PSYCHOLOGIES ABOUT THE COUNTESS. HOW GWEN WOULDN'T GO TO ATHENS, OR
ROME, OR TO STONE GRANGE. BUT SHE WOULD GO WITH HER COUSIN CLO TO
CAVENDISH SQUARE. HOW THEY DROVE OVER TO GRANNY MARRABLE'S, AND
DAVE'S LETTER WAS TALKED ABOUT. HIS AMANUENSIS. OH, BUT HOW STRANGE
THAT PHOEBE SHOULD READ MAISIE'S WRITING AGAIN! AN ODIOUS LITTLE
GIRL, WITH A STYE IN HER EYE. AN IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE. HOW
MICHAEL'S FRIENDS SHOULD BE ESCHEWED, IF NOT HIMSELF. HOW GRANNY
MARRABLE AND HER SISTER HAD MADE SLIDES ON ICE THAT THAWED SEVENTY
YEARS AGO. HOW A LADY AND GENTLEMAN JUMPED FARTHER OFF
The Countess of Ancester was mistaken when she said to Gwen's mother
that that young lady was sure to cool down, as other young ladies,
noteworthily her own mother's daughter, had done under like
circumstances. The story prefers this elaborate way of referring to what
that august lady said to herself, to more literal and commonplace
formulas of speech; because it emphasizes the official, personal, and
historical character of the speaker, the hearer, and the instance she
cited, respectively. She spoke as a Countess, a Woman of the World, one
who knew what her duty was to herself and her daughter, and had made up
her mind to perform it, and not be influenced by sentimental nonsense.
She listened as a parent, really very fond of this beautiful creature
for which she was responsible, and painfully conscious of a bias towards
sentimental nonsense, which taxed her respect for her official adviser.
She referred to her historical precedent--her own early experience--with
a confidence akin to that of the passenger in sight of Calais, who dares
to walk about the deck because he knows how soon it will be safe to say
he was always a very good sailor.
But just as that very good sailor is never quite free from painful
memories of moments on the voyage, over which he might have had to draw
a veil, so this lady had to be constantly on her guard against recurrent
images of her historical precedent, during her periods of wavering
between her two suitors. Could she not remember--could she ever forget
rather?--Romeo's passionate epistles and Juliet's passionate answers,
during that period of enforced separation; when the latter had not begun
to cool down, and was still able to speak of Gwen's father--undeveloped
then in that capacity--as a tedious, middle-aged prig whom her
ridiculous aunt wanted to force upon her? Was it a sufficient set-off
against all this fiery correspondence that she had burned one
preposterous--and red-hot--effusion, and started seriously on cooling,
because a friend brought her news that Romeo was not pining at all, but
had, on the contrary, danced three waltzes with a fascinating cousin of
hers? Of course it was, said the Countess officially, and she had
behaved like a good historical precedent, which Gwen would follow in due
course. Give her time.
Nevertheless her unofficial self was grave and reflective more than once
over the likeness of this young Adrian to Hamilton, his father,
especially in his faculty for talking nonsense. Some people seemed to
think his verses good. Perhaps the two things were not incompatible.
Hamilton had never written verses, as far as she knew. No doubt that
Miss Abercrombie his father married was responsible for the poetry. If
he had married another Miss Abercrombie it might have been quite
different. She found it convenient to utilise a second example of the
same name; some suppositions are more convenient than others. She
shirked one which would have cancelled Gwen, as an impossibility. One
_must_ look accomplished facts in the face.
The cooling down did not start with the alacrity which her ladyship had
anticipated. She had expected a fall of at least one degree in the
thermometer within a couple of months. Time seems long or short to us in
proportion as we are, so to speak, brought up against it. Only the
unwatched pot boils over; and, broadly speaking, pudding never cools,
and blowing really does very little good. This lady would have _blown_
her daughter metaphorically--perhaps thrown cold water on her passion
would be a better metaphor--if her husband had not earnestly dissuaded
her from doing so. It would only make matters worse. If Gwen was to
marry a blind man, at least do not let her do it in order to contradict
her parents. Fights and Love Affairs alike are grateful to bystanders
who do not interfere; but interference is admissible in the former, to
assist waverers up to the scratch. In the latter, the sooner time is
called, the better for all parties. But if time is called too soon, ten
to one the next round will last twice as long.
The Earl also interposed upon his wife's attempt to stipulate for a
formal declaration of reciprocal banishment. "Very well, my dear
Philippa!" said he. "Forbid their meeting, if you like! You can do it,
because Adrian is bound in honour to forward it if we insist. But in my
opinion you will by doing so destroy the last chance of the thing dying
a natural death." Said Philippa:--"I don't believe you want it to"--a
construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl
let it pass, replying:--"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her
ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless
reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's
father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The
rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their
brows and woven into the patterns of the garments. Among them, two
images--a potential Adrian and a potential Gwen--each with one variation
of parentage, but quite out of court for St. George's, Hanover Square.
Are the Countess's thoughts obscure to you? They were, to her. So she
refused to entertain them.
In the Earl's mind there was an element bred of his short daily visits
to the young man, whose disaster had been a constant source of
self-reproach to him. If only its victim had been repugnant to him, he
would have been greatly helped in the continual verdicts of the Court of
his own conscience, which frequently discharged him without a stain on
his character. How came it, then, that he so soon found himself back in
the dock, or re-arguing the case as counsel for the prisoner? Probably
his sentiments towards the young man himself were responsible for some
of his discontent with his own impartial justice, however emphatically
he rejected the idea. There is nothing like a course of short
attendances at the bedside of a patient to generate an affection for its
occupant, and in this case everything was in its favour. All question of
responsibility for Adrian's accident apart, there was enough in his
personality to get at the Earl's soft corners, especially the one that
constantly reminded its owner that he was now without a son and heir.
For, since his son Frank was drowned, he was the father of daughters
only. It was not surprising that he should enter some protest against
any but a spontaneous cancelling of Gwen's trothplight. It was only fair
that spontaneity should have a chance. He did not much believe that the
cooling down process would be materially assisted by a spell of
separation; but if Philippa would not be content without it, try it, by
all means! If she could persuade her daughter to go with her to Paris,
Rome, Athens--New York, for that matter!--why, go! But the Earl's shrug
as he said this meant that her young ladyship had still to be reckoned
with, and that pig-headed young beauties in love were kittle cattle to
shoe behind. Those were the words his brain toyed with, over the case,
for a moment.
The reckoning bristled with difficulties, and every unit was disputed.
Paris was not fit to be visited, with the present government; and was
not safe, for that matter. Cholera was raging in Rome. Athens was a mass
of ruins from the recent earthquakes. Gwen wavered a moment over New
York, not seriously suggested. It was so absurd as to be worth a
thought. This seems strange to us, nowadays; but it was then nearly as
far a cry to Broadway as it is now to Tokio.
Appeals to Gwen to go abroad with her mother failed. She also made
difficulties--good big ones--about going with her parents to Scotland.
Her scheme was transparent, though she indignantly disclaimed it. How
could anything be more absurd than to accuse her of conspiring with
Irene towards a visit to that young lady at Pensham Steynes? Had she not
promised to live without seeing Adrian for six months, and was she not
to be trusted to keep her word?
She really wished to convince her father of the reality of her
attachment, apart from compensation due to loss of sight. So she agreed
to accompany Cousin Clotilda to London, and to stay with her at the
town-mansion of the Macganister More, who had just departed this life,
leaving the whole of his property to the said Cousin, his only daughter
and heiress. She rather looked forward to a sojourn in the great house
in Cavendish Square, a mysterious survival of the Early Georges, which
had not been really tenanted for years, though Sister Nora had camped in
it on an upstairs floor you could see Hampstead Heath from. It would be
fun to lead a gypsy life there, building castles in the air with Sister
Nora's great inheritance, and sometimes peeping into the great
unoccupied rooms, all packed-up mirrors and chandeliers and consoles and
echoes and rats--a very rough inventory, did you say? But admit that you
know the house! Its individuality is unimportant here, except in so far
as it supplied an attraction to London for a love-sick young lady. Its
fascination and mystery were strong. So were the philanthropies that
Sister Nora was returning to, refreshed by a twelve-month of total
abstinence, with more power to her elbow from a huge balance at her
banker's, specially contrived to span the period needed for the putting
of affairs in order.
So when Miss Grahame--that was the family name--went on to London, after
a month's stay at the Towers, Gwen was to accompany her. That was the
arrangement agreed upon. But before they departed, they paid a visit to
Granny Marrable at Chorlton, who was delighted at the reappearance of
Sister Nora, and was guilty of some very transparent insincerity in her
professions of heartfelt sorrow for the Macganister More. He, however,
was very soon dismissed from the conversation, to make way for Dave
Wardle.
Her young ladyship from the Castle hardly knew anything about Dave. In
fact, his fame reached her for the first time as they drove past the
little church at Chorlton on their way to Strides Cottage, Mrs.
Marrable's residence. Sister Nora was suddenly afraid she had "forgotten
Dave's letter after all." But she found it, in her bag; and rejoiced,
for had she not promised to return it to Granny Marrable, to whom--not
to herself--it was addressed, after Dave's return last year to his
parents. Lady Gwendolen was, or professed to be, greatly interested;
reading the epistle carefully to herself while her cousin and Granny
Marrable talked over its writer. But she was fain to ask for an
occasional explanation of some obscurity in the text.
It was manifestly a dictated letter, written in a shaky hand as of an
old person, but not an uneducated one by any means; the misspellings
being really intelligent renderings of the pronunciation of the
dictator. As, for instance, the opening:--"Dear Granny Marrowbone,"
which caused the reader to remark:--"I suppose that doesn't mean that
the writer thinks you spell your name that way, Mrs. Marrable, only that
the child _says_ Marrowbone." The owner of the name assented,
saying:--"That would be so, my lady, yes." And her ladyship proceeded:
"I like you. I like Widow Thrale. I like Master Marmaduke!"--This was
the other small convalescent, he who had an unnatural passion for Dave's
crutch, likened to Ariadne--"I like Sister Nora. I like the Lady. I like
Farmer Jones, but not much. I am going to scrool on Monday, and shall
know how to read and write with a peng my own self." "Quite a
love-letter," said Gwen, after explanations of the persons referred
to--as that "the lady" was the mother of her own personal ladyship; that
is, the Countess herself. Gwen continued, identifying one of the
characters:--"But that was hypocrisy about Farmer Jones. He didn't like
Farmer Jones at all. I don't.... That's not all. What's this?" She went
on, reading aloud:--"'Writited for me by Mrs. Picture upstairs on her
decks with hink.' I see he has signed it himself, rather large. I wonder
who is Mrs. Picture, who writes for him."
"We heard a great deal about Mrs. Picture, my lady." Sister Nora thought
her name might be Mrs. Pitcher, though odd. "I could hardly say myself,"
said Granny Marrable diffidently.
Gwen speculated. "Pilcher, or Pilchard, perhaps! It couldn't be Picture.
What did he tell you about her?"
"Oh dear--a many things! Mrs. Picture had been out to sea, in a ship.
But she will be very old, too, Mrs. Picture. I call to mind now, that
the dear child couldn't tell _me_ from Mrs. Picture when he first came,
by reason of the white hair. So she may be nigh my own age."
Gwen was looking puzzled over something in the letter. "'Out to sea in a
ship!'" she repeated. "I wonder, has 'decks' anything to do with
that?... N-n-no!--it must be 'desk.' It can't be anything else." It was,
of course, Mrs. Prichard's literal acceptance of Dave's pronunciation.
But it had a nautical air for the moment, and seemed somehow in keeping
with that old lady's marine experience.
Widow Thrale then came in, bearing an armful of purchases from the
village. With her were two convalescents; who must have nearly done
convalescing, they shouted so. The ogress abated them when she found her
granny had august company, and removed them to sup apart with an anaemic
eight-year-old little girl; in none of whom Sister Nora showed more than
a lukewarm interest, comparing them all disparagingly with Dave. In
fact, she was downright unkind to the anaemic sample, likening her to
knuckle of veal. It was true that this little girl had a stye in her
eye, and two corkscrew ringlets, and lacked complete training in the use
of the pocket-handkerchief. All the ogress seemed to die out of Widow
Thrale in her presence, and the visitors avoided contact with her
studiously. She seemed malignant, too, driving her chin like a knife
into the _nuque_ of one of the small boys, who kicked her shins
justifiably. However, they all went away to convalesce elsewhere, as
soon as their guardian the ogress had transplanted from a side-table a
complete tea-possibility; a tray that might be likened to Minerva,
springing fully armed from the head of Jove. "Your ladyship will take
tea," said Granny Marrable, in a voice that betrayed a doubt whether the
Norman Conquest could consistently take tea with Gurth the Swineherd.
Her ladyship had no such misgiving. But an aristocratic prejudice
dictated a reservation:--"Only it must be poured straight off before it
gets like ink.... Oh, stop!--it's too black already. A little hot water,
thank you!" And then Mrs. Thrale, in cold blood, actually stood her
Rockingham teapot on the hob; to become an embittered deadly poison, a
slayer of the sleep of all human creatures above a certain standard of
education. When all other class distinctions are abolished, this one
will remain, like the bones of the Apteryx.
"We'll pay a visit to Dave," said Sister Nora. "Perhaps he'll introduce
us to Mrs. Picture." Nothing hung on the conversation, and Mrs. Picture,
always under that name--there being indeed none to correct it--cropped
up and vanished as often as Dave was referred to. One knows how readily
the distortions of speech of some lovable little man or maid will
displace proper names, whose owners usually surrender them without
protest. That Granny Marrowbone and Mrs. Picture were thereafter
accepted as the working designations of the old twins was entirely owing
to Dave Wardle.
"Mrs. Picture lives upstairs, it seems," said Gwen, referring to the
letter. "I wonder you saw nothing of her, Cousin Chloe."
"Why should I, dear? I never went upstairs. I heard of her because the
little sister-poppet wanted to take the doll I gave her to show to a
person the old prizefighter spoke of as the old party two-pair-up. But I
thought the name was Bird."
"A prizefighter!" said Gwen. "How interesting! We _must_ pay a visit to
the Wardle family. Is it a very awful place they live in?" This question
was asked in the hope of an affirmative answer, Gwen having been
promised exciting and terrible experiences of London slums.
"Sapps Court?" said Miss Grahame, speaking from experience. "Oh
no!--quite a respectable place. Not like places I could show you out of
Drury Lane. I'll show you the place where Jo was, in this last Dickens."
Which would fix the date of this story, if nothing else did.
Granny Marrowbone looked awestruck at this lady's impressive knowledge
of the wicked metropolis, and was, moreover, uneasy about Dave's
surroundings. She had had several other letters from Dave; the latter
ones to some extent in his own caligraphy, which often rendered them
obscure. But the breadth of style which distinguished his early dictated
correspondence was always in evidence, and such passages as lent
themselves to interpretation sometimes contained suggestions of
influences at work which made her uneasy about his future. These were
often reinforced by hieroglyphs, and one of these in particular appeared
to refer to persons or associations she shrank from picturing to herself
as making part of the child's life. She handed the letter which
contained it to Sister Nora, and watched her face anxiously as she
examined it.
Sister Nora interpreted it promptly. "A culprit running away from the
Police, evidently. His legs are stiff, but the action is brisk. I should
say he would get away. The police seem to threaten, but not to be
acting promptly. What do you think, Gwen?"
"Unquestionably!" said Gwen. "The Police are very impressive with their
batons. But what on earth is this thing underneath the malefactor?"
Sister Nora went behind her chair, and they puzzled over it, together.
It was inscrutable.
At last Sister Nora said slowly, as though still labouring with
perplexity:--"Is it possible?--but no, it's impossible--possible he
means that?..."
"Possible he means what?"
"My idea was--but I think it's quite out of the question---- Well!--you
know there is a prison called 'The Jug,' in that sort of class?"
"I didn't know it. It looks very like a jug, though--the thing does....
Yes--he's a prisoner that's got out of prison. He must have had the Jug
all to himself, though, it's so small!"
"I do believe that's what it is, upon my word. There was an escape from
Coldbath Fields--which is called the Stone Jug--some time back, that was
in the papers. It made a talk. That's it, I do believe!" Sister Nora was
pleased at the solution of the riddle; it was a feather in Dave's cap.
Said Gwen:--"He did escape, though! I'm glad. He must have been a
cheerful little culprit. I should have been sorry for him to get into
the hands of those wooden police." Her acceptance of Dave's
Impressionist Art as a presentment of facts was a tribute to the force
of his genius. Some explanatory lettering, of mixed founts of type, had
to be left undeciphered.
The ogress came back from the convalescents; having assigned them their
teas, and enjoined peace. "You should ask her ladyship to read what's on
the back, Granny," she said; not to presume overmuch by direct speech to
the young lady from the Towers. The old lady said acquiescingly:--"Yes,
child, that _would_ be best. If you please, my lady!"
"This writing here?" said Gwen, turning the paper. "Oh yes--this is Mrs.
Picture again. 'Dave says I am to write for him what this is he has
drawed for Granny Marrowbone to see. The lady may see it, too.' ...
That's not me; he doesn't know me.... Oh, I see!--it's my mother...."
"Yes--that's Cousin Philippa. Go on."
Gwen went on:--"'It is the Man in High Park at the Turpentine
Micky'--some illegible name--'knew and that is Michael in the corner
larfing at the Spolice. The Man has got out of sprizzing and the Spolice
will not cop him.' There was no room for Michael Somebody, and he
hasn't worked out well," said Gwen, turning the image of Michael several
ways up, to determine its components. But it was too Impressionist. "I
suppose 'cop' means capture?" said she.
"That's it," said Sister Nora. "I think I know who Michael is. He's
Michael Rackstraw, a boy. Dave's Uncle had a bad impression of him--said
he would live to be hanged at an early date. He wouldn't be surprised to
hear that that young Micky had been pinched, any minute. 'Pinched' is
the same as 'copped.' Uncle Moses' slang is out-of-date."
She looked again at the undeciphered inscription. "I think 'Michael'
explains this lot of big and little letters," she said; and read them
out as: "'m, i, K, e, y, S, f, r, e, N, g.' Mickey's friend, evidently!"
"Oh, dearie me!" said the old lady. "To think now that that dear child
should be among such dreadful ways. I do wonder now--and, indeed, my
lady and Miss Nora, I've been thinking a deal about him, with his blue
eyes and curly brown hair, and him but just turned of seven.... I have
been thinking, my lady, only perhaps it's hardly for me to say ... I
_have_ been a wondering whether this ... elderly person ... only God
forgive me if I do her wrong!... whether this Mrs. Picture...." Granny
Marrable wavered in her indictment--hoped perhaps that one of the ladies
would catch her meaning and word her interpretation.
Sister Nora understood, and was quite ready with one. "Oh yes, I see
what you mean, Mrs. Marrable--whether the old woman is the right sort of
old woman for Dave. And it's very natural and quite right of you to
wonder. _I_ should if I hadn't seen the boy's parents--his uncle and
aunt.... Oh yes, of course, they are not his parents in the vulgar
sense! Don't be commonplace, Gwen!... nice, quiet, old-fashioned sort of
folk, devoted to the children. As for the prizefighting, I don't think
anything of that. I'm sure he fought fair; and it was the same for both
anyhow! He's an old darling, _I_ think. I'll show him to you, Gwen, down
his native court. Really, dear Granny Marrable, I don't think you need
be the least uneasy. We'll go and see Dave the moment we get up to
London--won't we, Gwen?"
"We'll go there first," said Gwen. But for all this reassurance the old
lady was clearly uneasy. "With regard to the boy Michael," said she
hesitatingly, "did you happen, ma'am, to _see_ the boy Michael.... I
mean, did he?..."
"Did he turn up when I was there, you mean? Well--no, he didn't! But
after all, what does the boy Michael come to in it? He'd made a slide
down the middle of the Court, and Uncle Moses prophesied his death on
the gallows! But, dear me, all children make slides--girls as well as
boys. I used to make slides, all by myself, in Scotland."
Granny Marrable's mind ran back seventy years or so. "Yes, indeed, that
is true; and so did I." She nodded towards the chimneyshelf, where the
mill-model stood--Dave's model. "There's the mill where I had my
childhood, and it's there to this day, they tell me, and working. And
the backwater above the dam, it's there, too, I lay, where my sister
Maisie and I made a many slides when it froze over in the winter
weather. And there's me and Maisie in our lilac frocks and white
sun-bonnets. Five-and-forty years ago she died, out in Australia. But
I've not forgotten Maisie."
She could mention Maisie more serenely than Mrs. Prichard, _per contra_,
could mention Phoebe. But, then, think how differently the forty-five
years had been filled out in either case. Maisie had been forced to
_ricordarsi del tempo felice_ through so many years of _miseria_.
Phoebe's journey across the desert of Life had paused at many an oasis,
and their images remained in her mind to blunt the tooth of Memory. The
two ladies at least heard nothing in the old woman's voice that one does
not hear in any human voice when it speaks of events very long past.
Gwen showed an interest in the mill. "You and your sister were very much
alike," she said.
"We were twins," said Granny Marrable. But, as it chanced, Gwen at this
moment looked at her watch, and found it had stopped. She missed the old
woman's last words. When she had satisfied herself that the watch was
still going she found that Granny Marrable's speech had lost its slight
trace of sadness. She had become a mere recorder, _viva voce_. "Maisie
married and went abroad--oh dear, near sixty years ago! She died out
there just after our father--yes, quite forty-five--forty-six years
ago!" Her only conscious suppression was in slurring over the gap
between Maisie's departure and her husband's; for both ladies took her
meaning to be that her sister married to go abroad, and did not return.
It was more conversation-making than curiosity that made Gwen
ask:--"Where was 'abroad'? I mean, where did your sister go?" The old
lady repeated:--"To where she met her death, in Australia.
Five-and-forty years ago. But I have never forgotten Maisie." Gwen,
looking more closely at the mill-model as one bound to show interest,
said:--"And this is where you used to slide on the ice with her, on the
mill-dam, all that time ago. Just fancy!" The reference to Maisie was
the merest chat by the way; and the conversation, at this mention of the
ice, harked back to Sapps Court.
"Of course you made slides, Granny Marrable," said Sister Nora; "and
very likely somebody else tumbled down on the slides. But you have never
been hanged, and Michael won't be hanged. It was only Uncle Moses's fun.
And as for old Mrs. Picture, I daresay if the truth were known, Mrs.
Picture's a very nice old lady? I like her for taking such pains with
Dave's letter-writing. But we'll see Mrs. Picture, and find out all
about it. Won't we, Gwen?" Gwen assented _con amore_, to reassure the
Granny, who, however, was evidently only silenced, not convinced, about
this elderly person in London, that sink of iniquities.
Gwen resumed her seat and took another cup of tea, really to please her
hosts, as the tea was too strong for anything. Then Feudalism asserted
itself as it so often does when County magnates foregather with village
minimates--is that the right word? Landmarks, too, indisputable to need
recognition were ignored altogether, and all the hearsays of the
countryside were reviewed. The grim severance between class and class
that up-to-date legislation makes every day more and more well-defined
and bitter had no existence in fifty-four at Chorlton-under-Bradbury.
Granny Marrable and the ogress, for instance, could and did seek to know
how the gentleman was that met with the accident in July. Of course,
_they_ knew the story of the gentleman's relation with "Gwen o' the
Towers," and both visitors knew they knew it; but that naturally did not
come into court. It underlay the pleasure with which they heard that Mr.
Adrian Torrens was all but well again, and that the doctors said his
eyesight would not be permanently affected. Gwen herself volunteered
this lie, with Sir Coupland's assurance in her mind that, if Adrian's
sight returned, it would probably do so outright, as a salve to her
conscience.
"There now!" said Widow Thrale. "There will be good hearing for Keziah
when she comes nigh by us next, maybe this very day. For old Stephen
he's just gone near to breaking his heart over it, taking all the fault
to himself." Keziah was Keziah Solmes, Stephen Solmes's old wife, whose
sentimentalism would have saved Adrian Torrens's eyesight if she had not
had such an obstinate husband. Stephen was a connection of the departed
saddler, the speaker's husband.
Said Sister Nora as they rose to rejoin the carriage:--"Now
remember!--you're not to fuss over Dave, Mrs. Thrale. _We'll_ see that
he comes to no harm." The ogress did not seem so uneasy about the child,
saying:--"It's the picture of the man running from the Police Granny
goes by, and 'tis no more than any boy might draw." Whereat Sister Nora
said, laughing: "You needn't get scared about Mickey, if that's it. He's
just a young monkey." But the old woman seemed still to be concealing
disquiet, saying only:--"I had no thought of the boy." She had formed
some misapprehension of Dave's surrounding influences, which seemed hard
to clear up.
Riding home Gwen turned suddenly to her cousin, after reflective
silence, saying:--"What makes the old Goody so ferocious against the
little boy's Mrs. Picture?" To which the reply was:--"Jealousy, I
suppose. What a beautiful sunset! That means wind." But Sister Nora was
talking rather at random, and there may have been no jealousy of old
Maisie in the heart of old Phoebe.
Moreover, Gwen's was not an inquiry-question demanding an answer. It was
interrogative chat. She was thinking all the while how amused Adrian
would have been with Dave's letter and the escaped prisoner. Then her
thought was derailed by one of the sudden jerks that crossed the line so
often in these days. Chat with herself must needs turn on the mistakes
she had made in not borrowing that letter to enclose with her next one
to Adrian, for him to ... to _what_? There came the jerk! What could he
see? Indeed, one of the sorest trials of this separation from him was
the way her correspondence--for she had insisted on freedom in this
respect--was handicapped by his inability to read it. How could she
allow all she longed to say to pass under the eyes even of Irene, dear
friend though she had become? She would have given worlds for an
automaton that could read aloud, whose speech would repeat all its eyes
saw, without passing the meaning of it through an impertinent mind.
Sister Nora was quite in her confidence about her love-affair; in fact,
she had seen Adrian for a moment, her arrival at the Towers on her way
from Scotland after her father's death having overlapped his
departure--which had been delayed a few days by pretexts of a shallow
nature--just long enough to admit of the introduction. She inclined to
partisanship with the Countess. Why--see how mad the whole thing was!
The girl had fancied herself in love with him after seeing him barely
once, for five minutes. It never could last. She was, however, quite
prepared to back Gwen if it did show signs of being, or becoming, a
_grande passion_. Meanwhile, evidently the kindest thing was to turn
her mind in another direction, and the inoculation of an Earl's
daughter with the virus of an enthusiasm which has been since called
_slumming_ presented itself to her in the light of an effort-worthy end.
Sister Nora was far ahead of her time; it should have fallen twenty
years later.
But she was not going to imperil her chances of success by using too
strong a _virus_ at the first injection. Caution was everything. This
projected visit to Sapps Court was a perfect stepping-stone to a
stronger regimen, such as an incursion into the purlieus of Drury Lane.
Tom-all-alone's might overtax the nervous system of a neophyte. The
full-blown horrors which civilisation creates wholesale, and remedies
retail, were not to be grappled with by untrained hands. A time might
come for that; meanwhile--Sapps Court, clearly!
The two ladies had a quiet drive back to the Towers. How very quiet the
latter end of a drive often is, as far as talk goes! Does the Ozymandian
silence on the box react upon the rank and file of the expedition, or is
it the hypnotic effect of hoof-monotony? Lady Gwen and Miss Grahame
scarcely exchanged a word until, within a mile of the house, they
identified two pedestrians. Of whom their conversation was precisely
what follows, not one word more or less:--
"There they are, Cousin Chloe, exactly as I prophesied."
"Well--why shouldn't they be?"
"I didn't say anything about shoulds and shouldn't. I merely referred to
facts.... Come--_say_ you think it ridiculous!"
"I can't see why. Their demeanour appears to me unexceptionable, and
perfectly dignified. Everything one would expect, knowing the
parties...."
"Are they going to walk about like that to all eternity, being
unexceptionable? That's what I want to know?"
"You are too impatient, dear!"
"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it _seems_
months. And never getting any nearer! And then when you talk to them
about each other, they speak of each other _respectfully_! They really
do. He says she is a shrewd observer of human nature, and she says he
appears to have had most interesting experiences. Indeed, I'm not
exaggerating."
"My dear Gwen, what _do_ you expect?"
"Oh--_you_ know! You're only making believe. Why, when I said to him
that she had been a strikingly pretty girl in her young days, and had
refused no end of offers of marriage, he ... _What_ do you say?"
"I said 'not no end.'"
"Well--of course not! But I thought it as well to say so."
"And what did he say to that?"
"He got his eyeglass right to look at her, as if he had never seen her
before, and came to a critical decision:--'Ye-es, yes, yes--so I should
have imagined. Quite so!' It amounted to acquiescing in her having gone
off, and was distinctly rude. She's better than that when I speak to her
about him certainly. This morning she said he smoked too many cigars."
"How absurd you are, Gwen! Why was that better?"
"H'm--it's a little difficult to say! But it _is_ better, distinctly.
There--they've heard us coming!"
"Why?"
"Because they both jumped farther off. They were far enough already,
goodness knows!... Good evening, Percy! Good evening, Aunt Constance!
We've had such a lovely drive home from Chorlton. I suppose the others
are on in front." And so forth. Every _modus vivendi_, at arm's length,
between any and every single lady and gentleman, was to be fooled to the
top of its bent, in their service.
The carriage was aware it was _de trop_, but was also alive to the
necessity of pretending it was not. So it interested itself for a moment
in some palpable falsehoods about the cause of the pedestrians figuring
as derelicts; and then, representing itself as hungering for the society
of their vanguard, started professedly to overtake it. It was really
absolutely indifferent on the subject.
"I suppose," said Miss Grahame enigmatically, as soon as inaudibility
became a certainty, "I suppose that's why you wanted Miss
Smith-Dickenson to come to Cavendish Square?"
Gwen did not treat this as a riddle; but said, equally
inexplicably:--"He could call." And very little light was thrown on the
mystery by the reply:--"Very well, Gwen dear, go your own way." Perhaps
a little more, though not much, by Gwen's marginal comment:--"You know
Aunt Constance lives at an outlandish place in the country?"
"Do you know, Gwen dear," said Miss Grahame, after reflection, "I really
think we ought to have offered them a lift up to the house. Stop,
Blencorn!" Blencorn stopped, without emotion. Gwen said:--"What
nonsense, Cousin Chloe! They're perfectly happy. Do leave them alone. Go
on, Blencorn!" Who, utterly unmoved, went on. But Sister Nora
said:--"No, Gwen dear, we really ought! Because I know Mr. Pellew has to
catch his train, and he'll be late. Don't go on, Blencorn!" Gwen
appearing to assent reluctantly, the arrangement stood; as did the
horses, gently conversing with each other's noses about the caprices of
the carriage.