It was quite a different sort of house from Mr Brindley's. One felt
that immediately on entering the hall, which was extensive. There was
far more money and considerably less taste at large in that house than
in the other. I noticed carved furniture that must have been bought
with a coarse and a generous hand; and on the walls a diptych by Marcus
Stone portraying the course of true love clingingly draped. It was just
like Exeter or Onslow Square. But the middle-aged servant who received
us struck at once the same note as had sounded so agreeably at Mr
Brindley's. She seemed positively glad to see us; our arrival seemed to
afford her a peculiar and violent pleasure, as though the hospitality
which we were about to accept was in some degree hers too. She robbed
us of our hats with ecstasy.
Then Mr Colclough appeared.
'Delighted you've come, Mr Loring!' he said, shaking my hand again. He
said it with fervour. He obviously was delighted. The exercise of
hospitality was clearly the chief joy of his life; at least, if he had
a greater it must have been something where keenness was excessive
beyond the point of pleasure, as some joys are. 'How do, Bob? Your
missis has just come.' He was still in his motoring clothes.
Mr Brindley, observing my gaze transiently on the Marcus Stones, said:
'I know what you're looking for; you're looking for "Saul's Soul's
Awakening". We don't keep it in the window; you'll see it inside.'
'Bob's always rotting me about my pictures,' Mr Colclough smiled
indulgently. He seemed big enough to eat his friend, and his rich,
heavy voice rolled like thunder about the hall. 'Come along in, will
you?'
'Half-a-second, Ol,' Mr Brindley called in a conspiratorial tone, and,
turning to me: Tell him THE Limerick. You know.'
'The one about the hayrick?'
Mr Brindley nodded.
There were three heads close together for a space of twenty seconds or
so, and then a fearful explosion happened--the unique, tremendous
laughter of Mr Colclough, which went off like a charge of melinite and
staggered the furniture.
'Now, now!' a feminine voice protested from an unseen interior.
I was taken to the drawing-room, an immense apartment with an immense
piano black as midnight in it. At the further end two women were seated
close together in conversation, and I distinctly heard the name 'Fuge'.
One of them was Mrs Brindley, in a hat. The other, a very big and stout
woman, in an elaborate crimson garment that resembled a teagown, rose
and came to meet me with extended hand.
'My wife--Mr Loring,' said Mr Oliver Colclough.
'So glad to meet you,' she said, beaming on me with all her husband's
pleasure. 'Come and sit between Mrs Brindley and me, near the window,
and keep us in order. Don't you find it very close? There are at least
a hundred cats in the garden.'
One instantly perceived that ceremonial stiffness could not exist in
the same atmosphere with Mrs Oliver Colclough. During the whole time I
spent in her house there was never the slightest pause in the
conversation. Mrs Oliver Colclough prevented nobody from talking, but
she would gladly use up every odd remnant of time that was not employed
by others. No scrap was too small for her.
'So this is the other one!' I said to myself. 'Well, give me this one!'
Certainly there was a resemblance between the two, in the general
formation of the face, and the shape of the shoulders; but it is
astonishing that two sisters can differ as these did, with a profound
and vital difference. In Mrs Colclough there was no coquetterie, no
trace of that more-than-half-suspicious challenge to a man that one
feels always in the type to which her sister belonged. The notorious
battle of the sexes was assuredly carried on by her in a spirit of
frank muscular gaiety--she could, I am sure, do her share of fighting.
Put her in a boat on the bosom of the lake under starlight, and she
would not by a gesture, a tone, a glance, convey mysterious nothings to
you, a male. She would not be subtly changed by the sensuous influences
of the situation; she would always be the same plump and earthly piece
of candour. Even if she were in love with you, she would not convey
mysterious nothings in such circumstances. If she were in love with you
she would most clearly convey unmysterious and solid somethings. I was
convinced that the contributing cause to the presence of the late Simon
Fuge in the boat on Ilam Lake on the historic night was Annie the
superior barmaid, and not Sally of the automobile. But Mrs Colclough,
if not beautiful, was a very agreeable creation. Her amplitude gave at
first sight an exaggerated impression of her age; but this departed
after more careful inspection. She could not have been more than
thirty. She was very dark, with plenteous and untidy black hair, thick
eyebrows, and a slight moustache. Her eyes were very vivacious, and her
gestures, despite that bulk, quick and graceful. She was happy; her
ideals were satisfied; it was probably happiness that had made her
stout. Her massiveness was apparently no grief to her; she had fallen
into the carelessness which is too often the pitfall of women who,
being stout, are content.
'How do, missis?' Mr Brindley greeted her, and to his wife, 'How do,
missis? But, look here, bright star, this gadding about is all very
well, but what about those precious kids of yours? None of 'em dead
yet, I hope.'
'Don't be silly, Bob.'
'I've been over to your house,' Mrs Colclough put in. 'Of course it
isn't mumps. The child's as right as rain. So I brought Mary back with
me.'
'Well,' said Mr Brindley, 'for a woman who's never had any children
your knowledge of children beggars description. What you aren't sure
you know about them isn't knowledge. However--'
'Listen,' Mrs Colclough replied, with a delightful throwingdown of the
glove. 'I'll bet you a level sovereign that child hasn't got the mumps.
So there! And Oliver will guarantee to pay you.'
'Aye!' said Mr Colclough; 'I'll back my wife any day.'
'Don't bet, Bob,' Mrs Brindley enjoined her husband excitedly in her
high treble.
'I won't,' said Mr Brindley.
'Now let's sit down.' Mrs Colclough addressed me with particular,
confidential grace.
We three exactly filled the sofa. I have often sat between two women,
but never with such calm, unreserved, unapprehensive comfortableness as
I experienced between Mrs Colclough and Mrs Brindley. It was just as if
I had known them for years.
'You'll make a mess of that, Ol,' said Mr Brindley.
The other two men were at some distance, in front of a table, on which
were two champagne bottles and five glasses, and a plate of cakes.
'Well,' I said to myself, 'I'm not going to have any champagne, anyhow.
Mercurey! Green Chartreuse! Irish whisky! And then champagne! And a
morning's hard work tomorrow! No!'
Plop! A cork flew up and bounced against the ceiling.
Mr Colclough carefully emptied the bottle into the glasses, of which Mr
Brindley seized two and advanced with one in either hand for the women.
It was the host who offered a glass to me.
'No, thanks very much, I really can't,' I said in a very firm tone.
My tone was so firm that it startled them. They glanced at each other
with alarmed eyes, like simple people confronted by an inexplicable
phenomenon. 'But look here, mister!' said Mr Colclough, pained, 'we've
got this out specially for you. You don't suppose this is our usual
tipple, do you?'
I yielded. I could do no less than sacrifice myself to their enchanting
instinctive kindness of heart. 'I shall be dead tomorrow,' I said to
myself; 'but I shall have lived tonight.' They were relieved, but I saw
that I had given them a shock from which they could not instantaneously
recover. Therefore I began with a long pull, to reassure them.
'Mrs Brindley has been telling me that Simon Fuge is dead,' said Mrs
Colclough brightly, as though Mrs Brindley had been telling her that
the price of mutton had gone down.
I perceived that those two had been talking over Simon Fuge, after
their fashion.
'Oh yes,' I responded.
'Have you got that newspaper in your pocket, Mr Loring?' asked Mrs
Brindley.