OF THE GRAUBOSCHIAN PHILOSOPHY. HOW JUDITH ARKROYD WALKED WITH MR.
CHALLIS TO THE RECTORY. HOW HE SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS WIFE BEING HIS
DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. HOW HE WAS OUT OF HIS ELEMENT AT THE RECTORY.
SALADIN AND HIS CAT. HIS HEDGEHOG
The gentleman spoken of so disrespectfully by his hostess was Mr.
Adolphus Brownrigg, who was an enthusiastic disciple of the great
German philosopher Graubosch, whose scheme embodied a complete
Reorganization of Society on an entirely new basis. But whereas all
previous reorganizers of Society had started on the fallacious and
mischievous line of breaking up existing institutions and replacing
them by others of their own devising, this reformer proposed to utilize
them all as portions of his new System. Thus the reigning Sovereign
would fall easily into his place of Chairman of a great Central
Committee of Management, retaining the Crown as a distinguishing
badge of his office; the existing machinery of Parliamentary election
would answer equally well for the Members of the Central Committee;
the Bench would supply us with a most satisfactory staff for what he
termed Courts of Discriminative Decision, and so on, and so on. Even
the very Policemen's Uniforms would be available for the new staff of
Order-Keepers and Crime-Preventors that formed part of his System. Nay,
the Coinage itself would come in useful as Exchangeable Tokens in his
new Method of Sale and Purchase Accommodation.
"What attitude does Professor Graubosch adopt towards the Religions of
the world?" asked Challis, as he and the advocate of this new Reform
walked about the garden, discussing it.
"Graubosch," replied the latter, "is, broadly speaking, in favour of
their complete abolition. Nor do I myself think any continuation of
them would be found necessary in view of his new System of Metaphysical
Checks. No one recognizes more fully than Graubosch the necessity for
Moral Restraint derived from a Consciousness of the Unseen, whether
acting as a stimulus in connection with an exalted and unselfish
anxiety for personal rewards throughout Eternity, or as a deterrent
resulting from the anticipation of unpleasantness hereafter,
especially of continuous oxidation with evolution of caloric. But the
new System provides for both."
"As for instance?..."
"For instance, in respect of the Idea of a Deity.... But perhaps, Mr.
Challis, your own views on this subject are ... a ... well defined? I
should be sorry to ... to...."
"To give offence? Pray don't feel any scruples on my account."
"Well, I will continue. In respect of this Idea of a Deity, it is
true that Graubosch abolishes God, as such. But his System claims to
provide a substitute; and this substitute is, to my thinking, superior
in many respects for working purposes to the Idea it displaces. The
first Metaphysical Check he formulates is the Invariable Necessary
Antecedent. The acceptance of this as an inevitable condition of
thought is an essential of the System of Graubosch."
"How does it act as a check?"
"It is rather long to follow out; but, put as briefly as I can, it is
somewhat thus: Graubosch admits the possibility of an infinite number
of successions of Antecedents, as we have an infinite number of results
or sequents. But the effect on the Metaphysician of contemplating such
a condition of the Universe is fatal to reasoning, and may easily
produce suspension of the faculties. Philosophy stipulates for a _modus
vivendi_; and as a working necessity for argument, if for no other
reason, Graubosch refers the whole of the Universe to _one_ Invariable
Necessary Antecedent; which he accepts, for reasons which appear to me
satisfactory, as obviously superior to any one unit of its results or
sequences. We have no right, he says, to assume that _any_ result or
consequence is not achievable by such an Antecedent."
"I concur, on the whole. Does Graubosch ascribe intelligence, in our
sense of the word, to this Antecedent?"
"Certainly not. Intelligence is merely a sequence or consequence of
some minute fraction ... of ... of its power."
"Why did you hesitate?"
"From a feeling that Power itself may only be a finite humanism, so to
speak--an Entity on all fours with Intelligence. But the Metaphysician
has to leave himself a few words, to speak with. Now the idea of
_greater_ and _less_ is axiomatic, and it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that _our_ Intelligence is a lesser thing than its working
substitute in the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent."
"I quite understand. To create Intelligence, its Creator when creating
himself must go one better--break his own anticipated record. What are
Graubosch's views about Good and Evil? They both are factors in our
existing System, especially the latter."
"He ignores both, as antiquated and unnecessary. In his System, the
fruitless discussions about which is which--where one ends and the
other begins, and so on--disappear entirely."
"That sounds good. Vice and Virtue could shake hands over it--a
Coalition Ministry, don't you know?"
"Pardon me!--the exact reverse. Party Government would be intensified.
But I ought to describe what Graubosch terms the _Plus_ and _Minus_
of his System, in its Moral or Ethical aspects. The first expression
recognizes in what has been hitherto absurdly called 'Good' merely
the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent leaking out, so to speak,
and becoming perceptible to our Senses. The second, in what has been
equally absurdly called 'Evil,' its diminution or repression."
Challis yawned. He was getting bored. "Does not that," he said, "assume
the existence of some counter-power, able to diminish and repress?"
"Graubosch avoids doing so. And therein lies the beauty of his System.
His _Minus_ is simply negation of his _Plus_. An exact parallel is
supplied by the phenomena of light and darkness. To ascribe to darkness
powers of extinguishing light is scientifically absurd."
"I see." Challis spoke in a winding-up tone. His bore perceived it, and
dexterously pinioned him.
"Pardon me one moment more," he said, "We are at a point where
the beauty of the System becomes most manifest. I refer to its
elasticity--its power of utilizing, provisionally at any rate, existing
Institutions pending its maturer development. Graubosch does not doubt
the efficacy at some future date of the Metaphysical Check on our
propensities supplied by the _Plus_ and _Minus_ of his System. But he
proposes for the present--at least, until believers in a Personal God
from early youth have had time to die out--to postpone the _Plus_ which
is to take his place. Also--and this is important in connection with
the operation of Metaphysical Checks--he is favourable to the retention
of a Personal Devil until the Masses have acquired an insight into
Metaphysics...."
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Mr. Challis. "I have letters to
write, and they say the Post goes at twelve...."
"But I hope I have impressed you favourably. We must bear in mind...."
"Most favourably, my dear sir. And it seems to me that if we only let
things alone vigorously enough, we may regard Professor Graubosch's
great Reform as already in operation...." Mr. Challis paused on behalf
of a newcomer, to whom he resumed: "Not at all, Miss Arkroyd ... not
the least! I assure you Mr. Brownrigg and I have talked the subject
dry.... No!--I really am speaking the truth." This with absolute
fervour.
"Because I do so hate interrupting," said Judith, who had been waiting
to speak. "And I saw you were so interested. But I can say what I
have to say and go--and then you can finish." Mr. Challis looked
dejected, and Judith continued: "I only wanted to say that I shall be
walking down to the village presently, and could show you the Roman
and British camps and the prehistoric monolith." Mr. Challis looked
elated. "Only _presently_, when you have really had your talk out.
I shall be on the terrace." Mr. Challis was just on the point of
arresting Miss Arkroyd's departure by another violent profession of
intense completion of the subject in hand, when prudence murmured in
his ear that his bore mustn't be allowed to come too. Now a pretence
that he was yearning for three words more, and would then meet the lady
on the terrace, just served to place Mr. Brownrigg in the position
of a fixture. It localized him. Otherwise he might have moved with
the train of events, unshaken off. Even as it was, a very vigorous "I
really mustn't keep Miss Arkroyd waiting any longer" was wanted to
effect the extraction--for it was quite like tooth-drawing. But the
force of handling--as the art-critics phrase it--was so strong that Mr.
Brownrigg couldn't say, "Why shouldn't I come too, I should like to
know?" He _would_ have, nevertheless. But he had to give the point up,
and went to look for Mr. Wraxall.
* * * * *
Judith was waiting on the terrace looking handsome. She was wrestling
with an intractable glove-button, and her hand that was operative was
embarrassed by her sunshade having been taken into its confidence.
Mr. Challis could hold the sunshade, clearly. A very simple thing!
And when the glove-button socketed into its metallic nidus, and was
satisfactory, how obvious for the young lady to take that sunshade back
again, with a profusion of thanks as for a great service done! But did
the little incident leave the two performers exactly where it found
them? Sometimes things of this sort don't. Things of what sort, do you
ask? Well!--you see, we are watching Mr. Alfred Challis's mind, and
can, for the present, only answer--the sort that made that gentleman
conscious that the twenties and he had parted company many years ago.
Perhaps, however, it's only one of those nonsensical ideas Sibyl gets
(now, if you please, we are peering into the lady's mind) when she
tells her sister that flirtations with married men are detestable.
However, this time Sibyl couldn't have a word to say--a literary
man with an attenuated beard, and hair that seems to have thought
of curling once, and then thought better of it, and gone a little
gray hesitatingly! And a weak mouth! And a lay-down collar! And such
clothes! No!--this time Sibyl could find no excuse. If this man wasn't
safe, you might as well have no male friends or even acquaintances at
all, and live in a harem.
Besides, there was something very interesting about his eyes and
forehead, which were his good points. Oh yes!--his hands were not bad.
They looked sensitive, and showed the bones. Judith's mind made swift
excursion down a side-alley. What was the impossible Mrs. Challis like
to live with, she wondered? Did he adore her, or how? Perhaps she
wasn't really a "good soul" at all, but adorable--in reason.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Challis. I always get into such a mess with
buttons. I hope you are not afraid of dogs, because Saladin must come
with us. He never gets any exercise unless I take him out." A huge
Danish boarhound, conscious that he was spoken of, looked up and
appeared to sanction the use of his name. He had smelt Mr. Challis, and
found some excuse for him, presumably, in some nicety of bouquet human
nostrils know not of.
"Saladin's welcome," said he. "But I'm like Br'er Rabbit--a mighty puny
man myself, and I may very easily git trompled...." For Saladin was
appalling.
"What's that out of?"
"Uncle Remus."
"I suppose I ought to read Uncle Remus?"
"Yes; but don't if you don't like."
"Not if I ought to?"
"The ought is not a high moral ought. You ought to read Uncle Remus if
you want something amusing to read."
"I haven't much time for reading, and I want to read 'The Epidermis.'
Everyone tells me I shall enjoy it."
"Perhaps everyone knows. I don't feel so much confidence myself. Read
Uncle Remus first, anyhow. If you do that, I'll ask you to accept a
copy of t'other one, from the Author."
"I've just written off for a copy to the publisher."
"Oh!--have you?--I would tell him to transfer the order to my
account--only that takes all the edge off the proceeding."
"When did Uncle Remus come out first?"
"Oh--a long time ago! It's odd to think how long. I'm over forty. I was
almost a boy."
"Perhaps that's why you liked it so much? Fancy your being fourteen
years older than me!"
"Perhaps." The last half of Miss Arkroyd's remark had to go without
answer. It was too parenthetical to call for one.
Experience teaches us that there is no meshwork of circumstance into
which flatter conversation may weave itself than the combination of a
married man, a young woman, and a walk out on a fine afternoon, of set
purpose. At least, that was the text of a literary reflection of Mr.
Challis at this juncture. He put it away in a mental storehouse for his
next book. Its truth or falsehood is immaterial at present.
Judith made no mental note of what _her_ experience taught; but she
knew she couldn't stand being bored and she felt it coming. She had
made up her mind to have an amusing walk with this popular favourite.
And Sibyl might say what she liked, but she wouldn't be balked!
A sense of intended impertinence may have heightened her colour
slightly, as she stopped and turned the fine eyes full on to her
companion. He stopped, too, looking round.
"Mr. Challis, I want you to tell me something.... No!--don't promise
till you know what it is...."
"I am sure, Miss Arkroyd, you will ask me nothing I should hesitate to
tell you...."
"Don't be too confident ... it's very impertinent!"
"All right--go on! I'll forgive you."
"Is 'Ziz' in the 'Spendthrift's Legacy' Mrs. Challis?"
"My wife? Marianne?" Mr. Challis was conscious of being reminded of
his wife. A fine _nuance_ of ashamedness--it could hardly be called
shame--affected his mind, surely? Else why note the perfectly obvious
fact that if he and Marianne were never to forget each other for
a single instant, life would be insupportable to both. Perhaps he
can hardly be said to have noted it, though; suppose we say that he
declined to note it, consciously, because of its absurd irrelevance.
"Yes!--Marianne." Judith's eyes, with no concession in them of any
shade of impertinence in the use of Mrs. Challis's Christian name,
waited for the answer, as she still stood, not stirring. Was she saying
to herself that this was tit-for-tat; a _riposte_ for his "Sibyl" of
their talk in the morning? Saladin, not used to this sort of thing,
waited also, reproachfully. Challis, rather accepting "Marianne" as a
sanction of his "Sibyl," was again conscious that his soul was being
brushed by machinery--not an intrusive brush though; an easy one he
could ignore. His answer was not difficult.
"Not a particle of resemblance between them! Ziz was a"--he stopped
himself just in time--"a ... a ... almost a sort of professional
beauty." The one word "professional" made all the difference--saved the
position.
Now, Judith had a habit of despising dangerous ground in social
intercourse; it was part of what Mr. Challis had called her
_prepotente_ disposition. She would always put her horse at a quickset
hedge if any image crossed her mind of the finger of Discretion, the
monitress; especially if it looked like Sibyl's. While Mr. Challis
was breathing freely about his dexterous escape, she made up her mind
to know all about this impossible person who wasn't a professional
beauty. As to how she should get at this knowledge, that was another
matter. All she could see her way to at the moment was--not to be in
a hurry and spoil her chances. But she was very much mistaken if she
couldn't do with this man, whom she thought of as nerves and brains and
very little else, what she had done before now with stronger men than
he--viz., twist him round her little finger.
"Ah!--I'm so glad," said she. And then, as though to clothe her pause
in walking with the semblance of a moment of mental tension, she
resumed movement forward. Saladin emphasized her action by a single
tremendous bark, and did the same. A startled waterfowl decided that
his position was untenable, and condemned the neighbourhood, going off
in a bee-line with a rush. Two horses out at grass galloped round their
field, and stood at gaze, with open nostrils. Of which events Saladin,
their source and origin, took no notice, but moved on, smelling the
planet gently and thoughtfully.
"Why are you glad?" asked Challis. "You didn't like Ziz, I suppose?"
A note of pique in his voice. The young lady's confidence about the
finger-twisting grew.
"I _admired_ her," she said with marked emphasis. "She fascinated me
down to the ground. But ... if you ask me ... you mustn't mind my
saying, you know...."
"I can't tell you how I enjoy hearing what you really think. No
compliments, please!"
"Well ... if I can express myself! I should say your heroine's was
rather a ... rather a ... _shrill_ personality. I don't mean unlovable
exactly, but ... well!... I can't think of any other way of putting it."
"She was meant to be excitable. Neurotic, as the slang goes nowadays.
Marianne is neither. I hope you liked the reconciliation scene by the
open grave, and the way they appeal, as it were, to the coffin for
forgiveness. Some of the reviews thought it strained."
"Strained!--oh no! It seemed to me in some ways one of the most
touching things I ever read. And her explanation to Septimus that she
had divorced him on principle in order that he should marry Julia, and
both get a chance of recovering their position in society.... But do
tell me--only it's hardly fair to ask--did you mean that _she_ put the
arsenic in Julia's coffee, or the negress?"
"I leave that an open question for the reader to speculate about. But
you may rest assured of one thing, Miss Arkroyd--the young person in my
novel is about as unlike my dear wife as she can be." He had determined
to pay some little tribute to his dear wife as soon as the chance came,
that she should lie less upon his conscience. Here it was. "Marianne is
the exact opposite--a pussycat upon the hearthrug--a ... kettle singing
on the hob, you might almost say. She's not exactly what's called a
clever woman, certainly...."
"But she is none the worse for that! How I do hate clever women!" All
the same, Judith thought to herself: "Why couldn't he leave her in
peace, on the hearthrug or the hob?" His last reservation had spoiled
his little tribute, and indeed, he felt it himself. Bother!
Setting it right would make it worse. In spite of a fervent murmur from
the young lady, that she felt she knew exactly what Mrs. Challis was
like, and that they would be sure to understand each other, and what a
pity it was Mrs. Challis had not been able to come, he felt he would
do best to _brusquer_ the conversation. He couldn't well say "Marianne
isn't here because your mother never invited her--only told her she
might come." So, feeling that if he could detach the conversation
from Marianne personally he did not very much care by what means the
end was effected, he made a fragmentary remark to the effect that
he _had_ had an original in his mind for the neurotic heroine, but
quite a different person from his wife--utterly unlike her. "Unlike
in appearance--individuality--everything! Is that the market-cross?"
No, it wasn't the market-cross; it was the pump. So Mr. Challis's
conclusion did very little towards its object.
Judith halted as before, after establishing the pump. She knew she
was going to be impertinent again; and drawled a word or two to that
effect, to get on a safe footing. "But do forgive me," she said, "if
I ask who the lady was. You needn't tell me, you know." And then, as
Challis wavered between disclosure and concealment, put in a word to
clinch matters: "Treat me as a friend. We can always quarrel, you
know!" The soul-brush seemed to go a little quicker.
This author was a man who fancied he understood womankind--and probably
his was a fair average of knowledge in a department where so much
ignorance exists. But there was one sort of woman he could _not_
understand--the woman with a stronger nature than his own. He had only
mixed with his equals, so far. He could be quite unaware that he was
being influenced--could still persuade himself, as a tribute to his
manhood, that he was acting from a politic motive. He could make an
astute note that his insight into humanity--"Human Nature ... behooves
that I know it"--showed him that he could place confidence in this
lady. It had nothing to do with her eyes or her outline. It was his
Insight.
"I don't mind telling you." A slight hitch before the last word showed
that the speaker had just avoided italics. He paused a moment, to be
quite sure he didn't mind, then continued: "The original of 'Ziz' was
my first wife. So far as there _was_ an original. But exaggerated out
of all--out of all individuality."
"I never knew that you had been married before." The wording of
this--"never" during the last forty-eight hours!--was ahead of their
intimacy, but her hearer accepted it. It chimed in with that luxury of
the soul-brush, always at work. He would not on any account have had
it exchanged for, "They did not tell me you had been married twice."
Nevertheless, he was unaware that he was being influenced, and went on
towards expansive confidence, unsuspicious of himself.
"I married about fourteen years ago, and lost my wife within a
twelvemonth. My son is a big boy now, at Rugby; he was born just before
his mother died. He always thinks and speaks of Marianne as his mother.
She has always been a mother to him, in fact. Her own children--we have
two little girls--do not realize his half-brothership. We have never
tried to make them do so."
"How right!" from Judith. Confidence was improving. She was giving
sanction to family arrangements.
"Yes, I think it has been best. Their difference of age suggests
nothing to them."
"I suppose they know?"
"Yes--academically, one might say. But knowledge of that is as nothing
against the force of a child's acceptance of its _status quo_. When
I married Marianne, the boy--he's Bob--was still too young to pay much
attention to the fact that she brought him away from his granny's
to live at my house. The only difference that impresses him between
himself and his sisters is that _he_ can remember so much more clearly
than they do the house where my first wife and I used to live. It is
the house described in 'The Spendthrift's Legacy.' I shall always
believe it was that title that made it so fetching. You see, you can't
guess whether the Spendthrift inherited the legacy or bequeathed it. It
gets on your brain, and then you ask for it at Mudie's...."
Judith interrupted. "Of course, the Spendthrift _left_ the Legacy. But
why was he a Spendthrift, one wants to know.... Yes, I see. It was a
lucky title. But did you always write?"
"Not until the firm of accountants I was with wound up the affairs of
Eatwell and Lushington, the big publishers. I was sent to check and
overhaul the stock. An almost unsold novel attracted my attention--an
edition of two thousand--fifteen hundred in sheets. Its issue had
been arrested by the discovery that the author--who had just died of
appendicitis, by-the-bye--had taken another man's title."
"I suppose you can be prosecuted for taking another man's title?"
"H'm--no! At least, there is no copyright in a title. It wasn't that.
It was for the book's own sake. Publishers don't like other people's
titles for their books. I was able to offer a suggestion which made it
possible to use the sheets. The bound copies were made paper-pulp of
again, I believe."
"I can't see much encouragement to authorship in that, Mr. Challis."
"None at all. But Mr. Saxby, who is virtually Eatwell and
Lushington--one's dead, and the other has become a missionary in
Marocco--saw reason to believe I should succeed as a writer, owing to
the new first chapter I wrote for this book to accommodate the new
title. He made me write a novel for the firm, and I succeeded."
"But I don't understand. Wasn't the old title printed anywhere on the
old sheets?"
"Printed everywhere! The novel was called 'Amaris,' and there were no
headlines. The page-tops were just Amaris, Amaris, Amaris all through."
"What is 'Amaris'? And how on earth did you manage?..."
"Stop a bit, or I shall want Gargantua's mouth. 'Amaris' was a name
the author concocted, like Mrs. Kenwig's 'Morleena.' He wanted to
be quite sure his heroine's name had never been used for a novel
before, so that he could make it the title. But it _had_, with a Latin
subtitle, in which _dulcibus_ and _amaris_ were put in contrast...."
"Never mind the Latin," said Judith. "What did it mean?"
"It amounted to the question, 'Is Life most full of bitter things or
sweet?' and the title answered the question. It might have been called
'Dulcibus' for any light it threw on the problem. But it wouldn't have
sold. Nothing sells without a snarl or a howl or a pig-sty in it."
"But I'm so curious to know how you got over the difficulty."
"Simple enough! We turned it into 'Tamarisk.'... How? Why, of course,
by printing a 'T' at the beginning and a 'K' at the end. It cost
something to run the sheets carefully through again, but not so much as
burning them."
"What was there about 'Tamarisk' in the book?"
"Not a word till I rewrote the first dozen pages. I had to read that
blessed book through till I nearly knew it by heart, in order to work
out the idea. But it seemed all right when it was done. I was rather
proud of it."
"I dare say it was tremendously clever. But how _was_ it done? That's
what I want to know."
"I made the name of the girl 'Tamarisk' instead of 'Amaris,' and then
her baby brother can't pronounce it--calls her Amaris; and the family
catch the pronunciation, and she adopts the name outright. It was
difficult to do, because the conditions implied were those of the bosom
of an affectionate family, and the sequel might have clashed...."
"Because...?"
"Well, you see, the girl becomes a Vampire, and sucks the little
brother's blood. But I succeeded. In fact, I think the very
difficulties of the situation produced a certain pathos."
"I see," said Judith, with a gush of intense perception. "I see that
would be so.... Yes, that _is_ the market-cross, this time."
* * * * *
Is the gap above large enough to include an inspection of a
market-cross, a pump, a camp, and a village church? Perhaps,
considering how little was left of the last--though, of course, some
of the walls had ancient invisible cores. But hardly for tea at the
Rectory, which had to be fresh-made; rather like the church, though
in the case of the latter a few of the old leaves were preserved from
the first brew, so to speak. Poor old leaves!--poor conscious objects
of active conservation, each paroxysm of which left a little less of
the flavour of the _moyen âge_ behind it--a shadow less of excuse for
another subscription list on their behalf, or another paper in the
Journal of the local Society of Antiquaries. They were being handed
down to posterity with such solicitude that whatever of bloom the axe
and hammer of Puritanism had left behind seemed like to come off on the
gloves of Ecclesiastical Archæology.
Is it necessary to say that the foregoing is only a peep into the
ill-regulated mind of Mr. Alfred Challis at about the time that the
fresh-made tea at the Rectory had begun to reanimate it? But, of
course, Mr. Challis never said a word to this effect to his host, and
that reverend gentleman naturally didn't want to talk about local
matters. He was sick of his interesting surroundings, and wanted to
hear about the new motor-car and wireless telegraphy and aerostation
and coloured photography, and all sorts of things that were up-to-date
three years ago, and for that matter are still, to a certain extent.
About which and other things the literary gentleman was silent and
absent-minded, in spite of the tea. Had he been bound to account to
himself for this, he would have found it very difficult to do so. Not
being bound, he allowed his mind to recognize the fact that he never
did talk much to Parsons--you could never be sure you wouldn't give
offence!--and to feel that reserve, short of incivility of course, was
plausible at least.
For he was one of those unpractical persons who, never having been
thrashed into a Creed in childhood, and being liberally ready to
doubt any Creed of his own concoction, associated Religions, broadly
speaking, with the opening or closing of shops on Sunday, the
suppression of bands in the parks, and the singing of the same tune
over and over again in unison at street-corners. When he came by
chance on the sound of a harmonium making an unintelligible droning,
he conceived of it as Christianity going on in a corner, fraught
with a quaint old-world feeling to the passer-by, but scarcely to be
encouraged by enlightenment. He had cultivated Ritual so far as to
be ready, on emergency, to take off his hat and look intently into
it, watching anxiously the while for subsidence of religious symptoms
without. At old-fashioned houses, where Prayers might be expected to
occur at any moment, he used to become in a sense demoralised, and
felt lost when he found himself out of reach of a chair or convenient
_prie-Dieu_ of some sort. His only really heart-felt expression of
gratitude to his own or anyone else's Maker was the "Thank God that's
over!" that he didn't say aloud at the end. Messiahs of all ranks,
from the highest to the lowest, he regarded as mere bones of contention
along interminable sectaries, all ready to fang each other, but kept in
check by Scotland Yard. Qualified practitioners of Religion, whether
Priest or Presbyter, he looked on as mere survivals of a past age
perishing slowly of Civilization. He was not prepared to take the
responsibility of hurrying their extinction, and, indeed, was ready
to make concession on minor points, complying in literature with the
public conviction that the pronoun standing for the name of the Maker
of the Stellar Universe, and possibly others, really ought to be
printed with a capital letter. We are merely putting him on record--not
hinting at any opinion how far he was right or wrong.
Why do we call Mr. Alfred Challis _unpractical_? it may be asked.
Simply because, while he avoided or ignored all experts in Applied
Religion, he himself was unprepared with any substitute for it. And
this was so even in the case of his own children. He had, however,
given _carte blanche_, by implication of supineness, to the partner of
his joys, sorrows, and admixtures of the two. He knew perfectly well
that if he could have cancelled the little restored church at Royd, and
the Parsonage and all its belongings, and left Royd free from what he
counted superstition, of a sort, he would have held his hand--simply
because he could not for the life of him have suggested any alternative
that would not have worked round to the same thing in the end. He was
convinced at heart, even while he made mental notes about Clerical
Humbugs who pretended to believe what they knew German criticism had
exploded long ago--for Mr. Challis had read whatever fostered his
predispositions, just like yourself and the present writer--that if
this athletic-looking, upright gentleman and his serious sister--for
it seemed he was a widower--were to be suddenly removed from Royd,
as well as any religious outscourings of a Dissenting nature hanging
about--if all these were cleared away and the village left in charge
of the human heart and intellect _ed id genus omne_, the human stomach
_et istud genus omne_ would get their way in double-quick time, and a
perfect Saturnalia would come about of Bacchus and Priapus, of Cabiric
deformities lurking round the corner for a chance, and Beer. At any
rate, he was enough convinced of this to be rather grateful to the
Clerical Humbugs for pretending, pending enlightenment. He felt it was
benevolent in him to be mean at the cost of his own conscience, and to
hold his tongue and leave them undenounced, in the interest of Humanity.
This chronicle has no opinions--note that! The foregoing is only a
peep into the mind of a literary man who was never at a University.
Had he been at one, many college-chums in Orders would have checked
his condemnations. The man one has read with, swum with, cricketed
with--_cannot_ be a Hypocrite. Absurd!
Our snapshots of Mr. Alfred Challis's mind have taken long to record,
but they serve their turn in this place better, perhaps, than the few
trifling incidents of the visit at the Rectory. Consider that the
lady and gentleman are on their way back to the Hall, in a golden
sunset-light which makes the former resplendent, and does no harm to
the appearance of the latter. Judith weighs him more carefully than she
has done yet, and the result may be more favourable in such a glow.
Quite passable!--is her verdict. And she knows how _she_ looks, bless
you, reasoning by analogy! For all her previous verdicts about her
companion's looks--so far as they were favourable--have run on lines of
intellectual rather than physical beauty.
The reason she looked at him carefully at that moment of starting from
the Parsonage may have been because of an impression she had that he
had cut a poor figure as against that of the Parson. It had so chanced
that Saladin, who had behaved well in the house--accepting small sweet
biscuits with reserves as to first approval of them--had, on coming
away through the garden, just as they reached the gate, become aware
of cats, as an abstraction. Mr. Challis's hold on his collar he hardly
took any notice of; and it was fortunate that the Rev. Athelstan Taylor
(that was his name) got hold on the other side just in time to prevent
Saladin starting for a concrete cat over the flower-beds. "You had,
perhaps, best let me have both sides, Mr. Challis," said he. Then had
followed a magnificent contest between the Rev. Athelstan and the
boarhound. If the former could have been unfrocked, it would have been
a Greek bas-relief. It ended in a draw, as the concrete cat vanished.
"I couldn't have held you much longer, old chap," said the Rector
unassumingly to Saladin, during apologies and explanations, dogwise.
These continued for some time after they had left the Rectory, and
Judith was really glad Saladin's chain was on, with no one to help
stronger than her literary friend, if a cat occurred. Rabbits had
palled on Saladin, owing to their absurd and unfair practice of running
underground.
"He's a fine fellow, your Parson, Miss Arkroyd," said Challis. He
acknowledged it readily; athletics were not his line.
"The Reverend Athelstan? (Yes, my darling precious pet, you did quite
right, and it was an odious cat!) Oh yes--he was a great athlete in
his old Oxford days; was in the 'Varsity eight. (Yes, dear love!--you
shall lick when we get home. Now walk quiet, and let people talk.)
Yes--he's painfully strong." There was something in this of implied
justification for people who were not.
"I'm afraid I'm painfully weak--by comparison. My sedentary employments
don't develop the muscles." But, after all, reading prayers and singing
of anthems does not, either. This was _in foro conscientiæ_--not spoken
aloud.
"Oh, everybody can't Sandow. _I_ think that sort of thing rather
tiresome, carried too far. However, we are very good friends, the
Reverend and I. I like a man that has the courage of his opinions.
He's quite in a minority here about the Woman question--or I suppose I
should say questions. But I meant the Franchise business particularly.
He and the Bishop are at daggers drawn about it. I haven't heard him
say much about the other. I fancy, though, he's at heart in favour of
it--more than myself, perhaps. I mean the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill."
"Are not you...?" Mr. Challis had a hesitation on him, not like his
usual way of speech. That was an amused way usually, a confident one
almost always. This was neither.
"I must confess ..." said Judith hesitatingly--"I must confess to
having very little sympathy with men who want to marry their deceased
wives' sisters. It's a question of taste, according to me--nothing to
do with the high moralities." The implied sneer against all moral law
was no discomfort to her hearer. On the contrary, spoken as it was by
a good-looking young lady in a sunset light, it seemed to him alike
picturesque and liberal. But he changed the conversation suddenly, as
though something in it had disagreed with him.
"What a capital photographer the great Athelstan seems to be!" He said
it with a definite air of "Let us talk of something else." She glanced
round at him, decided with some surprise that she had shocked him, but
answered without showing it. She was quite a woman of the world, was
Judith.
"He's a splendid photographer. You know he took all those photos for
'Ten Years of Slum Growth'--my cousin's book?" Mr. Challis pretended he
knew this book; but he didn't. "I made him come and photograph my own
special slum population in Tallack Street. But Lady Elizabeth wouldn't
have them in the book. She said Tallack Street could hardly rank as a
slum, in her sense of the word."
"Was it too swell?"
"She said so. Well!--you shall see the photographs, and judge for
yourself."
But the conversation had fallen flat. A chill had come. Even the
discovery that the moon had risen when we were not looking did nothing
to remove it. We were not young enough, probably, or not old enough,
for lunar influences. Indifference to Phoebe begins with maturity, and
even outlasts it. So thought Mr. Challis, when rather mechanically
called on to admire the silver disc, shot with gold, just getting clear
of a purple gloom that was the hallowed smoke of unholy Grime--hallowed
by the sun's last word to twilight, its heir-at-law and sole executor.
For all that, Mr. Challis made notes in this connection for literary
purposes, while Judith thought to herself that this would never do.
She must make an effort, or the skein she was going to twist round her
finger would float away and be lost.
"I know I shocked you just now," said she.
"Shocked me?--when?"
"Just before we got to the photography...."
"I have quite forgotten. What were we saying?" This was not true; he
remembered perfectly.
"How kind of you to pretend to forget! Forgive my disbelieving you."
Challis was open to a recrudescence of veracity. Perhaps it _was_
a fib this time--he made the admission. But as he made it, he was
again conscious of the soul-brush at work. Had he perceived the
skein-analogy, he might have recognized its first clip round the
finger. "We were talking of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, I think,"
said he. "But why you think you shocked me I can't imagine."
"Never mind!--if you don't recollect. But Sibyl would have lectured me.
She always says I ridicule Moral Law. Perhaps I do, in a certain sense.
But Sibyl is the soul of propriety."
"I can't see where ridicule of Moral Law comes in, so far. What you
_said_ was--well!--amounted to a condemnation of the _taste_ of men who
wish to marry their wives' sisters. Perhaps I misunderstood?" Challis's
manner had a flavour of personal interest; the amused tone had gone,
and the last words ended on a pause for an answer, with an intention
in them of hearing it and going on. The skein would run on easily from
now, said the winder. But not too quick at first.
"Oh no!--quite right," she said. "I meant that. For instance--I
shouldn't mention this, only I see you guessed it. You are so quick at
guessing things...."
"I'm not. What do you suppose I have guessed?"
"Why--about the Reverend Athelstan, of course, and Elizabeth
Caldecott...."
"Elizabeth who?"
"Well--you _saw_ her, just now!"
"I thought she was his sister?"
"Oh, no!--sister-in-law."
"What were you saying about them--just now? You began 'For instance,'
and pulled up...."
"I was going to say theirs was a case in point. If Mr. Taylor wanted
to marry Miss Caldecott, I should consider it simply a lapse from good
taste on his part. I shouldn't fret over the moralities. He and Bishop
Barham would have to fight that out between them.... Oh dear!--what
_has_ Saladin got? I'm afraid it's a hedgehog. _Do_ you think you could
keep hold of him, just for a few seconds, while I throw it out of his
reach?" This was achieved with difficulty; all the greater from a
misconception of the position by Saladin, who thought it was all done
for his sake, as a relaxation. The hedgehog was thrown over a long high
wall, and Saladin ran along it each way, leaping up at intervals.
"He gets so irritated with hedgehogs, and I don't wonder, poor darling!
I hope he hasn't strained your hand?" Mr. Challis couldn't say very
much about that. Nothing to speak of! "Let's go on. He'll get tired of
that, and I don't hear the bull anywhere--it's all right. What was I
saying?" It is perturbing to the non-bucolic mind to hear a necessary
and inevitable bull taken as a matter of course.
"You were speaking of Mr. Taylor and Miss Caldecott. Is he supposed to
want to marry her?"
"I really couldn't say. Men are so odd. Of course, if she were less
angular...." The young lady blew a whistle for Saladin. The intentness
with which both watched for the dog to appear from the quarter he
was last seen in enabled him to play off a little joke at their
expense. For when Challis turned his head, after much watching and
whistling, there was that confounded beast, pretending all the while
to wait, after a brief circuit of a mile or so out of sight. He made a
pretence of not being able to understand motives, combined with great
forbearance in not asking for an explanation of them.
The skein-winding had been a little spoiled, but Judith got it again
in order before arriving at the Hall, and it would wait for its
opportunity. Her mere acceptance of silence in the twilight of the
great avenue, as though conversation-making was not called for under
the circumstances, had its force. It might have been spoiled by a
quicker pace, to finish the walk up; but, if anything, there was a
disposition to loiter and to hate the idea of being indoors on such a
heavenly evening.
"Your wife's name was...?" Surely the subject franked a dropped voice,
in harmony with the beauty of the said evening--a touch of tenderness
for _its_ sake entirely. None but a coarse nature would shout against
the musical hushing of the wind in the beeches. Let there be no false
note in the chord.
Challis accepted this tenderness as a tribute to the departed. He
answered, "Kate--Kate Verrall." He need have said no more, but it
filled out a sympathetic funeral tone, in keeping with the hour, to
add: "She died within two years of our first meeting."
Miss Arkroyd's regret at having raked up a painful memory was so great
that she all but laid her hand on her companion's sleeve. "Oh no," she
said, still more tenderly, "I did not mean that. I meant Marianne's
maiden name." It would have been artificial, and stodgy, too, to call
her "your present wife." Better the frankness of a sympathetic nature,
and Marianne.
"Craik," was the unqualified answer. Challis wished that his first
wife's mother, when she married again, had chosen someone with a
more rhythmic name, not to interfere with the general feeling of the
foreground and middle distance. For, you see, she then provided this
maiden name for the second Mrs. Alfred Challis, whose mother she
was also. Mr. Challis had married his deceased wife's half-sister,
and would stand condemned--presumably, at least, in the eyes of his
companion--for bad taste certainly, possibly worse. He repeated the
name, rather crisply, in correction of Judith's first understanding
of it as "Blake," but never a word said he, there and then, about
Marianne's half-sistership with the original of "Ziz." Was he bound to
say anything?
He departed to his room, to dress for dinner, with a disjointed,
incomplete feeling that he was rather glad that a mere _au revoir_ had
involved no handshake. Could he have trusted himself not to emphasize
its pressure unduly? Faugh!--where was the sense of such an imbecile
speculation, or the need for it? He was angry with himself for the
thought--angry at the way he had enjoyed his walk with "that girl." He
brushed her off his mind discourteously as "that girl." Why, he had
only known her a couple of days! He even found that an impulse of his
wanted him to say, "Damn all these people! What are they to me, or I
to them, that they should come into my life, and make hay of a working
contentment I have never dreamed of questioning?" But he refused to
say it, merely noting what its syntax would have been if he had done
so. _En revanche_, he made up his mind to write a jolly long letter to
Marianne to-night.
The other party--though, indeed, it is hard to say to what--retired
to her room to dress, not very sorry to hear that Sibyl was not home
yet. She had quite made up her mind that if her sister talked any
nonsense about flirtations with married men, she would speak sharply
to her--give her a piece of her mind. But she hated rows. So if
the motor-car broke down--and it was pretty sure to--she shouldn't
be sorry. In a day or two she was going up to London, and would go
straight and call on Mrs. Challis, the Impossible one, and that would
put the friendship with her husband on a footing. She would wear that
white chiffon and the pearls again this evening, though; she had looked
so well in them last night.
She herself was conscious of no inconsistency in the half-formed
thoughts that passed through her mind as she stood before a mirror
waiting for her maid to find the white chiffon instead of the
black satin; which Sharratt, the said maid, who had found no male
in the company to allot to her mistress, had placed in readiness
on speculation. These thoughts can be told, but with a liberal
discount. She was not the kind of woman--so they ran--that made
mischief in families. That was the fascinating, tender, serpentine,
insinuating kind--Becky Sharp, in fact. Intellectual friendship was
her _rôle_--influence over men of genius and that sort of thing. Was
Challis, as a man of genius, worth practising on? She thought he might
be; as a lay figure, at any rate, if not for a specific purpose which
crossed her mind at the moment. But it was to be stirred aspirations,
roused sympathies. He was not the man to be worked on by Vulgar
Beauty. All the same, Miss Judith knew what she was going to look like
in this mirror when fully draped, when the majestic swoop of skirts
should quench the abruptness of the mere petticoat. Till that came,
she could fondle her fine arms and say to herself, "I'm not Becky
Sharp, certainly! But to think of the mischief I could do if I put my
mind to it!" And then modesty prompted a postscript, "Or any fairly
good-looking woman, for that matter."
This story has no insight into motives; it only deals with actions--at
least when motives are hard to get at. It is not its concern at present
that Judith Arkroyd, splendid in her beauty when she chooses to make
the most of it, may have much to learn about her own character--much
that she does not suspect herself of. If _she_ does not, why should
_we_?