A CONVERSATION AT WARD’S
Cheriton was a good deal perturbed. He felt that the conduct of
Caroline Crewkerne bore a perilous resemblance to the pointing at one
of a loaded pistol. He had a constitutional objection to doing things
under compulsion or in a hurry. He would greatly have preferred that
his sentiments in regard to Miss Perry should have been permitted to
ripen at their leisure. Let nature take her course. Why force the fine
flower of altruism, or encumber it with the coarser growths which
sprang from a sordid and grasping materialism?
His admiration for Miss Perry was immense. That, however, he shared
with many people. Her success had been a feature of the season.
Cheriton was in no sense a modest man, and he could not help feeling
that much of it was due to his brilliantly effective stage management.
Certainly his zeal for Miss Perry’s advancement had been largely
inspired by vanity. From the first he had taken her under his wing;
and a great deal of the world’s applause had been addressed to him
personally on the strength of his “discovery.”
He was somewhat advanced in years, certainly, to think of marriage.
But he had always felt that sooner or later he would inevitably take
that course. He was urged thereto by a number of considerations. And
now that the time had come when it was necessary that he should know
his own mind, he really felt that he had a very genuine regard for Miss
Perry.
The mere act of walking down Bond Street with her attracted an amount
of notice that he was not accustomed to claim in his own person.
Nevertheless, he liked it immensely. And even if commanding beauty and
an unique personality did not suffice in themselves, the fact that a
powerful rival was in the field was enough to stimulate his altruism in
the highest degree.
He was fully determined not to be cut out by a man like George
Betterton. That was the decision which braced his faculties as he
sauntered down to his club to read the newspapers. From the first he
had had a lurking suspicion that George meant business; but unless
Caroline played him false, and his cause was already forsworn, he felt
that he would prove more than a match for that by no means agile man of
affairs.
Could he count upon Caroline Crewkerne? It was a thorny question for
the altruist to present to himself. So intimately was he acquainted
with the instinctive mental processes of that difficult old woman that
he was quite sure he could not count upon her unless he could advance
some very definite reason for her good-will. If he wanted Miss Perry,
one thing was clear. He must prove himself the superior _parti_.
On the surface, Cheriton was as vain a man as any to be found in
London. But his coxcombry was a superficial growth, assiduously
cultivated, to hide the uncommonly shrewd and cool calculator who
lurked beneath. Not everybody knew that, but Caroline Crewkerne did.
Her dictum of “Cheriton is no fool” was her way of expressing that he
was really very much the contrary. And in her heart she respected him
accordingly. No one despised a fool more heartily than she did. As
far as she could, she dealt exclusively with people who knew how many
beans made five. There was a certain amount of honor to be gained in
overreaching them.
“George is a dooced dangerous fellow,” mused the altruist, on the way
to his club. “He is a big-wig in his second-rate sort of way, with
his Garter and his money. He is the sort of fellow to demoralize a
woman. And if he wants a penniless parson’s daughter he can afford to
marry her. Unless that old heathen is lying--and she is capable of
anything--I shall have to keep my eye on the target. As long as there
is good manhood left in the country, that ruffian shall not marry our
adorable Goose.”
As he formulated this ultimatum the _preux chevalier_ turned the corner
of Saint James’s Street. Seated in the bow window of Ward’s was the
object of these reflections. He was reading _Horse and Hound_. From a
distance Cheriton marked him with the air of a satyr.
“There he is,” he muttered cheerfully. “He’s got the head of a
rocking-horse, thank God!”
Seen in profile, George’s pouched, purple face, his ungainly jowl,
his loose cheeks, and his bald head, without exactly meriting the
strictures to which their owner had been exposed, yet bore a kind of
wooden stupidity which gave grounds for the portrait.
Cheriton, having observed that none of his fellow-members were within
earshot, advanced to the recess with an air of _bonhomie_ that was
totally lost upon George, who was not in the least susceptible to
casual external influences.
“How are you, George?” he said heartily.
“Pooty well for an old ’un,” said George, with the rough geniality he
extended to everybody.
“I hope you are quite free of the old trouble?” said Cheriton,
solicitously.
“Free as I ever shall be,” said George.
“As I haven’t seen you about lately I was beginning to fear that you
were laid up again.”
“No,” said George; and then, like the consummate blunderer he was, he
fell into the trap. “Why,” he said, “didn’t I see you at Hill Street
yesterday?”
“Hill Street!” said Cheriton, with an air of complete innocence. “You
might have seen me, but I didn’t see you.”
“You were there, anyhow,” said George, “and so was I.”
“Were you?” said his friend. “Then why the dooce didn’t I see you?”
“I remember now,” said George. “I called round to see Caroline
Crewkerne, and you called too, but she thought you had better not come
up, as the two of us might prove too much for her.”
“She erred on the side of caution, my dear fellow. Two and twenty like
you and me would not prove too much for that old woman.”
“No, I dare say,” said George, with a grunt of approbation. “How is she
this morning?”
“Getting stronger by degrees. In my opinion, if that old woman is kept
in bed much longer she will wreck the premises.”
“Remarkably vigorous mind for a woman of her age.”
“Her mind, in my humble judgment, is much too vigorous for one of her
years,” said Cheriton, with the air of one who imparts a profound
truth to an intellectual equal. “In my opinion, Caroline Crewkerne is
a rather embarrassing phenomenon. She has the education of a Whig, and
the instincts of a Jesuit.”
“I dare say,” grunted George, who felt that Cheriton, as usual, was
becoming tedious. He showed a marked inclination to resume the study of
the prices made at Tattersall’s the week before last. Cheriton’s next
remark, however, did something to recapture his interest.
“You remember that gal of hers, that niece?” said Cheriton, speaking in
a rather aggrieved tone.
“Ye-es,” said George, heavily, but with attention. “Gal with the ginger
hair.”
“Well, now, George,” said his old friend, impressively, “I am going to
tell you something.”
Cheriton looked round the room to make quite sure that none of his
fellow-members were within hearing.
“When that gal came to London a few weeks ago,” said he, “she arrived
at Hill Street in a turn-out that any self-respecting butter-woman
would disdain to go to market in. She was the most untutored child of
nature that I ever saw in the house of a Christian.”
George nodded to show that he was following the course of his friend’s
narrative.
“Well, Caroline was furious. You know, I dare say, the circumstances
in which the gal came to Hill Street. Mind you, I don’t disguise the
fact that her coming there at all was highly creditable to Caroline. In
the course of a forty years’ acquaintance, it is the only spontaneous
act of charity in which I have known her indulge. But when she saw the
untutored creature that had been sent to her from the heart of Exmoor,
she wanted to send her packing. However, with infinite difficulty, I
managed to dissuade her. Her people are as poor as mice, as, of course,
you know. Father a parson, who has to bring up a long family on forty
pound a year.”
“Ye-es,” said George, nodding.
“Knowing the gal’s circumstances,” his friend continued, “I thought
it would be only right to give her a chance. But Caroline was all for
sending her home again. And then I made the discovery that the rustic
parson’s daughter was by way of being a throwback to her grandmother
Dorset. Well, George, what do you think I did?”
“No idea,” said George.
“I got hold, my dear fellow, of Duprez, the Paris milliner, and
Pelissier, the woman from the bonnet shop in Grafton Street, and
between us we turned out that gal a very tolerable imitation of
Grandmother Dorset. And as I had a genuine interest in the gal for her
own sake, for she is a very nice simple gal, I took her about to let
her see something of London, so that she might get a few ideas about
things in general.”
“Ye-es,” said George.
“You see, my dear fellow, what I said to Caroline was this.” Cheriton
again looked about him to discover the proximity of his fellow-members,
and assumed a very confidential air. “‘With a bit of luck, and if you
can play your cards as well as you used to, that gal might marry. She
hasn’t a penny, of course, and she is of no particular family, but she
is not at all a bad style of gal when she has on a pretty frock. In
fact, Caroline,’ I said, ‘in my opinion she is just the sort of gal to
catch a brewer or a stockholder or one of these new men with money.’”
“Ye-es,” said George.
“And now, my dear fellow,” said his friend, more confidentially than
ever, “what do you think that old Jesuit does? I put it to you, George.”
“No idea,” said George.
“Finding the gal has not gone off as she ought, she turns round on me.”
“You!” said George, with stolid surprise.
“Yes, my dear fellow, turns round on me, and has the effrontery to
expect me--me, George--to marry her.”
George gave a chuckle.
“What do you say to that, my dear fellow? Cool, eh?”
George turned over a page of _Horse and Hound_ with a preternatural
appearance of gravity. Apparently he was not at all conscious that
Cheriton was scrutinizing him narrowly.
“What do you say to it?”
“Well,” said George, slowly and heavily, “I should say you were asking
for it.”
It must be confessed that Cheriton was baffled. For, both in the manner
and in the matter of the rejoinder, no portion of George’s feelings was
visible.
“Asking for it!” said Cheriton, with virtuous indignation. “Upon my
word, George, I expected better things of you! To say the least, it is
a poor encouragement to a good heart.”
“Well, you know, Cheriton,” said George, with a genial grunt and
addressing himself to _Horse and Hound_ in earnest, “you might do
worse. Ginger-haired gal is not bad-lookin’!”
There was nothing more to be got out of George. Not only did
Tattersall’s sale list prove of absorbing interest, but fellow-members
began to encroach upon the privacy of the bow window. Among these was
the bullet-headed marquis from Yorkshire.
“Give you a good sermon, Kendal?” said Cheriton, nodding affably.
“No,” said the marquis, slowly and with decision. “Too much up in the
air for my taste.”
“Up in the air!” said Cheriton. “I am surprised to hear you say that. I
thought every parson in Europe had abandoned the up-in-the-air theory.
They say the kingdom of heaven is within you these days, don’t they?”
“Yes,” said the marquis, gravely, “and in my opinion and in the opinion
of Maria they are making a great error.”
“Indigestion probably,” said Cheriton, with a little shrug, and taking
up the _Figaro_. “But if you will have your cooks from Yorkshire!”
“By the way,” said Kendal, “I was told this morning that Caroline
Crewkerne was not expected to recover.”
“I am able to contradict that rumor,” said Cheriton.
“Glad to hear it,” said Kendal. “Caroline is one of the old standards.”
“A survivor of a darker age,” said Cheriton.
“I see that little bay horse of yours made a hundred and forty
guineas,” said George, from behind _Horse and Hound_.
“Yes,” said Kendal, “and was worth more.”
“Why did you part with him?”
“He tried to bite Priscilla.”
“Vice?”
“No, only playful.”
“Talking of Priscilla,” said Cheriton, “has that young chap painted her
yet?”
“No,” said Kendal. “Maria has a fancy for Halpin.”
Cheriton shook his head sagely.
“You are making a mistake,” said he.
“Halpin is a good man, ain’t he?”
“Halpin is Halpin, of course; but this young fellow Lascelles is the
coming man. He has done a wonderful portrait of Caroline Crewkerne’s
niece.”
The marquis laughed in the broad Yorkshire manner.
“I suppose, Cheriton,” said he, “we must congratulate you.”
George laid down _Horse and Hound_. Cheriton, who seemed far more
preoccupied with George’s behavior than with Kendal’s question, favored
the former with a gesture of humorous despair.
“I believe,” said he to Kendal, “that you regular churchgoers go to
church mainly to keep abreast of the times.”
“Well, there’s no denying,” said Kendal, with a wink at George, “that
we do not contrive to do that.”
“Well, my dear fellow,” said Cheriton, “there is such a thing as you
regular churchgoers getting a little in front of the times.”
“People seem to think she is the most beautiful girl in England,” said
the marquis. “Priscilla is very jealous.”
“If I were half as handsome as Priscilla,” said Cheriton,
discreetly--for personal beauty was certainly not Priscilla’s strong
point--“I should not be jealous of a poor parson’s daughter.”
“Funny cattle, y’know,” said Kendal, with an air of wisdom. “You young
bachelors have got that to find out. What do you say, George?”
George, whose experience of the sex was extensive and peculiar, gave a
grunt of ponderous solemnity.
“Anyhow,” said Cheriton, in the bounty of his heart, “Lascelles is your
man. Tell the wife I say so.”
When Cheriton came to reflect upon George’s attitude, that is, as
far as his prescience could discern it, he felt that the position of
affairs called for less decisive action than Caroline Crewkerne had
indicated. His interview with her that morning, however, had the effect
of crystallizing his ideas. He had now definitely made up his mind that
George Betterton should not marry Miss Perry.