THE HON. PERCIVAL PELLEW AND MISS CONSTANCE SMITH-DICKENSON, WHOSE
BLOOM HAD GONE OFF. OLD MAIDS WERE TWENTY-EIGHT, THENADAYS. HOW THE
TRAGEDY CAME OUT, AND MR. PELLEW TALKED IT OVER WITH MISS
SMITH-DICKENSON, ALTHOUGH HER BLOOM REMAINED OFF. WHO THE SHOT MAN
WAS. OF MR. PELLEW's CAUTION, AND A DARK GREEN FRITILLARY. WHAT YOU
CAN DO AND CAN'T DO, WHEN YOU ARE A LADY AND GENTLEMAN
At the Towers, in those days, there was always breakfast, but very few
people came down to it. In saying this the story accepts the phraseology
of the household, which must have known. Norbury the butler, for
instance, who used the expression to the Hon. Percival Pellew, a guest
who at half-past nine o'clock that morning expressed surprise at finding
himself the only respondent to The Bell. It was the Mr. Pellew mentioned
before, a Member of Parliament whose humorous speeches always commanded
a hearing, even when he knew nothing about the subject under discussion;
which, indeed, was very frequently the case.
Perhaps it was to keep his hand in that he adopted a tone of serious
chaff to Mr. Norbury, such as some people think a well-chosen one
towards children, to their great embarrassment. He replied to that most
responsible of butlers with some pomposity of manner. "The question
before the house," said he--and paused to enjoy a perversion of
speech--"the question before the house comes down to breakfast I take to
be this:--Is it breakfast at all till somebody has eaten it?"
"I could not say, sir." Mr. Norbury's manner is dignified, deferential,
and dry. More serious than need be perhaps.
The Hon. Percival is not good at insight, and sees nothing of this. "It
certainly appears to me," he says, taking his time over it, "that until
breakfast has broken someone's fast, or someone has broken his own at
the expense of breakfast.... What's that?"
"One of the ladies coming down, sir." Mr. Norbury would not, in the
ordinary way of business, have mentioned this fact, but it had given him
a resource against a pleasantry he found distasteful. Of course, _he_
knew the event of the morning. Yet he could not say to the
gentleman:--"A truce to jocularity. A man was shot dead half a mile off
last night, and the body has been taken to the Keeper's Lodge."
The lady coming downstairs was Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson, also
uninformed about the tragedy. She had made her first appearance
yesterday afternoon, and had looked rather well in a pink-figured muslin
at dinner. The interchanges between this lady and the Hon. Percival,
referring chiefly to the fact that no one else was down, seemed to have
no interest for Mr. Norbury; who, however, noted that no new topic had
dawned upon the conversation when he returned from a revision of the
breakfast-table. The fact was that the Hon. Percival had detected in
Miss Dickenson a fossil, and was feeling ashamed of a transient interest
in her last night, when she had shown insight, under the
guidance--suppose we say--of champagne. Her bloom had gone off, too, in
a strange way, and bloom was a _sine qua non_ to this gentleman. She for
her part was conscious of a chill having come between them, she having
retired to rest the evening before with a refreshing sensation that all
was not over--could not be--when so agreeable a man could show her such
marked attention. That was all she would endorse of a very temperate
Vanity's suggestions, mentally crossing out an s at the end of
"attention." If you have studied the niceties of the subject, you will
know how much that letter would have meant.
A single lady of a particular type gets used to this sort of thing. But
her proper pride has to be kept under steam, like a salvage-tug in
harbour when there is a full gale in the Channel. However, she is better
off than her great-great-aunts, who were exposed to what was described
as _satire_. Nowadays, presumably, Man is not the treasure he was, for a
good many women seem to scrat on cheerfully enough without him. Or is it
that in those days he was the only person employed on his own valuation?
In the period of this story--that is to say, when our present veterans
were schoolboys--the air was clearing a little. But the smell of the
recent Georgian era hung about. There was still a fixed period in
women's lives when they suddenly assumed a new identity--became old
maids and were expected to dress the part. It was twenty-eight, to the
best of our recollection. Therefore Miss Smith-Dickenson, who was
thirty-eight if she was a minute, became a convicted impostor in the
eyes of the Hon. Percival, when, about ten hours after he had said to
himself that she was not a bad figure of a woman and that some of her
remarks were racy, he perceived that she was going off; that her
complexion didn't bear the daylight; that she wouldn't wash; that she
was probably a favourite with her own sex, and, broadly speaking, an
Intelligent Person. "Never do at all!" said the Hon. Percival to
himself. And Space may have asked "What for?" But nobody answered.
On the other hand, the lady perceived, in time, that the gentleman
looked ten years older by daylight; that no one could call him corpulent
exactly; that he might be heavy on hand, only perhaps he wanted his
breakfast--men did; that the Pall Mall and Piccadilly type of man very
soon palled, and that, in short, that steam-tug would be quite
unnecessary this time.
Therefore, when Lady Gwendolen appeared, _point-device_ for breakfast as
to dress, but looking dazed and preoccupied, she found this lady and
gentleman being well-bred, as shown by scanty, feelingless remarks about
the absence of morning papers as well as morning people. Her advent
opened a new era for them, in which they could cultivate ignorance of
one another on the bosom of a newcomer common to both.
"Only you two!" said the newcomer; which Miss Dickenson thought scarcely
delicate, considering the respective sexes of the persons addressed. "I
knew I was late, but I couldn't help it. Good-morning, Aunt Constance."
She gave and got a kiss. The Hon. Percival would have liked the former
for himself. Why need he have slightly flouted its receiver by a mental
note that he would not have cared about its _riposte_? It had not been
offered.
"How well you _are_ looking, dear!" said Aunt Constance, holding her
honorary niece at arms' length to visualise her robustness. She was not
a real Aunt at all, only an old friend of the family.
"I'm not," said Gwendolen. "Norbury, is breakfast ready? Shall we go
in?... Oh no, nothing! Please don't talk to me about it. I mean I'm all
right. Ask Sir Coupland to tell you." For the great surgeon had come
into the room, and was talking in an undertone to the old butler. Lady
Gwendolen added an apology which she kept in stereotype for the
non-appearance of her mother at breakfast. The Earl's absence was a
usage, taken for granted. Some said he had a cup of coffee in his own
room at eight, and starved till lunch.
Other guests appeared, and the usual English country-house breakfast
followed: a haphazard banquet, a decorous scrimmage for a surfeit of
eggs, and fish, and bacon, and tongue, and tea, and coffee, and
porridge, and even Heaven itself hardly knows what. Less than usual
vanished to become a vested interest of digestion; more than usual went
back to the kitchen for appreciation elsewhere. For Sir Coupland,
appealed to, had given a brief intelligent report of the occurrence of
the morning. Then followed undertones of conversation apart between him
and the Hon. Percival, who had not the heart for a pleasantry, and
groups of two or three aside. Lady Gwen alone was silent, leaving the
narration entirely to her medical friend, to whom she had told the
incident of last evening--her interview with the man now lying between
life and death, and the way his body was found by following the dog. She
left the room as early as courtesy allowed, and Sir Coupland did not
remain long. He had to go and tell the matter to the Earl, he said.
Gwendolen, no doubt, had to do the same to her mother the Countess. It
was an awful business.
Said Miss Smith-Dickenson to the Hon. Percival, on the shady terrace, a
quarter of an hour afterwards, "He _did_ tell you who the man is,
though? Or perhaps I oughtn't to ask?" Other guests were scattered
otherwhere, talking of the tragedy. Not a smile to be seen; still, the
victim of the mishap was a stranger. It was a cloud under which a man
might enjoy a cigar, _quand meme_.
The Hon. Percival knocked an instalment of _caput mortuum_ off his; an
inch of ash which had begun on the terrace; so the interview was some
minutes old. "Yes," said he. "Yes, he knows who it is. That's the worst
of it."
"The worst of it?"
"I don't know of any reason myself why I should not tell you his name.
Sir Coupland only said he wanted it kept quiet till he could see his
father, whom he knows, of course. I understand that the family belongs
to this county--lives about twenty miles off." The lady felt so
confident that she would be told the name that she seized the
opportunity to show how discreet she was, and kept silence. _She_ was
quite incapable of mere vulgar inquisitiveness, you see. Her inmost core
had the satisfaction of feeling that its visible outer husk, Miss
Constance Smith-Dickenson, was killing two birds with one stone. The way
in which the gentleman continued justified it. "Besides, I know I may
rely upon _you_ to say nothing about it." Clearly the effect of her
visible, almost palpable, discretion! For really--said the core--this
good gentleman never set eyes on my husk till yesterday evening. And he
is a Man of the World and all that sort of thing.
Miss Smith-Dickenson knew perfectly well how her sister Lilian--the one
with the rolling, liquid eyes, now Baroness Porchammer--would have
responded. But she herself mistrusting her powers of gushing right, did
not feel equal to "Oh, but how nice of you to say so, dear Mr. Pellew!"
And she felt that she was not cut out for a satirical puss neither, like
her sister Georgie, now Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, to whom a mental review
of possible responses assigned, "Oh dear, how complimentary we are, all
of a sudden!"--with possibly a heavy blow on the gentleman's fore-arm
with a fan, if she had one. So she decided on "Pray go on. You may rely
on my discretion." It was simple, and made her feel like Elizabeth in
"Pride and Prejudice"--a safe model, if a little old-fashioned.
The gentleman pulled at his cigar in a considerative way, and said in a
perfunctory one:--"I am sure I may." Nevertheless, he postponed his
answer through a mouthful of smoke, dismissing it into the atmosphere
finally, to allow of speech determined on during its detention: "I'm
afraid it's Adrian Torrens--there can't be two of the name who write
poetry. Besides--the dog!"
The lady said "Good Heavens!" in a frightened underbreath, and was
visibly shocked. For it is usually someone of whom one knows nothing at
all that gets shot accidentally. Now, Adrian Torrens was the name of a
man recently distinguished as the author of some remarkable verse. A man
of very good family too. So--altogether!... This was the expression used
by Miss Smith-Dickenson's core, almost unrebuked. "Of course, I remember
the poem about the collie-dog," she added aloud.
"Can you remember the name of the dog? Wasn't it Aeneas?"
"No--Achilles."
"I meant Achilles. Well--his dog's Achilles."
"I thought you said there was no name on the collar."
"No more there was. But I understand that Gwen met him yesterday
evening--down by Arthur's Bridge, I believe--and had some conversation
with him, I gather."
"Oh!"
"But why? Why 'Oh!'--I mean?"
"I didn't mean anything. Only that she was looking so scared and unhappy
at breakfast, and that would account for it."
"Surely ..."
"Surely what?"
"Well--does it want accounting for? A man shot dead almost in sight of
the house, and by your own gamekeeper! Isn't that enough?"
"Enough in all conscience. But it makes a difference. All the
difference. I can't exactly describe.... It is not as if she had never
met him in her life before. _Now_ do you see?..."
"Never met him in her life before?..." The Hon. Percival stands waiting
for more, one-third of his cigar in abeyance between his finger-tips.
Getting no more, he continues:--"Why--you don't mean to say?..."
"What?"
"Well--it's something like this, if I can put the case. Take somebody
you've just met and spoken to...." But Mr. Pellew's prudence became
suddenly aware of a direction in which the conversation might drift, and
he pulled up short. If he pushed on rashly, how avoid an entanglement of
himself in a personal discussion? If his introduction to this lady had
been days old, instead of merely hours, there would have been no
quicksands ahead. He felt proud of his astuteness in dealing with a wily
sex.
Only he shouldn't have been so transparent. All that the lady had to do
was to change the subject of the conversation with venomous decision,
and she did it. "What a beautiful dark green fritillary!" said she. "I
hope you care for butterflies, Mr. Pellew. I simply dote on them." She
was conscious of indebtedness for this to her sister Lilian. Never
mind!--Lilian was married now, and had no further occasion to be
enchanting. A sister might borrow a cast-off. Its effect was to make the
gentleman clearly alive to the fact that she knew exactly why he had
stopped short.
But Miss Smith-Dickenson did _not_ say to Mr. Pellew:--"I am perfectly
well aware that you, sir, see danger ahead--danger of a delicate
discussion of the difference _our_ short acquaintance would have made to
me if I had heard this morning that _you_ were shot overnight. Pray
understand that I discern in this nothing but restless male vanity,
always on the alert to save its owner--or slave--from capture or
entanglement by dangerous single women with no property. You would have
been perfectly safe in my hands, even if your recommendations as an
Adonis had been less equivocal." She said no such thing. But something
or other--can it have been the jump to that butterfly?--made Mr. Pellew
conscious that if she _had_ worded a thought of the kind, it would have
been just like a female of her sort. Because he wasn't going to end up
that she wouldn't have been so very far wrong.
A name ought to be invented for these little ripples of human
intercourse, that are hardly to be called embarrassments, seeing that
their _monde_ denies their existence. We do not believe it is only
nervous and imaginative folk that are affected by them. The most prosaic
of mankind keeps a sort of internal or subjective diary of contemporary
history, many of whose entries run on such events, and are so very
unlike what their author said at the time.
The dark green fritillary did not stay long enough to make any
conversation worth the name, having an appointment with a friend in the
air. Mr. Pellew hummed _Non piu andrai farfallon amoroso_, producing
on the mind of Miss Dickenson vague impressions of the Opera,
Her Majesty's--not displaced by a Hotel in those days--tinctured
with a consciousness of Club-houses and Men of the World. This
gentleman, with his whiskers and monocular wrinkle responding to his
right-eye-glass-grip, who had as good as admitted last night that his
uncle was intimate with the late Prince Regent, was surely an example of
this singular class; which is really scarcely admissible on the domestic
hearth, owing to the purity of the latter. Possibly, however, these
impressions had nothing to do with the lady's discovery that perhaps she
ought to go in and find out what "they" were thinking of doing this
morning. It may be that it was only due to her consciousness that you
cannot--when female and single--stand alone with a live single gentleman
on a terrace, both speechless. You can walk up and down with him,
conversing vivaciously, but you mustn't come to an anchor beside him in
silence. There would be a suspicion about it of each valuing the other's
presence for its own sake, which would never do.
"Goin' in?" said the Hon. Percival. "Well--it's been very jolly out
here."
"Very pleasant, I am sure," said Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson. If
either made a diary entry out of this, it was of the slightest. She
moved away across the lawn, her skirt brushing it audibly, as the
cage-borne skirt of those days did, suggesting the advantages of
Jack-in-the-Green's costume. For Jack could leave his green on the
ground and move freely inside it. He did not stick out at the top. Mr.
Pellew remained on the shady terrace, to end up his cigar. He was a
little disquieted by the recollection of his very last words, which
remembered themselves on his tongue-tip as a key remembers itself in
one's hand, when one has forgotten if one really locked that box. Why,
though, should he not say to a maiden lady of a certain age--these are
the words he thought in--that it was very nice on this terrace? Why not
indeed? But that wasn't exactly the question. What he had really said
was that it _had been_ very nice on this terrace. All the difference!
Miss Dickenson was soon aware what the "they" she had referred to was
going to do, and offered to accompany it. The Countess and her daughter
and others were the owners of the voices she could hear outside the
drawing-room door when at liberty to expand, after a crush in half a
French window that opened on the terrace. Her ladyship the Countess was
as completely upset as her husband's ancestry permitted--quite white
and almost crying, only not prepared to admit it. "Oh, Constance dear,"
said she. "Are you there? You are always so sensible. But isn't this
awful?"
Aunt Constance perceived the necessity for a sympathetic spurt. She had
been taking it too easily, evidently. She was equal to the occasion,
responding with effusion that it was "so dreadful that she could think
of nothing else!" Which wasn't true, for the moment before she had been
collating the Hon. Percival's remarks and analysing the last one. Not
that she was an unfeeling person--only more like everyone else than
everyone else may be inclined to admit.