Follows Mrs. Euphemia Aiken to Coombe and Maiden. Proper
pride. You cannot go back on a railway ticket, however
small its price. One's Aunts. How Miss Priscilla Bax
was not surprised when she heard it was Reginald. Of the
Upas Tree of reputations--the Pure Mind. How Aunt
Prissy worked her niece up. Of the late Prince Regent, and
Tiberius. Never write a letter, if you want the wind to lull.
Ellen Jane Dudbury and her mamma. Of Ju-jutsu as an
antidote to tattle. Of the relative advantages of
Immorality to the two Sexes. Of good souls and busy bodies,
and of the Groobs. How that odious little Dolly was the
Modern Zurbaran. But he had never so much as called.
Colossians three-eighteen. Miss Jessie Bax and her puppy.
Miss Volumnia Bax. The delicacy of the female character.
Of the Radio-Activity of Space and how Mr. Adolphus Groob
sat next to Mrs. Aiken. The Godfrey Pybuses. But they
have nothing to do with the story. How Time slipped by,
and how Mr. Aiken employed him till the year drew to an end.
Euphemia Aiken, be it understood, had not brought
definition to bear on her motives for running away
to her Aunt Priscilla at Coombe. It seemed the
nearest handy way of expressing her indignation at
her profligate husband's conduct--that was all.
By the time she had got to Clapham Junction her
indignation had begun to cool. But no ruction
would hold out for five minutes if it depended on
legitimate indignation. Unfortunately, when that
emotion gets up, it always awakens pride, with
whom--or which--it has been sleeping. And pride, once
roused--and she or it is not a sound sleeper--won't
go to bed again on any terms, not even when
indignation is quite tired out, and ready for another
snooze. So when Euphemia got to Clapham
Junction, it was not her drowsy indignation that made
up its mind she should take a third-class single
ticket, but her proper pride, which said
peremptorily that even a weekly return would be absurd.
Besides, there weren't any weekly returns.
Besides, it was only threepence difference. Anyhow,
she wasn't going to come back till she had given
Reginald a severe lesson. Her condition of mind
was no doubt the one her husband described by
an expression obscure in itself, but too widely
accepted to be refused a place in the language. He
said that her monkey was up.
There is a sense of the irrevocable about the
taking of a railway ticket. Even when it is only
ninepence-halfpenny--the sum Euphemia paid to go
third to Coombe and Maiden--one's soul says, as
the punch bites a piece viciously out of it, that the
die is cast. If you were to hear suddenly that
bubonic plague had broken out at, for instance,
Pegwell Bay, you having booked to Ramsgate,
would not you feel committed to your visit, plague
or no? Would not your wife say, "But we have
taken our tickets"? Ours would. Was it any
wonder that, with Pride at her elbow and her ticket
inside her glove. Mrs. Reginald Aiken resisted a
faint temptation to get out at Wimbledon and go
back by the next up-train that would promise to
stop at Clapham Junction? The story cannot
pretend it is sorry she did not, because it would have
lost much interest for the general reader by her
doing so.
We ourselves believe that if it had not been for
Miss Priscilla Bax, she might have returned to her
husband next day. The human race has, however,
to stand or fall by its Aunts, as it finds them, they
being almost always _faits accomplis_ when its
component individuals are born. Miss Bax had been
one some forty years when her niece Euphemia came
on the scene, and one of the good lady's strong points
was the low opinion she had of persons who married
into her family. She was, however, a kind-hearted
old lady, in spite of her disapproval of her niece's
choice of a husband, and his choice of a profession;
and had not only countenanced the marriage, but
had allowed the couple, as above related, a hundred
a year. Being the only well-off member of her
family, she was expected to do this sort of thing.
Like the well-off members of other families, she
was only permitted to have property on condition
that she did not keep it for herself.
When Euphemia's cab from the station drove her
up to Athabasca Villa, her aunt's residence, this
lady had got through her seven o'clock dinner, and
couldn't imagine who that could possibly be. It
was such a queer time for visitors. It must be a
mistake. She was so satisfied of this that she
inaugurated a doze, listening through its preamble
for something to explain the mistake. She was
betrayed by the doze, which might have had a
minute's patience, and was roused from what it
insidiously became by a voice saying groundedly:
"Oh dear, I'm afraid I waked you up!"
"I was not asleep," said Miss Priscilla, with
dignity, kissing the owner of the voice. "I was
listening." However, it took time to wake quite
up, and until that happened the old lady did not
fully grasp the surprising character of so late a
visit; and indeed, until she became aware that a
box was being carried upstairs, had but dreamy
impressions of the event. In time reality dawned,
and she showed it by saying: "I suppose, Euphemia,
you will want your bed made up."
As this was the case, and no human ingenuity
could soften the fact, Mrs. Aiken only said: "I
know it's very troublesome."
To which Miss Priscilla replied: "Nothing is
troublesome, so long as you only say distinctly.
Now, do you want anything to eat? Because
dinner is taken away." Reviving decision, after
sleep, became emphatic. Self-respect called for
self-assertion.
Mrs. Aiken shuffled. She wasn't hungry, she said.
"Have you _had_ dinner? Because if you have
not had dinner, you must have dinner. Ring the
bell twice, and Pemphridge will come."
Pemphridge came, and could warm the chicken.
Pemphridge did warm the chicken, and Mrs. Aiken
hardly touched it. After which she returned, looking
extremely miserable, to her aunt in the drawing-room,
who said majestically: "And now perhaps,
Euphemia, you will tell me what all this means."
"It's Reginald," said Euphemia.
"I am not surprised," said her aunt.
"But you don't _know_ yet."
"I know nothing whatever. But I am not surprised.
Is it reasonable, Euphemia, to expect me to
be surprised? After what I have so frequently had
occasion to say. But I am quite prepared to hear
that I have said no such thing. Pray tell me
anything you like. I will not contradict you." Aunt
Priscilla assumed a rigid continuousness, as of one
who forms to receive aspersions. Truth will triumph
in the end; meanwhile there is no harm in portending
that triumph by an aggressive stony patience.
"Only you don't know what it is, Aunt Prissy,"
said her niece. No more she did, speaking academically.
She was, however, quite prepared for every
contingency.
"I do not think _you_ are the person to say that
to me, Euphemia, seeing that you have told me
nothing--absolutely nothing! But I can wait." She
waited. As she lay face upwards on the
sofa--the nearest approach to an Early Victorian
recumbent effigy that the Nature of Things permits--she
presented the appearance of a deserving person
floating on her back in a sea of exasperation.
Unless this image justifies itself, it must be
condemned. Nothing in literature can excuse it.
Mrs. Euphemia was so used to her aunt, with
whom she had lived since the death of her parents
fifteen years since, that she knew she might never
get a better moment than this for telling the story
of her passage of arms with her husband. She
therefore embarked on a narrative of the events we
know, and contrived to get them told, in spite of
interruptions, the nature of which, after the
foregoing sample of Aunt Priscilla, we can surmise.
Neither need be repeated.
Thereafter followed a long conversation, the
substance of which has already been given. Its effect
was to try Mrs. Euphemia's faith in her husband--which
still existed, mind you!--very severely. Have
you ever noticed--but of course you have--that
when Inexperience testifies to the sinfulness of the
human race _passim_, Average Experience hides her
diminished head, and does not venture on whatever
there is to be said on behalf of the culprit. A
shocking race, no doubt, but scarcely so bad as pure
minds paint it! Old single ladies have pure minds,
as often as not, and wield them with a fiendish
dexterity, polishing off Lancelot and Galahad,
Mordred and Arthur himself, all in a breath. Which
of us dares to try a fall with a pure-minded person,
in defence of his sex, or anyone else's? Miss
Priscilla, having a pure mind and getting the bit
in her teeth in connexion with her nephew-in-law's
shortcomings, bolted, and dragged her niece after
her through an imaginary Society compounded of
London in the days of the Regency and Rome in
the days of Tiberius, with a touch of impending
Divine vengeance in the bush, justifying reference
to Sodom and Gomorrah. She succeeded in making
the young woman thoroughly uncomfortable, and
causing the quarrel to assume proportions--which is
what things that get bigger are understood to do
nowadays--such as it never dreamed of at first.
For Mrs. Euphemia's scheme of life allowed for
everlasting bickerings, never-ending recriminations, last
words _ad libitum_, short tiffs, long tiffs, tempersomeness
and proper spirit--all, in fact, that makes life
drag in families--but always under chronic
conditions that precluded a crisis. If her worthy aunt's
suggestion that this incident of Sairah was the
merest spark from _ignes suppositos cineri_, and that
her husband had never been even as good as he
should be--if this indicated a true view of his
character, she for one wasn't going to put up with
such conduct. Corinthians or no! This _was_ a
crisis, only it was one that never would have come
about but for Miss Priscilla. So, as we mentioned
some time since, Mrs. Euphemia cried herself to
sleep, and next day, galled by ill-considered moral
precepts about the whole duty of Woman, wrote an
infuriated letter to her dear Reginald--not her
dearest; she might have any number of dearer
Reginalds on draught--stating at a very high figure
the amount of penance she would make a necessary
condition of reconciliation, and even then it would
never be the same thing underlined. She was,
however, so completely the slave of a beautiful
disposition, that no course was open to her but
forgiveness, subject only to a reduction of some
ninety-per-cent. at the dictation of a rarely
sensitive consciousness of obligation to Duty, which she
gave him to understand was her ruling passion.
The letter demanded the assimilation of an amount
of humble-pie outside practical politics--so
Mr. Aiken said to a friend after reading it; the
phraseology is his. He hadn't done anything to deserve
the character imputed to him in language he could
identify by the style as Aunt Priscilla's, shorn of
much of its Scriptural character. It incensed him,
and caused him to write a letter which widened the
breach between them. Then she wrote back, and
the breach fairly yawned. There is nothing so
effective as correspondence to consolidate a quarrel.
She had been at all times since her marriage a
frequent visitor enough at Athabasca Villa for the
inquisitiveness of her Aunt's circle of friends to
remain unexcited; for a week or so, at any rate.
But that good lady's unholy alacrity in disclaiming
all knowledge of her niece's domestic affairs
stimulated a premature curiosity. When the Peter
Dudburys called, Aunt Priscilla might quite easily
have said, in reply to Mrs. Peter Dudbury's "And
how is the Artist?" that she believed the said
Artist was enjoying good health. Instead of which
she was seized with a sort of paroxysm, exclaiming
very often: "Don't ask me! I know nothing
whatever about it. Nuth, thing-what, ever!" and
shaking her head with her eyes tight shut.
Whereupon Ellen Jane Dudbury said, "Shishmar!" and
stamped cruelly on her mother's foot. Now really
that amiable woman had only expanded into her
gushy inquiry after Mr. Aiken because she knew that
she and her three daughters had asked more than
once after everyone else. She felt hurt, and
resolved to have it out with Ellen Jane, and indeed
began to do so as soon as they were out of hearing.
"Wellmar," said Ellen Jane, "what is one to do
when you won't take the slightest notice?" She
went on to explain that any person of normal
shrewdness would have seen, the moment Mrs. Aiken
made excuses and went upstairs, that there
was something. You could always see when there
was anything if you chose to use your eyes. It was
no use telling her--Ellen Jane, that is--that there
was nothing. She knew better. It was complimentary
to Ellen Jane's penetration that her mother
and sisters hoped aloud at the next house where
they called, and captured the tenants to inquire
after them, that there really was nothing between
young Mrs. Aiken and her husband, and most likely
it was all fancy, because there was nothing
whatever to go upon, and such absurd stories did get
about.
To our thinking it is clear that the receptivity
of the Peter Dudburys was caused by that paroxysm
of Aunt Priscilla's. An adoption of a like attitude with
other visitors tended to enrich the gossip of Coombe
and Maiden at the expense of Mrs. Euphemia Aiken.
Miss Priscilla did not have paroxysms of this class
in her niece's presence, so of course the latter had
the less chance of guessing that the cause of her
visit to Athabasca Villa had become common
property. She did, however, wake up to the fact that
Coombe and Maiden were commiserating her. The
impertinence of those neighbourhoods! She would
have liked to knock their heads together. The worst
of it was that no one put commiseration into a
concrete form, such as "How is dear Mr. Aiken's
infidelity going on?" or "We are so shocked to
think how your most sacred affections are being
lacerated." Then she might have flown at such
like sympathizers with a poker, or got them down
and cricked their joints by Ju-jutsu. This practice
of talking about everyone else's private affairs to
every-other else, never to their proprietor, is good
for our father the Devil, but bad for his sons and
daughters. Amen.
The truth is that, for some unexplained reason, a
lady who runs away from her husband gets no sort
of credit or glory by doing so, but only puts herself
in an uncomfortable position; unless, indeed, she
takes up with some other male, preferably a
reprobate. Then an unhallowed splendour envelops her,
and protects her from the cards of respectability,
which has misgivings about her possible effect on
its sons and husbands. We wonder, is this what
is meant when one hears that some lady is living
under the protection of Duke Baily or Duke
Humphy? Are those--is one of them, we
mean--protecting her from Mrs. Peter Dudbury? Honour
to his Grace, whichever he is, if he acts up to his
description!
With the nobler sex the reverse is the case.
Whether deserting or deserted, he is rather looked
up to by his more securely anchored male friends
as the subject of a wider and more illuminating
experience than their own. Of course, the
forsaken example does not shine with the radiance of
a self-supporting inconstancy. It may be that he
comes off best in the end, if he is a man of spirit,
and finds consolation elsewhere. For then he can
not only crow, farmyard-wise, but he has the
heartfelt satisfaction of being an ill-used man into
the bargain. If he cottons to someone else's
ill-used wife, he has nothing left to wish for.
Nothing of all this has any application in this
story, unless it attaches to the fact that Mr. Aiken
found some consolation in the company of his
friends, while his wife found none in that of her
acquaintances. As both parties were perfectly
blameless in the ordinary sense of the word--geese
are most blameless birds--none of the numerous
advantages of wickedness were secured by either.
Their interests in Belial never vested. Mrs. Aiken
never meant not to go back in the end, as soon as
she had made her husband knuckle down, and
confess up. And he was consciously keeping his
home unsullied by anything too Bohemian, in order
that when Euphemia came back--as of course she
would--no memory of the interregnum should clash
with the Restoration.
Euphemia had the worst of it; but then she was
the weaker party. If weaker parties take to
expecting the emoluments of stronger parties, what
shall we come to next? This feeling of the
unfairness of things in general and Destiny in
particular, tended towards exasperation and
intensification; and the South Cone--metaphors may be
fetched from any distance--remained up in the
districts of Coombe and Maiden. Time passed and
Mrs. Euphemia had perforce to endure the
commiseration of those districts.
The neighbourhood of Athabasca Villa might be
classed as a congested district, and its population
as consisting, broadly speaking, of good souls and
busy bodies. Every resident was both, be it
understood.
"Oh yes!" said Euphemia to her aunt, one
breakfast-time. "Of course the Groobs are goodness
itself. But why can't they mind their own
business?" For although it may appear incredible, a
family residing in the neighbourhood was actually
named Groob.
"My dear," said Miss Priscilla, "do not be
unreasonable and violent. Mr. Latimer Groob is, I
understand, a wine-importer in quite a large way of
business, with more than one retail establishment;
and his son, Mr. Adolphus Groob, has, I am told,
talent. He has had several pictures on the line,
somewhere, and comes down to see his family on
Saturdays, and to stop till Monday."
"Well, then!" said Euphemia. "It wasn't the
Peter Dudburys this time. At least, it needn't have
been, for anything I can see."
"Why not? ... Do take care of the tablecloth!
Anne has put one of the best out by mistake. I
must speak to her.... Why not the Peter Dudburys
this time?"
"I am not cutting the cloth. The knife is miles
off. Why not the Peter Dudburys? Why,
because I know that odious little Dolly Groob. He's a
friend of Reginald's, and comes to the Studio. I
can _see_. I'm not a baby. Of course, Reginald has
been talking to him." Mrs. Euphemia bit her lips,
and was under the impression that her eyes flashed.
But they didn't really--eyes never do; it's a _façon
de parler_.
Miss Priscilla ignored this petulance. "You had
better let me pour you out some fresh coffee," she
said. "Yours is getting cold. I cannot say, my
dear, that I think 'that odious little Dolly Groob'
is at all the way to speak of an artist who has had
pictures on the line. And his father, now I think of
it, is in Paris also. Besides, I see he is distinguishing
himself by his connexion with something."
"With what?"
"It was in yesterday evening's paper. Perhaps
Anne hasn't burned it. Anyhow, I do not think the
expression 'odious little' well chosen.... Oh
yes--that's it! Give it to Miss Euphemia." That
is to say, Anne the parlourmaid, not having burned
yesterday's evening paper, had produced it as by
necromancy, in response. The way Aunt Priscilla
spoke of her niece was an accident, not a suggestion
that Mr. Aiken was cancelled. It caused "Miss
Euphemia," however, a slight twinge of an
indescribable discomfort. Possibly, if this is ever read
by any lady who has ever been in exactly the same
position, she will understand why.
The story knows of it because, when Anne had
left the room, Mrs. Aiken looked up from the
newspaper, where she had found what she was looking
for, to say: "I think, Aunt Prissy, you might be
more careful before the servants."
Her aunt replied with dignity: "What you are
referring to, my dear Euphemia, I cannot profess
to understand." Of course she _did_, perfectly well.
What she meant was, "I know you cannot get a
conviction, so I can tell a fib." Mankind, securely
entrenched, fibs freely.
"Why--'Miss Euphemia,' of course!" said the
niece, quoting incisively. "But I know it's no use
my asking you to pay the slightest attention." She
became absorbed in her paper.
"I think you are nonsensical, my dear," said the
aunt. She retired behind something morally
equivalent to the lines of Torres Vedras; but was still
audible outside, saying: "I think you might say
whether you have, or have not, found about
Mr. Adolphus Groob."
The niece made no response for a moment, but
continued reading; then said, as one who, coming
up from diving, speaks without quite locating his
audience: "Oh yes--there's about Mr. Groob here.
I can't read it all, there's such a lot. Is there some
coffee left? ... Three-quarters of a cup, please!"
Please observe that, although this aunt and niece
always conversed more or less as if each was straining
the patience of the other past endurance, no
sort of ill-will was thereby implied on either part.
It may be that it was only that they emphasized
the ordinary intercourse of British families.
Perhaps you know how much the average foreign family
nags, _en famille_. We do not.
Mrs. Aiken read the newspaper paragraph aloud,
skipping portions. What she read described the
formation of the New Modernism, the Artistic
Society about which so much was being said among
well-informed circles of the Art World, with the
reservation that nothing must be accepted as official.
The Editor was breaking confidence in telling so
much; but then he really was unable, with that
pitiful heart of his, to bear the yearning faces and
heartrending cries for information of his reading
public. The only course open to him was to put
aside all conscientious scruples, and divulge what
had reached him, as it were, under the seal of
confession. Such a thirst must be satiated, or worse
might come of it. The object of this Society was
to develope its promoters' ideas, and exhibit their
works in Bond Street. The underlying theory of
their new Gospel of Art appeared to be--only the
writer did not express it so coarsely--that success
in pictorial effort, in the future, must turn on the
artist never having learned to draw, and not
knowing how to paint. What was wanted was clearly
his unimpaired Self, unsoiled by the instruction of
the Schools. The near future was entitled to
liberation from the stilted traditions of the remote
past, not only in Painting, but in Sculpture, Music,
Poetry, the Drama--what not? Here was an
opportunity to make a beginning, seized by a
brilliant coterie of talented young men, whom a rare
chance had brought together under one roof. If
the writer was not much mistaken, Pimlico Studios
stood a fair chance of becoming the Mecca of the
Art World.
"I can't read all this," said the niece. "I don't
see where Mr. Groob comes in. Oh yes--it's here!
'The Modern Zurbaran.'..." This gentleman
was, of course, the Artist familiarly spoken of as
"Dolly" at the Pimlico Studios. Mrs. Aiken went
on reading to herself, and then said suddenly: "I
do hope Reginald won't be a fool, and make himself
responsible for anything."
"Mr. Adolphus Groob would be able to tell us
all about it," said Miss Priscilla. "His sister
Arethusa is almost sure to call this afternoon, and
you can ask her to find out."
"I shall do nothing of the sort, and I beg you
won't say anything to her. I particularly dislike
Mr. Groob, and just now nothing could be more
unpleasant to me. Please no Mr. Groob on any
account!"
"You need not be so testy, Euphemia. Nothing
is easier than for me to make no reference to
Mr. Groob, who has never so much as called. His sister
Arethusa is, of course, not the same thing as he is
himself, but no doubt she may know something about
this Society."
"I thought her an odious girl. Anyhow, I don't
want to know anything at all about the Society, and
it's no concern of mine. Reginald must go his own
way now, and put his name down for subscriptions
just as he likes.... Oh yes, I shall answer his
last letter, but only to say that, if he wants me
to read his next one, the _tone_ must be very
different."
Her aunt said, as one with whom patience is
habitual, and tolerance a foregone conclusion: "It
is perfectly useless for me to repeat, Euphemia,
what I believe to be your duty as a Christian towards
your lawful husband, which Reginald is and
continues to be, however disgracefully he may have
behaved; and you acted with your eyes open in
the face of warnings of his lawless Bohemian habits.
_He--is--your_--HUSBAND, and your obvious duty
is..."
"Oh, do shut up with Corinthians!" was the
rude, impatient, and indeed irreligious interruption.
"If you mean that a woman is bound to put up
with anything and everything, no matter what her
husband says or does ... What?"
"My dear Euphemia, if I have told you once, I
have told you fifty times, that it is _not_ Corinthians,
but Colossians--Colossians three eighteen. Besides,
I'm sure there was a ring at the bell."
There was, and therefore the chronic guerilla
warfare--for this sort of thing always went on until
visitors stopped it--was suspended until the next
opportunity.
The ring at the gate-bell was--or was caused
by--Miss Jessie Bax, another niece, who was shy and
seventeen. She began everything she said with
"Oh!" The first words she uttered were, "Oh,
I mustn't stop!" But she had previously said to
Anne, at the gate, "Oh, I mustn't come in!" and
when overcome on this point by Euphemia, who
came out and kissed her, not without satisfaction--because
she was that sort--she only just contrived
to say, "Oh, I only came to bring these from
Volumnia. It's to-morrow night at the Suburbiton
Athenæum, where the Psychomorphic meets till
the new rooms are ready, and she hopes you'll come."
Miss Jessie explained that she was, strictly
speaking, an emanation from her sister Volumnia. That
young lady was thirteen years her senior, and was a
powerful individuality. She entered into inquiries,
and advocated causes. Miss Jessica, on the
contrary, flirted.
Was it, this time, advocating causes, or entering
into inquiries? Mrs. Aiken, fearing the former,
was consoled when she found it was the latter. She
would look at the Syllabus tendered, whatever it
was, and wouldn't detain Miss Jessie, whose anxiety
not to come in need not have been laid so much
stress on. It presently appeared that this wish to
stop out was not unconnected with Charley
Somebody, who was playing with a puppy on the other
side of the road. A suggestion that Charley
Somebody should come in too was met with so earnest a
disclaimer of intention to disturb any fellow-creature
anywhere, at any time, that it would have been
sheer downright cruelty to press the point. So the
young lady and Master Charley, whoever he was,
escaped, and were heard whistling for the puppy,
who was getting quite good, and learning to follow
beautifully.
"What is it?" said Aunt Priscilla.
"Oh, some reading papers and nonsense," said
her niece. "I never have any patience with that
sort of twaddle. It only irritates me."
It suited Miss Priscilla to take up a tone of
superiority to such childish petulance, combined
with an enlightened attitude of open-mindedness,
and a suggestion of being better informed than most
people about what is doing. To this end she picked
up the prospectus her niece was ostentatiously
neglecting, and read it aloud in an atmosphere
above human prejudices, specially designed for her
own personal use. It related to a lecture "On the
Attitude of Investigation towards the Unknowable,"
with magic-lantern slides, and a discussion to
follow. "It does not say," said Aunt Priscilla,
"who is the Medium." It is possible that the good
lady had in her own mind confused something with
something else. One does sometimes.
"I'm not sure that I shan't go, if it isn't the
Suffrage," said Euphemia. She took the
prospectus, and seemed reassured on re-reading it.
Yes, she might go if there were pictures on a sheet.
But not if it was to be Women's Rights.
"With your peculiar, new, advanced views, my
dear," said her aunt, "it certainly seems to me
that you ought to sympathize with your cousin."
This, however, was because of Miss Priscilla's
exceptional way of looking at Social and Political
subjects. She divided all the world--the thoughtful
world, that is--into two classes, the one that
went in for Movements and things, and the one
that consisted of Sensible Persons. The latter stayed
at home and minded their own business, sometimes
going for a drive when it held up, and, of course, to
Church on Sundays, and having hot crossed buns
on Good Friday, and so on. She made no distinction
between Agitators on the score of the diversity
of their respective objects. Could she be expected
to differentiate between shades of opinion that
would now be indicated by the terms--then
uninvented--of Suffragettes and Anti-Suffragettes?
Volumnia Bax would have belonged to the latter
denomination. Women, that young lady said, were
not intended by an All-wise Providence to mix in
public life. Their sphere was the Home. She
belonged to a League whose chief object was to prevent
women becoming unfeminine. If it was not Woman's
own duty to make a stand against these new-fangled
American notions, which could only end in
her being completely unsexed, whose was it? If
she did not exert herself to avert this calamity,
who would? So this League consisted entirely of
women, pledged to resist, by violence if necessary,
but in any case by speaking out at meetings, and
getting up petitions, and so on, these insidious
attempts to destroy the delicacy of the female
character, which from time immemorial had been
its principal charm. This was the point on which
Aunt Priscilla certainly failed in discrimination, for
she drew no distinction between the various shades
of political impulse. She objected to anyone leaving
the groove, even with the motive of pushing others
back into it. Her niece Euphemia shared her views
to a great extent, and when she used the expression
"Women's Rights," it was probably in a sense
much less circumscribed than its usual one. "But,"
said she to Miss Priscilla, justifying her determination
to go on Saturday evening to this lecture, or
whatever it was, "it can't be minutes and resolutions
and jaw, jaw, jaw, if there's a magic-lantern. So
do come, Aunty dear!"
Miss Priscilla gave way, and consented to
accompany her niece, but not without a misgiving that
she might be compelled to come away in the middle
of the entertainment. A re-perusal of the Syllabus
had engendered in her mind a doubt whether it
was quite. That is how she worded it. The story
only chronicles; it takes no responsibilities.
Euphemia assured her that it could not be
otherwise than quite, seeing that so respectable an
Athenæum as the Suburbiton would be sure to be
most careful. Besides, it was Metaphysical.
So they had the fly from Dulgrove's--as it appears,
and we think we know what is meant--and
Dulgrove's representative touched one of its hats,
which was on his own head, and promised upon the
honour of both to return at half-past ten to
reimpatriate the two ladies at Athabasca Villa, which
is two miles from Coombe proper.
Though Mr. Groob's sister Arethusa did not
happen to call, as Miss Priscilla anticipated,
Mrs. Reginald Aiken was destined to be brought in
contact with her odious brother, the Artist, who
was acquainted with her husband. It happened
that Miss Bax was desirous that another brother
of Arethusa's should come to the lecture. This
gentleman, Mr. Duodecimus Groob, had a clear
head, and a cool judgment, and belonged, moreover,
to a class which is frequently referred to, but
whose members cannot always be differentiated
with certainty, the class of persons who are not to
be sneezed at. Others may be, without offence or
injustice.
Now, it chanced that Miss Jessica Bax had been
employed by her sister as a species of bait to induce
this gentleman to accompany his sister Arethusa--who,
of course, was coming to the lecture--by
sending her to be driven over in the Groob brougham,
she herself accepting a lift from the Peter Dudburys,
who had no room for more than one. Miss Volumnia,
you see, intended to speak at the discussion, and
was naturally anxious that Mr. Groob should bring
his clear head and cool judgment to hear and
appreciate the powerful analysis she intended to make of
the lecturer's first exposition of the subject.
It is impossible in this story to enter at length
into the intricate and difficult questions touched
upon; but it may be noted that Miss Volumnia,
who had read the typed manuscript of this lecture,
was prepared to combat its main argument, to take
exception to its author's fundamental standpoint,
to scrutinise fearlessly his pretensions to Scientific
accuracy, and to lay bare its fallacies with a
merciless scalpel. She was naturally anxious that a
B.Sc., London--for Mr. Duodecimus Groob was so
designate--should hear her do it, being so close at
hand; and when she said to Jessica, "Tell Arethusa
I expect her to bring a brother," she did so with a
shrewd insight into the souls of brothers whose
sisters very pretty girls accompany to even the
humblest entertainments--penny readings and what
not. This Mr. Groob came, and what was more,
Mr. Adolphus, whom we saw _en passant_ at Pimlico
Studios, accompanied him. Both had come to
stay till Monday at their father's residence--where
there were bronzes and Dresden china in the
drawing-room, and ruins by Panini all round the
dining-room, and a Wolf Hunt, Snyders, in the
entrance-hall. We repeat that _both_ came, although
there was hardly room in the small brougham, and
Mr. Adolphus had to go on the box and wrap up.
And our belief is that if it had been an omnibus,
and there had been young men enough to fill it,
they would all have gone to that lecture.
Insignificant as this visit to the Suburbiton
Athenæum may seem, it has its place in this story,
and that place is given to it by its most unimportant
details. As you can scarcely be expected to turn
back to it, please note now what it was that really
happened.
In the lobby, when Mrs. Aiken and her Aunt
arrived, Miss Volumnia Bax was, as it were,
marshalling Europe. She was a leading mind,
overlooking gregariousness through a pince-nez.
Gregariousness was shedding its fleeces and taking
little cardboard tickets in exchange.
"You know Mr. Adolphus Groob," said Miss
Volumnia to her cousin, sternly, almost reproachfully.
"Yes--you know my brother," said Miss Arethusa
Groob confirmatorily. And Miss Priscilla--oh
dear! one's unmanageable Aunts!--must needs,
as it were, go over to the enemy, saying in
honeyed tones, with a little powdered sugar over
them:
"_You_ know Mr. Adolphus Groob, Euphemia."
It was quite the most dastardly desertion on
record. There was nothing for it before such an
accumulation of testimony but to plead guilty. What
can, anybody do with such treachery in the camp?
Euphemia admitted grudgingly that she knew
Mr. Adolphus, who had long hair and was like our idea
of a German Student. He, for his part, was horribly
frightened and got away. For, you see, he knew
all about the row between Aiken and his wife; and
although in the absence of that unearthly sex, the
female one, he was ready to lay claim to a deep and
subtle knowledge of its ways, he was an arrant
coward in the presence of a sample.
"I say, Bob," said he aside to his brother
Duodecimus, using a convenient, if arbitrary,
abbreviation of that name.
"What's the fun, Dolly?" said Bob, who was a
chap who always made game of everything.
"Why, look here! When a customer you know
quarrels with his wife, and she does a bunk..."
"She _what's_?"
"Hooks it, don't you know! Well, when she
runs away, and you come across her, and you know
all the story about the shindy, being in the beggar's
confidence, don't you see?--and she knows you
know it, only, mind you, there's nothing exactly
to swear by, and you know she knows you know
it, and she knows you know she knows--up and
down and in and out--intersectitiously, don't you
see...?" But the heroic effort to express a
situation we have all had a try at and failed
over was too much for Mr. Adolphus, and
his sentence remained unfinished. Consider that
he had supplied an entirely new word, and be
lenient!
"Want'n'er for yourself, Dolly?" said that
frivolous, superficial beast, Bob. "Don't you, that's
my advice! She's a head and shoulders taller than
you. You'll look such an ass!" Whereupon
Mr. Adolphus, not without dignity, checked his brother's
ill-timed humour, pointing out that he had done
nothing to deserve the imputation of personal
motives, and hinting that his well-known monastic
bias should have saved him from it.
"Very well, then!--let her alone!" said Bob.
"But it's very embarrassing, you must admit,"
said Dolly.
"H'm!--don't see why."
"The position is a delicate one."
"Can't see where the delicacy comes in. You
keep out of her way. _She_ won't tackle _you_."
This was just about the time when the disengagement
of their fleeces had enabled a congestion of
the flock to pass on towards the lecture-hall, leaving
access clear to Miss Priscilla, her niece, and others.
Euphemia's fleece was one that gave trouble; she
said it always got hooked. It certainly did so this
time, and Mr. Adolphus, passing on after his colloquy
with his brother, was able to render squire's service,
unhooking it as bold as brass. Whereupon the lady
and her aunt gushed gratefully, as in return for
life saved. Their rescuer passed on, feeling
internally gratified, and that he had shown presence
of mind at a crisis--was, in short, a Man of the World.
But he did not know that from thenceforward he
was entangled in a certain perverse enchantment--a
sort of spell that constantly impelled him to
dally with the delicate position he was so conscious
about. He must needs go and stick himself four
seats off Mrs. Aiken, in the two-shilling places, the
intervening three seats being vacant.
Now, if only lean men, operating edgewise, had
attempted to pass into these seats, things might
have gone otherwise. Fate sent a lady over three
feet thick all the way down, and apparently quite
solid, to wedge her way into one or more of these
seats. Mr. Adolphus shrank, for all he was worth,
but it was a trying moment. The lady was just
that sort the Inquisition once employed so
successfully; one with spikes, that drew blood from
anyone that got agglutinated with her costume. She
might, however, have got through without accident--you
never can tell!--if the trial had been carried
out. It was suspended by a suggestion from
Mrs. Aiken that Mr. Adolphus Groob should come a little
farther along and make room; and when he complied,
to the extent of going one seat nearer to her,
a second suggestion that he should come nearer still,
to which he assented with trepidation. Resistance
was useless. A galaxy of daughters had already
filled in the whole row behind the stout lady, and
were forcing her on like the air-tight piece of potato
in a quill popgun, only larger. So in the end
Mr. Adolphus Groob found himself wedged securely
between the stout lady and Mrs. Euphemia Aiken, quite
unable to speak to the former, for though they had
certainly met--with a vengeance--they had never
been introduced. This really _was_ a very delicate
position. Mrs. Aiken might at least have said,
"You know Mrs. Godfrey Pybus, I think?" That
was the stout lady's name. Then he could have
avoided talking with Mrs. Aiken, by becoming
absorbed in Mrs. Pybus, and shouting round her
to her nearest daughters beyond. As it was, he
was fairly forced to make careful remarks to his
other neighbour, scrupulously avoiding allusion to
husbands, wives, quarrels, Studios, Chelsea, London,
servant-girls, picture-cleaning ... this is only a
handful at random of the things it would never do
to mention in such delicate circumstances. He held
his tongue discreetly about every one of these in
turn, and talked of little but the weather.
Do not run away with the idea that anything
interesting or exciting grew out of this chance
meeting, in the story. The introduction of it, at
such length, is only warranted by the fact that,
without its details, it would have absolutely no
relevance at all. Whatever it has will, we hope,
be made clear later.
A little conversation passed between the two, but
it was of no more importance than the sample which
follows.
"Do you know what the lecture is about?" said
Mrs. Aiken.
"Couldn't say," was the reply. "Never know
what lectures are about! I'm an Artist, don't you
know! My brother Bob could tell you. He's a
scientific chap--knows about Telephones and things
that go round and burst."
"Is there anything that goes round and bursts
in the lecture, I wonder?"
"Shouldn't be much surprised. Here's the
Syllabub--I mean Syllabus." Mr. Adolphus
handed his information to his neighbour. Caution
made him uncommunicative. Naturally, he was
of a more talkative disposition.
Mrs. Aiken studied the heads of the lecture.
"What is meant, I wonder, by the Radio-Activity
of Space?" said she. Now in asking this question
she was deferring to the widespread idea that Man
understands Science, and can tell Woman all about
it. He doesn't, and can't.
Observe, please, that Mr. Groob was under a
mixed influence. He happened to have been rather
disgusted because Miss Jessica Bax, instead of
appreciating his self-sacrifice in riding outside and
wrapping up, had shown a marked preference for
a flirtation with his brother. Slightly miffed by
this, he had become the victim of a mysterious
spell or fascination connected with that
hook-and-eye accident, which had caused him--not to sit
down beside its victim; he never would have
presumed to do that--but to hover near her, and in
doing this to be remorselessly forced into her pocket
by the dead weight of Mrs. Godfrey Pybus. Things
being so, what could he do but rejoice at the
Radio-Activity of Space, as a topic surely removed from
any wives that had bolted from any husbands?
What could be safer as a resource against
embarrassing reference to the painful _status quo_?
He accepted the position of instructor his sex
conferred on him. "It's got somethin' to do with
Four Dimensions," he said. "Can't say I've gone
much into the subject myself, but I've talked to a
very intelligent feller about it. Did you ever see
any Radium?"
"Me? No. My husband saw some, though.
He looked through a hole."
"That's it. It destroys your eyesight, I believe,
and loses decimal point something of its volume in
a hundred thousand years. There is no doubt we
are on the brink of great discoveries."
"How very interesting! I wish the lecturer
would begin. Oh--here he is!"
"Very bald feller! He ought to use petrol.
You have to rub it in and keep out of the way of
artificial light. This chap's first cousin lost the
use of both legs through investigatin'. It was
X-rays, I believe. You may depend on it we've
got a deal to learn." And so on.
Upon the honour of the narrative this sample is
a fair one of what passed between this lady and
gentleman on this occasion. There was more, but
it was exactly the same sort.
In due course the lecture was begun and ended;
then the discussion followed, and Mrs. Godfrey
Pybus and her six daughters didn't stop to hear
Miss Volumnia Bax's analysis and refutation, but
went away in the middle and made a noise on
purpose. It was just like them, and they were
perfectly odious people.
It is most extraordinary how Time will slip away
when the catching hold of his forelock depends on
ourselves. Each morning may bring that forelock
again within reach, and each morning the same
apathy that made us yesterday too languid to stretch
out a hand and grip the old scamp and employ him
for our own advantage keeps us in the same stupid
abeyance, and we lose the chance for another
twenty-four hours. Every postponement makes
a new precedent, and every new precedent stiffens
the back of inaction.
It was so with Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Aiken.
Not a morning passed without an unfulfilled
impulse on either part to cross the gulf between them,
and terminate their idiotic separation, bridged by
correspondence which really did more harm than
good. There is one precept which it is quite
impossible for the human race to observe too
closely--_Never write letters_! If only those words could
replace Little Liver Pills and so forth on those
atrocities that flank the railways and hide the
planet, its inhabitants would be the gainers.
Mr. Reginald had an extraordinary faculty for undoing
in a postscript any little concession he had made at
the outset, and Mrs. Euphemia, for her part, was
becoming quite a proficient in sarcasm--three-line
whips of scorpions describes her style, or the
style she aimed at. For a superficial literary
education did not help her up to its perfection.
"Very good, Mrs. Hay!"--thus, on receipt of a
letter, would run her husband's commentary,
embodying transposed quotation in its text, "'Pray
go my own way'--that's it, is it?--'On no account
give the slightest consideration underlined to the
wishes of your underlined wife.' Oh, very well--I
won't. 'If my Conscience with a big C didn't
turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of my Better Self
with a big B and a big S'--what's all this? can't
read it--oh! I see--yes, at least I see what it comes
to!--I should come to my sences--spelt wrong--and
overcome the ridiculous false pride that stands
between me and something or other
underlined--h'm! h'm!--'consult my own dignity'--h'm,
h'm--something's something else I can't make out
in the truest sence of the word, underlined. I
dare say. I know what all this rot comes to in the
end. I'm to go and ask forgiveness and show
contrition, and I shouldn't wonder if I was expected to
beg Aunt Priscilla's pardon. And be taken to
Church, as like as not! I say, Stumpy, that would
be rather jolly, wouldn't it? Fancy the Wicked
Man turnething away from his Wickedness and
Aunt Priscilla taking care visibly not to look at
your humble servant, so as not to hurt his feelings!"
"I tell you what, Crocky,"--thus Mr. Hughes,
on the occasion the above is chosen from, some time
in November--"I tell you what: if I was you, I
shouldn't be an Ass. Just you mozey off to
Athabasca Villa and make it up. I believe Mrs. Gapp's
right."
"That old sot been talking? Parples was the
best of the two. I'll have Parples back." For
Mrs. Gapp had taken Mrs. Parples' place, under
pretence of greater accomplishments and better
training.
"At my invitation, Mr. Aiken," said Mr. Hughes
with some show of dignity--"at my invitation,
observe!--Mrs. Gapp, who has buried three
husbands and really ought to know a good deal
about connubiosity--conjugosity--what the dooce
is the word?..."
"Well--married life, anyhow! What did old
boozey say?"
"She had great faith in a spirit of mutual
conciliation. That is not precisely the way she put it.
Her exact expression was 'A good 'ug's the thing,
Mr. Stumpy' .... Yes--that is what Mrs. Gapp
calls me, misled by your example.... I must say
I think the course she indicated has much to
recommend it."
Mr. Aiken looked moody, and did not reply at
once. Then he said: "That's all very fine, Stump,
my boy. But--Sairah! Sairah's the point. Now,
mind you, I'm not suggestin' anythin'. But just
you look at it this way. There was a rather nice
lookin' gyairl, with a bird's wing in her hat, came for
the place, and Euphemia wouldn't hear of her,
don't you know! Suppose it had been her!--puts
the matter on a more human footin', shouldn't
you say?"
Mr. Hughes reflected, and spoke as one whose
reflections had borne fruit. "Not being a married
beggar myself, I can't say. Speaking as a single
cuss, my recommendation to you would be--speaking
broadly--not to make an Ass of yourself.
See what I'm driving at?"
"That means," said Mr. Aiken, "that you
consider I ought to go and beg Euphemia's gracious
pardon, and take the blame of the whole
how-do-you-do on my own shoulders, and as like as not
have to go to Church with Aunt Priscilla.
Well--I won't, and there's an end of it!"
And Mr. Aiken didn't, and prolonged his uncomfortable
circumstances quite to the end of the year.
But it is only right to say that his wife contributed
all her share to their extension and consolidation.
In fact, if this story has achieved the wish of its
compiler, ourself, it should be clear to its reader
that Mr. Reginald and Mrs. Euphemia Aiken were
precisely six of the one and half a dozen of the
other.