OF AN UNCALLED FAMILY ROW, AND HOW BOB'S BREAKFAST WAS POSTPONED. OF
A LETTER FROM JUDITH THAT MADE MATTERS WORSE
The Mistake's son was the unfortunate means of causing the next day to
begin badly. For he rose early, and hastened to the plague-centre at
Putney whence Records flowed, to acquire in exchange for the condemned
piece of mere music either "The White-Eyed Musical Kaffir" or something
equally juicy. Naturally, he found the shop not open, at an hour when
sparse milk and eggs were the only things procurable. "Won't open till
ten," was the current opinion. Bob, disgusted, called on his friend
Tommy Eldridge, and found sympathy and consolation. Tommy had had the
"Musical Kaffir" for two days past, and the Kaffir had palled. He
would swop him for the "mere music" record and twopence. Bob closed
with the offer, but the bargain had taken time; and, as a consequence,
he burst in upon breakfast at half-past eight o'clock, and announced
his acquisition with an evident conviction that his hearers had been
awaiting his return with suspended breaths. His step-mother--or aunt;
either will do--confiscated his treasure promptly, and denounced
Science within the home-circle. Lectures, she said truly, were one
thing; houses another. Bob cited the indulgences shown to other
fellows by their parents in respect of phonographs, and Cat said that
Tommy Eldridge always had his till tea-time. Her mother told her not
to speak with her mouth full, and met Master Bob's half-inaudible "I
shall ask the Governor, anyhow!" with so harsh an enquiry, "What's that
you're saying, sir? Don't mumble to yourself!" that Bob evacuated his
position, and awaited reinforcements.
Marianne was making the common mistake of easing ill-temper by
attacking objects blameless of provoking it--blowing off steam through
wrong channels. At another time she would have been too lazy to open
a campaign against a phonograph. Now she found it a relief to pitch
in--Bob's phrase--and enlarged her scheme of operations. "If it wasn't
for your father," she said, "you would all be breakfasting upstairs."
Bob, who was afraid of her because she had boxed his ears for him
before now--and not so very long ago--only muttered a _sotto-voce_
"I'm a Rugby boy now, and that would be grandmother," expressing in
his simple, limited way his sense of acquired status, and the folly of
ignoring it. Marianne, who was not really the least angry with Bob, and
certainly didn't care twopence about the "Musical Kaffir," saw in this
suppressed defiance an outlet for her own high-pressure atmosphere,
and jumped at its inaudibility as though it were the head and front
of its offending. What was it he was mumbling?--she said again, with
growing anger. He wouldn't mumble if his father was here. Bob denied
this audibly, probably meaning that he had said nothing he would have
scrupled to say to his father. He felt indignant and injured; having,
indeed, meant no wrong, though his preoccupation about the glorious
phonograph had no doubt made his speech appear careless.
As ill-luck would have it, Challis, coming down at this moment to
breakfast, and not in a beaming good-humour himself, heard his wife's
indictment, and quickened his descent of the stairs. He resolved
at once on his usual policy whenever Marianne came to open warfare
with any of the family--namely, to take her part at the moment, for
discipline's sake, even supposing he had to make amends for it after by
concessions.
"What is the matter?" said he magisterially, in the pause of silence
his entry created. It was more impressive than any amount of
excitement, and the younger little girl, Emmie, began to cry in a
terrified way. Nothing creates the formidable like fear, even when it
is only a small child's. The tension became full-blown, having--please
observe!--all grown out of nothing.
"You must ask your boy what he means, Alfred, and find for yourself.
All I can say is, that if I am to be spoken to so before the servants,
I cannot go on."
"How dare you speak to your mother so--eh? What do you mean by it?"
Challis's assumption of uncontrollable anger is affectation, merely
from motives of policy. He knows he can make it up with Bob, any time.
"_I didn't._" Bob no more knows what he is denying than his father
knows what he has accused him of. Never mind! Families don't quarrel
by the book. Bob is scarlet, for all that, and warms to his subject.
"_She_ took my Record, and it cost a shilling, and twopence over. _She_
wanted to prevent me...." But it remains untold, whatever it was, for
Marianne interrupts:
"You can hear for yourself how he calls me _she_. But do as you like,
Alfred!"--use of this name means a state of siege, observe!--"He is
your boy." After which disclaimer of a parentage no one had accused her
of, she repeats, "_She, indeed!_" to rub it in.
Challis at once perceived that he must either sacrifice poor Bob on the
altar of Peace, or be entangled in a hopeless discussion of rights and
wrongs with Marianne; _how_ hopeless, only experience such as his could
know! Action was necessary, and he pounced on Bob, seizing him by the
collar of his coat. "How _dare_ you speak so to your mother? How _dare_
you...." But stop! He could never ask him how he dared say _she_ to his
mother! Even Marianne would suspect him of making game of her. So he
had to pretend that his indignation had overwhelmed him. "Don't answer
me, sir," he shouted, shaking the culprit with a severity probably more
apparent than real. "Be off to your room directly, and stop there!" And
the child that was crying broke into a roar, to do honour to the way
the scene had climaxed. Bob vanished.
The roaring slowed down, and was gradually merged in
bread-and-marmalade. An intermediate period of sobs and bites,
overlapping, was filled out with public discomfort--an embarrassed
silence in which Challis's visible vexation was unfairly taken
advantage of by Marianne, to say, "You can't wonder at the child, when
you're so violent." Challis closed his lips lest he should speak;
but it came home to him, in some mysterious way, that he was in the
wrong. Men are; or if they are not, it comes to the same thing. For
a firm conviction in the mind of a woman with a strong will and a
proper spirit has all the force of fact. But Challis's acquiescence
in his guilt was accompanied by a growing resolution to take Bob to
the play, _coûte que coûte_, before he went back to school on Monday.
He had no misgivings about the boy's breakfast. He knew Harmood might
be relied on, as Bob was a favourite in that quarter. Probably a
compensation-breakfast was in store for Bob, later.
It was a bad moment for dealing with a female correspondent who is
"always sincerely yours." Had Challis been confident that an unopened
letter on the table was from one who was only "his faithfully"--though,
indeed, Rebekah could not have been much more to Isaac--or even "his
truly," he might have opened it confidently and made some excuse to
throw it carelessly along the table to his wife while he went on to his
last consignment of press-clippings. Or he might have done so equally,
however "sincerely his" Judith Arkroyd's signature said she was, if
only this stupid needless row had not been bred by Mrs. Challis's
Short Temper out of Bob's Phonograph. But then, in addition to the
sincerity with which Judith surrendered herself for ever, Challis knew
the letter would contain a repeat of her invitation of the day before
to his wife--probably to accompany him to Royd at Whitsuntide. So
he postponed opening all his letters, and made the fatal mistake of
hustling them together as though he valued them all alike. Marianne
knew better. Had she not seen him pause half a second over that
characteristic, unmistakable hand--a strong bold upright script that
seemed to speak its contempt in every line for the scratchy Italicisms
of its writer's ancestors? How was she to interpret its being packed
away out of her sight in this way? However, she wished the jury in the
court of her inner conscience to understand distinctly that she did not
care one straw what Titus did or did not do in respect of Grosvenor
Square--but within well-defined lines. For, apart from the degree to
which she relied on the social safeguards of that Square's aristocratic
pride, she had about her husband the feeling many students of nature
ascribe to married folk who are not ripening for divorce--the feeling
Geraint had about Enid, according to Tennyson. Marianne, for all her
tempersomeness and jealousy, loved and reverenced Challis too much
to dream he could be guilty of anything that would supply copy for a
modern novel.
A more frank nature than Marianne's would have said to him when he
pocketed his unopened letters, "What!--not read her letter? Well!--_I_
wouldn't write again, if I were she!" or some such pleasantry. Her
obdurate silence provoked him to say what might else have stopped on
his tongue's tip. It came just after the children had vanished to the
nursery. "I think, Marianne, considering that the boy is going back
to school on Monday, you might have.... Well!--you might have been a
little easier with him."
"I'm sorry he is going back to school; that is where he learns it all.
But I expected to be found fault with."
"Learns all what? What does he learn?" But the lady simply bristles
with silence in reply to this question, so intensely does it call
for no answer. Titus continues, letting it lapse: "I don't think you
remember that it was I that gave him the phonograph; at least, I gave
him leave to buy it."
"I don't remember anything about it, and I'm not going to try to. Of
course you gave it him, to encourage him against me. Very well, Alfred,
you take his part! Oh, _I_ know!--oh yes, I'm not his mother. But I
know what poor Kate would have said, if she had been here now." This
was rather a favourite position of Marianne's; only she never by any
chance filled out her claim to knowledge of what would have happened
under perfectly inconceivable circumstances. She kept details secret.
He thought of replying: "Poor Kate wouldn't be a fool, anyhow!" For he
was vexed about Bob. But he was ashamed to find how Time had changed
the face of things, that he should actually take exception to his own
statement on its merits! Wouldn't she? He wasn't at all sure. He gave
it up, and merely said: "We won't talk any more about it now. Where's
Bob's Record?"
This was unfortunate. He had better have swept his letters into his
pocket, with the hand that was waiting to do it, and carried them off
to his study. Instead, he waited for the confiscated Musical Kaffir.
"No--Alfred--it's no use! I won't give it you if Bob's to have it.
Horrible noise! Besides, look at the way he's been behaving!"
Challis gets visibly angry, or angrier. "You had much better give it
me, Marianne," he says, reaching out his hand for it. But he just
misses it, and it goes into Marianne's pocket; past recovery, without
concession on her part or physical force on his. All might have been
well if the dispute had not got to this point.
Things being thus, nothing remains for the story but to tell what
actually took place. The lady persisted. No, she would _not_ give it
up! Nothing would induce her. Appeals on moderate lines, to come,
to be reasonable, and so on, only made matters worse--tending, in
fact, towards admission of weakness on Challis's part. He became more
irritated, and in his annoyance at having to give up the point made an
unfortunate speech. "Well--keep it, then, if you're so obstinate. I
won't try to take it from you. But I tell you this, Marianne: there are
many husbands that would." His only meaning was to lay a little stress
on his own forbearance. He would not even try. But his speech sounded
like an assertion of male power against female weakness, as well as of
legal right.
The last was what stung Marianne. Her recent encounter with her
mother had thrown doubts on her right to a divorce. How could they be
reconciled with a husband's legal right to confiscate a White-Eyed
Musical Kaffir, or any record, for that matter? Her eyes flashed, and
she bit her lip as she turned to leave the room. A laugh that was
no laugh came of it, but scarcely speech, to speak of. All she said
was, "Because they could"--not very intelligibly. And then the nurse,
Martha, with some appeal through the just opened door, cut off the
interview, and imposed an every-day demeanour on both.
Challis went to his room to cool down. To him his wife's last words
were inexplicable, unless they meant that his physique was not his
strong point, and that he might not have recaptured the Musical Kaffir
so very easily. But that did not seem to ring quite true, neither.
Never mind!--he had to look at his letters. After all, it was not the
first time Marianne had been unintelligible.
But her exclamation had no relation whatever to what Bob chose to call
"vim." It was part of the new phase of thought connecting her mother's
views about the legitimacy of her own marriage-knot with Challis's
suggestion of a male domination that others--not he--might have
legitimately claimed. If she was not to be Titus's lawful wife--if she
was to be swindled by a trick of jurisdiction--at least let her have
the advantages of her freedom. Let there be no rubbish about a man's
right to rule, about a wife's duty to obey. Keep that sort of thing for
authenticated marriage-lines, if hers were to be flawed.
It was the vaguest hint of an idea--no more! A gleam not worth a
thought, except for what it grew to.
* * * * *
A human creature with an unopened letter in its hand is raw material
for an Essay on the Past, Present, and Future. Rather dangerous things
for a thoughtful scribbler to touch on rashly! Better say as little
about them as possible.
That, or something like it, was Challis's thought as he stood in his
writing sanctum, reasonlessly hanging fire over the opening of Judith
Arkroyd's letter. Or was it that he wanted time to settle down after
the recent _émeute_? Some nervous characters--like his--shrink from a
clash of conditions, a discordance of consecutive surroundings, and are
prone to let each association die down before another takes its place.
Challis wanted to shake clear of his domesticities, maybe, before
transferring his thoughts to Judith and the invitation to Royd that he
knew her letter would repeat.
For whatever reason, he hung fire. And when in the end he opened the
letter, he did it slowly. He took a broad view of it; then placed it
on the table while he lighted a pipe, with a misgiving that there was
a flaw in it that would prevent his showing it to Marianne. When he
picked it up for deliberate revision, smoke-encircled, he found it read
thus:
"DEAR MR. CHALLIS,
"Speech A. will suit me best--but never mind that if you feel like
deciding on the other. Both enclosed back.
"Remember about Whitsuntide. Only please do succeed in persuading
Mrs. Challis to come this time. Shall I come and go down on my knees
to her? It does seem such a shame that she should keep so much in
the background. Tell her she _must_ come. I leave it to you--but do
try!
"Sincerely yours,
"J. A."
What the dickens possessed Judith--not Miss Arkroyd, please!--to use
that unfortunate expression, "keep so much in the background"? Of
course, Grosvenor Square is the foreground of the Universe--a little
of Challis's style as an author outcropped here--but why not take it
for granted? Why, in a communication that was to be shown to a fretful
porcupine, need Grosvenor Square let the cat of its deep-rooted faith
in its position out of the bag of its good-breeding? That was Challis's
metaphorical standpoint. But really Judith very seldom sinned in this
way; scarcely ever, so Challis persuaded himself, trespassed on Mr.
Elphinstone's department.
Now, why need Mrs. Challis choose this exact moment to remind her
husband that his Fire Insurance expired on the twenty-fifth, within
fifteen days of which, et cetera? Why had he left his door on the jar,
so that she should look in, unannounced, just as he was deciding that
it would never do to show her this letter from Judith? He had no time
to reflect--barely enough to replace it in its envelope. And that,
after all, was the worst thing he could do. For Marianne knew the
envelope by heart already. The only way of accounting for things of
this sort is by imputing to Eblis a conscientious attention to detail.
He reaps his reward, as we know, the smallest interventions often
yielding a profit. This remark is suggested by Challis's decision,
after his wife had left the room, that the Devil was in it.
* * * * *
Has all this incident of Bob's phonograph been worth recording?
Certainly it has. Because, coming as it did on the top of Mrs.
Steptoe's reminiscence, and Mrs. Challis's visit to Tulse Hill, it
blocked explanations by supplying reasons for the attitude of that
hill--reasons valid enough to throw dust in the eyes of Mrs. Challis.
The phonograph ruction was an effect, not a cause of ill-temper,
and poor Bob was really a victim, not a prime mover in it. It did
not matter much to him, for his release was not long delayed, and
reinstatement and compensation followed somehow. Besides, his father
took him to hear the _Barbiere di Siviglia_ before he went back to
school. But he refused to admit that Melba was any better than her
record would be, if he might only buy it for three bob.
By itself the Steptoe incident might have been explained. So might
Challis's correspondence with Judith, or might never have attracted
attention. It was the correlation of each to each, and the visit to
Tulse Hill, with the subtle touch of Charlotte Eldridge at critical
points, that provoked the dissension over the boy's harmless instrument
of torture, and gave the Devil his opportunity.
Mrs. Steptoe had never recognized the young man whom she remembered as
Harris, who, of course, was Challis himself. But the identification was
in the air--bound to be made sooner or later. Although Mrs. Challis
kept silence towards her husband, she lost no time in recurring to
the subject with Mrs. Steptoe. Her own penetration had gone very
little way, but Mrs. Eldridge had not been behindhand in finding out
that either Kate Verrall had been thrice married, or that the second
husband of the Brighton story was Challis himself. Charlotte would
not have made a bad female detective. "Don't be a goose!" said she to
her bewildered friend. "Don't give the woman any hints. Show her an
old photograph of your husband, and see if she doesn't recognize it."
Marianne did so, and it was straightway identified as that young Mr.
Harris. "But," said she, "that is Mr. Challis, before we were married."
Aunt Stingy, completely taken aback for a moment, recovered herself
with great presence of mind and laid claim to having said many things
she never had said the first minute she set eyes on Mr. Challis. In a
very little while she persuaded herself she had known him at once. But
she could not be induced to admit that she had got the name wrong; and
as it was quite unimportant that she should do so, both ladies agreed
to leave her unconvinced.
Mrs. Eldridge's suggestion was made at her own semi-detached residence,
a quarter of an hour's walk from the Hermitage, where she and Marianne
were reviewing the position some days after "it" occurred. The latter
had been dwelling on a suggestion of her mother's, a very stupid old
woman, that her husband had been, and still was, ignorant of poor
Kate's first marriage.
"_Ab_solutely impossible, dear!" said the authority. "Thing couldn't
be! Besides, she would have had to be twice a widow, in such a very
short time, if this young man Harris wasn't your husband. He _must_
have been." And then she added her detective suggestion, as recorded,
and the result removed all chance of acquittal on this score.