OF HOW NO ACCIDENT HAD REALLY HAPPENED TO THE MOTOR-CAR. OF A COMBAT
BETWEEN TWO SISTERS, CHIEFLY ABOUT THOSE OF PEOPLE'S DECEASED WIVES.
OF FLIRTATIONS WITH MARRIED MEN. HOW CHALLIS WROTE A LONG AMUSING
LETTER TO MARIANNE
The chit and her young officer felt unequal to remaining outside,
against the tidal wave of the returned motorists. Occasional suspension
is necessary to the greediest flirtation, to give it a flavour of
stolenness; else it loses its character, and palls. This is our surmise
as to why these young people allowed themselves to be swept into the
drawing-room by the current. Cerberus seemed to have been withdrawn. It
is not necessary to the story to know whether the little beggar had or
had not disappointed his backers. No questions were asked.
The way in which the motor-party ignored their accident was more like
the concerted vigour of artillerymen in charge of a gun than any mere
philosophical submission to the will of Fate. Practically the machine's
twenty-horse-power had brought them in triumph to the door exactly at
the time appointed. A trivial excursion into non-fulfilment of its
destiny was not the poor motor's fault, nor its inventor's, nor its
maker's, nor its _chauffeur's_. It was all due to a little bit of
original sin in the heart of a hexagon nut, which, having heard that
the only key that it could be got at with was mislaid, immediately
went slack. It resisted the importunities of a screw-hammer, and
demanded a box-key. Like some minute organism of humanity--a spiteful
_medulla oblongata_, say!--endowed with powers of striking work, it had
paralyzed the whole structure. But, unlike the _medulla oblongata_, it
could be set right in five minutes as soon as we had a proper box-key.
Therefore it was as clear as noonday that the mishap, as an incident in
the History of Motoring, hadn't happened at all. It was by-play--didn't
count!
The expedition had been a great success. Its object had been attained;
like that of the scout who locates the enemy, but leaves his horse
behind. When you have seen premises that are the very thing, what
does it matter how you get home? For the purposes of the Great Idea,
these premises were the very thing. Three large waterwheels, one
overshot, ninety-four-horse-power in all, and the most glorious
oak- and beechwoods coming down to the waterside. And the most
interesting fourteenth-century pound William Rufus had ever seen. He
and his friend Scipio were fascinated with the place, and enthusiastic
about the Great Idea. But while apt to feel pique at any doubt thrown
on the wisdom of the scheme, the latter was not prepared to forego the
luxury of making fun of it himself.
"No historical associations," said he, with perfect deliberation of
manner, "could supply a more healthy stimulus to the production of
what I believe are called Art Objects. The church, a most interesting
example of several styles, has been judiciously restored in one--I
forget which--and the castle, some portions of which are previous to
something very early--I forget what----"
"Suppose you shut up, Scip," said his friend. "You're never in earnest
about anything. No--it really is the most delightful place I've ever
seen. You wouldn't look so scornful if you could see it, Ju. And as for
its suitability, I don't see how there can be any question about that."
His sister Sibyl's practical mind--her manner laid claim to one--went
straight on to details. "The only thing," she said, "that I didn't see
a place for was the ivorycarvers' shop."
"Couldn't one of those places in the roof be converted?" her brother
asked.
"Too hot in the summer," said Sibyl decisively. "I can see the
weaving-sheds, and the jewellery-shops, and the bookbinder's
department, and the printing-house, and the woodblock-cutter's little
shop round by the stairs, and the ceramic works--(only we really must
be sure that chimney-shaft will be any good)--and the bronze-casters,
and the printed fabrics, and the type-writing _de luxe_ for private
circulation." She checked off each department on her fingers, imagining
clearly--so Mr. Challis, who was watching her, thought--the place in
which it was to be located. Then she came to her exception--"But where
on earth these tiresome ivorycarvers are to be put I can't imagine!"
Her brother, with perfect gravity, accepted the difficulty as one to be
wrestled with. "I don't see why they need be downstairs at all," said
he. "Why not put them in--well!--if not in the roof, why not in that
room beyond the Art-needlework schools?"
"We can't conveniently have boys and young men passing and repassing."
Sibyl was giving it serious thought; no doubt of that! She added with
conviction: "We shall have to build in the end; so we may as well look
the matter in the face."
"What do you want with ivorycarvers?" Thus Judith, with a near approach
to a yawn. It never came off, owing to good breeding; but Mr. Challis
noted to himself that it would have been statuesque had it done so.
Marianne's yawn was not statuesque. He could recall cases in point....
What had that to do with the matter, by-the-bye? Challis brushed it
away by joining in a murmur of half-protest against Judith's question.
The world was listening interested to the evolution of the Great Idea.
Politics had slacked down--to give it a turn. And the world perceived,
in a doubt thrown on the necessity for ivory carving, a dangerous phase
of criticism that might undermine the whole scheme.
Sibyl said, with decisive resignation, "Oh dear!--how exactly like
you that is, Ju!" And her brother, "That's Judith all over." Then
both asked a mixed question, equivalent to--If not ivorycarvers, why
not anything? Why not no jewelery?--no art needlework?--no hammered
metal or wood carving? The world's murmur of half-protest--so Challis
thought--had really less to do with the demerits of the cavil it
condemned than with the obviousness of the answer to it. A mob is apt
to mistake its self-gratulation at having perceived something for
agreement with the thing it has perceived. Folk sing below par in
unison, and no one cares much which way he votes in a _plebiscite_.
This is what Mr. Challis thought, not a remark of the text. He resolved
to put it in his next book.
"I am in a minority." Judith dropped her fine eyelids with a hint in
the action of formal surrender, as one strikes a banner. "Even Mr.
Challis has deserted me!" Challis said, "Not altogether. I'm a trimmer
playing fast and loose. A sort of plaid, like Sam Weller." But he had
not understood his _monde_. It was one that knew nothing about Sam
Weller.
The rest of the company--all but the chit and counterchit--showed
a disposition to talk to each other of conditions necessary to be
observed in the sudden inauguration of complex undertakings, these
conditions touching points familiar to the speaker, but not within the
experience of others. Each would call Mr. Arkroyd's attention to a
danger ahead, or an advantage to be attained by well-advised foresight,
as early as possible to-morrow, so that Opportunity might be taken by
the forelock.
Mr. Ramsey Tomes enjoined caution before all things. He spoke as
one having a monopoly of prudent instincts, to the exclusion of a
rash planetful of fellow-creatures, or as the voice of one crying
"Beware!" in the wilderness of pitfalls Don't-care neglected, with
such fatal consequences. He suggested, like the father of him who slew
the Jabberwock, that he who only took sufficient heed was certain of
success--need not make any positive efforts--could go on rather better
without them. One would have thought he meant--Mr. Challis _did_
think--that any commentator so cautious as never to open a volume was
well half-way to a triumph of exegesis, and that Columbus would have
discovered America all the quicker if he had stopped at home. The
story, Mr. Tomes concluded, of the failure of the plethora of rash
enterprises that were our inheritance from an otherwise glorious Past
would fill a volume. Mr. Challis thought to himself that this was
unworthy of its author--rather an anticlimax. But Mr. Tomes was sleepy.
In fact, it was getting late, and a sense of impending adjournment was
vitiating the discussion: a little pitted speck in the garnered fruits
of its intelligence was growing, and a period of sleepy incapacity
was in sight. Winding-up remarks became frequent, such as "We shall
have to think all that over," or "We must settle this, that, and the
other first, before anything practical can be done," or "One thing's
certain, at any rate"--this last being the prelude to several different
conclusions. In the end the view that we might sleep upon it was
welcomed as an epigrammatic truth, and acted on. The company broke up,
finding their bedroom-candles in the passage.
And as the chit and the counterchit tore themselves apart till morning,
the latter said to the former, "What was all the fun? Did you make
out?" To which the chit replied simply, "I wawesn't listening," in a
long sweet drawl. And to that young officer's ears--will you believe
it?--these words seemed the embodiment of divine wisdom, and he
remained intoxicated!
* * * * *
Miss Sibyl Arkroyd, although she had just professed herself utterly
worn out with her hard afternoon's work, was not too tired to say to
her sister, over the lighting of a bedroom-candle in the passage, "Come
into my room; I've something to say to you."
Judith, majestically undisturbed at anything a younger sister can
possibly have to say, is in no hurry to comply with this request or
mandate. Rather, she is inclined to make a parade of deliberation,
exchanging understandings with Mr. Challis over the heads of the group
of males with whom he is retiring to the smoking-room, to end the day
with a cigar. Secret reciprocities seem to have set in, thinks Sibyl,
pausing on the landing above, out of sight. And these are too subtle
for the vernacular guests, and outclass the counterchits altogether.
Though, as each of these last is dwelling contentedly on his recent
chit, that doesn't come into court.
But Sibyl is wary, and gets away in time to her room. She just hears
her sister's farewell speech to the author: "Do consider your readers a
little, Mr. Challis, and don't ruin your brain with too many cigars,"
and his answer: "It all depends on the quality of the baccy;" followed
by a testimonial from William Rufus about the brand of the one Challis
has just chosen; and then she ends a majestic ascent of the broad
stairway, with the portraits of departed Arkroyds looking down from its
wainscoted walls, by disappearing into her sister's room.
"What's the something, Sibyl?"
"You'll be angry if I tell you."
"I may." Judith keeps her candle in her hand. Is it worth putting it
down, if dissension in the wind is pointing to a short interview? "But
how can I tell till I know? Why did you want me?"
"Well--I'll tell you. But you mustn't fly into a rage. That man Mr.
Scoop--or Harris, or whatever his name is--married his Deceased Wife's
Sister!"
"Is that any concern of mine?"
"You wouldn't speak in that way if it weren't."
"In what way?"
"The way you spoke." What may seem inexplicable here is due to the
inability of mere words to do justice to the intensity of Judith's
unconcern. There was no need for an indifference such as a humming-top
asleep shows to the history of its own time.
"I don't mind waiting till you are reasonable, Sib dear." This little
bit of Prussian tactics improved Judith's position. She put her
candlestick on a piece of real Chippendale, to express anchorage, but
remained standing. She had been looking very handsome in the white
chiffon all the evening, and thought so. Her subconscious judgment
confirmed this, as a mirror on a wardrobe door swung her reflection
before her for a moment. Sibyl had opened it. Judith looked at her
wrist-watch as she stood, but meant, subconsciously, to look up again
when the counterswing brought the image back. All which occurred, and
then Sibyl sat against the bed-end, having disposed of the wardrobe,
and said:
"You know you have been in Mr. Harris's company all day, Judith. And
I suppose it's going to be the usual thing. But there's no sense in
your calling me unreasonable simply because I want you to know what the
position is."
"What _is_ the position?"
"Just what I've told you. Mr. Harris ... well--Challis then ... is not
really a married man. He married--at least, made believe to marry--his
Deceased Wife's Sister."
"Then, now you've told me what the position is, I know. And I may go to
bed."
"Don't be irritating, Judith." It is provoking, you know, when your
enemy makes a successful rally after a seeming repulse. Judith's last
tactical move was masterly. Her success soothed her to moderation.
"I don't want to be irritating, Sib. And I don't think you have any
right to talk of being irritating after what you said just now. '_The_
usual thing!' What usual thing?"
"You know what I mean, and it doesn't matter."
"I don't think it matters the least. But what do you know about Mr.
Challis? I mean, what do you know that I don't?"
"Only what I told you."
"But how do you know? Really, Sibyl, I shall go if there are to be any
more mysteries."
"Well, don't be impatient, and I'll tell you." And thereon Sibyl,
seated on the end of the bed, gave the substance of a short chat with
her mother when she came in from the excursion. That lady must have
been mighty interested, Judith thought, to talk about Mr. Challis's
affairs, which could not possibly concern any of them. She said as
much, resentfully, to her sister.
"Well," said Sibyl, "I only tell you what she said to me. She drove
Mrs. Barham home from Thanes, and they talked about it all the way. The
Bishop had it on perfectly good authority. I think it was the editor
of some well-known paper who had heard it from a gentleman who had
interviewed Mr. Challis for him. You know how they do?" Oh yes!--Judith
knew. "Well, this gentleman had it from Mr. Challis himself, who had
begged him very earnestly to say nothing about it. So, of course,
nothing appeared in the article."
"What a delicate-minded editor!"
"I think it was very nice of him. Why not? But you always sneer, Ju.
Anyhow, that's what the _madre_ said to me. And we agreed that the
sooner you knew the better...."
"And why?"
"Oh, well, because, of course.... However, we can't discuss that now
at this time of night. I only know what Mrs. Barham said the Bishop
said...."
"What did His Holiness say?"
"Judith, if you sneer I won't talk to you.... Well, the Bishop said
that if he had his way, he would refuse Holy Communion to all people's
Deceased Wife's Sisters ... there!--you know what I mean perfectly
well, Judith."
Judith had started a protest, but gave up the point. "I know what you
mean. But why doesn't he?"
"Mrs. Barham said he did not feel sure of the support of Public
Opinion. But for all that this gentleman was living in Sin, technically
if not actually, or actually as well as technically, or ... well!--I
forget which ... with this woman." Sibyl paused; the pause was a
tribute to the force of the curl of her sister's lip. She ended: "Come,
Ju, you can't call her a _lady_, you know!"
"Did the Bishop say gentleman?"
"No. By-the-bye, I think the Bishop _did_ say man. But, of course, he
would speak scripturally. Besides, all gentlemen are men too, but all
women are not ladies."
The curl died very slowly on Judith's lip, if at all. "Poor Mr.
Challis!" said she. "He doesn't know what he's losing--at least, what
he _would_ lose if it wasn't for Bishop Barham's respect for the World.
Fancy having the Holy Communion refused one--by Bishop Barham!..."
"Judith! If you're going to blaspheme!..."
"I'm not, dear. I'm going to say good-night. And to-morrow I'll tell
Mr. Challis of his parlous plight."
"Oh, Ju, you never will!"
"Wait and see! Good-night, dear." The "dear" was rather perfunctory.
And it was not to correct it to tenderness that Judith turned back in
the doorway and reclosed it from within. "I want to know what you meant
by 'the usual thing,'" she said, and waited.
"I thought you said you didn't think it mattered."
"I don't think it does. But I want to know what you meant by it, just
the same."
The return into the room to ask the question added to its weight
somehow. Sibyl might have answered more forcibly and less pertly had
it been asked during conversation. "I should have thought, after the
Honourable Stephen, that that went without saying."
"'After the Honourable Stephen'!... Sibyl!" There is growing resentment
in the handsome woman's voice of protest, and a slight flinching in her
sister's manner recognizes it. She speaks uncomfortably.
"Well, what would you have me say? You know quite well, Ju, that the
_madre_ thinks so too. What is the use of pretending?"
Judith's colour is heightened as she closes the door to prevent someone
hearing in the passage--her maid perhaps or her sister's. "_I_ see no
use in pretending, Sib. If you and mamma are going to say spiteful
and malicious things, you had better speak them out.... Yes, it _is_
spiteful and malicious to try to make out that there was anything
between me and Stephen Lyell; it is simply wicked to use the word
flirtation.... No--I know you have not actually used it--but it's the
same thing. It was that woman entirely! And you know it!"
"I should have felt as she did. Besides, Lady Di Lyell's no fool.
Look how you had him to yourself all day long ... oh yes!--I know
what you are going to say. Perhaps there wasn't. But some people can
get on perfectly well without _any_ love-making. I think that way's
the worst; it's insidious and hypocritical. Yes, Judith!--if you
_are_ going to flirt with a married man, I would sooner you did it
above-board." Notice Sibyl's elisions, and how easily understood they
seemed to be. Sisters' intercourse is based on concurrent consciousness
of the actual; sometimes admitted, sometimes concealed. These two had
harboured theirs from the nursery, usually finding speech for them. In
the present case they had never spoken quite openly, though each knew
the other knew of her knowledge, and pointed allusions to flirtations
with married men had been perfectly well understood.
Judith has been keeping back a great deal of anger--she has
self-control in plenty--to affect a certain patronage of a younger
sister; albeit she has only a couple of years more to her half of the
fifty they share between them. "Sib dear!" she says. "You are entirely
absurd--quite childish. If her jealous ladyship wasn't secure against
me and poor good, honourable Stephen, where is married bliss to find
security? Unless men and women are never to be friends at all."
"Nobody objects to it that I know of. Only not one at a time. You know
the difference that makes as well as I do--as well as everyone does."
Probably Judith did, and that was why she said nothing--or, at least,
in what she did say made no reply to the last assertion, but went back
to the general question. She put her hand on the door-handle to suggest
peroration and spoke collectedly and coldly.
"You are quite wrong, Sibyl, when you use the word 'flirtation' about
me and Stephen Lyell. Cordial acquaintance is quite enough--even
friendship is a little overstrained. Not but that we are very good
friends, and should always keep so, only for that fool of a woman!
But I shall always think somebody made mischief." She turned the
door-handle to indicate the penultimate character of what was coming,
but did not open the door. "And as for this Mr. Alfred Challis or
'Titus Scroop'--who is a person, by-the-bye, with whom any sort of
flirtation would be _simply impossible_--he's just a clever playwriter
without the slightest pretence to be considered a ... no!--I wasn't
going to say gentleman; let me finish ... accustomed to the ways of
Society." Sibyl didn't feel convinced, but kept her counsel. "And I
have my own reasons for wishing to cultivate his acquaintance."
Now, surely, at this late hour of the night, and after so active a day,
and with these two young ladies' respective maids wondering _sotto
voce_ on the landing outside what on earth it's all about--surely that
door-handle might have turned in earnest! But we all know the fire that
seems put out with a spark still chuckling in its core at the nice
blaze it means to be one day. Perhaps if Sibyl had said "I ss--see"
with less of suggestion that some human frailty undefined had been
sighted by her shrewdness, and had commanded her sympathy; and perhaps
(even more) if she had abstained from saying to herself, "I thought it
was that," in a voice that was evidently intended to be heard, yet to
seem inaudible--perhaps the fire would not have broken out again. As
it was, the door-handle had a relapse, and its manipulator said rather
sharply: "Thought it was what?"
"The Stage," was the reply. "Oh yes, Ju!--I know all about it; so
you needn't look like a Tragedy Queen. Pray disgrace your family!
Good-night, dear."
"Sibyl, you are a thoroughly selfish woman ... did you say _why_?
Why--because you are indulging all your own fancies--just flinging
away hundreds on all sorts of useless fads, and all the while opposing
me in a reasonable wish--for it _is_ reasonable to wish to give it
a trial--because of a miserable, old-fashioned prejudice against a
profession which at least is as respectable as hammering little copper
pots and making little bits of fussy enamelled jewellery. I can't
tell you how _sick_ I get of hearing of it all...." Anger at mere
impertinence does not involve a flush, like resentment against a charge
of misdemeanour on a point of delicacy. But one can go white with
anger, and Judith's change of colour may be due to it, as she says what
she evidently means to be her last word. Sibyl tries to deprive it of a
last word's advantage.
"If you are going to take that tone, Ju," she replies, "I think we
had better talk no more about it. And how little copper pots can
have anything fast or disreputable about them I don't know. But pray
disgrace your family, if you can get anyone to help you--Mr. Scoop,
or Challis, or anyone." Then this young lady did not play fair, for
she said or as good as said that if her sister was as tired and sleepy
as she herself was, she wouldn't stand there talking, but would go to
bed. But even this was not so bad as adding: "And what all this has to
do with Mr. Scoop's Deceased Wife's Sister I can't imagine!" The dry
tone in which Judith said, "Nor I, dear!" may have conveyed her views
about her sister's powers of Logic, without more enlargement--at least,
she indulged in none and went away to her own bedroom rather despising
herself for feeling exasperated, but knowing that she was so by the
satisfaction she got from an increased indifference to what her family
thought about the theatrical profession. Her stage-mania was getting
the bit in its teeth. But she could find it in her heart to laugh
at Sibyl for trying to support her own fads on the moral repute of
little copper pots. Why, so far as that went, the little pots might be
anchorites in deserts for any power they had of blemishing it.
As for "Mr. Scroop's Deceased Wife's Sister," _that_, she knew, was
nonsense, because he had told her the name of his first wife. Or,
stop a minute!--might she not have been a half-sister? Judith guessed
shrewdly. But then--it occurred to her presently--would that count? She
thought of this after she was in bed, and was half inclined to get up,
and look up the point in her prayer-book.
* * * * *
The suspicion that had crossed Challis's mind in the drawing-room
was confirmed by the way his companion had glanced at herself in the
mirror, before answering his question about the beauty of her friend
the stage-aspirant, more than by the wording of her answer. After
all, the fact that a good-looking woman had refused an unqualified
testimonial to the beauty of an alleged friend was very negative
evidence indeed that she was all the while speaking of herself. But
the glance at her reflection seemed natural enough to him under the
circumstances, though he was ready to admit that, much as he had
written about them, he did _not_ understand women. His conclusion
from it was supported by something not altogether natural in the tone
of the answer; the substance of it might be no more than provisional
modesty, to cover future confession. Had she answered that her friend
had a Juno-like figure, a splendid Greek brow and nose, rich coils of
dark hair, a stately column of a throat, and ample justification for
evening dress whenever warranted by authority--could she have looked
him in the face later and claimed the identity? Challis dwelt upon the
inventory more than was needed, and decided that the semi-evasion had
been skilful, and had shown that its author was superior to frivolous
vanities. There was glamour about this: men persist in ascribing high
qualities to beautiful women, and only concede them grudgingly to
dowdies as a set-off to their unhappy plainness.
Anyhow, even if he was mistaken, his mistake would give him a sound
ground for writing as much as he was inclined to write about this young
lady to Marianne; and he felt, without exactly knowing why, inclined
to write rather liberally about her. Perhaps, if he had had a mind for
self-vivisection, he would have found that he shrank from acknowledging
the reason he had hitherto flinched from writing about her to his
wife; which was, briefly, that he was just too far _entiché_ to feel
at ease in telling her how much in love he had fallen with one of the
daughters, and how awfully jolly she was, and how awfully jealous
she, Marianne, would be if she was there to see. _You_ know--male
reader over head and ears in wedlock!--that that is what _you_ would
have written, and despatched with an authenticating photograph if one
was attainable. And you would have asked for the last photo of your
correspondent in return--the one with baby pulling her hair; not that
beastly one yearning, with the lips slightly parted--to give as a swop
to your new love; because six copies were to come from Elliott and
Fry's, and we could have as many more as we wanted. But Mr. Alfred
Challis was not so detached as all this; and, without absolutely
suspecting it, he was not sorry to be supplied with a well-defined
_locus scribendi_, where all analysis and justification would merge
and be forgotten. He felt, with such a licence of free pen, much more
ready to go to work with his long letter to Marianne about that long
walk to the Rectory to-day. See what a lot he could find to tell about
that Parson who wanted (or didn't) to marry his Deceased Wife's Sister!
Partly on the question itself--one, of course, of the greatest interest
to both--and partly, if not more, because he had just remembered that
surely the name of the Parson who took on the duties for Charlotte
Eldridge's reverend cousin out Clapham way was Athelstan Something; and
hadn't he, the said cousin, been known to come away to this part of the
world to take his friend's duties in the country and get change of air?
Of course! And then, too, there was the incident of the sofa in the
evening. Yes!--he would make the peep into the mirror amusing.
They were new candles all through again this evening--really! ... the
extravagance in these great houses! What would Marianne say if she saw
it? But so much the better! Candles that have never been blown out
give a much better light than restarted ones--who can say why? Challis
settled down soon to his long letter, and wrote well into the night.
The four candles he had enlisted had burned down to mere housekeeper's
perquisites--substitute-justifiers--by the time he had signed himself
Marianne's loving Tite; and after a good stretch in acknowledgment
of an hour's bent back, had lighted an isolated sample with an
extinguisher-parasite, so as to blow all four out together, and keep
them neck and neck.
After he was in bed he said to himself that he must make sure that
letter went by the first post, or it would only reach Marianne such a
short time before the writer. It was very stupid of him, that it was,
to have allowed so many days to pass before writing a proper account
of "these people" to his wife. She had only had such very perfunctory
letters before. He classed it as a stupidity. However, it might end
by his overstaying the week he was asked for by more than an extra
day already bespoken, and then this long letter would seem in better
keeping. That would make it all right.