Miss Grahame made an effort to get away from abstract Philosophy. "I'm afraid it can't be helped now, anyhow," said she. "Dave _is_ growing, and means to be a man. Oh dear--he'll be a man before we know it. He'll be able to read and write in a few months."
Uncle Mo's face showed a cloud. "Do ye really think that, ma'am?" he said. "Well--I'm afeared you may be right." He looked so dreadfully downcast at this, that Miss Grahame was driven to the conclusion that the subject was dangerous.
She could not, however, resist saying:--"He _must_ know _some_ time, you know, Mr. Wardle. Surely you would never have Dave grow up uneducated?"
"Not so sure about that, ma'am!" said Uncle Mo, shaking a dubious head.
"There's more good men spiled by schoolmasters than we hear tell of in the noospapers." What conspiracy of silence in the Press this pointed at did not appear. But it was clear from the tone of the speaker that he thought interested motives were at the bottom of it.
Now Miss Grahame was said by critical friends--not enemies; at least, they said not--to be over-anxious to confer benefits of her own selection on the Human Race. Her finger-tips, they hinted, were itching to set everyone else's house in order. Naturally, she had a strong bias towards Education, that most formidable inroad on ignorance of what we want to know nothing about. Uncle Mo regarded the human mind, if not as a stronghold against knowledge, at least as a household with an inalienable right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of invitations issued by the State, and _vise'd_ by the Church. Everything was to be correct, and sanctioned. But it was quite clear to her that these views would not be welcome to the old prizefighter, and she was fain to be content with the slight protest against Obscurantism just recorded. In short, Miss Grahame found nothing to say, and the subject had to drop.
She could, however, lighten the air, and did so. "What on earth are they about upstairs?" said she. "I really think I might go up and see." And she was just about to do so, with the assent of Aunt M'riar, when the latter said suddenly:--"My sakes and gracious! What's that?" rather as though taken aback by something unaccountable than alarmed by it.
Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said, placidly:--"Water-pipes, _I_ should say." For in a London house no sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe.
Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:--"Isn't that right?"
It was not, and the only human reply to the question was a further exclamation from Aunt M'riar--one of real alarm this time--at a disintegrating cracking sound, fraught with an inexplicable sense of insecurity. "_That_ ain't water-pipes," said Uncle Mo.
Then something--something terrifying--happened in the Court outside.
Something that came with a rush and roar, and ended in a crash of snapping timber and breaking glass. Something that sent a cloud of dust through the shivered window-panes into the room it darkened. Something that left behind it no sound but a sharp cry for help and moaning cries of pain, and was followed by shouts of panic and alarm, and the tramp of running feet--a swift flight to the spot of helpers who could see it without, the thing that had to be guessed by us within. Something that had half-beaten in the door that Uncle Mo, as soon as sight was possible, could be seen wrenching open, shouting loudly, inexplicably:--"They are underneath--they are underneath!"
_Who_ were underneath? The children? And underneath what?
A few seconds of dumb terror seemed an age to both women. Then, Gwen on the stairs, and her voice, with relief in its ring of resolution. "Don't talk, but come up _at once_! The old lady _must_ be got down, _somehow_! Come up!" A consciousness of Dolly crying somewhere, and of Dave on the landing above, shouting:--"Oy say, oy say!" more, Miss Grahame thought, as a small boy excited than one afraid; and then, light through the dust-cloud. For Uncle Mo, with a giant's force, had released the jammed door, and a cataract of brick rubbish, falling inwards, left a gleam of clear sky to show Gwen, beckoning them up, none the less beautiful for the tension of the moment, and the traces of a rough baptism of dust.
What was it that had happened?
CHAPTER XXIX
OF A LADY AND GENTLEMAN ON THE EDGE OF A LONG VOYAGE TOGETHER.
SHALL THEY TAKE THE TICKETS? HOW MR. PELLEW HEARD SEVERAL CLOCKS STRIKE ONE. HOW HE CALLED NEXT DAY, AND HEARD ABOUT THE CHOBEY FAMILY. THE PROFANITY OF POETS, WHEN PROFANE. HOW MR. PELLEW SOMETIMES WENT TO CHURCH. THE POPULAR SUBJECT OF LOVE, IN THE END.
MRS. AMPHLETT STARFAX'S VIEWS. KISSING FROM A NEW STANDPOINT. HOW MR. PELLEW FORGOT, OR RECOLLECTED, HIMSELF. BONES, BELOW, AND HIS BAD GUESSING. HOW THE CARRIAGE CAME BACK WITH A FRIEND IT HAD PICKED UP, WHOM MR. PELLEW CARRIED UPSTAIRS. UNEQUIVOCAL SIGNS OF AN ATTACHMENT WHICH
Had Gwen really been able to see to the bottom of her cousin's, the Hon.
Percival's mind, she might not have felt quite so certain about his predispositions towards her adopted aunt. The description of these two as wanting to rush into each other's arms was exaggerated. It would have been fairer to say that Aunt Constance was fully prepared to consider an offer, and that Mr. Pellew was beginning to see his way to making one.
The most promising feature in the lady's state of mind was that she was formulating consolations, dormant now, but actively available if by chance the gentleman did not see his way. She was saying to herself that if another flower attracted this bee, she herself would thereby only lose an admirer with a disposition--only a slight one perhaps, but still undeniable--to become corpulent in the course of the next few years. She could subordinate her dislike of smoking so long as she could suppose him ever so little in earnest; but, if he did waver by any chance, what a satisfaction it would be to dwell on her escape from--here a mixed metaphor came in--the arms of a tobacco shop! She could shut her eyes, if she was satisfied of the sincerity of a redeeming attachment to herself, to all the contingencies of the previous life of a middle-aged bachelor about town; but they would no doubt supply a set-off to his disaffection, if that was written on the next page of her book of Fate.
In short, she would be prepared in that case to accept the conviction that she was well rid of him. But all this was subcutaneous. Given only the one great essential, that he was not merely philandering, and then neither his escapades in the past, nor his cigars, nor even his suggestions towards a corporation, would stand in the way of a whole-hearted acceptance of a companion for life who had somehow managed to be such a pleasant companion during that visit at the Towers. At least, she would be better off than her four sisters. For this lady had a wholesome aversion for her brothers-in-law, tending to support the creed which teaches that the sacrament of marriage makes of its votaries, or victims, not only parties to a contract, but one flesh, and opens up undreamed-of possibilities of real fraternal dissension.
The gentleman, on the other hand, was in what we may suppose to be a corresponding stage of uncertainty. He too was able to perceive, or affect a perception, that, after all, if he came to the scratch and the scratch eventuated--as scratches do sometimes--in a paralysis of astonishment on the lady's part that such an idea should ever have entered into the applicant's calculations, it wouldn't be a thing to break his heart about exactly. He would have made rather an ass of himself, certainly. But he was quite prepared not to be any the worse.
This was, however, not subcutaneous, with him. He said it to himself, quite openly. His concealment of himself from himself turned on a sort of passive resistance he was offering to a growing reluctance to hear a negative to his application. He was, despite himself, entertaining the question:--Was this woman whom he had been assessing and wavering over, _more masculino_, conceivably likely to reject him on his merits? Might she not say to him:--"I have seen your drift, and found you too pleasant an acquaintance to condemn offhand. But now that you force me to ask myself the question, 'Can I love you?' you leave me no choice but to answer, 'I can't.'" And he was beginning to have a misgiving that he would very much rather that that scratch, if ever he came to it, should end on very different lines from this. All this, mind you, was under the skin of his reflections.
As he walked away slowly in the moonlight, with the appointment fresh in his mind to return next day on a shallow archaeological pretext, he may have been himself at a loss for his reason for completing a tour of the square, and pausing to look up at the house before making a definite start for his Club, or his rooms in Brook Street. Was any reason necessary, beyond the fineness of the night? He had an indisputable right to walk round Cavendish Square without a reason, and he exercised it. He rather resented the policeman on his beat saying goodnight to him, as though he were abnormal, and walked away in the opposite direction from that officer, who was searchlighting areas for want of something to do, with an implication of profound purpose. He decided on loneliness and a walk exactly the length of a cigar, throwing its last effort to burn his fingers away on his doorstep. He carried the animation of his thoughts on his face upstairs to bed with him, for it lasted through a meditation at an open window, through a chorus of cats about their private affairs, and the usual controversy about the hour among all the town-clocks, which becomes embittered when there is only one hour to talk about, and compromise is impossible. Mr. Pellew heard the last opinion and retired for the night at nine minutes past. But he first made sure that that _Quarterly Review_ was in evidence, and glanced at the Egyptian article to confirm his impression of the contents. They were still there. He believed all his actions were sane and well balanced, but this was credulity. One stretches a point sometimes, to believe oneself reasonable.
It was a model September afternoon--and what can one say more of weather?--when at half-past three precisely Mr. Pellew's hansom overshot the door of 102, Cavendish Square, and firmly but amiably insisted on turning round to deposit its fare according to the exact terms of its contract. Its proprietor said what he could in extenuation of its maladroitness. They shouldn't build these here houses at the corners of streets; it was misguiding to the most penetrating intellect. He addressed his fare as Captain, asking him to make it another sixpence.
He had been put to a lot of expense last month, along of the strike, and looked to the public to make it up to him. For the cabbies had struck, some weeks since, against sixpence a mile instead of eightpence. Mr.
Pellew's heart was touched, and he conceded the other sixpence.
There at the door was Miss Grahame's open landaulet, and there were she and Gwen in it, just starting to see the former's little boy. That was how Dave was spoken of, at the risk of creating a scandal. They immediately lent themselves to a gratuitous farce, having for its object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson from external influence.
"Constance _was_ back, wasn't she?" Thus Miss Grahame; and Gwen had the effrontery to say she was almost certain, but couldn't be quite sure. If she wasn't there, she would have to go without that pulverised Pharaoh, as Sir Somebody Something's just yearnings for his _Quarterly_ were not to be made light of. "Don't you let Maggie take the book up to her, Percy. You go up in the sitting-room--you know, where we were playing last night?--and if she doesn't turn up in five minutes don't you wait for her!" Then the two ladies talked telegraphically, to the exclusion of Mr. Pellew, to the effect that Aunt Constance had only gone to buy a pair of gloves in Oxford Street, and was pledged to an early return. The curtain fell on the farce, and a very brief interview with Mary at the door ended in Mr. Pellew being shown upstairs, without reservation. So he and Aunt Constance had the house to themselves.
To do them justice, the attention shown to the covering fiction of the book-loan was of the very smallest. It could not be ignored altogether; so Miss Dickenson looked at the article. She did not read a word of it, but she looked at it. She went further, and said it was interesting.
Then it was allowed to lie on the table. When the last possible book has been printed--for even Literature must come to an end some time, if Time itself does not collapse--that will be the last privilege accorded to it. It will lie on the table, while all but a few of its predecessors will stand on a bookshelf.
"It's quite warm out of doors," said Mr. Pellew.
"Warmer than yesterday, I think," said Miss Dickenson. And then talk went on, stiffly, each of its contribuents execrating its stiffness, but seeing no way to relaxation.
"Sort of weather that generally ends in a thunderstorm."
"Does it? Well--perhaps it does."
"Don't you think it does?"
"I thought it felt very like thunder an hour ago."
"Rather more than an hour ago, wasn't it?"
"Just after lunch--about two o'clock."
"Dessay you're right. I should have said a quarter to." Now, if this sort of thing had continued, it must have ended in a joint laugh, and recognition of its absurdity. Aunt Constance may have foreseen this, inwardly, and not been prepared to go so fast. For she accommodated the conversation with a foothold, partly ethical, partly scientific.
"Some people feel the effect of thunder much more than others. No doubt it is due to the electrical condition of the atmosphere. Before this was understood, it was ascribed to all sorts of causes."
"I expect it's nerves. Haven't any myself! Rather like tropical storms than otherwise."
Here was an opportunity to thaw the surface ice. The lady could have done it in an instant, by talking to the gentleman about himself. That is the "Open Sesame!" of human intercourse. She preferred to say that in their village--her clan's, that is--in Dorsetshire, there was a sept named Chobey that always went into an underground cellar and stopped its ears, whenever there was a thunderstorm.
Mr. Pellew said weakly:--"It runs in families." He had to accept this one as authentic, but he would have questioned its existence if anonymous. He could not say:--"How do you know?" to an informant who could vouch for Chobey. Smith or Brown would have left him much freer.
The foothold of the conversation was giving way, and a resolute effort was called for to give it stability. Mr. Pellew thought he saw his way.
He said:--"How jolly it must be down at the Towers--day like this!"
"Perfectly delicious!" was the answer. Then, in consideration of the remoteness of mere landscape from personalities, it was safe to particularise. "I really think that walk in the shrubbery, where the gentian grew in such quantity, is one of the sweetest places of the kind I ever was in."
"I know I enjoyed my ..." Mr. Pellew had started to say that he enjoyed himself there. He got alarmed at his own temerity and backed out ... "my cigars there," said he. A transparent fraud, for the possessive pronoun does not always sound alike. "My," is one thing before "self," another before "cigars." Try it on both, and see. Mr. Pellew felt he was detected. He could slur over his blunder by going straight on; any topic would do. He decided on:--"By-the-by, did you see any more of the dog?"
"Achilles? He went away, you know, with Mr. Torrens and his sister, a few days after."
"I meant that. Didn't you say something about seeing him with the assassin--the old gamekeeper--what was his name?"
"Old Stephen Solmes? Yes. I saw them walking together, apparently on the most friendly terms. Gwen told me afterwards. They were walking towards his cottage, and I believe Achilles saw him safe home, and came back."
"Just so. Torrens told me about the dog when old Solmes came to say good-bye to him, and do a little more penance in sackcloth and ashes. I am using Torrens's words. The old chap made a scene--went down on his knees and burst out crying--and the dog tried to console him. Torrens seemed quite clear about what was passing in the dog's mind."