She was a nice girl: the nicest girl that Horace had ever met with,
because her charming niceness included a faculty of being really
serious about serious things--and yet she could be deliciously gay. In
short, she was a revelation to Horace. And her name was Ella, and she
had come one year to spend some weeks with Mrs Penkethman, the widowed
headmistress of the Wesleyan Day School, who was her cousin. Mrs
Penkethman and Ella had been holidaying together in France; their
arrival in Bursley naturally coincided with the reopening of the school
in August for the autumn term.
Now at this period Horace was rather lonely in his large house and
garden; for Sidney, in pursuit of health, had gone off on a six weeks'
cruise round Holland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, in one of those
Atlantic liners which, translated like Enoch without dying, become in
their old age 'steam-yachts', with fine names apt to lead to confusion
with the private yacht of the Tsar of Russia. Horace had offered him
the trip, and Horace was also paying his weekly salary as usual.
So Horace, who had always been friendly with Mrs Penkethman, grew now
more than ever friendly with Mrs Penkethman. And Mrs Penkethman and
Ella were inseparable. The few aristocrats left in Bursley in September
remarked that Horace knew what he was about, as it was notorious that
Ella had the most solid expectations. But as a matter of fact Horace
did not know what he was about, and he never once thought of Ella's
expectations. He was simply, as they say in Bursley, knocked silly by
Ella. He honestly imagined her to be the wonderfullest woman on the
earth's surface, with her dark eyes and her expressive sympathetic
gestures, and her alterations of seriousness and gaiety. It astounded
him that a girl of twenty-one could have thought so deeply upon life as
she had. The inexplicable thing was that she looked up to HIM. She
evidently admired HIM. He wanted to tell her that she was quite wrong
about him, much too kind in her estimate of him--that really he was a
very ordinary man indeed. But another instinct prevented him from thus
undeceiving her.
And one Saturday afternoon, the season being late September, Horace
actually got those two women up to tea in his house and garden. He had
not dared to dream of such bliss. He had hesitated long before asking
them to come, and in asking them he had blushed and stammered: the
invitation had seemed to him to savour of audacity. But, bless you!
they had accepted with apparent ecstasy. They gave him to think that
they had genuinely wanted to come. And they came extra-specially
dressed--visions, lilies of the field. And as the day was quite warm,
tea was served in the garden, and everybody admired the view; and there
was no restraint, no awkwardness. In particular Ella talked with an
ease and a distinction that enchanted Horace, and almost made him talk
with ease and distinction too. He said to himself that, seeing he had
only known her a month, he was getting on amazingly. He said to himself
that his good luck passed belief.
Then there was a sound of cab-wheels on the other side of the
garden-wall, and presently Horace heard the housekeeper complimenting
Sidney on his good looks, and Sidney asking the housekeeper to lend him
three shillings to pay the cabman. The golden youth had returned
without the slightest warning from his cruise. The tea trio, at the
lower end of the garden, saw him standing in the porch, tanned, curly,
graceful, and young. Horace half rose, and then sat down again. Ella
stared hard.
'That must be your brother,' she said.
'Yes, that's Sid,' Horace answered; and then, calling out loudly: 'Come
down here, Sid, and tell them to bring another cup and saucer.'
'Right you are, old man,' Sidney shouted. 'You see I'm back. What! Mrs
Penkethman, is that you?' He came down the central path of the garden
like a Narcissus.
'He DOES look delicate,' said Ella under her breath to Horace. Tears
came to her eyes.
Naturally Ella knew all about Sidney. She enjoyed the entire confidence
of Mrs Penkethman, and what Mrs Penkethman didn't know of the private
history of the upper classes in Bursley did not amount to very much.
These were nearly the last words that Ella spoke to Horace that
afternoon. The introduction was made, and Sidney slipped into the party
as comfortably as he slipped into everything, like a candle slipping
into a socket. But nevertheless Ella talked no more. She just stared at
Sidney, and listened to him. Horace was proud that Sidney had made such
an impression on her; he was glad that she showed no aversion to
Sidney, because, in the event of Horace's marriage, where would Sidney
live, if not with Horace and Horace's wife? Still, he could have wished
that Ella would continue to display her conversational powers.
Presently, Sidney lighted a cigarette. He was of those young men whose
delicate mouths seem to have been fashioned for the nice conduct of a
cigarette. And he had a way of blowing out the smoke that secretly
ravished every feminine beholder. Horace still held to his boyhood's
principles; but he envied Sidney a little.
At the conclusion of the festivity these two women naturally could not
be permitted to walk home alone. And, naturally, also, the four could
not walk abreast on the narrow pavements. Horace went first with Mrs
Penkethman. He was mad with anxiety to appropriate Ella, but he dared
not. It would not have been quite correct; it would have been, as they
say in Bursley, too thick. Besides, there was the question of age.
Horace was over thirty, and Mrs Penkethman was also--over thirty;
whereas Sidney was twenty-one, and so was Ella. Hence Sidney walked
behind with Ella, and the procession started in silence. Horace did not
look round too often--that would not have been quite proper--but
whenever he did look round the other couple had lagged farther and
farther behind, and Ella seemed perfectly to have recovered her speech.
At length he looked round, and lo! they had not turned the last corner;
and they arrived at Mrs Penkethman's cottage at Hillport a quarter of
an hour after their elders.