CHAPTER IX
HOW MARIANNE SHOWED THAT LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND, MRS. ELDRIDGE. WHERE WAS THAT SOFA? OF COUNTRY AND TOWN HOUSES. JEALOUSY
Marianne Challis had never become quite reconciled to her new life at the Hermitage at Wimbledon, obvious as was the improvement on her old home in Great Coram Street. What she would have liked would have been that Titus—for she had adopted the Christian name of his nom de plume, not without pride—should become a brilliant and successful author, that a plentiful income should take the place of the modest salary of a subordinate—important, but still a subordinate—in a City accountant's; but that, nevertheless, their old life should go on as it had done since their marriage nine years ago.
She made little concessions and reservations. They would have had a bath put up in the little room next the nursery, on the second floor, with a regular hot-water service from the kitchen. The old kitchen-range might have been got rid of at the same time, and a new one put in its place, with a proper oven, and then it wouldn't have been one long grumble-grumble-grumble from Elizabeth Barclay all day long. They could have had the roof seen to, and the window-frames seen to, and the drains seen to, and all the substantial repairs attended to; and they could have made the landlord do it as soon as they were in a position to threaten him with legal proceedings if he didn't. But really, when you have no means but a limited salary, and a boy's schooling to pay for!—so Mrs. Challis said to Mrs. Eldridge, a friend in her confidence, and as she didn't finish the sentence, we need not. And then the drawing-room could have been made quite pretty, with the same patterned paper, of course, and as near as we could get the carpet. Only it was second-hand when poor Kate bought it fourteen years ago, and the man from Shoolbred's said the pattern was out of date. And as for the beds and the blinds and curtains, it would have been just as easy to have them all new at Coram Street as at Wimbledon. And really Titus could have done perfectly well with the top back attic, out of the noise, to do his writing in. It could have been made quite nice, and would have looked ever so much bigger with bookcases round.
However, it couldn't be helped now. Titus had condemned the top back attic, and made a fuss about the walls sloping in. Of course, she only meant bookcases on the straight-up walls. But men were like that, and you might talk to them till Doomsday. Mrs. Challis left something defective here also, and we are again under no obligation to complete the sentence for her.
Of course Titus had a much nicer room now—at least, a much larger one. What he wanted such a big room for Marianne couldn't imagine. Just look at the way he wrote that first book, "The Spendthrift's Legacy." In pocket-books and on omnibuses! Just everywhere! However, it pleased him, and when he was pleased he was satisfied. As long as he didn't complain! And yet once more Mrs. Eldridge had to nod an implied easy interpretation with closed lips. She—a wife herself—could understand.
Very likely the might-have-been, in Marianne Challis's mind, of a glorified Great Coram Street, with the successful author turning out immortal works in a glorified top back attic, was only an allotropic form of a condemnation of things that had come to pass at the new home at Wimbledon. Very likely, too, it was unconscious on her part. She may never have noticed that the imaginary new chapters of the closed volume of the old home contained no reference to the new friends her husband's great success had brought about him, to the new Club he belonged to, and met celebrities at, to the dinner invitations that frankly left her out, and—almost more irritating—those that followed a perfunctory card-shedding visit that shouted aloud, "Because we can't ask him and leave you out, good author's wife!" The imaginary visitors her fancy saw in the renovated might-have-been drawing-room were John and Charlotte Eldridge, and the Smithsons and Miss Macculloch—not grandma; for Marianne's desire for her mother's presence did not go to the length of cancelling her bronchitis in order to bring her out on imaginary Saturday evenings. And those visionary social gatherings never held a dream of young authoresses, with a strange power of appealing to our hidden sympathies, and dresses that must have cost God knows what. But she never noticed the omission. Nor that of the theatrical people, nor the press people; nor the swells—male and female—who came to sit at the feet of Genius, and be civil to its wife, who, though she may have been slow about some things, could see through all that, and really never went out, thank you!
But a few days' change was just what her husband wanted. That was what she had said to Lady Arkroyd of Royd Hall, in Rankshire, a case in point, whom her husband had met at Sir Spender's, as he called him, and had encouraged to call on Mrs. Challis at Wimbledon. Now, at Great Coram Street, or the glorified fetch of it, no such person appeared; though, indeed, a few inexplicable fetches were supplied by fancy of people who were in earnest when they wanted her to come too. Neither Lady Arkroyd nor Lady Betty Inglis, who accompanied her, had gone beyond civility point—only men never saw anything, you knew they didn't!
Charlotte Eldridge (in this case) knew perfectly, dear!—and backed up Marianne in refusing to go to Royd. Alfred Challis said it was the merest temper; but was he sorry she didn't go?—Marianne wondered. She rather preferred not going, to say the truth, but she would have liked Titus to be really sorry. And even though she had known just as well that he was only pretending he wanted her to come too, she would have liked him to pretend a little better. If he had done this, she would really have enjoyed his absence a great deal more, and it would have helped her to believe she didn't enjoy it. She honestly wanted to.
Because she was one of those housekeepers who reconcile good housekeeping with what they call a little peace and quiet. These ends are contributed to by the temporary abeyance of the household. Scarcely by its permanent absence—that would alter the character of the position altogether. This position was that an unendurable stress of responsibility was borne by the house's mistress in her position, so to speak, of ship's master. The navigation rested entirely on her shoulders, and the Captain meddled. Captains seldom did anything else, and there was no peace and quiet until they were at their office in the City, or locked up in their cabin as might be. In that cabin, as in Challis's case, they pursued some private end which had no relation to the stern realities of Life. It might chance, as was admitted in theory, to have something to do with the settlement of weekly accounts—a remote connection of a vague ideal kind. But the keeping of the log, the regulation of the chronometers, the comparison of charts—well, really, it was impossible to attend to them for the fidget, till the Captain was safely entombed in his cabin and out of the way! And Charlotte Eldridge knew all that as well as Marianne did. She could understand, if anyone could. As for schoolboys, everybody knew what a boy in a house was; hence, broadly speaking, the sooner he was back at school the better. When home for the holidays, there was no peace; and it was just as well to look the fact in the face and not be deceived by any false prophets.
However, there was something to be said for the prophets in that Jerusalem at Wimbledon when the nominal head of the household was on a visit in the country, and that dreadful boy was playing cricket and wouldn't be back till late. This September afternoon there was a little peace and quiet at last, and Charlotte Eldridge and Mrs. Challis could chat—at least, till the husband of the former called in on his way from the station to walk home with her across the common. Let the record of their talk be taken anywhere, at random. Take the images of them, also at random, from any one of a thousand semi-detached villas in the suburbs of London, and, if you choose ladies of thirty odd, true centres of the English middle-class, you will have all the description you will want for the present.
"They're not girls. At least, I don't call them girls," said Mrs. Challis, shutting the pot-lid on the tea. Then she blew the spirit out, because it wasn't wanted any more.
"Twenty-six and twenty-four," said the other lady. Not an opinion of her own, but a placarding of authorized figures for consideration. They remained in view, neither sanctioned nor censured. Marianne left the point.
"Why aren't they married, is what I look at."
"Looks, perhaps. Or short tempers. Either tells. Does Mr. Challis mention their figures? Because figures go a long way." Mrs. Eldridge seems to speak as an authority. Marianne nods agreement as a general rule. But presently takes exception:
"There would be money," she says. "And that makes a difference. Besides, his letter lays a good deal of stress on one of their figures. I'm never surprised at figures when it's those sort of persons, in girls. They have to." The implication seemed to be that the she-toff, figureless, got suppressed—cancelled somehow.
"He says looks too, doesn't he?"
"One of them, certainly. But you can't tell, from men. And it's one thing one time, another another." Here a pause, following a question from Mrs. Eldridge, "Have you stirred it?" and an irrelevant answer, "I don't want it to get too strong," from Mrs. Challis. Then tea. During which the subject is picked up and dropped at intervals, an eye being kept on it throughout. It is like a mouse a cat is warden of.
"I suppose the good-looking one is the one he sees most of. They do." Mrs. Eldridge is enigmatical.
Her friend is almost equally so. "I suppose it's better always to take no notice of it," she says.
"Always better." Decisively, as from an authority.
"The other one carves something, or does art needlework. When grandma was a girl they did painting on velvet—poonah, it was called. Or took likenesses. But then they wore ringlets."
"I know. And their waists were goodness knows where. But they did ruins in water-colours."
"In sepia. Ma has some in a portfolio. Ready for your other cup?" The answer is substantially in the affirmative.
"Don't put the sugar in this time. They're such big lumps.... Thanks!... Yes, that was before it was Art Things, and Liberty's. They were just regarded as accomplishments where there were daughters. Then, if they became old maids, they kept it up. Because they had such families." This did not mean that the old maids of three generations back created scandals, but that our grandmothers' domestic cares stood in the way of their career as poonah-painters and so forth.
Mrs. Challis cut the cake. Some always wait till this stage of tea to do this. But there are many schools. Then she said: "Titus says it's photography has put an end to all that sort of thing. I shouldn't wonder."
"Nor I." But Mrs. Eldridge adds that she doesn't care about Art Objects for their own sake, though they do for presents. She then picks up the dropped mouse she has had an eye on. "Which is the one that slums?" she asks.
"Oh—both! So does their lady-mother." There is a trace of bitterness in this expression. "But only by the way. I don't suppose they stick to anything."
"What does the good-looking one do?" No immediate answer coming, the speaker throws a light, "Perhaps she's a vegetarian, or antivivisects?"
"No, it's neither of those. But I've no business to tell. Titus said not, in the postscript."
"He wouldn't mind me."
"I don't know, dear. Perhaps it was you he meant. However, you must promise not to tell, if I get the letter."
"My dear!—as if I should tell! You know I never say a word!"
Marianne felt she had done her duty by this letter as she left the room to get it. For had she not honourably resolved not to show it, and even gone the length of locking it into a drawer to prove her resolution? And didn't her getting up from her tea show what an honourable intent she had been acting under? Oh yes, she had done her duty. Besides, what did it matter?
"Here's his letter. I don't expect he'll be home till Thursday.... No, I suppose I mustn't show you the whole. I'll read the bits."
"You hadn't had your tea." Mrs. Eldridge felt quite secure of the mouse, as she knew her husband wouldn't come before 6.30, and the train was always behind. She felt so secure that she interjected a remark on another subject—dress. She saw Marianne had on her plaid, and admitted her wisdom; it had gone so much colder. How those stuffs did last out! It really looked as good as new. Then she recommended those little oblong things with jam in the middle, which she had tried and her hostess hadn't; the latter, though, had bought them at the new confectioner's.
Marianne put the letter safe out of the way of spills and slops, and finished her tea. During which the mouse may be said to have remained on the floor, watched. Then she picked up the letter, and after glancing through a page not germane to the matter, identified that which was. "Here it is," she said, and went on reading:—"'You will be amused at what I think I have found out about Judith, the handsome eldest one I told you of. She is stage-struck—wants to go on the boards! She has not said it directly to me, but I feel pretty certain that a "friend" she tells me of, who has these aspirations, is no other than herself. However, I may be mistaken. This is what I judge from: We were sitting on a sofa'...." The reader paused, looking on into the text.
Mrs. Eldridge struck in: "Where was the sofa? Does he say where the sofa was?"
"My dear Charlotte!" Marianne expostulated, "can it matter? Besides, he says—— However, I'll go straight on if you're going to fancy I'm leaving anything out." And then continued, reading fair: "... 'on a sofa in the drawing-room after dinner. When she had told me about this friend, having asked me first if I knew lots of actors and actresses, I asked what sort of looking girl the friend was. I saw her look in a glass on the wall before she answered. And then she said something rather evasive about beauty being a matter of opinion, and that there was probably enough in this case for working purposes. She had disparaged her friend's performance, as it struck me, out of all proportion to her apparent anxiety to advocate her cause, and a sort of confidence that she would succeed. I put this down to protest of personal modesty, as well as the look in the glass.'"
Marianne paused, saying, "I see that," and Mrs. Eldridge said also: "I see that." Whereupon the former said, unreasonably: "What don't you see?" and her friend replied: "Nothing. Go on." Which Marianne did, after a very slight hesitation, as of doubt.
"'I annex a plan of the position showing the angle at which the mirror was placed, the relative positions of myself and the lady, and our respective images in the glass. So I could see plainly by looking at her reflection that she took a good long look at herself before answering my question.'"
"Is there another cup left, dear?" said Mrs. Eldridge. "Never mind if you haven't...."
"It won't be good," said the tea-maker feelingly. But the applicant said never mind, that would do! She liked it strong. But might she look at the plan? She would promise not to read. There was nothing there she needn't read, said her friend. Nevertheless, she folded back the script behind the rough bird's-eye view, with dotted lines of sight to show how things had worked.
"Well!" said Marianne, as she handed the cup of tea—which didn't look bad.
"I don't believe the sofa was half as long as that."
"Charlotte—you're ridiculous!"
"Well, I don't! Now go on reading.... 'She took a good long look at herself....'" Mrs. Eldridge considered whether she should reveal the thought in her mind that Mr. Challis must also have taken a good long look to know. No!—she would not! Whatever she was, she was not a mischief-maker; and to prove this to her own satisfaction, she not infrequently abstained from saying something about a lady and gentleman. She often found an opportunity of doing this, as she never thought on any subject not spiced with both. Satisfaction to conscience through this abstention would be sure to result in free handling soon after. Also, the abstention was easy to her this time, because she believed—rightly or wrongly—that Marianne knew she was making it.
Perhaps rightly, but no outward sign to that effect came. Marianne glanced forward in the letter, and went on reading: "'This young woman, I fancy, is savagely jealous of the younger sister posing as an active promoter of all sorts of upnesses-to-date....' I wish," said the reader parenthetically, "that Titus wouldn't use such unusual expressions. I dare say they are very clever, but I don't profess to understand ... what?... Oh, of course, I see what he means, but it's a kind of thing I shall never understand.... No, my dear Charlotte!—it's no use talking and trying to persuade me. 'Upnesses-to-date'—just fancy!" Now Titus had been in two minds whether to allow this phrase to remain, but had decided to do so, as better on the whole than to provoke speculation over an obliterated text. He might have speculated himself over such an erasure.
"I don't think it implies anything," said Mrs. Eldridge, meaning of course, anything about a lady and gentleman. "I fancy he is only referring to Art Movements and Liberty silks and things. Go on." And Marianne read:
"'All sorts of upnesses-to-date, doing things her grandmothers would have thought infra dig....' What does that mean?"
"Lord, Marianne!—that doesn't mean anything. Do go on. Only what they would be too swell to do! That's all." Marianne continued:
"'Infra dig., while she herself is not allowed to try her luck and face the music. She has the courage for it, evidently. Old Norman blood! By-the-bye, I've been damning William the Conqueror up and down ever since I came. For the old cock is besotted about him. Says he was the first Socialist, and never talks of anything else!'... It's not interesting, this!" She stopped.
"No—that's not interesting. I want to hear more about the girl's looks. Couldn't you find what he says about her figure? You said he laid stress on it."
"In his other letter. Tall and striking. Dignified kind of girl."
"I should hardly call that laying stress on her figure, as such." Mrs. Challis reflects upon this rather paradoxical view of her friend's. She is not as clear as she might be often over her husband's elisions and hyperboles, and does not feel sure she reported him rightly. "Perhaps," she says, "I should not have said 'laid stress on.'" Her friend says oh no!—"laid stress on" was all right. But there was some indeterminateness in what he was said to have laid stress on. However, Mrs. Eldridge excuses further elucidation. "Sure there's nothing more about that girl?" she asks.
"Yes, there's some more somewhere. Oh—here!... 'As to the lovely Judith, of course, she might prove a duffer behind the footlights. But then, again, she mightn't. She's the very thing for Aminta Torrington in "Mistaken Delicacy."' That's the name his new play's to be called. I liked 'Atalanta in Paddington' better myself."
"Not nearly such a good title. No! If 'Mistaken Delicacy' hasn't been had a dozen times before, there couldn't be a better title. Of course, he wants her to play in it. What else is there?"
"'Very thing for Aminta Torrington....' Oh yes!—it's here ... 'and I shall try to get her to see Prester John about it' ... that's what they call Mr.—what's his name?—the manager at the Megatherium, don't you know?... 'about it, and see if we couldn't drill her up to performance point. She couldn't be a total ...' something crossed out...."
"Let me look ... oh no—that's nothing! Only fiasco. It's the same as failure." Mrs. Eldridge retained the letter and went on reading, unopposed. The erasure had clearly been an almost insultingly merciful one, to meet a defective knowledge half-way. She went on reading, scrapwise, half inaudibly at times; sometimes saying "hm-hm-hm," to stand for omissions.... "'Couldn't be a total failure, because it isn't every day ... thing happens ... sort of Court-beauty ... good family ... make a set-off against inexperience ...' hm-hm! ... 'elocution very good, as far as I can judge....' I don't see any more about her." Mrs. Eldridge read a good deal more of the letter to make sure of the point, although Marianne reached out her hand to take it back. The latter lady was looking rather nettled. She knew that fiasco meant fizzle perfectly well, and it was ridiculous of Titus to treat her like a schoolgirl.
Those who know the sort of person this young mater-familias in a plain dress was, must know also what she meant by the phrase "a proper pride." It is easy for superior persons—toffs of birth, toffs of Science, Letters, Art—to decide that this phenomenon is a ridiculous egotism in anything so middle, so Victorian, so redolent of Leech or Cruikshank as Marianne Challis; to pronounce it an outcome of a simple incapacity to realize her own insignificance. Gracious mercy!—suppose we were all suddenly to "realize" our own insignificance!... But really the subject is not one that will bear thinking of. Dismiss your insignificance with a caution! And pray for a cloudy sky, that the stars may not remind you of it.
When Charlotte Eldridge had read all down the next page of the letter, she surrendered it to the hand that was waiting for it. But, even then, not without a glance down the following one as she let it go. Her friend apologized for taking it away.
"I shouldn't mind your reading it all, dear," she said. "But as I promised...!"
"Quite right, dear!" And both these ladies felt they had made a sacrifice to Duty. The letter wasn't to be shown, and a great deal of it had not been shown. What more could the most exacting ask? How many ideals are as nearly attained in this imperfect world?
"However, there's nothing in what you haven't seen that could have interested you in the very least." Having made out a good case for Conscience, why weaken it? But probably Mrs. Challis is unaware that she does so. "No!—there's not a word more about the girl." This is in answer to a question that could hardly remain unanswered merely because nobody had asked it. The negative chilled the conversation. Why was there not a word more about the girl?
A disturbance upstairs caused Mrs. Challis to get up and leave the room. It was those children. Oh dear, what little plagues they were! Presently she came back, explanatory. She believed it was really that odious girl Martha's fault. She would have to get rid of her. But Titus always sided with the girl, and that made it so difficult.... What was it this time?... Oh, the child wanted the iron. Martha was ironing, and of course paying no attention, and Emmie had burnt herself. No—not badly; but a nasty burn! Marianne's style does not favour definition.
The two ladies sit on into the twilight—early, from a southeast wind bringing the town-fog westward—and are less talkative. The slow-combustion grate's first snail-like manifestations this year—for the weather has been mild till to-day—begin to glimmer in a half-dusk favourable to their detection. The children will be down directly to say good-night. One can't talk till they are done with and out of the way. Presently they come, but are not allowed to rush to the cake at once. They shall have some directly. The casualty, Emmie, who yelled, exhibits an arm between four and five years old with a scar on it. She consents to goldbeater's skin on condition that she licks the place herself. But what did that matter when there was cake? All children have but one relation to cake. They want it, and when that piece is done, they want another the same size, or larger. These two were quite one with their kind on this point, but they took the first piece behind a sofa to devour it; even as a Royal Bengal Tiger at the Zoological carries away a horror a vegetarian would die of into his bedroom, lest you should get it and eat it first. But they came out for more; which the tiger never does, because he knows it isn't any use, and prefers to pretend he doesn't care to ask favours and be refused.
"I shall give them a couple of grains of Dover's powder apiece," said their mother. "They've had nothing for a month." This good lady held with the practice of a dose now and again, independent of symptoms. "If it were not for me, they would be left altogether without medicine. It's a thing their father always opposes me about." The words "Dover's powder" were said a little too soon to be unheard by the persons concerned, and the consequence was that Emmie, the younger one, bit Martha, the nurse, going upstairs. However, this incident, with the ructions that arose from it, was closed in time; and a little more peace and quiet followed in its wake.
"I wonder at your husband and that Martha girl. Look at her teeth!"
"My dear Charlotte, Titus quite likes Martha, compared to Harmood, whose teeth are really good, considering that she only takes sixteen pounds." Harmood was the house-and-parlourmaid—a special antipathy of the great author's.
"Well!—I wonder at it, is all I can say. They go so much by teeth. Besides, look at the way she hooks her dress. The whole thing! You may depend on it that Mr. Challis is only doing it for a blind, because Harmood's pretty...."
"Doing what for a blind?"
"Oh, my dear child, what a silly you are! You know perfectly well what I mean. That sort of thing. He wants you to think he hasn't any eyes, and makes believe to prefer the ugly one. Lots of husbands go on like that—only simpletons never see anything."
"I can't see that it makes any difference to me, either way."
"Very well, dear! Look at it your own way. Only don't blame me and say I didn't tell you!"
Marianne wanted to say something sharp to her friend, but could not, owing to lack of constructive power in emergencies. However, as that lady closed with a snap, even as a moral physician who had written a prescription and done her duty, there was time to consider an extempore—an ex multo tempore, one might say.
"I wish you would say exactly what you mean, Charlotte."
"What about? About the servants?"
"No. About Titus."
"My dear Marianne, it isn't any use talking about it. A woman in your position has to expect it...."
"Yes! But expect what?"
"If you won't interrupt me, I'll tell you. Of course, you know I know perfectly well your husband is to be trusted, and all that sort of thing. He has too much genuine regard for you. But I always have thought, and always shall think, that men can't help themselves...."
"What for? I mean, why do you go on raking up? Can't you leave alone?"
"That's just what I was going to say, dear! Especially in this case. Because there's really no need, if you come to think of it. I'll tell you, dear, exactly what I should recommend you to do—what I should do if I were in your place. I should either say absolutely nothing, or if I said anything at all, just make it chaff—talk about his new flame—say you will evidently have to get somebody else, don't you see? As if it was entirely out of the question! Or perhaps that would be dangerous, and it wouldn't do to have him thinking you suspected him of fancying you weren't in earnest. No!—on the whole, I recommend saying absolutely nothing."
Marianne's brain refuses to receive complications beyond a certain point. She picks up the last intelligible phrase. "As if what was entirely out of the question?"
But Mrs. Eldridge is on her guard against making mischief. "You mustn't run away with the idea that I said there was anything," is the form her caution takes. And then, in response to an angry flush on her friend's face, "I'm sure there isn't the slightest reason for you to be uneasy. I have far too much faith in your husband to suppose such a thing possible for one moment.... No, indeed, dear!—even if she gets him to get her into this play of his—and then, of course, they would go on seeing each other—I shouldn't feel the smallest uneasiness. Because look at her social position!"
"What has her social position got to do with it?"
Mrs. Eldridge elevates her eyebrows, and perhaps her shoulders, slightly, as though asking space what next? But she brings both down to the level of her friend's knowledge of the world before answering: "I should have said everything. A woman in her position doesn't commit herself in any way with a man in your husband's, however distinguished he may be. Read any divorce case of that sort of people, and see if they don't have co-respondents of condition. Of course, I'm not speaking of disgraceful cases, where the woman isn't received after. But ordinary divorce cases in Fashionable Life."
"I can't see what you're talking about, Charlotte."
"Then I can't help it, dear. But I should have thought it was pretty plain, for all that!"
Marianne laughs, a little uneasily. "Do you mean to say, Charlotte, that because Titus goes away for a week to a country-house...?"
"Go on, dear." But Marianne is not constitutionally a sentence-finisher. She begins again:
"Why isn't Titus to speak to a lady without a preach about it?"
"My dear child, nobody's preaching. If you were to listen to me, instead of becoming impatient...."
"I'm not impatient! But you know it's irritating, and you can't deny it."
"Very well, dear, I don't then. But let me finish what I was saying. If you had listened to me, you would have seen my meaning. I was all the time exonerating your husband from the suspicion of even the slightest flirtation with this showy girl. I was trying to make your mind easy about them, and to say that even if they are rather thrown together—as of course they must be, because one knows what country-houses are...."
"Now, Charlotte, that is nonsense! Why are country-houses any different from town-houses? What stuff!" Marianne sees a light on the horizon. She knows about country-houses, because she was a girl in the country once. But much of her friend's analyses and insights had been so much unqualified Sordello to her, and had left her brain spinning. She can and will hold fast that which is good, and stick to the country-houses. And clearly, if she can prove that country and town houses are on all fours for the purposes of Charlotte's world—a world where a sort of dowdy Eros dodders respectably about, all the Greek fire knocked out of him—then a stopper will be put on these suggestions of infidelities. She does not see all the connecting-links, but would like to unhorse her opponent somehow.
That lady is also ready to let the issue turn provisionally on town and country-house life. But this is for a reason of her own. She pursues the subject: "It's not stuff, dear. There's all the difference in the world. In country-houses people split up into couples, and there's no check. Chaperones on long walks, of course!—only they can't go so quick, and get left behind. In town, no such thing. And there's really no such thing as staying with, in town, either. Practically! Of course, now and again friends from the country to stay a few days. But it isn't the same thing, going to the Royal Academy and the New Gallery. The Zoological Gardens is a good deal more like, only scarcely anybody goes. Wasn't that John's knock?"
It was, apparently, and was followed by John's pocket-handkerchief—at least, that was how a very loud noise was inexactly classified. Whatever its proper name was, it caused its promoter's wife to fear his cold was worse. He must have his feet in mustard and hot water. But his attitude was, when he had replaced the contingent remainder of the noise—a real pocket-handkerchief—in his pocket, that his cold was nearly well, and no human power should induce him to submit to treatment of any sort; but mustard and hot water least of all. He would go and have a Turkish Bath, and kill himself. Not that he anticipated a fatal result; his wife forecast that for him. It transpired shortly that he habitually set himself in opposition to all her wishes, and went his own way. But in so doing he encountered frequent disasters, his rescues from which were always achieved by her, single-handed, with constant addition to a long score of debt, unpaid by him, on account of which he never so much as said, thank you!
Mr. Eldridge was a person who defied description, in a certain sense; but only because description calls for materials, and he supplied none, or nearly none. He might have been the Average Man himself, for any salient point that he presented. An observant person, called on to recollect what he was like, would probably have remembered that he shaved, all but a little whisker, and given up the rest of him to oblivion.
His conversation, after the Turkish Bath had passed away, was an inquiry if his wife was ready; and, after he had been told not to fuss, but to sit down and make himself agreeable, a statement that it was a good deal colder than yesterday. So it afforded a natural opportunity to his good lady of giving him a chance to enrich it by comment on the subject in hand at the time of his arrival. She did not wish to drop it, having, in fact—as hinted above—a purpose in dwelling on it.
"We're talking about country-houses," said she.
"What houses?" said he; and then, without waiting for an answer: "Oh—country-houses! Where?"
"Don't pretend to be stupid, John. Nowhere, of course! No particular houses—country-houses in general. And town-houses."
"Oh, I see! What about 'em? How's the children?"
"Never mind them! Listen to me." Marianne interjected that perhaps they hadn't gone to bed, and she could ring for Martha to see. But she didn't do it, and no one urged it. So the children lapsed, and Mrs. Eldridge proceeded: "Pay attention to what I'm saying, John, and put that glass down. You'll break it." He did as he was bid. "We—are—talking—about—the differences between country-houses and town-houses." To which Mr. Eldridge replied, "Oh, ah!—yes, to be sure! Well!—you'd have to see 'em both," causing his wife to despair visibly of male intelligence, with endurance, before starting afresh with an appearance of willingness to make things easy for a slow apprehension: "We were talking about the difference of the way one lives, in town and in the country. Nothing to do with premises."
She then went on to put a hypothetical case, to enable her husband to grasp the full range of the recent conversation. Supposing that he had been a young man enamoured of a damsel whose sentiments towards himself were a matter of conjecture—suppose, in fact, he were "paying attention"; that was how the lady put it—would he prefer to press his suit in a town-house or a country-house? She made the question a leading one by suggesting divine solitudes congenial to the development of tender passions, and a climate favourable to the inspection of sunsets and moonrises. So tempting was the prospect to the mind of her hearer that he made a grimace expressive of greedy delight, and gave a low whistle. "'Ooky!" said he, dropping an aspirate humorously. "Country-houses—rather!"
"Any man would say so at once, Marianne." Which Mrs. Eldridge contrives to articulate in a way that implies, Heaven knows how, that their discussion has had application to some particular case—no mere abstract review of the subject. For the apprehension of her husband is reached, with the effect that he says, with an expression of roused interest: "I say, Lotty, tell up. Who's the party? Who's at it now?" But he does not press for information, because his wife checks him skilfully with, "Hush, John!—never mind now! I'll tell you after." His comment, "Some gal, I suppose," suggests some lucid vision into life and character beyond its drain on the resources of language.
Marianne Challis would have entered joyously enough with her friend into the building up of a situation involving only a neighbour's husband or wife, but she would fain have put a brake on the car of Gossip in her own husband's case. The worst of it was that every word she had said so far, with that intention, had only brought about an increase of speed. And now she was conscious that if she put in any protest of her faith in her husband's stability, matters would be made ten times worse. The horses would get the bit in their teeth. At least, his name had not been mentioned, nor the company he was in, before this stupid John Eldridge. All this, or the protoplasm of it, hung about her mind as she began saying, "If you mean ..." and stopped. But she had, even with those three words, put her head in the lion's mouth past recall. Her friend interrupted.
"I don't mean to say a single—word—more, dear, to you or to anyone. So don't be uneasy. But you see what John thinks." The speaker, as she rose to her feet with these words, as one gathering up for departure, showed as a young woman in black, of a lissome, yet angular type; taller than her friend, and with more claim, from personal experience of her own figure, to sit in judgment on other women's. But her complexion is not as good as Marianne's—a rather sallow one, not free from a sense of freckles. However, that may only be the firelight.
John, merely conscious that something male and female was under discussion, had put on what he conceived to be the proper look for the father of a family equal to all moral emergencies. His face would have served just as well for that of a person doing subtraction with a sense of responsibility. This ambiguity of outward rendering of the phases of his mind, of course, gave corresponding latitude to his wife's interpretation of it.
Marianne had a growing misgiving that she was becoming skilfully entangled in the meshwork of an undeserved embarrassment, and floundered in desperation. "I don't the least understand what you mean, Charlotte," she said. "What does he think? What about?" On this he asserted himself.
"No, I say, you know! Don't bring me in—don't bring me in! I know nothing, you know—nothing at all, you know! Mum's the word, you know—always keep out of this sort of thing!" He enforced his words by pursing up his mouth and shaking his head continuously, in a kind of paroxysm of caution. He also turned somewhat purple, and his eyes grew smaller. These combinations put the finishing-touch on the strength of his wife's position. She threw up a new and final entrenchment, and, as it were, closed the subject officially.
"You do—quite—right, John," said she, "to keep out of it. That's all you've got to do." She then assumed quite suddenly a large-hearted tone of liberality. "And, after all," she said, "what does it all come to? Just nothing whatever! I'm sure, dear Marianne, you need not allow yourself to feel the least uneasiness—not for a moment! With a husband like yours! Only think! You'll see it will be all right, dear—just recollect what I say! Now we must go. I'll go and get my cloak—it's upstairs. No!—don't you come...." But Marianne goes, for all that.
Mr. Eldridge, left to himself, whistled a monotonous tune over and over again, and flicked a glove that was on with another that was off. He threw his eyes opener by fits and starts, as if he were trying on a new pair of lids. Then he produced the vanished pocket-handkerchief, and held it by two corners before him, spread out, as though he admired the pattern. Then, as though he decided suddenly that it was not Saint Veronica's, he availed himself of it as a resource of civilization, and returned it resolutely to his pocket. We are not responsible for this gentleman's actions, and can only record, without explanation, that he then said quite distinctly, "Pum, pum, pum!" and slapped his hands heavily together. He added: "Time's gettin' on"—a remark equally true of all periods. Then he listened to the voices of the two ladies returning down the stairs.
"Oh no!—you needn't be the least afraid about John. He's discretion itself in a thing of this sort. And you'll see it will be just as I say. When your dear husband comes back it will all be exactly the same, and...." Here her voice dropped, and John listened hard, but missed a great deal.... "So now, dear, you will promise to be quite happy about it, and not let yourself fret. Won't you?"
"But, Charlotte dear, it's all about nothing...."
"That's the right view to take, dear. That's just exactly what it is—all about nothing! Now let's try and be happy, and not think about it. John!—where are you? Do come and let's be off! I hope it isn't raining."
"Pavement was dry enough when I came in," was Mr. Eldridge's testimony. To corroborate it he went out in the front garden and gazed upwards, open-mouthed. "Oh no—it's not raining, fast enough," said he. Which seemed to imply that perhaps something else was.
Marianne went back into her parlour and rang the bell for Elizabeth Barclay to come and take away the tea-things, because Harmood was out for her holiday. She looked and felt flushed and irritated, but could not have said whether it was with Charlotte Eldridge, with herself, or with this showy girl at Royd. With all her stupidity—and she had plenty—she was not wanting in loyalty to her husband; although it may be a good deal of this loyalty was only a form "proper pride"—that is to say, amour propre—took. How one wonders that commonplace, uninteresting people should have any amour propre—should love those insipid selves of theirs at all! But they have it—the dullest of them.
As she sat there in the growing dusk, watching the slow-combustion stove economizing its coal, and making attempts to consume its own smoke, her soul was doing battle on its own behalf against the insidious siren Jealousy, who came and came and came again each time she thrust her contemptuously away. Had she, perhaps, despised her a little too roundly when her first whispers were audible? Had she treated them too much as an absurdity when her husband's first great success had been followed by a sudden uplifting of him into a world she resented—resented because the only part she could play in it had been a very minor one? Had she taken it too easily for granted that no harm would come if he went his way and she hers—she, who didn't mean to be patronized, whoever else did! Might it not have been really wiser to brace herself up to the bearing of one or two slights and humiliations, to laugh them off and acknowledge that a homely, uneducated woman of her sort must needs fall contentedly into a back rank, rather than to refuse indignantly to march with the army at all? She was not going to be tolerated, and made allowances for, not she!—that was her attitude. That Arkroyd woman would have been just civil to her in time, no doubt; but how about all the affronts and indignities she would have had to put up with during apprenticeship? No—it was best as it was: Titus to go his way and she hers! Besides, her being constantly hatching him would do no good, if there were—that is to say, if there had been—any truth in this nonsense of Charlotte's. But, really, it was all so idiotic. As if she couldn't trust Titus for five minutes away from her apron-strings! Of course, Titus was to be trusted!... Was he?
She got up and walked about the room in the flickering firelight, conscious of her heart-beats, and half-inclined to cry, if she could have chosen. But her eyes felt dry over it, as a matter of fact. She caught herself beginning to feel angry with Titus, convicted herself of it, and reprimanded the culprit severely. Idiot that she was, to be affected by mere unfounded gabble! For she was far from believing, all the while, that Charlotte had any faith in her own insinuations. She fully recognized that her friend's pleasure in dwelling on the constructive relations of Paul and Virginia, Paolo and Francesca, Adam and Eve, for that matter—anywhom male and female, anywhere—was only human sympathy, leavened with hysteria. Had she not helped her, lubens et ex animo, when the improper study of mankind seemed good to their hours of leisure? The study, that is, of man and womankind in braces, selected by the student? But when the model suggested for study was her own husband, in leash with a strange young lady, whom she had not seen, she felt the position of a philosophical analyst uncongenial.
Why could she not be angry with Charlotte? That might have seemed the most natural safety-valve. Marianne had never read "Othello"—or much to speak of else—but she had seen it at the play. So she may easily have recalled Iago's cautions against the green-eyed monster that doth make the meat it feeds on, and compared it with the way her friend had somehow contrived to appear a warning voice, crying beware! to a suspicious soul adrift in a wilderness of its own unreason. She was not so very unlike the Moor in her ready acceptance of the character her Iago had claimed for herself. Of course, Charlotte was a fool, and fanciful; but, equally of course, she was no mischief-maker. Why, see what a perfect faith she had in Titus's integrity! Marianne was angry with herself for allowing a doubt of it, without having the shrewdness to see that she never would have felt one if it had not been for Charlotte. In fact, left to herself in the growing darkness, to brood over her own scarcely fledged suspicion, she could not for the life of her have said what on earth began it all. She forgot all details of her conversation with Charlotte, and only knew that something in it had made her feel very uncomfortable.
Really, one is sometimes inclined to believe that imps of darkness hang about, to run and help whenever they see a little bit of mischief brewing.
CHAPTER X
CHALLIS'S adieu TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A COLD WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE. MISS ARKROYD'S MESSAGE DELIVERED
Marianne's loving Tite did not come back at the time he had appointed—not by many days. He postponed doing so in order to go back on the same day as Mr. Brownrigg, whose society he had begun to find rather amusing. Their departure together was again postponed in order that they might travel up in company with William Rufus and Lord Felixthorpe, with whom both had come to be on the best of terms, after each had denounced either to the other, in the strictest confidence, as purse-proud, rank-proud, toffish, and standoffish. They had collated their respective observations of the ingrained vices of Aristocracy, and found that they agreed. But, then, after they had unpacked their hearts with unprejudiced and candid criticism, they had suddenly volte face'd, and discerned that there was always a Something you could not define about people of this sort. They had both noticed this singular fact, and each was supplied by it with an insight into the unusual powers of penetration of the other. It was a curious coincidence that both had acquired a consciousness of this Something by comparing the courteous demeanour and graceful hospitality of their host with what they found it impossible to describe as anything but the Plebeian Vulgarity of the sitting Conservative member for the borough. Mr. Ramsey Tomes caught it hot. Then look at the indescribable grace of Lady Arkroyd, and contrast it with the dowdy personnel and awkward manners of the political gentleman's wife. Why!—there was a woman, her ladyship to wit, who could be as rude as she pleased to anyone, and the indefinable Something came in and carried it off!
Was it the indefinable Something, or a very easily definable Nothing-of-the-Sort, that brought about a still further delay in Alfred Challis's return home? Probably the latter, in the form of the gradual cordiality that comes to folk living in the same house under auspicious circumstances, and goes on growing till quarrelling time. It was of less importance when once he had overstayed his return-ticket; and the final outcome of two or three postponements, each to await a reinforcement to the homeward-bound Londoners, was that the bulk of the Royd house-party caught the two o'clock train ten days behind the date of Mr. Challis's promised return to his domestic hearth, and arrived at Euston in a drizzling mist, which knew that summer had gone, and had the atmosphere all to itself.
The porter that carried his portmanteau and his game—a hare and partridges, with which was associated a promise of pheasants next month—to a four-wheeler, might have noticed that the literary-looking gentleman and the good-looking young lady in blue said good-bye a great deal—in fact, until a carriage called out to know whether the latter was coming or not. But this porter's name was Onions, and he had no soul, except one that was wrapped up in remuneration. So he accepted fourpence and saw nothing.
But he might have. And also he might have heard the following conversation between the good-looking—or best-looking—young lady and the gentleman, after the latter had made sure that his selected four-wheeler was prepared to go as far as Wimbledon.
"Now, Mr. Challis, I know you're not to be trusted to give my message to your wife...."
"Yes, I am. She's to write you a line to say when she'll be at home."
"Stupid man! Now you know quite well it was nothing as bold as that. No, dear Mr. Challis, tell her I don't want to make a formal 'call.' I want to know her—as well as I know you. And I never shall unless we see each other quietly, when there's no one else there. Oh dear!—if only people I want to know would give me a cup of tea and say 'not at home' to everyone else!"
"I should myself! But I quite understand. I'll wrap up the message to Marianne exactly to that effect. She shall write and fix a day. And I'm not to be there—that's it, isn't it?"
"That's it. Good man! And you understand that I'm entirely in earnest about Aminta Torrington—(all right! Nobody can hear. They're all in the carriage)—and you're to speak to Mr. Magnus at the Megatherium about it."
"Oh yes! I'm going to speak. Honour bright!"
"Very well, then! Now good-bye, Mr. Challis."
"Good-bye. I have had a pleasant time." But Mr. Onions heard none of this, as, while he was disposing of the portmanteau, his attention was engaged by conversation with the cabman.
"Where's Wimbledon, Honey?" the latter had said, as he took the box from him. He seemed over-ripe, did this cabman. He could not fall off the box, though, for he had bound himself to it by tarpaulins of an inflexible nature. "Honey" was not Irish: it was short for "Onions."
"What's the use of askin' me, when you know yourself? Mean to say you don't?"
"I was born there, my son. I've lived there ever since. Likewise, I'm going to hend my days there, exceptin' I should 'appen to live for ever. I was just a-puttin' the question to see if you knew."
"Couldn't say to harf an inch where it is. But it's a place you get a pint at, every wisit."
"Right you are, my son!... All right, governor—just off, as soon as these cloths are tucked in. You never mentioned any 'urry, or I'd have seen to it!"
And then Royd and its luxurious life have finally vanished, and everyday life has come back, as the cab growls through its rather long ride. Challis was paying the penalty of coming home by a different route, and now almost wished he hadn't made up his mind to cab the whole way. But you know what it is when you have a large portmanteau that won't go on a hansom.
If it had not been for the hare and partridges, he could have managed to consider the whole thing a dream. This would have been an advantage; for no one stickles at finding waking life dull after a fascinating sleep-experience. Do not we all rather love to rub it into our waking surroundings how sweet that place was in the dream, how bright those skies and seas were, how lovable that—well, usually—person of the opposite sex was? Are you, if you are a lady, prepared to deny this last item? Not that this concerns the story, for there they were—the hare and partridges. And the memories they brought back clashed with the long perspectives of street-lamps in the drizzle, and the reflections of them; and the male umbrellas and female umbrellas bobbing endlessly past below them, or waiting for a bus that somebody may get out of, just there; and the busses that stopped to shed their passengers and fill up again with Heaven-favoured fresh ones—while they, the umbrellas, waited—and made the hearts of those no umbrella could keep dry sick with Hope deferred. This hare and partridges, fur-soft and feather-soft, though cold to the touch, were full of suggestions of the life that had been switched off finally just now at Euston Station. But then, of course—Challis ought to have recollected this, and he felt it—they were equally full of suggestion of where they were going to be devoured. Was he not going home to Marianne, and the children, and his snug little writing-room looking out on the Common across the garden, where he was on no account to be disturbed? The very word "home" had a magic in it, and so forth: consult Literature, passim!...
No, really, it was too absurd to allow his nasty cynical tone to creep into his thoughts—here in Hyde Park; for that was the Marble Arch, and the cab was making a good record—when in less than an hour he would be back among his Lares and Penates. As he got nearer home he found that the fire of pleasurable anticipation he had lighted began to crackle and burn up of its own accord, without further effort on his part. How he wished he could invent a word for that confounded hypothetical wickedness—treachery or what not—that nervous imaginatives impute to themselves, knowing its unreality all the while!
He had never allowed himself to believe for one moment that Royd owed any of its charm for him to anything but ... well!—a sort of general summary of the charms of a big wealthy country-house full of pleasant people with balances at their Bankers'. So he expressly vetoed the idea that in the dream he was now waking from, as he neared the Hermitage and Marianne, there was any one individual that played a predominant part. He vetoed it in obedience to that groundless guilt of conscience he was going to find a name for. But for that he would have let it alone.
He would have to find that name, to brand the intolerable nuisance; to denounce it by it, when it appeared. Then he might look it in the face unflinchingly, when it told him to snub his memory for remembering so vividly the sunset-glow on his companion's face, that day they walked back from the Rectory. What a luxury it would be to give this phenomenon its proper place! As, for instance, Mental Astigmatism—something of that sort! The more syllables the better! Let him see!—didn't aischune in Greek mean disgrace, or guilt? How would pseudœschynomorphism serve the turn? Long enough, anyhow, to convince a Grand Jury....
Well, it was this—no need to say the long name every time; at least, until the Jury should be empanelled!—that was galling the kibe of his mind at every chance thought of Judith Arkroyd that came into it. Why, in Heaven's name, should he not dwell with pleasure on her eyes, which were public property; on her lips, which he did not propose to interfere with; on the touch of her hand at parting, which, by-the-bye, had gone the round of the male units as the party broke up? He was not going to appropriate a larger share than Felixthorpe, for instance, whom he thought a very nice chap; or Brownrigg, for that matter! Or ... but no!—one must draw a line somewhere. Let Mr. Ramsey Tomes keep his fat hand to himself! At which point Pseudetcetera—(that would do for the present)—said aloud: "Come, Alfred Challis, what business have you with the word desecration in your mind in connection with this part of the business?" He rebuked the phenomenon, giving it its name in full.
He was no match for it, though; and it ended by scoring. "Should I be here at all," it said, "if Marianne were...?" He brushed the question aside, but his heart knew the end of it. Marianne wasn't....
However, it was all Pseudetcetera, anyhow! Judith Arkroyd was cultivating him from a purely selfish motive—this rather bitterly; and as for Marianne, was he not really glad to be back again, and wouldn't it be a pleasure to ... to present her with the hare and partridges, and facilitate the housekeeping?
As to Miss Arkroyd's proposal to call, he did not know how it would be received. Perhaps he would have to tell Marianne that she really must be a sensible woman, and a Woman of the World.
Anyhow—and he drifted into a self-interested channel with some sense of relief—it would never do to have what might be a golden prospect for his play thwarted. He had only imperfect means, so far, of guessing what Judith would sound like behind the footlights; but as to what she would look like, that was a thing there could be no misgiving about.... Why!—the horse was walking. Actually, Putney Hill! What a much better lot of four-wheelers had come on the streets lately! In a quarter of an hour he would be at home; and really very glad—honour bright!—to be back with Marianne.
When any lady or gentleman comes back from an absence, in a cab with luggage on it—however passionate may have been her or his longing for a corresponding him or her who may have been (or might have been) watching at the door for its arrival, or however much the two of them may feel disposed to