CONCERNING A ROSEBUD, AND MARIANNE'S TORTOISESHELL KNIFE. CHALLIS'S
PRESENCE OF MIND. THE FOOL ON FIRE. DEFINITION WANTED OF DEFINITION.
CHALLIS'S SUDDEN CALL BACK TO TOWN. HOW SIBYL HAD SEEN IT ALL
There was a little fountain in the middle of the little garden, with a
little _amorino_ from the court of the Signoria at Florence to attend
to the squirting. The moon was comparing the light she could make on
its shower of drops with sparkles from the lady's dress who stood
beside it. It was in no hurry to decide--might perhaps ask a tiny
cloud, that was coming, to help. Once inside the garden Challis was
committed to approaching its centre. There was--remember!--no official
recognition of any change in the position of the two since Trout Bend.
"I came here to be alone, but you may come." Judith's words might well
have made matters worse. But her tranquil, unconcerned, almost insolent
beauty in the moonlight was fraught with a sense of self-command that
more than counterbalanced them. It gave her hearer a sort of _rangé_
feeling--determined his position--put him on his good behaviour. He
could trust to her control of their interview, but all the same a
little resented feeling so much like a child in her hands.
"I came here to be alone, too," said he.
"Perhaps I ought to go?" Manifestly not spoken seriously, but not
jestingly enough to set _badinage_ afoot. She did not wait for his
answer, but went on, "Perhaps we both ought, for that matter. Did you
find the politics bored you?... oh!--metaphysics, was it? _I_ came here
because I found my little sister unendurable."
Challis thrust what he had overheard, when eavesdropping, into the
background of his mind: "About the stage, I suppose? Why do you not
tell her--set her mind at ease?" But he knew Sibyl knew already, and
this was only to help him to keep his foreground clear.
Judith appeared to select her answer at leisure, from among reserves.
"Sibyl knows," she said. "The indictment related to something else this
time." Then, as though she were weighing a possibility: "No--I suppose
I could hardly tell you about that. One is too artificial. We should be
much nicer if we were small children. Never mind! Some day, perhaps!"
Challis decided on saying, with a laugh, "I suppose I mustn't be
inquisitive and ask questions," as the best way of suggesting that his
own guesses, if any, were trivial and impersonal. She ended a silence
in which he fancied the subject was to be forgotten by saying: "I
should tell you nothing, whatever you asked. Besides, you have never
had a little sister, and would not understand. Family relations are
mysteries."
"No, I have never had a little sister." And then Challis felt like a
liar, and heart-sick as he thought of the thoroughness with which he
had accepted Kate's "little sister" as his own. What a compensation he
had thought her for a mother-in-law his most gruesome anticipations had
not bargained for! When did the change come about?--when?--when? Why
need the memory of it all come on him now, of all times? But Judith
stopped his retrospect short with: "Get me that rose-bud, if you have
a knife. Don't scratch yourself on my account." For Challis to reply:
"What care I how much I scratch myself, if it is on your account?"
would have savoured of Chitland, musically audible afar. Challis left
it unsaid.
The rose-bud was soon got with the aid of a little tortoiseshell
knife that was really Marianne's. There was another twinge in ambush
for her husband over that, and a sharp cross-fire between it and the
soul-brush, that was being kept at work all this while--unconsciously,
one hopes; but this story knows exactly what Charlotte Eldridge would
have thought and said. And she might have been right, for it makes
little pretence of being able to see behind the veil this Judith's
beauty hides her inner soul with, nor to read her heart. All it, the
story, has known of her so far has been that beauty and her love of
power. A perilous quality, that!
All it can say now is that if this woman knows, as she bends, careless
how close, to take the flower from the hand that gathered it; as she
flashes the diamonds on her white fingers quite needlessly near his
lips--if she has any insight, as she does this, into the way she is
playing with a human soul, then is she a thoroughly bad woman. And to
our thinking all the worse if she knows, or believes, her reputation
is safe in her own keeping. For then what is she, at best, but a keen
sportswoman wicked enough to poach on her fellow-woman's preserves,
destroying the peace of a home merely to show what a crack shot she is.
We must confess to a preference for the standard forms of honourable,
straightforward lawlessness. But perhaps these reflections are doing
injustice to Judith. She may be capable of good, honest, downright
wickedness. Remember that she is comparatively young and inexperienced.
One should surely beware, too, of doing injustice to beautiful
women--ascribing to them motives of overt fascination, to entangle
man, in every simple action a discreet dowdy might practise unnoticed
and unblamed. Make an image of such a one in your mind--make it ropy,
bony, obliging, with unwarrantable knuckles--let it place a flower in
its bosom, if any; and then say whether Charlotte Eldridge's keenest
analysis could detect in its action the smallest element she could
pounce on as seductive; the slightest appearance of a hook baited to
captivate her John, or anybody else's? No, no!--let us be charitable,
and suppose, for the present, at any rate, that Judith was unconscious
in this flower incident of every trace of guile--merely _wanted_ the
flower, in fact, and asked Challis to get it, rather than risk her
"Princess" skirts in the thorns which would have made shoddy of them in
no time.
There are those, we believe, who hold that all the fascination of woman
is due to adjuncts; that the thrill of enchantment that "goes with"
adroit coiffures and well-cut skirts--especially the latter--would not
survive seeing their owner, or kernel, run across a ploughed field in
skin-tights--for we assume that the Lord Chamberlain would allow no
more crucial experiment. It may be they are right. High Art teaches
us the truth of the converse proposition. For that draggled-tailed,
ill-hooked, ill-eyed, ill-buttoned thing with a bad cold and a shock of
tow on its head, that is emerging from a damp omnibus to the relief of
its next-door neighbour, is going, please--when it has got rid of some
raiment which would certainly go to the wash with advantage--is going
to sit for _Aphrodite_, of all persons in the world; for that very
goddess and no other!--for her the light of whose eyelids and hair in
the uttermost ends of the sea none shall declare or discern....
There!--it's no use talking about it, and stopping the story. Besides,
Miss Arkroyd "had on" her "Princess" dress aforesaid, a strange
witchery of infinitely flexible woven texture, snake-scaled and
gem-fraught without loss of a fold, rustling and glittering till none
could say which was rustle and which was glitter. And it all seemed
a running comment on its owner--its pith and marrow, as it were!--a
mysterious outward record of her inner self. Where is the gain of
trying to guess how much was shell and how much was self? Enough that
few women would have looked as lovely as she did, then and there.
For all this speculation--let the story confess it--is due simply to
the excessive beauty the moonbeams made the most of, as its owner's eye
dropped on the flower her fingers were adjusting, to make sure it was
exactly in the right place, and to engineer stray thorn-points that
else might scratch. As for what is really passing in her heart, the
story washes its hands of it.
"Marianne refuses again, of course," said she, when the rose was
happily settled--or sadly, as it must have felt the parting from its
stem.
"Again, of course!" said he. "But...!"
"But how did I know, you mean? Why, you would have told me at once if
she had been coming."
"Not necessarily. I might have hoped for a second letter, to say she
had changed her mind. It is no pleasure to me that she refuses."
"It might be to some husbands. But you are an affectionate husband. Do
tell me something."
"Anything!" His emphasis on this was a satisfaction to him. It was like
a very small instalment of what he had no right to say, or even to
think; but, uttered in an ambush of possible other meanings, it franked
the speaker of any particular one among them.
"If I were to ask to see her letter, should you be offended?"
He knew he could not answer, "Nothing you do can possibly give me
offence," in the tone of empty compliment that would have made it safe.
He gave up the idea, and said, with reality in his voice: "I should not
show it to you."
"I like you when you speak like that," said Judith.
He felt a little apologetic. "After all," he said, "it's only
tit-for-tat. _You_ wouldn't tell me what Sibyl said."
"_I_ am not offended," said Judith. A certain sense of rich amusement
in her voice made these words read: "I take no offence at your male
caprices. I know your ways. You are forgiven." But aloud her speech
was, with a concession to seriousness: "I cannot well repeat what Sibyl
said. But do not think of showing me Marianne's letter if you wish not
to do so. It is not idle curiosity that made me ask to see it. I had a
motive--perhaps not a wise one--but I think...."
"What?"
"I think you would forgive it." The suggestion certainly was that the
speaker would see some way of influencing Marianne--making her drop her
absurd obstinacy. No other motive was possible, thought Challis.
After all, what was there in the text of the letter that it would be a
hanging matter for Judith to read? She, from her higher standpoint--for
Challis believed in her, you see?--could forgive, overlook, understand
a scrap or two of rudeness, a misspelt word or so. Why should he not
show the letter, and have done with it?
"It is in your pocket, you know!" Judith was certainly _clairvoyante_,
and Challis said so. "_Clairvoyante_ enough to see you put it in your
pocket as you came into the drawing-room!" said she, laughing.
Why this context of circumstances should make Challis plead
illegibility by moonlight as a reason for not producing the letter he
could not have said for the life of him. It was a weak plea; because,
when Judith "pointed out" that so inveterate a smoker probably had wax
vestas in his pocket, it seemed to leave him no line of defence to fall
back upon. He produced the letter, and to our thinking was guilty of a
breach of faith to Marianne in allowing Judith to take it from him. At
least, he should only have read to her what related to the invitation.
The first wax vesta blew out, and the second. "Hold it inside this,"
said Judith, making a shelter for the third with a gauzy thing of
Japanese origin she really had no need for, the night was so warm.
"You must hold it steadier than that," she added. "If this caught, it
would blaze up." She was holding the open letter herself, with perfect
steadiness.
"This is the last vesta," said Challis. "So you must read quick. Look
sharp!" It was the fifth match, and the flame was nearing his fingers.
"Half-a-second more!" said Judith. She had turned the letter over.
There was writing on the back that Challis had missed. He tried to
read it now, over the shoulder that was so white in the moonlight, and
failed. For the flame touched his fingers, and burned him.
Man is absolutely powerless against the sudden touch of fire. Remember
Uncle Bob and the knife! Challis _had_ to leave go, _nolens volens_.
The burning remnant of the wax fell on the gauzy scarf, which caught
instantly. The moment was critical. But Challis showed a presence
of mind beyond what one is apt to credit neurotic literary men
with--mere mattoids, after all! Instead of trying to beat the flame
out, or waiting to get his coat off to smother it, he tore the scarf
sharply away from its wearer, who, happily, had the nerve to release a
safety-pin in time to get it clear.
"Are you burned?" His voice seemed out of keeping with the resolution
of his action.
"Very little, if at all. Just a touch, on this shoulder. Nothing
really--but I am afraid your hands...."
"Oh no!--they're all right. Stop a bit!--what's that?" It was
Marianne's letter, half-burned, and still burning. The unextinguished
scarf it had fallen to the ground with had got through its combustion
briskly. Challis was only just in time to save half the letter; and it
was not the half he wanted.
"I dare say it doesn't matter," said he to Judith; "but there was
something I hadn't read on the back. What you were reading when the
match gave out."
"Yes--I think there was. A postscript. I didn't make it out. Shall we
go in, or over on the lawn, where they are dancing?" She added a moment
later: "I don't know why I am taking it for granted that you don't
dance."
"I certainly don't; nowadays, at least. But you do, of course. The lawn
by all means!" They passed through the little _porticino_, and complied
with the understanding it had entered into. As Challis was turning the
key, he paused an instant to look round at Judith and say: "Are you
sure you can't remember anything of what was written on the back of
the letter?" And she replied without hesitation: "Not a word. I had
no time." Then he said: "I wish you could remember only just one word
or two, to show what it was about." She answered: "But I can't. I am
sorry. We must hope it was of no importance."
They walked side by side, without speaking, to the end of the last
yew-hedged terrace, just on the open garden. Then, inexplicably, they
turned and went back along the path. When they arrived again at the
little gate in the wall, Challis suddenly faced his companion. He
looked white and almost handsome in the moonlight--or so she may have
thought, easily enough--for his eyes had a large, frightened look, that
became them and the thoughtful thinness of their bone-marked setting.
He spoke quite suddenly, keeping his voice under, with quick speech
that showed its tension.
"Judith--Judith Arkroyd! It is no use. I can bear it no longer. I must
leave you. It would have been well for me if I had done so earlier.
It would have been best for me if I had never seen you." He turned
from her, almost as though he shrank from the sight of her, and leaned
against the grey stone angle of the little doorway, his face hidden
in his arms. Had the woman who watched him--shame if it were so!--a
feeling akin to triumph, as she saw how his visible hand caught and
clenched and trembled in the moonlight? It may have been so. The story
has no plummet to take soundings of her heart.
Her mere words may have meant fear lest she had overplayed her part--no
more! "Oh, Scroop, you cannot blame me." But the way she too leaned, as
for support in dizziness, on the edge of a great Italian garden-pot,
raised on a pedestal at the path-corner, and pressed her hand to her
side as though her breath might catch the less for it--these things
seemed to belong to more than the alarm of a sudden start.
He turned, with some recovery of self-possession, as one who shakes
free of any unmanliness. "Blame _you_, Judith!" he cried, calling her
freely by her name--a thing he had never yet done. "Not I, God knows!
I am all self-indictment, if ever man was. And this, look you, is my
offence: that I, knowing myself as I am, knowing what I owe to my wife,
to my children--they are dear to me still, I tell you, believe it who
may!--that _I_ have allowed the image and presence of _you_, Judith
Arkroyd, to take such possession of me, my mind, my whole soul, that
you are never absent from me. And the bondage that is on me is one I
cannot see the end of. All I know is that I am powerless against it.
It may be--it _may_ be--that the memory of you will die out and leave
me--that when I see you no longer, your voice and your beauty will
become things of the past, and be forgotten. When we have parted, as we
must, Heaven grant me this oblivion! But I cannot conceive it now."
He paused, and as he wiped the drops from his brow, seemed to hark back
a little to his daily self, saying in a quick undertone: "It is a good
world to forget in. Precedents are in favour of it. There is that to be
said."
The little change in his manner made her find her voice. "Yes!" she
said. "I see how it is. You must go. I shall always grieve that I could
not keep your friendship ... yes--you see my meaning? I _have_ valued
it. But this kind of thing is the misfortune of some women. It is a
bitter thing--we must part in a few hours, so I may speak plainly--a
bitter thing to be forced to lose a friend one loves as a friend,
merely because one chances to be a woman."
If only this interview might have ended here! If only Mr. Ramsey Tomes
and Mr. Brownrigg could have come on the scene now, instead of five
minutes later! But there never was good came of last words, from the
world's beginning.
The unhappy, storm-tossed man and his tormentor--for that was what
Judith was, meaningly or without intent--turned to go back towards the
noisy world. Half-way, as though she would use the silence and darkness
of the alley they were passing through for the freedom of speech such
surroundings give, Judith spoke again. If Charlotte Eldridge had been
there, her interpretation of Judith certainly would have been: "_She_
doesn't mean to let him go--not she!" Would it have been a fair one?
Possibly. But all Judith said was: "I am afraid I am a woman without a
heart."
Challis said interrogatively: "Because...?" and waited.
"Because I find myself only thinking of what _I_ shall lose when you
go. If I were _good_, Scroop"--a slight sneer here--"I should have a
little thought for you. I suppose I'm bad. Very well!"
"I am taking no credit to myself for any sort of altruism in my--my
feelings towards yourself." Challis shied off from the use of the word
"love"; but whether because it would have rung presumptuously without
the sanction of its object, or because of the bald rapidity of its use
on the stage, where Time is of the essence of the contract, he might
have found it hard to say.
"I should not thank you for it. Nor any woman. But many a woman who
injures a friend unawares--being unselfish and pious and so on--would
gladly...." She hesitated.
"Put a salve to the wound?"
"Well--yes--that sort of thing! But I am afraid I am rather brutal
about it. Can you not, after all, forget this foolish infatuation for
my sake? Consider the wild words you spoke just now unsaid, and give me
back my friend. Come, Scroop!" Her beautiful eyes were surely full of
honest appeal--no _arrière pensée_ Mrs. Eldridge would have damned her
for--as she went frankly close to him and laid her hand on his.
He shrank from her--absolutely shrank!--and gasped as though her touch
took his breath away. He found no words, and she had not finished.
"Think--oh, think!--what rights could I ever have in you? Think of your
wife...."
"I do think of her--oh, I do think! But it makes me mad."
"Go back to her and forget me then, if it must be so. Remember this,
Scroop--that the bond that holds you to her is thrice as strong as it
would be if...."
"If what?"
"Well!--I must say it. If it were a legal one...."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean you are not married to her--there!"
"Oh, the Deceased Wife's Sister rubbish?"
"Yes." And then Challis thought to himself, through the fog of all his
soul-torture and perplexity, "How comes she to be so ready to go home
to the mark? _We_ have never talked beyond the bare fact that Marianne
and Kate were sisters." But he let the thought go by, to make way for
another of greater weight with him.
"You never can mean," he cried--"you--you--you never can mean that
_I_----" She interrupted him with the self-command that seemed to
belong to her--to grow upon her, if anything--and completed his speech
for him: "That you would take advantage of a legal shuffle to evade a
promise given in honour? Of course, I mean the exact reverse. I mean
that you, of all men, would hold yourself three times bound to an
illegal contract."
"All men would, worth the name of men. Debts Law disallows are debts
of honour. But all that is nothing. I love my wife. I tell you I
love my wife; I will not have it otherwise." His voice was almost
angry, as against some counter-speech. But he dropped it in a kind
of exhaustion, with a subdued half-moan. "What have I to do," said
he wearily, "with all these wretched nostrums of legislation and
religion, that would dictate the terms of Love? Mine have come to me,
and my soul is wrenched asunder. Surely the penalty is enough to make
beadledom superfluous. No man who knows what Love means will ever love
two women.... There--that's enough!" He stopped abruptly, as cutting
something needless short. She spoke:
"It comes to good-bye, then?"
"Yes--unless...."
"Unless what?"
"You will say I am strange."
"You are. But you cannot change yourself. Speak plainly!"
"Listen, Judith! If you can look me in the face and say you have no
love for me--you know the sense I use the word in as well as I--then
I will pack away a sorrow in my heart till it dies; and the time will
come when you shall say: 'That man is my good friend, but he declared
a fool's passion to me once, for all that, and now he seems to have
forgotten it.' It shall be so. But, better still, and easier for me, if
you could say with truth that there was some other man elsewhere whose
hand in yours would be more welcome than mine; whose voice, whose look,
whose lips would be a dearer memory. If you could tell me this, the
fool's passion would at least be all the shorter lived." He stopped as
they reached the end of the sheltered path, and looked her full in the
face. He had stopped, as it were, on a keynote of self-ridicule--the
habit was inveterate--and he was one of those men who are at their best
when individuality comes out strongest.
She had never looked so beautiful in his eyes as when she stood there,
silent in the moonlight, weighing to all appearance the answer she
should make. Perhaps she knew how beautiful--who can say? She remained
motionless through a long pause--through the whole of a nightingale's
song in the thicket hard by. Then her bosom heaved--a long breath--and
then, with a sort of movement of surrender of her hands--how the
diamonds flashed!--she said, "I cannot," and then again, "No--I
cannot." Then, in a more measured and controlled voice: "This means
that we must part--now! I shall not see you to-morrow."
"Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss," said Helena to Bertram.
But how about those who are neither foes nor strangers, yet must be
more than friends, and dare not be lovers? An interview of this sort
had best not end in an embrace, if two victims of infatuation are to be
saved from themselves. Let the description remain for Judith as well as
Challis. But she had the self-command to check his impulse, throwing
out her jewelled hands against it, and crying--not loudly, but beneath
her breath: "No--no--no! Remember what we are--what we must be. For
Heaven's sake, no madness!" And then, as he let fall his hands and
their intention, but with all his hunger on him, and the foreknowledge
of sleepless hours to come, she turned towards the voices that were
approaching them from the house.
"I cannot recall"--it was Mr. Tomes who couldn't--"any occasion on
which a discussion of so abstruse, and I may say elusive, a topic
has been conducted with more philosophical insight, and a stronger
sense of what I need not scruple to term the argumentative _meum_ and
_tuum_. Neither am I prepared to admit what possibly inexperience in
debate may be eager to affirm, that the ratiocinative perspicuity
of a post-prandial collective intelligence has been fruitless in
result. I may point with satisfaction to at least two conclusions--the
impossibility of drawing safe inferences in discussions where the same
word is used in several different senses, and the uselessness of the
attempt to define the meaning of words until we are agreed upon the
nature, and, I may add, the legitimate limits, of Definition." Mr.
Tomes paused. He was a little disconcerted at the discovery that he was
being intelligible by accident, and also he had caught sight of Challis
and Miss Arkroyd. His abrupt full-stop as he met them was unwelcome to
this former, who would have had the orator continue, to hide his own
perturbation. But it did not matter, for Judith was more than equal to
the occasion.
"I have narrowly escaped being burned alive, Mr. Tomes. Mr. Challis set
fire to me lighting his cigar. However, he put me out." Nothing could
exceed her easy grace and perfect self-possession.
Very fortunately Mr. Wraxall, the Universal Insurer, was one of Mr.
Tomes's companions. The opportunity was a splendid one, and he seized
upon it. Challis got away in a most dastardly manner, leaving Judith
exposed to risks and averages and premiums beyond the wildest dreams of
Negotiation run mad. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wraxall must have been
welcome enough. When life jars, let others do the volubility, and spare
us!
* * * * *
The dispersal of guests and the family at the foot of the great
staircase was to-night more tumultuous than usual. Not only was the
house-party at its maximum--its noisy maximum!--but many outsiders
from the neighbourhood were among the dancers. Challis noticed, though
whether as cause or consequence he never inquired, four more young
soldiers, who, he understood, had come from as far off as it would take
a blood mare in a dog-cart, that just held them and no room to spare,
an hour and fifty minutes to trot back to, over a good road. These
youths were in such tremendous spirits that when the last farewells of
the dog-cart died away on the offing, a sort of holy hush seemed to
ensue, and people drew long breaths, and smiled excusefully--for young
folk are young folk, you know--and said now we could hear ourselves
speak. Why was it that Challis, not unobservant, for all his own hidden
fever, pictured the occupants of the dog-cart, beyond the offing, as
speaking little now, each dwelling on his own private affairs? Was it
because four corresponding chits, at least, had hushed down and become
self-absorbed and absent? And where was the relevance of measles, and
Challis's thought to himself that it was best to have them young?
The Rector was there, too. He had not been a dancer, but had refrained
merely because, in view of this great accession of force from Jack's
and Arthur's friends from the garrison, no further male dancers were
wanted. When Challis reached the house, after prolonging a voluntary
ostracism in the garden-silences until he heard the guests dispersing,
and saw Chinese lanterns being suppressed, he found Athelstan Taylor
just on the point of taking leave. He was explaining to her ladyship
why he had not come to dinner--for it seemed he had been invited--when
she stopped him with a question about one of the children who came into
his explanation. His reply was: "Oh yes!--just a bad inflammatory
cold. But she'll be all right in a day or two. Only we shall have to be
careful. Good-night, Lady Arkroyd!"
"'I think it is good-morrow, is it not?'" said Challis, quoting. "Is
Charles's Wain over the new chimney, I wonder. Perhaps, Rector, you
know which Charles's Wain is. I don't. I always confuse between him and
Orion."
"You'll have a hard job to do so now. Why, my dear fellow, can't you
remember how we talked of Orion last Autumn, and he was hardly visible
even then?"
"I remember--in your garden. You must show him to me again some day!"
The Rector looked attentively at the speaker. He had caught the minor
key in his voice; it had crept in alongside of a misgiving. "I shall
lose this friend I would so gladly keep, cloth or no!"
"All right! But you mustn't stop away till Orion comes. When shall I
tell my sister to lay a place for you? I believe we are clear next
Thursday--will that do?" He took out a notebook for an entry.
"I'm sorry," said Challis. "But I'm obliged--I was just going to tell
Lady Arkroyd--I am obliged to return to town to-morrow. I had a letter
to-day, calling me back on business. It's a case of compulsion--oh
no!--nothing wrong. A mere matter of business relating to publication!"
Her ladyship's sorrow at losing her distinguished guest knew no bounds.
She must look forward to seeing him in town, where the family would
return in a fortnight. But Mr. Challis would stay over to-morrow.
No!--Mr. Challis couldn't do any such thing, thank you! He ought to
go by the early train--was sorry to give trouble--but if he and his
box could be taken to the railway early enough.... Oh no!--_he_ didn't
mind breakfast at 6:30, only it was the trouble! But as Lady Arkroyd's
heart was rejoicing--hostesses' hearts do--at her guest getting clear
of the mansion before she was out of bed, she was able, from gratitude,
to make her grief at his departing at all almost a reality. Otherwise
she was consciously relieved that he should go; but as for any mental
discomfort on the score of her daughter's relations with him--the
idea!--a middle-aged, married, professional man! The eleventh century
to the rescue!
Athelstan Taylor said "Good-bye, then!" with real regret, especially
as there was something wrong, manifestly. His first instinct was to
forswear driving back with Miss Caldecott to the Rectory, and to
persuade Challis to walk "part of the way" with him. But--breakfast
at 6:30, and Charles's Wain over the new chimney, or its equivalent!
After all, he was human. Only, what a pity! A talk with him might have
meant so much to Challis.
Sibyl's regrets merely meant, "See how well-bred I am, to be able to
conceal my rejoicing! Go away, and don't call in Grosvenor Square when
I'm there! Do not give my kind regards to your wife, though a worthy
woman, no doubt!" That is, if Challis translated an overflow of suave
speech rightly.
Other _adieux_ followed, genuine enough. Mr. Brownrigg was honestly
sorry to lose the opportunity of showing Mr. Challis those extracts
from Graubosch. Mr. Wraxall was seriously concerned at not being
able to supply the figures necessary to a complete understanding of
Differential Equivalents, a system by which all deficits would be
counteracted. Mr. Ramsey Tomes said he should always regard with
peculiar satisfaction the opportunities for which he was indebted to
his friend Sir Murgatroyd, of shaking the hand of an author of whom
he had always predicted a very large number of remarkable things,
"considering"--thought his author--"that he does not appear to have
read any of my immortal works." The Baronet himself seemed to be
developing a scheme for correlating Feudalism with everything else,
in connection with his regret that Mr. Challis had to go away next
morning, until her ladyship reminded him that Mr. Challis had to go to
bed. So at last Mr. Challis went.
* * * * *
Sibyl hung back. Judith had not gone up yet, she said, in answer to
her mother's "I suppose you do mean to go to bed, child, some time!"
Why, then, couldn't she leave Judith till breakfast to-morrow? But
her ladyship stopped short of pushing for an answer, for she mixed
"Good-night" with a yawn, and got away upstairs.
Mr. Elphinstone testified discreetly that he could hear Miss Arkroyd
coming. Yes--there she was! Who was that with her? Only the young girl,
Tilley, miss! This was what the name Cintilla had become, naturally, in
the mouths of the household.
"Go up, child, and see that my hot water isn't cold. Cold hot water
is detestable.... _Yes_, Sibyl?" This was in answer to a particular
method of saying nothing, containing an intention to say something
disagreeable presently.
"I didn't say anything."
"Please don't be tiresome. You know what I mean, quite well. What was
it you didn't say?"
"I suppose you know Mr. Challis is going away to-morrow?"
Judith's demeanour is exemplary. Something pre-engages her. Mr.
Challis must come after. She calls the little ex-dairymaiden back; and
then, turning to Mr. Elphinstone, waiting patiently to be the last to
retire, says to him, "What is good for a burn, Elphinstone?"--as to a
universal referee. He replies, "I always use olive-oil, miss," as if he
belonged to a particular school of singed butlers. "Give the child some
for me," says Judith; and then, being free to give attention to her
sister, goes on with, "Yes, what is it? Oh yes! Do I know Mr. Challis
is going away to-morrow? Of course I know Mr. Challis is going away
to-morrow."
"I thought you did," says Sibyl. This is hardly consecutive, but
Judith's equanimity is impregnable. No impertinences or aggressions are
to affect it, that's clear! She is easily able to compare the watch on
her wrist with the hall-clock, and to find their testimony is the same,
for all their difference of size, before she makes further answer.
"Mr. Challis is called away by business. So he says.... Good-night!"
Cintilla, or Tilley, will bring the magic oil; so Judith goes upstairs
leisurely. Her sister follows. But she has not said good-night yet.
Telepathy makes very funny terms, sometimes, between sisters. And a
fact ignored, that has called for comment, may broach a reciprocal
consciousness that will never be at rest without speech in the end.
This time it is that burn, which Sibyl has said nothing about--has
asked no explanation of. And both know it.
At the stair-top both sisters say good-night, with a sort of decision
that seems overloaded for the occasion. But the valediction seems
inoperative; as both wait, for no apparent reason. Then Sibyl speaks in
a quick undertone:
"You wouldn't listen to me, Ju.... No, you needn't be
frightened--they're not coming yet...." For Judith had glanced back
down the staircase. "You wouldn't listen, and now you see what has come
of it."
"What _has_ come of it?"
"Judith!--do you think I am blind, or do you take me for a fool?"
"Yes, dear--the last! But go on. I can wait any time, in reason, for
an explanation." She embarked on a period of waiting, gracefully
indulgent, a tranquil listener.
"Do you suppose I am taken in by this story?"
"What story?"
"This story of Mr. Challis's going home on business."
"It's a very simple story."
"Very simple ... oh dear!--there's the girl. I'll tell you in the
morning...."
"I want to hear now.... Put it in my room, child, and go to bed." And
Cintilla says, "Yes, miss!" and vanishes to an innocent pillow. "I want
to hear now, and perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me."
"Come into my room!"
"Certainly!" Judith complies without reserves, dropping gracefully into
an armchair, after placing her candle in safety. She makes a parade of
her waiting patience. Sibyl, all aflame with flashing eyes, turns on
her after closing the door carefully.
"After what I have seen this evening, Judith, I know what to think....
No!--it's no use your denying it." Then in a lower voice, with the
flush on her cheeks spreading to her temples, she adds: "Not an
hour ago I saw that man Challis...." She pauses on the edge of her
indictment.
"You saw that man Challis...?"
"I saw that man Challis ... yes!--I don't care, Judith ... making love
to you in Tophet, with his arm round your waist."
"And where were you?"
"Up here in this room. My hair came down, dancing. And I looked out of
that window and _saw_ you. Oh, Judith!"
"Oh, Sibyl!" Judith repeats mockingly. She goes to the window with easy
deliberation. It is wide open on the summer night, for heat. "Of course
one sees Tophet from here," she says. "But how you could distinguish
Mr. Challis's arm, or my waist, is a mystery to me, at this distance."
"Have I no eyesight, Judith? I tell you I saw it all, as I stood
there where you are now. I saw him set fire to your scarf thing with
his cigar. And his arm was round you, and he was looking over your
shoulder. I saw it by the blaze-up, as plain as I see you now!"
Judith is undisturbed. "I see you have withdrawn my waist," she says.
She circles her diamonded fingers round its girth, and seems not
dissatisfied with the span they cannot cover. "But you've got the story
wrong, little sister."
"Being offensive won't do you any good."
"You _are_ my little sister, Sib dear! And you're a goose. Mr. Challis
showed me a letter, and was kind enough to hold a lighted match for me
to read it by."
Sibyl makes no reply. Her eyes remain fixed on her sister as she turns
a bracelet on her arm uneasily. Evidently she only half believes her.
Can she be lying? It is a matter on which a woman who has never lied
before will lie freely. One who has flirted, at such close quarters,
with another woman's husband, will tell her sister lies rather than
admit it. Sibyl wishes, on the whole, that Judith would look her in the
face as she speaks, instead of being so wrapped up in a landscape she
knows by heart.
Judith seems inclined to get out of hearing of that subject--has had
enough of it. "It seems a shame," she says, "to go to bed on such a
heavenly night. But I suppose one must!"
Sibyl is not going to be fubbed off with any such evasions. She has
made up her mind, this evening--this is in strict confidence--to accept
a peer's son who will be a peer himself when his father ceases to be
one, and she is keenly alive to the desirability of avoiding family
scandals just at this crisis. If Judith is going to bring a slur on
an honourable name, thinks Sibyl, let her do it after my coronet is
landed. Her blood is up.
"What was there in the letter?" she says bluntly.
"Sibyl dear, really!" There is amusement in Judith's tone, as of
forbearance towards juvenility.
Her sister mocks her. "Yes--_me_ dear, really!" she says. "What was
there in the letter?"
"May the catechism stop, if I tell you?" The yawn that begins in
these words lasts into what follows: "Oh, no, I don't mind telling
you, child! There was nothing to make a secret of. It was from his
affectionate wife--poor fellow! He really deserves something less
dowdy. Let me see, now, how did it run? Her dear Titus--that was
it!--she had had another letter from me, pressing her to come. Hadn't
written back. Would her dear Titus make me understand that she was too
much wanted at home to come away just now? Besides, she did not care
for society, as her dear Titus perfectly well knew. She would only be
in the way if she did come. It was much better she should have her
friends, and he his--spelt wrong: _ei_ instead of _ie_. Do you want to
know all the rest of the important letter? Very well! She had spent
yesterday evening with grandmamma at Pulse Hill, and dear Charlotte was
just gone. He was not to hurry back on her account, as it was easier
for--some name of a cook--when he was away. He had better stay as long
as he could, where he was being amused and flattered. And she was his
affectionate wife Marianne.... Have _you_ been flattering Mr. Titus
Scroop, Sibyl dear?"
Sibyl ignored the question. "Tulse Hill, I suppose," said she
thoughtfully. "Who's dear Charlotte, I wonder?"
"A Mrs. Eldridge. Nobody you know!"
"I wonder if she's good for dear Marianne." Simple truth must now
and then tax credulity, or be excluded from fiction. The whole of
the conversation is given above, and where or when on earth Sibyl
found in it anything to warrant this wonderment of hers Heaven only
knows! However, one can wonder at nothing, oneself, in these days of
Marconigraphs. Sibyl ended her speech with, "The woman's as jealous as
she can be--one can see that!"
"Can one?... oh, I dare say one can, dear! Only she's no concern of
mine. Suppose we go to bed."
"If you were Mr. Challis's wife, you might feel just as she does. And
if you were not really his wife, it would be all the worse."
"Of course, when one's neither, one doesn't care." This was faulty in
construction, yet neither sister felt that it could not be understood.
The hardships of a forgotten casual on the landing outside were
recognized with, "Oh dear! Why didn't you go to bed? It's nearly two
o'clock." And then sleep came in view, for those who were at home to
him.
If Judith said, "Not at home," was it any wonder? Think what an
amount of dissimulation she had gone through since that revelation
of Challis's in the garden--since what may have been a discovery
about herself of something she may have suspected before, but had
half-contemptuously dismissed! She may have more than once asked
herself the question, "Do I possibly love this man?" and laughed a
negative. But oh, the difference it makes when a man has said roundly,
"I carry your image in my heart, and cannot be quit of it." She had
played with edged tools, and had cut herself. The burn on her shoulder
was not the only result of tampering with fire that day, for her. Most
surely for her own sake, and his, concealment was the sacramental word,
for the moment. She had let him know she was unable to say she did not
love him; that was all! But an intent she had half formed in the very
core of her heart must be hidden from him. He must have no suspicion
that she would lend herself to a scheme that would take advantage of
a wretched legal shuffle--one of the most wretched that even Themis
has scheduled as a shift for the cancelling of a solemn contract.
Was she quite prepared to say she would not, for her own sake, jump
at an expedient granted by the solemnity of Law, to make Dishonour
seem honourable, and disallow the claims of this stupid, commonplace,
would-be wife, who was no wife at all? And who knew it, for that matter.
For this intention had sounded its first note in her heart as she read
that postscript, when the last match was all but burned out. She could
remember every word of it, as she paced to and fro in the silence of
her bedroom, fostering the idea it suggested. "I suppose you know"--so
poor fool Marianne had written, in her momentary fit of spleen and
obduracy--"what mamma always says about you and me--that we are not
really married at all. If so, I ought to go back and live with her,
and the sooner the better. Then you would be free, and I suppose it
would be Judith." For that was what the stupid, exasperated woman had
actually written, and next morning would have been so glad to plunder
the postman's bag of, when he disembowelled the vermilion pillar-box at
the corner.
But, as for Judith, her business was to bury the suggestion--which she
had read, and Challis had not--in her heart. Had she not a right to
hide her cloven foot, if it was one--to wear over it a pretext of her
reverence for the bond that linked this man to his dowdy wife, until
it broke asunder from its natural rottenness? What was that nauseous
saying male man was so fond of? "All's fair in Love!" and what the
foetid interpretations he felt no shame to put upon it? Why was all the
selfishness and meanness to belong to one sex alone?
And meanwhile Challis himself was tossing through the fever of a
sleepless night, until some wretched sleep was broken by Samuel calling
him at 6.30 in the morning, and the hoot of a motor outside. Samuel
explained that he had come later than the first time fixed, as his
lordship had placed the Panhard at Mr. Challis's disposal, and it would
more than make up the time. Challis was grateful.