Soon after the events described in our last chapter I knew from
Tintinnabulum’s letters that he was again Helping. They were
nevertheless communications so guarded as to be wrapped in mystery.
His letters from school tend at all times to be more full of instruction
for my guidance than of information about where he stands in his form. I
notice that he worries less than did an older generation about how I am
to dress when I visit him, but he is as pressing as ever that the postal
order should be despatched at once, and firmly refuses to write at all
unless I enclose stamped envelopes. On important occasions he even
writes my letters for me, requesting me to copy them carefully and not
to put in any words of my own, as when for some reason they have to be
shown to his tutor. He then writes, “Begin ‘Dear T.’ (not ‘Dearest T.’),
and end ‘Yours affec.’ (not ‘Yours affectionately’).”
The mysterious letters that preceded the holidays were concerned with W.
W. Daly, whom I was bidden (almost ordered) to invite to our home for
that lengthy period, “as his mother is to be away at that time on
frightfully important business in which I have a hand.”
I was instructed to write “Dear Mrs. Daly (not “dearest”), I understand
that you are to be away on important business during the holidays, and
so I have the pleasure to ask you to allow your son to spend the
holidays with me and my boy who is a general favourite and very
diligent. Come, come, I will take no refusal, and I am, Yours affec.”
I did as I was told, but as I now heard of the lady for the first time I
thought it wisest not to sign my letter to her “Yours affec.” Thus did I
fall a victim to Tintinnabulum’s wiles.
What could this frightfully important business of Mrs. Daly’s be in
which he “had a hand”?
[Illustration: “ON IMPORTANT OCCASIONS HE EVEN WRITES MY LETTERS FOR
ME.”]
You may say (when you hear of his dark design) that I should at once
have insisted on an explanation, but explanations are barred in the
sport that he and I play, which is the greatest of all parlour games,
the Game of Trying to Know Each Other without asking questions. It is
strictly a game for two, who, I suppose, should in perfect conditions be
husband and wife; it is played silently and it never lasts less than a
life-time. In panegyrics on love (a word never mentioned between us two
players), the game is usually held to have ended in a draw when they
understand each other so well that before the one speaks or acts the
other knows what he or she is going to say or do. This, however, is a
position never truly reached in the game, and if it were reached, such a
state of coma for the players could only be relieved by a cane in the
hand of the stronger, or by the other bolting, to show him that there
was one thing about her which he had still to learn.
No, no, these doited lovers when they think the haven is in sight have
set sail only. Tintinnabulum and I have made a hundred moves, but we are
well aware that we don’t know each other yet; at least, I don’t know
Tintinnabulum, I won’t swear that he does not think that he at last
knows me. So when he brought W. W. home with him for the holidays it was
for me to find out without inquiry how he had been helping Mrs. Daly
(and for what sum). He knew that I was cogitating, I could see his
impertinent face regarding me demurely, as if we were at a chess board
and his last move had puzzled me, which indeed was the situation.
All I knew of her was that she had lately remarried and that W. W. had
been invited to spend his holidays with us while she was away on her
honeymoon.
Good heavens, could Tintinnabulum have had some Helping part in the
lady’s marriage? This boy is beginning to scare me.
I studied him and W. W. at their meals and stole upon them at their
play. There could not have been more cherubic faces.
But then I remembered the two cherubic faces I had watched from a
bridge.