He departed to his room, to dress for dinner, with a disjointed, incomplete feeling that he was rather glad that a mere au revoir had involved no handshake. Could he have trusted himself not to emphasize its pressure unduly? Faugh!—where was the sense of such an imbecile speculation, or the need for it? He was angry with himself for the thought—angry at the way he had enjoyed his walk with "that girl." He brushed her off his mind discourteously as "that girl." Why, he had only known her a couple of days! He even found that an impulse of his wanted him to say, "Damn all these people! What are they to me, or I to them, that they should come into my life, and make hay of a working contentment I have never dreamed of questioning?" But he refused to say it, merely noting what its syntax would have been if he had done so. En revanche, he made up his mind to write a jolly long letter to Marianne to-night.
The other party—though, indeed, it is hard to say to what—retired to her room to dress, not very sorry to hear that Sibyl was not home yet. She had quite made up her mind that if her sister talked any nonsense about flirtations with married men, she would speak sharply to her—give her a piece of her mind. But she hated rows. So if the motor-car broke down—and it was pretty sure to—she shouldn't be sorry. In a day or two she was going up to London, and would go straight and call on Mrs. Challis, the Impossible one, and that would put the friendship with her husband on a footing. She would wear that white chiffon and the pearls again this evening, though; she had looked so well in them last night.
She herself was conscious of no inconsistency in the half-formed thoughts that passed through her mind as she stood before a mirror waiting for her maid to find the white chiffon instead of the black satin; which Sharratt, the said maid, who had found no male in the company to allot to her mistress, had placed in readiness on speculation. These thoughts can be told, but with a liberal discount. She was not the kind of woman—so they ran—that made mischief in families. That was the fascinating, tender, serpentine, insinuating kind—Becky Sharp, in fact. Intellectual friendship was her rôle—influence over men of genius and that sort of thing. Was Challis, as a man of genius, worth practising on? She thought he might be; as a lay figure, at any rate, if not for a specific purpose which crossed her mind at the moment. But it was to be stirred aspirations, roused sympathies. He was not the man to be worked on by Vulgar Beauty. All the same, Miss Judith knew what she was going to look like in this mirror when fully draped, when the majestic swoop of skirts should quench the abruptness of the mere petticoat. Till that came, she could fondle her fine arms and say to herself, "I'm not Becky Sharp, certainly! But to think of the mischief I could do if I put my mind to it!" And then modesty prompted a postscript, "Or any fairly good-looking woman, for that matter."
This story has no insight into motives; it only deals with actions—at least when motives are hard to get at. It is not its concern at present that Judith Arkroyd, splendid in her beauty when she chooses to make the most of it, may have much to learn about her own character—much that she does not suspect herself of. If she does not, why should we?
CHAPTER VII
OF OTHER GUESTS AND THEIR TALK. OF A SOFA-HAVEN AND HOW MISS ARKROYD PERCEIVED THAT MR. CHALLIS COULD WRITE A TRAGEDY. BEAUTY A MATTER OF OPINION
The party that assembled that evening to dinner at Royd was smaller than usual, owing to the absence of the motorists, who had not returned. Some of the chits, too—who were never counted; they were always "those girls" or "those young people"—had vanished also, taking with them an exactly equal number of male parallel cases; for they were flirting fair—there was to be no cheating! Thus it came about that the ladies' procession to the drawing-room did not make up to half-a-dozen, and the men they left behind to smoke only just did so. But then, it was easier to talk, because there was less noise.
Scarcely had the last inch of the last lady, regarded as a total with all components included, disappeared through the door, when Mr. Challis's two friends of the morning made a simultaneous rush for a chair on either side of him. He succumbed, having no alternative, but resolved to pay absolutely no attention to anything they said. He would throw his whole soul into the enjoyment of the cigar he foresaw. There it was—in a box of ivory and madreperla which Sibyl had somehow countenanced into existence, without doing anything to it herself—being brought along in a tray, abetted by cigarettes. But he would light it when he had drunk his coffee, thank you! The fact was, Mr. Challis was acquiring presence of mind, and did not spoil his opportunities now as he used to do formerly when the world of toffs was new.
Mr. Brownrigg the Grauboschite would not detain Mr. Challis more than one moment from Mr. Wraxall, the Universal Insurer; no more, in fact, than was necessary for him to emphasize a consideration he had alluded to in the morning. But he might take this opportunity of pointing out one or two inevitable inferences from that consideration which might not have occurred to his hearer.
He was better than his word, for he pointed out half-a-dozen at least. He then went on to say that it was only fair on his part to admit the plausibility of three or four exceptions that he was well aware had been taken to those inferences. But he was prepared to demonstrate the fallacy of each of these on many different grounds, the least of which would be fatal to the pretensions of his opponents' arguments in more than one particular.
If he had stopped there, Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall would have gone in and scored; and, indeed, double-wicket would have been quite possible if Mr. Brownrigg would have played according to rule. But he wouldn't. Mr. Wraxall struggled to get a hit and a run, but scarcely succeeded.
As, with the exception of Challis and one or two others who listened and looked superior, everyone at the table became a contributor of a vigorous analysis, an irrefutable demonstration, an exhaustive enumeration, a thoughtful review, an indignant protest or a brief summary of essential facts, or was laying stress upon an important point that might easily be lost sight of, there was a great deal of noise. Challis nearly succeeded, by a powerful effort, in abstracting his mind from it and enjoying his cigar. He was able to believe that he only resorted to a speculation as to what was going on in the drawing-room as an assistance against all this chatter. That speculation had certainly nothing to do with any particular young lady whatever.
But a drowsy semi-abstraction was only achievable when the components of the Chaos were so numerous as to neutralize each other, becoming a sustained inarticulate roar. The moment a single speaker, or even two, became audible in an oasis of silence, Challis's attention was caught by his words, and divided fairly between them and what was left of the reveries they intruded on. Such an oasis was reached, as far as Challis's immediate neighbours were concerned, about half-way through his cigar, just as regret began to set in that he had smoked so much of it.
Now it happened that Mr. Ramsey Tomes, who was quite unexhausted, though he had talked all day, and who was seated on the other side of the table, had at that moment just sketched the extinction of the British Empire in consequence of its ill-advised persistence in all the dementiæ of all the States that Deus ever voluit perdere. He had used up his Latin quotations, including the one we have taken a liberty with, and had finished with a beautiful picture of the New Zealander, our old friend, gazing across the site of vanished London from Jack Straw's Castle, and murmuring to himself, "Perierunt etiam ruinæ." Happy in his peroration, the orator sat sustaining a fat right foot on a fat left knee with a fat left hand. His fat right thumb and forefinger held a permanent glass of port; they seemed to be waiting for it to evaporate. His attitude was unfavourable to his figure, as it laid too much stress on a corporate capacity which might have been described as pendant. But the ensemble was majestic, as he fixed his small but piercing eye on the cornice of the room opposite, grasping the eyeglass that accompanied it with what almost seemed a materialized allusion to his own powerful grasp of political issues. So sitting, his appearance was that of a Mind, giving attentive consideration to most things.
"The disciple of Socrates," said he, with a decision and suddenness that compelled respectful attention, "turns with satisfaction from the contemplation of a spectacle that might well arrest the orgies of an Epicurus, or soften the cynicism of a Diogenes, to the fields in which Speculation, untrammelled by official responsibility, deposits—if I may be permitted the simile—the eggs from which will emerge (like Minerva from the brain of Jove) the fully-fledged Politician of the future."
Here an expression of discontent from a young Lieutenant, whose chit was in the drawing-room awaiting his release, distracted Challis's attention for the moment. A word of sympathy elicited from this youth that he had a private grievance against Mr. Tomes. "You wouldn't like it any more than I do, if he had trod on your pup. Poor little beggar's only a month old!" He brooded over this injury in silence, and the orator again became audible. He seemed to have been digressing.
"I will pursue this aspect of the case no further, but will return to the subject in hand. It is not, I hope, necessary for me to say, at this table, that I am not one of that group of indiscriminate Thinkers who are prepared to welcome the germination of the Political Idea in the crude brain of every Sciolist. The outcome of such a surrounding is but too apt to out-Herod Herod. The medio tutissimus ibis, the procellas cautus horrescis that we may suppose to have guided Cæsar's wife, should also serve as a beacon to those whose ambition it is to deserve the gratitude of posterity." Challis was enjoying the cigar too much to ask—"Why Cæsar's wife?"
Mr. Tomes's assumption of his right to the rostrum was so forcible as scarcely to allow of usurpation while he was visibly bolting an ad interim glass of port with a view to going on again. Mr. Brownrigg chafed, and Mr. Wraxall stood himself over in despair. The young Lieutenant murmured a prayer to any Providence that would shape the end of Mr. Tomes's speech, and help him on to it. There seemed no hope. So he thought of the chit's teeth and chin in self-defence. Mr. Tomes swallowed his glass of port with a clear conscience about its non-evaporation—had he not given it every opportunity?—and resumed:
"I must not, however, allow myself to be led away...." But he had to pause a few seconds, to remember something to have been led away by. Feeling uncertain, he repeated: "I must not allow myself to be led away by a side-topic, however fascinating. The maturity of Political Thought claims our attention. Whether we contemplate the vast areas of controversy laid bare to the scalpel of the Political Analyst in connection with the aspirations of the Socialist pure and simple, the Anarchist pure and simple, or the Nihilist pure and simple, or differentiate by a closer scrutiny the theories of the Socialist-Anarchist, the Socialist-Nihilist, or the Nihilist-Anarchist, we are driven irresistibly to the same conclusion—that Omniscience is still in its infancy. There is one element which all schemes for the Readjustment of the Universe have in common—namely, that each differs on some vital point from the whole of its neighbours. Do not let us be discouraged by this. Let us rather be content to infer from it the dangers that await those who advocate rash departures from the existing order of things, and to recognize, in the discrepancies attendant on the consolidations of Political Opinion in the thousand and one groups into which it crystallizes, the indisputable fact that the Index-finger of the Political Horizon is the maintenance of the status quo. I trust I make myself clearly understood."
Mr. Tomes did not mean to stop for some time yet, but breath was necessary to him, as to others, and he had got blown over those groups that crystallized. He knew that his last words would make all his hearers speak at once, and they did. In the Chaos of their joint remark was concealed a statement apiece that Mr. Tomes had most lucidly expounded the one great object of each one's several scheme, and that the existing order of things would remain thereby much more truly the same—would have a much more heart-felt identity than any mere banal and Philistine letting-alone could confer upon it. The choral character of the performance made the warning check of Mr. Tomes's outspread hand plausible.
"Pardon me one moment," said he, with recovered breath. "The point I wish to lay stress upon is this: While the compass of the Political Mariner points incontestably to the dangers of quitting a safe anchorage, the Voice of Enlightenment enjoins that all new schemes of a subversive nature should be looked at on their merits, and rejected on their merits. This is what I understand by an Enlightened Conservatism. Rejection without examination is the programme of the Mere Bigot. I am sure Sir Murgatroyd will appreciate my meaning."
Sir Murgatroyd, thus appealed to, seized his opportunity, and dexterously annexed the rostrum. He contrived to embark on a trip through the pamphlet he had written, which claimed for William the Conqueror the position of the earliest pioneer of Socialism.
Just as he was within a measurable distance of his demonstration that the Feudal System contained in itself solutions of all difficulties such as the present age meets by propounding a huge variety of remedies and calling them all Socialism, noises of arrival interrupted him, and were followed by an incursion of the motorists, very tired and greedy, after a delay due to civilization, which prescribes soap and water before meals, and a curb on one's impatience till the said meals can be laid on the table. The absence of snorts without occasioned remark, and compelled a grudging disclosure that the last time the motor broke down nothing could bring it to the scratch again; and it had been left behind ten miles off, the party having come home on a mean hired vehicle. Their faith that this breakdown was abnormal and exceptional, and a typical example of the sort of thing that never occurs again, was touching and beautiful.
Mr. Triptolemus Wraxall was glad of the interruption. He had not asserted himself, and felt that he was a mistake, in that society. His forms of thought were more studious and reflective—sounder altogether! One feels this when one has not asserted oneself, and bounced.
Mr. Brownrigg was sorry. He had made up his mind to point out something, but had not quite made up his mind what it was to be; merely that it would redound to the credit of Graubosch. Why should not he point out, and venture to call your attention to, like other people? However, the others were the losers.
Mr. Challis and the young Lieutenant were both very glad, but with a difference. The former thought fit, for some reason, to represent to his conscience that his gladness was due to a release from intolerable boredom, and certainly had nothing to do with any young woman in the drawing-room. The latter made no bones about it, but simply ran, the moment the excuse came. Even so would the little beggar Mr. Tomes trod on have gone for a saucer of milk.
Challis passed the young soldier on the landing, he having found his chit on the bottom stair of the next flight, devoting herself to the little beggar, who had not been welcomed in the drawing-room, owing to human prejudices. The chit had been so bored in the absence of her counterchit, as the Lieutenant might be called, that she had found it necessary to send for Cerberus. That was the little beggar's baptismal name. Challis passed on into the drawing-room, breathing a prayer that all would be well. What his foreboding was we do not know.
He thought it necessary to deny his own accusation against himself that he had been pleased at the Lieutenant running on in front of him to join the ladies first, that he might thereby seem even-minded on the question of his own anxiety to do so. He denied it, and to satisfy himself of the strength of his position, walked in indifferently. He emphasized his denial by spending no more than a remark or two on Lady Arkroyd, who, he thought, showed a lack of her usual cordiality, as though she had read a disparaging review. He inquired a little whether she found the ride to Thanes pleasant, and so on; and then went at once to the other end of her daughter's sofa—not a very long one. Indeed he could hardly do otherwise, as Judith certainly transferred her fine eyes from him to its vacant corner-cushion. He was a little nettled at finding he wanted an excuse for his alacrity.
We have read in some novel that the reason women are so fond of unprincipled men is that they know the latter can and will enjoy their society thoroughly, and never vex their souls with any questions as to what that society may mean or lead to for either of them. They, the women, will do the drawing the line, and that sort of thing. Why be prigs? Now Challis was scarcely a prig, and he was certainly not an unprincipled man. If he had been the one, he would have thought much more talk necessary with the mother before monopolizing the daughter; if the other, his choice of a satisfaction would have been as candid as his young soldier's had been—as the little beggar's always was. Whether the authoress of this novel was talking wisely or not, who shall say? Broadly speaking, profligates are better company than prigs. Cœteris paribus, mind you!
This is all by the way; will very likely be deleted before this present writing goes to press. Miss Arkroyd was certainly not under any necessity to speculate on the matter. She knew perfectly well that Mr. Challis, married man or no, was going to anchor at the far end of her sofa as soon as he had got through that silly pretence of chatting with her mother. And she had retired from a colloquy with this same mother—whose influence was not strong over her, and with whom something had disagreed, she thought—with that end in view. Sibyl wasn't here, with her nonsense, and she should do as she liked. Nay, more!—she would at once say something to show her independence of Sibyl's nonsense.
"We thought you were never coming up." She decided to make it we, not I, on the whole. Challis's vanity suspected the substitution, recognizing in it a maiden-of-the-world's prudence, and applauded it. But a recollection of what a letter he was going to write to Marianne prompted a protest. He couldn't afford to enjoy his position too much, without loss of self-respect. How important one's self-respect is!
"We were having some very interesting talk about Politics. Your brother and sister and Lord Felixthorpe came back and interrupted it." There was great detachment in this, but it was overdone; too much like "pointing out" to a polypus that his tentacles were slipping.
Ought her response, thought Judith, to show pique at her quarry's independence—at his contentment to be away from her society? Much too soon!—was her verdict, passed, but not formulated. It would be just like a girl in her first season. And she had not known this man much above forty-eight hours. She was not going to behave like that child in the passage, whose pretty sing-song voice chimed with her young soldier's outside when Challis opened the door to come in just now. Judith felt certain what she was saying was "I was so saw-ry for you having to talk Pawlitics when you might have been up here with me and this dahling pup." Her imagination committed itself to the words, musical drawl and all; but negatived this sort of thing in her own case.
"I should like to have been there to hear it," she said. "What were they talking about? The usual thing, I suppose?"
Challis felt she was an honourable polypus, in whose tentacles he could trust himself. "I can't say," said he. "I'm too recent to know what is or isn't usual. You'll hear the supplement immediately. There they are, coming upstairs!"
The lady remained silent, listening handsomely. The thought in Challis's mind—to the effect that she was the antipodes of Marianne, in looks—was so irrelevant and inappropriate that he gave it notice to quit, incontinently. But he could not serve the notice without admitting possession. He could, though, as a per contra, do a little mechanical forecasting of his letter to Marianne. Yes—his course was clear; he would tell his wife how absurdly unlike her in all respects this queenly young woman was; might even go the length of wondering how the partner of her joys and sorrows would be able to live with so much dignity always taking place in his neighbourhood. Would that be like reminding Marianne of her homeliness, though? Oh no!—he would take care of that. Still, if Marianne had been just one shade less homely, it would have been easier. Never mind!
The voices on the stairs gathered audibility. Oh yes!—there was papa and the Feudal System. Judith could hear that, plain enough. How sick she was of William the Conqueror! And Mr. Tomes, of course, just as usual! But we mustn't speak too loud, or Mrs. Tomes would hear. What a fool that woman was! But Mr. Challis didn't know her. He must do so, in the interests of his next book. All which, in a voice dropped to confidence-point, tended to engage Mr. Challis's cogs—the simile is an engineering one—in Miss Arkroyd's wheel.
What was that Mr. Tomes was saying? Something or other was to be relegated to the Limbo of departed something-elses. If only those young people wouldn't make such a noise with the puppy, we should hear! Why were things always relegated to Limbos, and why was nothing ever sent to Limbos except by relegation? The question was Challis's. But he was talking at random, for reasons. So was Judith, perhaps, when she said absently: "I have noticed that, too." She was listening carefully to hear if her sister and her co-motorists were following. "I suppose they all came in famished," she added.
"Didn't you see them when they came in?"
"I heard them."
"Didn't they sound famished?"
"Not especially. I didn't pay much attention. As long as no bones are broken.... They won't be coming up for some time yet." There was in her voice a very clear implication of relief. The inference was that we, in this sofa-haven, should not be disturbed. Its correctness was soon manifest. No two oratorically-disposed gentlemen, well wound up, ever disturb a chat in a corner, further than mere shouting goes. And Sir Murgatroyd and the sitting member for Grime were wound up to a high pitch of agreement about what constituted an Enlightened Conservatism, and each was anxious to supply the next link in the chain of Syllogism, and get the credit of it. So they shouted against each other all the way upstairs, and only lulled very slightly when they reached the drawing-room.
Mr. Brownrigg and Mr. Wraxall, on the other hand, were aux grands éprises on a vital question—never mind what; nobody knew or cared!—which underlay the whole of their argument. Mr. Wraxall had been unable to permit an inference of Mr. Brownrigg's to pass unchallenged, and Mr. Brownrigg had impugned the data on which Mr. Wraxall's objections were founded. Mr. Wraxall had replied that something or other had been clearly laid down as a safe principle by Baker, and Mr. Brownrigg had pointed out that the fallacy of Baker's assumptions had been exhaustively dealt with by Smith. Mr. Wraxall had counter-pointed out that Smith's penetrating insight into everything else had led him into error in this one particular; and had laid stress upon the fact that Hopkins, the weight of whose opinion it was impossible to deny, had endorsed the opinions of Baker. Mr. Brownrigg had then become patronizing, and went so far as to warn Mr. Wraxall not to be led away by the plausibility of Hopkins. Who then, being a weak controversialist, had rashly appealed to Mr. Ramsey Tomes to countenance the authority of Hopkins. But that gentleman only gave a weighty shake to a judicial head, claiming at once profound thought in the past, and forecasting just censure to come. He feared that the insidious ratiocinations of Hopkins were a rock we all split upon in the forest of youth, and an ignis fatuus to mislead the mariner in the ocean of dialectical difficulty that chequered our steps in later life.
The controversy, of which the foregoing is a condensation, had passed the quarrelsome point when the disputants arrived in the drawing-room, shutting out the melodious trill of the chit, the squeaks of the little beggar, and the lieutenant's bass voice, saying, "He and the kitten were having a high old time with my boots early this morning." The argument was in the mutual-amends stage, and Mr. Brownrigg was enlarging on the enthralling and irresistible fascination of Hopkins's style, while Mr. Wraxall was equally eloquent on the almost Nicholsonian vigour and expansiveness of Smith's. They were then separated, and presently the insurer was audible afar, enlarging to Lady Arkroyd on a scheme for insuring against damage at the Wash, in which she was much interested; while the Grauboschite was mentioning some further details of that great man's system to Mrs. Ramsey Tomes. Who, however, only said: "I think my husband would like to hear that," or "Have you mentioned that to Mr. Tomes?" but gave no sign of receiving, or of ever having in her life received, an idea on her own account. The Baronet and the M.P. simply went on, like the water coming in when the ball-cock has stuck, and nobody will be at work till Monday.
All this is only to impress on the story the quiet of that sofa-haven, and to justify Judith for feeling practically out of reach of interruption if she should be inclined to carry on the skein-twisting a little prematurely—that is, without waiting for a visiting acquaintance with the probably plebeian wife, to put her friendship with the husband on an ascertained footing. Now Judith was not without a well-defined motive for the skein-twisting, as was hinted at the end of our last chapter. We rather think that if she had not been she would have suspected something abnormal in Challis's matrimonies from his manner when he said "Craik." Women are as sharp as all that—oh dear, yes!
After a little discursive chat to make sure that no floating interruption would desert the other group-units and bear down on their haven, Judith was seized with a sudden intense apprehension that Mr. Challis could write a tragedy. She can have had very slight grounds for this conclusion; she had almost no knowledge of that author's work, as we have seen. But she relied on his vanity to make him take an easy-going view of any claims she had to pronounce him Shakespeare. Pleasing verdicts soothe the cavils of incredulous modesty, and suggest unsuspected data in the bush. But he was bound to make some sort of protest. It would never do to say he rather thought he could.
"What makes you think that?" he said.
"I can't say. It has nothing to do with anything I have read of yours. I think it is something in yourself makes me think so." It was as well to head off any discussion of what she had read; and an ounce of personality is worth a ton of mere evasion. The fine eyes examined Mr. Challis's intelligent brow carefully to see what it was in himself that made their owner think so. His own watched them as though expecting their conclusion would be registered shortly.
"I have written a couple of comedies," said he, to help. "But no tragedy, so far." And from thence a certain reality crept into the conversation, which up to that moment had been rather words for words' sake, or, perhaps it should be said, for their speaker's sake. For so much talk that sets up to be interchange of ideas is uttered to convince the speakers they are conversing, and to make them plausible to themselves and each other.
"You have written for the stage, then. That is what I meant. Have you had anything performed yet? Forgive my not knowing."
"There is nothing to know that you could have known. One of the comedies, 'Aminta Torrington,' is to come out after Christmas. The other, 'Widow's Island,' is on the shelf. Nobody appreciates it."
"Do you see a great deal of theatrical people?" Now, Challis had wanted the eyes to be interested about his plays—to abet the speaker in a curiosity she ought to have felt. But no matter: that would wait.
"I see a great many. What makes you ask in such an interested way?"
"Because I want to know. I have a reason. I'll tell you sometime." Whereat the mercury in the thermometer of this lady and gentleman's intimacy went up a degree distinctly. So much was implied in the word "sometime." Not very easy to summarize, certainly—but there, all the same! It ratified anticipation of future intercommunications, on the surface of it. Also, it hinted at confidences to come. But let us be just to Judith here. She never meant it as another wind of the skein. She was honestly unconscious this time, thinking frankly of an interest of her own. She continued: "Tell me a good deal about them. Why doesn't one know more of them?"
"I didn't know one didn't. That's nonsense, or sounds very like it. But we know what we mean. I'll state it clearly, to save trouble. The question is, 'Why do swell young women that are presented at Court, and go to balls in the season, and sit in carriages at Ascot, and see polo-matches at Hurlingham, and get married at St. George's, Hanover Square' ... is that right so far?..."
"That will do very well, at any rate." Judith said this without a laugh, where there might have been one. "Go on, Mr. Challis."
"Why does this sort of young woman not meet more actresses and actors in the society she lives in? Well, I can tell you the answer—at least, I can tell you my opinion, if you ask it."
"Yes, I do. What is it?"
"They are always at the play, the actors and actresses, either on the stage or in the boxes. Or the pit. Or the gallery. I can't answer for the whole profession. But that's my experience."
"I have always been told they were so disreputable. Are they?"
"My dear Miss Arkroyd, what a very old-fashioned idea!" Challis laughed outright. "No!—they are just like everybody else as to manners and morals, and that sort of thing. They are not monks and nuns, certainly. But such a many folk are not that."
Judith looked at him doubtfully. Was not that rather the way men sometimes talk, throwing dust in the eyes that want to distinguish right from wrong? Monks and nuns, as we all know, are people that want to deprive you and me of cakes and ale. But what is meant by cakes and ale? She would push a test question home. If Mr. Challis had a grown-up daughter, she asked, would he let her go on the stage, if she wished it very much, and had a turn for it? Of course he would, was his answer, without hesitation. Why should he not? This seemed to decide Judith on an extension of confidence.
"I will tell you why I am asking. I know a girl ... well! I should say woman ... who wants to go on the stage. But it seems impossible. What her capabilities would be I cannot say. But it seems hard that she should be unable to give them a trial."
"Why cannot she?"
"Her family oppose it; or rather, she knows they would oppose it if the proposal took form. At present she only knows that they treat the idea with derision—as something hardly worth ridicule."
"But why?—if she has it at heart."
"Respectability. Position. Balls in the season. Carriages at Ascot. St. George's, Hanover Square. Family, in short!"
"Tell me more about this friend. Why does she suppose she has qualifications? She must have had some experience to convince her?"
Judith stopped to consider a few seconds. "Yes, I can tell you that," she said. "She played in the 'Antigone' a couple of years ago. You know my brother and his friends played it in London, and got the female parts played by women. Of course, at Cambridge it was the boys themselves."
"Did you think her performance good?"
Judith sticks a little over her answer, but it comes. "Not perfectly satisfactory—not to me, at least. But everyone else spoke so well of it that I may have been mistaken."
"Yet you would encourage her to make a very hazardous experiment, and to incur the displeasure of her family, on the strength of no more than what you now tell me. Do allow me to say that your friend ought to have more experience...."
"She ought to keep out of the water till she can swim," Judith struck in. "I know the sort of thing. What people always say! But can you wonder that she thinks it hard that she isn't allowed to go in at the shallow end of a swimming-bath; and all because of the merest Mrs. Grundy?"
"Not quite the merest Mrs. Grundy. Moderately mere, suppose we say! The actress who fails is in a sorry plight...."
"She wouldn't fail." Judith interrupted again, a little impatiently. "At least—I mean—she wouldn't fail altogether. But, of course, she would take her chance of that. Why should she not try, if she chooses to run the risk?"
Challis was watching her image in a mirror as she said this, and thought he saw a blush-rose tinge creeping over the cheek. Surely she was taking this friend's case very much to heart. An idea crossed his mind, and he schemed a test of its truth—a question he would ask.
"Is she beautiful? That would help matters."
The eyes in the mirror turned, and Challis had to withdraw his own suddenly. You know how one feels caught, when a reflection in a glass suddenly transfixes one? It is like conviction of treachery—quite unlike the direct transaction analogous to it. But he need not have been so conscious; as he saw, when a furtive glance back showed him that the reflection was not looking at him, but at Miss Arkroyd, at her corner of the sofa.
"Beauty is so much a matter of opinion," said she. "No doubt she herself is convinced her allowance of it is enough for working purposes." She stopped a moment, listening to sounds approaching—the motor-party audible on the stairs. Then, as she began to get up from the sofa, she said quickly, "If you think you can be of any use to her—with introductions and so on—I will tell you who she is. Sometime; not now. There they are!" The interview was at an end, and Challis prepared to merge in a world he was sure would be less interesting. However, he felt some curiosity to hear the tale of the motor disaster.
CHAPTER VIII
OF HOW NO ACCIDENT HAD REALLY HAPPENED TO THE MOTOR-CAR. OF A COMBAT BETWEEN TWO SISTERS, CHIEFLY ABOUT THOSE OF PEOPLE'S DECEASED WIVES. OF FLIRTATIONS WITH MARRIED MEN. HOW CHALLIS WROTE A LONG AMUSING LETTER TO MARIANNE
The chit and her young officer felt unequal to remaining outside, against the tidal wave of the returned motorists. Occasional suspension is necessary to the greediest flirtation, to give it a flavour of stolenness; else it loses its character, and palls. This is our surmise as to why these young people allowed themselves to be swept into the drawing-room by the current. Cerberus seemed to have been withdrawn. It is not necessary to the story to know whether the little beggar had or had not disappointed his backers. No questions were asked.
The way in which the motor-party ignored their accident was more like the concerted vigour of artillerymen in charge of a gun than any mere philosophical submission to the will of Fate. Practically the machine's twenty-horse-power had brought them in triumph to the door exactly at the time appointed. A trivial excursion into non-fulfilment of its destiny was not the poor motor's fault, nor its inventor's, nor its maker's, nor its chauffeur's. It was all due to a little bit of original sin in the heart of a hexagon nut, which, having heard that the only key that it could be got at with was mislaid, immediately went slack. It resisted the importunities of a screw-hammer, and demanded a box-key. Like some minute organism of humanity—a spiteful medulla oblongata, say!—endowed with powers of striking work, it had paralyzed the whole structure. But, unlike the medulla oblongata, it could be set right in five minutes as soon as we had a proper box-key. Therefore it was as clear as noonday that the mishap, as an incident in the History of Motoring, hadn't happened at all. It was by-play—didn't count!
The expedition had been a great success. Its object had been attained; like that of the scout who locates the enemy, but leaves his horse behind. When you have seen premises that are the very thing, what does it matter how you get home? For the purposes of the Great Idea, these premises were the very thing. Three large waterwheels, one overshot, ninety-four-horse-power in all, and the most glorious oak- and beechwoods coming down to the waterside. And the most interesting fourteenth-century pound William Rufus had ever seen. He and his friend Scipio were fascinated with the place, and enthusiastic about the Great Idea. But while apt to feel pique at any doubt thrown on the wisdom of the scheme, the latter was not prepared to forego the luxury of making fun of it himself.
"No historical associations," said he, with perfect deliberation of manner, "could supply a more healthy stimulus to the production of what I believe are called Art Objects. The church, a most interesting example of several styles, has been judiciously restored in one—I forget which—and the castle, some portions of which are previous to something very early—I forget what——"
"Suppose you shut up, Scip," said his friend. "You're never in earnest about anything. No—it really is the most delightful place I've ever seen. You wouldn't look so scornful if you could see it, Ju. And as for its suitability, I don't see how there can be any question about that."
His sister Sibyl's practical mind—her manner laid claim to one—went straight on to details. "The only thing," she said, "that I didn't see a place for was the ivorycarvers' shop."
"Couldn't one of those places in the roof be converted?" her brother asked.
"Too hot in the summer," said Sibyl decisively. "I can see the weaving-sheds, and the jewellery-shops, and the bookbinder's department, and the printing-house, and the woodblock-cutter's little shop round by the stairs, and the ceramic works—(only we really must be sure that chimney-shaft will be any good)—and the bronze-casters, and the printed fabrics, and the type-writing de luxe for private circulation." She checked off each department on her fingers, imagining clearly—so Mr. Challis, who was watching her, thought—the place in which it was to be located. Then she came to her exception—"But where on earth these tiresome ivorycarvers are to be put I can't imagine!"
Her brother, with perfect gravity, accepted the difficulty as one to be wrestled with. "I don't see why they need be downstairs at all," said he. "Why not put them in—well!—if not in the roof, why not in that room beyond the Art-needlework schools?"
"We can't conveniently have boys and young men passing and repassing." Sibyl was giving it serious thought; no doubt of that! She added with conviction: "We shall have to build in the end; so we may as well look the matter in the face."
"What do you want with ivorycarvers?" Thus Judith, with a near approach to a yawn. It never came off, owing to good breeding; but Mr. Challis noted to himself that it would have been statuesque had it done so. Marianne's yawn was not statuesque. He could recall cases in point.... What had that to do with the matter, by-the-bye? Challis brushed it away by joining in a murmur of half-protest against Judith's question. The world was listening interested to the evolution of the Great Idea. Politics had slacked down—to give it a turn. And the world perceived, in a doubt thrown on the necessity for ivory carving, a dangerous phase of criticism that might undermine the whole scheme.
Sibyl said, with decisive resignation, "Oh dear!—how exactly like you that is, Ju!" And her brother, "That's Judith all over." Then both asked a mixed question, equivalent to—If not ivorycarvers, why not anything? Why not no jewelery?—no art needlework?—no hammered metal or wood carving? The world's murmur of half-protest—so Challis thought—had really less to do with the demerits of the cavil it condemned than with the obviousness of the answer to it. A mob is apt to mistake its self-gratulation at having perceived something for agreement with the thing it has perceived. Folk sing below par in unison, and no one cares much which way he votes in a plebiscite. This is what Mr. Challis thought, not a remark of the text. He resolved to put it in his next book.
"I am in a minority." Judith dropped her fine eyelids with a hint in the action of formal surrender, as one strikes a banner. "Even Mr. Challis has deserted me!" Challis said, "Not altogether. I'm a trimmer playing fast and loose. A sort of plaid, like Sam Weller." But he had not understood his monde. It was one that knew nothing about Sam Weller.
The rest of the company—all but the chit and counterchit—showed a disposition to talk to each other of conditions necessary to be observed in the sudden inauguration of complex undertakings, these conditions touching points familiar to the speaker, but not within the experience of others. Each would call Mr. Arkroyd's attention to a danger ahead, or an advantage to be attained by well-advised foresight, as early as possible to-morrow, so that Opportunity might be taken by the forelock.
Mr. Ramsey Tomes enjoined caution before all things. He spoke as one having a monopoly of prudent instincts, to the exclusion of a rash planetful of fellow-creatures, or as the voice of one crying "Beware!" in the wilderness of pitfalls Don't-care neglected, with such fatal consequences. He suggested, like the father of him who slew the Jabberwock, that he who only took sufficient heed was certain of success—need not make any positive efforts—could go on rather better without them. One would have thought he meant—Mr. Challis did think—that any commentator so cautious as never to open a volume was well half-way to a triumph of exegesis, and that Columbus would have discovered America all the quicker if he had stopped at home. The story, Mr. Tomes concluded, of the failure of the plethora of rash enterprises that were our inheritance from an otherwise glorious Past would fill a volume. Mr. Challis thought to himself that this was unworthy of its author—rather an anticlimax. But Mr. Tomes was sleepy.
In fact, it was getting late, and a sense of impending adjournment was vitiating the discussion: a little pitted speck in the garnered fruits of its intelligence was growing, and a period of sleepy incapacity was in sight. Winding-up remarks became frequent, such as "We shall have to think all that over," or "We must settle this, that, and the other first, before anything practical can be done," or "One thing's certain, at any rate"—this last being the prelude to several different conclusions. In the end the view that we might sleep upon it was welcomed as an epigrammatic truth, and acted on. The company broke up, finding their bedroom-candles in the passage.
And as the chit and the counterchit tore themselves apart till morning, the latter said to the former, "What was all the fun? Did you make out?" To which the chit replied simply, "I wawesn't listening," in a long sweet drawl. And to that young officer's ears—will you believe it?—these words seemed the embodiment of divine wisdom, and he remained intoxicated!
Miss Sibyl Arkroyd, although she had just professed herself utterly worn out with her hard afternoon's work, was not too tired to say to her sister, over the lighting of a bedroom-candle in the passage, "Come into my room; I've something to say to you."
Judith, majestically undisturbed at anything a younger sister can possibly have to say, is in no hurry to comply with this request or mandate. Rather, she is inclined to make a parade of deliberation, exchanging understandings with Mr. Challis over the heads of the group of males with whom he is retiring to the smoking-room, to end the day with a cigar. Secret reciprocities seem to have set in, thinks Sibyl, pausing on the landing above, out of sight. And these are too subtle for the vernacular guests, and outclass the counterchits altogether. Though, as each of these last is dwelling contentedly on his recent chit, that doesn't come into court.
But Sibyl is wary, and gets away in time to her room. She just hears her sister's farewell speech to the author: "Do consider your readers a little, Mr. Challis, and don't ruin your brain with too many cigars," and his answer: "It all depends on the quality of the baccy;" followed by a testimonial from William Rufus about the brand of the one Challis has just chosen; and then she ends a majestic ascent of the broad stairway, with the portraits of departed Arkroyds looking down from its wainscoted walls, by disappearing into her sister's room.
"What's the something, Sibyl?"
"You'll be angry if I tell you."
"I may." Judith keeps her candle in her hand. Is it worth putting it down, if dissension in the wind is pointing to a short interview? "But how can I tell till I know? Why did you want me?"
"Well—I'll tell you. But you mustn't fly into a rage. That man Mr. Scoop—or Harris, or whatever his name is—married his Deceased Wife's Sister!"
"Is that any concern of mine?"
"You wouldn't speak in that way if it weren't."
"In what way?"
"The way you spoke." What may seem inexplicable here is due to the inability of mere words to do justice to the intensity of Judith's unconcern. There was no need for an indifference such as a humming-top asleep shows to the history of its own time.
"I don't mind waiting till you are reasonable, Sib dear." This little bit of Prussian tactics improved Judith's position. She put her candlestick on a piece of real Chippendale, to express anchorage, but remained standing. She had been looking very handsome in the white chiffon all the evening, and thought so. Her subconscious judgment confirmed this, as a mirror on a wardrobe door swung her reflection before her for a moment. Sibyl had opened it. Judith looked at her wrist-watch as she stood, but meant, subconsciously, to look up again when the counterswing brought the image back. All which occurred, and then Sibyl sat against the bed-end, having disposed of the wardrobe, and said:
"You know you have been in Mr. Harris's company all day, Judith. And I suppose it's going to be the usual thing. But there's no sense in your calling me unreasonable simply because I want you to know what the position is."
"Just what I've told you. Mr. Harris ... well—Challis then ... is not really a married man. He married—at least, made believe to marry—his Deceased Wife's Sister."
"Then, now you've told me what the position is, I know. And I may go to bed."
"Don't be irritating, Judith." It is provoking, you know, when your enemy makes a successful rally after a seeming repulse. Judith's last tactical move was masterly. Her success soothed her to moderation.
"I don't want to be irritating, Sib. And I don't think you have any right to talk of being irritating after what you said just now. 'The usual thing!' What usual thing?"
"You know what I mean, and it doesn't matter."
"I don't think it matters the least. But what do you know about Mr. Challis? I mean, what do you know that I don't?"
"Only what I told you."
"But how do you know? Really, Sibyl, I shall go if there are to be any more mysteries."
"Well, don't be impatient, and I'll tell you." And thereon Sibyl, seated on the end of the bed, gave the substance of a short chat with her mother when she came in from the excursion. That lady must have been mighty interested, Judith thought, to talk about Mr. Challis's affairs, which could not possibly concern any of them. She said as much, resentfully, to her sister.
"Well," said Sibyl, "I only tell you what she said to me. She drove Mrs. Barham home from Thanes, and they talked about it all the way. The Bishop had it on perfectly good authority. I think it was the editor of some well-known paper who had heard it from a gentleman who had interviewed Mr. Challis for him. You know how they do?" Oh yes!—Judith knew. "Well, this gentleman had it from Mr. Challis himself, who had begged him very earnestly to say nothing about it. So, of course, nothing appeared in the article."
"What a delicate-minded editor!"
"I think it was very nice of him. Why not? But you always sneer, Ju. Anyhow, that's what the madre said to me. And we agreed that the sooner you knew the better...."
"And why?"
"Oh, well, because, of course.... However, we can't discuss that now at this time of night. I only know what Mrs. Barham said the Bishop said...."
"What did His Holiness say?"
"Judith, if you sneer I won't talk to you.... Well, the Bishop said that if he had his way, he would refuse Holy Communion to all people's Deceased Wife's Sisters ... there!—you know what I mean perfectly well, Judith."
Judith had started a protest, but gave up the point. "I know what you mean. But why doesn't he?"
"Mrs. Barham said he did not feel sure of the support of Public Opinion. But for all that this gentleman was living in Sin, technically if not actually, or actually as well as technically, or ... well!—I forget which ... with this woman." Sibyl paused; the pause was a tribute to the force of the curl of her sister's lip. She ended: "Come, Ju, you can't call her a lady, you know!"
"Did the Bishop say gentleman?"
"No. By-the-bye, I think the Bishop did say man. But, of course, he would speak scripturally. Besides, all gentlemen are men too, but all women are not ladies."
The curl died very slowly on Judith's lip, if at all. "Poor Mr. Challis!" said she. "He doesn't know what he's losing—at least, what he would lose if it wasn't for Bishop Barham's respect for the World. Fancy having the Holy Communion refused one—by Bishop Barham!..."
"Judith! If you're going to blaspheme!..."
"I'm not, dear. I'm going to say good-night. And to-morrow I'll tell Mr. Challis of his parlous plight."
"Oh, Ju, you never will!"
"Wait and see! Good-night, dear." The "dear" was rather perfunctory. And it was not to correct it to tenderness that Judith turned back in the doorway and reclosed it from within. "I want to know what you meant by 'the usual thing,'" she said, and waited.
"I thought you said you didn't think it mattered."
"I don't think it does. But I want to know what you meant by it, just the same."
The return into the room to ask the question added to its weight somehow. Sibyl might have answered more forcibly and less pertly had it been asked during conversation. "I should have thought, after the Honourable Stephen, that that went without saying."
"'After the Honourable Stephen'!... Sibyl!" There is growing resentment in the handsome woman's voice of protest, and a slight flinching in her sister's manner recognizes it. She speaks uncomfortably.
"Well, what would you have me say? You know quite well, Ju, that the madre thinks so too. What is the use of pretending?"
Judith's colour is heightened as she closes the door to prevent someone hearing in the passage—her maid perhaps or her sister's. "I see no use in pretending, Sib. If you and mamma are going to say spiteful and malicious things, you had better speak them out.... Yes, it is spiteful and malicious to try to make out that there was anything between me and Stephen Lyell; it is simply wicked to use the word flirtation.... No—I know you have not actually used it—but it's the same thing. It was that woman entirely! And you know it!"
"I should have felt as she did. Besides, Lady Di Lyell's no fool. Look how you had him to yourself all day long ... oh yes!—I know what you are going to say. Perhaps there wasn't. But some people can get on perfectly well without any love-making. I think that way's the worst; it's insidious and hypocritical. Yes, Judith!—if you are going to flirt with a married man, I would sooner you did it above-board." Notice Sibyl's elisions, and how easily understood they seemed to be. Sisters' intercourse is based on concurrent consciousness of the actual; sometimes admitted, sometimes concealed. These two had harboured theirs from the nursery, usually finding speech for them. In the present case they had never spoken quite openly, though each knew the other knew of her knowledge, and pointed allusions to flirtations with married men had been perfectly well understood.
Judith has been keeping back a great deal of anger—she has self-control in plenty—to affect a certain patronage of a younger sister; albeit she has only a couple of years more to her half of the fifty they share between them. "Sib dear!" she says. "You are entirely absurd—quite childish. If her jealous ladyship wasn't secure against me and poor good, honourable Stephen, where is married bliss to find security? Unless men and women are never to be friends at all."
"Nobody objects to it that I know of. Only not one at a time. You know the difference that makes as well as I do—as well as everyone does."
Probably Judith did, and that was why she said nothing—or, at least, in what she did say made no reply to the last assertion, but went back to the general question. She put her hand on the door-handle to suggest peroration and spoke collectedly and coldly.
"You are quite wrong, Sibyl, when you use the word 'flirtation' about me and Stephen Lyell. Cordial acquaintance is quite enough—even friendship is a little overstrained. Not but that we are very good friends, and should always keep so, only for that fool of a woman! But I shall always think somebody made mischief." She turned the door-handle to indicate the penultimate character of what was coming, but did not open the door. "And as for this Mr. Alfred Challis or 'Titus Scroop'—who is a person, by-the-bye, with whom any sort of flirtation would be simply impossible—he's just a clever playwriter without the slightest pretence to be considered a ... no!—I wasn't going to say gentleman; let me finish ... accustomed to the ways of Society." Sibyl didn't feel convinced, but kept her counsel. "And I have my own reasons for wishing to cultivate his acquaintance."
Now, surely, at this late hour of the night, and after so active a day, and with these two young ladies' respective maids wondering sotto voce on the landing outside what on earth it's all about—surely that door-handle might have turned in earnest! But we all know the fire that seems put out with a spark still chuckling in its core at the nice blaze it means to be one day. Perhaps if Sibyl had said "I ss—see" with less of suggestion that some human frailty undefined had been sighted by her shrewdness, and had commanded her sympathy; and perhaps (even more) if she had abstained from saying to herself, "I thought it was that," in a voice that was evidently intended to be heard, yet to seem inaudible—perhaps the fire would not have broken out again. As it was, the door-handle had a relapse, and its manipulator said rather sharply: "Thought it was what?"
"The Stage," was the reply. "Oh yes, Ju!—I know all about it; so you needn't look like a Tragedy Queen. Pray disgrace your family! Good-night, dear."
"Sibyl, you are a thoroughly selfish woman ... did you say why? Why—because you are indulging all your own fancies—just flinging away hundreds on all sorts of useless fads, and all the while opposing me in a reasonable wish—for it is reasonable to wish to give it a trial—because of a miserable, old-fashioned prejudice against a profession which at least is as respectable as hammering little copper pots and making little bits of fussy enamelled jewellery. I can't tell you how sick I get of hearing of it all...." Anger at mere impertinence does not involve a flush, like resentment against a charge of misdemeanour on a point of delicacy. But one can go white with anger, and Judith's change of colour may be due to it, as she says what she evidently means to be her last word. Sibyl tries to deprive it of a last word's advantage.
"If you are going to take that tone, Ju," she replies, "I think we had better talk no more about it. And how little copper pots can have anything fast or disreputable about them I don't know. But pray disgrace your family, if you can get anyone to help you—Mr. Scoop, or Challis, or anyone." Then this young lady did not play fair, for she said or as good as said that if her sister was as tired and sleepy as she herself was, she wouldn't stand there talking, but would go to bed. But even this was not so bad as adding: "And what all this has to do with Mr. Scoop's Deceased Wife's Sister I can't imagine!" The dry tone in which Judith said, "Nor I, dear!" may have conveyed her views about her sister's powers of Logic, without more enlargement—at least, she indulged in none and went away to her own bedroom rather despising herself for feeling exasperated, but knowing that she was so by the satisfaction she got from an increased indifference to what her family thought about the theatrical profession. Her stage-mania was getting the bit in its teeth. But she could find it in her heart to laugh at Sibyl for trying to support her own fads on the moral repute of little copper pots. Why, so far as that went, the little pots might be anchorites in deserts for any power they had of blemishing it.
As for "Mr. Scroop's Deceased Wife's Sister," that, she knew, was nonsense, because he had told her the name of his first wife. Or, stop a minute!—might she not have been a half-sister? Judith guessed shrewdly. But then—it occurred to her presently—would that count? She thought of this after she was in bed, and was half inclined to get up, and look up the point in her prayer-book.
The suspicion that had crossed Challis's mind in the drawing-room was confirmed by the way his companion had glanced at herself in the mirror, before answering his question about the beauty of her friend the stage-aspirant, more than by the wording of her answer. After all, the fact that a good-looking woman had refused an unqualified testimonial to the beauty of an alleged friend was very negative evidence indeed that she was all the while speaking of herself. But the glance at her reflection seemed natural enough to him under the circumstances, though he was ready to admit that, much as he had written about them, he did not understand women. His conclusion from it was supported by something not altogether natural in the tone of the answer; the substance of it might be no more than provisional modesty, to cover future confession. Had she answered that her friend had a Juno-like figure, a splendid Greek brow and nose, rich coils of dark hair, a stately column of a throat, and ample justification for evening dress whenever warranted by authority—could she have looked him in the face later and claimed the identity? Challis dwelt upon the inventory more than was needed, and decided that the semi-evasion had been skilful, and had shown that its author was superior to frivolous vanities. There was glamour about this: men persist in ascribing high qualities to beautiful women, and only concede them grudgingly to dowdies as a set-off to their unhappy plainness.
Anyhow, even if he was mistaken, his mistake would give him a sound ground for writing as much as he was inclined to write about this young lady to Marianne; and he felt, without exactly knowing why, inclined to write rather liberally about her. Perhaps, if he had had a mind for self-vivisection, he would have found that he shrank from acknowledging the reason he had hitherto flinched from writing about her to his wife; which was, briefly, that he was just too far entiché to feel at ease in telling her how much in love he had fallen with one of the daughters, and how awfully jolly she was, and how awfully jealous she, Marianne, would be if she was there to see. You know—male reader over head and ears in wedlock!—that that is what you would have written, and despatched with an authenticating photograph if one was attainable. And you would have asked for the last photo of your correspondent in return—the one with baby pulling her hair; not that beastly one yearning, with the lips slightly parted—to give as a swop to your new love; because six copies were to come from Elliott and Fry's, and we could have as many more as we wanted. But Mr. Alfred Challis was not so detached as all this; and, without absolutely suspecting it, he was not sorry to be supplied with a well-defined locus scribendi, where all analysis and justification would merge and be forgotten. He felt, with such a licence of free pen, much more ready to go to work with his long letter to Marianne about that long walk to the Rectory to-day. See what a lot he could find to tell about that Parson who wanted (or didn't) to marry his Deceased Wife's Sister! Partly on the question itself—one, of course, of the greatest interest to both—and partly, if not more, because he had just remembered that surely the name of the Parson who took on the duties for Charlotte Eldridge's reverend cousin out Clapham way was Athelstan Something; and hadn't he, the said cousin, been known to come away to this part of the world to take his friend's duties in the country and get change of air? Of course! And then, too, there was the incident of the sofa in the evening. Yes!—he would make the peep into the mirror amusing.
They were new candles all through again this evening—really! ... the extravagance in these great houses! What would Marianne say if she saw it? But so much the better! Candles that have never been blown out give a much better light than restarted ones—who can say why? Challis settled down soon to his long letter, and wrote well into the night. The four candles he had enlisted had burned down to mere housekeeper's perquisites—substitute-justifiers—by the time he had signed himself Marianne's loving Tite; and after a good stretch in acknowledgment of an hour's bent back, had lighted an isolated sample with an extinguisher-parasite, so as to blow all four out together, and keep them neck and neck.
After he was in bed he said to himself that he must make sure that letter went by the first post, or it would only reach Marianne such a short time before the writer. It was very stupid of him, that it was, to have allowed so many days to pass before writing a proper account of "these people" to his wife. She had only had such very perfunctory letters before. He classed it as a stupidity. However, it might end by his overstaying the week he was asked for by more than an extra day already bespoken, and then this long letter would seem in better keeping. That would make it all right.