CHAPTER V
OF A RAINY DAY AT ROYD. HOW A MOTOR-CAR CAME TO GRIEF. HOW MISS ARKROYD'S MOTHER WENT TO THANES CASTLE AND SHE HERSELF DIDN'T
A little bit of duty done always seems at its best when it has taken the form of a written letter. Because when the time comes for posting, whatever the letter may contain—whether it be a lame apology for breaking an engagement or a promise to send a cheque without fail next week—the penny stamp and the direction are just the same as if it had been to reproach Angela for not appearing yesterday at church-parade in Hyde Park, or had enclosed a final discharge of your tailor's account. So Mr. Challis's rather perfunctory line to catch the Post, boldly stamped and directed, quite set his mind at ease about his home obligations as soon as ever it was licked and stuck to, past recall.
In fact, so relieved was his conscience, after he had handed this letter to Elphinstone the butler to see that it went to the Post for him, that he felt quite at liberty to enjoy some more soul-brush the next time the chance came. All the more from a conviction of the importance of its contents conveyed by the professional manner of Mr. Elphinstone's reception of it—a manner that said, "This really important letter shall go, whatever other don't!" If this enjoyment of the soul-brush became too oppressive to his conscience, he could square accounts by an extra sheet or so of letter-paper.
Anyhow, he could now live for the present. He was rather disgusted to find that, whatever he decided on to enjoy next, it would have to be in the house, unless he was prepared to get wet out of doors. For, taking a mean advantage of him while he was writing his short letter, it had come on to rain.
In a country-house, when it comes on to rain after a fine early morning, despair settles on the household, which wanders about moaning, and looking for someone to come and have a game at billiards; or lamenting the cruel fate which has beguiled it into putting its things on, and now it supposes that it had better go and take them off again and settle down to something, because it's going to pour; or asking what was the name of that capital game we played every day at Fen Grange, for instance, when it rained for three weeks on end, and nobody was the least bored. It is in sad hours such as this that you seek for a chess-opponent and find none, except a class of player that knows the moves, whom you fly from candidly; and then, if fortunate, you may meet with one of another class, who has forgotten the openings. Secure him, but don't let him set you an interesting problem and run away.
"I've never played, but I should like to learn. Only I really don't know where the men are. Nobody plays here, you see, and they get lost or hidden in cupboards." Thus Judith in the second hour of a steady downpour to Mr. Challis's inquiry, for he was always ready for a game at chess, without being keen about it.
"You are not getting on with your book, anyhow!" said he. "Can't I hunt about for the chessmen till I find them?" The book was one he had recommended at the first coming of the rain, and it was when it was closed in despair that Challis asked his question.
"I think we must ask Elphinstone. Would you ring?" Challis rang, and a sub. who appeared was instructed to consult Mr. Elphinstone. Judith continued: "No!—I hate sinners who are touched by the Dies Iræ in a cathedral and repent; especially when they've got too old to do any real mischief. I would sooner they went to the Devil honestly...." And so the chat ran on, Challis cordially concurring, and not hinting at any joy whatever over the sinner that repenteth, until the young man Samuel came back with chessmen. There was another set, of ivory, it appeared, but Mr. Elphinstone had desired Samuel to say that a prawn was defective, and one of the bishops was out of his socket, and couldn't be got to screw in. Samuel had been put to it to charge his memory with this obscure message; he was confident about the prawn, but had misgiving about the bishop—feared it was disrespectful to the Church perhaps; but went away relieved when nothing explosive came of it. His situation was safe.
Many of us know that teaching chess is no sinecure. The alumnus who refuses to accept the rules as they stand; who wants to know why the pawns may not move backwards; why the pieces may not jump over, like in draughts; why the queen should have such absurd latitude; who thinks all the black pieces should remain on the black squares, and per contra—how well we know him! And the difficulty a peculiar class of intellect has in mastering the knight's move, condemning it on its merits, as too much like squinting, or italics! And another yet, which, on being shown how to make a particular move, makes it, and says contentiously: "Well!—I don't see anything so very clever in that."
Miss Arkroyd did not quite do any of these things, but she was nearly as bad. She remembered the moves, in the abstract, but forgot which of the pieces made them; and this answered as well as forgetting the moves for all purposes of confusion. With so beautiful a hand it couldn't matter how much she fingered the pieces. And Mr. Challis seemed very contented. The instruction was a farce, but it served its turn, and a sort of appearance of a game developed while the rain outside came steadily down, and checkmated everyone in the house. Desultory chat, in which the question, "Whose move is it?" frequently occurred, helped Challis to a further insight into family conditions and local history. En revanche the young lady added to her impressions of Challis's own domestic circumstances and his literary career, and found that an image was forming in her mind of Mrs. Challis. It wasn't a beautiful image, but it was worthy. It was that of a good soul. But not a good sort of body—nothing so bad as that! She felt glad, for Challis's sake. A good soul and the best of wives; that kind of thing! You couldn't expect education of very finished achievement in those sort of people, in the class she came from. For Miss Arkroyd had got somehow a perfectly clear impression of a class undefinable, but homogeneous and recognizable by symptoms. A class that didn't dress for dinner, a class that liked potatoes in their skins as a palliative to cold moist roast mutton d' obbligo; and did not condemn, but merely looked coldly on, at menu's and finger-glasses. A class whose males smoked pipes and whose females refused cigarettes; which, though its young learned French at school, condemned France as the most salient foreign incident on an incorrigibly foreign Continent, and a perfect moral plague-spot of unfaithful wives and husbands.
But however good a soul this man's wife was, Judith caught herself being sorry for him. Yesterday evening, when she went good-naturedly to him, as to her mother's latest discovery, just to say a few words and prevent his getting left out in the cold, he had seemed to her only moderately interesting, and far from handsome. Now she began with a discriminating eye to see that, though he was far from handsome, he was just as far from ugly. Still, she perceived that it did credit to her discriminating eye to find this out. She hadn't noticed it so much when he turned up unexpectedly in the garden in the morning—unexpectedly, because she was really unconscious of having said in his hearing that she was going across the lawn to feed her birds. But now, in a lucky half-light in the red drawing-room, with his eyes dropped on the chess-board, his forehead and eye-framing had a look about them that was certainly interesting, if not a good substitute for beauty. Judith would have preferred the beauty, certainly; but she could look contentedly at the good soul's property, and go on wondering what she was like, while he considered knotty points connected with the game.
"You've put your king in check, Miss Arkroyd. You mustn't do that." He looked up suddenly and caught her eyes. Her rapport with the game saved him from his vanity by good luck. "I see you thought you had caught me," was his interpretation of her gaze. It was in token of a supposed triumph, so he thought. Whatever it was, it became disconcerted.
"Oh!—mustn't I do that? I think it oughtn't to count, when one does it oneself. Don't you?" Challis said to himself that this woman was rather a goose. Why he felt a little disappointed at her being rather a goose he could not have said off-hand. He apologized for the stupidity of the laws of games generally; said they were clearly wrong all round. But it would make such a lot of fuss to alter them now that he doubted if it was worth it.
"You're not in earnest, Mr. Challis?" So the lady spoke, and Challis said to himself that Marianne would never have found that out. "Sharp, by comparison!" was his comment to himself; and then aloud: "But I can't have you bored, Miss Arkroyd. You don't care about this." To which Judith replied: "It's not exciting, so far;" and both laughed. The discovery that each had been thinking the same thing was full of conductivities. It improved their footing.
"It can't be, you know, when you come to think of it," said he, pushing his chair expressively three inches back—an expression of renunciation—with a slight boredom-admitting stretch. "Chess requires apprenticeship before it can be enjoyed, like smoking."
"I see. And this game has made me sick, like a boy's first cigar. Why didn't you tell me?"
"One must begin some time.... Well! I don't know either. Must one?..."
"There was nothing else to do."
"We might have gone into the billiard-room and heard politics. I heard them going on through the door a little while ago. Mr. ... what's his name?—the politician...."
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes?"
"Mr. Ramsey Tomes. I gathered that he was giving details of his great scheme of Reciprocal Interdependent Taxation of Imports—what he touched upon at dinner last night...."
"Don't let me disturb the chess!" says a passer through the room. It is Lady Arkroyd with an armful of some form of embroidery which no one is on any account to assist her in carrying to the drawing-room beyond. But what she means is, "Don't arrest my progress. Mind your own business." Challis makes a convulsive suggestion of willingness to assist the Universe, but doesn't mean anything at all by it; and her ladyship floats away, leaving him normal. But his plunge, overdone from dramatic motives, has knocked the board over. The Fates seem to league together to throw cold water on this ill-starred game. Judith conveys the fact by a shrug, but adds a smile, that it may be understood there is no amertume in the situation. Further, she says she can hear Tea. A sense that Life's problem is solved for the moment mixes with a consciousness of hairbrush-time come again, and Mr. Challis disperses to reassemble presently and enjoy it.
How it is pouring, to be sure! And how grateful one feels to it—abstraction though it be—for doing it in earnest, and making an end of all doubts whether we may not get out for a turn later. Nobody is going to do that to-day.
Challis encounters young Lord Felixthorpe on the stairs, coming from the billiard-room. He is always amiable and well-mannered, this young nobleman, and manages to make everyone think he has their good opinion of him at heart. But he often seems to be seeking their sympathy with his derision of someone else. Or of himself, for that matter—so Challis goes on thinking, for all this is what passes in his mind; the story does not vouch for its truth. During their slow ascent of the great staircase together, he is more than half-convinced that the young toff really cares about his views on motoring.
"I am quite aware," says his lordship, pausing at a corner, as though one might go upstairs at any slowness, even with the young man Samuel and a colleague agglomerating gilded porcelain within hearing as tea-factors. "I am quite aware, my dear Mr. Challis, that the motor-car is at present an object of execration to the public. But I sympathize so keenly that I feel bound to spend as much time as possible in the only place in which I am not tempted to forget myself and use bad language against motorists. I refer to the motor-car itself. Believe me that the only thing that can reconcile a well-constituted mind to any practice essentially damnable is the practice itself. I shall look forward to your accompanying me in my Panhard, after a profusion of curses perfectly reasonably directed against it—in which you will have my sincerest sympathy."
"When do you expect the detestable contrivance—I make no disguises, you see—to arrive? I shall be here for a week, if my hosts continue to tolerate me."
"It ought to be here now. From the fact that it is not here now, I am led to infer that something has happened. In this cautious expression you will kindly observe that it includes the possibility that my chauffeur, Louis Bossier, has got drunk on the road, and has stopped the night at an inn to become sober."
"Or he may have been poisoned by petroleum."
"Yes, or his head may have been cut off by a police-wire, stretched across the road in the dark. But in that case I fancy we should have heard."
When Challis descended the stairs, he paused to look out at the great window with the quarried grisaille and armorial bearings in each light, and saw through a quarry temporarily repaired with common window-glass a clear view of the approach to the house, dutifully draining off the deluge that continued to fall steadily—steadily—on the gravel road the great beech avenue took such care of, standing on each side of it all the way to just this side of the Lodge. How well he knew what that soaked gravel would have to say to the pedestrian who ventured out—what it was saying to that unhappy man in some sort of oilskin costume who was coming slowly, jadedly along, above his under-squelch and below an umbrella that can have done him very little good. Mr. Challis saw at a glance that he was not indigenous to the soil; a second glance determined that he was a Frenchman; a third that he was a chauffeur. Certainly Louis Rossier—who else? He smiled as a non-motorist smiles when a motor comes to grief. When he reached the drawing-room, Mr. Ramsey Tomes was already applying for a second cup. That gentleman was thirsty, no doubt. He had talked for two hours. Not that he meant to stop—far from it!
Challis had no one to talk to for the moment, so he listened to Mr. Tomes, who went on again as soon as he had made sure there were two lumps.
"I start from an aspect of the question that must compel the most incredulous to admit that at least the matrix is ripe for solution."
As the orator paused a moment, everyone felt bound to fructify a little, and said, "I see, you propose to ..." or, "I see your idea ..." or merely got as far as "I see you ..." and remained stranded. All except the disciple of Graubosch, who muttered knowingly, "The Brandenbierenschreiligrath System. Graubosch's Appendix B deals with it." He and Mr. Wraxall exchanged astute nods; the latter to oblige, because he really knew nothing about it. But Mr. Tomes wasn't going to leave anything vague. Not he!—a man with a fixed glare, and loaded to the muzzle with exhaustive elucidation!
Challis did not wait for the next instalment. He cast about for an anchorage, and had not found a satisfactory one when Lord Felixthorpe, who had not appeared at the beginning of Tea, came into the room with something to communicate written on his countenance.
"What's gone amiss, Scip?" said his friend, William Rufus.
"That idiot Rossier...."
"I told you he was a fool. What's he done now?"
"Left the machine in a ditch, and walked home through the mud.... Oh no, he hasn't hurt himself. I wish he had—in moderation." The public becomes interested, and explanation spreads over the room. A lady's voice says, afar, that its owner supposes now we shall lose our excursion, and that place will be gone, and it would have been the very thing. Challis doesn't understand this, and asks Judith the meaning. He is in her neighbourhood somehow—seems to have sacrificed hearing more about the accident. She supposes Sibyl meant the place for the Great Idea. But they couldn't have gone to-morrow unless the weather mended, anyhow.
People chatter so in a room full; you soon lose threads of conversation. Challis knew little more about either the accident or the Great Idea when he went away to dress for dinner an hour later. He was only aware that Mr. Tomes was still at work on the Reciprocal Interdependent Taxation of Imports, and that Miss Arkroyd was going to play Halma with him if he came up soon enough after dinner.
In his letter to Marianne, written after he went up to his room rather early—people are very apt to think it's getting on for bedtime after rain-beleaguered days in country-houses—Mr. Challis merely mentioned two games at Halma, and adduced the exciting character of that game as a reason why very little was said. His letter implied that he was being bored, which was untrue. However, the words "in the house all day" would do that without an antidote. And we couldn't expect him to mention the soul-brush, especially as he disallowed its existence. He said a good deal of what he did know of the motor-car mishap, which was natural, for—so he said—he had inferred, from the excitement on the subject, that this car, when it appeared, would be the first ever seen by most of the inhabitants of the district.
This machine was the latest extravagance of young Lord Felixthorpe, who had spent a thousand pounds upon it; and its arrival from the agent at Grime, who was to welcome it—or rather its components—to England, and to qualify it for the enjoyment of its riders, and the execrations of its victims, was looked forward to with feverish anxiety by both. But he could not give such details as were supplied next day, after a fuller sifting of Louis Rossier's report, which was not very intelligible at first. These had to wait for a postscript, which told how the chauffeur, who did not understand three words of English, had proved as sensitive to misdirection as the compass is to the magnetic current. He went the wrong way instinctively several times, and was headed back, or finger-pointed back, just as often. In the end he made an unfortunate choice between two roads, although warned by a long shouted instruction from a turnipfield—which ignored his nationality robustly—that the cross-over bridge, when he come to Sto'an's mill, nigh the running wa'ater, wasn't to be troosted to carry lo'ads; and the shouter would be rather shoy of it, in yower place. But you might take e'er a one of they two ways, at your liking. Being none the wiser, Louis Rossier chose the more tempting one; and when he came to the cross-over bridge, which spanned a ditch, could not, of course, tell the meaning of the Local Authority's posted caution to the effect that nothing over two tons was to use it; with the result that it gave way in the middle. It was too small a bridge to let any vehicle larger than a goat-chaise through and almost too small a ditch to accommodate one, but the motor was trapped and detained in its sunk centre.
"You'll have to get to t' Hall on Sha'anks's mear, yoong ma-an," said a native, who was not really taking pains to hide his joy at the mishap. Louis got to the Hall, but didn't know he had ridden Shanks's mare.
However, for a first accident with a new Panhard, it wasn't so bad! Only one tyre ruined; its comrade was mendable. In the end the gorgeous scarlet vehicle was got to the house by horses, and was recovering its spirits and snorting, with the new spare tyre on, by the time the company at the Hall had eaten too much lunch, and were arranging how they would spend their afternoon. Challis had despatched his letter of the previous night, and was enjoying himself. A gloriously fine day, following an isolated local depression of the barometer, had removed the local depressions the latter had occasioned to everyone else, and Miss Arkroyd had ended a second interview over the parroquets by promising to take him to see the Roman and British camps on the other side of the village.
The first really professional excursion of the new motor was to be dedicated to the Great Idea. For the Great Idea, however vaguely it was formulated, was clear about one thing. Premises would be de rigueur. It was therefore incumbent on its promoters to inspect premises, both in town and country. At present the latter was the more popular, because the weather was superb, and the notion of incorporating with the Factory a Village Community, and perhaps a Garden City, both in the evening with a flawless Autumn sky, was too tempting to be neglected. So, this afternoon, William Rufus and Sibyl and Lord Felixthorpe—in spite of an impression he gave that he was treating the Great Idea with derision—were to run over to Whealhope Paulswell, about thirty miles off, in the motor, to give that treasure a baptismal run and inspect an extinct factory, which had been empty a quarter of a century. They would be back by dinner-time.
Sir Murgatroyd, of whom we have seen nothing, as he has been continually talking about the ruin of English Trade with Mr. Ramsey Tomes, was going to take that gentleman to see some manure. People can look at some manure, and talk about nefarious Germany, both at once. There is reason to suppose that these two gentlemen talked of very little but the ruin of English Trade during the whole of this visit to Royd. And wherever any member of the household was employed—we are recording the impressions of Mr. Alfred Challis—he or she could always hear, in the remote distance, what was only too clearly Mr. Tomes taking this opportunity to state, once for all; or Sir Murgatroyd feeling bound, alike as a Statesman and an Englishman, to protest against. A steady, continuous rumble, on these lines, accompanied the not particularly busy hum of men, women, and chits, that made up the round of life at Royd. The chits, by-the-by, of which there were two or three, naturally involved a corresponding number of young men, each to each; or each in the pocket of each, as you choose. None of them seemed the least ashamed of never having a word to throw at anyone outside the pocket, except its owner, and the rest of Europe seemed by common consent to take no notice of them. And all the while each one, and the contents of its pocket, was, like enough—so thought Mr. Challis—the centre of an incubation of memories that were to last a lifetime. "As they bake, so they will brew," philosophized Mr. Challis to himself, and clouded over a little as he remembered that he, too, was in the twenties once. Four of them played lawn-tennis that afternoon, and the others got somehow lost sight of. No matter!
Lady Arkroyd had the carriage, and drove over to Thanes Castle, to see the Duchess of Rankshire before the Royalties came. But she wasn't at all sure she wouldn't have done something else if she had known that Judith was going to cry off at the last minute. She relied a good deal on her eldest daughter as a factor in social intercourse. But she didn't confess it.
"What on earth is the girl going to do with herself? How can you be so tiresome, Ju? Now do just get ready and come. There's no hurry. I can wait."
"Now, Madre dear, you really ought to know by this time how bored I always am with the sort of people they get at the Castle. And I've got letters to write. I must answer Lady Kitty about the orchids."
"Nonsense, girl! You can't be all the afternoon over that."
"I shall go out later. In an hour or so. I dare say I shall take Mr.—what's his name?—Harris—round the village and show him the Roman Camp. He'll know what castrametation means, and things...."
"Mr. 'Titus Scroop'? My dear!—he's as happy as he can be talking to that idiot Brownrigg about Metaphysics and nonsense. Do let him alone!"
"Well!—I dare say I shall. Or otherwise, as may be. But I won't come to Thanes. Love to the Duchess."
Judith was a stronger character than her mother, and won. As the latter was driven off, she said to herself, for no apparent reason "Mr. Titus Scroop."
Lady Arkroyd was in the habit of asking every celebrity she came across to her home, because she worshipped genius. But she took the genius for granted if she saw any author, artist, or musician's name often enough in print. Was she sometimes rash? Well—yes—sometimes! Perhaps a doubt about "Titus Scroop's" genius was the reason she said his name. But if so, why did it lead to a resolve in her mind to ask Mrs. Candour—the Mrs. Candour of the moment, whom she was sure to meet at Thanes—more about Mrs. "Titus Scroop"? She kept thinking of it, off and on, all the way to the park gates with the dragon-sentinels on piers on each side presenting arms.
And all the while Challis was being bored by that idiot Brownrigg, and wishing anyone would come and rescue him. He resented the idea that he had any special rescuer in view. But no one had said he had. However, Miss Arkroyd had certainly spoken about a walk to the Roman Camp; so naturally he would cast her for the part, don't you see?
CHAPTER VI
OF THE GRAUBOSCHIAN PHILOSOPHY. HOW JUDITH ARKROYD WALKED WITH MR. CHALLIS TO THE RECTORY. HOW HE SAID NOTHING ABOUT HIS WIFE BEING HIS DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. HOW HE WAS OUT OF HIS ELEMENT AT THE RECTORY. SALADIN AND HIS CAT. HIS HEDGEHOG
The gentleman spoken of so disrespectfully by his hostess was Mr. Adolphus Brownrigg, who was an enthusiastic disciple of the great German philosopher Graubosch, whose scheme embodied a complete Reorganization of Society on an entirely new basis. But whereas all previous reorganizers of Society had started on the fallacious and mischievous line of breaking up existing institutions and replacing them by others of their own devising, this reformer proposed to utilize them all as portions of his new System. Thus the reigning Sovereign would fall easily into his place of Chairman of a great Central Committee of Management, retaining the Crown as a distinguishing badge of his office; the existing machinery of Parliamentary election would answer equally well for the Members of the Central Committee; the Bench would supply us with a most satisfactory staff for what he termed Courts of Discriminative Decision, and so on, and so on. Even the very Policemen's Uniforms would be available for the new staff of Order-Keepers and Crime-Preventors that formed part of his System. Nay, the Coinage itself would come in useful as Exchangeable Tokens in his new Method of Sale and Purchase Accommodation.
"What attitude does Professor Graubosch adopt towards the Religions of the world?" asked Challis, as he and the advocate of this new Reform walked about the garden, discussing it.
"Graubosch," replied the latter, "is, broadly speaking, in favour of their complete abolition. Nor do I myself think any continuation of them would be found necessary in view of his new System of Metaphysical Checks. No one recognizes more fully than Graubosch the necessity for Moral Restraint derived from a Consciousness of the Unseen, whether acting as a stimulus in connection with an exalted and unselfish anxiety for personal rewards throughout Eternity, or as a deterrent resulting from the anticipation of unpleasantness hereafter, especially of continuous oxidation with evolution of caloric. But the new System provides for both."
"As for instance?..."
"For instance, in respect of the Idea of a Deity.... But perhaps, Mr. Challis, your own views on this subject are ... a ... well defined? I should be sorry to ... to...."
"To give offence? Pray don't feel any scruples on my account."
"Well, I will continue. In respect of this Idea of a Deity, it is true that Graubosch abolishes God, as such. But his System claims to provide a substitute; and this substitute is, to my thinking, superior in many respects for working purposes to the Idea it displaces. The first Metaphysical Check he formulates is the Invariable Necessary Antecedent. The acceptance of this as an inevitable condition of thought is an essential of the System of Graubosch."
"How does it act as a check?"
"It is rather long to follow out; but, put as briefly as I can, it is somewhat thus: Graubosch admits the possibility of an infinite number of successions of Antecedents, as we have an infinite number of results or sequents. But the effect on the Metaphysician of contemplating such a condition of the Universe is fatal to reasoning, and may easily produce suspension of the faculties. Philosophy stipulates for a modus vivendi; and as a working necessity for argument, if for no other reason, Graubosch refers the whole of the Universe to one Invariable Necessary Antecedent; which he accepts, for reasons which appear to me satisfactory, as obviously superior to any one unit of its results or sequences. We have no right, he says, to assume that any result or consequence is not achievable by such an Antecedent."
"I concur, on the whole. Does Graubosch ascribe intelligence, in our sense of the word, to this Antecedent?"
"Certainly not. Intelligence is merely a sequence or consequence of some minute fraction ... of ... of its power."
"Why did you hesitate?"
"From a feeling that Power itself may only be a finite humanism, so to speak—an Entity on all fours with Intelligence. But the Metaphysician has to leave himself a few words, to speak with. Now the idea of greater and less is axiomatic, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that our Intelligence is a lesser thing than its working substitute in the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent."
"I quite understand. To create Intelligence, its Creator when creating himself must go one better—break his own anticipated record. What are Graubosch's views about Good and Evil? They both are factors in our existing System, especially the latter."
"He ignores both, as antiquated and unnecessary. In his System, the fruitless discussions about which is which—where one ends and the other begins, and so on—disappear entirely."
"That sounds good. Vice and Virtue could shake hands over it—a Coalition Ministry, don't you know?"
"Pardon me!—the exact reverse. Party Government would be intensified. But I ought to describe what Graubosch terms the Plus and Minus of his System, in its Moral or Ethical aspects. The first expression recognizes in what has been hitherto absurdly called 'Good' merely the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent leaking out, so to speak, and becoming perceptible to our Senses. The second, in what has been equally absurdly called 'Evil,' its diminution or repression."
Challis yawned. He was getting bored. "Does not that," he said, "assume the existence of some counter-power, able to diminish and repress?"
"Graubosch avoids doing so. And therein lies the beauty of his System. His Minus is simply negation of his Plus. An exact parallel is supplied by the phenomena of light and darkness. To ascribe to darkness powers of extinguishing light is scientifically absurd."
"I see." Challis spoke in a winding-up tone. His bore perceived it, and dexterously pinioned him.
"Pardon me one moment more," he said, "We are at a point where the beauty of the System becomes most manifest. I refer to its elasticity—its power of utilizing, provisionally at any rate, existing Institutions pending its maturer development. Graubosch does not doubt the efficacy at some future date of the Metaphysical Check on our propensities supplied by the Plus and Minus of his System. But he proposes for the present—at least, until believers in a Personal God from early youth have had time to die out—to postpone the Plus which is to take his place. Also—and this is important in connection with the operation of Metaphysical Checks—he is favourable to the retention of a Personal Devil until the Masses have acquired an insight into Metaphysics...."
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Mr. Challis. "I have letters to write, and they say the Post goes at twelve...."
"But I hope I have impressed you favourably. We must bear in mind...."
"Most favourably, my dear sir. And it seems to me that if we only let things alone vigorously enough, we may regard Professor Graubosch's great Reform as already in operation...." Mr. Challis paused on behalf of a newcomer, to whom he resumed: "Not at all, Miss Arkroyd ... not the least! I assure you Mr. Brownrigg and I have talked the subject dry.... No!—I really am speaking the truth." This with absolute fervour.
"Because I do so hate interrupting," said Judith, who had been waiting to speak. "And I saw you were so interested. But I can say what I have to say and go—and then you can finish." Mr. Challis looked dejected, and Judith continued: "I only wanted to say that I shall be walking down to the village presently, and could show you the Roman and British camps and the prehistoric monolith." Mr. Challis looked elated. "Only presently, when you have really had your talk out. I shall be on the terrace." Mr. Challis was just on the point of arresting Miss Arkroyd's departure by another violent profession of intense completion of the subject in hand, when prudence murmured in his ear that his bore mustn't be allowed to come too. Now a pretence that he was yearning for three words more, and would then meet the lady on the terrace, just served to place Mr. Brownrigg in the position of a fixture. It localized him. Otherwise he might have moved with the train of events, unshaken off. Even as it was, a very vigorous "I really mustn't keep Miss Arkroyd waiting any longer" was wanted to effect the extraction—for it was quite like tooth-drawing. But the force of handling—as the art-critics phrase it—was so strong that Mr. Brownrigg couldn't say, "Why shouldn't I come too, I should like to know?" He would have, nevertheless. But he had to give the point up, and went to look for Mr. Wraxall.
Judith was waiting on the terrace looking handsome. She was wrestling with an intractable glove-button, and her hand that was operative was embarrassed by her sunshade having been taken into its confidence. Mr. Challis could hold the sunshade, clearly. A very simple thing! And when the glove-button socketed into its metallic nidus, and was satisfactory, how obvious for the young lady to take that sunshade back again, with a profusion of thanks as for a great service done! But did the little incident leave the two performers exactly where it found them? Sometimes things of this sort don't. Things of what sort, do you ask? Well!—you see, we are watching Mr. Alfred Challis's mind, and can, for the present, only answer—the sort that made that gentleman conscious that the twenties and he had parted company many years ago.
Perhaps, however, it's only one of those nonsensical ideas Sibyl gets (now, if you please, we are peering into the lady's mind) when she tells her sister that flirtations with married men are detestable. However, this time Sibyl couldn't have a word to say—a literary man with an attenuated beard, and hair that seems to have thought of curling once, and then thought better of it, and gone a little gray hesitatingly! And a weak mouth! And a lay-down collar! And such clothes! No!—this time Sibyl could find no excuse. If this man wasn't safe, you might as well have no male friends or even acquaintances at all, and live in a harem.
Besides, there was something very interesting about his eyes and forehead, which were his good points. Oh yes!—his hands were not bad. They looked sensitive, and showed the bones. Judith's mind made swift excursion down a side-alley. What was the impossible Mrs. Challis like to live with, she wondered? Did he adore her, or how? Perhaps she wasn't really a "good soul" at all, but adorable—in reason.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Challis. I always get into such a mess with buttons. I hope you are not afraid of dogs, because Saladin must come with us. He never gets any exercise unless I take him out." A huge Danish boarhound, conscious that he was spoken of, looked up and appeared to sanction the use of his name. He had smelt Mr. Challis, and found some excuse for him, presumably, in some nicety of bouquet human nostrils know not of.
"Saladin's welcome," said he. "But I'm like Br'er Rabbit—a mighty puny man myself, and I may very easily git trompled...." For Saladin was appalling.
"What's that out of?"
"Uncle Remus."
"I suppose I ought to read Uncle Remus?"
"Yes; but don't if you don't like."
"Not if I ought to?"
"The ought is not a high moral ought. You ought to read Uncle Remus if you want something amusing to read."
"I haven't much time for reading, and I want to read 'The Epidermis.' Everyone tells me I shall enjoy it."
"Perhaps everyone knows. I don't feel so much confidence myself. Read Uncle Remus first, anyhow. If you do that, I'll ask you to accept a copy of t'other one, from the Author."
"I've just written off for a copy to the publisher."
"Oh!—have you?—I would tell him to transfer the order to my account—only that takes all the edge off the proceeding."
"When did Uncle Remus come out first?"
"Oh—a long time ago! It's odd to think how long. I'm over forty. I was almost a boy."
"Perhaps that's why you liked it so much? Fancy your being fourteen years older than me!"
"Perhaps." The last half of Miss Arkroyd's remark had to go without answer. It was too parenthetical to call for one.
Experience teaches us that there is no meshwork of circumstance into which flatter conversation may weave itself than the combination of a married man, a young woman, and a walk out on a fine afternoon, of set purpose. At least, that was the text of a literary reflection of Mr. Challis at this juncture. He put it away in a mental storehouse for his next book. Its truth or falsehood is immaterial at present.
Judith made no mental note of what her experience taught; but she knew she couldn't stand being bored and she felt it coming. She had made up her mind to have an amusing walk with this popular favourite. And Sibyl might say what she liked, but she wouldn't be balked!
A sense of intended impertinence may have heightened her colour slightly, as she stopped and turned the fine eyes full on to her companion. He stopped, too, looking round.
"Mr. Challis, I want you to tell me something.... No!—don't promise till you know what it is...."
"I am sure, Miss Arkroyd, you will ask me nothing I should hesitate to tell you...."
"Don't be too confident ... it's very impertinent!"
"All right—go on! I'll forgive you."
"Is 'Ziz' in the 'Spendthrift's Legacy' Mrs. Challis?"
"My wife? Marianne?" Mr. Challis was conscious of being reminded of his wife. A fine nuance of ashamedness—it could hardly be called shame—affected his mind, surely? Else why note the perfectly obvious fact that if he and Marianne were never to forget each other for a single instant, life would be insupportable to both. Perhaps he can hardly be said to have noted it, though; suppose we say that he declined to note it, consciously, because of its absurd irrelevance.
"Yes!—Marianne." Judith's eyes, with no concession in them of any shade of impertinence in the use of Mrs. Challis's Christian name, waited for the answer, as she still stood, not stirring. Was she saying to herself that this was tit-for-tat; a riposte for his "Sibyl" of their talk in the morning? Saladin, not used to this sort of thing, waited also, reproachfully. Challis, rather accepting "Marianne" as a sanction of his "Sibyl," was again conscious that his soul was being brushed by machinery—not an intrusive brush though; an easy one he could ignore. His answer was not difficult.
"Not a particle of resemblance between them! Ziz was a"—he stopped himself just in time—"a ... a ... almost a sort of professional beauty." The one word "professional" made all the difference—saved the position.
Now, Judith had a habit of despising dangerous ground in social intercourse; it was part of what Mr. Challis had called her prepotente disposition. She would always put her horse at a quickset hedge if any image crossed her mind of the finger of Discretion, the monitress; especially if it looked like Sibyl's. While Mr. Challis was breathing freely about his dexterous escape, she made up her mind to know all about this impossible person who wasn't a professional beauty. As to how she should get at this knowledge, that was another matter. All she could see her way to at the moment was—not to be in a hurry and spoil her chances. But she was very much mistaken if she couldn't do with this man, whom she thought of as nerves and brains and very little else, what she had done before now with stronger men than he—viz., twist him round her little finger.
"Ah!—I'm so glad," said she. And then, as though to clothe her pause in walking with the semblance of a moment of mental tension, she resumed movement forward. Saladin emphasized her action by a single tremendous bark, and did the same. A startled waterfowl decided that his position was untenable, and condemned the neighbourhood, going off in a bee-line with a rush. Two horses out at grass galloped round their field, and stood at gaze, with open nostrils. Of which events Saladin, their source and origin, took no notice, but moved on, smelling the planet gently and thoughtfully.
"Why are you glad?" asked Challis. "You didn't like Ziz, I suppose?" A note of pique in his voice. The young lady's confidence about the finger-twisting grew.
"I admired her," she said with marked emphasis. "She fascinated me down to the ground. But ... if you ask me ... you mustn't mind my saying, you know...."
"I can't tell you how I enjoy hearing what you really think. No compliments, please!"
"Well ... if I can express myself! I should say your heroine's was rather a ... rather a ... shrill personality. I don't mean unlovable exactly, but ... well!... I can't think of any other way of putting it."
"She was meant to be excitable. Neurotic, as the slang goes nowadays. Marianne is neither. I hope you liked the reconciliation scene by the open grave, and the way they appeal, as it were, to the coffin for forgiveness. Some of the reviews thought it strained."
"Strained!—oh no! It seemed to me in some ways one of the most touching things I ever read. And her explanation to Septimus that she had divorced him on principle in order that he should marry Julia, and both get a chance of recovering their position in society.... But do tell me—only it's hardly fair to ask—did you mean that she put the arsenic in Julia's coffee, or the negress?"
"I leave that an open question for the reader to speculate about. But you may rest assured of one thing, Miss Arkroyd—the young person in my novel is about as unlike my dear wife as she can be." He had determined to pay some little tribute to his dear wife as soon as the chance came, that she should lie less upon his conscience. Here it was. "Marianne is the exact opposite—a pussycat upon the hearthrug—a ... kettle singing on the hob, you might almost say. She's not exactly what's called a clever woman, certainly...."
"But she is none the worse for that! How I do hate clever women!" All the same, Judith thought to herself: "Why couldn't he leave her in peace, on the hearthrug or the hob?" His last reservation had spoiled his little tribute, and indeed, he felt it himself. Bother!
Setting it right would make it worse. In spite of a fervent murmur from the young lady, that she felt she knew exactly what Mrs. Challis was like, and that they would be sure to understand each other, and what a pity it was Mrs. Challis had not been able to come, he felt he would do best to brusquer the conversation. He couldn't well say "Marianne isn't here because your mother never invited her—only told her she might come." So, feeling that if he could detach the conversation from Marianne personally he did not very much care by what means the end was effected, he made a fragmentary remark to the effect that he had had an original in his mind for the neurotic heroine, but quite a different person from his wife—utterly unlike her. "Unlike in appearance—individuality—everything! Is that the market-cross?" No, it wasn't the market-cross; it was the pump. So Mr. Challis's conclusion did very little towards its object.
Judith halted as before, after establishing the pump. She knew she was going to be impertinent again; and drawled a word or two to that effect, to get on a safe footing. "But do forgive me," she said, "if I ask who the lady was. You needn't tell me, you know." And then, as Challis wavered between disclosure and concealment, put in a word to clinch matters: "Treat me as a friend. We can always quarrel, you know!" The soul-brush seemed to go a little quicker.
This author was a man who fancied he understood womankind—and probably his was a fair average of knowledge in a department where so much ignorance exists. But there was one sort of woman he could not understand—the woman with a stronger nature than his own. He had only mixed with his equals, so far. He could be quite unaware that he was being influenced—could still persuade himself, as a tribute to his manhood, that he was acting from a politic motive. He could make an astute note that his insight into humanity—"Human Nature ... behooves that I know it"—showed him that he could place confidence in this lady. It had nothing to do with her eyes or her outline. It was his Insight.
"I don't mind telling you." A slight hitch before the last word showed that the speaker had just avoided italics. He paused a moment, to be quite sure he didn't mind, then continued: "The original of 'Ziz' was my first wife. So far as there was an original. But exaggerated out of all—out of all individuality."
"I never knew that you had been married before." The wording of this—"never" during the last forty-eight hours!—was ahead of their intimacy, but her hearer accepted it. It chimed in with that luxury of the soul-brush, always at work. He would not on any account have had it exchanged for, "They did not tell me you had been married twice." Nevertheless, he was unaware that he was being influenced, and went on towards expansive confidence, unsuspicious of himself.
"I married about fourteen years ago, and lost my wife within a twelvemonth. My son is a big boy now, at Rugby; he was born just before his mother died. He always thinks and speaks of Marianne as his mother. She has always been a mother to him, in fact. Her own children—we have two little girls—do not realize his half-brothership. We have never tried to make them do so."
"How right!" from Judith. Confidence was improving. She was giving sanction to family arrangements.
"Yes, I think it has been best. Their difference of age suggests nothing to them."
"I suppose they know?"
"Yes—academically, one might say. But knowledge of that is as nothing against the force of a child's acceptance of its status quo. When I married Marianne, the boy—he's Bob—was still too young to pay much attention to the fact that she brought him away from his granny's to live at my house. The only difference that impresses him between himself and his sisters is that he can remember so much more clearly than they do the house where my first wife and I used to live. It is the house described in 'The Spendthrift's Legacy.' I shall always believe it was that title that made it so fetching. You see, you can't guess whether the Spendthrift inherited the legacy or bequeathed it. It gets on your brain, and then you ask for it at Mudie's...."
Judith interrupted. "Of course, the Spendthrift left the Legacy. But why was he a Spendthrift, one wants to know.... Yes, I see. It was a lucky title. But did you always write?"
"Not until the firm of accountants I was with wound up the affairs of Eatwell and Lushington, the big publishers. I was sent to check and overhaul the stock. An almost unsold novel attracted my attention—an edition of two thousand—fifteen hundred in sheets. Its issue had been arrested by the discovery that the author—who had just died of appendicitis, by-the-bye—had taken another man's title."
"I suppose you can be prosecuted for taking another man's title?"
"H'm—no! At least, there is no copyright in a title. It wasn't that. It was for the book's own sake. Publishers don't like other people's titles for their books. I was able to offer a suggestion which made it possible to use the sheets. The bound copies were made paper-pulp of again, I believe."
"I can't see much encouragement to authorship in that, Mr. Challis."
"None at all. But Mr. Saxby, who is virtually Eatwell and Lushington—one's dead, and the other has become a missionary in Marocco—saw reason to believe I should succeed as a writer, owing to the new first chapter I wrote for this book to accommodate the new title. He made me write a novel for the firm, and I succeeded."
"But I don't understand. Wasn't the old title printed anywhere on the old sheets?"
"Printed everywhere! The novel was called 'Amaris,' and there were no headlines. The page-tops were just Amaris, Amaris, Amaris all through."
"What is 'Amaris'? And how on earth did you manage?..."
"Stop a bit, or I shall want Gargantua's mouth. 'Amaris' was a name the author concocted, like Mrs. Kenwig's 'Morleena.' He wanted to be quite sure his heroine's name had never been used for a novel before, so that he could make it the title. But it had, with a Latin subtitle, in which dulcibus and amaris were put in contrast...."
"Never mind the Latin," said Judith. "What did it mean?"
"It amounted to the question, 'Is Life most full of bitter things or sweet?' and the title answered the question. It might have been called 'Dulcibus' for any light it threw on the problem. But it wouldn't have sold. Nothing sells without a snarl or a howl or a pig-sty in it."
"But I'm so curious to know how you got over the difficulty."
"Simple enough! We turned it into 'Tamarisk.'... How? Why, of course, by printing a 'T' at the beginning and a 'K' at the end. It cost something to run the sheets carefully through again, but not so much as burning them."
"What was there about 'Tamarisk' in the book?"
"Not a word till I rewrote the first dozen pages. I had to read that blessed book through till I nearly knew it by heart, in order to work out the idea. But it seemed all right when it was done. I was rather proud of it."
"I dare say it was tremendously clever. But how was it done? That's what I want to know."
"I made the name of the girl 'Tamarisk' instead of 'Amaris,' and then her baby brother can't pronounce it—calls her Amaris; and the family catch the pronunciation, and she adopts the name outright. It was difficult to do, because the conditions implied were those of the bosom of an affectionate family, and the sequel might have clashed...."
"Because...?"
"Well, you see, the girl becomes a Vampire, and sucks the little brother's blood. But I succeeded. In fact, I think the very difficulties of the situation produced a certain pathos."
"I see," said Judith, with a gush of intense perception. "I see that would be so.... Yes, that is the market-cross, this time."
Is the gap above large enough to include an inspection of a market-cross, a pump, a camp, and a village church? Perhaps, considering how little was left of the last—though, of course, some of the walls had ancient invisible cores. But hardly for tea at the Rectory, which had to be fresh-made; rather like the church, though in the case of the latter a few of the old leaves were preserved from the first brew, so to speak. Poor old leaves!—poor conscious objects of active conservation, each paroxysm of which left a little less of the flavour of the moyen âge behind it—a shadow less of excuse for another subscription list on their behalf, or another paper in the Journal of the local Society of Antiquaries. They were being handed down to posterity with such solicitude that whatever of bloom the axe and hammer of Puritanism had left behind seemed like to come off on the gloves of Ecclesiastical Archæology.
Is it necessary to say that the foregoing is only a peep into the ill-regulated mind of Mr. Alfred Challis at about the time that the fresh-made tea at the Rectory had begun to reanimate it? But, of course, Mr. Challis never said a word to this effect to his host, and that reverend gentleman naturally didn't want to talk about local matters. He was sick of his interesting surroundings, and wanted to hear about the new motor-car and wireless telegraphy and aerostation and coloured photography, and all sorts of things that were up-to-date three years ago, and for that matter are still, to a certain extent. About which and other things the literary gentleman was silent and absent-minded, in spite of the tea. Had he been bound to account to himself for this, he would have found it very difficult to do so. Not being bound, he allowed his mind to recognize the fact that he never did talk much to Parsons—you could never be sure you wouldn't give offence!—and to feel that reserve, short of incivility of course, was plausible at least.
For he was one of those unpractical persons who, never having been thrashed into a Creed in childhood, and being liberally ready to doubt any Creed of his own concoction, associated Religions, broadly speaking, with the opening or closing of shops on Sunday, the suppression of bands in the parks, and the singing of the same tune over and over again in unison at street-corners. When he came by chance on the sound of a harmonium making an unintelligible droning, he conceived of it as Christianity going on in a corner, fraught with a quaint old-world feeling to the passer-by, but scarcely to be encouraged by enlightenment. He had cultivated Ritual so far as to be ready, on emergency, to take off his hat and look intently into it, watching anxiously the while for subsidence of religious symptoms without. At old-fashioned houses, where Prayers might be expected to occur at any moment, he used to become in a sense demoralised, and felt lost when he found himself out of reach of a chair or convenient prie-Dieu of some sort. His only really heart-felt expression of gratitude to his own or anyone else's Maker was the "Thank God that's over!" that he didn't say aloud at the end. Messiahs of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, he regarded as mere bones of contention along interminable sectaries, all ready to fang each other, but kept in check by Scotland Yard. Qualified practitioners of Religion, whether Priest or Presbyter, he looked on as mere survivals of a past age perishing slowly of Civilization. He was not prepared to take the responsibility of hurrying their extinction, and, indeed, was ready to make concession on minor points, complying in literature with the public conviction that the pronoun standing for the name of the Maker of the Stellar Universe, and possibly others, really ought to be printed with a capital letter. We are merely putting him on record—not hinting at any opinion how far he was right or wrong.
Why do we call Mr. Alfred Challis unpractical? it may be asked. Simply because, while he avoided or ignored all experts in Applied Religion, he himself was unprepared with any substitute for it. And this was so even in the case of his own children. He had, however, given carte blanche, by implication of supineness, to the partner of his joys, sorrows, and admixtures of the two. He knew perfectly well that if he could have cancelled the little restored church at Royd, and the Parsonage and all its belongings, and left Royd free from what he counted superstition, of a sort, he would have held his hand—simply because he could not for the life of him have suggested any alternative that would not have worked round to the same thing in the end. He was convinced at heart, even while he made mental notes about Clerical Humbugs who pretended to believe what they knew German criticism had exploded long ago—for Mr. Challis had read whatever fostered his predispositions, just like yourself and the present writer—that if this athletic-looking, upright gentleman and his serious sister—for it seemed he was a widower—were to be suddenly removed from Royd, as well as any religious outscourings of a Dissenting nature hanging about—if all these were cleared away and the village left in charge of the human heart and intellect ed id genus omne, the human stomach et istud genus omne would get their way in double-quick time, and a perfect Saturnalia would come about of Bacchus and Priapus, of Cabiric deformities lurking round the corner for a chance, and Beer. At any rate, he was enough convinced of this to be rather grateful to the Clerical Humbugs for pretending, pending enlightenment. He felt it was benevolent in him to be mean at the cost of his own conscience, and to hold his tongue and leave them undenounced, in the interest of Humanity.
This chronicle has no opinions—note that! The foregoing is only a peep into the mind of a literary man who was never at a University. Had he been at one, many college-chums in Orders would have checked his condemnations. The man one has read with, swum with, cricketed with—cannot be a Hypocrite. Absurd!
Our snapshots of Mr. Alfred Challis's mind have taken long to record, but they serve their turn in this place better, perhaps, than the few trifling incidents of the visit at the Rectory. Consider that the lady and gentleman are on their way back to the Hall, in a golden sunset-light which makes the former resplendent, and does no harm to the appearance of the latter. Judith weighs him more carefully than she has done yet, and the result may be more favourable in such a glow. Quite passable!—is her verdict. And she knows how she looks, bless you, reasoning by analogy! For all her previous verdicts about her companion's looks—so far as they were favourable—have run on lines of intellectual rather than physical beauty.
The reason she looked at him carefully at that moment of starting from the Parsonage may have been because of an impression she had that he had cut a poor figure as against that of the Parson. It had so chanced that Saladin, who had behaved well in the house—accepting small sweet biscuits with reserves as to first approval of them—had, on coming away through the garden, just as they reached the gate, become aware of cats, as an abstraction. Mr. Challis's hold on his collar he hardly took any notice of; and it was fortunate that the Rev. Athelstan Taylor (that was his name) got hold on the other side just in time to prevent Saladin starting for a concrete cat over the flower-beds. "You had, perhaps, best let me have both sides, Mr. Challis," said he. Then had followed a magnificent contest between the Rev. Athelstan and the boarhound. If the former could have been unfrocked, it would have been a Greek bas-relief. It ended in a draw, as the concrete cat vanished. "I couldn't have held you much longer, old chap," said the Rector unassumingly to Saladin, during apologies and explanations, dogwise. These continued for some time after they had left the Rectory, and Judith was really glad Saladin's chain was on, with no one to help stronger than her literary friend, if a cat occurred. Rabbits had palled on Saladin, owing to their absurd and unfair practice of running underground.
"He's a fine fellow, your Parson, Miss Arkroyd," said Challis. He acknowledged it readily; athletics were not his line.
"The Reverend Athelstan? (Yes, my darling precious pet, you did quite right, and it was an odious cat!) Oh yes—he was a great athlete in his old Oxford days; was in the 'Varsity eight. (Yes, dear love!—you shall lick when we get home. Now walk quiet, and let people talk.) Yes—he's painfully strong." There was something in this of implied justification for people who were not.
"I'm afraid I'm painfully weak—by comparison. My sedentary employments don't develop the muscles." But, after all, reading prayers and singing of anthems does not, either. This was in foro conscientiæ—not spoken aloud.
"Oh, everybody can't Sandow. I think that sort of thing rather tiresome, carried too far. However, we are very good friends, the Reverend and I. I like a man that has the courage of his opinions. He's quite in a minority here about the Woman question—or I suppose I should say questions. But I meant the Franchise business particularly. He and the Bishop are at daggers drawn about it. I haven't heard him say much about the other. I fancy, though, he's at heart in favour of it—more than myself, perhaps. I mean the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill."
"Are not you...?" Mr. Challis had a hesitation on him, not like his usual way of speech. That was an amused way usually, a confident one almost always. This was neither.
"I must confess ..." said Judith hesitatingly—"I must confess to having very little sympathy with men who want to marry their deceased wives' sisters. It's a question of taste, according to me—nothing to do with the high moralities." The implied sneer against all moral law was no discomfort to her hearer. On the contrary, spoken as it was by a good-looking young lady in a sunset light, it seemed to him alike picturesque and liberal. But he changed the conversation suddenly, as though something in it had disagreed with him.
"What a capital photographer the great Athelstan seems to be!" He said it with a definite air of "Let us talk of something else." She glanced round at him, decided with some surprise that she had shocked him, but answered without showing it. She was quite a woman of the world, was Judith.
"He's a splendid photographer. You know he took all those photos for 'Ten Years of Slum Growth'—my cousin's book?" Mr. Challis pretended he knew this book; but he didn't. "I made him come and photograph my own special slum population in Tallack Street. But Lady Elizabeth wouldn't have them in the book. She said Tallack Street could hardly rank as a slum, in her sense of the word."
"Was it too swell?"
"She said so. Well!—you shall see the photographs, and judge for yourself."
But the conversation had fallen flat. A chill had come. Even the discovery that the moon had risen when we were not looking did nothing to remove it. We were not young enough, probably, or not old enough, for lunar influences. Indifference to Phœbe begins with maturity, and even outlasts it. So thought Mr. Challis, when rather mechanically called on to admire the silver disc, shot with gold, just getting clear of a purple gloom that was the hallowed smoke of unholy Grime—hallowed by the sun's last word to twilight, its heir-at-law and sole executor. For all that, Mr. Challis made notes in this connection for literary purposes, while Judith thought to herself that this would never do. She must make an effort, or the skein she was going to twist round her finger would float away and be lost.
"I know I shocked you just now," said she.
"Shocked me?—when?"
"Just before we got to the photography...."
"I have quite forgotten. What were we saying?" This was not true; he remembered perfectly.
"How kind of you to pretend to forget! Forgive my disbelieving you."
Challis was open to a recrudescence of veracity. Perhaps it was a fib this time—he made the admission. But as he made it, he was again conscious of the soul-brush at work. Had he perceived the skein-analogy, he might have recognized its first clip round the finger. "We were talking of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, I think," said he. "But why you think you shocked me I can't imagine."
"Never mind!—if you don't recollect. But Sibyl would have lectured me. She always says I ridicule Moral Law. Perhaps I do, in a certain sense. But Sibyl is the soul of propriety."
"I can't see where ridicule of Moral Law comes in, so far. What you said was—well!—amounted to a condemnation of the taste of men who wish to marry their wives' sisters. Perhaps I misunderstood?" Challis's manner had a flavour of personal interest; the amused tone had gone, and the last words ended on a pause for an answer, with an intention in them of hearing it and going on. The skein would run on easily from now, said the winder. But not too quick at first.
"Oh no!—quite right," she said. "I meant that. For instance—I shouldn't mention this, only I see you guessed it. You are so quick at guessing things...."
"I'm not. What do you suppose I have guessed?"
"Why—about the Reverend Athelstan, of course, and Elizabeth Caldecott...."
"Elizabeth who?"
"Well—you saw her, just now!"
"I thought she was his sister?"
"Oh, no!—sister-in-law."
"What were you saying about them—just now? You began 'For instance,' and pulled up...."
"I was going to say theirs was a case in point. If Mr. Taylor wanted to marry Miss Caldecott, I should consider it simply a lapse from good taste on his part. I shouldn't fret over the moralities. He and Bishop Barham would have to fight that out between them.... Oh dear!—what has Saladin got? I'm afraid it's a hedgehog. Do you think you could keep hold of him, just for a few seconds, while I throw it out of his reach?" This was achieved with difficulty; all the greater from a misconception of the position by Saladin, who thought it was all done for his sake, as a relaxation. The hedgehog was thrown over a long high wall, and Saladin ran along it each way, leaping up at intervals.
"He gets so irritated with hedgehogs, and I don't wonder, poor darling! I hope he hasn't strained your hand?" Mr. Challis couldn't say very much about that. Nothing to speak of! "Let's go on. He'll get tired of that, and I don't hear the bull anywhere—it's all right. What was I saying?" It is perturbing to the non-bucolic mind to hear a necessary and inevitable bull taken as a matter of course.
"You were speaking of Mr. Taylor and Miss Caldecott. Is he supposed to want to marry her?"
"I really couldn't say. Men are so odd. Of course, if she were less angular...." The young lady blew a whistle for Saladin. The intentness with which both watched for the dog to appear from the quarter he was last seen in enabled him to play off a little joke at their expense. For when Challis turned his head, after much watching and whistling, there was that confounded beast, pretending all the while to wait, after a brief circuit of a mile or so out of sight. He made a pretence of not being able to understand motives, combined with great forbearance in not asking for an explanation of them.
The skein-winding had been a little spoiled, but Judith got it again in order before arriving at the Hall, and it would wait for its opportunity. Her mere acceptance of silence in the twilight of the great avenue, as though conversation-making was not called for under the circumstances, had its force. It might have been spoiled by a quicker pace, to finish the walk up; but, if anything, there was a disposition to loiter and to hate the idea of being indoors on such a heavenly evening.
"Your wife's name was...?" Surely the subject franked a dropped voice, in harmony with the beauty of the said evening—a touch of tenderness for its sake entirely. None but a coarse nature would shout against the musical hushing of the wind in the beeches. Let there be no false note in the chord.
Challis accepted this tenderness as a tribute to the departed. He answered, "Kate—Kate Verrall." He need have said no more, but it filled out a sympathetic funeral tone, in keeping with the hour, to add: "She died within two years of our first meeting."
Miss Arkroyd's regret at having raked up a painful memory was so great that she all but laid her hand on her companion's sleeve. "Oh no," she said, still more tenderly, "I did not mean that. I meant Marianne's maiden name." It would have been artificial, and stodgy, too, to call her "your present wife." Better the frankness of a sympathetic nature, and Marianne.
"Craik," was the unqualified answer. Challis wished that his first wife's mother, when she married again, had chosen someone with a more rhythmic name, not to interfere with the general feeling of the foreground and middle distance. For, you see, she then provided this maiden name for the second Mrs. Alfred Challis, whose mother she was also. Mr. Challis had married his deceased wife's half-sister, and would stand condemned—presumably, at least, in the eyes of his companion—for bad taste certainly, possibly worse. He repeated the name, rather crisply, in correction of Judith's first understanding of it as "Blake," but never a word said he, there and then, about Marianne's half-sistership with the original of "Ziz." Was he bound to say anything?