LICENTIOUS BEHAVIOR OF THE GREEN CHARTREUSE
THE heir to the barony was a dull young man--it is idle to pretend
that he wasn’t--yet in his slow-witted way he had a habit of turning
things over in his mind. If he married Adela it would give pleasure
to his excellent parents; it would advance him in the eyes of the
world; people would say here is a young man with more in him than we
thought--see how well he has married. But there was no shirking the
fact that if he married Adela he was bound to be miserable for the rest
of his days.
Weak, disgraceful thoughts, Shelmerdine, quoth the Twin Brethren, Eton
and Christ Church. It was not on _our_ playing fields you learned to
be so puerile. No girl in London makes a more distinguished appearance
in black velvet. You will shoot at High Cliff. With what grace and
charm will the seventh _married_ daughter preside over that dear little
house in Grosvenor Street, on the left, going to the park, which your
admirable parents have promised her admirable parent to take for you
on a lease, in order that you may both be near them. Shelmerdine, we
don’t know when we have been so ashamed of an alumnus of ours. If you
haven’t enough character, sir, to tackle the very ordinary job of
driving a young woman on the curb--as every young woman ought to be
driven for her soul’s welfare at the beginning--you are a miserable
shirker, sir, and unworthy of your liberal nurture.
Sir, in that event, we wash our hands of you; and you are free to form
an alliance with this underbred Bohemian--it is not our custom to mince
our language when our emotions are deeply stirred! You will bring down
the gray hairs of your admirable parents in sorrow to the grave; your
portrait will receive the freedom of the gutter press; you will never
be asked to shoot at High Cliff; you will bring tragedy into your own
life and into the life of others--in fact, sir, and in a word--one
understood these infernal safety-razors were guaranteed not to cut
gashes into one’s neck!
Little recked Cinderella of the reason why the heir to the barony had
to appear at tea-time on Friday done up in court plaster. He was also
strangely pensive and embarrassed.
She was as gay and as charming as usual; and she had just been engaged
to create the title rôle in Mr. Wingrove’s brilliant new play at the
Millennium, that was to be produced in the middle of Lent. But poor
Philip was far from being himself. Still, he insisted on walking home
with her to Bedford Gardens.
However, by the time they had reached the Strand, that romantic
thoroughfare, the murder was pretty well out. It really came out at
the moment they stood on the edge of the kerb opposite Charing Cross,
waiting to commit their frail lives to the maëlstrom of mechanically
propelled vehicles.
“Fact is, old girl,”--the heir to the barony gripped Mary firmly by the
arm to see that she didn’t step off the kerb too soon--“fact is, old
girl, I want a pal. Will you be a pal to me?”
“Why, of course I will, Philip,” said Mary, as they walked arm in arm
into the jaws of a Barnes and Hammersmith ’bus.
“A pal for life, I mean, old girl.”
By the time they had reached the opposite kerb, Mary was quivering. And
the color in her face surmounted the natural pallor of her profession.
“Oh!--but, Philip--”
“You _will_, old girl!”
“I don’t think that Granny--besides--!”
“Besides what, old girl?” The knitted chocolate waistcoat was being
grievously assaulted.
“It wouldn’t do--for you, I mean--although it is sweet of you to have
asked me, Philip.”
“It’s whether it would do for you, old girl. I’m not much of a chap, I
know, but I should begin to pick up a bit--I’m sure I should--if I had
got a real pal like you to pull my socks up for me.”
“It isn’t because I don’t like you, Philip,” said Mary, so nicely that
the owner of the knitted chocolate waistcoat wanted to clasp her to it
in one of London’s most important thoroughfares. “It is because I do.”
“Won’t you risk it, anyway?”
“But I don’t think I ought--really. Your people, you know. And I’m sure
that Granny--”
“Oh, but this is our affair. I’ve thought it all out; and if a chap
wants a wife, I don’t see that anybody has a right to meddle. It’s
askin’ a lot, I know--your career and all that--but I’ve enough for
two, and you wouldn’t have to sing and dance to three thousand people
when you were feeling so cheap you didn’t know how.”
Mary was troubled by this importunity as a girl as nice as she was
bound to be. She had already grown to like this rather heavy young man.
She felt capable of being a father, a mother, a brother and a sister to
him, or any equally near relation whose function it would be to pull
his socks up for him. But she was also a very sensible and unselfish
girl, moreover, a pretty clear-sighted one; and when she said that
Granny would never, she really meant what she said, and a great deal
more than she did say.
All the same, she was very proud and happy as she turned up Bedford
Street, with the hand of Philip still gripping her arm very tightly,
although in this haven there was not a solitary Barnes and Hammersmith
’bus to warrant a continuance of such a course of behaviour.
The heir to the barony, in our humble judgment, was about the luckiest
young fellow in London just then to be walking up Bedford Street with
a girl as good as gold in his possession. Very nearly, but not quite
in his possession. He had come at his fence so boldly; it was an
inspiration to have taken off just where he did in the welter of Barnes
and Hammersmith omnibuses in front of Charing Cross; his solid, manly
British qualities had shone out suddenly so clear and free, that where
another might have hesitated and come a purler, this sportsman had
gone straight at the obstacle and very nearly come home a winner. Very
nearly captured the queen of beauty, but not quite, although she was
feeling very proud and happy because of the honor done to her--and it
_is_ an honor, O you young ladies of Newnham and Girton, the highest
that can be paid to you, so please to remember, my dears, when you turn
down your thumbs to the next undesirable--and she blushed so charmingly
all the way up the street that it was a pity there were not more lamps
in Long Acre by which you could have seen her.
Their feet swayed together in a delightful rhythm, in their radiant
progress: spats by Grant and Cockburn, and Mr. Moykopf’s most superior
hand-stitched russia leather, and eight and eleven penny Walk-easies
made by the gross at Kettering, which had no spats upon ’em. Yes, it
was a lovely walk in the dark amid the purlieus of Long Acre. Several
times they lost their way, and didn’t try very hard to find it. And
then, suddenly, from out the distant mirk, where the time-spirit was
keeping its grim eye upon ’em, the hour was tolled from Saint Martin’s
Church.
One--two--three--four--five--six--seven!--the excited heart of the
Principal Girl counted each stroke. Cinderella must fly. She would only
just have time to drink her Oxo, and to get into her rags--which were
not rags at all really--and fix her war paint, if the great British
public was not to receive one of the severest disappointments in its
annals.
“Well, think about it, old girl--although I don’t mean to take ‘No.’
I’ve made up my mind to that.”
They were on Granny’s doorstep now. And there let us leave them without
waiting to see what happened.
_Did_ something happen?
There is no need to gratify idle curiosity upon the subject.
The really important thing that did happen, before Cinderella slipped
her latch-key in the door, was that Mr. Philip re-affirmed his manly
determination not to take “No” for an answer. He vowed, moreover, that
he would come and interview Grandmamma after she had had her siesta on
the afternoon of the Sabbath Day.