A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus
by Arthur Conan Doyle · English · Gutenberg #5260 · 392,081 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5260]
Most recently updated: July 5, 2014
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5260
Credits: Transcribed from the 1899 Grant Richards edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DUET, WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS ***
Transcribed from the 1899 Grant Richards edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
A DUET
WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS
BY
A. CONAN DOYLE
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
* * * * *
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET
1899
* * * * *
Edinburgh: T. and A CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
* * * * *
TO
MRS. MAUDE CROSSE
DEAR MAUDE,—All the little two-oared boats which put out into the great
ocean have need of some chart which will show them how to lay their
course. Each starts full of happiness and confidence, and yet we know
how many founder, for it is no easy voyage, and there are rocks and
sandbanks upon the way. So I give a few pages of your own private log,
which tell of days of peace, and days of storm—such storms as seem very
petty from the deck of a high ship, but are serious for the two-oared
boats. If your peace should help another to peace, or your storm console
another who is storm-tossed, then I know that you will feel repaid for
this intrusion upon your privacy. May all your voyage be like the
outset, and when at last the oars fall from your hands, and those of
Frank, may other loving ones be ready to take their turn of toil—and so,
_bon voyage_!
Ever your friend,
THE AUTHOR.
_Jan._ 20, 1899.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE OVERTURE 1
THE OVERTURE CONTINUED 9
THE OVERTURE CONCLUDED 24
THE TWO SOLOS 34
IN BRITAIN’S VALHALLA 48
TWO SOLOS AND A DUET 71
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES 88
THE HOME-COMING 100
LAYING A COURSE 112
CONFESSIONS 128
CONCERNING MRS. BEETON 146
MR. SAMUEL PEPYS 158
A VISIT TO MR. SAMUEL PEPYS 170
TROUBLE 185
A RESCUE 204
THE BROWNING SOCIETY 218
AN INVESTMENT 236
A THUNDERCLOUD 251
DANGER 269
NO. 5 CHEYNE ROW 290
THE LAST NOTE OF THE DUET 311
THE TRIO 326
THE OVERTURE
I
ABOUT THAT DATE
THESE are the beginnings of some of the letters which they wrote about
that time.
_Woking_, _May_ 20_th_.
MY DEAREST MAUDE,—You know that your mother suggested, and we agreed,
that we should be married about the beginning of September. Don’t you
think that we might say the 3rd of August? It is a Wednesday, and in
every sense suitable. Do try to change the date, for it would in many
ways be preferable to the other. I shall be eager to hear from you about
it. And now, dearest Maude . . . (The rest is irrelevant.)
_St. Albans_, _May_ 22_nd_.
My Dearest Frank,—Mother sees no objection to the 3rd of August, and I am
ready to do anything which will please you and her. Of course there are
the guests to be considered, and the dressmakers and other arrangements,
but I have no doubt that we shall be able to change the date all right.
O Frank . . . (What follows is beside the point.)
_Woking_, _May_ 25_th_.
MY DEAREST MAUDE,—I have been thinking over that change of date, and I
see one objection which had not occurred to me when I suggested it.
August the 1st is Bank holiday, and travelling is not very pleasant about
that time. My idea now is that we should bring it off before that date.
Fancy, for example, how unpleasant it would be for your Uncle Joseph if
he had to travel all the way from Edinburgh with a Bank-holiday crowd.
It would be selfish of us if we did not fit in our plans so as to save
our relatives from inconvenience. I think therefore, taking everything
into consideration, that the 20th of July, a Wednesday, would be the very
best day that we could select. I do hope that you will strain every
nerve, my darling, to get your mother to consent to this change. When I
think . . . (A digression follows.)
_St. Albans_, _May_ 27_th_.
MY DEAREST FRANK,—I think that what you say about the date is very
reasonable, and it is so sweet and unselfish of you to think about Uncle
Joseph. Of course it would be very unpleasant for him to have to travel
at such a time, and we must strain every nerve to prevent it. There is
only one serious objection which my mother can see. Uncle Percival (that
is my mother’s second brother) comes back from Rangoon about the end of
July, and will miss the wedding (O Frank, think of its being _our_
wedding!) unless we delay it. He has always been very fond of me, and he
might be hurt if we were married so immediately before his arrival.
Don’t you think it would be as well to wait? Mother leaves it all in
your hands, and we shall do exactly as you advise. O Frank . . . (The
rest is confidential.)
_Woking_, _May_ 29_th_.
MY OWN DEAREST,—I think that it would be unreasonable upon the part of
your Uncle Percival to think that we ought to have changed the date of a
matter so important to ourselves, simply in order that he should be
present. I am sure that on second thoughts your mother and yourself will
see the thing in this light. I must say, however, that in one point I
think you both show great judgment. It would certainly be invidious to
be married _immediately_ before his arrival. I really think that he
would have some cause for complaint if we did that. To prevent any
chance of hurting his feelings, I think that it would be far best, if
your mother and you agree with me, that we should be married upon July
7th. I see that it is a Thursday, and in every way suitable. When I
read your last letter . . . (The remainder is unimportant.)
_St. Albans_, _June_ 1_st_.
DEAREST FRANK,—I am sure that you are right in thinking that it would be
as well not to have the ceremony too near the date of Uncle Percival’s
arrival in England. We should be so sorry to hurt his feelings in any
way. Mother has been down to Madame Mortimer’s about the dresses, and
she thinks that everything could be hurried up so as to be ready by July
7th. She is so obliging, and her skirts _do_ hang so beautifully. O
Frank, it is only a few weeks’ time, and then . . .
_Woking_, _June_ 3_rd_.
MY OWN DARLING MAUDE,—How good you are—and your mother also—in falling in
with my suggestions! Please, please don’t bother your dear self about
dresses. You only want the one travelling-dress to be married in, and
the rest we can pick up as we go. I am sure that white dress with the
black stripe—the one you were playing tennis with at the
Arlingtons’—would do splendidly. You looked simply splendid that day. I
am inclined to think that it is my favourite of all your dresses, with
the exception of the dark one with the light-green front. That shows off
your figure so splendidly. I am very fond also of the grey Quaker-like
alpaca dress. What a little dove you do look in it! I think those
dresses, and of course your satin evening-dress, are my favourites. On
second thoughts, they are the only dresses I have ever seen you in. But
I like the grey best, because you wore it the first time I ever—you
remember! You must _never_ get rid of those dresses. They are too full
of associations. I want to see you in them for years, and years, and
years.
What I wanted to say was that you have so many charming dresses, that we
may consider ourselves independent of Madame Mortimer. If her things
should be late, they will come in very usefully afterwards. I don’t want
to be selfish or inconsiderate, my own dearest girlie, but it would be
rather too much if we allowed my tailor or your dressmaker to be
obstacles to our union. I just want you—your dainty little self—if you
had only your ‘wee coatie,’ as Burns says. Now look here! I want you to
bring your influence to bear upon your mother, and so make a small change
in our plans. The earlier we can have our honeymoon, the more pleasant
the hotels will be. I do want your first experiences with me to be
without a shadow of discomfort. In July half the world starts for its
holiday. If we could get away at the end of this mouth, we should just
be ahead of them. This month, this very month! Oh, do try to manage
this, my own dearest girl. The 30th of June is a Tuesday, and in every
way suitable. They could spare me from the office most excellently.
This would just give us time to have the banns three times, beginning
with next Sunday. I leave it in your hands, dear. Do try to work it.
_St. Albans_, _June_ 4_th_.
MY DEAREST FRANK,—We nearly called in the doctor after your dear old
preposterous letter. My mother gasped upon the sofa while I read her
some extracts. That I, the daughter of the house, should be married in
my old black and white tennis-dress, which I wore at the Arlingtons’ to
save my nice one! Oh, you are simply splendid sometimes! And the
learned way in which you alluded to my alpaca. As a matter of fact, it’s
a merino, but that doesn’t matter. Fancy your remembering my wardrobe
like that! And wanting me to wear them all for years! So I shall, dear,
secretly, when we are quite quite alone. But they are all out of date
already, and if in a year or so you saw your poor dowdy wife with tight
sleeves among a roomful of puff-shouldered young ladies, you would not be
consoled even by the memory that it was in that dress that you first . . .
you know!
As a matter of fact, I _must_ have my dress to be married in. I don’t
think mother would regard it as a legal marriage if I hadn’t, and if you
knew how nice it will be, you would not have the heart to interfere with
it. Try to picture it, silver-grey—I know how fond you are of greys—a
little white chiffon at neck and wrists, and the prettiest pearl
trimming. Then the hat _en suite_, pale-grey lisse, white feather and
brilliant buckle. All these details are wasted upon you, sir, but you
will like it when you see it. It fulfils your ideal of tasteful
simplicity, which men always imagine to be an economical method of
dressing, until they have wives and milliners’ bills of their own.
And now I have kept the biggest news to the last. Mother has been to
Madame, and she says that if she works all night, she will have
everything ready for the 30th. O Frank, does it not seem incredible!
Next Tuesday three weeks. And the banns! Oh my goodness, I am
frightened when I think about it! Dear old boy, you won’t tire of me,
will you? Whatever should I do if I thought you had tired of me! And
the worst of it is, that you don’t know me a bit. I have a hundred
thousand faults, and you are blinded by your love and cannot see them.
But then some day the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will
perceive the whole hundred thousand at once. Oh, what a reaction there
will be! You will see me as I am, frivolous, wilful, idle, petulant, and
altogether horrid. But I do love you, Frank, with all my heart, and
soul, and mind, and strength, and you’ll count that on the other side,
won’t you? Now I am so glad I have said all this, because it is best
that you should know what you should expect. It will be nice for you to
look back and to say, ‘She gave me fair warning, and she is no worse than
she said.’ O Frank, think of the 30th.
_P.S._—I forgot to say that I had a grey silk cape, lined with cream, to
go with the dress. It is just sweet!
* * * * *
So that is how they arranged about the date.
THE OVERTURE CONTINUED
II
IN A MINOR KEY
_Woking_, _June_ 7_th_.
MY OWN DEAREST MAUDE,—How I wish you were here, for I have been down,
down, down, in the deepest state of despondency all day. I have longed
to hear the sound of your voice, or to feel the touch of your hand! How
can I be despondent, when in three weeks I shall be the husband of the
dearest girl in England? That is what I ask myself, and then the answer
comes that it is just exactly on that account that my wretched conscience
is gnawing at me. I feel that I have not used you well; I owe you
reparation, and I don’t know what to do.
In your last dear letter you talk about being frivolous. _You_ have
never been frivolous. But I have been frivolous—for ever since I have
learned to love you, I have been so wrapped up in my love, with my
happiness gilding everything about me, that I have never really faced the
prosaic facts of life or discussed with you what our marriage will really
necessitate. And now, at this eleventh hour, I realise that I have led
you on in ignorance to an act which will perhaps take a great deal of the
sunshine out of your life. What have I to offer you in exchange for the
sacrifice which you will make for me? Myself, my love, and all that I
have—but how little it all amounts to! You are a girl in a thousand, in
ten thousand—bright, beautiful, sweet, the dearest lady in all the land.
And I an average man—or perhaps hardly that—with little to boast of in
the past, and vague ambitions for the future. It is a poor bargain for
you, a most miserable bargain. You have still time. Count the cost, and
if it be too great, then draw back even now without fear of one word or
inmost thought of reproach from me. Your whole life is at stake. How
can I hold you to a decision which was taken before you realised what it
meant? Now I shall place the facts before you, and then, come what may,
my conscience will be at rest, and I shall be sure that you are acting
with your eyes open.
You have to compare your life as it is, and as it will be. Your father
is rich, or at least comfortably off, and you have been accustomed all
your life to have whatever you desired. From what I know of your
mother’s kindness, I should imagine that no wish of yours has ever
remained ungratified. You have lived well, dressed well, a sweet home, a
lovely garden, your collie, your canary, your maid. Above all, you have
never had anxiety, never had to worry about the morrow. I can see all
your past life so well. In the mornings, your music, your singing, your
gardening, your reading. In the afternoons, your social duties, the
visit and the visitor. In the evening, tennis, a walk, music again, your
father’s return from the City, the happy family-circle, with occasionally
the dinner, the dance, and the theatre. And so smoothly on, month after
month, and year after year, your own sweet, kindly, joyous nature, and
your bright face, making every one round you happy, and so reacting upon
your own happiness. Why should you bother about money? That was your
father’s business. Why should you trouble about housekeeping? That was
your mother’s duty. You lived like the birds and the flowers, and had no
need to take heed for the future. Everything which life could offer was
yours.
And now you must turn to what is in store for you, if you are still
content to face the future with me. Position I have none to offer. What
is the exact position of the wife of the assistant-accountant of the
Co-operative Insurance Office? It is indefinable. What are my
prospects? I may become head-accountant. If Dinton died—and I hope he
won’t, for he is an excellent fellow—I should probably get his berth.
Beyond that I have no career. I have some aspirations after literature—a
few critical articles in the monthlies—but I don’t suppose they will ever
lead to anything of consequence.
And my income, £400 a year with a commission on business I introduce.
But that amounts to hardly anything. You have £50. Our total, then, is
certainly under £500. Have you considered what it will mean to leave
that charming house at St. Albans—the breakfast-room, the billiard-room,
the lawn—and to live in the little £50 a year house at Woking, with its
two sitting-rooms and pokey garden? Have I a right to ask you to do such
a thing? And then the housekeeping, the planning, the arranging, the
curtailing, the keeping up appearances upon a limited income. I have
made myself miserable, because I feel that you are marrying me without a
suspicion of the long weary uphill struggle which lies before you. O
Maude, my darling Maude, I feel that you sacrifice too much for me! If I
were a man I should say to you, ‘Forget me—forget it all! Let our
relations be a closed chapter in your life. You can do better. I and my
cares come like a great cloud-bank to keep the sunshine from your young
life. You who are so tender and dainty! How can I bear to see you
exposed to the drudgery and sordid everlasting cares of such a household!
I think of your graces, your pretty little ways, the elegancies of your
life, and how charmingly you carry them off. You are born and bred for
just such an atmosphere as the one which you breathe. And I take
advantage of my good-fortune in winning your love to drag you down, to
take the beauty and charm from your life, to fill it with small and
vulgar cares, never-ending and soul-killing. Selfish beast that I am,
why should I allow you to come down into the stress and worry of life,
when I found you so high above it? And what can I offer you in
exchange?’ These are the thoughts which come back and back all day, and
leave me in the blackest fit of despondency. I confessed to you that I
had dark humours, but never one so hopeless as this. I do not wish my
worst enemy to be as unhappy as I have been to-day.
Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, your very
inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too much of you?
Does the change frighten you? You will have this in the morning, and I
should have my answer by the evening post. I shall meet the postman.
How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter from him, or to give myself
away. Wilson has been in worrying me with foolish talk, while my
thoughts were all of our affairs. He worked me up into a perfectly
homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that I kept on smiling and was not
discourteous to him. I wonder which is right, to be polite but
hypocritical, or to be inhospitable but honest.
Good-bye, my own dearest sweetheart—all the dearer when I feel that I may
lose you.—Ever your devoted
FRANK.
_St. Albans_, _June_ 8_th_.
Frank, tell me for Heaven’s sake what your letter means! You use words
of love, and yet you talk of parting. You speak as if our love were a
thing which we might change or suppress. O Frank, you cannot take my
love away from me. You don’t know what you are to me, my heart, my life,
my all. I would give my life for you willingly, gladly—every beat of my
heart is for you. You don’t know what you have become to me. My every
thought is yours, and has been ever since that night at the Arlingtons’.
My love is so deep and strong, it rules my whole life, my every action
from morning to night. It is the very breath and heart of my
life—unchangeable. I could not alter my love any more than I could stop
my heart from beating. How could you, could you suggest such a thing! I
know that you really love me just as much as I love you, or I should not
open my heart like this. I should be too proud to give myself away. But
I feel that pride is out of place when any mistake or misunderstanding
may mean lifelong misery to both of us. I would only say good-bye if I
thought your love had changed or grown less. But I know that it has not.
O my darling, if you only knew what terrible agony the very thought of
parting is, you would never have let such an idea even for an instant, on
any pretext, enter your mind. The very possibility is too awful to think
of. When I read your letter just now up in my room, I nearly fainted. I
can’t write. O Frank, don’t take my love away from me. I can’t bear it.
Oh no, it is my everything. If I could only see you now, I know that you
would kiss these heart-burning tears away. I feel so lonely and tired.
I cannot follow all your letter. I only know that you talked of parting,
and that I am weary and miserable.
MAUDE.
(COPY OF TELEGRAM)
_From Frank Crosse_, to _Miss Maude Selby_,
_The Laurels_, _St. Albans_
Coming up eight-fifteen, arrive midnight.
_June_ 10_th_.
How good of you, dear old boy, to come racing across two counties at a
minute’s notice, simply in order to console me and clear away my
misunderstandings. Of course it was most ridiculous of me to take your
letter so much to heart, but when I read any suggestion about our
parting, it upset me so dreadfully, that I was really incapable of
reasoning about anything else. Just that one word PART seemed to be
written in letters of fire right across the page, to the exclusion of
everything else. So then I wrote an absurd letter to my boy, and the
dear came scampering right across the South of England, and arrived at
midnight in the most demoralised state. It was just sweet of you to
come, dear, and I shall never forget it.
I am so sorry that I have been so foolish, but you must confess, sir,
that you have been just a little bit foolish also. The idea of supposing
that when I love a man my love can be affected by the size of his house
or the amount of his income. It makes me smile to think of it. Do you
suppose a woman’s happiness is affected by whether she has a
breakfast-room, or a billiard-board, or a collie dog, or any of the other
luxuries which you enumerated? But these things are all the merest
trimmings of life. They are not the essentials. _You_ and your love are
the essentials. Some one who will love me with all his heart. Some one
whom I can love with all my heart. Oh the difference it makes in life!
How it changes everything! It glorifies and beautifies everything. I
always felt that I was capable of a great love—and now I have it.
Fancy your imagining that you had come into my life in order to darken
it. Why, you _are_ my life. If you went out of it, what would be left?
You talk about my happiness before I met you—but oh, how empty it all
was! I read, and played, and sang as you say, but what a void there was!
I did it to please mother, but there really seemed no very clear reason
why I should continue to do it. Then you came, and everything was
changed. I read because you are fond of reading and because I wanted to
talk about books with you. I played because you are fond of music. I
sang in the hope that it might please you. Whatever I did, you were
always in my mind. I tried and tried to become a better and nobler
woman, because I wanted to be worthy of the love you bore me. I have
changed, and developed, and improved more in the last three months than
in all my life before. And then you come and tell me that you have
darkened my life. You know better now. My life has become full and
rich, for Love fills my life. It is the keynote of my nature, the
foundation, the motive power. It inspires me to make the most of any
gift or talent that I have. How could I tell you all this if I did not
know that your own feeling was as deep. I could not have given the one,
great, and only love of my life in exchange for a half-hearted affection
from you. But you will never again make the mistake of supposing that
any material consideration can affect our love.
And now we won’t be serious any longer. Dear mother was very much
astounded by your tumultuous midnight arrival, and equally precipitate
departure next morning. Dear old boy, it was so nice of you! But you
won’t ever have horrid black humours and think miserable things any more,
will you? But if you must have dark days, now is your time, for I can’t
possibly permit any after the 30th.—Ever your own
MAUDE.
_Woking_, _June_ 11_th_.
MY OWN DEAREST GIRLIE,—How perfectly sweet you are! I read and re-read
your letter, and I understand more and more how infinitely your nature is
above mine. And your conception of love—how lofty and unselfish it is!
How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly thing could be weighed
for an instant against it! And yet it was just my jealous love for you,
and my keenness that you should never be the worse through me, which led
me to write in that way, so I will not blame myself too much. I am
really glad that the cloud came, for the sunshine is so much brighter
afterwards. And I seem to know you so much better, and to see so much
more deeply into your nature. I knew that my own passion for you was the
very essence of my soul—oh, how hard it is to put the extreme of emotion
into the terms of human speech!—but I did not dare to hope that your
feelings were as deep. I hardly ventured to tell even you how I really
felt. Somehow, in these days of lawn-tennis and afternoon tea, a strong
strong passion, such a passion as one reads of in books and poems, seems
out of place. I thought that it would surprise, even frighten you,
perhaps, if I were to tell you all that I felt. And now you have written
me two letters, which contain all that I should have said if I had spoken
from my heart. It is all my own inmost thought, and there is not a
feeling that I do not share. O Maude, I may write lightly and speak
lightly, perhaps, sometimes, but there never was a woman, never, never in
all the story of the world, who was loved more passionately than you are
loved by me. Come what may, while the world lasts and the breath of life
is between my lips, you are the one woman to me. If we are together, I
care nothing for what the future may bring. If we are not together, all
the world cannot fill the void.
You say that I have given an impulse to your life: that you read more,
study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could not possibly
have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure than that. It
is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my
conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that
is the effect. I have felt so happy and light-hearted ever since you
said it. It is rather absurd to think that _I_ should improve you, but
if you in your sweet frankness say that it is so, why, I can only marvel
and rejoice.
But you must not study and work too hard. You say that you do it to
please me, but that would not please me. I’ll tell you an anecdote as a
dreadful example. I had a friend who was a great lover of Eastern
literature, Sanskrit, and so on. He loved a lady. The lady to please
him worked hard at these subjects also. In a month she had shattered her
nervous system, and will perhaps never be the same again. It was
impossible. She was not meant for it, and yet she made herself a martyr
over it. I don’t mean by this parable that it will be a strain upon your
intellect to keep up with mine. But I do mean that a woman’s mind is
_different_ from a man’s. A dainty rapier is a finer thing than a
hatchet, but it is not adapted for cutting down trees all the same.
Rupton Hale, the architect, one of the few friends I have down here, has
some most deplorable views about women. I played a round of the Byfleet
Golf Links with him upon Wednesday afternoon, and we discussed the
question of women’s intellects. He would have it that they have never a
light of their own, but are always the reflectors of some other light
which you cannot see. He would allow that they were extraordinarily
quick in assimilating another person’s views, but that was all. I quoted
some very shrewd remarks which a lady had made to me at dinner. ‘Those
are the traces of the last man,’ said he. According to his preposterous
theory, you could in conversation with a woman reconstruct the last man
who had made an impression to her. ‘She will reflect you upon the next
person she talks to,’ said he. It was ungallant, but it was ingenious.
Dearest sweetheart, before I stop, let me tell you that if I have brought
any happiness into your life, you have brought far, far more into mine.
My soul seemed to come into full being upon the day when I loved you. It
was so small, and cramped, and selfish, before—and life was so hard, and
stupid, and purposeless. To live, to sleep, to eat, for some years, and
then to die—it was so trivial and so material. But now the narrow walls
seem in an instant to have fallen, and a boundless horizon stretches
around me. And everything appears beautiful. London Bridge, King
William Street, Abchurch Lane, the narrow stair, the office with the
almanacs and the shining desks, it has all become glorified, tinged with
a golden haze. I am stronger: I step out briskly and breathe more
deeply. And I am a better man too. God knows there was room for it.
But I do try to make an ideal, and to live up to it. I feel such a fraud
when I think of being put upon a pedestal by you, when some little hole
where I am out of sight is my true place. I am like the man in Browning
who mourned over the spots upon his ‘speckled hide,’ but rejoiced in the
swansdown of his lady. And so, my own dear sweet little swansdown lady,
good-night to you, with my heart’s love now and for ever from your true
lover,
FRANK.
Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! oh, how I am longing for Saturday, when I
shall see you again! We will go on Sunday and hear the banns together.
THE OVERTURE CONCLUDED
_St. Albans_, _June_ 14_th_.
MY DEAREST FRANK,—What a dreadful thing it is to have your name shouted
out in public! And what a voice the man had! He simply bellowed ‘Maude
Selby of this parish’ as if he meant all this parish to know about it.
And then he let you off so easily. I suppose he thought that there was
no local interest in Frank Crosse of Woking. But when he looked round
expectantly, after asking whether there was any known cause or just
impediment why we should not be joined together, it gave me quite a
thrill. I felt as if some one would jump up like a Jack-in-the-box and
make a scene in the church. How relieved I was when he changed the
subject! I sank my face in my hands, but I know that I was blushing all
down my neck. Then I looked at you between my fingers, and there you
were sitting quite cool and cheerful, as if you rather liked it. I think
that we shall go to evening-service next week. Papa has given up going
altogether since the new organist came. He says he cannot face the
music.
What a sweet time we had together. I shall never, never forget it! O
Frank, how good you are to me! And how I hope you won’t regret what you
are doing. It is all very well just now, when I am young and you think
that I am pretty. I love that you should think so, but I am compelled to
tell you that it is not really so. I can’t imagine how you came to think
it! I suppose it was from seeing me so often beside papa. If you saw me
near Nelly Sheridan, or any other _really_ pretty girl, you would at once
see the difference. It just happens that you like grey eyes and brown
hair, and the other things, but that does not mean that I am really
pretty. I should be so sorry if there were any misunderstanding about
this, and you only found out when too late. You ought to keep this
letter for reference, as papa always says, and then it will be
interesting to you afterwards.
I should like you to see me now—or rather I wouldn’t have you see me for
the world. I am so flushed and untidy, for I have been cooking. Is it
not absurd, if you come to think of it, that we girls should be taught
the irregular French verbs, and the geography of China, and never to cook
the simplest thing? It really does seem ridiculous.
But it is never too late to mend, so I went into the kitchen this morning
and made a tart. You can’t imagine what a lot of things one needs even
for such a simple thing as that. I thought cook was joking when she put
them all down in front of me. It was like a conjurer giving his
performance. There was an empty bowl, and a bowl full of sliced apples,
and a big board, and a rolling-pin, and eggs, and butter, and sugar, and
cloves, and of course flour. We broke eggs and put them into a bowl—you
can’t think what a mess an egg makes when it misses the bowl. Then we
stirred them up with flour and butter and things. I stirred until I was
perfectly exhausted. No wonder a cook has usually a great thick arm.
Then when it had formed a paste, we rolled it out, and put the apples in
the dish, and roofed it in, and trimmed the edges, and stuck flat leaves
made of paste all over it, and the dearest little crown in the middle.
Then we put it into the oven until it was brown. It looked a very nice
tart, and mamma said that I had made it very solidly. It certainly did
feel very heavy for its size. Mamma would not taste it, because she said
that she thought Dr. Tristram would not approve of her doing so, but I
had a piece, and really it was not so bad. Mamma said the servants might
have it at dinner, but the servants said that the poor window-cleaner had
a large family, and so we gave it to him. It is so sweet to feel that
one is of any use to any one.
What do you think happened this morning? Two wedding-presents arrived.
The first was a very nice fish slice and fork in a case. It was from
dear old Mrs. Jones Beyrick, on whom we really had no claim whatever. We
all think it so kind of her, and such a nice fish-slice. The other was a
beautiful travelling-bag from Uncle Arthur. Stamped in gold upon it were
the letters M.C., I said, ‘Oh, what a pity! They have put the wrong
initials.’ That made mamma laugh. I suppose one soon gets used to it.
Fancy how you would feel if it were the other way about, and you changed
your name to mine. They might call you Selby, but you would continue to
feel Crosse. I didn’t mean that for a joke, but women make jokes without
intending it. The other day the curate drove up in his donkey-cart, and
mother said, ‘Oh, what a nice tandem!’ I think that she meant to say
‘turn-out’; but papa said it was the neatest thing he had heard for a
long time, so mamma is very pleased, but I am sure that she does not know
even now why it should be so funny.
What stupid letters I write! Doesn’t it frighten you when you read them
and think that is the person with whom I have to spend my life. Yet you
never seem alarmed about it. I think it is so _brave_ of you. That
reminds me that I never finished what I wanted to say at the beginning of
this letter. Even supposing that I am pretty (and my complexion
sometimes is simply awful), you must bear in mind how quickly the years
slip by, and how soon a woman alters. Why, we shall hardly be married
before you will find me full of wrinkles, and without a tooth in my head.
Poor boy, how dreadful for you! Men seem to change so little and so
slowly. Besides, it does not matter for them, for nobody marries a man
because he is pretty. But you must marry me, Frank, not for what I look
but for what I am—for my inmost, inmost self, so that if I had no body at
all, you would love me just the same. That is how I love you, but I do
prefer you with your body on all the same. I don’t know how I love you,
dear. I only know that I am in a dream when you are near me—just a
beautiful dream. I live for those moments.—Ever your own little
MAUDE.
_P.S._—Papa gave us such a fright, for he came in just now and said that
the window-cleaner and all his family were very ill. This was a joke,
because the coachman had told him about my tart. Wasn’t it horrid of
him?
_Woking_, _June_ 17_th_.
MY OWN SWEETEST MAUDE,—I do want you to come up to town on Saturday
morning. Then I will see you home to St. Albans in the evening, and we
shall have another dear delightful week end. I think of nothing else,
and I count the hours. Now please to manage it, and don’t let anything
stop you. You know that you can always get your way. Oh yes, you can,
miss! _I_ know.
We shall meet at the bookstall at Charing Cross railway station at one
o’clock, but if anything should go wrong, send me a wire to the Club.
Then we can do some shopping together, and have some fun also. Tell your
mother that we shall be back in plenty of time for dinner. Make another
tart, and I shall eat it. Things are slack at the office just now, and I
could be spared for a few days.
So you have had a fish-slice. It is so strange, because on that very day
I had my first present, and it was a fish-slice also. We shall have fish
at each end when we give a dinner. If we get another fish-slice, then we
shall give a fish-dinner—or keep one of the slices to give to your friend
Nelly Sheridan when _she_ gets married. They will always come in useful.
And I have had two more presents. One is a Tantalus spirit-stand from my
friends in the office. The other is a pair of bronzes from the cricket
club. They got it up without my knowing anything about it, and I was
amazed when a deputation came up to my rooms with them last night. ‘May
your innings be long and your partnership unbroken until you each make a
hundred not out.’ That was the inscription upon a card.
I have something very grave to tell you. I’ve been going over my bills
and things, and I owe ever so much more than I thought. I have always
been so careless, and never known exactly how I stood. It did not matter
when one was a bachelor, for one always felt that one could live quite
simply for a few months, and so set matters straight. But now it is more
serious. The bills come to more than a hundred pounds; the biggest one
is forty-two pounds to Snell and Walker, the Conduit Street tailors.
However, I am ordering my marriage-suit from them, and that will keep
them quiet. I have enough on hand to pay most of the others. But we
must not run short upon our honeymoon—what an awful idea! Perhaps there
may be some cheques among our presents. We will hope for the best.
But there is a more serious thing upon which I want to consult you. You
asked me never to have any secrets from you, or else I should not bother
you about such things. I should have kept it for Saturday when we meet,
but I want you to have time to think about it, so that we may come to
some decision then.
I am surety to a man for an indefinite sum of money. It sounds rather
dreadful, does it not? But it is not so bad as it sounds, for there is
no harm done yet. But the question is what we should do in the future
about it, and the answer is not a very easy one. He is a very pleasant
fellow, an insurance agent, and he got into some trouble about his
accounts last year. The office would have dismissed him, but as I knew
his wife and his family, I became surety that he should not go wrong
again, and so I saved him from losing his situation. His name is
Farintosh. He is one of those amiable, weak, good fellows whom you
cannot help loving, although you never can trust them. Of course we
could give notice that we should not be responsible any longer, but it
would be a thunderbolt to this poor family, and the man would certainly
be ruined. We don’t want to begin our own happiness by making any one
else unhappy, do we? But we shall talk it over, and I shall do what you
advise. You understand that we are only liable in case he defaults, and
surely it is very unlikely that he will do so after the lesson that he
has already had.
I think the house will do splendidly. The Lindens is the name, and it is
on the Maybury Road, not more than a quarter of a mile from the station.
If your mother and you could come down on Tuesday or Wednesday, I should
get a half-day off, and you would be able to inspect it. Such a nice
little lawn in front, and garden behind. A conservatory, if you please,
dining-room and drawing-room. You can never assemble more than four or
five guests. On your at-home days, we shall put up little placards as
they do outside the theatres, ‘Drawing-room full,’ ‘Dining-room full,’
‘Room in the Conservatory.’ There are two good bedrooms, one large
maid’s room, and a lumber-room. One cook and one housemaid could run it
beautifully. Rent £50 on a three years’ lease—with taxes, about £62. I
think it was just built for us. Rupton Hale says that we must be careful
not to brush against the walls, and that it would be safer to go outside
to sneeze—but that is only his fun.
What a dull, stupid letter! I do hope that I shall be in good form on
Saturday. I am a man of moods—worse luck! and they come quite regardless
of how I wish to be, or even of how I have cause to be. I do hope that I
shall make your day bright for you—the last day that we shall have
together before _the_ day. There have been times when I have been such
bad company to you, just when I wished to be at my best. But you are
always so sweet and patient and soothing. Until Saturday, then, my own
darling.—Ever your lover,
FRANK.
_P.S._—I open this to tell you that such a gorgeous fish-knife, with our
monograms upon it, has just arrived from Mrs. Preston, my father’s old
friend. I went to the Goldsmith’s Company in Regent Street yesterday
afternoon, and I bought—what do you think? It looks so beautiful upon
its snow-white cotton wadding. I like them very broad and rather flat.
I do hope you will think it all right. It fills me with the strangest
feelings when I look at it. Come what may, foul weather or fair, sorrow
or joy, that little strip of gold will still be with us—we shall see it
until we can see no more.
_P.P.S._—Saturday! Saturday!! Saturday!!!
THE TWO SOLOS
THEIR tryst was at the Charing Cross bookstall at one o’clock, and so Mr.
Frank Crosse was there at quarter-past twelve, striding impatiently up
and down, and stopping dead whenever a woman emerged from the entrance,
like a pointer dog before a partridge. Before he came he had been
haunted by the idea that possibly Maude might have an impulse to come
early—and what if she were to arrive and not find him there! Every
second of her company was so dear to him, that when driving to meet her
he had sometimes changed from one cab to another upon the way, because
the second seemed to have the faster horse. But now that he was on the
ground he realised that she was very exact to her word, and that she
would neither be early nor late. And yet, in the illogical fashion of a
lover, he soon forgot that it was he who was too soon, and he chafed and
chafed as the minutes passed, until at about quarter to one he was
striding gloomily about with despondent features and melancholy
forebodings, imagining a thousand miserable reasons for her inexplicable
delay. A good many people stared at him as they passed, and we may do so
among the number.
In person Frank Crosse was neither tall nor short, five feet eight and a
half to be exact, with the well-knit frame and springy step of a young
man who had been an athlete from his boyhood. He was slim, but wiry, and
carried his head with a half-defiant backward slant which told of pluck
and breed. His face was tanned brown, in spite of his City hours, but
his hair and slight moustache were flaxen, and his eyes, which were his
best features, were of a delicate blue, and could vary in expression from
something very tender to something particularly hard. He was an orphan,
and had inherited nothing from his parents save a dash of the artist from
his mother. It was not enough to help him to earn a living, but it
transformed itself into a keen appreciation and some ambitions in
literature, and it gave a light and shade to his character which made him
rather complex, and therefore interesting. His best friends could not
deny the shade, and yet it was but the shadow thrown by the light.
Strength, virility, emotional force, power of deep feeling—these are
traits which have to be paid for. There was sometimes just a touch of
the savage, or at least there were indications of the possibility of a
touch of the savage, in Frank Crosse. His intense love of the open air
and of physical exercise was a sign of it. He left upon women the
impression, not altogether unwelcome, that there were unexplored recesses
of his nature to which the most intimate of them had never penetrated.
In those dark corners of the spirit either a saint or a sinner might be
lurking, and there was a pleasurable excitement in peering into them, and
wondering which it was. No woman ever found him dull. Perhaps it would
have been better for him if they had, for his impulsive nature had never
been long content with a chilly friendship. He was, as we may see, a man
with a past, but it _was_ a past, now that Maude Selby had come like an
angel of light across the shadowed path of his life. In age he was
nearly twenty-seven.
There are one or two things which might be said for him which he would
not have said for himself. He was an only child and an orphan, but he
had adopted his grandparents, who had been left penniless through his
father’s death, and through all his struggles he had managed to keep them
happy and comfortable in a little cottage in Worcestershire. Nor did he
ever tell them that he had a struggle—fearing lest it should make their
position painful; and so when their quarterly cheque arrived, they took
it as a kindly but not remarkable act of duty upon the part of their
wealthy grandson in the City, with no suspicion as to the difference
which their allowance was making to him. Nor did he himself look upon
his action as a virtuous one, but simply as a thing which must obviously
be done. In the meantime, he had stuck closely to his work, had won
rapid promotion in the Insurance Office in which he had started as junior
clerk, had gained the goodwill of his superiors through his frank,
unaffected ways, and had been asked to play for the second Surrey eleven
at cricket. So without going the length of saying that he was worthy of
Maude Selby, one might perhaps claim—if it could be done without
endangering that natural modesty which was one of his charms—that he was
as worthy as any other young man who was available.
That unfortunate artistic soul of his, which had been in the tropics of
expectation, and was now in the arctic of reaction, had just finally
settled down to black despair, with a grim recognition of the fact that
Maude had certainly and absolutely given him up, when one boomed from the
station clock, and on the very stroke she hurried on to the platform.
How could he have strained his eyes after other women, as if a second
glance were ever needed when it was really she! The perfectly graceful
figure, the trimness and neatness of it, the beautiful womanly poise of
the head, the quick elastic step, he could have sworn to her among ten
thousand. His heart gave a bound at the sight of her, but he had the
English aversion to giving himself away, and so he walked quickly forward
to meet her with an impassive face, but with a look in his eyes which was
all that she wanted.
‘How are you?’
‘How do you do?’
He stood for a few moments looking at her in silence. She had on the
dress which he loved so much, a silver-grey merino skirt and jacket, with
a blouse of white pongee silk showing in front. Some lighter coloured
trimming fringed the cloth. She wore a grey toque, with a dash of white
at the side, and a white veil which softened without concealing the dark
brown curls and fresh girlish face beneath it. Her gloves were of grey
suède, and the two little pointed tan shoes peeping from the edge of her
skirt were the only touches of a darker tint in her attire. Crosse had
the hereditary artist’s eye, and he could only stand and stare and enjoy
it. He was filled with admiration, with reverence, and with wonder that
this perfect thing should really proclaim itself to be all his own.
Whatever had he done, or could he do, to deserve it?
She looked up at him in a roguish sidelong way, with the bright
mischievous smile which was one of her charms.
‘Well, sir, do you approve?’
‘By Jove, it is splendid—beautiful!’
‘So glad! I hoped you would, since you are so fond of greys. Besides,
it is cooler in this weather. I hope you have not been waiting.’
‘Oh no, that’s all right.’
‘You looked so solemn when first I saw you.’
‘Did I?’
‘And then you just jumped.’
‘Did I? I’m sorry.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I like our feelings to be our very very own, and never to
show them to any one else at all. I dare say it is absurd, but that is
my instinct.’
‘Never mind, dear, it wasn’t such a big jump as all that. Where are we
going?’
‘Come here, Maude, into the waiting-room.’
She followed him into the gloomy, smoky, dingy room. Bare yellow benches
framed an empty square of brown linoleum. A labouring man with his wife
and a child sat waiting with the stolid patience of the poor in one
corner. They were starting on some Saturday afternoon excursion, and had
mistimed their train. Maude Selby and Frank Crosse took the other
corner. He drew a jeweller’s box from his pocket and removed the lid.
Something sparkled among the wadding.
‘O Frank! Is that really it?’
‘Do you like it?’
‘What a broad one it is! Mother’s is quite thin.’
‘They wear thin in time.’
‘It is beautiful. Shall I try it on?’
‘No, don’t. There is some superstition about it.’
‘But suppose it won’t fit?’
‘That is quite safe. I measured it with your sapphire ring.’
‘I haven’t half scolded you enough about that sapphire ring. How could
you go and give twenty-two guineas for a ring?—oh yes, sir, that was the
price, for I saw a duplicate yesterday in the Goldsmith’s Company. You
dear extravagant old boy!’
‘I had saved the money.’
‘But not for that!’
‘For nothing half or quarter as important. But I had the other to the
same size, so it is sure to fit.’
Maude had pushed up her veil, and sat with the little golden circlet in
her hand, looking down at it, while the dim watery London sunlight poured
through the window, and tagged all her wandering curls with a coppery
gleam. It was a face beautiful in itself, but more beautiful for its
expression—sensitive, refined, womanly, full of innocent archness and
girlish mischief, but with a depth of expression in the eyes, and a
tender delicacy about the mouth, which spoke of a great spirit with all
its capacities for suffering and devotion within. The gross admirer of
merely physical charms might have passed her over unnoticed. So might
the man who is attracted only by outward and obvious signs of character.
But to the man who could see, to the man whose own soul had enough of
spirituality to respond to hers, and whose eye could appreciate the
subtlety of a beauty which is of the mind as well as of the body, there
was not in all wide London upon that midsummer day a sweeter girl than
Maude Selby, as she sat in her grey merino dress with the London sun
tagging her brown curls with that coppery glimmer.
She handed back the ring, and a graver expression passed over her mobile
face.
‘I feel as you said in your letter, Frank. There _is_ something tragic
in it. It will be with me for ever. All the future will arrange itself
round that little ring.’
‘Are you afraid of it?’
‘Afraid!’ her grey glove rested for an instant upon the back of his hand.
‘I _couldn’t_ be afraid of anything if you were with me. It is really
extraordinary, for by nature I am so easily frightened. But if I were
with you in a railway accident or anywhere, it would be just the same.
You see I become for the time part of you, as it were, and you are brave
enough for two.’
‘I don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I
have as many nerves as my neighbours.’
Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said
she.
‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and
miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to
be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I _know_ that I
am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and
no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’
She laughed with shining eyes.
‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so
beautiful about you.’
It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are
themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders.
‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he.
‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do?
I want you to choose.’
‘I am quite happy whatever we do. I am content to sit here with you
until evening.’
Her idea of a happy holiday set them both laughing.
‘Come along,’ said he, ‘we shall discuss it as we go.’
The workman’s family was still waiting, and Maude handed the child a
shilling as she went out. She was so happy herself that she wanted every
one else to be happy also. The people turned to look at her as she
passed. With the slight flush upon her cheeks and the light in her eyes,
she seemed the personification of youth, and life, and love. One tall
old gentleman started as he looked, and watched her with a rapt face
until she disappeared. Some cheek had flushed and some eye had
brightened at his words once, and sweet old days had for an instant lived
again.
‘Shall we have a cab?’
‘O Frank, we must learn to be economical. Let us walk.’
‘I can’t and won’t be economical to-day.’
‘There now! See what a bad influence I have upon you.’
‘Most demoralising! But we have not settled yet where we are to go to.’
‘What _does_ it matter, if we are together?’
‘There is a good match at the Oval, the Australians against Surrey.
Would you care to see that?’
‘Yes, dear, if you would.’
‘And there are matinées at all the theatres.’
‘You would rather be in the open air.’
‘All I want is that you should enjoy yourself.’
‘Never fear. I shall do that.’
‘Well, then, first of all I vote that we go and have some lunch.’
They started across the station yard, and passed the beautiful old stone
cross. Among the hansoms and the four-wheelers, the hurrying travellers,
and the lounging cabmen, there rose that lovely reconstruction of
mediævalism, the pious memorial of a great Plantagenet king to his
beloved wife.
‘Six hundred years ago,’ said Frank, as they paused and looked up, ‘that
old stone cross was completed, with heralds and armoured knights around
it to honour her whose memory was honoured by the king. Now the
corduroyed porters stand where the knights stood, and the engines whistle
where the heralds trumpeted, but the old cross is the same as ever in the
same old place. It is a little thing of that sort which makes one
realise the unbroken history of our country.’
Maude insisted upon hearing about Queen Eleanor, and Frank imparted the
little that he knew as they walked out into the crowded Strand.
‘She was Edward the First’s wife, and a splendid woman. It was she, you
remember, who sucked the wound when he was stabbed with a poisoned
dagger. She died somewhere in the north, and he had the body carried
south to bury it in Westminster Abbey. Wherever it rested for a night he
built a cross, and so you have a line of crosses all down England to show
where that sad journey was broken.’
They had turned down Whitehall, and passed the big cuirassiers upon their
black chargers at the gate of the Horse Guards. Frank pointed to one of
the windows of the old banqueting-hall.
‘You’ve seen a memorial of a queen of England,’ said he. ‘That window is
the memorial of a king.’
‘Why so, Frank?’
‘I believe that it was through that window that Charles the First passed
out to the scaffold when his head was cut off. It was the first time
that the people had ever shown that they claimed authority over their
king.’
‘Poor fellow!’ said Maude. ‘He was so handsome, and such a good husband
and father.’
‘It is the good kings who may be the dangerous ones.’
‘O Frank!’
‘If a king thinks only of pleasure, then he does not interfere with
matters of state. But if he is conscientious, he tries to do what he
imagines to be his duty, and so he causes trouble. Look at Charles, for
example. He was a very good man, and yet he caused a civil war. George
the Third was a most exemplary character, but his stupidity lost us
America, and nearly lost us Ireland. They were each succeeded by
thoroughly bad men, who did far less harm.’
They had reached the end of Whitehall, and the splendid panorama of
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament lay before them. The most
stately of ancient English buildings was contrasted with the most
beautiful of modern ones. How anything so graceful came to be built by
this tasteless and utilitarian nation must remain a marvel to the
traveller. The sun was shining upon the gold-work of the roof, and the
grand towers sprang up amid the light London haze, like some gorgeous
palace in a dream. It was a fit centre for the rule to whose mild sway
one-fifth of the human race acquiesces—a rule upheld by so small a force
that only the consent of the governed can sustain it.
Frank and Maude stood together looking up at it.
‘How beautiful it is!’ she cried. ‘How the gilding lights up the whole
building!’
‘And how absurd it is not to employ it more in our gloomy London
architecture!’ said Frank. ‘Imagine how grand a gilded dome of St.
Paul’s would look, hanging like a rising sun over the City. But here is
our restaurant, Maude, and Big Ben says that it is a quarter to two.
IN BRITAIN’S VALHALLA
THEY had discussed the rooms in their new house, and the bridesmaids’
dresses, and Maude’s cooking, and marriage-presents, and the merits of
Brighton, and the nature of love, and volleying at tennis (Maude was the
lady-champion of a tennis club), and season tickets, and the destiny of
the universe—to say nothing of a small bottle of Perrier Jouet. It was
reprehensibly extravagant, but this would be their last unmarried
excursion, and so they drank to the dear days of the past, and the dearer
ones of the future. Good comrades as well as lovers, they talked freely,
and with pleasure. Frank never made the common mistake of talking down,
and Maude justified his confidence by eagerly keeping up. To both of
them silence was preferable to conventional small talk.
‘We’ll just get down there after lunch,’ said Frank, as he paid his bill.
‘You have not seen the Australians, have you?’
‘Yes, dear, I saw them at Clifton four years ago.’
‘But this is a new lot. There are nine of the present team who have
never played in England before.’
‘They are very good, are they not?’
‘Very good indeed. And the dry summer has helped them. It is the sticky
English wickets which put them off. The wickets are very fast over
there. Giffen is their best all-round man, but Darling and Iredale and
young Hill are good enough for anything. Well, then—O Lord, what a
pity!’
He had turned towards the window as he rose, and saw one of those little
surprises by which Nature relieves the monotony of life in these islands.
The sun had gone, a ragged slate-coloured cloud was drifting up from over
the river, and the rain was falling with a soft persistency which is more
fatal than the most boisterous shower. There would be no more cricket
that day.
‘Two coffees and two benedictines,’ cried Frank, and they relapsed into
their chairs. But a half-hour passed and the grey cloud was thicker and
the rain more heavy. The cheerless leaden river flowed slowly under
drifting skies. Beyond an expanse of shining pavement the great black
Abbey towered amidst the storm.
‘Have you ever done the Abbey, Maude?’
‘No, Frank; I should love to.’
‘I have only been once—more shame to me to say so! Is it not a sin that
we young Englishmen should be familiar with every music-hall in London
and should know so little of this which is the centre of the British
race, the most august and tremendous monument that ever a nation owned.
Six hundred years ago the English looked upon it as their holiest and
most national shrine, and since then our kings and our warriors and our
thinkers and our poets have all been laid there, until there is such an
accumulation that the huge Abbey has hardly space for another monument.
Let us spend an hour inside it.’
They made for Solomon’s porch, since it was the nearest and they had but
the one umbrella. Under its shelter they brushed themselves dry before
they entered.
‘Whom does the Abbey belong to, Frank?’
‘To you and me!’
‘Now you are joking!’
‘Not at all. It belongs in the long-run to the British taxpayer. You
have heard the story of the Scotch visitor who came on board one of our
battleships and asked to see the captain. “Who shall I say?” said the
sentry. “One of the proprietors,” said the Scotchman. That’s _our_
position towards the Abbey. Let us inspect our property.’
They were smiling as they entered, but the smile faded from their lips as
the door closed behind them. In this holy of holies, this inner
sanctuary of the race, there was a sense of serene and dignified
solemnity which would have imposed itself upon the most thoughtless.
Frank and Maude stood in mute reverence. The high arches shot up in long
rows upon either side of them, straight and slim as beautiful trees,
until they curved off far up near the clerestory and joined their sister
curves to form the lightest, most delicate tracery of stone. In front of
them a great rose-window of stained glass, splendid with rich purples and
crimsons, shone through a subdued and reverent gloom. Here and there in
the aisles a few spectators moved among the shadows, but all round along
the walls two and three deep were ranged the illustrious dead, the
perishable body within, the lasting marble without, and the more lasting
name beneath. It was very silent in the home of the great dead—only a
distant footfall or a subdued murmur here and there. Maude knelt down
and sank her face in her hands. Frank prayed also with that prayer which
is a feeling rather than an utterance.
Then they began to move round the short transept in which they found
themselves—a part of the Abbey reserved for the great statesmen. Frank
tried to quote the passage in which Macaulay talks about the men worn out
by the stress and struggle of the neighbouring parliament-hall, and
coming hither for peace and rest. Here were the men who had been strong
enough to grasp the helm, and who, sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly,
but always honestly, had tried to keep the old ship before the wind.
Canning and Peel were there, with Pitt, Fox, Grattan and Beaconsfield.
Governments and oppositions moulder behind the walls. Beaconsfield alone
among all the statues showed the hard-lined face of the self-made man.
These others look so plump and smooth one can hardly realise how strong
they were, but they sprang from those ruling castes to whom strength came
by easy inheritance. Frank told Maude the little which he knew of each
of them—of Grattan, the noblest Irishman of them all, of Castlereagh,
whose coffin was pursued to the gates of the Abbey by a raging mob who
wished to tear out his corpse, of Fox the libertine philosopher, of
Palmerston the gallant sportsman, who rode long after he could walk.
They marvelled together at the realism of the sculptor who had pitted
Admiral Warren with the smallpox, and at the absurdity of that other one
who had clad Robert Peel in a Roman toga.
Then turning to the right at the end of the Statesmen’s Transept, they
wandered aimlessly down the huge nave. It was overwhelming, the grandeur
of the roof above and of the contents below. Any one of hundreds of
these tombs was worth a devout pilgrimage, but how could one raise his
soul to the appreciation of them all. Here was Darwin who revolutionised
zoology, and here was Isaac Newton who gave a new direction to astronomy.
Here were old Ben Jonson, and Stephenson the father of railways, and
Livingstone of Africa, and Wordsworth, and Kingsley, and Arnold. Here
were the soldiers of the mutiny—Clyde and Outram and Lawrence,—and
painters, and authors, and surgeons, and all the good sons who in their
several degrees had done loyal service to the old mother. And when their
service was done the old mother had stretched out that long arm of hers
and had brought them home, and always for every good son brought home she
had sent another forth, and her loins were ever fruitful, and her
children loving and true. Go into the Abbey and think, and as the
nation’s past is borne in upon you, you will have no fear for its future.
Frank was delighted with some of the monuments and horrified by others,
and he communicated both his joy and his anger to Maude. They noticed
together how the moderns and the Elizabethans had much in common in their
types of face, their way of wearing the hair, and their taste in
monuments, while between them lie the intolerable affectations—which
culminated towards the end of last century.
‘It all rings false—statue, inscription, everything,’ said Frank. ‘These
insufferable allegorical groups sprawling round a dead hero are of the
same class as the pompous and turgid prose of Doctor Johnson. The
greatest effects are the simplest effects, and so it always was and so it
always will be. But that little bit of Latin is effective, I confess.’
It was a very much defaced inscription underneath a battered Elizabethan
effigy, whose feet had been knocked off, and whose features were blurred
into nothing. Two words of the inscription had caught Frank’s eye.
‘_Moestissima uxor_! It was his “most sad wife” who erected it! Look at
it now! The poor battered monument of a woman’s love. Now, Maude, come
with me, and we shall visit the famous Poets’ Corner.’
What an assembly it would be if at some supreme day each man might stand
forth from the portals of his tomb. Tennyson, the last and almost the
greatest of that illustrious line, lay under the white slab upon the
floor. Maude and Frank stood reverently beside it.
‘“Sunset and evening Star
And one clear call for me.”’
Frank quoted. ‘What lines for a very old man to write! I should put him
second only to Shakespeare had I the marshalling of them.’
‘I have read so little,’ said Maude.
‘We will read it all together after next week. But it makes your reading
so much more real and intimate when you have stood at the grave of the
man who wrote. That’s Chaucer, the big tomb there. He is the father of
British poetry. Here is Browning beside Tennyson—united in life and in
death. He was the more profound thinker, but music and form are
essential also.’
‘What a splendid face!’ cried Maude.
‘It is a bust to Longfellow, the American.’ They read the inscription.
‘This bust was placed among the memorials of the poets of England by
English admirers of an American poet.’
‘I am so glad to have seen that. I know his poems so well,’ said Maude.
‘I believe he is more read than any poet in England.’
‘Who is that standing figure?’
‘It is Dryden. What a clever face, and what a modern type. Here is
Walter Scott beside the door. How kindly and humorous his expression
was! And see how high his head was from the ear to the crown. It was a
great brain. There is Burns, the other famous Scot. Don’t you think
there is a resemblance between the faces? And here are Dickens, and
Thackeray, and Macaulay. I wonder whether, when Macaulay was writing his
essays, he had a premonition that he would be buried in Westminster
Abbey. He is continually alluding to the Abbey and its graves. I always
think that we have a vague intuition as to what will occur to us in
life.’
‘We can guess what is probable.’
‘It amounts to more than that. I had an intuition that I should marry
you from the first day that I saw you, and yet it did not seem probable.
But deep down in my soul I knew that I should marry you.’
‘I knew that I should marry you, Frank, or else that I should never marry
at all.’
‘There now! We both had it. Well, that _is_ really wonderful!’
They stood among the memorials of all those great people, marvelling at
the mysteries of their own small lives. A voice at their elbows brought
them back to the present.
‘This way, if you please, for the kings,’ said the voice. ‘They are now
starting for the kings.’
‘They’ proved to be a curiously mixed little group of people who were
waiting at the entrance through the enclosure for the arrival of the
official guide. There were a tall red-bearded man with a very Scotch
accent and a small gentle wife, also an American father with his two
bright and enthusiastic daughters, a petty-officer of the navy in his
uniform, two young men whose attention was cruelly distracted from the
monuments by the American girls, and a dozen other travellers of various
sexes and ages. Just as Maude and Frank joined them the guide, a young
fresh-faced fellow, came striding up, and they passed through the opening
into the royal burying-ground.
‘This way, ladies and gentlemen,’ cried the hurrying guide, and they all
clattered over the stone pavement. He stopped beside a tomb upon which a
lady with a sad worn face was lying. ‘Mary, Queen of Scots,’ said he,
‘the greatest beauty of her day. This monument was erected by her son,
James the First.’
‘Isn’t she just perfectly sweet?’ said one of the American girls.
‘Well, I don’t know. I expected more of her than that,’ the other
answered.
‘I reckon,’ remarked the father, ‘that if any one went through as much as
that lady did, it would not tend to improve her beauty. Now what age
might the lady be, sir?’
‘Forty-four years of age at the time of her execution,’ said the guide.
‘Ah weel, she’s young for her years,’ muttered the Scotchman, and the
party moved on. Frank and Maude lingered to have a further look at the
unfortunate princess, the bright French butterfly, who wandered from the
light and warmth into that grim country, a land of blood and of psalms.
‘She was as hard as nails under all her gentle grace,’ said Frank. ‘She
rode eighty miles and hardly drew rein after the battle of Langside.’
‘She looks as if she were tired, poor dear!’ said Maude; ‘I don’t think
that she was sorry to be at rest.’
The guide was narrating the names of the owners of the tombs at the
further end of the chapel. ‘Queen Anne is here, and Mary the wife of
William the Third is beside her. And here is William himself. The king
was very short and the queen very tall, so in the sculptures the king is
depicted standing upon a stool so as to bring their heads level. In the
vaults beyond there are thirty-eight Stuarts.’
Thirty-eight Stuarts! Princes, bishops, generals, once the salt of the
earth, the mightiest of men, and now lumped carelessly together as
thirty-eight Stuarts. So Death the Republican and Time the Radical can
drag down the highest from his throne.
They had followed the guide into another small chapel, which bore the
name of Henry VII. upon the door. Surely they were great builders and
great designers in those days! Had stone been as pliable as wax it could
not have been twisted and curved into more exquisite spirals and curls,
so light, so delicate, so beautiful, twining and turning along the walls,
and drooping from the ceiling. Never did the hand of man construct
anything more elaborately ornate, nor the brain of man think out a design
more absolutely harmonious and lovely. In the centre, with all the pomp
of mediæval heraldry, starred and spangled with the Tudor badges, the two
bronze figures of Henry and his wife lay side by side upon their tomb.
The guide read out the quaint directions in the king’s will, by which
they were to be buried ‘with some respect to their Royal dignity, but
avoiding damnable pomp and outrageous superfluities!’ There was, as
Frank remarked, a fine touch of the hot Tudor blood in the adjectives.
One could guess where Henry the Eighth got his masterful temper. Yet it
was an ascetic and priest-like face which looked upwards from the tomb.
They passed the rifled tombs of Cromwell, Blake, and Ireton—the
despicable revenge of the men who did not dare to face them in the
field,—and they marked the grave of James the First, who erected no
monument to himself, and so justified in death the reputation for
philosophy which he had aimed at in his life. Then they inspected the
great tomb of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as surprising and as
magnificent as his history, cast a glance at the covering of plucky
little George the Second, the last English king to lead his own army into
battle, and so onwards to see the corner of the Innocents, where rest the
slender bones of the poor children murdered in the Tower.
But now the guide had collected his little flock around him again, with
the air of one who has something which is not to be missed. ‘You will
stand upon the step to see the profile,’ said he, as he indicated a
female figure upon a tomb. ‘It is the great Queen Elizabeth.’
It was a profile and a face worth seeing—the face of a queen who was
worthy of her Shakespeares upon the land and her Drakes upon the sea.
Had the Spanish king seen her, he would have understood that she was not
safe to attack—this grim old lady with the eagle nose and the iron lips.
You could understand her grip upon her cash-box, you could explain her
harshness to her lovers, you could realise the confidence of her people,
you could read it all in that wonderful face.
‘She’s splendid,’ said Frank.
‘She’s terrible,’ said Maude.
‘Did I understand you to say, sir,’ asked the American, ‘that it was this
lady who beheaded the other lady, Queen of Scotland, whom we saw ’way
back in the other compartment?’
‘Yes, sir, she did.’
‘Well, I guess if there was any beheading to be done, this was the lady
to see that it was put through with promptness and despatch. Not a
married lady, I gather?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And a fortunate thing for somebody. That woman’s husband would have a
mean time of it, sir, in my opinion.’
‘Hush, poppa,’ said the two daughters, and the procession moved on. They
were entering the inner chapel of all, the oldest and the holiest, in
which, amid the ancient Plantagenet kings, there lies that one old Saxon
monarch, confessor and saint, the holy Edward, round whose honoured body
the whole of this great shrine has gradually risen. A singular erection
once covered with mosaic work, but now bare and gaunt, stood in the
centre.
‘The body of Edward the Confessor is in a case up at the top,’ said the
guide. ‘This hollow place below was filled with precious relics, and the
pilgrims used to kneel in these niches, which are just large enough to
hold a man upon his knees. The mosaic work has been picked out by the
pilgrims.’
‘What is the date of the shrine?’ asked Frank.
‘About 1250, sir. The early kings were all buried as near to it as they
could get, for it was their belief in those days that the devil might
carry off the body, and so the nearer they got to the shrine the safer
they felt. Henry the Fifth, who won the battle of Agincourt, is there.
Those are the actual helmet, shield, and saddle which he used in the
battle upon the crossbeam yonder. That king with the grave face and the
beard is Edward the Third, the father of the Black Prince. The Black
Prince never lived to ascend the throne, but he was the father of the
unfortunate Richard the Second, who lies here—this clean-shaven king with
the sharp features. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will turn this
way, I will show you one of the most remarkable objects in the Abbey.’
The object in question proved to be nothing more singular than a square
block of stone placed under an old chair. And yet as the guide continued
to speak, they felt that he had justified his words.
‘This is the sacred stone of Scone upon which the kings of Scotland have
been crowned from time immemorial. When Edward the First overran
Scotland 600 years ago, he had it brought here, and since then every
monarch of England has also sat upon it when crowned.’
‘The present Queen?’ asked some one.
‘Yes, she also. The legend was that it was the stone upon which Jacob
rested his head when he dreamed, but the geologists have proved that it
is red sandstone of Scotland.’
‘Then I understand, sir, that this other throne is the Scottish throne,’
said the American gentleman.
‘No, sir, the Scottish throne and the English throne are the same throne.
But at the time of William and Mary it was necessary to crown her as well
as him, and so a second throne was needed. But that of course was
modern.’
‘Only a couple of hundred years ago. I wonder they let it in. But I
guess they might have taken better care of it. Some one has carved his
name upon it.’
‘A Westminster boy bet his schoolfellows that he would sleep among the
tombs, and to prove that he had done it, he carved his name upon the
throne.’
‘You don’t say!’ cried the American. ‘Well, I guess that boy ended
pretty high up.’
‘As high as the gallows, perhaps,’ said Frank, and every one tittered,
but the guide hurried on with a grave face, for the dignity of the Abbey
was in his keeping.
‘This tomb is that of Queen Eleanor,’ said he.
Frank twitched Maude by the sleeve. ‘Eleanor of Charing Cross,’ said he.
‘See how one little bit of knowledge links on with another.’
‘And here is the tomb of her husband, Edward the First. It was he who
brought the stone from Scone. At the time of his death the conquest of
Scotland was nearly done, and he gave orders that his burial should be
merely temporary until Scotland was thoroughly subdued. He is still, as
you perceive, in his temporary tomb.’
The big Scotchman laughed loudly and derisively. All the others looked
sadly at him with the pitying gaze which the English use towards the more
excitable races when their emotion gets the better of them. A stream
from a garden hose could not have damped him more.
‘They opened the grave last century,’ said the guide. ‘Inside was an
inscription, which said, “Here lies the hammer of the Scots.” He was a
fine man, six feet two inches from crown to sole.’
They wandered out of the old shrine where the great Plantagenet kings lie
like a bodyguard round the Saxon saint. Abbots lay on one side of them
as they passed, and dead crusaders with their legs crossed, upon the
other. And then, in an instant, they were back in comparatively modern
times again.
‘This is the tomb of Wolfe, who died upon the Heights of Abraham,’ said
the guide. ‘It was due to him and to his soldiers that all America
belongs to the English-speaking races. There is a picture of his
Highlanders going up to the battle along the winding path which leads
from Wolfe’s Cove. He died in the moment of victory.’
It was bewildering, the way in which they skipped from age to age. The
history of England appeared to be not merely continuous, but
simultaneous, as they turned in an instant from the Georgian to the
Elizabethan, the one monument as well preserved as the other. They
passed the stately de Vere, his armour all laid out in fragments upon a
marble slab, as a proof that he died at peace with all men; and they saw
the terrible statue of the onslaught of Death, which, viewed in the
moonlight, made a midnight robber drop his booty and fly panic-stricken
out of the Abbey. So awful and yet so fascinating is it, that the
shuffling feet of the party of sightseers had passed out of hearing
before Maude and Frank could force themselves away from it.
In the base of the statue is an iron door, which has been thrown open,
and the sculptor’s art has succeeded wonderfully in convincing you that
it has been thrown open violently. The two leaves of it seem still to
quiver with the shock, and one could imagine that one heard the harsh
clang of the metal. Out of the black opening had sprung a dreadful
thing, something muffled in a winding-sheet, one bony hand clutching the
edge of the pedestal, the other upraised to hurl a dart at the woman
above him. She, a young bride of twenty-seven, has fallen fainting,
while her husband, with horror in his face, is springing forward, his
hand outstretched, to get between his wife and her loathsome assailant.
‘I shall dream of this,’ said Maude. She had turned pale, as many a
woman has before this monument.
‘It is awful!’ Frank walked backwards, unable to take his eyes from it.
‘What pluck that sculptor had! It is an effect which must be either
ludicrous or great, and he has made it great.’
‘Roubillac is his name,’ said Maude, reading it from the pedestal.
‘A Frenchman, or a man of French descent. Isn’t that characteristic! In
the whole great Abbey the one monument which has impressed us with its
genius and imagination is by a foreigner. We haven’t got it in us. We
are too much afraid of letting ourselves go and of giving ourselves away.
We are heavy-handed and heavy-minded.’
‘If we can’t produce the monuments, we can produce the men who deserve
them,’ said Maude, and Frank wrote the aphorism down upon his shirt-cuff.
‘We are too severe both in sculpture and architecture,’ said he. ‘More
fancy and vigour in our sculptors, more use of gold and more ornament in
our architects—that is what we want. But I think it is past praying for.
It would be better to subdivide the work of the world, according to the
capacity of the different nations. Let Italy and France embellish us.
We might do something in exchange—organise the French colonies, perhaps,
or the Italian exchequer. That is our legitimate work, but we will never
do anything at the other.’
The guide had already reached the end of his round, an iron gate
corresponding to that by which they had entered, and they found him
waiting impatiently and swinging his keys. But Maude’s smile and word of
thanks as she passed him brought content into his face once more. A ray
of living sunshine is welcome to the man who spends his days among the
tombs.
They walked down the North Transept and out through Solomon’s Porch. The
rain-cloud had swept over, and the summer sun was shining upon the wet
streets, turning them all to gold. This might have been that fabled
London of which young Whittington dreamed. In front of them lay the
lawns of vivid green, with the sunlit raindrops gleaming upon the grass.
The air was full of the chirping of the sparrows. Across their vision,
from the end of Whitehall to Victoria Street, the black ribbon of traffic
whirled and circled, one of the great driving-belts of the huge city.
Over it all, to their right, towered those glorious Houses of Parliament,
the very sight of which made Frank repent his bitter words about English
architecture. They stood in the old porch gazing at the scene. It was
so wonderful to come back at one stride from the great country of the
past to the greater country of the present. Here was the very thing
which these dead men lived and died to build.
‘It’s not much past three,’ said Frank. ‘What a gloomy place to take you
to! Good heavens, we have one day together, and I take you to a
cemetery! Shall we go to a matinée to counteract it?’
But Maude laid her hand upon his arm.
‘I don’t think, Frank, that I was ever more impressed, or learned more in
so short a time, in my life. It was a grand hour—an hour never to be
forgotten. And you must not think that I am ever with you to be amused.
I am with you to accompany you in whatever seems to you to be highest and
best. Now before we leave the dear old Abbey, promise me that you will
always live your own highest and never come down to me.’
‘I can very safely promise that I will never come down to you,’ said
Frank. ‘I may climb all my life, and yet there are parts of your soul
which will be like snow-peaks in the clouds to me. But you will be now
and always my own dear comrade as well as my sweetest wife. And now,
Maude, what shall it be, the theatre or the Australians?’
‘Do you wish to go to either very much?’
‘Not unless you do.’
‘Well, then, I feel as if either would be a profanation. Let us walk
together down to the Embankment, and sit on one of the benches there, and
watch the river flowing in the sunshine, and talk and think of all that
we have seen.’
TWO SOLOS AND A DUET
THE night before the wedding, Frank Crosse and his best man, Rupton Hale,
dined at the Raleigh Club with Maude’s brother, Jack Selby, who was a
young lieutenant in a Hussar regiment. Jack was a horsy, slangy young
sportsman who cared nothing about Frank’s worldly prospects, but had
given the match his absolute approval from the moment that he realised
that his future brother had played for the Surrey Second. ‘What more can
you want?’ said he. ‘You won’t exactly be a Mrs. W. G., but you will be
on the edge of first-class cricket.’ And Maude, who rejoiced in his
approval, without quite understanding the grounds for it, kissed him, and
called him the best of brothers.
The marriage was to be at eleven o’clock at St. Monica’s Church, and the
Selbys were putting up at the Langham. Frank stayed at the Metropole,
and so did Rupton Hale. They were up early, their heads and nerves none
the better for Jack Selby’s hospitality of the night before.
Frank could eat no breakfast, and he shunned publicity in his
wedding-garments, so they remained in the upstairs sitting-room. He
stood by the window, drumming his fingers upon the pane, and looking down
into Northumberland Avenue. He had often pictured this day, and
associated it with sunshine and flowers and every emblem of joy. But
Nature had not risen to the occasion. A thick vapour, half smoke half
cloud, drifted along the street, and a thin persistent rain was falling
steadily. It pit-patted upon the windows, splashed upon the sills, and
gurgled in the water-pipes. Far down beneath him on the drab-coloured
slimy road stood the lines of wet cabs, looking like beetles with
glistening backs. Round black umbrellas hurried along the shining
pavements. A horse had fallen at the door of the Constitutional Club,
and an oil-skinned policeman was helping the cabman to raise it. Frank
watched it until the harness had been refastened, and it had vanished
into Trafalgar Square. Then he turned and examined himself in the
mirror. His trim black frock-coat and pearl grey trousers set off his
alert athletic figure to advantage. His glossy hat, too, his lavender
gloves, and dark-blue tie, were all absolutely irreproachable. And yet
he was not satisfied with himself. Maude ought to have something better
than that. What a fool he had been to take so much wine last night! On
this day of all days in their lives she surely had a right to find him at
his best. He was restless, and his nerves were all quivering. He would
have given anything for a cigarette, but he did not wish to scent himself
with tobacco. He had cut himself in shaving, and his nose was peeling
from a hot day on the cricket-field. What a silly thing to expose his
nose to the sun before his wedding! Perhaps when Maude saw it she
would—well, she could hardly break it off, but at least she might be
ashamed of him. He worked himself into a fever over that unfortunate
nose.
‘You are off colour, Crosse,’ said his best man.
‘I was just thinking that my nose was. It’s very kind of you to come and
stand by me.’
‘That’s all right. We shall see it through together.’
Hale was a despondent man, though the most loyal of friends, and he spoke
in a despondent way. His gloomy manner, the London drizzle, and the
nervousness proper to the occasion, were all combining to make Frank more
and more wretched. Fortunately Jack Selby burst like a gleam of sunshine
into the room. The sight of his fresh-coloured smiling face—or it may
have been some reminder of Maude which he found in it—brought consolation
to the bridegroom.
‘How are you, Crosse? How do, Hale? Excuse my country manners! The old
Christmas-tree in the hall wanted to send for you, but I knew your
number. You’re looking rather green about the gills, old chap.’
‘I feel a little chippy to-day.’
‘That’s the worst of these cheap champagnes. Late hours are bad for the
young. Have a whisky and soda with me. No? Hale, you must buck him up,
for they’ll all be down on you if you don’t bring your man up to time in
the pink of condition. We certainly did ourselves up to the top hole
last night. Couldn’t face your breakfast, eh? Neither could I. A
strawberry and a bucket of soda-water.’
‘How are they all at the Langham?’ asked Frank eagerly.
‘Oh, splendid! At least I haven’t seen Maude. She’s been getting into
parade order. But mother is full of beans. We had to take her up one
link in the curb, or there would have been no holding her.’
Frank’s eyes kept turning to the slow-moving minute-hand. It was not ten
o’clock yet.
‘Don’t you think that I might go round to the Langham and see them?’
‘Good Lord, no! Clean against regulations. Stand by his head, Hale!
Wo, boy, steady!’
‘It won’t do, Crosse, it really won’t!’ said Hale solemnly.
‘What rot it is! Here am I doing nothing, and I might be of some use or
encouragement to her. Let’s get a cab!’
‘Wo, laddie, wo then, boy! Keep him in hand, Hale! Get to his head.’
Frank flung himself down into an armchair, and muttered about absurd
conventions.
‘It can’t be helped, my boy. It is correct.’
‘Buck up, Crosse, buck up! We’ll make the thing go with a buzz when we
do begin. Two of our Johnnies are coming, regular fizzers, and full of
blood both of them. We’ll paint the Langham a fine bright solferino,
when the church parade is over.’
Frank sat rather sulkily watching the slow minute-hand, and listening to
the light-hearted chatter of the boy-lieutenant, and the more deliberate
answers of his best man. At last he jumped up and seized his hat and
gloves.
‘Half-past,’ said he. ‘Come on. I can’t wait any longer. I must do
_something_. It is time we went to the church.’
‘Fall in for the church!’ cried Jack. ‘Wait a bit! I know this game,
for I was best man myself last month. Inspect his kit, Hale. See that
he’s according to regulations. Ring? All right. Parson’s money? Right
oh! Small change? Good! By the right, quick march!’
Frank soon recovered his spirits now that he had something to do. Even
that drive through the streaming streets, with the rain pattering upon
the top of their four-wheeler, could not depress him any longer. He rose
to the level of Jack Selby, and they chattered gaily together.
‘Ain’t we bringing him up fighting fit?’ cried Jack exultingly. ‘Shows
that all the care we have taken of him in the last twenty-four hours has
not been wasted. That’s the sort I like—game as a pebble! You can’t buy
’em, you have to breed ’em. A regular fizzer _he_ is, and full of blood.
And here we are on the ground.’
It was a low, old-fashioned, grey church, with a Gothic entrance and two
niches on either side, which spoke of pre-Lutheran days. Cheap modern
shops, which banked it in, showed up the quaint dignity of the ancient
front. The side-door was open, and they passed into its dim-lit
interior, with high carved pews, and rich, old, stained glass. Huge
black oak beams curved over their heads, and dim inscriptions of mediæval
Latin curled and writhed upon the walls. A single step seemed to have
taken them from the atmosphere of the nineteenth to that of the fifteenth
century.
‘What a ripping old church!’ Jack whispered.
‘You can’t buy ’em. But it’s as festive as an ice-house. There’s a
friendly native coming down the aisle. He’s your man, Hale, if you want
the news.’
The verger was not in the best of tempers. ‘It’s at a quarter to four,’
said he, as Hale met him.
‘No, no, at eleven.’
‘Quarter to four, I tell you. The vicar says so.’
‘Why, it’s not possible.’
‘We have them at all hours.’
‘Have what?’
‘Buryin’s.’
‘But this is a marriage.’
‘I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir. I thought when I looked at you as you
was the party about the child’s funeral.’
‘Good heavens, no.’
‘It was something in your expression, sir, but now that I can see the
colour of your clothes, why of course I know better. There’s three
marriages—which was it?’
‘Crosse and Selby are the names.’
The verger consulted an old crumpled notebook.
‘Yes, sir, I have it here. Mr. or Miss Crosse to Mr. or Miss Selby.
Eleven o’clock, sir, _sharp_. The vicar’s a terrible punctual man, and I
should advise you to take your places.’
‘Any hitch?’ asked Frank nervously, as Hale returned.
‘No, no.’
‘What was he talking about?’
‘Oh, nothing. Some little confusion of ideas.’
‘Shall we go up?’
‘Yes, I think that we had better.’
Their steps clattered and reverberated through the empty church as they
passed up the aisle. They stood in an aimless way before the altar
rails. Frank fidgeted about, and made sure that the ring was in his
ticket-pocket. He also took a five-pound note and placed it where he
knew he could lay his hands upon it easily. Then he sprang round with a
flush upon his cheeks, for one of the side-doors had been flung open with
a great bustle and clanging. A stout charwoman entered with a tin pail
and a mop.
‘Put up the wrong bird that time,’ whispered Jack, and sniggered at
Frank’s change of expression.
But almost at the same instant, the Selbys entered the church at the
further end. Mr. Selby, with his red face and fluffy side-whiskers, had
Maude upon his arm. She looked very pale and very sweet, with downcast
eyes and solemn mouth, while behind her walked her younger sister Mary
and her pretty friend Nelly Sheridan, both in pink dresses with broad
pink hats and white curling feathers. The bride was herself in the grey
travelling-dress with which Frank was already familiar by its description
in her letter. Its gentle tint and her tenderly grave expression made a
charming effect. Behind them was the mother, still young and elegant,
with something of Maude’s grace in her figure and carriage. As the party
came up the aisle, Frank was to be restrained no longer. ‘Get to his
head!’ cried Jack to Hale in an excited whisper, but their man was
already hurrying to shake hands with Maude. He walked up on her right,
and they took their position in two little groups, the happy couple in
the centre. At the same moment the clang of the church-clock sounded
above them, and the vicar, shrugging his shoulders to get his white
surplice into position, came bustling out of the vestry. To him it was
all the most usual, commonplace, and unimportant thing in the world, and
both Frank and Maude were filled with amazement at the nonchalant way in
which he whipped out a prayer-book, and began to rapidly perform the
ceremony. It was all so new and solemn and all-important to them, that
they had expected something mystic and overpowering in the function, and
yet here was this brisk little man, with an obvious cold in his head,
tying them up in as business-like a fashion as a grocer uniting two
parcels. After all, he had to do it a thousand times a year, and so he
could not be extravagant in his emotions.
The singular service was read out to them, the exhortations, and the
explanations, sometimes stately, sometimes beautiful, sometimes odious.
Then the little vicar turned upon Frank—‘_Wilt thou have this woman to
thy wedded wife_, _to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy
estate of matrimony_? _Wilt thou love her_, _comfort her_, _honour her_,
_in sickness and in health_, _and forsaking all other_, _keep thee only
unto her as long as ye both shall live_?’
‘_I will_,’ cried Frank, with conviction.
‘_And wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband_, _to live together
after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony_? _Wilt thou obey
him_, _and serve him_, _love_, _honour_, _and keep him_, _in sickness and
in health_, _and forsaking all other_, _keep thee only unto him so long
as ye both shall live_?’
‘_I will_,’ said Maude, from her heart.
‘_Who giveth this woman to be married to this man_?’
‘_I do_. Mr. John Selby—her father, you know.’
And then in turn they repeated the fateful words—‘_I take thee to have
and to hold from this day forward_, _for better_, _for worse_, _for
richer_, _for poorer_, _in sickness and in health_, _to love_, _cherish_,
_and obey_, _till death us do part_, _according to God’s holy ordinance_,
_and thereto I give thee my troth_.’
‘Ring! Ring!’ said Hale.
‘Ring, you Juggins!’ whispered Jack Selby.
Frank thrust his hands frantically into all his pockets. The ring was in
the last one which he attempted. But the bank-note was not to be found.
He remembered that he had put it in some safe place. Where could it have
been? Was it in his boot, or in the lining of his hat? No, surely he
could not have done anything so infatuated. Again he took his pockets
two at a time, while a dreadful pause came in the ceremony.
‘Vestry—afterwards,’ whispered the clergyman.
‘Here you are!’ gasped Frank. He had come upon it in a last desperate
dive into his watch-pocket, in which he never by any chance kept
anything. Of course it was for that very reason, that it might be alone
and accessible, that he had placed it there. Ring and note were handed
to the vicar, who deftly concealed the one and returned the other. Then
Maude’s little white hand was outstretched, and over the third finger
Frank slipped the circlet of gold.
‘_With this ring I thee wed_,’ said Frank, ‘_and with my body I thee
worship_ (he paused, and made a mental emendation of ‘with my soul
also’), _and with all my worldly goods I thee endow_.’
There was a prayer, and then the vicar joined the two hands, the muscular
sunburned one and the dainty white one, with the new ring gleaming upon
it.
‘_Those whom God hath joined together_, _let no man put asunder_,’ said
he. ‘_Forasmuch as Francis Crosse and Maude Selby have consented
together in holy wedlock_, _and have witnessed the same before God and
this company_, _and thereto have given and pledged their troth_, _either
to other_, _and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a
ring_, _and by joining of hands; I pronounce that they be man and wife
together_.’
There now, it was done! They were one, never more to part until the
coffin-lid closed over one or the other. They were kneeling together
now, and the vicar was rapidly repeating some psalms and prayers. But
Frank’s mind was not with the ritual. He looked slantwise at the
graceful, girlish figure by his side. Her hair hung beautifully over her
white neck, and the reverent droop of her head was lovely to his eyes.
So gentle, so humble, so good, so beautiful, and all his, his sworn
life-companion for ever! A gush of tenderness flowed through his heart
for her. His love had always been passionate, but, for the instant, it
was heroic, tremendous in its unselfishness. Might he bring her
happiness, the highest which woman could wish for! God grant that he
might do so! But if he were to make her unhappy, or to take anything
from her beauty and her goodness, then he prayed that he might die now,
at this supreme moment, kneeling at her side before the altar rails. So
intense was his prayer that he looked up expectantly at the altar, as if
in the presence of an imminent catastrophe. But every one had risen to
their feet, and the service was at an end. The vicar led the way, and
they all followed him, into the vestry. There was a general murmur all
round them of congratulation and approval.
‘Heartiest congratulations, Crosse!’ said Hale.
‘Bravo, Maude, you looked ripping!’ cried Jack, kissing his sister. ‘By
Jove, it simply went with a buzz from the word “go.”’
‘You sign it here and here,’ said the vicar, ‘and the witnesses here and
here. Thank you very much. I am sure that I wish you every happiness.
I need not detain you by any further formality.’
And so, with a curious dream-like feeling, Frank Crosse and Maude found
themselves walking down the aisle, he very proud and erect, she very
gentle and shy, while the organ thundered the wedding-march. Carriages
were waiting: he handed in his wife, stepped in after her, and they drove
off, amidst a murmur of sympathy from a little knot of idlers who had
gathered in the porch, partly from curiosity, and partly to escape the
rain.
Maude had often driven alone with Frank before, but now she felt suddenly
constrained and shy. The marriage-service, with all its half-understood
allusions and exhortations, had depressed and frightened her. She hardly
dared to glance at her husband. But he soon led her out of her graver
humour.
‘Name, please?’ said he.
‘O Frank!’
‘Name, if _you_ please?’
‘Why, you know.’
‘Say it.’
‘Maude.’
‘That all?’
‘Maude Crosse—O Frank!’
‘You blessing! How grand it sounds! O Maude, what a jolly old world it
is! Isn’t it pretty to see the rain falling? And aren’t the shining
pavements lovely? And isn’t everything splendid, and am I not the
luckiest—the most incredibly lucky of men. Dear girlie, give me your
hand! I can feel _it_ under the glove. Now, sweetheart, you are not
frightened, are you?’
‘Not now.’
‘You were?’
‘Yes, I was a little. O Frank, you won’t tire of me, will you? I should
break my heart if you did.’
‘Tire of you! Good heavens! Now you’ll never guess what I was doing
while the parson was telling us about what Saint Paul said to the
Colossians, and all the rest of it.’
‘I know perfectly well what you were doing. And you shouldn’t have done
it.’
‘What was I doing, then?’
‘You were staring at me.’
‘Oh, you saw that, did you?’
‘I felt it.’
‘Well, I was. But I was praying also.’
‘Were you, Frank?’
‘When I saw you kneeling there, so sweet and pure and good, I seemed to
realise how you had been given into my keeping for life, and I prayed
with all my heart that if I should ever injure you in thought, or word,
or deed, I might drop dead now before I had time to do it.’
‘O Frank, what a dreadful prayer!’
‘But I felt it and I wished it, and I could not help it. My own darling,
there you are just a living angel, the gentlest, most sensitive, and
beautiful living creature that walks the earth, and please God I shall
keep you so, and ever higher and higher if such a thing is possible, and
if ever I say a word or do a deed that seems to lower you, then remind me
of this moment, and send me back to try to live up to our highest ideal
again. And I for my part will try to improve myself and to live up to
you, and to bridge more and more the gap that is between us, that I may
feel myself not altogether unworthy of our love. And so we shall act and
re-act upon each other, ever growing better and wiser, and dating what is
best and brightest in our minds and souls from the day that we were
married. And that’s _my_ idea of a marriage-service, and here endeth the
first lesson, and the windows are blurred with rain, and hang the
coachman, and it’s hard lines if a man may not kiss his own wife—you
blessing!’
A broad-brimmed hat with a curling feather is not a good shape for
driving with an ardent young bridegroom in a discreetly rain-blurred
carriage. Frank demonstrated the fact, and it took them all the way to
the Langham to get those pins driven home again. And then after an
abnormal meal, which was either a very late breakfast or a very early
lunch, they drove on to Victoria Station, from which they were to start
for Brighton. Jack Selby and the two regimental fizzers, who had secured
immortality for the young couple, if the deep and constant drinking of
healths could have done it, had provided themselves with packages of
rice, old slippers, and other time-honoured missiles. On a hint from
Maude, however, that she would prefer a quiet departure, Frank coaxed the
three back into the luncheon-room with a perfectly guileless face, and
then locking the door on the outside, handed the key and a half-sovereign
to the head-waiter, with instructions to release the prisoners when the
carriage had gone—an incident which in itself would cause the judicious
observer to think that, given the opportunity, Mister Frank Crosse had it
in him to go pretty far in life. And so, quietly and soberly, they
rolled away upon their first journey—the journey which was the opening of
that life’s journey, the goal of which no man may see.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
IT was in the roomy dining-room of the Hotel Metropole at Brighton.
Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near the
window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a
snowy-white tablecloth with a shining centre dish of foppish little
cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank of
mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it seemed,
there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its soothing mass
of colour broken only by a few white leaning sails upon the furthest
horizon. Along the sky-line the white clouds lay in carelessly piled
cumuli, like snow thrown up from a clearing. It was restful and
beautiful, that distant view, but just at the moment it was the near one
which interested them most. Though they lose from this moment onwards
the sympathy of every sentimental reader, the truth must be told that
they were thoroughly enjoying their lunch.
With the wonderful adaptability of women—a hereditary faculty, which
depends upon the fact that from the beginning of time the sex has been
continually employed in making the best of situations which were not of
their own choosing—Maude carried off her new character easily and
gracefully. In her trim blue serge dress and sailor hat, with the warm
tint of yesterday’s sun upon her cheeks, she was the very picture of
happy and healthy womanhood. Frank was also in a blue serge
boating-suit, which was appropriate enough, for they spent most of their
time upon the water, as a glance at his hands would tell. Their
conversation was unhappily upon a very much lower plane than when we
overheard them last.
‘I’ve got such an appetite!’
‘So have I, Frank.’
‘Capital. Have another cutlet.’
‘Thank you, dear.’
‘Potatoes?’
‘Please.’
‘I always thought that people on their honeymoon lived on love.’
‘Yes, isn’t it dreadful, Frank? We must be so material.’
‘Good old mother Nature! Cling on to her skirt and you never lose your
way. One wants a healthy physical basis for a healthy spiritual emotion.
Might I trouble you for the pickles?’
‘Are you happy, Frank?’
‘Absolutely and completely.’
‘Quite, _quite_ sure?’
‘I never was quite so sure of anything.’
‘It makes me so happy to hear you say so.’
‘And you?’
‘O Frank, I am just floating upon golden clouds in a dream. But your
poor hands! Oh, how they must pain you!’
‘Not a bit.’
‘It was that heavy oar.’
‘I get no practice at rowing. There is no place to row in at Woking,
unless one used the canal. But it was worth a blister or two. By Jove,
wasn’t it splendid, coming back in the moonlight with that silver lane
flickering on the water in front of us? We were so completely alone. We
might have been up in the interstellar spaces, you and I, travelling from
Sirius to Arcturus in one of those profound gulfs of the void which Hardy
talks about. It was overpowering.’
‘I can never forget it.’
‘We’ll go again to-night.’
‘But the blisters!’
‘Hang the blisters! And we’ll take some bait with us and try to catch
something.’
‘What fun!’
‘And we’ll drive to Rottingdean this afternoon, if you feel inclined.
Have this last cutlet, dear!’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Well, it seems a pity to waste it. Here goes! By the way, Maude, I
must speak very severely to you. I can’t if you look at me like that.
But really, joking apart, you must be more careful before the waiters.’
‘Why, dear?’
‘Well, we have carried it off splendidly so far. No one has found us out
yet, and no one will if we are reasonably careful. The fat waiter is
convinced that we are veterans. But last night at dinner you very nearly
gave the thing away.’
‘Did I, Frank?’
‘Don’t look so sweetly penitent, you blessing. The fact is that you make
a shocking bad conspirator. Now I have a kind of talent for that, as I
have for every other sort of depravity, so it will be pretty safe in my
hands. You are as straight as a line by nature, and you can’t be crooked
when you try.’
‘But what did I say? Oh, I _am_ so sorry! I tried to be so careful.’
‘Well, about the curry, you know. It was an error of judgment to ask if
I took chutnee. And then . . . ’
‘Something else?’
‘About the boots. Did I get them in London or Woking.’
‘Oh dear, dear!’
‘And then . . . ’
‘Not another! O Frank!’
‘Well, the use of the word “my.” You must give that word up. It should
be “our.”’
‘I know, I know. It was when I said that the salt water had taken the
curl out of the feather in my—no, in our—well, in _the_ hat.’
‘That was all right. But it is _our_ luggage, you know, and _our_ room,
and so on.’
‘Of course it is. How foolish I am! Then the waiter knows! O Frank,
what shall we do?’
‘Not he. He knows nothing. I am sure of it. He is a dull sort of
person. I had my eye on him all the time. Besides, I threw in a few
remarks just to set the thing right.’
‘That was when you spoke about our travels in the Tyrol?’
‘Yes.’
‘O Frank, how _could_ you? And you said how lonely it was when we were
the only visitors at the Swiss hotel.’
‘That was an inspiration. That finished him.’
‘And about the closeness of the Atlantic staterooms. I blushed to hear
you.’
‘But he listened eagerly to it all. I could see it.’
‘I wonder if he really believed it. I have noticed that the maids and
the waiters seem to look at us with a certain interest.’
‘My dear girlie, you will find as you go through life that every man will
always look at you with a certain interest.’
Maude smiled, but was unconvinced.
‘Cheese, dear?’
‘A little butter, please.’
‘Some butter, waiter, and the Stilton. You know the real fact is, that
we make the mistake of being much too nice to each other in public.
Veterans don’t do that. They take the small courtesies for granted—which
is all wrong, but it shows that they _are_ veterans. That is where we
give ourselves away.’
‘That never occurred to me.’
‘If you want to settle that waiter for ever, and remove the last
lingering doubt from his mind, the thing is for you to be rude to me.’
‘Or you to me, Frank.’
‘Sure you won’t mind?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Oh, hang it, I can’t—not even for so good an object.’
‘Well, then, I can’t either.’
‘But this is absurd. It is only acting.’
‘Quite so. It is only fun.’
‘Then why won’t you do it?’
‘Why won’t you?’
‘He’ll be back before we settle it. Look here! I’ve a shilling under my
hand. Heads or tails, and the loser has to be rude. Do you agree?’
‘Very well.’
‘Your call.’
‘Heads.’
‘It’s tails.’
‘Oh goodness!’
‘You’ve got to be rude. Now mind you are. Here he comes.’
The waiter had come up the room bearing the pride of the hotel, the grand
green Stilton with the beautiful autumn leaf heart shading away to rich
plum-coloured cavities. He placed it on the table with a solemn air.
‘It’s a beautiful Stilton,’ Frank remarked.
Maude tried desperately to be rude.
‘Well, dear, I don’t think it is so very beautiful,’ was the best that
she could do.
It was not much, but it had a surprising effect upon the waiter. He
turned and hurried away.
‘There now, you’ve shocked him?’ cried Frank.
‘Where _has_ he gone, Frank?’
‘To complain to the management about your language.’
‘No, Frank. Please tell me! Oh, I wish I hadn’t been so rude. Here he
is again.’
‘All right. Sit tight,’ said Frank.
A sort of procession was streaming up the hall. There was their fat
waiter in front with a large covered cheese-dish. Behind him was another
with two smaller ones, and a third with some yellow powder upon a plate
was bringing up the rear.
‘This is Gorgonzola, main,’ said the waiter, with a severe manner. ‘And
there’s Camembert and Gruyère behind, and powdered Parmesan as well. I’m
sorry that the Stilton don’t give satisfaction.’
Maude helped herself to Gorgonzola and looked very guilty and
uncomfortable. Frank began to laugh.
‘I meant you to be rude to _me_, not to the cheese,’ said he, when the
procession had withdrawn.
‘I did my best, Frank. I contradicted you.’
‘Oh, it was a shocking display of temper.’
‘And I hurt the poor waiter’s feelings.’
‘Yes, you’ll have to apologise to his Stilton before he will forgive
you.’
‘And I don’t believe he is a bit more convinced that we are veterans than
he was before.’
‘All right, dear; leave him to me. Those reminiscences of mine must have
settled him. If they didn’t, then I feel it is hopeless.’
* * * * *
It was as well for his peace of mind that Frank could not hear the
conversation between the fat waiter and their chambermaid, for whom he
nourished a plethoric attachment. They had half an hour off in the
afternoon, and were comparing notes.
‘Nice-lookin’ couple, ain’t they, John?’ said the maid, with the air of
an expert. ‘I don’t know as we’ve ‘ad a better since the spring
weddin’s.’
‘I don’t know as I’d go as far as that,’ said the fat waiter critically.
‘’E’d pass all right. ’E’s an upstandin’ young man with a good sperrit
in ’im.’
‘What’s wrong with ’er, then?’
‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ said the waiter. ‘I likes ’em a bit more
full-flavoured myself. And as to ’er taste, why there, if you ’ad seen
’er turn up ’er nose at the Stilton at lunch.’
‘Turn up ’er nose, did she? Well, she seemed to me a very soft-spoken,
obligin’ young lady.’
‘So she may be, but they’re a queer couple, I tell you. It’s as well
they are married at last.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they ’ave been goin’ on most owdacious before’and. I ’ave it
from their own lips, and it fairly made me blush to listen to it. Awful,
it was, _awful_!’
‘You don’t say that, John!’
‘I tell you, Jane, I couldn’t ’ardly believe my ears. They was married
on Tuesday last, as we know well, and to-day’s _Times_ to prove it, and
yet if you’ll believe me, they was talkin’ about ’ow they ’ad travelled
alone abroad—’
‘Never, John!’
‘And alone in a Swiss ’otel!’
‘My goodness!’
‘And a steamer too.’
‘Well, there! I’ll never trust any one again.’
‘Oh, a perfec’ pair of scorchers. But I’ll let ’im see as I knows it.
I’ll put that _Times_ before ’im to-night at dinner as sure as my name’s
John.’
‘And a good lesson to them, too! If you didn’t say you’d ’eard it from
their own lips, John, I never could ’ave believed it. It’s things like
that as shakes your trust in ’uman nature.’
Maude and Frank were lingering at the _table d’hôte_ over their walnuts
and a glass of port wine, when their waiter came softly behind them.
‘Beg pardon, sir, but did you see it in the _Times_?’
‘See what?’
‘_That_, sir. I thought that it might be of interest to you and to your
good lady to see it.’
He had laid one page of the paper before them, with his forefinger upon
an item in the left-hand top corner. Then he discreetly withdrew. Frank
stared at it in horror.
‘Maude, your people have gone and put it in.’
‘Our marriage!’
‘Here it is! Listen! “Crosse—Selby. 30th June, at St. Monica’s Church,
by the Rev. John Tudwell, M.A., Vicar of St. Monica’s, Frank Crosse, of
Maybury Road, Woking, to Maude Selby, eldest daughter of Robert Selby,
Esq., of St. Albans.” Great Scot, Maude! what shall we do?’
‘Well, dear, does it matter?’
‘Matter! It’s simply awful!’
‘I don’t mind much if they do know.’
‘But my reminiscences, Maude! The travels in the Tyrol! The Swiss
Hotel! The Stateroom! Great goodness, how I have put my foot into it.’
Maude burst out laughing.
‘You old dear!’ she cried, ‘I don’t believe you are a bit better as a
conspirator than I am. There’s only one thing you can do. Give the
waiter half a crown, tell him the truth, and don’t conspire any more.’
And so ignominiously ended the attempt which so many have made, and at
which so many have failed. Take warning, gentle reader, and you also,
gentler reader still, when your own turn comes.
THE HOME-COMING
THE days of holiday were over, and for each of them the duties of life
were waiting. For him it was his work, and for her, her housekeeping.
They both welcomed the change, for there was a rush and a want of privacy
about the hotel life which had been amusing at first, but was now
becoming irksome. It was pleasant, as they rolled out of Waterloo
Station that summer night, to know that their cosy little home was
awaiting them just five-and-twenty miles down the line. They had a
first-class carriage to themselves—it is astonishing how easy it is for
two people to fit into one of those armchair partitions,—and they talked
all the way down about their plans for the future. Golden visions of
youth, how they can glorify even a suburban villa and four hundred a
year! They exulted together over the endless vista of happy days which
stretched before them.
Mrs. Watson, Frank’s trusty housekeeper, had been left in charge of The
Lindens, and he had sent her a telegram the evening before to tell her
that they were coming. She had already engaged the two servants, so
everything would be ready for them. They pictured her waiting at the
door, the neat little rooms with all their useful marriage-presents in
their proper places, the lamplight and the snowy cloth laid for supper in
the dining-room. It would be ten o’clock before they got there, and that
supper would be a welcome sight. It was all delightful to look forward
to, and this last journey was the happiest of all their wanderings.
Maude wanted to see her kitchen. Frank wanted to see his books. Both
were eager for the fight.
But they found a small annoyance waiting for them at Woking. A crowded
train had preceded them, and there was not a single cab left at the
station. Some would be back soon, but nobody could tell when.
‘You don’t mind walking, Maude?’
‘I should prefer it.’
So a friendly porter took charge of their trunks, and promised to send
them up when a conveyance had arrived. In the meantime they started off
together down an ill-lit and ill-kept road, which opened into that more
important thoroughfare in which their own villa was situated. They
walked quickly, full of eager anticipations.
‘It’s just past the third lamp-post on the right,’ said Frank. ‘Now it’s
only the second lamp-post. You see it will not be far from the station.
Those windows among the trees are where Hale lives—my best man, you know!
Now it is only one lamp-post!’ They quickened their pace almost to a
run, and so arrived at the gate of The Lindens.
It was a white gate leading into a short path—‘carriage sweep’ the
house-agent called it,—and so to a low but comfortable-looking little
house. The night was so dark that one could only see its outline. To
their surprise, there was no sign of a light either above the door or at
any of the windows.
‘Well, I’m blessed!’ cried Frank.
‘Never mind, dear. They live at the back, no doubt.’
‘But I gave them the hour. This is too bad. I am so sorry.’
‘It will be all the more cosy inside. What a dear little gate this is!
The whole place is perfectly charming.’
But in spite of her brave attempts at making the best of it, it could not
be denied that this black house was not what they had pictured in their
dreams. Frank strode angrily up the path and pulled at the bell. There
was no answer, so he knocked violently. Then he knocked with one hand
while he rang with the other, but no sound save that of the clanging bell
came from the gloomy house. As they stood forlornly in front of their
own hall-door, a soft rain began to rustle amidst the bushes. At this
climax of their troubles Maude burst into such a quiet, hearty,
irresistible fit of laughter, that the angry Frank was forced to laugh
also.
‘My word, it will be no laughing matter for Mrs. Watson if she cannot
give a good reason for it,’ said he.
‘Perhaps the poor woman is ill.’
‘But there should be two other people, the cook and the housemaid. It is
just as well that we did not bring up our trunks, or we should have had
to dump them down in the front garden. You wait here, dear, under the
shelter of the porch, and I will walk round and see if I can burgle it.’
He tried the back, but it was as dark as the front, and the kitchen-door
was locked. Then he prowled unhappily in the rain from window to window.
They were all fastened. He came back to the kitchen-door, poked his
stick through the glass which formed the upper panel, and then putting
his hand through the hole, he turned the key, and so stumbled into the
obscurity of his own hall. He passed through it, unlocked the front
door, and received Maude into his open arms.
‘Welcome to your home, my own darling girl. May you never have one sad
hour under this roof! What a dismal home-coming! What can I do to make
amends? But good comes out of evil, you see, for in no other possible
way could I have been inside to welcome you when you entered.’
They stayed in the hall in the dark some time, these wet and foolish
young people. Then Frank struck a match, and tried to light the
hall-lamp. There was no oil in it. He muttered something vigorous, and
carried his burning vesta into the dining-room. Two candles were
standing on the sideboard. He lit them both, and things began to look a
little more cheerful. They took a candle each and began to explore their
own deserted house.
The dining-room was excellent—small, but very snug. The Tantalus
spirit-stand—stood upon the walnut sideboard, and the bronzes from the
cricket-club looked splendid upon each side of the mantelpiece. Beside
the clock in the centre lay an open telegram. Frank seized it eagerly.
‘There now!’ he cried. ‘Listen to this. “Expect us on Thursday evening
about ten.” It was _Tuesday_ evening, I said. That’s the telegraphic
clerk. We’ve come two days before our time.’
It was good to have any sort of explanation, although it left a great
deal unexplained. They passed through the hall with its shining
linoleum, and into the drawing-room. It was not a very good room, too
square for elegance, but they were in no humour for criticism, and it was
charming to see all the old knick-knacks, and the photographs of friends
in their frames. A big wrought-iron and brass-work standing lamp towered
up near the fireplace, but again there was no oil.
‘I think that Mrs. Watson has arranged it all splendidly,’ said Maude,
whose active fingers were already beginning to reconstruct. ‘But where
can she be?’
‘She must be out, for, of course, she lives in the house. But it is the
absence of the servants which amazes me, for I understood that they had
arrived. What would you like to do?’
‘Aren’t you hungry, Frank?’
‘Simply starving.’
‘So am I.’
‘Well, then, let us forage and see if we cannot find something to eat.’
So hand in hand, and each with a candle in the other hand, like a pair of
young penitents, they continued their explorations with more purpose than
before. The kitchen, into which they penetrated, had clearly been much
used of late, for there were dirty dishes scattered about, and the fire
had been lighted, though it was now out. In one corner was what seemed
to be a pile of drab-coloured curtains. In the other, an armchair lay
upon its side with legs projecting. A singular disorder, very alien to
Mrs. Watson’s habits, pervaded the apartment. A dresser with a cupboard
over it claimed the first attention of the hungry pair. With a cheer
from Frank and hand-clapping from Maude, they brought out a new loaf of
bread, some butter, some cheese, a tin of cocoa, and a bowl full of eggs.
Maude tied an apron over her pretty russet dress, seized some sticks and
paper, and had a fire crackling in a very few minutes.
‘Put some water in the kettle, Frank.’
‘Here you are! Anything else?’
‘Some in the small saucepan for the eggs.’
‘I believe they are “cookers,”’ said he, sniffing at them suspiciously.
‘Hold them up to the light, sir. There, they are quite bright and nice.
In with them! Now, if you will cut some bread and butter it, we shall
soon have our supper ready.’
‘It’s too new to cut,’ cried Frank, sawing away upon the kitchen table.
‘Besides, new bread is better in chunks. Here are some cloths and knives
and forks in the dresser drawer. I will go and lay the table.’
‘And leave me here alone. No please, Frank, if I am cook, you must be
scullery-maid. Get the cups down and put the cocoa in them. What fun it
all is! I think it is simply _splendid_ to be mistress of a house.’
‘With one scullery-maid.’
‘And she perfectly incompetent, and much given to embracing her mistress.
I must take my hat off. Get the sugar for the cocoa out of the cupboard.
The kettle is singing, so it won’t be long. Do you know, Frank’—she
paused, listening, with the egg-saucepan in her hands. ‘There’s a dog or
something in the room.’
They had both become aware of a sort of sibilant breathing, and they
looked round them in bewilderment.
‘Where is it?’ asked Maude. ‘Frank, I believe it’s a mouse.’
‘Hope for the best. Don’t frighten yourself unnecessarily. I fancy it
comes from under these curtains.’ He approached them with his candle,
and was suddenly aware of a boot which was projecting from them. ‘Great
Scot!’ he cried, ‘there’s a woman here asleep.’
Reassured as to the mouse, Maude approached with her saucepan still
clutched in her hand. There could be no doubt either as to the woman or
the sleep. She lay in an untidy heap, her head under the table, and her
figure sprawling. She appeared to be a very large woman.
‘Hullo!’ cried Frank, shaking her by the shoulder. ‘Hullo, you there!’
But the woman slumbered peacefully on.
‘Heh, wake up, wake up!’ he shouted, and pulled her up into a sitting
position. But she slept as soundly sitting as lying.
‘The poor thing must be ill,’ said Maude. ‘O Frank, shall I run for a
doctor?’
‘Wake up, woman, wake up!’ Frank yelled, and danced her up and down. She
flopped about like a sawdust doll, with her arms swinging in front of
her. He panted with his exertions, but she was serenely unconscious. At
last he had to lower her on to the floor again, putting a footstool under
her head.
‘It’s no go,’ said he. ‘I can make nothing of her. She will sleep it
off.’
‘You don’t mean to say, Frank, that she is—’
‘Indeed I do.’
‘How horrible!’
‘That kettle is boiling now. Suppose we have our supper.’
‘Dear Frank, I could not enjoy my supper with that unfortunate woman
lying there. O Frank, I know that you could not either.’
‘Bless her!’ said Frank bitterly, as he gazed at the inert lump. ‘I
really don’t see why we should put ourselves out for her. She is quite
comfortable.’
‘Oh I couldn’t, Frank. It would seem inhuman.’
‘What are we to do, then?’
‘We must put her to bed.’
‘Great heavens!’
‘Yes, dear, it is our duty to put her to bed.’
‘But look here, my dear girl, we must be practical. The woman weighs
half a ton, and the bedrooms are at the top of the house. It’s simply
impossible.’
‘Don’t you think, Frank, that if you took her head and I took her feet,
we might get her up?’
‘Not up the stair, dear. She is enormous.’
‘Well, then, on to the drawing-room sofa,’ said Maude. ‘I could have my
supper, if I knew that she was safe upon the sofa.’
So Frank, seeing that there was no help for it, seized her under the
arms, and Maude took her ankles, and they bore her, bulging but serene,
down the passage. They staggered exhausted into the drawing-room, and
the new sofa groaned beneath the weight. It was a curious and unsavoury
inaugural ceremony. Maude put a rug over the prostrate form, and they
returned to their boiling kettle and their uncooked eggs. Then they laid
the table, and served the supper, and enjoyed this picnic meal of their
own creating as no conventional meal could ever have been enjoyed.
Everything seemed beautiful to the young wife—the wall-paper, the
pictures, the carpet, the rug; but to him, she was so beautiful in mind,
and soul, and body, that her presence turned the little room into an
enchanted chamber. They sat long together, and marvelled at their own
happiness—that pure serene happiness of mere companionship, which is so
much more intimate and deeper than all the transports of passion.
But suddenly he sprang from his chair. There was the sound of steps, of
several steps, outside upon the gravel path. Then a key clicked, and a
burst of cold air told them that the door was open.
‘It’s agin’ the law for me to enter,’ said a gruff voice.
‘I tell you she’s very strong and violent,’ said a second voice, which
Frank recognised as that of Mrs. Watson. ‘She chased the maid out of the
house, and I can do nothing with her.’
‘Very sorry, mum, but it’s clean agin’ the law of England. Give me a
warrant, and in I come. If you will bring her to the doorstep, I will be
answerable for her removal.’
‘She’s in the dining-room. I can see the lights,’ said Mrs. Watson; and
then, ‘Good Lord, Mr. Crosse, what a fright you gave me! Oh dear me,
that you should have come when I was out, and I not expecting you for
another two days yet. Well, now, I shall never forgive myself for this.’
But all the mistakes and misfortunes were very quickly explained. The
telegram was the root of the evil. And then the new cook had proved to
be a violent, intermittent drunkard. She had chased the other maid out
of the house, and then, while Mrs. Watson rushed for the police, she had
drunk herself into the stupor in which she had been found. But now, in
the nick of time, the station cab came up with the luggage, and so the
still placidly slumbering culprit was carried out to it, and sent off in
the charge of the policeman. Such was the first entry of Mr. and Mrs.
Crosse into their home at The Lindens.
LAYING A COURSE
FRANK CROSSE was a methodical young man—his enemies might sometimes have
called him pedantic,—and he loved to reduce his life to rule and order.
It was one of his peculiarities. But how about this new life into which
he was entering? It took two to draw up the rules for that. The little
two-oared craft who put out upon that voyage have to lay their own
course, each for itself; and all round them, as they go, they see the
floating timbers and broken keels of other little boats, which had once
started out full of hope and confidence. There are currents and eddies,
low sand-banks and sunken reefs, and happy the crews who see them ahead,
and trim their course to avoid them. Frank brooded over it all. He had
seen something of life, for his years. He was observant and reflective.
He had watched his friends who were happy, and he had watched his friends
who were not. And now, as a result of all this wise cogitation, he sat
down at a table one evening, with a solemn face, and a sheet of foolscap.
‘Now, Maude,’ said he, ‘I want to have a serious talk.’
Maude looked up in surprise from the linen which she was marking.
‘Oh dear!’ she cried.
‘Why “oh dear”?’
‘There’s something wrong?’
‘Nothing in the world.’
‘You looked so solemn, Frank. I thought you had been looking at the
tradesman’s books. What is it, dear?’
‘Well, Maude, I have been thinking of married life in general. Don’t you
think it would be a good thing if we were to make some resolutions as to
how it should be conducted—some fundamental principles, as it were?’
‘Oh do, dear, do! What fun it will be!’
‘But it’s serious, Maude.’
‘Yes, dear, I am quite serious.’
‘It seemed to me, that if we could reduce it to certain rules, then,
whatever came upon us in the future, we should always know exactly how to
act.’
‘What are the rules, dear?’
‘Well, we can only arrive at them by talking it over between ourselves.
I could not draw up a set of rules, and ask you to submit to them. That
is not my idea of a partnership. But if we found that we were agreed
upon certain points, then we could both adopt them by mutual consent.’
‘How charming, Frank! Do please tell me some of the points.’
‘I have a few in my mind, and I should like to hear any which you may
have—any ideas, you know, how to get the very highest and best out of our
life. Now, first of all, there is the subject of quarrelling.’
‘O Frank, how horrid!’
‘Dear girl, we must look into the future. We are going to live all our
lives together. We must foresee and prepare for all the chances of
life.’
‘But that is absurd.’
‘You can’t live all your life and never be in a bad temper!’
‘But not with _you_, Frank.’
‘Oh, I can be very aggravating sometimes. Now, my idea is this.
Ill-humour passes and hurts nobody. But if two people are ill-humoured,
then each excites the other, and they say ever so much more than they
mean. Let us make a compact never both to be ill-humoured at the same
time. If _you_ are cross, then it is your turn, and I stand clear. If
_I_ am cross, you let me work it off. When either hoists the
danger-signal, the other is on guard. What do you think of that?’
‘I think you are the funniest old boy—’
‘Do you agree?’
‘Yes, dear, of course I agree.’
‘Article number one,’ said Frank, and scribbled upon his paper.
‘Your turn, now.’
‘No, dear, I have not thought of anything.’
‘Well, then, here is another point. Never take each other for granted.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Never relax those attentions which one lover shows to another. Some
husbands seem to forget that their wives are ladies. Some wives speak to
their husbands with less courtesy and consideration than to any casual
male visitor. They mean no harm, but they get into a slack way. We must
not do that.’
‘I don’t think we are likely to.’
‘People get into it unconsciously. Pull me up sharply at the first
sign.’
‘Yes, sir, I will.’
‘The next point that I have noted is an extension of the last. Let each
strive to be worthy of the love of the other. People get slovenly and
slipshoddy, as if it didn’t matter now that they were married. If each
were very keen to please the other, that would not be so. How many women
neglect their music after marriage.’
‘My goodness, I haven’t practised for a week!’ cried Maude.
‘And their dress and their hair’—Maude’s hand flew up to her curls. ‘My
darling, yours is just perfect. But you know how often a woman grows
careless. “He will love me anyhow,” she says to herself, and perhaps she
is right, but still it is not as it should be.’
‘Why, Frank, I had no idea you knew so much.’
‘I have heard my friends’ experiences.—And the man too: he should
consider his wife’s feelings as much as he did his sweetheart’s. If she
dislikes smoke, he should not smoke. He should not yawn in her presence.
He should keep himself well-groomed and attractive. Look at that dirty
cuff! I have no business to have it.’
‘As if it could make any difference to me.’
‘There now! That is what is so demoralising. You should stand out for
the highest. When I came to you at St. Albans, I had not dirty cuffs.’
‘You forgive me the music, Frank, and I’ll forgive you the cuff. But I
agree to all you say. I think it is so wise and good. Now I’ve got
something to add.’
‘Good. What is it?’
‘Each should take an interest in the other’s department.’
‘Why, of course they should.’
‘But it is not done.’
‘Why naturally, dear, you take an interest in my City work.’
‘Yes, sir, but do you take as keen an interest in my housekeeping?’
‘Perhaps I have been a little thoughtless.’
‘No, no, dear, you haven’t. You are always full of consideration. But I
have noticed it with mother, and with others also. The husband pulls out
his cheque-book at the end of the week or month, and he says, “Well, this
is rather more than we can afford,” or “This is less than I expected,”
but he never really takes any interest in his wife’s efforts to keep
things nice on a little. He does not see it with her eyes and try to
realise her difficulties. Oh, I wish I could express myself better, but
I know that the interest is one-sided.’
‘I think what you say is quite right. I’ll try to remember that. How
shall we enter it upon our list?’
‘That Interests should be mutual.’
‘Quite right. I have it down. Well, any more points?’
‘It is your turn.’
‘Well, there is this, and I feel that it is just the holiest thing in
matrimony, and its greatest justification—that love should never
degenerate into softness, that each should consciously stimulate the
better part of the other and discourage the worse, that there should be a
discipline in our life, and that we should brace each other up to a
higher ideal. The love that says, “I know it is wrong, but I love him or
her so much that I can’t refuse,” is a poor sort of love for the
permanent use of married life. The self-respect which refuses to let the
most lofty ideal of love down by an inch is a far nobler thing, and it
wears better too.’
‘How will you express all that?’
‘Mutual respect is necessary for mutual love.’
‘Yes, I am sure that that is right.’
‘It sounds obvious, but the very intensity of love makes love soft and
blind. Now I have another, which I am convinced that you will not agree
with.’
‘Let me hear it.’
‘I have put it in this way, “The tight cord is the easiest to snap.”’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I mean that married couples should give each other a certain
latitude and freedom. If they don’t, one or other will sooner or later
chafe at the restriction. It is only human nature, which is an older and
more venerable thing than marriage.’
‘I don’t like that at all, Frank.’
‘I feared you wouldn’t, dear, but I believe you’ll see it with me when I
explain what I mean. If you don’t, then I must try to see it with you.
When one talks of freedom in married life, it means, as a rule, freedom
only for the man. He does what he likes, but still claims to be a strict
critic of his wife. That, I am sure, is wrong. To take an obvious
example of what I mean, has a husband a right to read his wife’s letters?
Certainly not, any more than she has a right to read his without his
permission. To read them as a matter of course would be stretching the
chain too tight.’
‘Chain is a horrid word, Frank.’
‘Well, it is only a metaphor. Or take the subject of friendships. Is a
married man to be debarred from all friendship and intimacy with another
woman?’
Maude looked doubtful.
‘I should like to see the woman first,’ she said.
‘Or is a married woman to form no friendship with another man who might
interest or improve her? There is such a want of mutual confidence in
such a view. People who are sure of each other should give each other
every freedom in that. If they don’t, they are again stretching it
tight.’
‘If they do, it may become so slack that it might as well not be there at
all.’
‘I felt sure that we should have an argument over this. But I have seen
examples. Look at the Wardrops. _There_ were a couple who were never
apart. It was their boast that everything was in common with them. If
he was not in, she opened his letters, and he hers. And then there came
a most almighty smash. The tight cord had snapped. Now, I believe that
for some people, it is a most excellent thing that they should take their
holidays at different times.’
‘O Frank!’
‘Yes, I do. No, not for us, by Jove! I am generalising now. But for
some couples, I am sure that it is right. They reconsider each other
from a distance, and they like each other the better.’
‘Yes, but these rules are for our guidance, not for that of other
people.’
‘Quite right, dear. I was off the rails. “As you were,” as your brother
Jack would say. But I am afraid that I am not going to convince you over
this point.’
Maude looked charmingly mutinous.
‘No, Frank, you are not. I don’t think marriage can be too close. I
believe that every hope, and thought, and aspiration should be in common.
I could never get as near to your heart and soul as I should wish to do.
I want every year to draw me closer and closer, until we really are as
nearly the same person as it is possible to be upon earth.’
When you have to surrender, it is well to do so gracefully. Frank
stooped down and kissed his wife’s hand, and apologised. ‘The wisdom of
the heart is greater than the wisdom of the brain,’ said he. But the
love of man comes from the brain, far more than the love of woman, and so
it is that there will always be some points upon which they will never
quite see alike.
‘Then we scratch out that item.’
‘No, dear. ‘Put “The cord which is held tight is the easiest to snap.”
That will be all right. The cord of which I speak is never held at all.
The moment it is necessary to hold it, it is of no value. It must be
voluntary, natural, unavoidable.’
So Frank amended his aphorism.
‘Anything more, dear?’
‘Yes, I have thought of one other,’ said she. ‘It is that if ever you
had to find fault with me about anything, it should be when we are
alone.’
‘And the same in your case with me. That is excellent. What can be more
vulgar and degrading than a public difference of opinion? People do it
half in fun sometimes, but it is wrong all the same. Duly entered upon
the minutes. Anything else?’
‘Only material things.’
‘Yes, but they count also. Now, in the matter of money, I feel that
every husband should allow his wife a yearly sum of her own, to be paid
over to her, and kept by her, so that she may make her own arrangements
for herself. It is degrading to a woman to have to apply to her husband
every time she wants a sovereign. On the other hand, if the wife has any
money, she should have the spending of it. If she chooses to spend part
of it in helping the establishment, that is all right, but I am sure that
she should have her own separate account, and her own control of it.’
‘If a woman really loves a man, Frank, how can she grudge him everything
she has? If my little income would take one worry from your mind, what a
joy it would be to me to feel that you were using it!’
‘Yes, but the man has his self-respect to think of. In a great crisis
one might fall back upon one’s wife—since our interests are the same, but
only that could justify it. So much for the wife’s money. Now for the
question of housekeeping.’
‘That terrible question!’
‘It is only hard because people try to do so much upon a little. Why
should they try to do so much? The best pleasures of life are absolutely
inexpensive. Books, music, pleasant intimate evenings, the walk among
the heather, the delightful routine of domestic life, my cricket and my
golf—these things cost very little.’
‘But you must eat and drink, Frank. And as to Jemima and the cook, it is
really extraordinary the amount which they consume.’
‘But the tendency is for meals to become much too elaborate. Why that
second vegetable?’
‘There now! I knew that you were going to say something against that
poor vegetable. It costs so little.’
‘On an average, I have no doubt that it costs threepence a day. Come
now, confess that it does. Do you know what threepence a day comes to in
a year? There is no use in having an accountant for a husband, if you
can’t get at figures easily. It is four pounds eleven shillings and
threepence.’
‘It does not seem very much.’
‘But for that money, and less, one could become a member of the London
Library, with the right to take out fifteen books at a time, and all the
world’s literature to draw from. Now just picture it: on one side, all
the books in the world, all the words of the wise, and great, and witty;
on the other side, a lot of cauliflowers and vegetable-marrows and French
beans. Which is the better bargain?’
‘Good gracious, we shall never have a second vegetable again!’
‘And pudding?’
‘My dear, you always eat the pudding.’
‘I know I do. It seems an obvious thing to do when the pudding is there
in front of me. But if it were not there, I should neither eat it nor
miss it, and I know that you care nothing about it. There would be
another five or six pounds a year.’
‘We’ll have a compromise, dear. Second vegetable one day, pudding the
next.’
‘Very good.’
‘I notice that it is always after you have had a substantial meal that
you discuss economy in food. I wonder if you will feel the same when you
come back starving from the City to-morrow? Now, sir, any other
economy?’
‘I don’t think money causes happiness. But debt causes unhappiness. And
so we must cut down every expense until we have a reserve fund to meet
any unexpected call. If you see any way in which I could save, or any
money I spend which you think is unjustifiable, I do wish that you would
tell me. I got into careless ways in my bachelor days.’
‘That red golfing-coat.’
‘I know. It was idiotic of me.’
‘Never mind, dear. You look very nice in it. After all, it was only
thirty shillings. Can you show me any extravagance of mine?’
‘Well, dear, I looked at that dressmaker’s bill yesterday.’
‘O Frank, it is such a pretty dress, and you said you liked it, and you
have to pay for a good cut, and you said yourself that a wife must not
become dowdy after marriage, and it would have cost double as much in
Regent Street.’
‘I didn’t think the dress dear.’
‘What was it, then?’
‘The silk lining of the skirt.’
‘You funny boy!’
‘It cost thirty shillings extra. Now, what can it matter if it is lined
with silk or not?’
‘Oh, doesn’t it? Just you try one and see.’
‘But no one can know that it is lined with silk.’
‘When I rustle into a room, dear, every woman in it knows that my skirt
is lined with silk.’
Frank felt that he had ventured out of his depth, so he struck out for
land again.
‘There’s only one economy which I don’t think is justifiable,’ said he,
‘and that is, to cut down your subscriptions to charities. It is such a
very cheap way of doing things. Not that I do much in that line—too
little, perhaps. But to say that because _we_ want to economise,
therefore some poor people are to suffer, is a very poor argument. We
must save at our own expense.’
So now Frank, in his methodical fashion, had all his results tabulated
upon his sheet of foolscap. It was not a very brilliant production, but
it might serve as a chart for the little two-oared boats until a better
one is forthcoming. It ran in this way—
_Maxims for the Married_
1. Since you are married, you may as well make the best of it.
2. So make some maxims and try to live up to them.
3. And don’t be discouraged if you fail. You will fail, but perhaps
you won’t always fail.
4. Never both be cross at the same time. Wait your turn.
5. Never cease to be lovers. If you cease, some one else may begin.
6. You were gentleman and lady before you were husband and wife.
Don’t forget it.
7. Keep yourself at your best. It is a compliment to your partner.
8. Keep your ideal high. You may miss it, but it is better to miss
a high one than to hit a low one.
9. A blind love is a foolish love. Encourage the best in each
other’s nature.
10. Permanent mutual respect is necessary for a permanent mutual
love. A woman can love without respect, but a man cannot.
11. The tight cord is the easiest to snap.
12. Let there be one law for both.
13. There is only one thing worse than quarrels in public. That is
caresses.
14. Money is not essential to happiness, but happy people usually
have enough.
15. So save some.
16. The easiest way of saving is to do without things.
17. If you can’t, then you had better do without a wife.
18. The man who respects his wife does not turn her into a
mendicant. Give her a purse of her own.
19. If you save, save at your own expense.
20. In all matters of money, prepare always for the worst and hope
for the best.
Such was their course as far as this ambitious young couple could lay it.
They may correct it by experience, and improve it by use, but it is good
enough to guide them safely out to sea.
CONFESSIONS
‘TELL me, Frank, did you ever love any one before me?’
‘How badly trimmed the lamp is to-night!’ said he. It was so bad that he
went off instantly into the dining-room to get another. It was some time
before he returned.
She waited inexorably until he had settled down again.
‘Did you, Frank?’ she asked.
‘Did I what?’
‘Ever love any one else?’
‘My dear Maude, what _is_ the use of asking questions like that?’
‘You said that there were no secrets between us.’
‘No, but there are some things better left alone.’
‘That is what I should call a secret.’
‘Of course, if you make a point of it—’
‘I do.’
‘Well, then, I am ready to answer anything that you ask. But you must
not blame me if you do not like my answers.’
‘Who was she, Frank?’
‘Which?’
‘O Frank, more than one!’
‘I told you that you would not like it.’
‘Oh, I wish I had not asked you!’
‘Then do let us drop it.’
‘No, I can’t drop it now, Frank. You have gone too far. You must tell
me everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes, everything, Frank.’
‘I am not sure that I can.’
‘Is it so dreadful as that?’
‘No, there is another reason.’
‘Do tell me, Frank.’
‘There is a good deal of it. You know how a modern poet excused himself
to his wife for all his pre-matrimonial experiences. He said that he was
looking for her.’
‘Well, I do like that!’ she cried indignantly.
‘I was looking for you.’
‘You seem to have looked a good deal.’
‘But I found you at last.’
‘I had rather you had found me at first, Frank.’ He said something about
supper, but she was not to be turned.
‘How many did you really love?’ she asked. ‘Please don’t joke about it,
Frank. I really want to know.’
‘If I choose to tell you a lie—’
‘But you won’t!’
‘No, I won’t. I could never feel the same again.’
‘Well, then, how many did you love?’
‘Don’t exaggerate what I say, Maude, or take it to heart. You see it
depends upon what you mean by love. There are all sorts and degrees of
love, some just the whim of a moment, and others the passion of a
lifetime; some are founded on mere physical passion, and some on
intellectual sympathy, and some on spiritual affinity.’
‘Which do you love me with?’
‘All three.’
‘Sure?’
‘Perfectly sure.’
She came over and the cross-examination was interrupted. But in a few
minutes she had settled down to it again.
‘Well, now—the first?’ said she.
‘Oh, I can’t, Maude—don’t.’
‘Come, sir—her name?’
‘No, no, Maude, that is going a little too far. Even to you, I should
never mention another woman’s name.’
‘Who was she, then?’
‘Please don’t let us go into details. It is perfectly _horrible_. Let
me tell things in my own way.’
She made a little grimace.
‘You are wriggling, sir. But I won’t be hard upon you. Tell it your own
way.’
‘Well, in a word, Maude, I was always in love with some one.’
Her face clouded over.
‘Your love must be very cheap,’ said she.
‘It’s almost a necessity of existence for a healthy young man who has
imagination and a warm heart. It was all—or nearly all—quite
superficial.’
‘I should think all your love was superficial, if it can come so easily.’
‘Don’t be cross, Maude. I had never seen you at the time. I owed no
duty to you.’
‘You owed a duty to your own self-respect.’
‘There, I knew we should have trouble over it. What do you want to ask
such questions for? I dare say I am a fool to be so frank.’
She sat for a little with her face quite cold and set. In his inmost
heart Frank was glad that she should be jealous, and he watched her out
of the corner of his eye.
‘Well!’ said she at last.
‘Must I go on?’
‘Yes, I may as well hear it.’
‘You’ll only be cross.’
‘We’ve gone too far to stop. And I’m not cross, Frank. Only pained a
little. But I do appreciate your frankness. I had no idea you were such
a—such a Mormon.’ She began to laugh.
‘I used to take an interest in every woman.’
‘“Take an interest” is good.’
‘That was how it began. And then if circumstances were favourable the
interest deepened, until at last, naturally—well, you can understand.’
‘How many did you take an interest in?’
‘Well, in pretty nearly all of them.’
‘And how many deepened?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Twenty?’
‘Well—rather more than that, I think.’
‘Thirty?’
‘Quite thirty.’
‘Forty?’
‘Not more than forty, I think.’
Maude sat aghast at the depths of his depravity.
‘Let me see: you are twenty-seven now, so you have loved four women a
year since you were seventeen.’
‘If you reckon it that way,’ said Frank, ‘I am afraid that it must have
been more than forty.’
‘It’s dreadful,’ said Maude, and began to cry.
Frank knelt down in front of her and kissed her hands. She had sweet
little plump hands, very soft and velvety.
‘You make me feel such a brute,’ said he. ‘Anyhow, I love you now with
all my heart and mind and soul.’
‘Forty-firstly and lastly,’ she sobbed, half laughing and half crying.
Then she pulled his hair to reassure him.
‘I can’t be angry with you,’ said she. ‘Besides, it would be ungenerous
to be angry when you tell me things of your own free will. You are not
forced to tell me. It is very honourable of you. But I do wish you had
taken an interest in me first.’
‘Well, it was not so fated. I suppose there are some men who are quite
good when they are bachelors. But I don’t believe they are the best men.
They are either archangels upon earth—young Gladstones and Newmans—or
else they are cold, calculating, timid, un-virile creatures, who will
never do any good. The first class must be splendid. I never met one
except in memoirs. The others I don’t want to meet.’
Women are not interested in generalities.
‘Were they nicer than me?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Those forty women.’
‘No, dear, of course not. Why are you laughing?’
‘Well, it came into my head how funny it would be, if the forty were all
gathered into one room, and you were turned loose in the middle of them.’
‘Funny!’ Frank ejaculated. Women have such extraordinary ideas of
humour. Maude laughed until she was quite tired.
‘It doesn’t strike you as comic?’ she cried at last.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he answered coldly.
‘Of course it wouldn’t,’ said she, and went off into another ripple of
pretty contralto laughter. There is a soft, deep, rich laugh, which some
women have, that is the sweetest sound in Nature.
‘When you have quite finished,’ said he huffily. Her jealousy was much
more complimentary than her ridicule.
‘All right now. Don’t be cross. If I didn’t laugh I should cry. I’m so
sorry if I have annoyed you.’ He had gone back to his chair, so she paid
him a flying visit. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Now?’
‘All right. I forgive you.’
‘That’s funny too. Fancy _you_ forgiving _me_ after all these
confessions. But you never loved one of them all as you love me.’
‘Never.’
‘Swear it.’
‘I do swear it.’
‘Morally, and what do you call it, and the other?’
‘Not one of them.’
‘And never will again?’
‘Never.’
‘Good boy for ever and ever?’
‘For ever and ever.’
‘And the forty were horrid?’
‘No, hang it, Maude, I can’t say that.’
She pouted and hung her head.
‘You do like them better, then?’
‘How absurd you are, Maude! If I had liked one better, I should have
married her.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose you would. You must have taken a deeper interest
in me than in the others, since you married me. I hadn’t thought of
that.’
‘Silly old girl! Of course I liked you best. Let us drop the thing, and
never talk about it any more.’
‘Have you their photographs?’
‘No.’
‘None of them?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do with them?’
‘I never had most of them.’
‘And the others?’
‘I destroyed some when I married.’
‘That was nice of you. Aren’t you sorry?’
‘No, I thought it was only right.’
‘Were you fondest of dark women or fair?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. _I_ was never pernickety in _my_ tastes. You know
those lines I read you from Henley: “Handsome, ugly—all are women.”
That’s a bachelor’s sentiment.’
‘But do you mean to say, sir—now, you are speaking on your honour, that
out of all these forty, there was not one who was prettier than I am?’
‘Do let us talk of something else.’
‘And not one as clever?’
‘How absurd you are to-night, Maude!’
‘Come, answer me.’
‘I’ve answered you already.’
‘I did not hear you.’
‘Oh yes, you did. I said that I had married you, and that shows that I
liked you best. I don’t compare you quality for quality against every
one in the world. That would be absurd. What I say is that your
combination of qualities is the one which is most dear to me.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Maude dubiously. ‘How nice and frank you are!’
‘Now I’ve hurt you!’
‘Oh no, not in the least. I like you to be frank. I should hate to
think that there was anything you did not dare to tell me.’
‘And you, Maude—would you be equally frank with me?’
‘Yes, dear, I will. I feel that I owe it to you after your confidence in
me. I have had my little experiences too.’
‘You!’
‘Perhaps you would rather that I said nothing about them. What good can
there be in raking up these old stories?’
‘No, I had rather you told me.’
‘You won’t be hurt?’
‘No, no—certainly not.’
‘You may take it from me, Frank, that if any married woman ever tells her
husband that until she saw him she never felt any emotion at the sight of
another man, it is simple nonsense. There may be women of that sort
about, but I never met them. I don’t think I should like them, for they
must be dry, cold, unsympathetic, unemotional, unwomanly creatures.’
‘Maude, you have loved some one else!’
‘I won’t deny that I have been interested deeply interested in several
men.’
‘Several!’
‘It was before I had met you, dear. I owed you no duty.’
‘You have loved several men.’
‘The feeling was for the most part quite superficial. There are many
different sorts and degrees of love.’
‘Good God, Maude! How many men inspired this feeling in you?’
‘The truth is, Frank, that a healthy young woman who has imagination and
a warm heart is attracted by every young man. I know that you wish me to
be frank and to return your confidence. But there is a certain kind of
young man with whom I always felt my interest deepen.’
‘Oh, you did discriminate?’
‘Now you are getting bitter. I will say no more.’
‘You have said too much. You must go on now.’
‘Well, I was only going to say that dark men always had a peculiar
fascination for me. I don’t know what it is, but the feeling is quite
overpowering.’
‘Is that why you married a man with flaxen hair?’
‘Well, I couldn’t expect to find every quality in my husband, could I?
It would not be reasonable. I assure you, dear, that taking your _tout
ensemble_, I like you far the best of all. You may not be the
handsomest, and you may not be the cleverest—one cannot expect one’s
absolute ideal,—but I love you far, far the best of any. I do hope I
haven’t hurt you by anything I have said.’
‘I am sorry I am not your ideal, Maude. It would be absurd to suppose
myself anybody’s ideal, but I hoped always that the eyes of love
transfigured an object and made it seem all right. My hair is past
praying for, but if you can point out anything that I can mend—’
‘No, no, I want you just as you are. If I hadn’t liked you best, I
shouldn’t have married you, Frank, should I?’
‘But those other experiences?’
‘Oh, we had better drop them. What good can it possibly do to discuss my
old experiences? It will only annoy you.’
‘Not at all. I honour you for your frankness in speaking out, although I
acknowledge that it is a little unexpected. Go on.’
‘I forget where I was.’
‘You had just remarked that before your marriage you had love-affairs
with a number of men.’
‘How horrid it sounds, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, it did strike me in that way.’
‘But that’s because you exaggerate what I said. I said that I had been
attracted by several men.’
‘And that dark men thrilled you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I had hoped that I was the first.’
‘It was not fated to be so. I could easily tell you a lie, Frank, and
say that you were, but I should never forgive myself if I were to do such
a thing. You see I left school at seventeen, and I was twenty-three when
I became engaged to you. There are six years. Imagine all the dances,
picnics, parties, visitings of six years. I could not help meeting young
men continually. A good many were interested in me, and I—’
‘You were interested in them.’
‘It was natural, Frank.’
‘Oh yes, perfectly natural. And then I understand that the interest
deepened.’
‘Sometimes. When you met a young man who was interested several times
running, at a dance, then in the street, then in the garden, then a walk
home at night—of course your interest began to deepen.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then—’
‘Well, what was the next stage?’
‘Sure you’re not angry?’
‘No, no, not at all. Why don’t you keep the key in the spirit-stand?’
‘It might tempt Jemima. Shall I get it?’
‘No, no, go on! The next stage was?’
‘Well, when you have been deeply interested some time, then you begin to
have experiences.’
‘Ah!’
‘Don’t shout, Frank.’
‘Did I shout? Never mind. Go on! You had experiences.’
‘Why go into details?’
‘You must go on. You have said too much to stop. I insist upon hearing
the experiences.’
‘Not if you ask for them in that way, Frank.’ Maude had a fine dignity
of her own when she liked.
‘Well, I don’t insist. I beg you to have confidence in me, and tell me
some of your experiences.’
She leaned back in her armchair with her eyes half closed, and a quiet
retrospective smile upon her face.
‘Well, if you would really like to hear, Frank, as a proof of my
confidence and trust, I will tell you. You will remember that I had not
seen you at the time.’
‘I will make every excuse.’
‘I will tell you a single experience. It was my first of the sort, and
stands out very clearly in my memory. It all came through my being left
alone with a gentleman who was visiting my mother.’
‘Yes!’
‘Well, we were alone in the room, you understand.’
‘Yes, yes, go on!’
‘And he paid me many little compliments: kept saying how pretty I was,
and that he had never seen a sweeter girl, and so on. You know what
gentlemen would say?’
‘And you?’
‘Oh, I hardly answered him, but of course I was young and inexperienced,
and I could not help being flattered and pleased at his words. I may
have shown him what I felt, for he suddenly—’
‘Kissed you!’
‘Exactly. He kissed me. Don’t walk up and down the room, dear. It
fidgets me.’
‘All right. Go on. Don’t stop. After this outrage what happened next?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I must know. What did you do?’
‘I am so sorry that I ever began, for I can see that it is exciting you.
Light your pipe, dear, and let us talk of something else. It will only
make you cross if I tell you the truth.’
‘I won’t be cross. Go on. What did you do?’
‘Well, Frank, since you insist—I kissed him back.’
‘You—you kissed him back!’
‘You’ll have Jemima up if you go on like that.’
‘You kissed him back!’
‘Yes, dear; it may be wrong, but I did.’
‘Good God! why did you do that?’
‘Well, I liked him.’
‘A dark man?’
‘Yes, he was dark.’
‘O Maude! Maude! Well, don’t stop. What then?’
‘Then he kissed me several times.’
‘Of course he would, if you kissed him. What else could you expect? And
then?’
‘O Frank, I can’t.’
‘Go on. I am ready for anything!’
‘Well, do sit down, and don’t run about the room. I am only agitating
you.’
‘There, I am sitting. You can see that I am not agitated. For Heaven’s
sake, go on!’
‘He asked me if I would sit upon his knee.’
‘Yek!’
Maude began to laugh.
‘Why, Frank, you are croaking like a frog.’
‘I am glad you think it a laughing matter. Go on! Go on! You yielded
to his very moderate and natural request. You sat upon his knee.’
‘Well, Frank, I did.’
‘Good heavens!’
‘Don’t be so excitable, dear. It was long before I ever saw you.’
‘You mean to sit there and tell me in cold blood that you sat upon this
ruffian’s knee!’
‘What else could I do?’
‘What could you do? You could have screamed, you could have rung the
bell, you could have struck him—you could have risen in the dignity of
your insulted womanhood and walked out of the room.’
‘It was not so easy for me to walk out of the room.’
‘He held you?’
‘Yes, he held me.’
‘Oh, if I had been there!’
‘And there was another reason.’
‘What was that?’
‘Well, I wasn’t very good at walking at that time. You see, I was only
three years old.’
Frank sat for a few minutes absorbing it.
‘You little wretch!’ he said at last.
‘Oh you dear old goose! I feel so much better.’
‘You horror!’
‘I had to get level with you over my forty predecessors. You old
Bluebeard! But I did harrow you a little—didn’t I?’
‘Harrow me! I’m raw all over. It’s a nightmare. O Maude, how could you
have the heart?’
‘Oh, it was lovely—beautiful!’
‘It was dreadful.’
‘And how jealous you were! Oh, I _am_ so glad!’
‘I don’t think,’ said Frank, as he put his arms round her, ‘that I ever
quite realised before—’
And just then Jemima came in with the tray.
CONCERNING MRS. BEETON
FRANK CROSSE had only been married some months when he first had occasion
to suspect that his wife had some secret sorrow. There was a sadness and
depression about her at times, for which he was unable to account. One
Saturday afternoon he happened to come home earlier than he was expected,
and entering her bedroom suddenly, he found her seated in the
basket-chair in the window, with a large book upon her knees. Her face,
as she looked up at him with a mixed expression of joy and of confusion,
was stained by recent tears. She put the book hastily down upon the
dressing-stand.
‘Maude, you’ve been crying.’
‘No, Frank, no!’
‘O Maude, you fibber! Remove those tears instantly.’ He knelt down
beside her and helped. ‘Better now?’
‘Yes, dearest, I am quite happy.’
‘Tears all gone?’
‘Quite gone.’
‘Well, then, explain!’
‘I didn’t mean to tell you, Frank!’ She gave the prettiest, most
provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. ‘I wanted
to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you.
But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am
not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing all the same.’
Frank took the bulky book off the table. It was Mrs. Beeton’s _Book of
Household Management_. The open page was headed, ‘General Observations
on the Common Hog,’ and underneath was a single large tear-drop. It had
fallen upon a woodcut of the Common Hog, in spite of which Frank solemnly
kissed it, and turned Maude’s trouble into laughter.
‘Now you are all right again. I do hate to see you crying, though you
never look more pretty. But tell me, dear, what was your ambition?’
‘To know as much as any woman in England about housekeeping. To know as
much as Mrs. Beeton. I wanted to master every page of it, from the first
to the last.’
‘There are 1641 of them,’ said Frank, turning them over.
‘I know. I felt that I should be quite old before I had finished. But
the last part, you see, is all about wills, and bequests, and homeopathy,
and things of that kind. We could do it later. It is the early part
that I want to learn now—but it _is_ so hard.’
‘But why do you wish to do it, Maude?’
‘Because I want you to be as happy as Mr. Beeton.’
‘I’ll bet I am.’
‘No, no, you can’t be, Frank. It says somewhere here that the happiness
and comfort of the husband depend upon the housekeeping of the wife.
Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world.
Therefore, Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable
man. But why should Mr. Beeton be happier and more comfortable than my
Frank? From the hour I read that I determined that he shouldn’t be—and
he won’t be.’
‘And he isn’t.’
‘Oh, you think so. But then you know nothing about it. You think it
right because I do it. But if you were visiting Mrs. Beeton, you would
soon see the difference.’
‘What an awkward trick you have of always sitting in a window,’ said
Frank, after an interval. ‘I’ll swear that the wise Mrs. Beeton never
advocates that—with half a dozen other windows within point-blank range.’
‘Well, then, you shouldn’t do it.’
‘Well, then, you shouldn’t be so nice.’
‘You really still think that I am nice?’
‘Fishing!’
‘After all these months?’
‘Nicer and nicer every day.’
‘Not a bit tired?’
‘You blessing! When I am tired of you, I shall be tired of life.’
‘How wonderful it all seems!’
‘Does it not?’
‘To think of that first day at the tennis-party. “I hope you are not a
very good player, Mr. Crosse!”—“No, Miss Selby, but I shall be happy to
make one in a set.” That’s how we began. And now!’
‘Yes, it is wonderful.’
‘And at dinner afterwards. “Do you like Irving’s acting?”—“Yes, I think
that he is a great genius.” How formal and precise we were! And now I
sit curling your hair in a bedroom window.’
‘It _does_ seem funny. But I suppose, if you come to think of it,
something of the same kind must have happened to one or two people
before.’
‘But never quite like us.’
‘Oh no, never quite like us. But with a kind of family resemblance, you
know. Married people do usually end by knowing each other a little
better than on the first day they met.’
‘What _did_ you think of me, Frank?’
‘I’ve told you often.’
‘Well, tell me again.’
‘What’s the use when you know?’
‘But I like to hear.’
‘Well, it’s just spoiling you.’
‘I love to be spoiled.’
‘Well, then, I thought to myself—If I can only have that woman for my
own, I believe I will do something in life yet. And I also thought—If I
don’t get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man
again.’
‘Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?’
‘Yes, the very first day.’
‘And then?’
‘And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and
stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and
ambitions, and interests. I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have
happened to me if you had refused me.’
She laughed aloud with delight.
‘How sweet it is to hear you say so! And the wonderful thing is that you
have never seemed disappointed. I always expected that some day after
marriage—not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so—you
would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised,
and you would say, “Why, I used to think that she was pretty! I used to
think that she was sweet! How could I be so infatuated over a little,
insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting—” O Frank, the
neighbours will see you?’
‘Well, then, you mustn’t provoke me.’
‘What _will_ Mrs. Potter think?’
‘You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.’
‘Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.’
‘Well, then, tell me what you thought.’
‘I thought you were a very good tennis-player.’
‘Anything else?’
‘And you talked nicely.’
‘Did I? I never felt such a stick in my life. I was as nervous as a
cat.’
‘That was so delightful. I do hate people who are very cool and assured.
I saw that you were disturbed, and I even thought—’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.’
‘And you liked me?’
‘I was very interested in you.’
‘Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over. You, with
your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at
your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor
prospects, nor—’
‘Be quiet, sir! Yes, you shall! Now?’
‘By Jove, there _is_ old Mrs. Potter at the window! We’ve done it this
time. Let us get back to serious conversation again.’
‘How did we leave it?’
‘It was that hog, I believe. And then Mr. Beeton. But where does the
hog come in? Why should you weep over him? And what are the Lady’s
Observations on the Common Hog?’
‘Read them for yourself.’
Frank read out aloud: ‘“The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genus
_sus scrofa_, and the species _pachydermata_, or thick-skinned. Its
generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven
feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and
twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage is altogether
wanting.”—But what on earth has all this to do with housekeeping?’
‘That’s what _I_ want to know. It is so disheartening to have to
remember such things. What does it matter if the hog _has_ forty-two
toes. And yet, if Mrs. Beeton knew it, one feels that one ought to know
it also. If once I began to skip, there would be no end to it. But it
really is such a splendid book in other ways. It doesn’t matter what you
want, you will find it here. Take the index anywhere. Cream. If you
want cream, it’s all there. Croup. If you want—I mean, if you don’t
want croup, it will teach you how not to get it. Crumpets—all about
them. Crullers—I’m sure you don’t know what a cruller is, Frank.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Neither do I. But I could look it up and learn. Here it is—paragraph
2847. It is a sort of pancake, you see. That’s how you learn things.’
Frank Crosse took the book and dropped it. It fell with a sulky thud
upon the floor.
‘Nothing that it can teach you, dear, can ever make up to me if it makes
you cry, and bothers you.—You bloated, pedantic thing!’ he cried, in
sudden fury, aiming a kick at the squat volume. ‘It is to you I owe all
those sad, tired looks which I have seen upon my wife’s face. I know my
enemy now. You pompous, fussy old humbug, I’ll kick the red cover off
you!’
But Maude snatched it up, and gathered it to her bosom. ‘No, no, Frank,
I don’t know what I should do without it. You have no idea what a wise
old book it is. Now, sit there on the footstool at my feet, and I will
read to you.’
‘Do, dear; it’s delightful.’
‘Sit quiet, then, and be good. Now listen to this pearl of wisdom: “As
with the commander of an army, so it is with the mistress of a house.
Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment, and, just in
proportion as she performs her duties thoroughly, so will her domestics
follow in her path.”’
‘From which it follows,’ said her husband, ‘that Jemima must be a perfect
paragon.’
‘On the contrary, it explains all Jemima’s shortcomings. Listen to this:
“Early rising is one of the most essential qualities. When a mistress is
an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be orderly and
well managed.”’
‘Well, you are down at nine—what more do you want?’
‘At nine! I am sure that Mrs. Beeton was always up at six.’
‘I have my doubts about Mrs. B. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
I should not be very much surprised to learn that she had breakfast in
bed every morning.’
‘O Frank! You have no reverence for anything.’
‘Let us have some more wisdom.’
‘“Frugality and Economy are home virtues without which no household can
prosper. Dr. Johnson says, ‘Frugality may be termed—’”
‘Oh, bother Dr. Johnson! Who cares for a man’s opinion. Now, if it had
been Mrs. Johnson—!’
‘Johnson kept house for himself for years—and a queer job he made of it.’
‘So I should think.’ Maude tossed her pretty curls. ‘Mrs. Beeton is all
right, but I will not be lectured by Dr. Johnson. Where was I? Oh
yes—“‘We must always remember that to manage a little well, is a great
merit in housekeeping.”’
‘Hurrah! Down with the second vegetable! No pudding on fish days.
_Vive la bière de Pilsen_!’
‘What a noisy boy you are!’
‘This book excites me. Anything more?’
“Friendships should not be hastily formed, nor the heart given at once to
every newcomer—”’
‘Well, I should hope not! Don’t let me catch you at it! You don’t mind
my cigarette? Has Mrs. Beeton a paragraph about smoking in bedrooms?’
‘Such an enormity never occurred to her as a remote possibility. If she
had known you, dear, she would have had to write an appendix to her book
to meet all the new problems which you would suggest. Shall I go on?’
‘Please do!’
‘She next treats conversation. “In conversation, trifling occurrences
such as small disappointments, petty annoyances, and other everyday
incidents, should never be mentioned to friends. If the mistress be a
wife, never let a word in connection with her husband’s failings pass her
lips—”’
‘By Jove, this book has more wisdom to the square inch than any work of
man,’ cried Frank, in enthusiasm.
‘I thought that would please you. “Good temper should be cultivated by
every mistress, as upon it the welfare of the household may be said to
turn.”’
‘Excellent!’
‘“In starting a household, it is always best in the long-run to get the
very best articles of their kind.”’
‘That is why I got you, Maude.’
‘Thank you, sir. We have a dissertation then upon dress and fashion,
another upon engaging domestics, another about daily duties, another
about visiting, another about fresh air and exercise—’
‘The most essential of any,’ cried Frank, jumping up, and pulling his
wife by the arms out of her low wicker-chair. ‘There is just time for
nine holes at golf before it is dark, if you wilt come exactly as you
are. But listen to this, young lady. If ever again I see you fretting
or troubling yourself about your household affairs—’
‘No, no, Frank, I won’t!’
‘Well, if you do, Mrs. Beeton goes into the kitchen-fire. Now remember?’
‘You are sure you don’t envy Mr. Beeton?’
‘I don’t envy a man upon earth.’
‘Then why should I try to be Mrs. Beeton?’
‘Why indeed?’
‘O Frank, what a load off my mind! Those sixteen hundred pages have just
lain upon it for months. Dear old boy! come on!’
And they clattered downstairs for their golf-clubs.
MR. SAMUEL PEPYS
THERE were few things which Maude liked so much as a long winter evening
when Frank and she dined together, and then sat beside the fire and made
good cheer. It would be an exaggeration to say that she preferred it to
a dance, but next to that supreme joy, and higher even than the theatre
in her scale of pleasures, were those serene and intimate evenings when
they talked at their will, and were silent at their will, within their
home brightened by those little jokes and endearments and allusions which
make up that inner domestic masonry which is close-tiled for ever to the
outsider. Five or six evenings a week, she with her sewing and Frank
with his book, settled down to such enjoyment as men go to the ends of
the earth to seek, while it awaits them, if they will but atune their
souls to sympathy, beside their own hearthstones. Now and again their
sweet calm would be broken by a ring at the bell, when some friend of
Frank’s would come round to pay them an evening visit. At the sound
Maude would say ‘bother,’ and Frank something shorter and stronger, but,
as the intruder appeared, they would both break into, ‘Well, really now
it _was_ good of you to drop in upon us in this homely way.’ Without
such hypocrisy, the world would be a hard place to live in.
I may have mentioned somewhere that Frank had a catholic taste in
literature. Upon a shelf in their bedroom—a relic of his bachelor
days—there stood a small line of his intimate books, the books which
filled all the chinks of his life when no new books were forthcoming.
They were all volumes which he had read in his youth, and many times
since, until they had become the very tie-beams of his mind. His tastes
were healthy and obvious without being fine. Macaulay’s _Essays_,
Holmes’ _Autocrat_, Gibbons’ _History_, Jefferies’ _Story of my Heart_,
Carlyle’s Life, Pepys’ _Diary_, and Borrow’s _Lavengro_ were among his
inner circle of literary friends. The sturdy East Anglian, half
prize-fighter, half missionary, was a particular favourite of his, and so
was the garrulous Secretary of the Navy. One day it struck him that it
would be a pleasant thing to induce his wife to share his enthusiasms,
and he suggested that the evenings should be spent in reading selections
from these old friends of his. Maude was delighted. If he had proposed
to read the rig-vedas in the original Sanskrit, Maude would have listened
with a smiling face. It is in such trifles that a woman’s love is more
than a man’s.
That night Frank came downstairs with a thick well-thumbed volume in his
hand.
‘This is Mr. Pepys,’ said he solemnly.
‘What a funny name!’ cried Maude. ‘It makes me think of indigestion.
Why? Oh yes, pepsine, of course.’
‘We shall take a dose of him every night after dinner to complete the
resemblance. But seriously, dear, I think that now that we have taken up
a course of reading, we should try to approach it in a grave spirit, and
endeavour to realise—Oh, I say, don’t!’
‘I _am_ so sorry, dear! I do hope I didn’t hurt, you!’
‘You did—considerably.’
‘It all came from my having the needle in my hand at the time—and you
looked so solemn—and—well, I couldn’t help it.’
‘Little wretch—!’
‘No, dear; Jemima may come in any moment with the coffee. Now, do sit
down and read about Mr. Pepys to me. And first of all, would you mind
explaining all about the gentleman, from the beginning, and taking
nothing for granted, just as if I had never heard of him before.’
‘I don’t believe—’
‘Never mind, sir! Be a good boy and do exactly what you are told. Now
begin!’
‘Well, Maude, Mr. Pepys was born—’
‘What was his first name?’
‘Samuel.’
‘Oh dear, I’m sure I should not have liked him.’
‘Well, it’s too late to change that. He was born—I could see by looking,
but it really doesn’t matter, does it? He was born somewhere in sixteen
hundred and something or other, and I forget what his father was.’
‘I must try to remember what you tell me.’
‘Well, it all amounts to this, that he got on very well in the world,
that he became at last a high official of the navy in the time of Charles
the Second, and that he died in fairly good circumstances, and left his
library, which was a fine one, to one of the universities, I can’t
remember which.’
‘There is an accuracy about your information, Frank—’
‘I know, dear, but it really does not matter. All this has nothing to do
with the main question.’
‘Go on, then!’
‘Well, this library was left as a kind of dust-catcher, as such libraries
are, until one day, more than a hundred years after the old boy’s death,
some enterprising person seems to have examined his books, and he found a
number of volumes of writing which were all in cipher, so that no one
could make head or tail of them.’
‘Dear me, how very interesting!’
‘Yes, it naturally excited curiosity. Why should a man write volumes of
cipher? Imagine the labour of it! So some one set to work to solve the
cipher. This was about the year 1820. After three years they
succeeded.’
‘How in the world did they do it?’
‘Well, they say that human ingenuity never yet invented a cipher which
human ingenuity could not also solve. Anyhow, they did succeed. And
when they had done so, and copied it all out clean, they found they had
got hold of such a book as was never heard of before in the whole history
of literature.’
Maude laid her sewing on her lap, and looked across with her lips parted
and her eyebrows raised.
‘They found that it was an inner Diary of the life of this man, with all
his impressions, and all his doings, and all his thoughts—not his
ought-to-be thoughts, but his real, real thoughts, just as he thought
then at the back of his soul. You see this man, and you know him very
much better than his own wife knew him. It is not only that he tells of
his daily doings, and gives us such an intimate picture of life in those
days, as could by no other means have been conveyed, but it is as a piece
of psychology that the thing is so valuable. Remember the dignity of the
man, a high government official, an orator, a writer, a patron of
learning, and here you have the other side, the little thoughts, the mean
ideas which may lurk under a bewigged head, and behind a solemn
countenance. Not that he is worse than any of us. Not a bit. But he is
frank. And that is why the book is really a consoling one, for every
sinner who reads it can say to himself, “Well, if this man who did so
well, and was so esteemed, felt like this, it is no very great wonder
that I do.”’
Maude looked at the fat brown book with curiosity. ‘Is it really all
there?’ she asked.
‘No, dear, it will never all be published. A good deal of it is, I
believe, quite impossible. And when he came to the impossible places, he
doubled and trebled his cipher, so as to make sure that it should never
be made out. But all that is usually published is here.’ Frank turned
over the leaves, which were marked here and there with pencilings.
‘Why are you smiling, Frank?’
‘Only at his way of referring to his wife.’
‘Oh, he was married?’
‘Yes, to a very charming girl. She must have been a sweet creature. He
married her at fifteen on account of her beauty. He had a keen eye for
beauty had old Pepys.’
‘Were they happy?’
‘Oh yes, fairly so. She was only twenty-nine when she died!’
‘Poor girl!’
‘She was happy in her life—though he _did_ blacken her eye once.’
‘Not really?’
‘Yes, he did. And kicked the housemaid.’
‘Oh, the brute!’
‘But on the whole he was a good husband. He had a few very good points
about him.’
‘But how does he allude to his wife?’
‘He has a trick of saying, “my wife, poor wretch!”’
‘Impertinent! Frank, you said to-night that other men think what this
odious Mr. Pepys says. Yes, you did! Don’t deny it! Does that mean
that you always think of me as “poor wretch”?’
‘We have come along a little since then. But how these passages take you
back to the homely life of those days!’
‘Do read some.’
‘Well, listen to this, “And then to bed without prayers, to-morrow being
washing-day.” Fancy such a detail coming down to us through two
centuries.’
‘Why no prayers?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose they had to get up early on washing-days, and
so they wanted to go to sleep soon.’
‘I’m afraid, dear, you do the same without as good an excuse. Read
another!’
‘He goes to dine with some one—his uncle, I think. He says, “An
excellent dinner, but the venison pasty was palpable beef, which was not
handsome.”’
‘How beautiful! Mrs. Hunt Mortimer’s sole last week was palpable plaice.
Mr. Pepys is right. It was not handsome.’
‘Here’s another grand entry: “Talked with my wife of the poorness and
meanness of all that the people about us do, compared with what we do.”
I dare say he was right, for they did things very well. When he dined
out, he says that his host gave him “the meanest dinner of beef, shoulder
and umbles of venison, and a few pigeons, and all in the meanest manner
that ever I did see, to the basest degree.”
‘What are umbles, dear?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, whatever they are, it sounds to me a very good dinner. People
must have lived very well in those days.’
‘They habitually over-ate and over-drank themselves. But Pepys gives us
the menu of one of his own entertainments. I’ve marked it somewhere.
Yes, here it is. “Fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton
boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of
roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a
most rare pie!), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all
things mighty noble and to my great content.”’
‘Good gracious! I told you that I associated him with indigestion.’
‘He did them pretty well that time.’
‘Who cooked all this?’
‘The wife helped in those days.’
‘No wonder she died at twenty-nine. Poor dear! What a splendid
kitchen-range they must have had! I never understood before why they had
such enormous grates in the old days. Naturally, if you have six
pigeons, and a lamprey, and a lobster, and a side of lamb, and a leg of
mutton, and all these other things cooking at the same time, you would
need a huge fire.’
‘The wonderful thing about Pepys,’ said Frank, looking thoughtfully over
the pages, ‘is that he is capable of noting down the mean little impulses
of human nature, which most men would be so ashamed of, that they would
hasten to put them out of their mind. His occasional shabbiness in money
matters, his jealousies, his envies, all his petty faults, which are
despicable on account of their pettiness. Fancy any man writing this.
He is describing how he visited a friend and was reading a book from his
library. “A very good book,” says he, “especially one letter of advice
to a courtier, most true and good, which made me once resolve to tear out
the two leaves that it was writ in, but I forbore it.” Imagine recording
such a vile thought.’
‘But what you have never explained to me yet, dear, or if you did, I
didn’t understand—you don’t mind my being a little stupid, do you?—is,
what object Mr. Pepys had in putting down all this in such a form that no
one could read it.’
‘Well, you must bear in mind, dear, that he could read it himself.
Besides he was a fellow with a singularly methodical side to his mind.
He was, for example, continually adding up how much money he had, or
cataloguing and indexing his library, and so on. He liked to have
everything shipshape. And so with his life, it pleased him to have an
exact record which he could turn to. And yet, after all, I don’t know
that that is a sufficient explanation.’
‘No, indeed, it is not. My experience of man—’
‘_Your_ experience, indeed!’
‘Yes, sir, my experience of men—how rude you are, Frank!—tells me that
they have funny little tricks and vanities which take the queerest
shapes.’
‘Indeed! Have I any?’
‘You—you are compounded of them. Not vanity—no, I don’t mean that. But
pride—you are as proud as Lucifer, and much too proud to show it. That
is the most subtle form of pride. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what I
mean. But in this man’s case, it took the form of wishing to make a
sensation after his death. He could not publish such a thing when he
lived, could he?’
‘Rather not.’
‘Well, then, he had to do it after his death. He had to write it in
cipher, or else some one would have found him out during his lifetime.
But, very likely, he left a key to the cipher, so that every one might
read it when he was gone, but the key and his directions were in some way
lost.’
‘Well, it is very probable.’
The fire had died down, so Maude shipped off her chair, and sat on the
black fur rug, with her back against Frank’s knees. ‘Now, dear, read
away!’ said she.
But the lamp shone down upon her dainty head, and it gleamed upon her
white neck, and upon the fluffy, capricious, untidy, adorable, little
curlets, which broke out along the edges of the gathered strands of her
chestnut hair. And so, after the fashion of men, his thoughts flew away
from Mr. Pepys and the seventeenth century, and all that is lofty and
instructive, and could fix upon nothing except those dear little
wandering tendrils, and the white column on which they twined. Alas,
that so small a thing can bring the human mind from its empyrean flights!
Alas, that vague emotions can drag down the sovereign intellect! Alas,
that even for an hour, a man should prefer the material to the spiritual!
But the man who doesn’t misses a good deal.
A VISIT TO MR. SAMUEL PEPYS
THERE are several unjustifiable extravagances which every normal man
commits. There are also several unjustifiable economies. Among others,
there is that absurd eagerness to save the striking of a second match,
which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language.
And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the
minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence,
when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be
stylists in our telegrams.
A week after the conversation about Mr. Pepys, when some progress had
been made with the reading of the _Diary_, Maude received the following
wire from Frank—
‘MRS. CROSSE. Woking.—Pepys buttered toast suède gloves four
Monument wait late.’
As a sixpennyworth it was a success, but as a message it seemed to leave
something to be desired. Maude puzzled over it, and tried every possible
combination of the words. The nearest approach to sense was when it was
divided in this way—Pepys—buttered toast—suède gloves—four—Monument, wait
late.
She wrote it out in this form, and took it section by section. ‘Pepys,’
that was unintelligible. ‘Buttered toast,’ no sense in that. ‘Suède
gloves,’ yes, she had told Frank that when she came to town, she would
buy some suède gloves at a certain shop in the City, where she could get
for three and threepence a pair which would cost her three and ninepence
in Woking. Maude was so conscientiously economical, that she was always
prepared to spend two shillings in railway fares to reach a spot where a
sixpence was to be saved, and to lavish her nerve and energy freely in
the venture. Here, then, in the suède gloves, was a central point of
light. And then her heart bounded with joy, as she realised that the
last part could only mean that she was to meet Frank at the Monument at
four, and that she was to wait for him if he were late.
So, now, returning to the opening of the message, with the light which
shone from the ending, she realised that buttered toast might refer to a
queer little City hostel, remarkable for that luxury, where Frank had
already taken her twice to tea. And so leaving Mr. Pepys to explain
himself later, Maude gave hurried orders to Jemima and the cook, and
dashed upstairs to put on her new fawn-coloured walking-dress—a garment
which filled her with an extraordinary mixture of delight and remorse,
for it was very smart, cost seven guineas, and had not yet been paid for.
The rendezvous was evidently a sudden thought upon the part of Frank, for
he had left very little time for her to reach the trysting-place.
However, she was fortunate in catching a train to Waterloo, and another
thence to the City, and so reached the Monument at five minutes to four.
The hour was just striking when Frank, with his well-brushed top-hat and
immaculate business frock-coat, came rushing from the direction of King
William Street. Maude held out her hand and he shook it, and then they
both laughed at the formality.
‘I am so glad you were able to come, dearest. How you do brighten up the
old City!’
‘Do I? I felt quite lonely until you came. Nothing but droves of
men—and all staring.’
‘It’s your dress.’
‘Oh, thank you, sir!’
‘Entirely that pretty brown—’
‘Brown! Fawn colour.’
‘Well, that’s brown. Anyhow, it looks charming. And so do you—by Jove
you do, Maude! Come this way!’
‘Where are we going?’
‘By underground. Here we are.—Two second singles, Mark Lane, please!—No,
that’s for the west-end trains. Down here! Next train, the man says.’
They were in the mephitic cellar, with the two long wooden platforms
where the subterranean trains land or load their freights. A strangling
gas tickled their throats and set them coughing. It was all dank and
dark and gloomy. But little youth and love care for that! They were
bubbling over with the happiness of this abnormal meeting. Both talked
together in their delight, and Maude patted Frank’s sleeve with every
remark. They could even illuminate all that was around them, by the
beauty and brightness of their own love. It went the length of open
praise for their abominable surroundings.
‘Isn’t it grand and solemn?’ said Maude. ‘Look at the black shadows.’
‘When they come to excavate all this some thousands of years hence, they
will think it was constructed by a race of giants,’ Frank answered.
‘The modern works for the benefit of the community are really far greater
than those which sprang from the caprice of kings. The London and
North-Western Railway is an infinitely grander thing than the pyramids.
Look at the two headlights in the dark!’
Two sullen crimson discs glowed in the black arch of the tunnel. With a
menacing and sinister speed, they grew and grew until roaring they sprang
out of the darkness, and the long, dingy train, with a whining of brakes,
drew up at the platform.
‘Here’s one nearly empty,’ said Frank, with his hand on the handle.
‘Don’t you think—’ said Maude.
‘Yes, I do,’ cried Frank.
And they got into one which was quite empty. For the underground railway
is blessed as regards privacy above all other lines, and where could a
loving couple be more happy, who have been torn apart by cruel fate for
seven long hours or so? It was with a groan that Frank remarked that
they had reached Mark Lane.
‘Bother!’ said Maude, and wondered if there were any shop near where she
could buy hairpins. As every lady knows, or will know, there is a very
intimate connection between hairpins and a loving husband.
‘Now, Frank, about your telegram.’
‘All right, dear. Come along where I lead you, and you will understand
all about it.’
They passed out of Mark Lane Station and down a steep and narrow street
to the right. At the bottom lay an old smoke-stained church with a
square tower, and a small open churchyard beside it.
‘That’s the church of Saint Olave,’ said Frank. ‘We are going into it.’
He pushed open a folding oaken door, and they found themselves inside it.
Rows of modern seats filled the body of it, but the walls and windows
gave an impression of great antiquity. The stained glass—especially that
which surmounted the altar—contained those rich satisfying purples and
deep deep crimsons which only go with age. It was a bright and yet a
mellow light, falling in patches of vivid colour upon the brown
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