In which I am more Sinned against than Sinning
WHILE eight men were scrubbing themselves in the bath-room prior to the
dinner bell, their behaviour, as is only too usual when eight men are
trying to do the same thing at the same time, was not too lady-like.
Their talk also was breezy and of a rather penetrating kind.
“If Brightside’s not here to-night with intent,” said Elphinstone, in
his slow, clerical sing-song, in the middle of a free fight round a
bath-towel, “you can call me American. I’ve been looking at Brightside,
and I’m certain that he meditates making a silly ass of himself.”
“Do you, Brightside?” I cried, with deep feeling.
“Oh, damn,” said the Optimist coarsely. But his complexion was becoming
a fine tawny.
“He’s going through with it to-night though, if it kills him,” said the
wicked little parson.
“More likely to kill her,” said Carteret.
“Matter of opinion,” said the little parson: “but one can’t help
respecting Brightside. No earthly and all that, he knows, but I’m
certain that he’s going to cause Grace to become a sister to him.”
“So there!” said Carteret.
“We call ’em the Bougheys, you know,” said the wicked little parson,
in a disgustingly confidential tone, “in affectionate remembrance of
that noble idiot over the way. ’Comes here every fortnight now to get
Grace’s opinion as to what marl he should put on his wickets in the
winter, and whether in her opinion grass seeds are superior to new
turf, or _vice versa_. She’s a sister to him, his step-sister, his
sister-in-law, his deceased wife’s sister, his aunt, his grandmother,
his niece, his cousin, his second cousin; and our dear, delightful
Grace now spends her time in inventing new relationships, as she’s
quite used up the Prayer-book. Last time he came she promised to be his
Prussian cousin. I don’t doubt that in the end she’ll be his murderess.
Isn’t it a pity that the English aristocracy has no sense of humour?
And from what that man Comfort told me at lunch, I rather fear that
Dimsdale is also to have an attack of incipient dam silliness.”
“It’s coming; I can feel it,” said I, with brazen effrontery. “Brown
holland’s kept me awake all night; and the encouraging part of it is, I
feel as though I shall never sleep again until I’ve converted myself
into a form of common amusement.”
“Well, here’s my sympathy, old man,” said Charlie, hurling a missile at
me, which I mistakenly thought was nothing more serious than a loofah.
But the moment it crashed against my cheek-bone I suddenly arrived at
the conclusion that there must be a cake of brown Windsor carefully
wrapped inside it.
It is rather a pity that I don’t wield the pen of Truthful James,
considering what transpired when I mistakenly attempted to discuss the
matter with the man who had thrown the soap. But as Charlie had the
brute force of a bullock, and didn’t know his strength, in less than a
minute I was very sorry that I had chosen to grapple with him. Had it
not been that the Rev. Mr. Elphinstone, who was really a most intrepid
little man, used his feet and elbows freely, at the crucial moment, on
the best bowler in England’s sacred person, I should have been killed
undoubtedly.
When the interested bystanders had repaired these breaches of the peace
by a liberal application of cold water and hard epithets, the bell
summoned us to dinner. We were in no position to obey it, however,
until I had borrowed a collar from Charlie to replace the one that he
had torn in two, and until my brave friend, the little parson, had
changed his shirt, as the one that now adorned him had been exceeding
mutilated. Charlie himself, who was as hard as steel, and wiry as a
mustang, was much as he was before this lamentable affair, except that
he was now breathing through his mouth instead of through his nose.
“There’s really no hurry, Toddles, you know,” said Archie, while that
ornament of the Church sponged the blood from his teeth. “It’s only
ten minutes since the bell went, and if there’s one thing the Guv
does thoroughly enjoy, it is for a curate to come between him and his
dinner. And it would make us all so sorrowful if you were to forfeit
his high opinion, for we all feel that you will never be able to impose
on anybody else. Besides, you won’t be in time to say the grace, you
bloody little ruffian!”
Despite this prediction, however, the Rector continued to be courtesy
itself. No doubt this was his habit, as he certainly possessed some
magnetic quality that caused his high-spirited family to regard him
with affectionate awe. Miss Grace, herself the highest spirited of them
all, might be said to worship him. In the words of Archie, “The Guv’nor
might be the inventor of cricket,” such was the estimation in which his
daughter held him. As for that adorable person, she was apparently as
much at home in the dining-room as in the tented field. She could play
the hostess as easily as she could play the game. She indicated the
course of the talk with a brisk tact that would have commended itself
to the professional hostesses of Carlton House Terrace, and in her
_décolleté_ white silk looked an angel, if a somewhat highly developed
one. Her bowling arm was particularly noticeable, but that didn’t
bother her a bit. It might be that Miss Grace’s amiability enabled us
to dispense with our war-paint, but Miss Grace’s sex absolutely forbade
her to dispense with hers.
“Any of you men thought of the Sillenger yet?” she began with the soup.
“Fancy ‘Kensit’ myself rather.”
“I’ve a leaning towards ‘Helbeck of Bannisdale,’” said the little
curate.
“Naturally,” Miss Grace said. “But he wasn’t even placed in the Derby.
You take my tip, Toddles, he’s a rotter.”
“Laura,” said the Rector, “I am very sorry to hear you employ such
an amount of slang. In my opinion it is a most offensive habit,
particularly in women.”
“Well, you see, Father,” said his ingenuous daughter, “it’s a short way
of saying a lot. Besides, the boys use it.”
“Boys are barbarians,” said her parent.
“Oh, they are,” said Miss Grace. “Well, I think barbarians aren’t
half bad. Anyhow, I like what they like, so I s’pose I’m a bit of a
barbarian too.”
“Jennings,” said Archie, “serve the claret cup, quick! Grace, we’re
going to drink your thundering good health.”
We drank it with rare cordiality. The poor, dear Optimist who was
seated at my side had such an agitated hand that a portion of the
contents of his glass overflowed upon the cloth.
“You’ve spilt your luck,” said Toddles, in a melancholy undertone.
The Optimist’s condition was indeed to be deplored. The meal was wholly
excellent in its unpretentiousness; yet here was this young man, who
knew what dining was, utterly unable to appreciate his chance. The way
in which he toyed with and disdained fare that could meet the needs
of a parson with a palate was tragical indeed. As for me, I was in a
humour of sheer devilry. Now I have no wish to bristle with wise saws
and modern instances, or even to be suspected of an epigram, but it
always seems to me that when emotion overtakes him, a man is either
an ox or a giddy ox. I am the latter, and I think when I come to be
hanged that I shall go to the gallows whistling. For such is the amount
of coarse, brutal, downright British bull-dog that has gone to the
formation of my character, that I was able to eat, drink, and let my
soul flow at the festive board, well knowing that those indescribably
subtle symptoms that had been born so recently within me were growing
more inconvenient hour by hour. Looking at the glorious Miss Grace,
and the fine figure of a girl she made, and comparing her to the two
very, very average men who were in imminent danger, if you will please
pardon the outworn image, of fluttering to their doom like moths;
comparing her, I say--oh, hang it, what do I say? But there, Impatient
Reader, you know what makes my mind so mixed, and why it’s muddling my
prose. Or if you don’t, I think you will know, one day, since there
comes a moment in the career of every average man--oh, what _am_ I
saying?--really, Reader, I had no intention to be rude!--when the sense
of one’s own indescribability is really so indescribable that one must
feel it before it can be felt--oh damn!
Reader, I am sure I beg your pardon. But you understand me, don’t you?
To-night I had dwindled into the condition that I have so lucidly
described. Here was I, a mere cub, with only a big appetite and the
most animal health to recommend me, looking down a dinner-table towards
the One Girl in the World. True, I had sound lungs, a nice wrist for
cutting, an eye as clear as Grace’s own, and was mercifully free of
the curse of intellect in any form whatever; but surely even such fine
attributes as these are not too princely when laid at the feet of the
Goddess. No doubt Richard Cranford Dimsdale was a pretty harmless sort
of fellow, but an astonishing quantity of harmlessness goes to the
making of a husband.
Above all, I knew these speculations to be cheek of the worst kind; but
if a horrid, impish little clergyman sits opposite, and regards one
with a gaze of pure, rapturous pity, and talks in a holy undertone of
that man Comfort, and what that man Comfort said, and what a privilege
it is to converse with a person of his polished manners and width of
outlook, it is not always possible for one to marshal one’s meditations
into the channels of decency. As for the poor, dear Optimist, he
suffered to a like extent from the indefatigable Toddles. The cheerful
wretch writhed through the meal, and, of course, the moment he tried
to deliver a kick under the table to Toddles, he fetched the Rector
a crack on the knee. But in the matter of our peerless hostess, the
Optimist and I effusively agreed with one another that we were both
equally impossible. We were simply indulging in the dangerous amusement
of skating over thin ice just for the pleasure of hearing it crack,
and the cold water gurgle under our feet. The Optimist has long been
regarded as a past master in the art of partaking of unexpected joys.
It is recorded of him that he has been known to tip an umpire after
being leg before, and to make a pun on being run out.
Dessert over, Miss Grace withdrew. Immediately afterwards the Rector
retired to his den.
“What’s it to be--‘pills’ or poker?” said Charlie, as the rest of us
lingered over the coffee and cigars.
“Brightside looks so quietly happy,” said Toddles at last audible to
all, “that to begin with, he might minister to the enjoyment of life by
standing on his head, or otherwise making his ecstasy articulate. He
looks like one who has built a philosophy upon his sorrow.”
Never, ere now, had I seen the Optimist positively strain after
cheerfulness. It was an impressive sight. But is it not strange the
vast difference there is in the constitution of the most common men?
For I was indecently hilarious. I laughed myself to tears over my own
stories, unblushing chestnuts as they were.
“For your information, Brightside,” said the little parson, “Grace is a
good girl, who goes to bed at ten. It is now nine-twenty. Therefore if
you desire to compliment her to-night, you’ve got to buck up!”
“Do you men take me for a common jay?” said the Optimist. “Do you think
I don’t know exactly how big I bulge in this great universe? Not for J.
Brightside, thank you. If he were going out with Stoddart, it might be
otherwise; but his batting’s really too steep!”
“Brightside,” said the persevering little parson, “we’re deceived in
you. We thought you were a man with g--,--with an interior.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” the Optimist said; “but I recognise my
limitations, thank you. Don’t fancy myself a Ranjy quite.”
“But women are that funny,” said the little parson, “one don’t know
exactly how they’ll act.”
“You mayn’t,” said the Optimist. “I do. They leave undone the things
they ought to have done, and do the things they ought not to have done.”
“Grace’ll accept you then!” said Carteret. He had the air of a man who
has found himself out in saying a smart thing.
Impatient Reader, I am aware that this is very impossible considered
as talk, and very contemptible considered as wit; but even county
cricketers can do no better in a dry season. The long spells of
fielding are too much, even for their magnificent physiques. It must be
admitted that in very wet years, such as ’79 and ’88, when the bowlers
have made hay, they are occasionally heard to quote Mrs. Humphry Ward,
Mr. Hall Caine, and poor dear Mr. Shakespeare. At all other times their
quotations can be traced to the _Pink ’Un_.
Finding that there had been a “slump” in the Optimist’s courage, the
mischievous little parson was good enough to honour me with some
attention.
“My dear Dimsdale,” he purred, “we are hoping that for the honour of
Little Clumpton you’re not going to funk.”
“Hickory’ll lay five to two he does,” said Carteret.
“Oh, if you are going to make it a sort of international affair,”
said I protestingly. But all the same these cunning men were trapping
me. And to crown all, the one person I counted on to lend me his aid,
betrayed me basely and played into the hands of the other side.
“My dear chap,” the benevolent Optimist said, “I’ve known Grace from
her earliest youth, but I am perfectly willing to waive the priority
of my claim. Perfectly willing, as I cannot too explicitly state. I
recognise my limitations. But you, my dear Dimsdale, are one of those
big-gutted Britons who runs this little earth, the sun, the moon, and
the planetary system for the private amusement of himself and a few of
his English friends. You are of the fibre to go in and win.”
“Besides, we’ve all great confidence in Little Clumpton in the
ultimate,” said the complimentary little parson; “and we know that when
Dimsdale gets his blood up he’s the doggedest swashbuckler that ever
said, ‘What ho!’”
The effusiveness of my aiders and abettors made me squirm.
“You’ve got to do it now,” said the Optimist. “Since the affair has
become another Little Clumpton _v._ Hickory, you must do something for
your side, you know, particularly as you were the only single figure
man yesterday.”
“Must try and get into the doubles, old chap,” said the little parson
coaxingly.
“Deuced pleasant outlook,” said I. “Shouldn’t care if I’d played for
the county once; but a mere club-man--ugh!”
“She may be rather rude,” said Toddles. “Cool cheek makes some girls
stick their fur up. Or she mayn’t, of course. Might let you down ever
so gently, as she’s had a lot of experience.”
“A word in your ear,” said the Optimist. “Whatever you do, don’t play
the goose game. Hard slogging’s the sort o’ thing for Grace. That’s
where that owl, Boughey, always comes such a cropper. Will spread
himself so.”
“Boughey will lisp in numbers, you know,” said Carteret. “Overflows
with it, the idiot! and makes old Grace so riled that she chucks the
beautiful calf-bound poetry books he brings her regularly at his head.
I’ve seen Boughey come out bleeding in other places than his heart.
Whatever you do, my gallant, give a wide berth to the Bodlihead.”
“Your views are a great privilege, I’m sure,” said I.
Truth to tell, the more I saw of their game, the less I liked it. My
sentiments, to which the wretched Comfort had given such an unpleasant
publicity, were doubtless receiving this amount of attention that the
conspirators might score all round. They were certainly scoring off me,
and the idea came into my head that they were scoring off Miss Grace’s
brothers also. For that quartette smoked with a steady enjoyment that
was designed to show their complete indifference to the topic under
discussion. Judging by the excessive disinterestedness of their mien,
they were not even aware of its delicate character.
“Devilish well-bred of you fellows to be so full of _dolce far
niente_,” said the unblushing barrister. “Quite the right thing, of
course; but we do wish you’d be rather more keenly alive to your
responsibilities. Your knowledge of Grace’s pretty little ways under
fire might be simply invaluable to Dimsdale. Simply _invaluable_. And
you know you would never forgive yourselves if our ingenuous Dimsdale
got badly mauled through lacking that expert advice that you are so
well qualified to give him.”
“What’s the speech about, Jimmy?” asked Archie. “Is it on Ritualism, or
are you practising the art of addressing the jury?”
“This intellectual obsession is sad,” said Toddles. “Dimsdale has
decided to propose to Grace, who we have reason to believe is a
connection of yours. We are now forming ourselves into a committee
that has for its object the protection of Dimsdale. The problem we are
called upon to settle at this stage is, whether it would be safer for
him to prosecute his addresses in a suit of mail, or is she likely to
be sufficiently overawed if he goes armed with a six-shooter only.
Archie, the committee would be glad to have your views.”
“Dimsdale,” said that oracle, turning to me, “I don’t know who’s put
you up to this, but whoever they are they’re not humane.”
“They ought to be kicked,” said George.
“He’s in a big enough funk already, without you men doing your little
bit,” said the Optimist.
Everybody, with one exception, was enjoying the fun immensely. I was
the exception. It is not nice to be at the mercy of one’s intimates.
But now by some mysterious means I was delivered into their hands.
One can scarcely expect the average man to join in the laugh against
himself in such circumstances. They were so delicate. Indeed, only
rude coarse men would be capable of creating them. And to a person of
sensibility, they were aggravated by the presence of Grace’s arrogant
male relations. Never a doubt that they were arrogant. They, in common
with the conspirators, seemed quite unable to treat me with respect.
And at least I thought that that justice should be granted to me,
for a man who has been awake all night feels entitled to some little
consideration.
“Sir Knight,” said the little parson, “I would fain remind thee that
’tis now nine-forty by this my good chronometer. Twenty minutes hence
the divinity retireth.”
This specific mention seemed to lend additional flavour to their chaff.
They were getting up my blood. And when that is thoroughly aroused, I
enjoy the character of being a somewhat headstrong person. Therefore
when at a quarter to ten I discarded my cigar, finished my coffee, and
quietly announced that I was going to face the music, they ought not to
have been as staggered as they were.
“What now?” they shouted.
“_Oui, oui_,” said I, stepping to the door.
“Look here,” said the alarmed Archie, “this is beyond a joke.”
“By, by,” said I; “see you later.”
“Look here,” said Miss Grace’s military brother, “no dam foolery,
Dimsdale. Sit down and finish your cigar. Toddles, if you don’t hold
your tongue I’ll choke you. This has gone too far.”
“I’ll lay a ‘pony’ that Dimsdale don’t do it,” said Carteret.
“Done,” said I.
“You can call that ‘pony’ squandered, Jimmy,” said the Optimist, with
tears of gladness in his eyes.
“Isn’t it gaudy?” said the little parson rapturously. “Isn’t it
ger-lor-i-ous?”
But even at this late hour I don’t think any of them quite realized the
finality of my resolve. For when I got so far as to open the door, they
were one and all so thunderstruck that they could not say a word. It
was only when with an assumption of bravado that I flippantly commended
myself to their prayers, and walked out of the room, that they set up
a positive howl of laughter. I am not sure, though, whether it was not
rather hollow.
As for myself, I might have a dim consciousness that my folly was
colossal, yet this in no wise deterred me. If I am at any time goaded
into action, no matter how indefinite its nature, it is no part of
my character to stop halfway; therefore it was in a devil-may-care,
hands-in-the-pockets, two-o’clock-in-the-morning fashion that I
sauntered into the library, incredibly impudent of mien.