CHALLIS'S VISIT TO THE RECTORY. A VISIT TO JIM AT THE WELL. HOW
LIZARANN WAS AT THE SEASIDE. ST. AUGUSTIN'S SUMMER. HOW THEY MET
SALADIN. HOW CHALLIS TOLD ALL
"Have him down here if you like, Athel," said Miss Caldecott to her
brother-in-law on the first of August, a little over three months
later. "I shall be in London with Phoebe and Joan. So it can't matter
to me. Only I think he ought to be on honour."
"How do you mean, aunty?"
"You know what I mean. On honour not to."
"Not to what?" But Aunt Bessy wasn't going to answer questions on the
subject, whatever it was. So she closed her eyes in harmony with an
expressive lip-pinch, and said _finis_ dumbly to this chapter of the
conversation. However, she began another.
"Apart from that, I don't like his tone," said she.
"I know you don't." This meant that the Rector didn't want the second
chapter. He harked back to the first. "Perhaps Sir Challis will promise
not to," said he.
"I don't see how you can ask him." This was said very dryly, and the
speaker indicated that it was an ultimatum by going on with a letter
she was writing.
For Miss Caldecott was a sort of inverse Charlotte Eldridge. To the
latter lady, as we know, the mention of a lady and gentleman, as such,
and such only, was as the sound of battle to the warhorse. The former
was very apt to petrify if the conversation went outside the limits
of the neuter gender without stipulating for a strict neutrality on
the part of the other two. A hint of what Mrs. Protheroe called "going
on" on the part of properly--or improperly--qualified masculines and
feminines was enough to make Aunt Bessy discover that we must be
getting back, and begin looking for those children's gloves.
Why Adeline Fossett had yearned to link the lives of this lady and
her friend Yorick was very difficult to guess. That, however, does
not belong to the story at present. Its business is with the lady and
gentleman responsible for the little bit of frigidity it has just
recorded.
When Athelstan Taylor called at the Hermitage in April, just after
Challis's arrival in England, he threw out, in thoughtless hospitality,
a suggestion that the latter should pay him a visit in the Autumn. The
invitation was jumped at, and the Rector perceived afterwards that
there might have been a reason for this, to the possibility of which he
was at the moment not sufficiently awake. But he was too honourable to
go back on his word.
If he had felt sure enough of his ground he might have spoken frankly
to Challis, and put him off till some time when Judith's absence from
the Hall was a certainty. But he had not enough to go upon for that. He
found out the poverty of his case by attempting a letter to Challis.
"My dear Challis--You know me, and I know you will excuse my speaking
plainly...." And then had to think what the plain speech was to be.
He considered "I know that you and Miss Arkroyd are quite within your
rights when, etc.," and "I think your wife's strange conduct has left
you free to take advantage of what I should otherwise regard as a
legal shuffle, etc."; and "I know you would not avail yourself of my
hospitality to, etc."; and even "I can't have you making love to Judith
Arkroyd while you are staying at the Rectory, etc."; but concluded by
rejecting them all--he liked the last best--and tearing his letter to
fragments.
He ended by saying to himself: "These are not young people, to be
_chaperon_'d and guardianed. If they are in earnest, they will not
be kept apart by _not_ having Challis at my house. And the more I
see of Challis the better my chance of influencing him towards the
wiser course." A little sub-commune with his soul as to whether he
was quite sure he was not being influenced by his relations with the
county-families and the Bishop confirmed him, and Challis came down to
Royd Rectory early in August. Thus it had come about that the Rector
and his guest, one day in the middle of that month, were walking about
in an early-morning garden--breakfast is very early at the Rectory
when its master is by himself there--using up their subjects of
conversation; or, rather, perhaps we should say, chat.
You know what a fool one always is about that, when one goes to stay
with a friend; how one gets gravelled for lack of matter, and the old
subjects have to do a second time, and more. Challis had come down from
London by a late train the night before--too late to indulge in arrears
of common topics then and there. That slaughter of the innocents had
been postponed till next day.
"How's our poor friend blind Samson and his small daughter?" The
recollection of Lizarann--more than a twelvemonth past, mind
you!--twinkles in the speaker's face as he blows a cloud from his
invariable cigar.
"Lizarann's getting on capitally, according to the latest accounts.
Samson's become a public character, and is making himself useful as a
sort of human pump. Do you want a large bucket of water?"
"Not at this moment. But I may some time. Why?"
"When you do, Samson will wind you one up from under the chalk, as
fine a bucket of water as you'll find in the country. It isn't good
for gout, certainly. But otherwise it's perfect. Not the ghost of a
microbe!"
"Perhaps the microbes were gouty, and died of it. An image of a well
presents itself to me, with Samson everlastingly raising water, and
villagers bearing it away in pails."
"You've got it exactly. We'll pay Samson a visit."
"Of course we will. I like the idea of Samson at the well-head.... But,
I say, Reverend Sir!..."
"What's the question?"
"How about the little wench? Samson's little wench."
"I told you. She's getting on capitally...."
"That's just what I mean. What business has a little wench to be
getting on capitally? Has she been ill?"
"I should hardly put it that way. No--I think I may say she hasn't
exactly. But this chest-delicacy made the womankind and the doctor a
little uneasy. On the whole we thought it best to send her down to
Chalk Cliff to get a good dose of sea air. It appears to be setting her
up."
Challis glanced shrewdly at the Rector's face of discomfort. "Sea air's
the thing," he said. "Does wonders!" And both felt very contented with
the effect of imaginary sea air on imaginary human lungs.
That remark we made, a page ago, about the way one uses up one's
material for talk so heedlessly, was made with a reservation. It should
only be applied to _causeries_, not to serious debate of deep interest.
There are two distinct strata of conversation with all people; the
things that interest us generally are the top stratum; those that touch
us are the second. Go a little deeper, and you will reach those that
put us on the rack. Only, when it comes to that, is it conversation any
longer? What is it?
These two men had plenty to talk about in the top stratum--enough to
fill the day out had they chosen. But the Rector had no intention of
leaving the second untouched, and no fear of digging down to the third,
if need were. There was, however, no need for either yet awhile. Both
might remain in abeyance, under a silent pact, as long, at least, as
the sun shone. Serious talk-time comes with lamps and candles. Once
in the day Challis was conscious of the thinness of the crust of the
second stratum. On their way to visit Jim's well-head he asked his
companion whereabouts it was. "Half-way between the village and the
Hall," was the reply--"perhaps rather nearer the Hall than the village.
Oh yes--certainly nearer!" Challis asked--to make talk, for he knew
the answer to his question--whether the family were there now. "Miss
Arkroyd isn't," said the Rector.
"I have never seen blind Samson, you know," said Challis. "Only the
little cuss." The recollection of Lizarann brought a twinkle to his
face. To his companion's, none. Who, however, says gravely: "She was a
dear, amusing little thing."
Blind Samson is on duty. The blaze of a sun, low enough to make long
shadows, shows the wreck of a man, his face bronzed now by its glare
through a hot summer and the congenial effort of the well-handle. A
little way off you would not know the eyes saw nothing, but for their
never flinching from the sunlight that strikes full upon them. Going
nearer, you would know them for dead. So too, if his legs were hidden
as he leans on the bearing-post, puffing placidly at his pipe, you
would judge him a fine sample and a strong, well cast indeed for the
part of Samson.
"Jim's a popular chap in these parts," says the Rector as they draw
near. "Our barber in the village tells me he always looks forward to
Mr. Coupland's weekly visit. Every Saturday Jim goes to him--in spite
of a fiction he indulges in that he can shave himself--to be ready for
church on Sunday."
"I thought you said the other day--I mean last April--that he was a
worse heathen than myself?"
"So he is. But he has made a compromise with his Maker--whom he
disapproves of strongly otherwise--on the score of music. He is a
tremendous addition to the village choir. I fancy he was always
musical, but his blindness has developed the faculty."
"Well--it must be water in the desert for poor Jim. Here we are, I
suppose?"
A dog came down the path of worn bricks, set on edge, that leads to the
well. He is Jim's dog, and very important, for he conducts Jim to the
well and back daily, in Lizarann's absence. But the actual importance
of this dog, though great, is as nothing compared to his conviction
of it. This, if it does not amount to a belief that he turns the
well-handle, lays claim to reserved powers of veto over, or permission
conceded to, Jim's interference with the water-supply. He smells every
applicant for water carefully, to see that all is right, and he glances
into every bucket before it leaves the well-head, and occasionally
tastes the contents, as though in search of microbes. In his opinion
it is entirely owing to him that the well has not been poisoned by
bicyclists, who are afraid to stop and effect their wicked purposes
because of the promptitude with which he runs out and barks at them.
He appears to sanction Challis and the Hector, and to explain them,
obligingly, to his principal--or perhaps we should say employee.
"I caught the sound of ye, coming down the road, master," says Jim.
"You're a glad hearing to a man, a marning like this. A sight for sore
eyes, as the saying is." Which was said with such a serene, unconscious
confidence that it almost imposed on his hearers. Jim didn't let the
Rector's hand go at once. "Nothing further, I lay?" said he anxiously.
"Not since yesterday, Jim. I thought the letter a good one. I've
brought it back in my pocket.... We're talking about his little girl,
Challis, down at Chalk Cliff.... This is Sir Alfred Challis, Jim, a
friend of Lizarann's."
Jim seemed puzzled for a few seconds, perhaps not recalling the name in
its present form; then experienced illumination. "Ay, sure, sir!... I
lost my bearings for the moment.... The little lassie, she's talked of
you many's the time. But that'll be a while back?"
"Over a twelvemonth, Jim," says Challis, and his inner soul adds, "And
what a twelvemonth!" But he has to talk about the child. "I'm sorry
she's not here, Jim," he says, and means it. "We made great friends,
your little lassie and I did. She said she liked me better than she did
her aunt."
Jim laughed delightedly. "There never was love lost between the
lass and her Aunt Priscilla. They weren't cut out for berth-mates."
Nevertheless, he didn't want to leave his sister quite out in the cold.
"Priscilla's a good-hearted woman, ye know, too, when all's told. But
she's had some bad times ... a bad husband...." He hesitated on his
condemnation, and went for palliation instead. "Well!--perhaps that's
too hard a word. Poor Bob Steptoe!--he'd have made a better end but
for his drawback. He took a good rating as a cobbler." Jim paused,
perplexed by some reminiscence. "I don't hear much nowadays of my
sister Priscilla; not since I come down here. I make out she's in
service with a lady at Wimbledon." The fact is, Jim and Aunt Stingy
were drifting apart by tacit consent.
Challis ought to have been able to contrive a reminder that Aunt
Stingy was his cook. He began by saying: "Of course--with my wife.
She's our cook at the Hermitage." That wouldn't do, clearly. Try again!
"She's our cook at home." He wasn't at all sure this wasn't worse. He
decided on, "She cooks for me, you know, when I'm in London," but threw
up entrenchments against possible surprises by changing the subject.
"So your little maid's gone to the seaside?"
Jim forgot Aunt Stingy with avidity. "Ah! for sure she has!" said
he. "My little lass! But she's coming back early next month. Ask the
master!"
"Early next month, Jim. That's the fixture." Is there a trace of
cheerful reassurance in the Rector's voice? Yes--just enough to produce
misgiving in Jim. It has to be stifled in its birth. Jim treads bravely
over the cinder-traps--the fires smouldering underground. "Ye see,
gentlemen," he says, "it's this way: If my lassie comes back afore
September, there'll maybe be a spell of sunshiny weather fit for a
lassie to see her Daddy a mile down the road. Belike, too, stop a
little to bear him company, in the best o' the day. Many a September
month have I known, early morning apart, to compare with the rarest
days of the summer."
"They call it a summer, you know, Jim. St. Augustin's summer." So says
Challis; and he is ready to supply any climatic record to please Jim.
"Sometimes the thermometer has been known to stand at ninety in the
shade."
Jim is greatly impressed, and very happy over this. He sees before him,
in imagination, a fortnight or three weeks of matchless weather, with
Lizarann beside him. His soul laughs; indeed, his lungs join chorus.
"What did the doctor say again, master?" says he.
But Athelstan's face is one of concern. The doctor's report had been,
alas! that the effect of the sea air would very likely begin to tell on
the patient when she got back. She would, no doubt, be better when she
got back to her father, about whom she was fidgety. This doctor kindly
vouched for the same thing having happened several times in like cases.
Challis watched his friend as he made out the best tale he could. Do
you remember Challis's first appearance in this story, and how we spoke
of him as perceptive? He was that, and all sorts of little intimations
constantly reached him, by mysterious telegraphies, of concurrent
events--things many would miss altogether. No wonder he read between
the lines of Athelstan Taylor's version of the doctor's report! No
wonder!--for any but a blind man would have detected in the Rector's
serious face how little he believed the well-worn forms of speech folk
use to keep the hearts of others alive, in case--just this one time--a
real change for the better should come, or the last new remedy should
fulfil the promises of the ream of testimonials it was wrapped in when
we bought it. But the Rector threw as much hope as he dared into his
telling, and did well, on the whole. And Jim was satisfied for now.
A little later, when the two were starting to go back to the Rectory by
a roundabout way, having left Jim attending to the demands for water
of an influx of applicants, Athelstan Taylor said to Challis: "I felt
quite ashamed of myself just now.... What for? Why, for talking all
that stuff to Jim about poor little Lizarann! But what can one do?
There's nothing to be gained by plunging the poor fellow in despair, as
long as any hope remains of her outgrowing it."
"You mean there is some hope, then?"
"Some." That was all the Rector said.
"I see. But is it to be a long job?"
"Probably not--probably not. But she may live for some little time
yet--with care. I don't know how much Jim knows or suspects."
"Where is she now actually?"
"It's called the Browne Convalescent Home, at Chalk Cliff, in Kent.
Sidrophel--I should say Pordage--said he saw no object in sending her
to a mild lowering place at this time of year. What she wanted was
the sea-air, and he is very much in love with Chalk Cliff. Well!--one
smells the seaweed there."
"It's the iodine, I suppose." Challis's mind travelled to his own
children, who were, he hoped, soaking in the iodine, wallowing in the
sand, wading in the shallows, and not keeping their things out of the
water. Should he ever see Mumps and Chobbles again? Possibly. Suppose
he were to meet them years hence, lengthened and completed, at Girton,
perhaps--even engaged; who can tell?--would they know him again?
His thoughts rushed swiftly, _more suo_, to the construction of all
sorts and conditions of social horrors, beginning with an improbable
evening party with Chobbles in the foreground, and her married sister,
and a fiendish necessity for explaining to a dazzling lady who was
charmed with both of them, that they were his children by his former
marriage--the very identical Mumps and Chobbles he had so often told
her about! But that dream was soon sent packing, although the dazzling
lady said, with a pleasant, graceful contempt for all correlatives of
Grundy: "You _must_ come and see me, you two dear girls! Do let's be
German, and take no notice of things. Never mind the _orkwidities_,
as my husband calls them." A worse phantasm followed. Two girls in
mourning beside a grave, and "Marianne, daughter of James and Sarah
Craik," on the headstone. So vivid was the impression that the words
were on his lips: "Mumps and Chobbles, don't you know me?" He shook it
off, denouncing its intrinsic absurdity, even while he admitted he had
no justification for doing so. Marianne would die, and so would he, and
neither would be beside the other when the hour came.
"Am I going too quick for you?" said the Rector. He had broken into
his tremendous stride, as he was always apt to do when not checked.
Challis admitted his limitations, and suggested that they might go
easily up this hill. As this hill was a short-cut across a curve of
the road, and the path over it was zig-zagged, and landslipped, and
fern-grown, besides seeming to consist almost entirely of rabbit-holes,
it was not a hill to go up easily, in any literal sense. But Challis
had only intended to suggest moderation. He gave his whole soul to
avoiding burrows, and reached solid ground alive. As he approached the
top, alongside of his companion, he was aware of a huge dog, blue-black
against the sky, on the ridge in front of them. Saladin appeared to
be waiting for them, and to have time on his hands. Whistled to, he
condescended to trot towards them, the sooner to meet. Interrogated as
to his reasons for being there by himself, he kept silence, but smelt
his questioners.
Perhaps he wasn't by himself. Surmise inclined to the supposition that
the carriage was in the neighbourhood; probably Lady Arkroyd, driving
back from Thanes, said the Rector. But attentive listening established
carriage-wheels on the road from Furnival--the opposite direction.
"It's Miss Arkroyd coming from the station. She was coming by the
two-forty from Euston." So spoke Challis.
The Rector looked full at him. "How did you know?" said he. He seemed a
good deal surprised.
"Because she told me," said Challis. He in his turn seemed surprised at
the surprise of the other, and interrogation remained on the face of
both. Saladin seemed able to wait.
After a moment the Rector said suddenly: "Because she's been away at
her sister's--Brayle Court, you know--the Felixthorpes'."
"Yes; why not? She told me three weeks ago she was coming to-day. She
drove to Bletchley from Brayle."
Athelstan Taylor's face was a funny mixture of perplexity and mild
reproach, not without confidence in his companion. "But why didn't you
say so?" said he.
"You mean when you mentioned her just now--just before we came to
Jim? Well!--because I didn't want to spoil our walk.... There's the
carriage!"
The carriage was there, in the road some distance below, and was
whistling for Saladin. He appeared to accept the whistle as a courtesy
on its part, intended to keep him _au fait_ of its movements and
whereabouts. Otherwise he had a short time at his disposal, and would
pass it in giving sanction and encouragement to his present companions.
The horses' hoofs and the whistle passed and grew less in the distance,
but Saladin remained undisturbed and statuesque.
"No," said Challis; "I didn't want to spoil our walk. Indeed, I'm in
two minds if I shouldn't do better to say nothing at all about it."
"About what?"
"Well!--that's just the point. However, as I've leaked out this much, I
suppose I may as well tell. About myself and Judith Arkroyd."
"Oh dear!" said the Rector, "I had been supposing--I mean I had been
beginning to hope--that was all at an end...."
Saladin had no more time to spare for nonsense of this sort. He went
with a rush--the rush of a sudden whirlwind--crashing through mere
valueless briar and fern like gossamer; but suggesting that it was for
_their_ sakes, not his, that he steered clear of timber-trees. The
carriage, still audible, became aware of him, and stopped whistling.
"I want to tell you all about it on my own behalf. And I suspect Judith
will on hers." So Challis spoke, when the lull came. He then went on
to tell all that this story has told, and it may be more. And the
narrative lasted all the way back to the Rectory.