OF AN UNCALLED FAMILY ROW, AND HOW BOB'S BREAKFAST WAS POSTPONED. OF A LETTER FROM JUDITH THAT MADE MATTERS WORSE

The Mistake's son was the unfortunate means of causing the next day to begin badly. For he rose early, and hastened to the plague-centre at Putney whence Records flowed, to acquire in exchange for the condemned piece of mere music either "The White-Eyed Musical Kaffir" or something equally juicy. Naturally, he found the shop not open, at an hour when sparse milk and eggs were the only things procurable. "Won't open till ten," was the current opinion. Bob, disgusted, called on his friend Tommy Eldridge, and found sympathy and consolation. Tommy had had the "Musical Kaffir" for two days past, and the Kaffir had palled. He would swop him for the "mere music" record and twopence. Bob closed with the offer, but the bargain had taken time; and, as a consequence, he burst in upon breakfast at half-past eight o'clock, and announced his acquisition with an evident conviction that his hearers had been awaiting his return with suspended breaths. His step-mother—or aunt; either will do—confiscated his treasure promptly, and denounced Science within the home-circle. Lectures, she said truly, were one thing; houses another. Bob cited the indulgences shown to other fellows by their parents in respect of phonographs, and Cat said that Tommy Eldridge always had his till tea-time. Her mother told her not to speak with her mouth full, and met Master Bob's half-inaudible "I shall ask the Governor, anyhow!" with so harsh an enquiry, "What's that you're saying, sir? Don't mumble to yourself!" that Bob evacuated his position, and awaited reinforcements.

Marianne was making the common mistake of easing ill-temper by attacking objects blameless of provoking it—blowing off steam through wrong channels. At another time she would have been too lazy to open a campaign against a phonograph. Now she found it a relief to pitch in—Bob's phrase—and enlarged her scheme of operations. "If it wasn't for your father," she said, "you would all be breakfasting upstairs." Bob, who was afraid of her because she had boxed his ears for him before now—and not so very long ago—only muttered a sotto-voce "I'm a Rugby boy now, and that would be grandmother," expressing in his simple, limited way his sense of acquired status, and the folly of ignoring it. Marianne, who was not really the least angry with Bob, and certainly didn't care twopence about the "Musical Kaffir," saw in this suppressed defiance an outlet for her own high-pressure atmosphere, and jumped at its inaudibility as though it were the head and front of its offending. What was it he was mumbling?—she said again, with growing anger. He wouldn't mumble if his father was here. Bob denied this audibly, probably meaning that he had said nothing he would have scrupled to say to his father. He felt indignant and injured; having, indeed, meant no wrong, though his preoccupation about the glorious phonograph had no doubt made his speech appear careless.

As ill-luck would have it, Challis, coming down at this moment to breakfast, and not in a beaming good-humour himself, heard his wife's indictment, and quickened his descent of the stairs. He resolved at once on his usual policy whenever Marianne came to open warfare with any of the family—namely, to take her part at the moment, for discipline's sake, even supposing he had to make amends for it after by concessions.

"What is the matter?" said he magisterially, in the pause of silence his entry created. It was more impressive than any amount of excitement, and the younger little girl, Emmie, began to cry in a terrified way. Nothing creates the formidable like fear, even when it is only a small child's. The tension became full-blown, having—please observe!—all grown out of nothing.

"You must ask your boy what he means, Alfred, and find for yourself. All I can say is, that if I am to be spoken to so before the servants, I cannot go on."

"How dare you speak to your mother so—eh? What do you mean by it?" Challis's assumption of uncontrollable anger is affectation, merely from motives of policy. He knows he can make it up with Bob, any time.

"I didn't." Bob no more knows what he is denying than his father knows what he has accused him of. Never mind! Families don't quarrel by the book. Bob is scarlet, for all that, and warms to his subject. "She took my Record, and it cost a shilling, and twopence over. She wanted to prevent me...." But it remains untold, whatever it was, for Marianne interrupts:

"You can hear for yourself how he calls me she. But do as you like, Alfred!"—use of this name means a state of siege, observe!—"He is your boy." After which disclaimer of a parentage no one had accused her of, she repeats, "She, indeed!" to rub it in. Challis at once perceived that he must either sacrifice poor Bob on the altar of Peace, or be entangled in a hopeless discussion of rights and wrongs with Marianne; how hopeless, only experience such as his could know! Action was necessary, and he pounced on Bob, seizing him by the collar of his coat. "How dare you speak so to your mother? How dare you...." But stop! He could never ask him how he dared say she to his mother! Even Marianne would suspect him of making game of her. So he had to pretend that his indignation had overwhelmed him. "Don't answer me, sir," he shouted, shaking the culprit with a severity probably more apparent than real. "Be off to your room directly, and stop there!" And the child that was crying broke into a roar, to do honour to the way the scene had climaxed. Bob vanished.

The roaring slowed down, and was gradually merged in bread-and-marmalade. An intermediate period of sobs and bites, overlapping, was filled out with public discomfort—an embarrassed silence in which Challis's visible vexation was unfairly taken advantage of by Marianne, to say, "You can't wonder at the child, when you're so violent." Challis closed his lips lest he should speak; but it came home to him, in some mysterious way, that he was in the wrong. Men are; or if they are not, it comes to the same thing. For a firm conviction in the mind of a woman with a strong will and a proper spirit has all the force of fact. But Challis's acquiescence in his guilt was accompanied by a growing resolution to take Bob to the play, coÛte que coÛte, before he went back to school on Monday. He had no misgivings about the boy's breakfast. He knew Harmood might be relied on, as Bob was a favourite in that quarter. Probably a compensation-breakfast was in store for Bob, later.

It was a bad moment for dealing with a female correspondent who is "always sincerely yours." Had Challis been confident that an unopened letter on the table was from one who was only "his faithfully"—though, indeed, Rebekah could not have been much more to Isaac—or even "his truly," he might have opened it confidently and made some excuse to throw it carelessly along the table to his wife while he went on to his last consignment of press-clippings. Or he might have done so equally, however "sincerely his" Judith Arkroyd's signature said she was, if only this stupid needless row had not been bred by Mrs. Challis's Short Temper out of Bob's Phonograph. But then, in addition to the sincerity with which Judith surrendered herself for ever, Challis knew the letter would contain a repeat of her invitation of the day before to his wife—probably to accompany him to Royd at Whitsuntide. So he postponed opening all his letters, and made the fatal mistake of hustling them together as though he valued them all alike. Marianne knew better. Had she not seen him pause half a second over that characteristic, unmistakable hand—a strong bold upright script that seemed to speak its contempt in every line for the scratchy Italicisms of its writer's ancestors? How was she to interpret its being packed away out of her sight in this way? However, she wished the jury in the court of her inner conscience to understand distinctly that she did not care one straw what Titus did or did not do in respect of Grosvenor Square—but within well-defined lines. For, apart from the degree to which she relied on the social safeguards of that Square's aristocratic pride, she had about her husband the feeling many students of nature ascribe to married folk who are not ripening for divorce—the feeling Geraint had about Enid, according to Tennyson. Marianne, for all her tempersomeness and jealousy, loved and reverenced Challis too much to dream he could be guilty of anything that would supply copy for a modern novel.

A more frank nature than Marianne's would have said to him when he pocketed his unopened letters, "What!—not read her letter? Well!—I wouldn't write again, if I were she!" or some such pleasantry. Her obdurate silence provoked him to say what might else have stopped on his tongue's tip. It came just after the children had vanished to the nursery. "I think, Marianne, considering that the boy is going back to school on Monday, you might have.... Well!—you might have been a little easier with him."

"I'm sorry he is going back to school; that is where he learns it all. But I expected to be found fault with."

"Learns all what? What does he learn?" But the lady simply bristles with silence in reply to this question, so intensely does it call for no answer. Titus continues, letting it lapse: "I don't think you remember that it was I that gave him the phonograph; at least, I gave him leave to buy it."

"I don't remember anything about it, and I'm not going to try to. Of course you gave it him, to encourage him against me. Very well, Alfred, you take his part! Oh, I know!—oh yes, I'm not his mother. But I know what poor Kate would have said, if she had been here now." This was rather a favourite position of Marianne's; only she never by any chance filled out her claim to knowledge of what would have happened under perfectly inconceivable circumstances. She kept details secret. He thought of replying: "Poor Kate wouldn't be a fool, anyhow!" For he was vexed about Bob. But he was ashamed to find how Time had changed the face of things, that he should actually take exception to his own statement on its merits! Wouldn't she? He wasn't at all sure. He gave it up, and merely said: "We won't talk any more about it now. Where's Bob's Record?"

This was unfortunate. He had better have swept his letters into his pocket, with the hand that was waiting to do it, and carried them off to his study. Instead, he waited for the confiscated Musical Kaffir.

"No—Alfred—it's no use! I won't give it you if Bob's to have it. Horrible noise! Besides, look at the way he's been behaving!"

Challis gets visibly angry, or angrier. "You had much better give it me, Marianne," he says, reaching out his hand for it. But he just misses it, and it goes into Marianne's pocket; past recovery, without concession on her part or physical force on his. All might have been well if the dispute had not got to this point.

Things being thus, nothing remains for the story but to tell what actually took place. The lady persisted. No, she would not give it up! Nothing would induce her. Appeals on moderate lines, to come, to be reasonable, and so on, only made matters worse—tending, in fact, towards admission of weakness on Challis's part. He became more irritated, and in his annoyance at having to give up the point made an unfortunate speech. "Well—keep it, then, if you're so obstinate. I won't try to take it from you. But I tell you this, Marianne: there are many husbands that would." His only meaning was to lay a little stress on his own forbearance. He would not even try. But his speech sounded like an assertion of male power against female weakness, as well as of legal right.

The last was what stung Marianne. Her recent encounter with her mother had thrown doubts on her right to a divorce. How could they be reconciled with a husband's legal right to confiscate a White-Eyed Musical Kaffir, or any record, for that matter? Her eyes flashed, and she bit her lip as she turned to leave the room. A laugh that was no laugh came of it, but scarcely speech, to speak of. All she said was, "Because they could"—not very intelligibly. And then the nurse, Martha, with some appeal through the just opened door, cut off the interview, and imposed an every-day demeanour on both.

Challis went to his room to cool down. To him his wife's last words were inexplicable, unless they meant that his physique was not his strong point, and that he might not have recaptured the Musical Kaffir so very easily. But that did not seem to ring quite true, neither. Never mind!—he had to look at his letters. After all, it was not the first time Marianne had been unintelligible.

But her exclamation had no relation whatever to what Bob chose to call "vim." It was part of the new phase of thought connecting her mother's views about the legitimacy of her own marriage-knot with Challis's suggestion of a male domination that others—not he—might have legitimately claimed. If she was not to be Titus's lawful wife—if she was to be swindled by a trick of jurisdiction—at least let her have the advantages of her freedom. Let there be no rubbish about a man's right to rule, about a wife's duty to obey. Keep that sort of thing for authenticated marriage-lines, if hers were to be flawed.

It was the vaguest hint of an idea—no more! A gleam not worth a thought, except for what it grew to.

A human creature with an unopened letter in its hand is raw material for an Essay on the Past, Present, and Future. Rather dangerous things for a thoughtful scribbler to touch on rashly! Better say as little about them as possible.

That, or something like it, was Challis's thought as he stood in his writing sanctum, reasonlessly hanging fire over the opening of Judith Arkroyd's letter. Or was it that he wanted time to settle down after the recent Émeute? Some nervous characters—like his—shrink from a clash of conditions, a discordance of consecutive surroundings, and are prone to let each association die down before another takes its place. Challis wanted to shake clear of his domesticities, maybe, before transferring his thoughts to Judith and the invitation to Royd that he knew her letter would repeat.

For whatever reason, he hung fire. And when in the end he opened the letter, he did it slowly. He took a broad view of it; then placed it on the table while he lighted a pipe, with a misgiving that there was a flaw in it that would prevent his showing it to Marianne. When he picked it up for deliberate revision, smoke-encircled, he found it read thus:

"Dear Mr. Challis,

"Speech A. will suit me best—but never mind that if you feel like deciding on the other. Both enclosed back.

"Remember about Whitsuntide. Only please do succeed in persuading Mrs. Challis to come this time. Shall I come and go down on my knees to her? It does seem such a shame that she should keep so much in the background. Tell her she must come. I leave it to you—but do try!

"Sincerely yours,

"J. A."

What the dickens possessed Judith—not Miss Arkroyd, please!—to use that unfortunate expression, "keep so much in the background"? Of course, Grosvenor Square is the foreground of the Universe—a little of Challis's style as an author outcropped here—but why not take it for granted? Why, in a communication that was to be shown to a fretful porcupine, need Grosvenor Square let the cat of its deep-rooted faith in its position out of the bag of its good-breeding? That was Challis's metaphorical standpoint. But really Judith very seldom sinned in this way; scarcely ever, so Challis persuaded himself, trespassed on Mr. Elphinstone's department.

Now, why need Mrs. Challis choose this exact moment to remind her husband that his Fire Insurance expired on the twenty-fifth, within fifteen days of which, et cetera? Why had he left his door on the jar, so that she should look in, unannounced, just as he was deciding that it would never do to show her this letter from Judith? He had no time to reflect—barely enough to replace it in its envelope. And that, after all, was the worst thing he could do. For Marianne knew the envelope by heart already. The only way of accounting for things of this sort is by imputing to Eblis a conscientious attention to detail. He reaps his reward, as we know, the smallest interventions often yielding a profit. This remark is suggested by Challis's decision, after his wife had left the room, that the Devil was in it.

Has all this incident of Bob's phonograph been worth recording? Certainly it has. Because, coming as it did on the top of Mrs. Steptoe's reminiscence, and Mrs. Challis's visit to Tulse Hill, it blocked explanations by supplying reasons for the attitude of that hill—reasons valid enough to throw dust in the eyes of Mrs. Challis. The phonograph ruction was an effect, not a cause of ill-temper, and poor Bob was really a victim, not a prime mover in it. It did not matter much to him, for his release was not long delayed, and reinstatement and compensation followed somehow. Besides, his father took him to hear the Barbiere di Siviglia before he went back to school. But he refused to admit that Melba was any better than her record would be, if he might only buy it for three bob. By itself the Steptoe incident might have been explained. So might Challis's correspondence with Judith, or might never have attracted attention. It was the correlation of each to each, and the visit to Tulse Hill, with the subtle touch of Charlotte Eldridge at critical points, that provoked the dissension over the boy's harmless instrument of torture, and gave the Devil his opportunity.

Mrs. Steptoe had never recognized the young man whom she remembered as Harris, who, of course, was Challis himself. But the identification was in the air—bound to be made sooner or later. Although Mrs. Challis kept silence towards her husband, she lost no time in recurring to the subject with Mrs. Steptoe. Her own penetration had gone very little way, but Mrs. Eldridge had not been behindhand in finding out that either Kate Verrall had been thrice married, or that the second husband of the Brighton story was Challis himself. Charlotte would not have made a bad female detective. "Don't be a goose!" said she to her bewildered friend. "Don't give the woman any hints. Show her an old photograph of your husband, and see if she doesn't recognize it." Marianne did so, and it was straightway identified as that young Mr. Harris. "But," said she, "that is Mr. Challis, before we were married." Aunt Stingy, completely taken aback for a moment, recovered herself with great presence of mind and laid claim to having said many things she never had said the first minute she set eyes on Mr. Challis. In a very little while she persuaded herself she had known him at once. But she could not be induced to admit that she had got the name wrong; and as it was quite unimportant that she should do so, both ladies agreed to leave her unconvinced.

Mrs. Eldridge's suggestion was made at her own semi-detached residence, a quarter of an hour's walk from the Hermitage, where she and Marianne were reviewing the position some days after "it" occurred. The latter had been dwelling on a suggestion of her mother's, a very stupid old woman, that her husband had been, and still was, ignorant of poor Kate's first marriage.

"Absolutely impossible, dear!" said the authority. "Thing couldn't be! Besides, she would have had to be twice a widow, in such a very short time, if this young man Harris wasn't your husband. He must have been." And then she added her detective suggestion, as recorded, and the result removed all chance of acquittal on this score.