My Dearest: Arthur and the friend went off together yesterday. I am glad
the latter stayed just long enough after you left for me to have leisure
to find him out human. Here is the whole story: he came and unbosomed to
me three days ago: and he said nothing about not telling, so I tell you.
As water goes from a duck's back, so go all things worth hearing from me
to you.
Arthur had said to him, "Come down for a week," and he had answered,
"Can't, because of clothes!" explaining that beyond evening-dress he had
only those he stood in. "Well," said Arthur, "stand in them, then; you
look all right." "The question is," said his friend, "can I sit down?"
However, he came; and was appalled to find that a man unpacked his
trunk, and would in all probability be carrying away his clothes each
night to brush them. He, conscious of interiors, a lining hanging in
rags, and even a patching somewhere, had not the heart to let his one
and only day-jacket go down to the servants' hall to be sniffed over:
and so every evening when he dressed for dinner he hid his jacket
laboriously under the permanent layers of a linen wardrobe which stood
in his room.
I had all this in the frankest manner from him in the hour when he
became human: and my fancy fired at the vision. Graves with a fierce eye
set on duty probing hither and thither in search after the missing coat;
and each night the search becoming more strenuous and the mystery more
baffling than ever. It had a funny likeness to the Jack Raikes episode
in "Evan Harrington," and pleased me the more thus cropping up in real
life.
Well, I demanded there and then to be shown the subject of so much
romance and adventure: and had the satisfaction of mending it, he
sitting by in his shirt-sleeves the while, and watching delighted and
without craven apologies.
I notice it is not his own set he is ashamed of, but only the moneyed,
high-sniffing servant-class who have no understanding for honorable
poverty: and to be misunderstood pricks him in the thinnest of thin
places.
He told me also that he brought only three white ties to last him for
seven days: and that Graves placed them out in order of freshness and
cleanliness night after night:--first three new ones consecutively, then
three once worn. After that, on the seventh day, Graves resigned all
further responsibility, and laid out all three of them for him to choose
from. On the last three days of his stay he did me the honor to leave his
coat out, declaring that my mendings had made it presentable before an
emperor. Out of this dates the whole of his character, and I understand,
what I did not, why Arthur and he get on together.
Now the house is empty, and your comings will be--I cannot say more
welcome: but there will be more room for them to be after my own heart.
Heaven be over us both. Faithfully your most loving.