Araminta

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.