CHAPTER XXXI
CONCERNING A ROSEBUD, AND MARIANNE'S TORTOISESHELL KNIFE. CHALLIS'S PRESENCE OF MIND. THE FOOL ON FIRE. DEFINITION WANTED OF DEFINITION. CHALLIS'S SUDDEN CALL BACK TO TOWN. HOW SIBYL HAD SEEN IT ALL
There was a little fountain in the middle of the little garden, with a little amorino from the court of the Signoria at Florence to attend to the squirting. The moon was comparing the light she could make on its shower of drops with sparkles from the lady's dress who stood beside it. It was in no hurry to decide—might perhaps ask a tiny cloud, that was coming, to help. Once inside the garden Challis was committed to approaching its centre. There was—remember!—no official recognition of any change in the position of the two since Trout Bend.
"I came here to be alone, but you may come." Judith's words might well have made matters worse. But her tranquil, unconcerned, almost insolent beauty in the moonlight was fraught with a sense of self-command that more than counterbalanced them. It gave her hearer a sort of rangé feeling—determined his position—put him on his good behaviour. He could trust to her control of their interview, but all the same a little resented feeling so much like a child in her hands.
"I came here to be alone, too," said he.
"Perhaps I ought to go?" Manifestly not spoken seriously, but not jestingly enough to set badinage afoot. She did not wait for his answer, but went on, "Perhaps we both ought, for that matter. Did you find the politics bored you?... oh!—metaphysics, was it? I came here because I found my little sister unendurable."
Challis thrust what he had overheard, when eavesdropping, into the background of his mind: "About the stage, I suppose? Why do you not tell her—set her mind at ease?" But he knew Sibyl knew already, and this was only to help him to keep his foreground clear.
Judith appeared to select her answer at leisure, from among reserves. "Sibyl knows," she said. "The indictment related to something else this time." Then, as though she were weighing a possibility: "No—I suppose I could hardly tell you about that. One is too artificial. We should be much nicer if we were small children. Never mind! Some day, perhaps!"
Challis decided on saying, with a laugh, "I suppose I mustn't be inquisitive and ask questions," as the best way of suggesting that his own guesses, if any, were trivial and impersonal. She ended a silence in which he fancied the subject was to be forgotten by saying: "I should tell you nothing, whatever you asked. Besides, you have never had a little sister, and would not understand. Family relations are mysteries."
"No, I have never had a little sister." And then Challis felt like a liar, and heart-sick as he thought of the thoroughness with which he had accepted Kate's "little sister" as his own. What a compensation he had thought her for a mother-in-law his most gruesome anticipations had not bargained for! When did the change come about?—when?—when? Why need the memory of it all come on him now, of all times? But Judith stopped his retrospect short with: "Get me that rose-bud, if you have a knife. Don't scratch yourself on my account." For Challis to reply: "What care I how much I scratch myself, if it is on your account?" would have savoured of Chitland, musically audible afar. Challis left it unsaid.
The rose-bud was soon got with the aid of a little tortoiseshell knife that was really Marianne's. There was another twinge in ambush for her husband over that, and a sharp cross-fire between it and the soul-brush, that was being kept at work all this while—unconsciously, one hopes; but this story knows exactly what Charlotte Eldridge would have thought and said. And she might have been right, for it makes little pretence of being able to see behind the veil this Judith's beauty hides her inner soul with, nor to read her heart. All it, the story, has known of her so far has been that beauty and her love of power. A perilous quality, that!
All it can say now is that if this woman knows, as she bends, careless how close, to take the flower from the hand that gathered it; as she flashes the diamonds on her white fingers quite needlessly near his lips—if she has any insight, as she does this, into the way she is playing with a human soul, then is she a thoroughly bad woman. And to our thinking all the worse if she knows, or believes, her reputation is safe in her own keeping. For then what is she, at best, but a keen sportswoman wicked enough to poach on her fellow-woman's preserves, destroying the peace of a home merely to show what a crack shot she is. We must confess to a preference for the standard forms of honourable, straightforward lawlessness. But perhaps these reflections are doing injustice to Judith. She may be capable of good, honest, downright wickedness. Remember that she is comparatively young and inexperienced.
One should surely beware, too, of doing injustice to beautiful women—ascribing to them motives of overt fascination, to entangle man, in every simple action a discreet dowdy might practise unnoticed and unblamed. Make an image of such a one in your mind—make it ropy, bony, obliging, with unwarrantable knuckles—let it place a flower in its bosom, if any; and then say whether Charlotte Eldridge's keenest analysis could detect in its action the smallest element she could pounce on as seductive; the slightest appearance of a hook baited to captivate her John, or anybody else's? No, no!—let us be charitable, and suppose, for the present, at any rate, that Judith was unconscious in this flower incident of every trace of guile—merely wanted the flower, in fact, and asked Challis to get it, rather than risk her "Princess" skirts in the thorns which would have made shoddy of them in no time.
There are those, we believe, who hold that all the fascination of woman is due to adjuncts; that the thrill of enchantment that "goes with" adroit coiffures and well-cut skirts—especially the latter—would not survive seeing their owner, or kernel, run across a ploughed field in skin-tights—for we assume that the Lord Chamberlain would allow no more crucial experiment. It may be they are right. High Art teaches us the truth of the converse proposition. For that draggled-tailed, ill-hooked, ill-eyed, ill-buttoned thing with a bad cold and a shock of tow on its head, that is emerging from a damp omnibus to the relief of its next-door neighbour, is going, please—when it has got rid of some raiment which would certainly go to the wash with advantage—is going to sit for Aphrodite, of all persons in the world; for that very goddess and no other!—for her the light of whose eyelids and hair in the uttermost ends of the sea none shall declare or discern....
There!—it's no use talking about it, and stopping the story. Besides, Miss Arkroyd "had on" her "Princess" dress aforesaid, a strange witchery of infinitely flexible woven texture, snake-scaled and gem-fraught without loss of a fold, rustling and glittering till none could say which was rustle and which was glitter. And it all seemed a running comment on its owner—its pith and marrow, as it were!—a mysterious outward record of her inner self. Where is the gain of trying to guess how much was shell and how much was self? Enough that few women would have looked as lovely as she did, then and there.
For all this speculation—let the story confess it—is due simply to the excessive beauty the moonbeams made the most of, as its owner's eye dropped on the flower her fingers were adjusting, to make sure it was exactly in the right place, and to engineer stray thorn-points that else might scratch. As for what is really passing in her heart, the story washes its hands of it.
"Marianne refuses again, of course," said she, when the rose was happily settled—or sadly, as it must have felt the parting from its stem.
"Again, of course!" said he. "But...!"
"But how did I know, you mean? Why, you would have told me at once if she had been coming."
"Not necessarily. I might have hoped for a second letter, to say she had changed her mind. It is no pleasure to me that she refuses."
"It might be to some husbands. But you are an affectionate husband. Do tell me something."
"Anything!" His emphasis on this was a satisfaction to him. It was like a very small instalment of what he had no right to say, or even to think; but, uttered in an ambush of possible other meanings, it franked the speaker of any particular one among them.
"If I were to ask to see her letter, should you be offended?"
He knew he could not answer, "Nothing you do can possibly give me offence," in the tone of empty compliment that would have made it safe. He gave up the idea, and said, with reality in his voice: "I should not show it to you."
"I like you when you speak like that," said Judith.
He felt a little apologetic. "After all," he said, "it's only tit-for-tat. You wouldn't tell me what Sibyl said."
"I am not offended," said Judith. A certain sense of rich amusement in her voice made these words read: "I take no offence at your male caprices. I know your ways. You are forgiven." But aloud her speech was, with a concession to seriousness: "I cannot well repeat what Sibyl said. But do not think of showing me Marianne's letter if you wish not to do so. It is not idle curiosity that made me ask to see it. I had a motive—perhaps not a wise one—but I think...."
"What?"
"I think you would forgive it." The suggestion certainly was that the speaker would see some way of influencing Marianne—making her drop her absurd obstinacy. No other motive was possible, thought Challis.
After all, what was there in the text of the letter that it would be a hanging matter for Judith to read? She, from her higher standpoint—for Challis believed in her, you see?—could forgive, overlook, understand a scrap or two of rudeness, a misspelt word or so. Why should he not show the letter, and have done with it?
"It is in your pocket, you know!" Judith was certainly clairvoyante, and Challis said so. "Clairvoyante enough to see you put it in your pocket as you came into the drawing-room!" said she, laughing.
Why this context of circumstances should make Challis plead illegibility by moonlight as a reason for not producing the letter he could not have said for the life of him. It was a weak plea; because, when Judith "pointed out" that so inveterate a smoker probably had wax vestas in his pocket, it seemed to leave him no line of defence to fall back upon. He produced the letter, and to our thinking was guilty of a breach of faith to Marianne in allowing Judith to take it from him. At least, he should only have read to her what related to the invitation.
The first wax vesta blew out, and the second. "Hold it inside this," said Judith, making a shelter for the third with a gauzy thing of Japanese origin she really had no need for, the night was so warm. "You must hold it steadier than that," she added. "If this caught, it would blaze up." She was holding the open letter herself, with perfect steadiness.
"This is the last vesta," said Challis. "So you must read quick. Look sharp!" It was the fifth match, and the flame was nearing his fingers.
"Half-a-second more!" said Judith. She had turned the letter over. There was writing on the back that Challis had missed. He tried to read it now, over the shoulder that was so white in the moonlight, and failed. For the flame touched his fingers, and burned him.
Man is absolutely powerless against the sudden touch of fire. Remember Uncle Bob and the knife! Challis had to leave go, nolens volens. The burning remnant of the wax fell on the gauzy scarf, which caught instantly. The moment was critical. But Challis showed a presence of mind beyond what one is apt to credit neurotic literary men with—mere mattoids, after all! Instead of trying to beat the flame out, or waiting to get his coat off to smother it, he tore the scarf sharply away from its wearer, who, happily, had the nerve to release a safety-pin in time to get it clear.
"Are you burned?" His voice seemed out of keeping with the resolution of his action.
" Very little, if at all. Just a touch, on this shoulder. Nothing really—but I am afraid your hands...."
"Oh no!—they're all right. Stop a bit!—what's that?" It was Marianne's letter, half-burned, and still burning. The unextinguished scarf it had fallen to the ground with had got through its combustion briskly. Challis was only just in time to save half the letter; and it was not the half he wanted.
"I dare say it doesn't matter," said he to Judith; "but there was something I hadn't read on the back. What you were reading when the match gave out."
"Yes—I think there was. A postscript. I didn't make it out. Shall we go in, or over on the lawn, where they are dancing?" She added a moment later: "I don't know why I am taking it for granted that you don't dance."
"I certainly don't; nowadays, at least. But you do, of course. The lawn by all means!" They passed through the little porticino, and complied with the understanding it had entered into. As Challis was turning the key, he paused an instant to look round at Judith and say: "Are you sure you can't remember anything of what was written on the back of the letter?" And she replied without hesitation: "Not a word. I had no time." Then he said: "I wish you could remember only just one word or two, to show what it was about." She answered: "But I can't. I am sorry. We must hope it was of no importance."
They walked side by side, without speaking, to the end of the last yew-hedged terrace, just on the open garden. Then, inexplicably, they turned and went back along the path. When they arrived again at the little gate in the wall, Challis suddenly faced his companion. He looked white and almost handsome in the moonlight—or so she may have thought, easily enough—for his eyes had a large, frightened look, that became them and the thoughtful thinness of their bone-marked setting. He spoke quite suddenly, keeping his voice under, with quick speech that showed its tension.
"Judith—Judith Arkroyd! It is no use. I can bear it no longer. I must leave you. It would have been well for me if I had done so earlier. It would have been best for me if I had never seen you." He turned from her, almost as though he shrank from the sight of her, and leaned against the grey stone angle of the little doorway, his face hidden in his arms. Had the woman who watched him—shame if it were so!—a feeling akin to triumph, as she saw how his visible hand caught and clenched and trembled in the moonlight? It may have been so. The story has no plummet to take soundings of her heart.
Her mere words may have meant fear lest she had overplayed her part—no more! "Oh, Scroop, you cannot blame me." But the way she too leaned, as for support in dizziness, on the edge of a great Italian garden-pot, raised on a pedestal at the path-corner, and pressed her hand to her side as though her breath might catch the less for it—these things seemed to belong to more than the alarm of a sudden start.
He turned, with some recovery of self-possession, as one who shakes free of any unmanliness. "Blame you, Judith!" he cried, calling her freely by her name—a thing he had never yet done. "Not I, God knows! I am all self-indictment, if ever man was. And this, look you, is my offence: that I, knowing myself as I am, knowing what I owe to my wife, to my children—they are dear to me still, I tell you, believe it who may!—that I have allowed the image and presence of you, Judith Arkroyd, to take such possession of me, my mind, my whole soul, that you are never absent from me. And the bondage that is on me is one I cannot see the end of. All I know is that I am powerless against it. It may be—it may be—that the memory of you will die out and leave me—that when I see you no longer, your voice and your beauty will become things of the past, and be forgotten. When we have parted, as we must, Heaven grant me this oblivion! But I cannot conceive it now."
He paused, and as he wiped the drops from his brow, seemed to hark back a little to his daily self, saying in a quick undertone: "It is a good world to forget in. Precedents are in favour of it. There is that to be said."
The little change in his manner made her find her voice. "Yes!" she said. "I see how it is. You must go. I shall always grieve that I could not keep your friendship ... yes—you see my meaning? I have valued it. But this kind of thing is the misfortune of some women. It is a bitter thing—we must part in a few hours, so I may speak plainly—a bitter thing to be forced to lose a friend one loves as a friend, merely because one chances to be a woman."
If only this interview might have ended here! If only Mr. Ramsey Tomes and Mr. Brownrigg could have come on the scene now, instead of five minutes later! But there never was good came of last words, from the world's beginning.
The unhappy, storm-tossed man and his tormentor—for that was what Judith was, meaningly or without intent—turned to go back towards the noisy world. Half-way, as though she would use the silence and darkness of the alley they were passing through for the freedom of speech such surroundings give, Judith spoke again. If Charlotte Eldridge had been there, her interpretation of Judith certainly would have been: "She doesn't mean to let him go—not she!" Would it have been a fair one?
Possibly. But all Judith said was: "I am afraid I am a woman without a heart."
Challis said interrogatively: "Because...?" and waited.
"Because I find myself only thinking of what I shall lose when you go. If I were good, Scroop"—a slight sneer here—"I should have a little thought for you. I suppose I'm bad. Very well!"
"I am taking no credit to myself for any sort of altruism in my—my feelings towards yourself." Challis shied off from the use of the word "love"; but whether because it would have rung presumptuously without the sanction of its object, or because of the bald rapidity of its use on the stage, where Time is of the essence of the contract, he might have found it hard to say.
"I should not thank you for it. Nor any woman. But many a woman who injures a friend unawares—being unselfish and pious and so on—would gladly...." She hesitated.
"Put a salve to the wound?"
"Well—yes—that sort of thing! But I am afraid I am rather brutal about it. Can you not, after all, forget this foolish infatuation for my sake? Consider the wild words you spoke just now unsaid, and give me back my friend. Come, Scroop!" Her beautiful eyes were surely full of honest appeal—no arrière pensée Mrs. Eldridge would have damned her for—as she went frankly close to him and laid her hand on his.
He shrank from her—absolutely shrank!—and gasped as though her touch took his breath away. He found no words, and she had not finished.
"Think—oh, think!—what rights could I ever have in you? Think of your wife...."
"I do think of her—oh, I do think! But it makes me mad."
"Go back to her and forget me then, if it must be so. Remember this, Scroop—that the bond that holds you to her is thrice as strong as it would be if...."
"If what?"
"Well!—I must say it. If it were a legal one...."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean you are not married to her—there!"
"Oh, the Deceased Wife's Sister rubbish?"
"Yes." And then Challis thought to himself, through the fog of all his soul-torture and perplexity, "How comes she to be so ready to go home to the mark? We have never talked beyond the bare fact that Marianne and Kate were sisters." But he let the thought go by, to make way for another of greater weight with him.
"You never can mean," he cried—"you—you—you never can mean that I——" She interrupted him with the self-command that seemed to belong to her—to grow upon her, if anything—and completed his speech for him: "That you would take advantage of a legal shuffle to evade a promise given in honour? Of course, I mean the exact reverse. I mean that you, of all men, would hold yourself three times bound to an illegal contract."
"All men would, worth the name of men. Debts Law disallows are debts of honour. But all that is nothing. I love my wife. I tell you I love my wife; I will not have it otherwise." His voice was almost angry, as against some counter-speech. But he dropped it in a kind of exhaustion, with a subdued half-moan. "What have I to do," said he wearily, "with all these wretched nostrums of legislation and religion, that would dictate the terms of Love? Mine have come to me, and my soul is wrenched asunder. Surely the penalty is enough to make beadledom superfluous. No man who knows what Love means will ever love two women.... There—that's enough!" He stopped abruptly, as cutting something needless short. She spoke:
"It comes to good-bye, then?"
"Yes—unless...."
"Unless what?"
"You will say I am strange."
"You are. But you cannot change yourself. Speak plainly!"
"Listen, Judith! If you can look me in the face and say you have no love for me—you know the sense I use the word in as well as I—then I will pack away a sorrow in my heart till it dies; and the time will come when you shall say: 'That man is my good friend, but he declared a fool's passion to me once, for all that, and now he seems to have forgotten it.' It shall be so. But, better still, and easier for me, if you could say with truth that there was some other man elsewhere whose hand in yours would be more welcome than mine; whose voice, whose look, whose lips would be a dearer memory. If you could tell me this, the fool's passion would at least be all the shorter lived." He stopped as they reached the end of the sheltered path, and looked her full in the face. He had stopped, as it were, on a keynote of self-ridicule—the habit was inveterate—and he was one of those men who are at their best when individuality comes out strongest.
She had never looked so beautiful in his eyes as when she stood there, silent in the moonlight, weighing to all appearance the answer she should make. Perhaps she knew how beautiful—who can say? She remained motionless through a long pause—through the whole of a nightingale's song in the thicket hard by. Then her bosom heaved—a long breath—and then, with a sort of movement of surrender of her hands—how the diamonds flashed!—she said, "I cannot," and then again, "No—I cannot." Then, in a more measured and controlled voice: "This means that we must part—now! I shall not see you to-morrow."
"Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss," said Helena to Bertram. But how about those who are neither foes nor strangers, yet must be more than friends, and dare not be lovers? An interview of this sort had best not end in an embrace, if two victims of infatuation are to be saved from themselves. Let the description remain for Judith as well as Challis. But she had the self-command to check his impulse, throwing out her jewelled hands against it, and crying—not loudly, but beneath her breath: "No—no—no! Remember what we are—what we must be. For Heaven's sake, no madness!" And then, as he let fall his hands and their intention, but with all his hunger on him, and the foreknowledge of sleepless hours to come, she turned towards the voices that were approaching them from the house.
"I cannot recall"—it was Mr. Tomes who couldn't—"any occasion on which a discussion of so abstruse, and I may say elusive, a topic has been conducted with more philosophical insight, and a stronger sense of what I need not scruple to term the argumentative meum and tuum. Neither am I prepared to admit what possibly inexperience in debate may be eager to affirm, that the ratiocinative perspicuity of a post-prandial collective intelligence has been fruitless in result. I may point with satisfaction to at least two conclusions—the impossibility of drawing safe inferences in discussions where the same word is used in several different senses, and the uselessness of the attempt to define the meaning of words until we are agreed upon the nature, and, I may add, the legitimate limits, of Definition." Mr. Tomes paused. He was a little disconcerted at the discovery that he was being intelligible by accident, and also he had caught sight of Challis and Miss Arkroyd. His abrupt full-stop as he met them was unwelcome to this former, who would have had the orator continue, to hide his own perturbation. But it did not matter, for Judith was more than equal to the occasion.
"I have narrowly escaped being burned alive, Mr. Tomes. Mr. Challis set fire to me lighting his cigar. However, he put me out." Nothing could exceed her easy grace and perfect self-possession.
Very fortunately Mr. Wraxall, the Universal Insurer, was one of Mr. Tomes's companions. The opportunity was a splendid one, and he seized upon it. Challis got away in a most dastardly manner, leaving Judith exposed to risks and averages and premiums beyond the wildest dreams of Negotiation run mad. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wraxall must have been welcome enough. When life jars, let others do the volubility, and spare us!
The dispersal of guests and the family at the foot of the great staircase was to-night more tumultuous than usual. Not only was the house-party at its maximum—its noisy maximum!—but many outsiders from the neighbourhood were among the dancers. Challis noticed, though whether as cause or consequence he never inquired, four more young soldiers, who, he understood, had come from as far off as it would take a blood mare in a dog-cart, that just held them and no room to spare, an hour and fifty minutes to trot back to, over a good road. These youths were in such tremendous spirits that when the last farewells of the dog-cart died away on the offing, a sort of holy hush seemed to ensue, and people drew long breaths, and smiled excusefully—for young folk are young folk, you know—and said now we could hear ourselves speak. Why was it that Challis, not unobservant, for all his own hidden fever, pictured the occupants of the dog-cart, beyond the offing, as speaking little now, each dwelling on his own private affairs? Was it because four corresponding chits, at least, had hushed down and become self-absorbed and absent? And where was the relevance of measles, and Challis's thought to himself that it was best to have them young?
The Rector was there, too. He had not been a dancer, but had refrained merely because, in view of this great accession of force from Jack's and Arthur's friends from the garrison, no further male dancers were wanted. When Challis reached the house, after prolonging a voluntary ostracism in the garden-silences until he heard the guests dispersing, and saw Chinese lanterns being suppressed, he found Athelstan Taylor just on the point of taking leave. He was explaining to her ladyship why he had not come to dinner—for it seemed he had been invited—when she stopped him with a question about one of the children who came into his explanation. His reply was: "Oh yes!—just a bad inflammatory cold. But she'll be all right in a day or two. Only we shall have to be careful. Good-night, Lady Arkroyd!"
"'I think it is good-morrow, is it not?'" said Challis, quoting. "Is Charles's Wain over the new chimney, I wonder. Perhaps, Rector, you know which Charles's Wain is. I don't. I always confuse between him and Orion."
"You'll have a hard job to do so now. Why, my dear fellow, can't you remember how we talked of Orion last Autumn, and he was hardly visible even then?"
"I remember—in your garden. You must show him to me again some day!" The Rector looked attentively at the speaker. He had caught the minor key in his voice; it had crept in alongside of a misgiving. "I shall lose this friend I would so gladly keep, cloth or no!"
"All right! But you mustn't stop away till Orion comes. When shall I tell my sister to lay a place for you? I believe we are clear next Thursday—will that do?" He took out a notebook for an entry.
"I'm sorry," said Challis. "But I'm obliged—I was just going to tell Lady Arkroyd—I am obliged to return to town to-morrow. I had a letter to-day, calling me back on business. It's a case of compulsion—oh no!—nothing wrong. A mere matter of business relating to publication!"
Her ladyship's sorrow at losing her distinguished guest knew no bounds. She must look forward to seeing him in town, where the family would return in a fortnight. But Mr. Challis would stay over to-morrow. No!—Mr. Challis couldn't do any such thing, thank you! He ought to go by the early train—was sorry to give trouble—but if he and his box could be taken to the railway early enough.... Oh no!—he didn't mind breakfast at 6:30, only it was the trouble! But as Lady Arkroyd's heart was rejoicing—hostesses' hearts do—at her guest getting clear of the mansion before she was out of bed, she was able, from gratitude, to make her grief at his departing at all almost a reality. Otherwise she was consciously relieved that he should go; but as for any mental discomfort on the score of her daughter's relations with him—the idea!—a middle-aged, married, professional man! The eleventh century to the rescue!
Athelstan Taylor said "Good-bye, then!" with real regret, especially as there was something wrong, manifestly. His first instinct was to forswear driving back with Miss Caldecott to the Rectory, and to persuade Challis to walk "part of the way" with him. But—breakfast at 6:30, and Charles's Wain over the new chimney, or its equivalent! After all, he was human. Only, what a pity! A talk with him might have meant so much to Challis.
Sibyl's regrets merely meant, "See how well-bred I am, to be able to conceal my rejoicing! Go away, and don't call in Grosvenor Square when I'm there! Do not give my kind regards to your wife, though a worthy woman, no doubt!" That is, if Challis translated an overflow of suave speech rightly.
Other adieux followed, genuine enough. Mr. Brownrigg was honestly sorry to lose the opportunity of showing Mr. Challis those extracts from Graubosch. Mr. Wraxall was seriously concerned at not being able to supply the figures necessary to a complete understanding of Differential Equivalents, a system by which all deficits would be counteracted. Mr. Ramsey Tomes said he should always regard with peculiar satisfaction the opportunities for which he was indebted to his friend Sir Murgatroyd, of shaking the hand of an author of whom he had always predicted a very large number of remarkable things, "considering"—thought his author—"that he does not appear to have read any of my immortal works." The Baronet himself seemed to be developing a scheme for correlating Feudalism with everything else, in connection with his regret that Mr. Challis had to go away next morning, until her ladyship reminded him that Mr. Challis had to go to bed. So at last Mr. Challis went.
Sibyl hung back. Judith had not gone up yet, she said, in answer to her mother's "I suppose you do mean to go to bed, child, some time!" Why, then, couldn't she leave Judith till breakfast to-morrow? But her ladyship stopped short of pushing for an answer, for she mixed "Good-night" with a yawn, and got away upstairs.
Mr. Elphinstone testified discreetly that he could hear Miss Arkroyd coming. Yes—there she was! Who was that with her? Only the young girl, Tilley, miss! This was what the name Cintilla had become, naturally, in the mouths of the household.
"Go up, child, and see that my hot water isn't cold. Cold hot water is detestable.... Yes, Sibyl?" This was in answer to a particular method of saying nothing, containing an intention to say something disagreeable presently.
"I didn't say anything."
"Please don't be tiresome. You know what I mean, quite well. What was it you didn't say?"
"I suppose you know Mr. Challis is going away to-morrow?"
Judith's demeanour is exemplary. Something pre-engages her. Mr. Challis must come after. She calls the little ex-dairymaiden back; and then, turning to Mr. Elphinstone, waiting patiently to be the last to retire, says to him, "What is good for a burn, Elphinstone?"—as to a universal referee. He replies, "I always use olive-oil, miss," as if he belonged to a particular school of singed butlers. "Give the child some for me," says Judith; and then, being free to give attention to her sister, goes on with, "Yes, what is it? Oh yes! Do I know Mr. Challis is going away to-morrow? Of course I know Mr. Challis is going away to-morrow."
"I thought you did," says Sibyl. This is hardly consecutive, but Judith's equanimity is impregnable. No impertinences or aggressions are to affect it, that's clear! She is easily able to compare the watch on her wrist with the hall-clock, and to find their testimony is the same, for all their difference of size, before she makes further answer.
"Mr. Challis is called away by business. So he says.... Good-night!" Cintilla, or Tilley, will bring the magic oil; so Judith goes upstairs leisurely. Her sister follows. But she has not said good-night yet.
Telepathy makes very funny terms, sometimes, between sisters. And a fact ignored, that has called for comment, may broach a reciprocal consciousness that will never be at rest without speech in the end. This time it is that burn, which Sibyl has said nothing about—has asked no explanation of. And both know it.
At the stair-top both sisters say good-night, with a sort of decision that seems overloaded for the occasion. But the valediction seems inoperative; as both wait, for no apparent reason. Then Sibyl speaks in a quick undertone:
"You wouldn't listen to me, Ju.... No, you needn't be frightened—they're not coming yet...." For Judith had glanced back down the staircase. "You wouldn't listen, and now you see what has come of it."
"What has come of it?"
"Judith!—do you think I am blind, or do you take me for a fool?"
"Yes, dear—the last! But go on. I can wait any time, in reason, for an explanation." She embarked on a period of waiting, gracefully indulgent, a tranquil listener.
"Do you suppose I am taken in by this story?"
"What story?"
"This story of Mr. Challis's going home on business."
"It's a very simple story."
"Very simple ... oh dear!—there's the girl. I'll tell you in the morning...."
"I want to hear now.... Put it in my room, child, and go to bed." And Cintilla says, "Yes, miss!" and vanishes to an innocent pillow. "I want to hear now, and perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me."
"Come into my room!"
"Certainly!" Judith complies without reserves, dropping gracefully into an armchair, after placing her candle in safety. She makes a parade of her waiting patience. Sibyl, all aflame with flashing eyes, turns on her after closing the door carefully.
"After what I have seen this evening, Judith, I know what to think.... No!—it's no use your denying it." Then in a lower voice, with the flush on her cheeks spreading to her temples, she adds: "Not an hour ago I saw that man Challis...." She pauses on the edge of her indictment.
"You saw that man Challis...?"
"I saw that man Challis ... yes!—I don't care, Judith ... making love to you in Tophet, with his arm round your waist."
"And where were you?"
"Up here in this room. My hair came down, dancing. And I looked out of that window and saw you. Oh, Judith!"
"Oh, Sibyl!" Judith repeats mockingly. She goes to the window with easy deliberation. It is wide open on the summer night, for heat. "Of course one sees Tophet from here," she says. "But how you could distinguish Mr. Challis's arm, or my waist, is a mystery to me, at this distance."
"Have I no eyesight, Judith? I tell you I saw it all, as I stood there where you are now. I saw him set fire to your scarf thing with his cigar. And his arm was round you, and he was looking over your shoulder. I saw it by the blaze-up, as plain as I see you now!"
Judith is undisturbed. "I see you have withdrawn my waist," she says. She circles her diamonded fingers round its girth, and seems not dissatisfied with the span they cannot cover. "But you've got the story wrong, little sister."
"Being offensive won't do you any good."
"You are my little sister, Sib dear! And you're a goose. Mr. Challis showed me a letter, and was kind enough to hold a lighted match for me to read it by."
Sibyl makes no reply. Her eyes remain fixed on her sister as she turns a bracelet on her arm uneasily. Evidently she only half believes her. Can she be lying? It is a matter on which a woman who has never lied before will lie freely. One who has flirted, at such close quarters, with another woman's husband, will tell her sister lies rather than admit it. Sibyl wishes, on the whole, that Judith would look her in the face as she speaks, instead of being so wrapped up in a landscape she knows by heart.
Judith seems inclined to get out of hearing of that subject—has had enough of it. "It seems a shame," she says, "to go to bed on such a heavenly night. But I suppose one must!"
Sibyl is not going to be fubbed off with any such evasions. She has made up her mind, this evening—this is in strict confidence—to accept a peer's son who will be a peer himself when his father ceases to be one, and she is keenly alive to the desirability of avoiding family scandals just at this crisis. If Judith is going to bring a slur on an honourable name, thinks Sibyl, let her do it after my coronet is landed. Her blood is up.
"What was there in the letter?" she says bluntly.
"Sibyl dear, really!" There is amusement in Judith's tone, as of forbearance towards juvenility.
Her sister mocks her. "Yes—me dear, really!" she says. "What was there in the letter?"
"May the catechism stop, if I tell you?" The yawn that begins in these words lasts into what follows: "Oh, no, I don't mind telling you, child! There was nothing to make a secret of. It was from his affectionate wife—poor fellow! He really deserves something less dowdy. Let me see, now, how did it run? Her dear Titus—that was it!—she had had another letter from me, pressing her to come. Hadn't written back. Would her dear Titus make me understand that she was too much wanted at home to come away just now? Besides, she did not care for society, as her dear Titus perfectly well knew. She would only be in the way if she did come. It was much better she should have her friends, and he his—spelt wrong: ei instead of ie. Do you want to know all the rest of the important letter? Very well! She had spent yesterday evening with grandmamma at Pulse Hill, and dear Charlotte was just gone. He was not to hurry back on her account, as it was easier for—some name of a cook—when he was away. He had better stay as long as he could, where he was being amused and flattered. And she was his affectionate wife Marianne.... Have you been flattering Mr. Titus Scroop, Sibyl dear?"
Sibyl ignored the question. "Tulse Hill, I suppose," said she thoughtfully. "Who's dear Charlotte, I wonder?"
"A Mrs. Eldridge. Nobody you know!"
"I wonder if she's good for dear Marianne." Simple truth must now and then tax credulity, or be excluded from fiction. The whole of the conversation is given above, and where or when on earth Sibyl found in it anything to warrant this wonderment of hers Heaven only knows! However, one can wonder at nothing, oneself, in these days of Marconigraphs. Sibyl ended her speech with, "The woman's as jealous as she can be—one can see that!"
"Can one?... oh, I dare say one can, dear! Only she's no concern of mine. Suppose we go to bed."
"If you were Mr. Challis's wife, you might feel just as she does. And if you were not really his wife, it would be all the worse."
"Of course, when one's neither, one doesn't care." This was faulty in construction, yet neither sister felt that it could not be understood.
The hardships of a forgotten casual on the landing outside were recognized with, "Oh dear! Why didn't you go to bed? It's nearly two o'clock." And then sleep came in view, for those who were at home to him.
If Judith said, "Not at home," was it any wonder? Think what an amount of dissimulation she had gone through since that revelation of Challis's in the garden—since what may have been a discovery about herself of something she may have suspected before, but had half-contemptuously dismissed! She may have more than once asked herself the question, "Do I possibly love this man?" and laughed a negative. But oh, the difference it makes when a man has said roundly, "I carry your image in my heart, and cannot be quit of it." She had played with edged tools, and had cut herself. The burn on her shoulder was not the only result of tampering with fire that day, for her. Most surely for her own sake, and his, concealment was the sacramental word, for the moment. She had let him know she was unable to say she did not love him; that was all! But an intent she had half formed in the very core of her heart must be hidden from him. He must have no suspicion that she would lend herself to a scheme that would take advantage of a wretched legal shuffle—one of the most wretched that even Themis has scheduled as a shift for the cancelling of a solemn contract. Was she quite prepared to say she would not, for her own sake, jump at an expedient granted by the solemnity of Law, to make Dishonour seem honourable, and disallow the claims of this stupid, commonplace, would-be wife, who was no wife at all? And who knew it, for that matter.
For this intention had sounded its first note in her heart as she read that postscript, when the last match was all but burned out. She could remember every word of it, as she paced to and fro in the silence of her bedroom, fostering the idea it suggested. "I suppose you know"—so poor fool Marianne had written, in her momentary fit of spleen and obduracy—"what mamma always says about you and me—that we are not really married at all. If so, I ought to go back and live with her, and the sooner the better. Then you would be free, and I suppose it would be Judith." For that was what the stupid, exasperated woman had actually written, and next morning would have been so glad to plunder the postman's bag of, when he disembowelled the vermilion pillar-box at the corner.
But, as for Judith, her business was to bury the suggestion—which she had read, and Challis had not—in her heart. Had she not a right to hide her cloven foot, if it was one—to wear over it a pretext of her reverence for the bond that linked this man to his dowdy wife, until it broke asunder from its natural rottenness? What was that nauseous saying male man was so fond of? "All's fair in Love!" and what the fœtid interpretations he felt no shame to put upon it? Why was all the selfishness and meanness to belong to one sex alone?
And meanwhile Challis himself was tossing through the fever of a sleepless night, until some wretched sleep was broken by Samuel calling him at 6.30 in the morning, and the hoot of a motor outside. Samuel explained that he had come later than the first time fixed, as his lordship had placed the Panhard at Mr. Challis's disposal, and it would more than make up the time. Challis was grateful.
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW LIZARANN AND JOAN PLAYED TRUANT. OF A RIDE IN A MOTOR, AND ITS BAD EFFECTS. HOW LIZARANN CONVALESCED, AND JUDITH WALKED HOME FROM CHURCH WITH THE RECTOR. HOW MARIANNE HAD BOLTED WITH THE TWO CHILDREN
Lizarann was, of course, the patient Mr. Taylor spoke of. But it was all her own fault, said Public Opinion, that she had such a bad inflammatory cold. If she and Joan had been good, obedient children, and done as they were told when they came home from the tea-party at Royd, instead of giving Aunt Bessy the slip and running away to Daddy at Mrs. Forks's cottage, all would have been well. But be lenient to Lizarann! It was all through her anxiety that old Christopher should have his bicarbonate of soda. Her anxiety on his behalf was great, although she did not know him personally.
"Maten't Phœbe and Jones go round to old Mrs. Forks, where Daddy is, and bring it screwed up in piper like acrost the road to Mr. Curtis's?" So Lizarann had said—for she really believed that Joan's name was one and the same with that of the Wash, in Cazenove Street—and Aunt Bessy's negative had been emphatic.
"Certainly not, my dear! At this time of the evening! Why, it's past six o'clock.... Yes, you and Joan may run on in front, only don't get over the gate till I come. The gate of the next field, you know." But when Aunt Bessy and Phœbe reached that gate—where were Lizarann and Joan? The wicked imps had gone to Mrs. Forks's.
The worst of it was that when the Rector had personally recaptured the truants, and was taking them home, a motor-car, with a lady and gentleman in it, passed them, going at speed. That, as they escaped alive, was no harm. But, having passed, it stopped, and something disagreed with it all through the colloquy that followed.
"Isn't that Mr. Taylor? Can't we give you a lift?"
"You're going the wrong way. And we're too numerous."
"Nonsense! Any amount of room! And it won't take us three minutes to run you back to the Rectory. Jump in."
The Rector hesitated a moment. It was just on to dinner-time at the Hall, and it seemed a shame to make this lady and gentleman late. But Lizarann was coughing again. It may have been the petrol, but still——! Then, too, Aunt Bessy's anxiety would be over all the sooner. And there were those children almost frantic with delight at the idea of a ride in a motor!
So he agreed. And it was fun! Only there were two drawbacks—one, that it was over so soon; the other, that no sooner were they deposited at the Rectory gate, and the lady and gentleman in the motor off at great speed to be in time for dinner, than Lizarann had such a terrible attack of coughing that Miss Caldecott and her brother-in-law were quite alarmed.
The report the Rector gave to Lady Arkroyd was too sanguine. Bad inflammatory colds don't yield to treatment in a couple of hours, which was about how long it had been at work by the time he and Aunt Bessy drove away to the Hall, to come in after dinner, having been forced to cry off, with apology and explanation, owing to the escapade of the children.
Lizarann's didn't yield to treatment for many days, and during that period was a serious source of alarm to all her circle of friends at the Rectory, and a frequent subject of inquiry by interested outsiders. For the little maid had a happy faculty of remaining in the memory of chance acquaintances. Also, it was generally understood in the neighbourhood that she was a delicate protégée of the Rector's friend's sister, Adeline Fossett, and had been sent away from town to get the benefit of the air at Royd. So Lizarann got quite her fair share of public interest.
But her attack must have been a sharp one, or we may rely upon it she wouldn't have been kept in bed next day, and more days after next day. And Dr. Sidrophel—it wasn't his real name, mind you!—wouldn't have said, as he did till Lizarann really felt quite sick of hearing it, that it would be as well to continue the poultices, for the present, as a precaution. Her own view, to be sure, was that inflammation was the result of mustard poultices and stethoscopes primarily, and that it was bound to get worse if you had to put a glass tube in your mouth at the bidding of well-meaning friends. But she concealed these convictions in deference to public opinion, and did everything she was told to do, however gross the infatuation might be that instituted the obnoxious treatment. Her conviction that she had, intrinsically, nothing the matter with her was, however, not one to be shaken lightly. She went so far once as to say so to Dr. Pordage—that was his real name!—who replied, "Oh ah, that's it, is it? Nothing the matter! But you will have, if you don't look alive, as safe as a button! So there we are, little miss!"—but absently, as though she was a child and wouldn't understand him—and blotted the prescription he had been writing. But Lizarann heard every word, and resolved to look alive, so far as in her lay, whenever an opportunity came. Meanwhile, none being manifest, she reflected a good deal on buttons, wondering what was the nature of the security they tendered, and why she had never heard it before.
When Mr. Yorick—the name she preferred for the Rector, because, you see, Miss Fossett must know best—came to pay her a visit shortly after, she inquired on this point, giving the whole of the doctor's speech, and making herself cough. Now, Mr. Yorick always talked to Lizarann as if she was a sensible person; and if there was one attribute for which the child loved him more dearly than another, it was that. But her devotion to him was so complete—second only to her love for her Daddy—that analysis of it was absurd.
"Was he talking to you, or talking to himself, Lizarann?" said he, sitting by the bed with the patient's hand in his. It was small and feverish.
The reply called for reflection. Having thought well over it, Lizarann said decisively: "Bofe!"
"Was he writing all the while?"
"Yass!" Nods helped the emphasis. "All the while! Scritch-scratch!"
"That was it, Lizarann! Dr. Sidrophel can't write and hear what he says to himself at the same time. So nobody knows what he means." But the little woman's great eyes were full of doubtful inquiry, and more must be said. "I expect he only meant that if you went out in the air you would get your cough back. So you must just look alive and lie in bed." It was plausible, and would have to do for the present. The button question might stand over.
"Mustn't I go and see Daddy where Mrs. Forks is?"
"Yes, in a little while. Daddy will come and see you every day."
"And bring his crutches to come upstairs with?"
"Daddy left his crutches here yesterday. To be ready for him whenever he comes."
"And not tear a hole in the drugget?"
"Not if he goes gently and I put my hand on his back!"
"Which hand?"
"This one I've got hold of you with, Miss Coupland! Any more questions?"
Lizarann pursed up her lips and shook her head. But she reconsidered her decision. "Yass! About Dr. Side—Dr. Side...."
"Dr. Sidrophel? What about him?"
"Why's his real nime Pordage?" She had the name very pat, showing close observation and reflection.
Mr. Yorick had to consider the point. "Well!" said he presently, "I admit it's rather a bad job. But there's no way out of it now. It is his real name, and that's all about it!" But Lizarann looked dissatisfied. "We may call him Dr. Sidrophel behind his back, Lizarann," added he.
"Supposing he was to hear us talking behind his back, and was to listen behind his back...!" Hypothetical knavery being admitted between these two, as a necessity in ingenious fictions, Mr. Yorick did not think a homily on truth-telling necessary at this point. In fact, he counselled bold duplicity, to Lizarann's great relief. "We should have to go far enough off, Lizarann," said he. And the stage direction indicated was so pleasant to her unfledged mind that she utilized it to develope the subject further—kept the curtain up, as it were!
"Then if we wentited far enough off, you could tell me why his nime was Dr. Spiderophel, too." She dashed intrepidly at the name, and nearly captured it.
"Of course I could, and he wouldn't hear one word."
"And what should you sye?" Lizarann gave a slight leap in bed, from pleasant anticipation. She was told to lie quiet, and she should hear.
And that is how it was that when Miss Caldecott came in, dressed cap-à-pie for public worship, a prayer-book in a gloved hand—for it was Sunday morning—to remind her brother-in-law that the bells were going to begin, and arouse him to his duties, she found him telling how Sidrophel was an astronomer who took a fly in his telescope for an elephant on the moon; and that this legend was only partly cleared up by its narrator. Telescopes and stethoscopes remained imperfectly differentiated in Lizarann's mind. And Mr. Yorick's temporary acceptance of her pronunciation led to a misapprehension about spiders and flies. Did this astronomer catch that fly, or did the fly get away? Lizarann treasured hopes on its behalf, for the next chapter in the story.
But she felt it her duty to look alive, and lie quite quiet in bed, although—law bless you!—she had nothing the matter with her. So she lay and watched a greedy bee, who seemed bent on leaving no honey in that jessamine, at any rate, that came across the open lattice, and had its say in the mixed scents of hay and roses that came in out of the sunshine for Lizarann to get her share of them. She lay and listened to the bells, and wondered why the sound rose and fell, and decided at first that it was done for the purpose, and was the right way. But then, how did Nonconformity afar manage to do it so exactly like? For the Chapel tinkle rose and fell, too. Then came the footsteps on the garden-gravel; one big one, the Rector's, and many small ones. And Lizarann was so sorry she wasn't to go to Church, where it was her Sunday-wont, in these days, to drive a coach-and-six through the first Commandment, and worship Athelstan Taylor on his pulpit-altar in a heart-felt way, while admitting official obligations elsewhere.
But she couldn't go this time, and, what was more, she had to go on looking alive and lying quiet while Phœbe and Joan shouted good-byes up at the window, as though they were off to New Zealand; because, you see, Lizarann had solemnly promised, if they did so, not to shout back and make herself cough.
"She hardly coughed at all when I was with her," said the Rector, on his way to his weekly pièce de résistance—his Sunday sermon. "I can't help thinking Dr. Sidrophel may be making his fly out an elephant this time."
"Perhaps, dear! But the fly may become an elephant. He's really very clever, although you do make such game of him. You see, he was quite right about poor Gus."
"Ah, dear, dear!—yes. But then he says, if Gus got into a better climate, he might make old bones yet."
"So Gus will, by God's mercy, dear! But I mean, Dr. Pordage said—and I do not see that I am bound to call him out of his name—that in the end Gus would have to give in, and go. You see, he was right! Joan!"
"Yes, aunty darling!"
"Don't turn your toes in and out, and whistle. It's not at all lady-like, and there's Mrs. Theophilus Silverton just behind in the pony-carriage." Joan toned her behaviour down to meet the prejudices of local society. "You do see, don't you, that Dr. Pordage was right?" For this good lady wouldn't glisser, and always appuyait until her accuracy had been entered on the minutes. Her brother-in-law said, "Quite right, aunty!" And she said, "Very well, then!" and seemed to find the fact that she was right almost a set-off against the painful fact she was right about.
For Dr. Sidrophel's shrewd forecast about the Rev. Augustus Fossett meant exile for that invalid; and this exile had already taken form in the proposal that Gus should accept a chaplaincy of an English church in Tunis, which had been offered to him. Athelstan Taylor was keen on his acceptance of the post; as he would have been on the amputation of his own right hand, if he had seen therein any benefit for his friend. But his face went very sad over it as he walked on in silence.
His mind was back in old Eton and Oxford days, when they were all young together—Gus and his sister Adeline, and he, and the mother of those two youngsters in front, who were being so decorous, pending the approach of the pony-chariot behind. And this semi-sister of his own, beside him now, who was always a sort of thorn in the Rector's innermost conscience. For hadn't she—or had she—foregone wedlock and babes of her own for the sake of her sister's and his? The sort of thing no one could ever really know! And what would happen if this confounded Deceased Wife's Sister bill were to become law? That was the cul-de-sac these explorations often led him to, more and more as the chances increased of a majority for the Bill in the House of Peers. But it was a cul-de-sac. Why think about it? Was not each day's evil sufficient for it, and something over?
The pony-carriage gained and gained—overhauled the pedestrians—underwent a period of rapture that it should absolutely see them alive in the flesh—and forged ahead unfeelingly. But it had not expelled from the Rector's mind a something that it had met with in that cul-de-sac—what was it?—oh yes, he knew!
"That's a very sad business, I'm afraid, of poor Challis's."
But Miss Caldecott cannot honour this remark immediately. Deportment calls for attention. "You're not to begin again, the minute they're out of sight, Joan.... What business, dear?"
"I thought you knew about it?"
"No, I know nothing. Only what Lady Arkroyd said."
"Exactly! Well—it's a very painful affair."
"No doubt, dear! Phœbe, don't hunch your shoulders."
"Come, Bess, be a little sorry for the poor chap! I don't believe it's his fault."
"Oh, I dare say not! I know nothing about it. And I don't want to know anything about people of that sort."
"What sort?"
"You know what I mean, Athel. Literary, freethinking sort of people. Them and their wives!"
"I know quite well what you mean, Bess." As Athelstan does know, he says so honestly, instead of allowing his sister-in-law to attempt to explain her meaning, which he is well aware she cannot. "But tell me again what Lady Arkroyd said about Challis and his wife."
"Just what I told you."
"Which was...?"
"That they had quarrelled, and she had gone away to her mother. The day after he went back."
"Was that all?"
"Yes—I think so! Yes, there was nothing else."
"How came Lady Arkroyd to know?"
The lady becomes suddenly explicit. "My dear, it's, no, use, your, catechizing me! For I tell you I know nothing about it! You must ask Lady Arkroyd yourself. There they are!" Meaning that carriage-wheels are audible, identifiable as the Hall coming to Church.
And then the Rector had to mind his ps and qs. For he hadn't so much as thought of the text he should preach on.
However, he acquitted himself well, as he had done a hundred times under analogous circumstances. And then, as soon as he felt at liberty to be secular, his mind went back to the profane author's domestic affairs.
"My dear Lady Arkroyd, what's this about our friend Challis and his wife?"
The Baronet, who is close by—for he is a punctual church-goer: it is feudal—says, informedly, "A row in that quarter!" nods sagaciously, and contains further information in closed lips. Her ladyship supposes it's the usual thing; need we know anything about it? She dismisses nuptial quarrels, presumably resulting from infidelities, with graceful languor; perhaps reserving such as are within the pale, sanctioned by titles. Judith, with the most perfect self-command, immovably graceful, says sweetly: "Is there a row between Mr. and Mrs. Challis?" On which her mother suddenly becomes petulant and human—comes down from Olympus as it were—exclaiming: "Why, Ju, you know you told me so yourself, child!—what nonsense!"
"Perhaps I used the wrong word," says Ju, undisturbed. "Have we any business with Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs?"
"None at all, my dear! Jump in: you're keeping the horses." Her ladyship is in the carriage already, and will have no objection to driving away from Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs. It was just like dear Mr. Taylor to begin talking about them, with everyone about.
But Judith has another scheme. She is going to walk, thank you! Miss Caldecott and Phœbe and Joan may do the jumping in, and the carriage may drop them at the Rectory. Oh, very well!—if Miss Arkroyd really wants to walk. All settled. Only Joan puts in a demurrer; she means to walk with papa, and he will carry her on his shoulder. Joan is an anti-Sabbatarian of an advanced school, and often makes her father as bad as herself.
The Rectory is not really on the way to the Hall, but Judith's short cut to the latter is not far out of it for Joan and her man-servant, or ox, or ass—whichever is nearest—who ought to be doing no labour on this day. So, as soon as the Rector escapes from the small-talk of many parishioners on the road, and turns into the field path, Judith can effect an end she has in view. It was none of her doing, mind you!—this was the substance of her exordium—it was entirely mamma. What she referred to, after many minutes in abeyance, had revived the moment the last parishioner died away. But the Rector disallowed her line of pleading.
"Come, I say now, Judith!" He Christian-names the daughters of the Hall when alone with them, having known them as children. "Draw it mild! You must have told your madre something. Of course you did!"
"Yes. I was obliged to. But Mr. Challis did not mean me to. It was very difficult not to say something about what was in the letter...."
"From Mr. Challis?"
"Yes. Mamma knows his handwriting, and asked me what was in it. It was too long for me to say—nothing! So I told her what I knew she must hear afterwards, but begged her to say nothing about it."
"And then she told Bess?"
"I'm extremely sorry to have to turn and rend my mother—especially coming from Church—but you see she has her idiosyncrasies, the madre. I assure you, dear Mr. Taylor, she actually went straight to Miss Caldecott, and said with the most unblushing effrontery that she had promised not to tell anyone, but that she knew she might do so safely to anyone so discreet, and then repeated what I had said to her, with additions. She is a trying mother sometimes!"
"And then Bess comes and tells me! You're a nice lot of confidantes...." Something in Judith's look checks his joking tone as he glances round at her, and he says, "What?" And then, "Yes—go on!" Then a hesitation leaves her, and she speaks:
"I will tell you more than I told mamma, Mr. Taylor. I wish to, because I think your advice would be good. Mr. Challis wrote to me—a long letter—we are friends, you know; I have seen a good deal of him...."
"Quite right! I like Challis, you know."
"So do I;—though he might smoke less. However, we're none of us perfect.... Well!—I'm sorry to say the story is true. He fell out with Marianne—his wife is Marianne—the day after he arrived at home, although she had received him cordially enough on his arrival. She was at her mother's when he arrived, but came back to dinner. In the course of the evening they quarrelled, but I gathered from his letter that he thought it would blow over. Next morning they were civil to one another, but short of reconciliation. She went out in the morning, and in the afternoon he went away to a club-dinner. When he came back, quite late, he found a note from her, saying that she had gone away again to her mother's, and had taken her children with her."
"Good God!" The Rector's voice is a shocked undertone. "Was that Bob, and the two little girls...? Oh yes!—he told me a good deal of his family."
"Not Bob; he's at school. The others are her own children; he isn't."
"I never was more shocked in my life.... Yes!—Joanikin. You'd better get down and walk a bit. There we are, all alive and kicking!" Joan is deposited on the ground, her legs in evidence. "But do tell me!—'took away her children with her'! She can't, legally."
"She has done it illegally, I presume." Judith is very equable over this point. "She has done it actually, anyhow!"
"What an extraordinary thing!" The Rector cannot get over it.
"Well!—it's true! He came back from his club, poor man, to find his house empty and his children gone. And no explanation but the note. He roused up the servants that were left, a cook named Steptoe and the housemaid, who said their mistress and the nurse and children had packed a few things and gone away in a cab with a friend, about an hour after he left."
"It seems almost incredible—at first." He has to walk on a little way, fanning himself with his bandana handkerchief, before he can settle down from his amazement, and try for enlightening details. At last he says: "And then he wrote to you—when? Next day?"
"He left us, you remember, on Tuesday. His letter is dated Tuesday. The Tuesday after. Just a week."
"Would you object to my seeing it?"
"I should not. Why should I? But I fancy he did not wish anyone else to see it. I could tell you what there was in it, just as well. And then, dear Mr. Taylor, you will see why he wrote at such length to me about it. You must be wondering."
"I was."
"It was simply this.... By-the-bye, I dare say you heard how he set me on fire—that night we had the dance?... No?... Well, it was all connected with that. You know this Marianne of his would keep on refusing to come and see us, and I asked him to show me her letter with a message to me in it. We were out in our little Tophet garden, and it was too dark to read it. I thought one could read by moonlight, or I wouldn't have asked for it. Mr. Challis lighted a vesta for me to read by, and set me on fire ... well—yes—I was just a little burned, on this shoulder. The worst of it was, her letter caught fire, and was burned to a cinder."
"But what harm did that do? She didn't want it back."
"No, she didn't. But there were two or three words on the back he hadn't read, and I couldn't tell him what they were. It seems she was surprised at his making no reference to them; and since he told me in his letter what he surmises they were, I can't say I wonder. I should have been."
"What were they? Or what does he suppose them to have been?"
"He might not like me to say, because she can never have meant them to be seen. It doesn't matter what they were...."
"Certainly, certainly! I quite understand."
"If he had known of them, he would have refused to show me the letter. As it turned out, it was most unfortunate. Because he said nothing except that he had given me her message to read...." Judith faltered—was coming to the difficult part.
"'Message to read,'" said the Rector connectively. "Yes?"
"Had given me her message to read, and had said nothing about when or where or how. And then the poor man had to account for the burning of the letter before he saw these words on the back ... oh yes!—of course, one ought always to tell the whole truth in a fix; I know that. But she had only his word for it that he had read the letter before and overlooked the postscript. Of course, what she thought was that her good gentleman was allowing a strange young lady—who isn't very popular with her—to open her confidential letters, and let him read them over her shoulder. Now do you appreciate the position, Rector?" Probably this young lady was very glad that this way of accounting for Mrs. Challis's resentment franked her of referring to the possible effect on a jealous wife's imagination of the loneliness of Tophet and the moonlight, both of which were sine qua non to a true account of the conflagration. Surmises about Challis's passionate outburst were not to be encouraged by reference to any of the surroundings that provoked them. Let them be ignored, "sequin net"—which is not expensive, but deadly in the moonlight—and all!