A BAD RAILWAY ACCIDENT. AND, AFTER ALL, MARIANNE WAS AT HOME.
CHALLIS'S REPORT OF ROYD. BUT NO!--MARIANNE WOULDN'T HAVE JUDITH
SLURRED OVER
Just as the cloud-rift closed and spoiled the rainbow a sound came of a
cab approaching. Challis stopped in his restless pacing to-and-fro, and
listened.... Yes!--the cab was stopping. That might be Polly Anne? The
fact that his mind said "Polly Anne," by preference, showed that his
relief at her arrival--for he was one of those who always fidget when
folk are overdue--outweighed for the moment a feeling that he would be
glad when he had passed the Rubicon of looking her in the face. He was
conscious, though, as he ran downstairs to meet her, of a trace of the
alacrity one shows as one enters the dentist's sanctum, to convince
oneself one is really ready to have one's molar out. But before he got
to the swing-round of the banister curve he knew it wasn't Marianne
after all, this time!
Then, on the lower flight, he became conscious that it was that booby
John Eldridge; saying, as one in indecision: "No--stawp a bit! I'll
tell you in a minute," and then somehow contriving--as it were to fill
out a pause for thought--a certain bubbling or wobbling noise, made
with the end of his tongue between his lips. It was brief, for he soon
added: "Suppose you was to tell him I was here! _I_ can't see that any
harm'll come o' that. What's your idea?"
But Harmood's idea, if she had one, remained concealed behind her
professional manner; which was what the Sphinx's might have been, had
the latter taken a house-and-parlourmaid's place. For, perceiving
Challis on the stairs, she passed her visitor on to him without reply,
merely saying: "Mr. Eldridge, if you was at home, sir." This formula
left it open to her to cancel or ignore Mr. Eldridge if her employer
thought fit to deny his own existence in the face of evidence.
"I _am_ here," said Challis, descending. "Like the Duke's motto!
Marianne isn't, but I'm expecting her every minute. Anything up?"
This query related to a certain rosy uneasiness that hung about Mr.
Eldridge's hesitation of manner.
"Oh no! No--nothing! Only Lotty said you were coming back to-day.
Suppose we was to come in here!" "Here" was the front sitting-room,
looking to the road. Harmood closed the street-door, and died
respectfully away.
"By all means," said Challis. "Out with it, John!"
Mr. Eldridge struggled with obstacles to speech, which he endeavoured,
by ostentatious clearing of the throat, to refer to chronic bronchitis.
At last he got to "Mind you, Master Titus, it's ten to one there's
nothing in it! But I thought it just as well to look in and tell
you." Challis waited, with an ugly misgiving growing on him, till two
words with a shock in them came, blurted out by the speaker, whom
they left perturbed, mopping his brow and polishing his nose with his
handkerchief. "Railway Collision!" said Mr. Eldridge. "Bad job! But
don't you run away with the idea that...."
"That--that she--Marianne...."
"Ah! Well!--I tell you, Master Titus, I don't believe she was in the
train."
"You know nothing about it! Why didn't you stay to find out?" Challis
finds natural irritation with this booby's method an easement against
the new strain on his powers of bearing anxieties. One good point about
which is that Judith and Royd Hall vanish with a clean sweep. Face to
face suddenly with a hideous possibility, that Marianne may be killed
or maimed for life, he is completely back in his old life again, and
knows nothing outside the tension of the moment. In a very few seconds
he sees that his informant _does_ know nothing; having evidently, when
he witnessed or heard of this accident, become the slave of a singular
and not uncommon idea that the sooner ill news is heard the better, and
having rushed off with his without waiting for details or confirmation.
Challis gives him up as quite useless as an informant. "Your cab's
there?" he asks. And receiving an affirmative says with decision: "Wait
till I get my boots on!"
Mr. Eldridge throws a bit of good counsel after him as he runs upstairs
three steps at a time. "Don't you get in a stoo, Master Titus! Easy
does it." He then retires into the parlour, and fidgets, variously. He
drums on surfaces that offer themselves, feels about on his razor-farm
for interesting incidents, whistles truncated tunes that do not last
to identification-point, and frequently repeats, "Nothing to go
by--nothing to go by--nothing to go by!" shaking his head and looking
profound, till Challis comes quickly downstairs. He calls out to
Harmood in some remote background that he is going out, and doesn't
know when he'll be back.
The cabman is good for information, and coherent. A petroleum explosion
on the train from Haydon's Road. Just coming into the Station, and
hadn't slowed down enough. Guard injured--couldn't apply the brake.
Train ran beyond platform, and collided with truck, shunting. What did
they want to be shunting trucks for, with the train just due? Anyone
might have known there might be a petroleum explosion, and the guard
not be able to apply the brake. Or anything else, for that matter!
Anyone hurt? Oh ah, yes!--people enough hurt, if you came to that. All
right! You two gents, if you jumped in, should be at the Station in no
time.
Did you ever have the ill-luck to be the seeker after a possible
casualty in a railway accident? If you have you will be able to guess
what Challis went through in the hour that followed. Fortunately for
him, the crucial moment of inspection of the bodies of two women
unknown, for identification, was soon over. To a certainty, neither was
Marianne. So also the few cases too bad for immediate removal were soon
decided about--some without visiting them; these having been able to
give their names. And if Marianne had been among those who had started
for home, whether injured or scot-free, she would have been met on the
road. They would have been sure to see her, or she them.
Moreover, there were not many people in the train, and Mrs. Challis was
well known at the Station. She was a constant passenger by this line,
going to Tulse Hill via Streatham. The officials at the Station felt
sure they would have seen her had she been in the train. No other train
would follow for some time that Mrs. Challis could possibly come by.
Probably she had missed her train at Tulse Hill. Good job too, for her,
said public opinion.
So Mrs. Challis's husband, relieved, but with a swimming head, and very
uncharitable feelings in his heart towards the originator of all this
needless alarm, drove home beside that really very stupid person; and
so far as his own condition of semi-collapse permitted it, gathered the
story of his friend's share in the matter, and what he considered a
justification of his action.
It appeared that Mr. Eldridge had accompanied his wife to Wimbledon
Station, on her way to an evening appointment in London. As she was
getting into the carriage, the train on the other line came in from
Haydon's Lane. She said to her husband: "That's Marianne's train; she
was going to Tulse Hill. You can drive her back in your cab. You'll
find Titus at home. He was to be back to-day." Then, as her train left
the platform, he saw a sudden blaze of fire from the guard's van of the
other one; and the collision, as already described, resulted. A cooler
or stronger judgment than John Eldridge's would no doubt have exhausted
every source of information rather than jump at the conclusion that
his friend's wife was necessarily among the injured because he could
not find her among the survivors. His reasoning powers were not strong
enough to stand by him through the panic of the scene that ensued, and
he could see nothing for it but to convey the news of the supposed
disaster to her husband.
Challis was inhospitable enough not to press him to come in and dine,
and was so annoyed with his folly that he might not have done so even
if less desirous of a quiet evening with the subject of all this alarm,
who would no doubt appear in due course, though the best part of an
hour late. He felt secure that nobody could be connected hypothetically
with one mishap, and actually with another, on the same evening!
Impossible! Mr. Eldridge seemed not so confident; for he said at
parting, "Good-bye, Master Titus! Glad Marianne wasn't killed by _this_
train!" and drove off to his own domicile.
The garden-gate was not locked; this was owing to Challis's return. For
he always insisted that the front-door should be approachable, boys or
no, when he was in residence. He got in with his latch-key, and going
straight to the top of the kitchen-stairs, called out to Harmood, whose
response came duly.
"Tell Mrs. Steptoe she must keep dinner back. Your mistress will be
late."
"I beg your pardon, sir!"
"Tell--Mrs.--Steptoe she must keep--dinner--back!" Challis endorsed his
mandate with forcible word-isolations, and gave fuller particulars of
his reasons why. Harmood responded rather tartly:
"I beg your pardon, sir! Did you say Mrs. Challis?"
"Yes!"
"Mrs. Challis is come in, sir. Been in half-an-hour!"
"God bless me!" exclaimed Challis; and nearly added, "Why didn't you
tell me?"--which would have been absurd. But he was saved from this by
a voice from the floor above; Marianne's, unmistakably.
"Oh dear!--What _are_ you shouting down in the kitchen for? Why can't
you come up?"
"I'm coming, dear! When on earth did you come in?" His salute was
cordial. Hers was ... well!--she might have done better. But then, you
see, she knew nothing about all this excitement that was afoot. And
never forget that Mrs. Steptoe's legend of Ramsgate always hung in her
mind.
"I've been in this past half-hour. Why did you go out again? It makes
things so late."
"I'll tell you directly. How on earth did you get here?"
"How on earth did I get here?" It is slowly dawning on her that
something has happened. "I drove from the Station. Just as usual!... I
suppose that's the children."
"But how came we not to meet you?"
"Who?"
"John Eldridge and I--driving down to Wimbledon."
"How can I tell? I've not been at Wimbledon. I came from East Putney,
as I told you, in a cab. You'd better get ready for dinner."
"All right! But how came you to come by East Putney?"
Marianne always had an irritating way of treating her husband as though
he were inaudible and invisible. No doubt she meant no harm by it.
But husbands do feel secretly nettled sometimes if they are, as it
were, held in abeyance by a waved hand, to await the end of a colloquy
they are excluded from. Challis felt, at least, that he was very
good-humoured not to be nettled.
"What has made the children so late? I said no later than six." So
spoke the lady, eliciting revelations of delay caused by the children
hiding themselves. Due public censure of the offence followed.
* * * * *
Challis had become himself again by soup-time. "Well, Polly Anne,"
said he, "you've never told me how you came to go by East Putney!" The
trifling excitement over the child had such a thoroughly old-world
flavour with it that he was very much at home again, and Royd Hall had
slipped away to dreamland.
"Oh, I?" Marianne is not ill-humoured now. But she is, to a certain
extent, enduring her lot. You know how that's done? "A little bit of
stopping came out of my front tooth, and I had to go up to Kensington
to get it seen to. Of course, I hadn't written, and Roots and Leaver
kept me an hour and a half."
"What did he have to do?... painful?..."
"Oh no--nothing! He put some fresh stopping. Only a few minutes! What
took you to Wimbledon?"
"Well--you see!--our excellent friend John Eldridge came and told me
you were killed in the accident at Wimbledon Station...."
"Oh! Was there an accident?"
"Yes. Nobody we know in it. But two women killed and several injured.
It was petroleum." He gave particulars of the accident, dwelling on the
fact that the wrecked train was the one his wife would have been in if
she had not been at the dentist's. "But I _was_ at the dentist's," she
said, with a certain implication in her voice of "So I don't see what
you have to complain of."
However, it slowly dawned upon her that this was a case for recognition
of the mercies of Providence. These were of two classes; one of which,
known to her as Divine Forgiveness towards Sinners, on condition that
they went to church, was an entirely different thing from certain
good-natured impulses on the part of the Creator towards persons in
difficulties, prompting special intervention on their behalf to save
them from the blunders of Creation now that He had set it fairly going,
and left it to shift for itself. He was, it appeared, very catholic in
these impulses, as often as not giving non-churchgoers the benefit of
His reserved rights of intervention in the caprices of the material
universe. Challis believed that his wife used up all the theological
liberality of which she was capable in ascribing let-offs of Jews,
Turks, Heretics, and Infidels to special interventions which could only
postpone for a very short time their Eternal Damnation at the hands of
the intervening power.
However, he was in no mood just now for laughing at her; so he let it
be supposed that he acquiesced in what amounted to a suggestion that
Providence had knocked out that bit of stopping from her front tooth
in order to prevent her coming by that train. He kept absolute silence
through her acknowledgment of her indebtedness to her Maker, being very
careful not to allow his features to assume any expression whatever.
For he had found by experience that absolute glumness, total suspension
of speech and facial movement, with great caution and reserve in the
use of the pocket-handkerchief, if resorted to, was almost a religious
force in itself.
When the good lady had sufficiently discharged all her obligations
in the proper quarter, another aspect of the case seemed to present
itself. "But, my dear Titus, what a terribly anxious time you must have
had!"
He would sooner have had this earlier. Providence could have waited.
But--sooner now than never! "Why, my dear old girl," said he, "I was
simply terrified out of my wits!" A hearty laugh came with this all the
easier that it was his order of release from the ten-minutes' penal
servitude he had just undergone in the cause of his wife's religious
sensibilities. "Come now, old woman," he went on, "say you're sorry for
giving me such a fright."
"Why--of course I'm sorry! What makes you suppose I'm not? _I_ don't
want to give you frights, I'm sure!" She paused a moment over the
subject. Though _she_ was not killed, it might touch her home-circle
at some other point. "I wonder who the women were. Our laundress
brings the Wash from Streatham. It might have been her coming to-day."
She went on with particulars of the Wash; how it itself was centred
at Wimbledon, but there was a _succursale_ at Streatham, whence fine
linen, got up, might be brought by rail. Challis interrupted:
"These two women I saw were not washerwomen."
"Oh dear!--were they ladies?" A note of alarm. Marianne had assumed
that they were people. Challis strove not to seem to broach derision
on the well-worn subject. He said seriously, "Ye-es, I think so." But
then his inherent vice of mind got the better of him, and he added:
"Not Duchesses, certainly! But ladies, yes! Perhaps they were Baronets'
wives."
Marianne flushed angrily. "Now, Titus, you know that's nonsense! How is
it likely that both of them should be Baronets' wives, when there they
were in the same train. And you know perfectly well no one ever said a
word about Duchesses! So it's ridiculous!" But still a shot home seemed
wanting, so after a pause Marianne ended up: "I suppose it was meant
to be witty. Only if it's to be that, I shan't sit with you while you
smoke."
"No, Polly Anne dear, it's not to be that. Never mind my chaff! I
had the impression they were people in our own sort of position in
life--might have been friends of ours, don't you know! But we shall
hear fast enough."
This conversation had taken longer than appears by the story; because,
at a repast, converse travels slowly. Steptoe, or her equivalent, has
to be found fault with at intervals, deservedly. By this time the best
end of the neck, and the difficulty of carving it, were things of the
past. So also was a slight sub-ruction occasioned by Challis being
disgusting about Anne Boleyn's neck, and the bungling executioner who
wanted all his patients' necks to be jointed at the butcher's. It was
an old joke of his that always enraged Marianne. But he had begged
pardon, and the topic had vanished with its cause. This and some minor
matters had made it coffee-time, when Marianne threatened to retire
and leave Challis to enjoy his pipe alone.
She did not do so, being assuaged by her husband's seeming acceptance
of social distinctions. But it rankled, too, as will be seen by the
first thing she says to him as he settles down to his pipe. "Duchesses,
indeed!"
If it were fine they would be out in the garden at the back. Only the
drizzle is there still. But it keeps very close, too, and we must have
the window wide open. The lamp won't blow out if we stand it away
on the sideboard. This sideboard is the one that was bought--such a
bargain!--for Great Coram Street. Those rings on the drawers that
swing--handles to pull them open and find the corkscrew--are the rings
that Bob in his infancy was permitted to use as knockers in a drama
he was the hero of--a postman who delivered letters at very short
intervals indeed. Oh, how his surroundings of this evening stung
Challis with memories of his past! How they drove home to him the need
to keep at bay those outlying fires--or wild beasts, were they?--that
had made an inroad on his present.
If he could only have been a Roman Emperor now! Had he not read
lately somewhere how Hadrian had married two Persian Princesses--real
ones!--two at once!--as cool as a cucumber? Oh dear!...
What is that Marianne is saying? "_You're_ not the one to talk, Titus!"
"Talk about what, Polly Anne?" His first puff, with this, and he is in
great comfort and good-humour! The wild beasts are standing over.
"About Duchesses and Baronets' wives! Just look at your Grosvenor
Squares!" There is little or no ill-humour here. Rather it might be
called concession to good-humour; an admission of her husband's friends
to their talk as permanent objects--forgiven objects, certainly--of
critical raillery. No harm meant!
And if there were, Challis would ignore it, rather than have his pipe
spoilt. "Don't let's talk about them," he says. "Let's talk about our
Grosvenor Squares."
"_Your_ Grosvenor Squares!"
"_My_ Grosvenor Squares, then! Polly Anne shall have her own way."
And then he had to stifle at birth a most excruciating thought: "If I
had only just succeeded in keeping my accursed folly under, I might
now have continued, 'You know, Polly Anne dear, they might be _your_
Grosvenor Squares, too, and nothing would please me better. Why not
be jolly?'" How could he make such a speech now? His only chance of
a real tranquil life was to keep as far away from the source of his
disturbance as possible. He succeeded in suffocating the thought, and
repeated, "Let's talk about my Grosvenor Squares."
Marianne's reply was a grudging sound. "Well!--and how are they?" The
unspoken addendum seemed to be: "I suppose I must say _something_. What
do you make of this, my minimum? Take it!"
But Challis was in for pretending that all was well, and the world
unsullied by what Mr. Riderhood called "offences giv' and took."
Everybody was very well at Royd, he testified. Only this time the
house-party was so over-powering that he had not seen nearly so much of
the family as on the previous occasion. In fact, some of the members he
had hardly spoken to--a statement so intensely true that it brought his
veracity up to a reasonable average.
"Of course," he said, "I was obliged to talk a bit to the old boy. Just
as he was obliged to compliment the celebrated author on his last book.
But I never got on the subject on which he is really interesting, the
inner life of the Feudal System...."
"Which is...?" said Marianne. Who, on being offered "William the
Conqueror" as a substitute for his System, added: "Oh, I know! We used
to say him, 'William the Conqueror, one thousand and sixty-six.'"
Challis continued:
"Last time we had quite a long talk over it, and I'm not at all sure
that we don't agree in the long run. He contends that the ideal of
Feudalism...."
"What's that?"
"Same as the Feudal System ... that the ideal of Feudalism, properly
understood, is quite the noblest...."
"I beg your pardon, dear! Just one moment! _Yes_--Harmood! ... _what?_
You _must_ come near and speak louder.... Well!--I suppose he must have
eightpence. But tell him another time I shall go to Cowdery's, because
they did them for sixpence. You haven't twopence in coppers, have
you, dear?" Challis had, and the incident, whatever it was, closed.
Marianne's economical instincts, needed in old days, had survived their
necessity overmuch.
But the ideal of Feudalism didn't get properly understood that time.
Challis left it, and began somewhere else: "Her ladyship I scarcely
talked to at all, which I was sorry for, as I don't dislike her, and
I fancy she knew some people named Nettlefold when I was a boy." He
was quite aware of careless construction, fraught with suspicion of
imbecility; it really didn't matter. "As for Sibyl...."
"Do you mean Judith?"
"I mean Sibyl. I fancy she'll end by marrying that Lord Felixthorpe.
They are always about in his motor together. By-the-bye, I hardly
know how to thank that chap. He lent me his motor to the station this
morning. I like him. He's too good for Sibyl."
But Marianne's attention has been caught by the honey in a flower on
the way. "I don't understand these people and their ways," she says.
"But I suppose it's all right if it's a motor. Charlotte says because
of the chauffeur."
Challis's sense of the ludicrous gets the upper hand. "I should have
thought the chauffeur would be too much preoccupied," says he. "Anyhow,
I shouldn't be at all surprised to hear they were engaged, any day.
As for the party itself, there were some very interesting people this
time, and some most interesting talk on abstruse subjects after dinner."
But the lady felt she would rather hear Mrs. Eldridge on the meaning of
the word "abstruse" before she ventured out of her depth about it. A
queer word, that! Also, she does not mean to have Judith elided in this
way. "What about the other one?" she says bluntly.
There it was!--the gist of the whole situation in a nutshell. _What_
about the other one? As Challis laid down his pipe, half-smoked--a
strange thing for him--he was aware that, without being absolutely
tremulous, it would not do for him to bring his teeth very near
together without touching, or they would chatter. They must be either
clutched or parted. It is just possible that people exist who have
never had this experience.