HOW MARIANNE WENT TO TULSE HILL. OF BOB'S PHONOGRAPH, AND HOW
HE POSTED A LETTER TO JUDITH. OF MARIANNE'S RETURN, AND MORE
MISUNDERSTANDINGS. BUT IT WOULD BE ALL RIGHT IN THE MORNING
If King Solomon's captive had gone on scheming conciliatory attitudes
through all eternity, he would probably have failed to hit upon the
right one at the end of it, from mere want of presence of mind. Even
the short "Within the hour" of Challis's cabman was a little too long
for his fare to think things over in safety, without a risk of the
things tripping one another up. He conceived a very good deportment to
suit his return, based on sorrow for being so late, and then began to
complicate it with considerations whether he should at once inquire
more particulars about Marianne's alleged--and denied--indisposition
of last night, or let it alone. Also, should he confess up at once
where he had spent most of the morning, or let _that_ alone! Perhaps
that letter of Judith's that he would find on arriving would help
matters. Yes, it would! He pictured himself to himself--as an actor
in the concurrent drama of Life that he always made notes of by the
way--saying, "Oh yes! That's nothing!--only about the play. I saw Miss
Arkroyd for a few minutes this morning. You know, she was kept away
last night by a sprained ankle, so I went to inquire. Hm-hm-hm!" He
went the length of supplying the sound of reading a letter to himself,
and threw the imaginary pieces he had torn it up into, to show how
unimportant it was, into an image of a waste-paper basket. Then he
turned round, that actor, and kissed his wife, who had recovered her
temper. And then all went well in that play, and that actor told
himself not to be a damned idiot about a fashionable beauty, who knew
he was a married man with a family, and hadn't the slightest idea
that--well?--that anything!
That was the play. The reality did not work out so comfortably.
Challis was in time for lunch, as the cabman was as good as his word.
"Fifty-six and a half," said he, looking at his watch; and added, in
a comfortable sort of way, "Make it up eight shillings," as one who
felt he really deserved the extra half-crown or so. He had a pleasant,
engaging manner with the opposite sex, this cabman, saying to Harmood,
when she brought him his money out: "Don't you get married without
letting me know, my dear! My old woman, she might get sick of me any
minute!" But Miss Harmood was accustomed to admiration.
Mrs. Challis had left word not to wait lunch, said the young lady,
returning undisturbed. Also, there was a note to say with the
letters--that is, to wit, with the postal accumulations. Challis,
opening it, found a bald and severe statement that the writer was
going to Tulse Hill, and might be late. Marianne's mother's domicile
was always spoken of as Tulse Hill. Challis knew that this mother and
daughter were seldom on cordial terms except when he was in disgrace
with both, and it did not tend to allay the feeling of irritated
mystification that came back now to Challis, with quickened memory of
the events of the morning, that his wife should have pitched on this
particular moment for a visit to Tulse Hill. She really seldom went
to see her mother, for she was very lazy. But--and this was a big
_but_--she _always_ went to see her when there had been dissensions. So
much so that when at any time Challis found that she had gone to Tulse
Hill his tendency was to look back through the last twenty-four hours
to discover what skirmish was responsible for the visit.
This time he was completely baffled. His wife knew perfectly well
that she had been invited--cordially invited--to this last night's
entertainment. Did all this mean that in the end he would have to give
up associating with the outer world, and restrict himself to John
Eldridge and Lewis Smithson? That seemed the only programme compatible
with the enjoyment of a comfortable home. Only for God's sake let it be
formulated! Let him know what he had to expect, and Challis would put
his sign-manual to any reasonable treaty.... He stopped suddenly, yet
asked himself--why stop? Then, knowing well that he dared not answer
his own question, flinched off the subject.
This phase of reflection did not come immediately on opening Marianne's
note. He had passed through a brief epoch of lunch for himself and
dinner for Bob and Cat and Emmie since then. It had been a riotous
but not unpleasant experience, and Challis was grateful for it. Bob's
greeting to him had been, exactly transcribed: "Mater's gone to Tulse
Hill. I say!--if you were to give me five shillings, I could buy a
phonograph, because I've saved up fifteen. Tommy Eldridge has got one
that does a menagerie, and you can hear a man having his head bit off."
This felt jolly and cheerful, especially as the two little girls jumped
with eagerness to hear the subsidy voted. Imitations of insubordinate
wild beasts, and the sounds incidental to detaching a Bengal tiger from
his prey with red-hot irons, made lunch pass pleasantly, and Challis
felt much happier. He granted the five shillings on condition that no
operatic records should be purchased. He had heard "Voi che sapete"
through a gramophone once, and he knew!
He was in his study, and Bob had probably nearly arrived at the
phonograph local plague-centre in Putney, when he got to speculation,
acknowledged as such, about a _modus vivendi_ for himself and the
mother of those two little wenches. He denied Judith any place in the
problem, preferring to recognize, as the sole difficulty he had to
fight against, the attitude of Marianne towards what he summed up as
"Grosvenor Square" compendiously. He refused to admit that the class of
feelings he entertained towards that lady--or might have entertained;
he wouldn't quite admit them--could possibly come under discussion
so long as he kept them to himself. Why, if every trifling vibration
of personal feeling, every grain of salt on the dish of a man's
friendship for a woman, was to be made the foundation of an indictment
of faithlessness to his wife, where would matrimony be? But he nearly
lost the thread of his reflections in the obligation to define what the
feelings were that he was refusing to admit.
He would not allow for a moment that these feelings could possibly
interfere with his affection for his wife. In fact, he actually shouted
"Nonsense!" aloud in answer to some accusation to that effect for
which he was not responsible. So loud, in fact, that Harmood came,
and said, "Did you call, sir?" and disbelieved the "No, _I_ didn't!"
that she was met with. He would not have felt foolish on hearing his
own voice getting out of bounds, but he did when it came home to him
that Harmood must have heard him two rooms off at least. This would
never do. He would get back to the Ostrogoths. How about Estrild's
little handmaiden?--a good name for her?--something ending in _illa_?
Favilla?--Scintilla?--Yes, that would do, without the _S_; otherwise,
like Law Courts and tittles of evidence! Yes--certainly Cintilla! But
he got no further.
Because the little sugar-plum brought back his interview of the
morning. There was Judith again--he had nearly given up thinking of
her as Miss Arkroyd--holding the mirror at arm's-length to make it
include both faces easily, watching the _ensemble_ with a slightly
Ostrogothic effect, sympathetically resumed from some passage in the
play she had half read, and knew the purport of; eyelids thrown up as
per instructions of stage-trainer, to secure the glare which seems to
have come so freely on the faces of all our forbears whom the Stage
has thought worthy of portrayal; just a hint of what upper lip and
nostrils could do, if they tried, in the way of callousness towards
tortured prisoners. For Judith had been thinking over the part. And how
grand her eyes were, too!--something of the dark colour of sapphires by
artificial light. And the little chick's face had come so well! That
episode of the monkey-soap had produced a _nuance_ of terror-stroke;
exactly how Cintilla would have looked over a Christian martyrdom; a
penalty deserved by a Dissenter, but alarming, for all that. He would
tell Judith next time he wrote.... Well!--he _would_ write, of course.
But it was all in the way of business. What of that?... He would tell
her he had christened the child Cintilla. She would call her Cintilla
now; he was sure of it.... Now he must get to work! This would never do.
He actually did get to work this time. He wrote blank verse, or prose
abstract to turn into blank verse, or other blank verse that was
better than the first blank verse; or, if worse, could be rejected
when found wanting. But the worst was when alternatives turned out
equal--impossible to make choice of. After a while, he found himself
with two such samples to choose between. Which speech of the two would
come best from the lips of Estrild? He had to acknowledge that he was
puzzled.
And yet a good deal might depend on it. He was wavering between two
courses in the plot of the play. Each of these speeches seemed to
point to one. Suppose he chose the one that, afterwards, Judith liked
least, and followed on the line of plot that suited it! He would not
feel happy over it, that way. Obviously, Judith was the proper person
to decide. Master Bob might just as well carry the speeches to a handy
typewriter at Putney, wait for them to be executed, and bring them
back. Or stop! Challis knew he could rely on the accuracy of this
typist, at a pinch. Why not write to Judith, leaving the envelope open,
and let Master Bob put the typed copy in and post it? It would save a
deal of time. Then he would be able to get on with the play first thing
in the morning, if an answer came by the early post, as it might. He
could mention Cintilla, too.
So said, so done! Master Bob was off like a shot, though reluctant to
leave his phono, whose hideous din had been audible from afar since
its arrival an hour ago. No sooner was he past recall than Challis
remembered that if he had decided the question himself, it never would
have been necessary to show the rejected version to Judith at all! But
the fact is he had got rather into the way of consulting her. Anyhow,
it couldn't matter much, either way. He went back to his writing, and
found something else to go on with. He went on with it peacefully until
a cab arrived, and he looked out, expecting that it was Marianne. It
was not, and he had an odd sensation of being glad he was sorry it was
not. He saw who the visitor was, and retired.
Confound that woman! Why on earth need Charlotte Eldridge come
bothering in when Marianne was away? A confirmatory announcement is
followed by, "Oh, Mrs. Eldridge!--Did you _tell_ her your mistress
wasn't here?" Thus Challis to Harmood, who checks the incorrectness of
his speech. "I said Mrs. Challis was not at home, sir. Mrs. Eldridge
said she would come in and wait." On which Challis's comment--too much
to himself to rank as an answer--is, "She'll have to wait."
"Am I to tell her so, sir?" Harmood, docile and well-bred, awaits
instructions.
"_No!_--don't tell her anything. Perhaps your mistress will be in soon."
Challis made a show, for his own satisfaction, of going on with his
work--but not for very long. As tea-time drew near, he looked at
his watch, and decided not to have tea in the drawing-room with his
visitor, but to go out. So, when he looked in on Charlotte for a
moment, he was in walking trim, and merely shook hands hurriedly, and
said: "Marianne must be in soon. She'll never stay to dine at Tulse
Hill. _I_ have to go. Ring the bell for tea, and make Harmood attend to
you properly. Ta-ta!" and departed, affecting haste.
Mrs. Eldridge was not quite ready for tea, and also hoped Mrs. Challis
would reappear shortly. So she postponed summoning the handmaiden,
and took Challis's old novel, "The Spendthrift's Legacy," from the
bookshelves, wishing to compare the portrait of his first wife, which
she knew it contained, with current events. As she speculated over this
and that, an unmistakable boy's head--that first wife's boy's--came in
at the door, and said "Hullo!" in a very uncompromising way. It was
merely greeting--no more!
"Well, Master Bob, where have you been? Come in and talk, and shut the
door."
"Haven't got much time for talk. I say! I wonder if you can hear up
here. We've got such a ripping phonograph."
"I can hear beautifully." Indeed, a woe-begone and God-forgotten croak
has been audible for some minutes, rendering patter-songs. Bob warms to
his subject: "Isn't it awfully jolly? You're really sure you can hear,
though? I say, though, isn't it a pity? I got 'Movement in A flat,'
and I might have had 'The White-Eyed Musical Kaffir,' and it's such
rot. Harmood says she's sure it's only music--like pianos."
"Why don't you open it and see?"
"Because then they won't change it. I might have changed it when I was
out, if I'd known. But I thought it was a row in a house, and furniture
getting broke, don't you know?" He gives further particulars of his
misapprehension, but it will be as clear as it needs to be without them.
"Where did you go when you were out?" Mrs. Eldridge seems strangely
unconcerned about the phonograph. But Bob is too high in the seventh
heaven about it to conceive it possible that such indifference
should exist. He takes his hearer's sympathy for granted, and as for
suspecting any non-phonographic motives in his questioner--impossible!
"Putney. I could have gone to the shop twice over in the time I was
waiting."
"What were you waiting for?"
"Typewriter. For the governor. Oh--quite half an hour!"
"What a shame! And you wasted all that time waiting. But you got what
you went for? I mean your father got his type-writing?"
"No fear!" This with scorn. Then, to keep the heaven of veracity
spotless: "_He_ didn't get it, you know. I shoved it in her envelope,
and shoved it in the pillar-box in High Street. Not the one near the
tobacconist's."
"Whose envelope?"
"It was all right. There wasn't any other. Judith's. I say--are you
quite sure you can hear up here? Hadn't I better bring it up, while you
have tea?" For tea is coming of its own accord, audibly, outside the
door.
"No--after tea. I shall listen better. Whose letter did you say you put
in? Judith's--who's Judith?"
"Oh--_you_ know! Me and Cat always call her Judith. Miss _Ark_royd."
There is a trace of contempt, quite unexplained, in the accent on
the first syllable. But Bob will be lenient, adding, "But she gave
me my skates." Then, for he cannot honestly conceal a defect, "She's
duchessy, for all that. A hundred-and-one, Grosvenor Square, W." And
leaves her, classified.
Should Harmood make the tea? Not on Mrs. Eldridge's account, certainly!
Mrs. Challis was sure to be back. Too probably, in practice, for either
speaker to say "D.V." about it. But no atheism was meant--far from it!
Harmood attended to the fire; enough just to keep it in, although if
it went on like this we should soon be able to do without. And the
water couldn't go off the boil as long as there was ever so little
methylated. Mrs. Eldridge was beginning to fear that there _was_ ever
so little, and that the boil's hour was come; and was questioning
whether it would not be better on the whole to make tea in order that
its getting cold should favour Marianne's return, when a cab-sound
recommended itself to her notice for some unexplained reason, and she
began making the tea. She really wished to see Mrs. Challis, having a
card in her hand she wanted to play. One fights against a misdeal when
one has seen the ace of trumps in one's hand. But let us be just to
Mrs. Charlotte. Of course, it was well understood, between her and her
conscience, that her motive was to make sure that no mischief came of
that letter to Miss Arkroyd. Suppose that young monkey were to say he
posted the letter, and say nothing about the palliative typewriting!
And then suppose Alfred never thought it worth mentioning that he had
written at all. Quite a case for a judicious friend, etc., etc. Oh,
these meddlers!
The cab _was_ Mrs. Challis--not literally; only household _patois_--and
Mrs. Challis was sorry she was so late, Charlotte. Why had that lady
not had tea? Marianne's manner was dry and hard. No--she was not the
least tired, she said. She would go up and take her things off and come
down immediately. She threw out a skirmisher to stop that horrible
noise on her way up; and when she returned, if peace did not exactly
reign where Bob was, somewhere below, at any rate the sounds that
continued were human, not diabolical.
"Well?" Mrs. Eldridge spoke first.
"Wait till I've had some tea, and I'll tell you." A cup apiece elapsed,
and then Marianne said briefly: "Says it's a parcel of lies. If poor
Kate had been married, she _must_ have known."
Charlotte considered. The detective character asserted itself. "How
does she account for Mrs. Steptoe knowing the name of these Hallock
people?"
"She doesn't account for it."
"What does she suppose her motive to be?"
"She doesn't suppose."
"Even if she knew the name, it's impossible to believe she would trump
up such a story! With nothing to gain by it, Marianne dear, with
nothing to gain by it!"
"I didn't say I did believe it. I only told you what mamma said."
A conversation that flags from lack of any visible step forward
welcomes another cup of tea, to pause on. After a measure of silence,
so filled out, consciousness of the _impasse_ brought in a new element,
as stimulus.
"I talked to John about it."
"Why must you talk to John?"
"My dear Marianne! Well! John's a fool, I know, but I have a great
respect for his judgment, sometimes. I shouldn't have begun about
it myself. But he was there when Mrs. Steptoe was looking at the
photographs, and he spoke of it to me.... What did he speak of? Oh--the
whole thing!"
"What did he say?"
"It wasn't so much what he _said_. You know his way. He only said that
a party he knew in the City knew a man in a Private Inquiry Office, and
that sort of thing always ran into money. So his idea was--you know how
funnily he phrases things?--his idea was that 'keep it snug' was the
word. In fact, he repeated it several times. John's habit of repetition
gets rather irritating, now and then."
"Did he say nothing else?"
"I don't think he did ... oh yes!--he exonerated your husband. At
least, he said that that sort of trap wasn't the sort of trap anyone
would suspect Titus of being up to. It was a little obscure, but John
is obscure."
Marianne showed no disposition to take an interest in John's opinions,
even assuming them to be capable of recasting in an intelligible
form. She sat holding her teacup, as one anxious not to break with a
pleasant memory. But her face was not pleasant for all that. It might
be unfair to say it had a set jaw and a scowl, because that suggests
a prizefighter without a prize. But accept as much of the description
as leaves an image of a comely woman with dark hair--plenty of it--in
a plait, and rather _embonpoint_ for thirty. Put in the mole we have
spoken of, just on the cheekbone; but don't run away with the idea
that there must be a stye in the eye on the other side, that you are
not looking at. Let Marianne have all that is left of a bonny robust
girlhood that was in its day rather more acceptable--consciously so--to
her brother-in-law than the more delicate approach to beauty of his
deceased wife. But Marianne had gone off, too; there was no doubt of
it. Nevertheless--and in spite of occasional acerbity and frequent
sullenness--her husband loyally cherished the idea that she was good
with a deep-buried goodness, a quality that might be relied on when the
hour of trial came, a rockbed of sound-heartedness, to build on even
when appearances suggested earthquake.
Some such appearance may have made Mrs. Eldridge cautious about
pursuing the thread of John's judgments, as she joined in her friend's
silence beyond her usual habit--a loquacious one. Presently she said,
to relieve the monotony, "Shall I put your cup down?" and took it
with a well-formed hand she was vain of--indeed, it ran close to
beauty--from one that was rather a defect in its owner; too chubby,
too accented at the rings, to be redeemed by a mere addendum of
filbert-nailed fingers.
Marianne then said, as she surrendered the cup: "You saw him before he
went out?" She spoke as though she took her companion's knowledge of
the contents of her own silence for granted.
Mrs. Eldridge seemed to acquiesce. "He looked in for a moment," she
said.
"I suppose he got his letter." This was mainly thinking aloud, for
how could Charlotte know anything about his letter? She could guess,
though, and was not slow over it.
"I suppose so, because he answered it." Then she may have felt that her
knowing so much without data might seem unwarranted; for she added:
"At least, if it was a letter from her," and then explanatorily, in
response to an inquiring look, "Yes!--Judith Arkroyd, of course."
She probably had no definitely mischievous motive in the phrasing of
this. The assumption that any "her" must be Miss Arkroyd only showed
what she herself had been thinking of. But it teemed with suggestion
of continuous correspondence between the lady and gentleman in hand.
Marianne flushed angrily, far more moved by the way in which she heard
of it than by the mere letter itself. It was only one of many letters,
after all!
"How do you know? How can you tell?"
"Marianne dear--really!"
"Really what? No, Charlotte, you're nonsensical. Of course it was her!
Why _do_ you take a pleasure in mystifying me? Can't you tell me what
you mean? How do you know he answered it?"
"Dear, if you'll be patient, I'll tell you. But, really, you do make so
much out of nothing ... it's all about _nothing_." And, indeed, Mrs.
Eldridge looked frightened, as a mischief-maker may whose hobby has got
the bit in its teeth.
"If it's nothing, at least you can tell me what it is." And Marianne,
who a moment since was red, now goes white, with hands just restless
and a foot that taps uneasily. There had been nothing in antecedent
circumstance to warrant so much excitement. So thinks Mrs. Charlotte,
and would like to hark back, and make her mischief gradually, on
congenial safe lines. A row would be premature, to her thinking.
"What _what_ is, Marianne dear?" she says. But then makes concession:
"Only, of course, dear, I know what you _mean_. How did _I_ come to
know about the letter he sent her? It's quite simple...."
"Well--go on!"
"... It was Bob. He was in here just now, and told me his father had
sent him to post a letter to Judith--that's what the young monkey calls
her--and then you asked if he had got his letter. Of course, I thought
it _must_ be from her."
"Why?"
"Oh, nonsense _why_, Marianne dear! How _could_ it be anyone else?"
And Mrs. Challis cannot answer this, naturally, as she knows quite
well it was Judith's handwriting alone that attracted her attention to
the letter, and that there were at least a dozen other items by the
same post. Charlotte continued: "I can see nothing to make such a fuss
about. With this play-acting going on, a letter might be anything."
"How do you know I thought it wasn't anything?"
"I dare say you didn't, dear. Of course, one takes for granted that
one's husband ... well!--even if it was John, it would never occur to
me. And look at the difference between my John and your Titus!"
As it is impossible to fathom Mrs. Eldridge's motive for ascribing the
character of Lovelace to the chosen of her affections, the attempt
shall not be made. Some things begin, exist, and cease, and none knows
why. But one may conjecture. Was it that Charlotte wanted a certificate
to her understanding--from experience--of Man the Baboon that she
sometimes sketched St. Martin's-le-Grand and the Royal Exchange as a
sort of ilex-groves furnished with Mænads and Bassarids, all for the
delectation of respectable Satyrs with stove-pipe hats or billy-cocks,
each in his degree? Like Nicholas Poussin, you know! Yes--that was it!
John's character had to be sacrificed, to show through what slant or
squint in a side-aisle his wife had got a glance at the mystic altar of
the Bona Dea.
But Marianne was not prepared to accept the view suggested. "One man's
the same as another," said she. Then, with an access of feeling that
she was being entangled in something, she knew not what, that she was
not clever enough to escape from, "I wish you wouldn't talk like this,
Charlotte. I hate it!"
"Talk like what, dear?" says Charlotte, but adds illogically, "It
wasn't me began talking like this. It was you said, how did I know he
answered it? I could only tell you."
"I don't care what who said, or anyone. It's nothing to do with it.
You know what you're trying to make out, so where is the use of
pretending?" Mrs. Eldridge interjects, "What am I trying to make out?"
But this is ignored, and Marianne continues, "And you know you're wrong
and the thing's ridiculous." Through all this runs a tacit acceptance
of the existence of "the thing." But it remains undefined, by mutual
consent.
At this point Mrs. Eldridge began to suspect that Marianne was showing
more tension of feeling than the case, as known to her, seemed to call
for. She must find out, in the interests of the drama she wanted to
enjoy--for, of course, true mischief-maker that she was, she never
admitted that mischief was her motive--what had passed at Tulse Hill to
account for her friend's _accès_ of asperity. Because of course it was
that! It was that horrid old woman.
"I suppose you talked it all over with your dear mother, Marianne?"
"There wasn't anything to talk over with my dear mother that I know of.
Yes, I did--I talked over what you mean."
"And she agreed with me, I'm sure?"
"I don't know whether she did or didn't, and I don't know what 'agree'
means. But I do know that I won't talk to mamma again, neither about
this or anything else, unless...."
"Unless what?"
"If she talks as she does. She knows, because I told her."
"Don't tell me about it, dear, if you don't like." With which licence
to silence Mrs. Eldridge settles down to the hearing of a good long
tale, which she knows will have to be elicited by jerks, as Marianne
is profoundly Anglo-Saxon--not a drop of Celtic blood in her veins. It
comes, and, summed up, amounts to this:
Marianne had carefully avoided saying a single word at Tulse Hill
about "it"--in fact, had wanted to keep Grosvenor Square out of
the conversation altogether. She had really only spoken about Mrs.
Steptoe's story and the photographs, and how "it" came in Heaven
only knew. But there "it" was, and mamma had been very disagreeable
about it, and said things. What things? Oh, of course the sort of
things she always said ... well!--about her own marriage with Titus,
and the Deceased Wife's Sister business. Just as if she, Marianne to
wit, wasn't only poor Kate's half-sister--and it just made all the
difference! But what did she say? Well, it seemed that she had up and
denounced, in the most positive way, about how she had always said,
and always should say: that the Blessing of God could never rest
on an Unscriptural Union. And then, being pressed to develope this
thesis, had fallen back feebly on the position that "we were told"
it was Sinful, and that Marianne knew where just as well as she did;
which was indeed true in a sense, for neither of them knew anything of
theology, or divinity, or exegesis, except that the Bible was the Word
of God, and contained everything necessary to Salvation, as well as
to the fostering of all our little particular prejudices. In fact, it
would have been difficult to light upon any two completer agnostics,
etymologically, than this mother and daughter. So, though the former
was happily unconscious of the whereabouts of any texts bearing on
the question, she was convinced of their existence; only making this
much concession to her daughter's position--that the marriage of a man
with a half-sister-in-law was only half as bad as with the complete
article. It was a Venial Sin, and a commodious one thus far, that it
still permitted intercourse under protest between a daughter who had
committed it and a mother who went to church.
On this occasion, when the admixture of foreign matter into the
discussion had raised the question of possible nuptial infidelities,
the old lady had embittered her criticism of her daughter's position
by pointing out that Titus might do whatever he liked, and she would
never be able to get a divorce, like a legally married woman. The knot
that had never been tied could never be untied, clearly; and one of
the great advantages of conformity to established usage was hopelessly
lost. This view had fairly enraged Marianne, who had fought for her
right to a divorce as the tigress fights for her young. Not to be a
wife at all according to the law of the land was bad enough, but if you
had to forego your birthright to be a legal _divorcée_ or _divorceuse_,
whatever were we coming to?
"I must ask John how that is," said John's wife, really to make talk,
for she was at the moment weighing the question whether this item in
Marianne's recent collision with her dear mother was enough to account
for her ill-temper. "You would never suppose John knew anything at
all, by his manner; but it's wonderful what he does know. There he
is!" There he was, and there also was Mr. Challis, who had met him on
his way from the station, and told him he believed Charlotte was at
the Hermitage, and he had better come in. And there also was a Mrs.
Parminter, or Westrop--Marianne wasn't sure which--who had really
wanted to leave a card and cease, only Titus had gone and asked her in,
and now Marianne supposed we should have to be civil.
Do not suppose this Mrs. Parminter or Westrop has nothing to do with
the story. She will go out of it, certainly, very soon; because she has
promised to be at the Spurrells' at six, and it takes a full quarter of
an hour. But she has an influence on it, by the spell of her presence
acting on the social _rapports_ of the household. Briefly, we all know
it's quite different when there are people; and this Mrs. Parminter
or Westrop was quite as much people, _ad hoc_, as if she had been the
Spurrells.
When there are people, you assume a genial smile, and affect a crisp
alacrity of interest you do not feel in their loves or their sheep, or
even their digestions. You shout; so do they. Then someone else shouts
louder, and you try to finish what you were shouting. But you don't
succeed, and perhaps you give in; and then your family--lady-wife,
mother, sister, what not!--says afterwards, need you have been so glum,
and couldn't you have exerted yourself to make things _go_ a little?
And you're sorry, because it's too late now, and the Mrs. Parminter or
Westrop of your case, or your particular Spurrells, have trooped away
with parting benedictions, and left the hush of daily life behind. And
then your family lady looks at the cards the Mrs. Parminter or Westrop
has deposited, and sees which of the two she is, and says she thought
so.
All this happened in the present case, the Mrs. Parminter or Westrop
having swept Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge away in her vortex, because they
were going in the same direction; and having said to them what a
delightful call she had had, and what delightful people the Challises
were! To which Mr. Eldridge had appended a note to the effect that he
had known Challis quite a long time, now you came to think of it. And
the equivocal lady had said dear her!--how very interesting!
The genial wooden smile, as of the visited, on the faces of Marianne
and her husband died abruptly as its cause became a distant shout. It
gave place to a mere puzzled look on his, provoked, no doubt, by the
expression of cold fatigue on hers and her silence. So far as he could
recollect there was nothing to account for this--at least, at the date
of their last parting. The interview about the gas-man was unleavened
with tenderness, certainly, but then it was the merest household
colloquy. But, to be sure, there had been Tulse Hill since then! That
was it!--it was that horrid old woman! So it was just as well to say
nothing. Challis said it, and went to get ready for dinner.
"Getting ready" amounted to little more than washing his face and
hands. It could not interfere with mental schemes for approaching and
conciliating his wife. He really wanted to do so, for he knew in
his inmost heart that he had more than once this day turned angrily
against suppositions that _would_ present themselves--hypothetical
readjustments of his life, always with Judith Arkroyd sooner or later
working into them through a mist of the honour in which he held
Marianne. Suppose--oh, suppose!--all his life had been different!
Suppose he had known her in her girlhood, this Judith! He had let
the image he had formed of the self he would have been, had all been
otherwise--just for one moment he had let it hunger for the hand, the
lips, the eyes of this hypothetical girlhood. It seemed so slight a
wrong to grant himself that luxury, when by hypothesis he was then
never to have seen or spoken to either of his wives of the time to
come. But the moment he had recognized the nature of this supposition
he had flung it from him, as he had others of a like sort. Just so the
watcher, sworn not to sleep, believes himself awake even as the spell
seizes him; then strikes hard to slay the coming dream, and is awake
again. Alfred Challis had been secretly guilty of this particular
dream, was angry with himself for it, and was scheming now to lay some
stress on his affection for his living wife. He knew enough from long
experience of Tulse Hill to ascribe to it powers of producing an even
greater severity of deportment than Marianne's at this moment.
He judged it best "not to be too previous," and went from his own
dressing-room straight to the drawing-room. That would make the best
job. He felt obliged to John Eldridge for this expression of his.
Marianne followed in due course, and appeared in conflict with a
preoccupying wrist-button. His proposed arrangement was to say, "Well,
Polly Anne, now let's near all about it!" And she spoiled it with,
"Stop one moment. I must get Harmood to do this for me."
A new departure became necessary. But it would not be half so _dégagé_.
A certain amount of spontaneity would have to be surrendered. Try again!
"Got it right now?" Yes--that was best!--not to go outside current
event.
"What--the button? Oh yes, it's right enough! At least, it'll do." And
then dinner, according to Harmood, was on the table, and the button
lapsed.
"Did you find your mother well?" This followed on the heels of
soup, concluded. By this time Challis had given up all his little
conciliations, and was drifting, a mere log on the current of
matrimony. Oh yes!--Marianne had found mamma well--that is, just as
usual. She wasn't going to help, evidently. However, he would try
yet again, but presently. Presently did not come, apparently, till
cigar-time. Then he made a more vigorous attempt. "Well, Polly Anne, I
think you might ask me where _I've_ been."
"Where _have_ you been?" The amount of concession there was in this was
just sufficient to make it impossible to indict the conversation as
unendurable, and demand improvement or silence; but not enough to pave
the way to cordiality.
Challis would probably not have ventured on his last attempt if he
had had nothing to report but his visit to Grosvenor Square. But
this afternoon excursion, later, had given him confidence. He was
able to answer that he had looked in to tea at the Ponsonby-Smiths',
or whatever the name was; and what did Polly Anne think? Celia
Ponsonby-Smith had got twins.
"Celia Robinson, I suppose you mean," said Marianne coldly. "I saw it
in the _Telegraph_. Did you go nowhere else?"
"In the morning--yes! I went for a book to the London Library, and made
a call. Nowhere else this afternoon."
"I meant in the morning. Don't spill your coffee. The cup's too full."
"No--it's all right. There!" Challis reduced his coffee to
safety-point, and was not ungrateful for the slight break in the
conversation. He was able to affect a balked readiness to speak, as
one whose swallowed coffee has left him free to say the words it
interrupted.
"I called in at Grosvenor Square."
"I see." This is a simple speech enough, but if the _I_ lasts a long
time and the _S_ even longer, it expresses diabolical insight. Yet one
can say nothing. Challis could only ignore it, and continue:
"I told you Judith Arkroyd had had an accident. Or didn't I?" But
he knew quite well; and Marianne knew he knew, and merely shook her
head. He went on: "Well--she has. And she wasn't able to come to the
Acropolis last night."
"A bad accident?" Marianne seems determined to keep her words at the
fewest.
"Nothing very serious! A sprained ankle. She'll have to lay up for it.
Not a hanging matter!"
"Of course you didn't see her?"
"I did. There is nothing to prevent her receiving visitors."
"Was she up?"
"My dear Marianne! Of course she was up. What do you suppose?"
"I don't know. I don't pretend to understand these sort of people. I
suppose it's all right, either way." And this lady then withdrew from
the conversation, leaving her husband half-nettled and half-apologetic,
but quite unable to lay hold of any excuse for expressing either
irritation or apology. Especially the latter, because why should he
think confessions or apologies necessary?
Perhaps nothing could throw more light on the way the heads of this
household quarrelled--for domestic bliss has many forms--than the
internal comment made by its eldest son when he returned by contract
at half-past ten from supping with his friend Tommy Eldridge. What
Master Bob said to himself, after a short wait for sounds of human
voices, was: "_Row_ on, I expect. Pater and mater not talking!" He put
his head in at the drawing-room door and made a statement. "I say. I'm
not late." His father, who understood Master Bob down to the ground,
attached the right meaning to "What are you?" which followed. He looked
at his watch. "Ten-thirty-three," said he. "Three minutes late! Now go
to bed, and leave the phonograph alone till to-morrow."
"What!--not only just one, in the breakfast-room, with the door shut?"
But even so conditioned, it is too late for phonographs, and Bob goes
to his couch a sadder boy but as great a goose as ever. Before doing
so, he has to give securities that he will not pound about overhead and
wake his sisters; and to note that his pater is reading and sorting
letters, and his mater has settled down to a book.
You know what that means, especially when the book is bicolumnar,
microtypical, and there's such a lot to read before it gets to where
everyone says it's so improper. You read the first brisk spirt, till
you get to the point at which the author's inventive power has flagged,
and then you become strangely content to repose underneath that work,
with your eyes closed and your hands peacefully folded over your
foreground. But Bob was wrong. His mater had not settled down to her
book in the true sense of the words, and Challis knew it by the speed
at which the leaves turned. Marianne couldn't read at that rate, even
without stopping to think of the meaning. And you must, sometimes.
Besides, Challis had glanced at that book himself, and knew his wife
would never understand local Americanisms and Indian dialects in
Kamschatka. It was an interesting book, though, and Challis remembered
how the first chapter began: "Midnight in Nootka Sound, and the blood
still dripped monotonously from the shelf above, etc." He was just
thinking could he safely venture on asking the reader why this first
chapter was called "Hello!" when she put the book aside, and said
briefly: "I'm going to bed." She had not spoken a word since Bob's
incursion.
Special effort is needed to keep in mind how little Marianne's husband
knew of the causes of her perturbation. So far as he could see, the
whole ground was covered by illogical resentment against a group of
his friends, whose advances to herself--as it seemed to him--she had
inexcusably rejected. Still, he could frame excuses for her; it was
not for her as it was for him; he had the key of the position. It was
a case for compromise, and Marianne was uncompromising. That was all!
As for any conception that a new light thrown on his past had presented
him to her as distrustful and secretive--certainly keeping back
something she must have a right to know; possibly, though she hesitated
over this, something disgraceful to himself--no such idea crossed his
mind for a moment.
It would be all right in the morning! He had said that many a time
overnight, in tiff-times, and peace had followed as predicted. Tulse
Hill, considered as an incident, was too recent for any sort of
conciliatory effort to be worth making--to-night, at any rate. Let it
alone, and have a finishing smoke! Go back to the Ostrogoths!
Then, as he wondered whether, for all its slow combustion, the grate
would not consume its coal before he got through his cigar, there came
back to him an image of Judith Arkroyd in a dangerous form--an image
in which physical beauty was subordinate to a subtle relationship of
soul, which he had imperceptibly slipped into ascribing to his own and
hers. A dangerous form, because Love played a new part in it for this
man. His first wife had probably been--put it plainly--a mistake; his
second ... well!--he was very fond of Marianne--very--and they had had
many happy times together. But it wasn't quite the same thing as--oh,
dear!--well, it couldn't be, you know! One can't have everything.
Much more dangerous, that sort of thing, to our thinking, than the
primitive fascinations of Aphrodite herself! Indeed, we have sometimes
thought that lady didn't go the right way to work in that affair with
Adonis. She should have _sympathized_ with him. All the same, mind
you!--so Cynicism murmurs at our elbow--man has an extraordinary
faculty for detecting companion-souls to his own, pulses preordained
to beat in unison with his, in bodies of extraordinary beauty, of
indisputable grace. _He_ may squint, and his eyesight be defective, but
his predestined She, the mate of his soul, will gaze on him through
lustrous orbs of tender radiance. Her voice will reach him through the
rosiest of lips, the pearliest of teeth, without so much as one gold
stopping; and all the while there will he be, without a sound tooth in
his head to boast of, unless he has the effrontery to make a parade of
his crown-and-bridge treatment. He may even wear a wig, and brazen it
out, in the same breath with a protest against a single false tress on
the head of his other dearer life-in-life--this comes out of Poetry,
somewhere--while as for a Venus Calva ... simply out of the question,
thank you!
Anyhow, the predestined mate of the soul was a much more kittle
head of cattle to shoe behind when chosen for her beauty from among
the daughters of an aristocracy not celebrated for ugliness, and
manipulated by photographers into bestowing their eyes upon the
readers of the shiniest print that ever lay on the table of an hotel
reading-room.