HOW THE HON. PERCIVAL GAVE MISS DICKENSON HIS ACCOUNT OF THE BLIND MAN. HOW THAT ANY YOUNG MAN SOEVER IS GLAD THAT ANY YOUNG LADY SOEVER ISN'T FIANCEE, EXCEPT SHE BE UGLY. MISS DICKENSON'S EFFRONTERY. HOW MR. PELLEW SAID "POOH!" IRENE'S ABSENCE, VISITING. EVERYONE'S ELSE ABSENCE, EXCEPT THE BLIND MAN'S, GWEN'S, AND MRS. BAILEY'S, WHO HAD A LETTER TO WRITE

The Hon. Percival Pellew had not been at the Towers continuously throughout the whole three weeks following the accident. The best club in London could not have spared him as long as that. He had returned to his place in the House a day or two later, had voted on the Expenses at Elections Bill, and had then gone to a by-election in Cornwall to help his candidate to keep his expenses at a minimum. His way back to the club did not lie near Ancester Towers, but he reconciled a renewal of his visit there to his conscience by the consideration that an unusually late Session was predicted. A little more country air would do him no harm, and the Towers was the best club in the country.

He had had absolutely no motive whatever for going there, outside what this implies. Unless, indeed, something else was implied by his pledging his honour to himself that this was the case. Self-deception is an art that Man gives a great deal of attention to, and Woman nearly as much.

The Countess said to him, on the evening of his reappearance in time to dress for dinner:—"Everybody's gone, Percy—I mean everybody of your lot a fortnight ago." Whereto he replied:—"How about the wounded man?" and her ladyship said:—"Mr. Torrens? Oh yes, Mr. Torrens is here still and his sister—they'll be here a few days longer.... There's nobody else. Yes, there's Constance Dickenson. Norbury, tell them to keep dinner back a little because of Mr. Pellew." This was all in one sentence, chiefly to the butler. She ended:—"All the rest are new," and the gentleman departed to dress in ten minutes—long ones probably. This was two or three evenings before Miss Dickenson saw that glow-worm in the garden. Perhaps three, because two are needed to account for the lady's attitude about that cigar, and twelve hours for a coolness occasioned by her ladyship's saying in her inconsiderate way:—"Oh, you are quite old friends, you two, of course—I forgot." Only fancy saying that a single lady and gentleman were "quite old friends"! Both parties exhibited mature courtesy, enriched with smiles in moderation. But for all that their relations painfully resembled civility for the rest of that evening.

However, whatever they were then, they were reinstated by now; that is to say, by the morning after Gwen's bad night. Eavesdrop, please, and overhear what you can in the arbutus walk, half-way through the Hon. Percival's first cigar.

The gentleman is accounting for something he has just said. "What made me think so was his being so curious about our friend Cumberworld. As for Gwen, I wouldn't trust her not to be romantic. Girls are."

The lady speaks discreetly:—"Certainly no such construction would have occurred to me. One has to be on one's guard against romantic ideas. She might easily be—a—Éprise, to some extent—as girls are...."

"But spooney, no! Well—perhaps you're right."

"I don't know whether I ought to say even that. I shouldn't, only to you. Because I know I can rely on your discretion...."

"Rather. Only you must admit that when she appeared this morning—and last night—she was looking...."

"Looking what?"

"Well ... rather too statuesque for jollity."

"Perhaps the heat. I know she complains of the heat; it gives her a headache."

"Come, Miss Dickenson, that's not fair. You know it was what you said began it."

"Began what?"

"Madam, what I am saying arises naturally from...."

"There!—do stop being Parliamentary and be reasonable. What you mean is—have those two fallen head over ears in love, or haven't they?" Discussions of this subject of Love are greatly lubricated by exaggeration of style. It is almost as good as a foreign tongue. She continued more seriously:—"Tell me a little more of what Mr. Torrens said."

"When I saw him this morning?" Mr. Pellew looked thoughtfully at what was left of his cigar, as if it would remind him if he looked long enough, and then threw it abruptly away as though he gave it up as a bad job. "No," he said, falling back on his own memory. "It wasn't what he said. It was the way of saying it. Manner is incommunicable. And he said so little about her. He talked a good deal about Philippa in a chaffy sort of way—said she was exactly his idea of a Countess—why had one such firm convictions about Countesses and Duchesses and Baronets and so on? It led to great injustice, causing us to condemn nine samples out of ten as Pretenders, not real Countesses or Duchesses or Baronets at all. He was convinced his own dear dad was a tin Baronet; or, at best, Britannia-metal. Alfred Tennyson had spoken of two sorts—little lily-handed ones and great broad-shouldered brawny Englishmen. Neither would eat the sugar nor go to sleep in an armchair with the Times over his head. His father did both. I admitted the force of his criticism, but could not follow his distinction between Countesses and Duchesses. Duchesses were squarer than Countesses, just as Dukes were squarer than Earls."

"I think they are," said Miss Dickenson. She shut her eyes a moment for reflection, and then decided:—"Oh yes—certainly squarer—not a doubt of it!" Mr. Pellew formed an image in his mind, of this lady fifteen years ago, with its eyes shut. He did not the least know why he did so.

"Torrens goes on like that," he continued. "Makes you laugh sometimes! But what I was going to say was this. When he had disposed of Philippa and chaffed Tim a little—not disrespectfully you know—he became suddenly serious, and talked about Gwen—spoke with a hesitating deference, almost ceremoniously. Said he had had some conversation with Lady Gwendolen, and been impressed with her intelligence and wit. Most young ladies of her age were so frivolous. He was the more impressed that her beauty was undeniable. The brief glimpse he had had of her had greatly affected him artistically—it was an Aesthetic impression entirely. He overdid this."

Miss Dickenson nodded slightly in confidence with herself. Her insight jotted down a brief memorandum about Mr. Pellew's, and the credit it did him. That settled, she recalled a something he had left unfinished earlier. "You were asking about Lord Cumberworld, Mr. Pellew?"

"Whether there was anything afoot in that quarter? Yes, he asked that, and wanted to know if Mrs. Bailey, who had been retailing current gossip, was rightly informed when she said that there was, and that it was going to come off. He was very anxious to show how detached he was personally. Made jokes about its 'coming off' like a boot...."

"Stop a minute to see if I understand.... Oh yes—I see. 'If there was anything afoot.' Of course. Go on."

"It was a poor quip, and failed of its purpose. His relief was too palpable when I disallowed Mrs. Bailey.... By-the-by, that's a rum thing, Miss Dickenson,—that way young men have. I believe if I did it once when I was a young fillah I did it fifty times."

"Did what?"

"Well—breathed free on hearing that a girl wasn't engaged. Doesn't matter how doosid little they know of her—only seen her in the Park on horseback, p'r'aps—they'll eat a lot more lunch if they're told she's still in the market. Fact!"

Miss Dickenson said that no doubt Mr. Pellew knew best, and that it was gratifying to think how many young men's lunches her earlier days might have intensified without her knowing anything about it. The gentleman felt himself bound to reassure and confirm, for was not the lady passÉe? "Rather!" said he; this favourite expression this time implying that the name of these lunches was no doubt Legion. An awkward sincerity of the lady caused her to say:—"I didn't mean that." And then she had to account for it. She was intrepid enough to venture on: "What I meant was, never being engaged," but not cool enough to keep of one colour exactly. It didn't rise to the height of embarrassment, but something rippled for all that.

A cigar Mr. Pellew was lighting required unusual and special attention. It had a mission, that cigar. It had to gloss over a slight flush on its smoker's cheeks, and to take the edge off the abruptness with which he said,—"Oh, gammon!" as he threw a Vesuvian away.

He picked up the lost thread at the point of his own indiscreet excursion into young-manthropology—his own word when he apologized for it. "Anyhow," said he, "it struck me that our friend upstairs was very hard hit. He made such a parade of his complete independence. Of course, I'm not much of a judge of such matters. Not my line. I understand that he has been prorogued—I mean his departure has. He's to try his luck at coming downstairs this evening after feeding-time. He funks finding the way to his mouth in public. Don't wonder—poor chap!"

Then this lady had a fit of contrition about the way in which she had been gossiping, and tried to back out. She had the loathsome meanness to pretend that she herself had been entirely passive, a mere listener to an indiscreet and fanciful companion. "What gossips you men are!" said she, rushing the position boldly. "Fancy cooking up a romance about this Mr. Torrens and Gwen, when they've hardly so much as," she had nearly said, "set eyes on each other"; but revised it in time for press. It worked out "when she has really only just set eyes on him, and chatted half an hour."

Mr. Pellew's indignation found its way through a stammer which expressed the struggle of courtesy against denunciation. "Come—hang it all!" said he. "It wasn't my romance.... Oh, well, perhaps it wasn't yours either. Only—play fair, Miss Dickenson. Six of the one and half a dozen of the other! Confess up!"

The lady assumed the tone of Tranquillity soothing Petulance. "Never mind, Mr. Pellew!" she said. "You needn't lie awake about it. It doesn't really matter, you know.... Have you got the right time? Because I have to be ready at half-past eleven to drive with Philippa. I promised.... What!—a quarter past? I must run." She looked back to reassure possible perturbation. "It really does not matter between us," said she, and vanished down the avenue.

The Hon. Percival Pellew walked slowly in the opposite direction in a brown study, leaving his thumbs in his armholes, and playing la ci darem with his fingers on his waistcoat. He played it twice or thrice before he stopped to knock a phenomenal ash off his cigar. Then he spoke, and what he said was "Pooh!"

The story does not know why he said "Pooh!" It merely notes, apropos of Miss Dickenson's last words, that the first person plural pronoun, used as a dual by a lady to a gentleman, sometimes makes hay of the thirdness of their respective persons singular. But if it had done so, this time, "Pooh!" was a weak counter-blast against its influence.

Irene's friend Gretchen von Trendelenstein had written that morning that she was coming to stay with the Mackworth Clarkes at Toft, only a couple of miles off. She would only have two days, and could not hope to get as far as Pensham, but couldn't Irene come to her? She was, you see, Irene's bosom friend. The letter had gone to Pensham and been forwarded, losing time. This was the last day of visiting-possibility at Toft. So Irene asked to be taken there; and, if she stayed, would find her way back somehow. Mr. Norbury, however, after referring to Archibald, the head of the stables, made dernier ressorts needless, and Irene was driven away behind a spirited horse by the young groom, Tom Kettering.

Her brother would have devolved entirely on Mrs. Bailey and chance visitors, if he had not struck vigorously against confinement to his room, after a recovery of strength sufficient to warrant his removal to his home eighteen miles away. If he was strong enough for that, he was strong enough for an easy flight of stairs, down and up, with tea between. Mrs. Bailey, the only obstacle, was overruled. Indeed, that good woman was an anachronism by now, her only remaining function being such succour as a newly blinded man wants till he gets used to his blindness. Tonics and stimulants were coming to an end, and her professional extinction was to follow. Nevertheless, Mr. Torrens held fast to dining in solitude until he recovered his eyesight, or at least until he had become more dexterous without it.

Now, it happened that on this day of all others three attractive events came all at once—the Flower Show at Brainley Thorpe, the Sadleigh Races, and a big Agricultural Meeting at King's Grantham, where the County Members were to address constituents. The Countess had promised to open the first, and the absence of the Earl from the second would have been looked upon as a calamity. All the male non-coronetted members of the company of mature years were committed to Agriculture or Bookmaking, and the younger ones to attendance on Beauty at the Flower Show. Poor Adrian Torrens!—there was no doubt he had been forgotten. But he was not going to admit the slightest concern about that. "Go away to your Von, darling Stupid!" said he. "And turn head over heels in her and wallow. Do you want to be the death of me? Do you want to throw me back when I'm such a credit to Mrs. Bailey and Dr. Nash?" Irene had her doubts—but there!—wasn't Gretchen going to marry an Herr Professor and be a Frau when she went back to Berlin, and would she ever see her again? Moreover, Gwen said to her:—"He won't be alone if he's downstairs in the drawing-room. Some of the women are sure to stop. It's too hot for old Lady Cumberworld to go out. I heard her say so."

"She'll be no consolation for him," said Irene.

"No—that she won't! But unless there's someone else there she'll have Inez—you've seen the Spanish dame-de-compagnie?—and she'll enjoy a flirtation with your brother. He'll speak Spanish to her, and she'll sing Spanish songs. He won't hurt for a few hours."

So Tom Kettering drove Irene away in the gig, and Adrian was guided downstairs to an empty hall by Mrs. Bailey at four o'clock, so as to get a little used to the room before anyone should return. Prophecy depicted Normal Society coming back to tea, and believed in itself. Achilles sanctioned his master's new departure by his presence, accompanying him to the drawing-room. This dog was not only tolerated but encouraged everywhere. Dogs are, when their eyes are pathetic, their coats faultless, and their compliance with household superstitions unhesitating.

"Anybody in sight, Mrs. Bailey?"

"Nobody yet, Mr. Torrens."

"Speriamo! Perhaps there's a piano in the room, Mrs. Bailey?"

"There's two. One's stood up against the wall shut. The other's on three legs in the middle of the room." That one was to play upon, she supposed, the other to sing to.

"If you will be truly obliging—you always are, you know—and conduct me to the one on three legs in the middle of the room, I will play you an air from Gluck's 'Orfeo,' which I am sure you will enjoy.... Oh yes—I can do without any music-books because I have played it before, not infrequently...."

"I meant to set upon." In fact, Mrs. Bailey regarded this as the primary purpose of music-books; and so it was, at the home of her niece, who could play quite nicely. There was only two and they "just did." She referred to this while Mr. Torrens was spinning the music-stool to a suitable height for himself. He responded with perfect gravity—not a fraction of a smile—that books were apt to be too high or too low. It was the fault of the composers clearly, because the binders had to accept the scores as they found them. If the binders were to begin rearranging music to make volumes thicker or thinner, you wouldn't be able to play straight on. Mrs. Bailey concurred, saying that she had always said to her niece not to offer to play a tune till she could play it right through from beginning to end. Mr. Torrens said that was undoubtedly the view of all true musicians, and struck a chord, remarking that the piano had been left open. "How ever could you tell that now, Mr. Torrens?" said Mrs. Bailey, and felt that she was in the presence of an Artist.

Nevertheless, she seemed to be lukewarm about Che faro, merely remarking after hearing it that it was more like the slow tunes her niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity this was andante. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary, had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr. Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the Schottische; and would have stood Gluck over to meet her taste indefinitely, but that voices came outside, and the selection was interrupted.

The voice of Lady Ancester was one, saying despairingly:—"My dear, if you're not ready we must go without you. I must be there in time." Miss Dickenson's was another, attesting that if the person addressed did not come, sundry specified individuals would be in an awful rage.

"Well, then, you must go without me. Flower shows always bore me to death." This was a voice that had not died out of the blind man's ears since yesterday; Lady Gwendolen's, of course. It added that its owner must finish her letter, or it would miss the six o'clock post and not catch the mail; which would have, somehow, some disastrous result. Then said her mother's voice, she should have written it before. Then justification and refutation, and each voice said its say with a difference—more of expounding, explaining—with a result like in Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha's mountainous fugue, that one of them, Gwen's, stood out all the stiffer hence. No doubt you know your Browning. Gwen asserted herself victor all along the line, and remonstrance died a natural death. But what was she going to do all the afternoon? A wealth of employments awaited her, she testified. Rarely had so many arrears remained unpaid. Last and least she must try through that song, because she had to send the music back to the Signore. So the Countess supposed she must go her own way, and presently Adrian Torrens was conscious that her ladyship had gone hers, by the curt resurrection of sounds in abeyance somewhile since; sounds of eight hoofs and four wheels; suddenly self-assertive, soon evanescent.

Was Gwen really going to come to sing at this piano? That was something worth living for, at least. But no!—conclusions must not be jumped in that fashion. Perhaps she had a piano in her own room. Nothing more likely.

Achilles had stepped out, hearing sounds as of a departure; and now returned, having seen that all was in satisfactory order. He sighed over his onerous responsibilities, and settled down to repose—well-earned repose, his manner suggested.

"I suppose I shall have to clear out when her young ladyship comes in to practise," said Mrs. Bailey. Mr. Torrens revolted inwardly against ostracising the good woman on social grounds; but then, did he want her to remain if Gwen appeared? Just fancy—to have that newcomer all to himself for perhaps an hour, as he had her for five minutes yesterday! Too good to be true! He compromised with his conscience about Mrs. Bailey. "Don't go away till she does, anyhow," said he. And then he sang Irish Melodies with Tom Moore's words, and rather shocked his hearer by the message the legatee of the singer received about his heart. She preferred the Polka.

It chanced that Mrs. Bailey also had weighty correspondence on hand, relating to an engagement with a new patient; and, with her, correspondence was no light matter. Pride had always stood between Mrs. Bailey and culture, ever since she got her schooling done. Otherwise she might have acquired style and a fluent caligraphy. As it was, her style was uncertain and her method slow. Knowing this—without admitting it—she was influenced by hearing a six o'clock post referred to, having previously thought her letters went an hour later. So she developed an intention of completing her letter, of which short instalments had been turned out at intervals already, as soon as ever the advent of a guest or visitor gave her an excuse for desertion. Of course a member of the household was better than either; so she abdicated without misgiving when—as she put it—she heard her young ladyship a-coming.

Her young ladyship was audible outside long enough for Mrs. Bailey to abdicate before she entered the room. They met on the stairs and spoke. Was that Mr. Torrens at the piano?—asked Gwen. Because if it was she mustn't stop him. She would cry off and try her song another time.

But Mrs. Bailey reassured her, saying:—"He won't go on long, my lady. You'll get your turn in five minutes," in an undertone. She added:—"He won't see your music-paper. Trust him for that." These words must have had a new hope in them for the young lady, for she said quickly: "You think he does see something, then?" The answer was ambiguous. "Nothing to go by." Gwen had to be content with it.

Is there any strain of music known to man more harrowingly pathetic than the one popularly known as Erin go bragh? Does it not make hearers without a drop of Erse blood in their veins thrill and glow with a patriotism that complete ignorance of the history of Ireland never interferes with in the least? Do not their hearts pant for the blood of the Saxon on the spot, even though their father's name be Baker and their mother's Smith? Ours does.

Adrian Torrens, though his finger-tips felt strange on the keys in the dark, and his hands were weak beyond his own suspicion of their weakness, could still play the Polka for Mrs. Bailey. When his audience no longer claimed repetition of that exciting air, he struck a chord or two of some Beethoven, but shook his head with a sigh and gave it up. However, less ambitious attempts were open to him, and he had happened on Irish minstrelsy; so, left to himself, he sang Savourneen Dheelish through.

Gwen, entering unheard, was glad she could dry her eyes undetected by those sightless ones that she knew showed nothing to the singer—nothing but a black void. The pathos of the air backed by the pathos of a voice that went straight to her heart, made of it a lament over the blackness of this void—over the glorious bygone sunlight, never a ray of it to be shed again for him! There was no one in the room, and it was a relief to her to have this right to unseen tears.

The feverish excitement of her sleepless night had subsided, but the memory of a strange resolve clung to her, a resolution to do a thing that then seemed practicable, reasonable, right; that had seemed since, more than once, insurmountable—yes! Insane—yes! But wrong—no! Now, hard hit by Savourneen Dheelish, the strength to think she might cross the barriers revived, and the insanity of the scheme shrank as its rightness grew and grew. After all, did she not belong to herself? To whom else, except her parents? Well—her duty to her parents was clear; to ransom their consciences for them; to enable them to say "We destroyed this man's eyesight for him, but we gave him Gwen." If only this pianist could just manage to love her on the strength of Arthur's Bridge and that rainbow gleam! But how to find out? She could see herself in a mirror near by as she thought it, and the resplendent beauty that she could not handle was a bitterness to her; she gazed at it as a warrior might gaze at his sword with his hands lopped off at the wrists. Still, he had seen her; that was something! She would not have acknowledged later, perhaps, that at this moment her mind was running on a foolish thought:—"Did I, or did I not, look my best at that moment?"

She never noticed the curious naÏvetÉ which left unquestioned her readiness to play the part she was casting for herself—the rÔle of an eyeless man's mate for life—yet never taxed her with loving him. Perhaps it was the very fact that the circumstances of the case released her from confessing her love, that paved the way for her to action that would else have been impossible. "By this light," said Beatrice to Benedick, "I take thee for pure pity." It was a vast consolation to Beatrice to say this, no doubt.

Achilles stopped Savourneen Dheelish by his welcome to the newcomer. To whom Gwen said:—"Oh, you darling!" But to his master she said:—"Go on, it's me, Mr. Torrens. Gwen."

"I know—'Gwen or Gwendolen.'" How easy it would have been for this quotation from yesterday's postscript to seem impertinent! This man had just the right laugh to put everything in its right place, and this time it disclaimed audacious Christian naming. He went on:—"I mustn't monopolize your ladyship's piano," and accommodated this mode of address to the previous one by another laugh, exactly the right protest against misinterpretation.

"My ladyship doesn't want her piano," said Gwen. "She wants to hear you go on playing. I had no idea you were so musical. Say good-evening, and play some more."

He went his nearest to meeting her hand, and his guesswork was not much at fault. A galvanic thrill again shot through him at her touch, and again neither of them showed any great alacrity to disconnect. "You are sorry for me," said he.

"Indeed I am. I cannot tell you how much so." She seemed to keep his hand in hers to say this, and the action and the word were mated, to his mind. She could not have done this but for my misfortune, thought he to himself. But oh!—what leagues apart it placed them, that this semi-familiarity should have become possible on so short an acquaintance! Society reserves would have kept him back still in the ranks of men. This placed him among cripples, a disqualified ruin.

His heart sank, for he knew now that she had no belief that this awful darkness would end. So be it! But, for now, there was the pure joy of holding that hand for a moment! Forget it all—forget everything!—think only of this little stolen delirium I can cheat the cruelty of God out of, before I am the forsaken prey of Chaos and black Night. That was his thought. He said not a word, and she continued:—"How much can you play? I mean, can you do the fingering in spite of your eyes? Try some more." She had barely withdrawn her hand even then.

"I only make a very poor business of it at present," he said. "I shall have to practise under the new circumstances. When the music jumps half a mile along the piano I hit the wrong note. Anything that runs easy I can play." He played the preliminary notes of the accompaniment of Deh vieni alla finestra. "Anything like that. But I can't tackle anything extensive. My hands haven't quite got strong again, I suppose. Now you come!"

He was beginning a hesitating move from the music-stool with a sense of the uncertainty before him when his anchorage was forsaken, but postponed it as a reply to his companion's remark:—"I'm not coming yet. I'll play presently.... You were accompanying yourself just now. I was listening to you at the end of the piano."

"Anybody can accompany himself; he's in his own confidence." He struck a chord or two, of a duet, this time, and she said:—"Yes—sing that. I can recollect it without the music. I've sung it with the Signore no end of times." They sang it together, and Gwen kept her voice down. She was not singing with the tenor known all over Europe, this time; nor was the room at any time, big as it was, more than large enough for this young lady À pleine voix. Besides, Mr. Torrens was not in force, on that score. In fact, at the end of this one song he dropped his fingers on his knees from the keyboard, and said in a tone that professed amusement at his own exhaustion: "That's all I'm good for. Funny, isn't it?"