CHAPTER VIII

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OF HOW NO ACCIDENT HAD REALLY HAPPENED TO THE MOTOR-CAR. OF A COMBAT BETWEEN TWO SISTERS, CHIEFLY ABOUT THOSE OF PEOPLE'S DECEASED WIVES. OF FLIRTATIONS WITH MARRIED MEN. HOW CHALLIS WROTE A LONG AMUSING LETTER TO MARIANNE

The chit and her young officer felt unequal to remaining outside, against the tidal wave of the returned motorists. Occasional suspension is necessary to the greediest flirtation, to give it a flavour of stolenness; else it loses its character, and palls. This is our surmise as to why these young people allowed themselves to be swept into the drawing-room by the current. Cerberus seemed to have been withdrawn. It is not necessary to the story to know whether the little beggar had or had not disappointed his backers. No questions were asked.

The way in which the motor-party ignored their accident was more like the concerted vigour of artillerymen in charge of a gun than any mere philosophical submission to the will of Fate. Practically the machine's twenty-horse-power had brought them in triumph to the door exactly at the time appointed. A trivial excursion into non-fulfilment of its destiny was not the poor motor's fault, nor its inventor's, nor its maker's, nor its chauffeur's. It was all due to a little bit of original sin in the heart of a hexagon nut, which, having heard that the only key that it could be got at with was mislaid, immediately went slack. It resisted the importunities of a screw-hammer, and demanded a box-key. Like some minute organism of humanity—a spiteful medulla oblongata, say!—endowed with powers of striking work, it had paralyzed the whole structure. But, unlike the medulla oblongata, it could be set right in five minutes as soon as we had a proper box-key. Therefore it was as clear as noonday that the mishap, as an incident in the History of Motoring, hadn't happened at all. It was by-play—didn't count!

The expedition had been a great success. Its object had been attained; like that of the scout who locates the enemy, but leaves his horse behind. When you have seen premises that are the very thing, what does it matter how you get home? For the purposes of the Great Idea, these premises were the very thing. Three large waterwheels, one overshot, ninety-four-horse-power in all, and the most glorious oak- and beechwoods coming down to the waterside. And the most interesting fourteenth-century pound William Rufus had ever seen. He and his friend Scipio were fascinated with the place, and enthusiastic about the Great Idea. But while apt to feel pique at any doubt thrown on the wisdom of the scheme, the latter was not prepared to forego the luxury of making fun of it himself.

"No historical associations," said he, with perfect deliberation of manner, "could supply a more healthy stimulus to the production of what I believe are called Art Objects. The church, a most interesting example of several styles, has been judiciously restored in one—I forget which—and the castle, some portions of which are previous to something very early—I forget what——"

"Suppose you shut up, Scip," said his friend. "You're never in earnest about anything. No—it really is the most delightful place I've ever seen. You wouldn't look so scornful if you could see it, Ju. And as for its suitability, I don't see how there can be any question about that."

His sister Sibyl's practical mind—her manner laid claim to one—went straight on to details. "The only thing," she said, "that I didn't see a place for was the ivorycarvers' shop."

"Couldn't one of those places in the roof be converted?" her brother asked.

"Too hot in the summer," said Sibyl decisively. "I can see the weaving-sheds, and the jewellery-shops, and the bookbinder's department, and the printing-house, and the woodblock-cutter's little shop round by the stairs, and the ceramic works—(only we really must be sure that chimney-shaft will be any good)—and the bronze-casters, and the printed fabrics, and the type-writing de luxe for private circulation." She checked off each department on her fingers, imagining clearly—so Mr. Challis, who was watching her, thought—the place in which it was to be located. Then she came to her exception—"But where on earth these tiresome ivorycarvers are to be put I can't imagine!"

Her brother, with perfect gravity, accepted the difficulty as one to be wrestled with. "I don't see why they need be downstairs at all," said he. "Why not put them in—well!—if not in the roof, why not in that room beyond the Art-needlework schools?"

"We can't conveniently have boys and young men passing and repassing." Sibyl was giving it serious thought; no doubt of that! She added with conviction: "We shall have to build in the end; so we may as well look the matter in the face." "What do you want with ivorycarvers?" Thus Judith, with a near approach to a yawn. It never came off, owing to good breeding; but Mr. Challis noted to himself that it would have been statuesque had it done so. Marianne's yawn was not statuesque. He could recall cases in point.... What had that to do with the matter, by-the-bye? Challis brushed it away by joining in a murmur of half-protest against Judith's question. The world was listening interested to the evolution of the Great Idea. Politics had slacked down—to give it a turn. And the world perceived, in a doubt thrown on the necessity for ivory carving, a dangerous phase of criticism that might undermine the whole scheme.

Sibyl said, with decisive resignation, "Oh dear!—how exactly like you that is, Ju!" And her brother, "That's Judith all over." Then both asked a mixed question, equivalent to—If not ivorycarvers, why not anything? Why not no jewelery?—no art needlework?—no hammered metal or wood carving? The world's murmur of half-protest—so Challis thought—had really less to do with the demerits of the cavil it condemned than with the obviousness of the answer to it. A mob is apt to mistake its self-gratulation at having perceived something for agreement with the thing it has perceived. Folk sing below par in unison, and no one cares much which way he votes in a plebiscite. This is what Mr. Challis thought, not a remark of the text. He resolved to put it in his next book.

"I am in a minority." Judith dropped her fine eyelids with a hint in the action of formal surrender, as one strikes a banner. "Even Mr. Challis has deserted me!" Challis said, "Not altogether. I'm a trimmer playing fast and loose. A sort of plaid, like Sam Weller." But he had not understood his monde. It was one that knew nothing about Sam Weller.

The rest of the company—all but the chit and counterchit—showed a disposition to talk to each other of conditions necessary to be observed in the sudden inauguration of complex undertakings, these conditions touching points familiar to the speaker, but not within the experience of others. Each would call Mr. Arkroyd's attention to a danger ahead, or an advantage to be attained by well-advised foresight, as early as possible to-morrow, so that Opportunity might be taken by the forelock.

Mr. Ramsey Tomes enjoined caution before all things. He spoke as one having a monopoly of prudent instincts, to the exclusion of a rash planetful of fellow-creatures, or as the voice of one crying "Beware!" in the wilderness of pitfalls Don't-care neglected, with such fatal consequences. He suggested, like the father of him who slew the Jabberwock, that he who only took sufficient heed was certain of success—need not make any positive efforts—could go on rather better without them. One would have thought he meant—Mr. Challis did think—that any commentator so cautious as never to open a volume was well half-way to a triumph of exegesis, and that Columbus would have discovered America all the quicker if he had stopped at home. The story, Mr. Tomes concluded, of the failure of the plethora of rash enterprises that were our inheritance from an otherwise glorious Past would fill a volume. Mr. Challis thought to himself that this was unworthy of its author—rather an anticlimax. But Mr. Tomes was sleepy.

In fact, it was getting late, and a sense of impending adjournment was vitiating the discussion: a little pitted speck in the garnered fruits of its intelligence was growing, and a period of sleepy incapacity was in sight. Winding-up remarks became frequent, such as "We shall have to think all that over," or "We must settle this, that, and the other first, before anything practical can be done," or "One thing's certain, at any rate"—this last being the prelude to several different conclusions. In the end the view that we might sleep upon it was welcomed as an epigrammatic truth, and acted on. The company broke up, finding their bedroom-candles in the passage.

And as the chit and the counterchit tore themselves apart till morning, the latter said to the former, "What was all the fun? Did you make out?" To which the chit replied simply, "I wawesn't listening," in a long sweet drawl. And to that young officer's ears—will you believe it?—these words seemed the embodiment of divine wisdom, and he remained intoxicated!


Miss Sibyl Arkroyd, although she had just professed herself utterly worn out with her hard afternoon's work, was not too tired to say to her sister, over the lighting of a bedroom-candle in the passage, "Come into my room; I've something to say to you."

Judith, majestically undisturbed at anything a younger sister can possibly have to say, is in no hurry to comply with this request or mandate. Rather, she is inclined to make a parade of deliberation, exchanging understandings with Mr. Challis over the heads of the group of males with whom he is retiring to the smoking-room, to end the day with a cigar. Secret reciprocities seem to have set in, thinks Sibyl, pausing on the landing above, out of sight. And these are too subtle for the vernacular guests, and outclass the counterchits altogether. Though, as each of these last is dwelling contentedly on his recent chit, that doesn't come into court.

But Sibyl is wary, and gets away in time to her room. She just hears her sister's farewell speech to the author: "Do consider your readers a little, Mr. Challis, and don't ruin your brain with too many cigars," and his answer: "It all depends on the quality of the baccy;" followed by a testimonial from William Rufus about the brand of the one Challis has just chosen; and then she ends a majestic ascent of the broad stairway, with the portraits of departed Arkroyds looking down from its wainscoted walls, by disappearing into her sister's room.

"What's the something, Sibyl?"

"You'll be angry if I tell you."

"I may." Judith keeps her candle in her hand. Is it worth putting it down, if dissension in the wind is pointing to a short interview? "But how can I tell till I know? Why did you want me?"

"Well—I'll tell you. But you mustn't fly into a rage. That man Mr. Scoop—or Harris, or whatever his name is—married his Deceased Wife's Sister!"

"Is that any concern of mine?"

"You wouldn't speak in that way if it weren't."

"In what way?"

"The way you spoke." What may seem inexplicable here is due to the inability of mere words to do justice to the intensity of Judith's unconcern. There was no need for an indifference such as a humming-top asleep shows to the history of its own time.

"I don't mind waiting till you are reasonable, Sib dear." This little bit of Prussian tactics improved Judith's position. She put her candlestick on a piece of real Chippendale, to express anchorage, but remained standing. She had been looking very handsome in the white chiffon all the evening, and thought so. Her subconscious judgment confirmed this, as a mirror on a wardrobe door swung her reflection before her for a moment. Sibyl had opened it. Judith looked at her wrist-watch as she stood, but meant, subconsciously, to look up again when the counterswing brought the image back. All which occurred, and then Sibyl sat against the bed-end, having disposed of the wardrobe, and said:

"You know you have been in Mr. Harris's company all day, Judith. And I suppose it's going to be the usual thing. But there's no sense in your calling me unreasonable simply because I want you to know what the position is." "What is the position?"

"Just what I've told you. Mr. Harris ... well—Challis then ... is not really a married man. He married—at least, made believe to marry—his Deceased Wife's Sister."

"Then, now you've told me what the position is, I know. And I may go to bed."

"Don't be irritating, Judith." It is provoking, you know, when your enemy makes a successful rally after a seeming repulse. Judith's last tactical move was masterly. Her success soothed her to moderation.

"I don't want to be irritating, Sib. And I don't think you have any right to talk of being irritating after what you said just now. 'The usual thing!' What usual thing?"

"You know what I mean, and it doesn't matter."

"I don't think it matters the least. But what do you know about Mr. Challis? I mean, what do you know that I don't?"

"Only what I told you."

"But how do you know? Really, Sibyl, I shall go if there are to be any more mysteries."

"Well, don't be impatient, and I'll tell you." And thereon Sibyl, seated on the end of the bed, gave the substance of a short chat with her mother when she came in from the excursion. That lady must have been mighty interested, Judith thought, to talk about Mr. Challis's affairs, which could not possibly concern any of them. She said as much, resentfully, to her sister.

"Well," said Sibyl, "I only tell you what she said to me. She drove Mrs. Barham home from Thanes, and they talked about it all the way. The Bishop had it on perfectly good authority. I think it was the editor of some well-known paper who had heard it from a gentleman who had interviewed Mr. Challis for him. You know how they do?" Oh yes!—Judith knew. "Well, this gentleman had it from Mr. Challis himself, who had begged him very earnestly to say nothing about it. So, of course, nothing appeared in the article."

"What a delicate-minded editor!"

"I think it was very nice of him. Why not? But you always sneer, Ju. Anyhow, that's what the madre said to me. And we agreed that the sooner you knew the better...."

"And why?"

"Oh, well, because, of course.... However, we can't discuss that now at this time of night. I only know what Mrs. Barham said the Bishop said...."

"What did His Holiness say?" "Judith, if you sneer I won't talk to you.... Well, the Bishop said that if he had his way, he would refuse Holy Communion to all people's Deceased Wife's Sisters ... there!—you know what I mean perfectly well, Judith."

Judith had started a protest, but gave up the point. "I know what you mean. But why doesn't he?"

"Mrs. Barham said he did not feel sure of the support of Public Opinion. But for all that this gentleman was living in Sin, technically if not actually, or actually as well as technically, or ... well!—I forget which ... with this woman." Sibyl paused; the pause was a tribute to the force of the curl of her sister's lip. She ended: "Come, Ju, you can't call her a lady, you know!"

"Did the Bishop say gentleman?"

"No. By-the-bye, I think the Bishop did say man. But, of course, he would speak scripturally. Besides, all gentlemen are men too, but all women are not ladies."

The curl died very slowly on Judith's lip, if at all. "Poor Mr. Challis!" said she. "He doesn't know what he's losing—at least, what he would lose if it wasn't for Bishop Barham's respect for the World. Fancy having the Holy Communion refused one—by Bishop Barham!..."

"Judith! If you're going to blaspheme!..."

"I'm not, dear. I'm going to say good-night. And to-morrow I'll tell Mr. Challis of his parlous plight."

"Oh, Ju, you never will!"

"Wait and see! Good-night, dear." The "dear" was rather perfunctory. And it was not to correct it to tenderness that Judith turned back in the doorway and reclosed it from within. "I want to know what you meant by 'the usual thing,'" she said, and waited.

"I thought you said you didn't think it mattered."

"I don't think it does. But I want to know what you meant by it, just the same."

The return into the room to ask the question added to its weight somehow. Sibyl might have answered more forcibly and less pertly had it been asked during conversation. "I should have thought, after the Honourable Stephen, that that went without saying."

"'After the Honourable Stephen'!... Sibyl!" There is growing resentment in the handsome woman's voice of protest, and a slight flinching in her sister's manner recognizes it. She speaks uncomfortably. "Well, what would you have me say? You know quite well, Ju, that the madre thinks so too. What is the use of pretending?"

Judith's colour is heightened as she closes the door to prevent someone hearing in the passage—her maid perhaps or her sister's. "I see no use in pretending, Sib. If you and mamma are going to say spiteful and malicious things, you had better speak them out.... Yes, it is spiteful and malicious to try to make out that there was anything between me and Stephen Lyell; it is simply wicked to use the word flirtation.... No—I know you have not actually used it—but it's the same thing. It was that woman entirely! And you know it!"

"I should have felt as she did. Besides, Lady Di Lyell's no fool. Look how you had him to yourself all day long ... oh yes!—I know what you are going to say. Perhaps there wasn't. But some people can get on perfectly well without any love-making. I think that way's the worst; it's insidious and hypocritical. Yes, Judith!—if you are going to flirt with a married man, I would sooner you did it above-board." Notice Sibyl's elisions, and how easily understood they seemed to be. Sisters' intercourse is based on concurrent consciousness of the actual; sometimes admitted, sometimes concealed. These two had harboured theirs from the nursery, usually finding speech for them. In the present case they had never spoken quite openly, though each knew the other knew of her knowledge, and pointed allusions to flirtations with married men had been perfectly well understood.

Judith has been keeping back a great deal of anger—she has self-control in plenty—to affect a certain patronage of a younger sister; albeit she has only a couple of years more to her half of the fifty they share between them. "Sib dear!" she says. "You are entirely absurd—quite childish. If her jealous ladyship wasn't secure against me and poor good, honourable Stephen, where is married bliss to find security? Unless men and women are never to be friends at all."

"Nobody objects to it that I know of. Only not one at a time. You know the difference that makes as well as I do—as well as everyone does."

Probably Judith did, and that was why she said nothing—or, at least, in what she did say made no reply to the last assertion, but went back to the general question. She put her hand on the door-handle to suggest peroration and spoke collectedly and coldly.

"You are quite wrong, Sibyl, when you use the word 'flirtation' about me and Stephen Lyell. Cordial acquaintance is quite enough—even friendship is a little overstrained. Not but that we are very good friends, and should always keep so, only for that fool of a woman! But I shall always think somebody made mischief." She turned the door-handle to indicate the penultimate character of what was coming, but did not open the door. "And as for this Mr. Alfred Challis or 'Titus Scroop'—who is a person, by-the-bye, with whom any sort of flirtation would be simply impossible—he's just a clever playwriter without the slightest pretence to be considered a ... no!—I wasn't going to say gentleman; let me finish ... accustomed to the ways of Society." Sibyl didn't feel convinced, but kept her counsel. "And I have my own reasons for wishing to cultivate his acquaintance."

Now, surely, at this late hour of the night, and after so active a day, and with these two young ladies' respective maids wondering sotto voce on the landing outside what on earth it's all about—surely that door-handle might have turned in earnest! But we all know the fire that seems put out with a spark still chuckling in its core at the nice blaze it means to be one day. Perhaps if Sibyl had said "I ss—see" with less of suggestion that some human frailty undefined had been sighted by her shrewdness, and had commanded her sympathy; and perhaps (even more) if she had abstained from saying to herself, "I thought it was that," in a voice that was evidently intended to be heard, yet to seem inaudible—perhaps the fire would not have broken out again. As it was, the door-handle had a relapse, and its manipulator said rather sharply: "Thought it was what?"

"The Stage," was the reply. "Oh yes, Ju!—I know all about it; so you needn't look like a Tragedy Queen. Pray disgrace your family! Good-night, dear."

"Sibyl, you are a thoroughly selfish woman ... did you say why? Why—because you are indulging all your own fancies—just flinging away hundreds on all sorts of useless fads, and all the while opposing me in a reasonable wish—for it is reasonable to wish to give it a trial—because of a miserable, old-fashioned prejudice against a profession which at least is as respectable as hammering little copper pots and making little bits of fussy enamelled jewellery. I can't tell you how sick I get of hearing of it all...." Anger at mere impertinence does not involve a flush, like resentment against a charge of misdemeanour on a point of delicacy. But one can go white with anger, and Judith's change of colour may be due to it, as she says what she evidently means to be her last word. Sibyl tries to deprive it of a last word's advantage.

"If you are going to take that tone, Ju," she replies, "I think we had better talk no more about it. And how little copper pots can have anything fast or disreputable about them I don't know. But pray disgrace your family, if you can get anyone to help you—Mr. Scoop, or Challis, or anyone." Then this young lady did not play fair, for she said or as good as said that if her sister was as tired and sleepy as she herself was, she wouldn't stand there talking, but would go to bed. But even this was not so bad as adding: "And what all this has to do with Mr. Scoop's Deceased Wife's Sister I can't imagine!" The dry tone in which Judith said, "Nor I, dear!" may have conveyed her views about her sister's powers of Logic, without more enlargement—at least, she indulged in none and went away to her own bedroom rather despising herself for feeling exasperated, but knowing that she was so by the satisfaction she got from an increased indifference to what her family thought about the theatrical profession. Her stage-mania was getting the bit in its teeth. But she could find it in her heart to laugh at Sibyl for trying to support her own fads on the moral repute of little copper pots. Why, so far as that went, the little pots might be anchorites in deserts for any power they had of blemishing it.

As for "Mr. Scroop's Deceased Wife's Sister," that, she knew, was nonsense, because he had told her the name of his first wife. Or, stop a minute!—might she not have been a half-sister? Judith guessed shrewdly. But then—it occurred to her presently—would that count? She thought of this after she was in bed, and was half inclined to get up, and look up the point in her prayer-book.


The suspicion that had crossed Challis's mind in the drawing-room was confirmed by the way his companion had glanced at herself in the mirror, before answering his question about the beauty of her friend the stage-aspirant, more than by the wording of her answer. After all, the fact that a good-looking woman had refused an unqualified testimonial to the beauty of an alleged friend was very negative evidence indeed that she was all the while speaking of herself. But the glance at her reflection seemed natural enough to him under the circumstances, though he was ready to admit that, much as he had written about them, he did not understand women. His conclusion from it was supported by something not altogether natural in the tone of the answer; the substance of it might be no more than provisional modesty, to cover future confession. Had she answered that her friend had a Juno-like figure, a splendid Greek brow and nose, rich coils of dark hair, a stately column of a throat, and ample justification for evening dress whenever warranted by authority—could she have looked him in the face later and claimed the identity? Challis dwelt upon the inventory more than was needed, and decided that the semi-evasion had been skilful, and had shown that its author was superior to frivolous vanities. There was glamour about this: men persist in ascribing high qualities to beautiful women, and only concede them grudgingly to dowdies as a set-off to their unhappy plainness.

Anyhow, even if he was mistaken, his mistake would give him a sound ground for writing as much as he was inclined to write about this young lady to Marianne; and he felt, without exactly knowing why, inclined to write rather liberally about her. Perhaps, if he had had a mind for self-vivisection, he would have found that he shrank from acknowledging the reason he had hitherto flinched from writing about her to his wife; which was, briefly, that he was just too far entichÉ to feel at ease in telling her how much in love he had fallen with one of the daughters, and how awfully jolly she was, and how awfully jealous she, Marianne, would be if she was there to see. You know—male reader over head and ears in wedlock!—that that is what you would have written, and despatched with an authenticating photograph if one was attainable. And you would have asked for the last photo of your correspondent in return—the one with baby pulling her hair; not that beastly one yearning, with the lips slightly parted—to give as a swop to your new love; because six copies were to come from Elliott and Fry's, and we could have as many more as we wanted. But Mr. Alfred Challis was not so detached as all this; and, without absolutely suspecting it, he was not sorry to be supplied with a well-defined locus scribendi, where all analysis and justification would merge and be forgotten. He felt, with such a licence of free pen, much more ready to go to work with his long letter to Marianne about that long walk to the Rectory to-day. See what a lot he could find to tell about that Parson who wanted (or didn't) to marry his Deceased Wife's Sister! Partly on the question itself—one, of course, of the greatest interest to both—and partly, if not more, because he had just remembered that surely the name of the Parson who took on the duties for Charlotte Eldridge's reverend cousin out Clapham way was Athelstan Something; and hadn't he, the said cousin, been known to come away to this part of the world to take his friend's duties in the country and get change of air? Of course! And then, too, there was the incident of the sofa in the evening. Yes!—he would make the peep into the mirror amusing.

They were new candles all through again this evening—really! ... the extravagance in these great houses! What would Marianne say if she saw it? But so much the better! Candles that have never been blown out give a much better light than restarted ones—who can say why? Challis settled down soon to his long letter, and wrote well into the night. The four candles he had enlisted had burned down to mere housekeeper's perquisites—substitute-justifiers—by the time he had signed himself Marianne's loving Tite; and after a good stretch in acknowledgment of an hour's bent back, had lighted an isolated sample with an extinguisher-parasite, so as to blow all four out together, and keep them neck and neck.

After he was in bed he said to himself that he must make sure that letter went by the first post, or it would only reach Marianne such a short time before the writer. It was very stupid of him, that it was, to have allowed so many days to pass before writing a proper account of "these people" to his wife. She had only had such very perfunctory letters before. He classed it as a stupidity. However, it might end by his overstaying the week he was asked for by more than an extra day already bespoken, and then this long letter would seem in better keeping. That would make it all right.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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