was
natural, for--so he said--he had inferred, from the excitement on the
subject, that this car, when it appeared, would be the first ever seen
by most of the inhabitants of the district.
This machine was the latest extravagance of young Lord Felixthorpe,
who had spent a thousand pounds upon it; and its arrival from the
agent at Grime, who was to welcome it--or rather its components--to
England, and to qualify it for the enjoyment of its riders, and the
execrations of its victims, was looked forward to with feverish anxiety
by both. But he could not give such details as were supplied next day,
after a fuller sifting of Louis Rossier's report, which was not very
intelligible at first. These had to wait for a postscript, which told
how the chauffeur, who did not understand three words of English, had
proved as sensitive to misdirection as the compass is to the magnetic
current. He went the wrong way instinctively several times, and was
headed back, or finger-pointed back, just as often. In the end he made
an unfortunate choice between two roads, although warned by a long
shouted instruction from a turnipfield--which ignored his nationality
robustly--that the cross-over bridge, when he come to Sto'an's mill,
nigh the running wa'ater, wasn't to be troosted to carry lo'ads; and
the shouter would be rather shoy of it, in yower place. But you might
take e'er a one of they two ways, at your liking. Being none the wiser,
Louis Rossier chose the more tempting one; and when he came to the
cross-over bridge, which spanned a ditch, could not, of course, tell
the meaning of the Local Authority's posted caution to the effect that
nothing over two tons was to use it; with the result that it gave way
in the middle. It was too small a bridge to let any vehicle larger than
a goat-chaise through and almost too small a ditch to accommodate one,
but the motor was trapped and detained in its sunk centre.
"You'll have to get to t' Hall on Sha'anks's mear, yoong ma-an," said a
native, who was not really taking pains to hide his joy at the mishap.
Louis got to the Hall, but didn't know he had ridden Shanks's mare.
However, for a first accident with a new Panhard, it wasn't so bad!
Only one tyre ruined; its comrade was mendable. In the end the gorgeous
scarlet vehicle was got to the house by horses, and was recovering
its spirits and snorting, with the new spare tyre on, by the time the
company at the Hall had eaten too much lunch, and were arranging how
they would spend their afternoon. Challis had despatched his letter of
the previous night, and was enjoying himself. A gloriously fine day,
following an isolated local depression of the barometer, had removed
the local depressions the latter had occasioned to everyone else,
and Miss Arkroyd had ended a second interview over the parroquets by
promising to take him to see the Roman and British camps on the other
side of the village.
* * * * *
The first really professional excursion of the new motor was to be
dedicated to the Great Idea. For the Great Idea, however vaguely it was
formulated, was clear about one thing. Premises would be _de rigueur_.
It was therefore incumbent on its promoters to inspect premises, both
in town and country. At present the latter was the more popular,
because the weather was superb, and the notion of incorporating with
the Factory a Village Community, and perhaps a Garden City, both in the
evening with a flawless Autumn sky, was too tempting to be neglected.
So, this afternoon, William Rufus and Sibyl and Lord Felixthorpe--in
spite of an impression he gave that he was treating the Great Idea with
derision--were to run over to Whealhope Paulswell, about thirty miles
off, in the motor, to give that treasure a baptismal run and inspect
an extinct factory, which had been empty a quarter of a century. They
would be back by dinner-time.
Sir Murgatroyd, of whom we have seen nothing, as he has been
continually talking about the ruin of English Trade with Mr. Ramsey
Tomes, was going to take that gentleman to see some manure. People can
look at some manure, and talk about nefarious Germany, both at once.
There is reason to suppose that these two gentlemen talked of very
little but the ruin of English Trade during the whole of this visit
to Royd. And wherever any member of the household was employed--we
are recording the impressions of Mr. Alfred Challis--he or she could
always hear, in the remote distance, what was only too clearly Mr.
Tomes taking this opportunity to state, once for all; or Sir Murgatroyd
feeling bound, alike as a Statesman and an Englishman, to protest
against. A steady, continuous rumble, on these lines, accompanied the
not particularly busy hum of men, women, and chits, that made up the
round of life at Royd. The chits, by-the-by, of which there were two or
three, naturally involved a corresponding number of young men, each to
each; or each in the pocket of each, as you choose. None of them seemed
the least ashamed of never having a word to throw at anyone outside
the pocket, except its owner, and the rest of Europe seemed by common
consent to take no notice of them. And all the while each one, and the
contents of its pocket, was, like enough--so thought Mr. Challis--the
centre of an incubation of memories that were to last a lifetime. "As
they bake, so they will brew," philosophized Mr. Challis to himself,
and clouded over a little as he remembered that he, too, was in the
twenties once. Four of them played lawn-tennis that afternoon, and the
others got somehow lost sight of. No matter!
Lady Arkroyd had the carriage, and drove over to Thanes Castle, to see
the Duchess of Rankshire before the Royalties came. But she wasn't at
all sure she wouldn't have done something else if she had known that
Judith was going to cry off at the last minute. She relied a good deal
on her eldest daughter as a factor in social intercourse. But she
didn't confess it.
"What on earth is the girl going to do with herself? How can you be so
tiresome, Ju? Now do just get ready and come. There's no hurry. I can
wait."
"Now, Madre dear, you really ought to know by this time how bored I
always am with the sort of people they get at the Castle. And I've got
letters to write. I must answer Lady Kitty about the orchids."
"Nonsense, girl! You can't be all the afternoon over _that_."
"I shall go out later. In an hour or so. I dare say I shall take
Mr.--what's his name?--Harris--round the village and show him the Roman
Camp. He'll know what castrametation means, and things...."
"Mr. 'Titus Scroop'? My dear!--he's as happy as he can be talking to
that idiot Brownrigg about Metaphysics and nonsense. Do let him alone!"
"Well!--I dare say I shall. Or otherwise, as may be. But I won't come
to Thanes. Love to the Duchess."
Judith was a stronger character than her mother, and won. As the latter
was driven off, she said to herself, for no apparent reason "Mr. Titus
Scroop."
Lady Arkroyd was in the habit of asking every celebrity she came across
to her home, because she worshipped genius. But she took the genius for
granted if she saw any author, artist, or musician's name often enough
in print. Was she sometimes rash? Well--yes--sometimes! Perhaps a doubt
about "Titus Scroop's" genius was the reason she said his name. But if
so, why did it lead to a resolve in her mind to ask Mrs. Candour--_the_
Mrs. Candour of the moment, whom she was sure to meet at Thanes--more
about Mrs. "Titus Scroop"? She kept thinking of it, off and on, all the
way to the park gates with the dragon-sentinels on piers on each side
presenting arms.
And all the while Challis was being bored by that idiot Brownrigg, and
wishing anyone would come and rescue him. He resented the idea that he
had any special rescuer in view. But no one had said he had. However,
Miss Arkroyd had certainly spoken about a walk to the Roman Camp; so
naturally he would cast her for the part, don't you see?