The Disentanglers. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ the nasty damp meadows.’

      ‘Is the young lady an angler?’

      ‘She is – most unwomanly I call it.’

      Merton’s idea of the young lady rose many degrees. ‘You said the young lady was “strange from a child, very strange. Fond of the men.” Happily for our sex, and for the world, it is not so very strange or unusual to take pity on us.’

      ‘She has always been queer.’

      ‘You do not hint at any cerebral disequilibrium?’ asked Merton.

      ‘Would you mind saying that again?’ asked Mrs. Nicholson.

      ‘I meant nothing wrong here?’ Merton said, laying his finger on his brow.

      ‘No, not so bad as that,’ said Mrs. Nicholson; ‘but just queer. Uncommon. Tells odd stories about – nonsense. She is wearing with her dreams. She reads books on, I don’t know how to call it – Tipsy-cake, Tipsicakical Search. Histories, I call it.’

      ‘Yes, I understand,’ said Merton; ‘Psychical Research.’

      ‘That’s it, and Hyptonism,’ said Mrs. Nicholson, as many ladies do.

      ‘Ah, Hyptonism, so called from its founder, Hypton, the eminent Anglo-French chemist; he was burned at Rome, one of the latest victims of the Inquisition,’ said Merton.

      ‘I don’t hold with Popery, sir, but it served him right.’

      ‘That is all the queerness then!’

      ‘That and general discontentedness.’

      ‘Girls will be girls,’ said Merton; ‘she wants society.’

      ‘Want must be her master then,’ said Mrs. Nicholson stolidly.

      ‘But about the man of her choice, have you anything against him?’

      ‘No, but nothing for him: I never even saw him.’

      ‘Then where did Miss Monypenny make his acquaintance?’

      ‘Well, like a fool, I let her go to pass Christmas with some distant cousins of my own, who should have known better. They stupidly took her to a dance, at Tutbury, and there she met him: just that once.’

      ‘And they became engaged on so short an acquaintance?’

      ‘Not exactly that. She was not engaged when she came home, and did not seem to mean to be. She did talk of him a lot. He had got round her finely: told her that he was going out to the war, and that they were sister spirits. He had dreamed of meeting her, he said, and that was why he came to the ball, for he did not dance. He said he believed they had met in a state of pre – something; meaning, if you understand me, before they were born, which could not be the case: she not being a twin, still less his twin.’

      ‘That would be the only way of accounting for it, certainly,’ said Merton. ‘But what followed? Did they correspond?’

      ‘He wrote to her, but she showed me the letter, and put it in the fire unopened. He had written his name, Marmaduke Ingles, on a corner of the envelope.’

      ‘So far her conduct seems correct, even austere,’ said Merton.

      ‘It was at first, but then he wrote from South Africa, where he volunteered as a doctor. He was a doctor at Tutbury.’

      ‘She opened that letter?’

      ‘Yes, and showed it to me. He kept on with his nonsense, asking her never to forget him, and sending his photograph in cocky.’

      ‘Pardon!’ said Merton.

      ‘In uniform. And if he fell, she would see his ghost, in cocky, crossing her room, he said. In fact he knew how to get round the foolish girl. I believe he went out there just to make himself interesting.’

      ‘Did you try to find out what sort of character he had at home?’

      ‘Yes, there was no harm in it, only he had no business to speak of, everybody goes to Dr. Younghusband.’

      ‘Then, really, if he is an honest young man, as he seems to be a patriotic fellow, are you certain that you are wise in objecting?’

      ‘I do object,’ said Mrs. Nicholson, and indeed her motives for refusing her consent were only too obvious.

      ‘Are they quite definitely engaged?’ asked Merton.

      ‘Yes they are now, by letter, and she says she will wait for him till I die, or she is twenty-six, if I don’t give my consent. He writes every mail, from places with outlandish names, in Africa. And she keeps looking in a glass ball, like the labourers’ women, some of them; she’s sunk as low as that; so superstitious; and sometimes she tells me that she sees what he is doing, and where he is; and now and then, when his letters come, she shows me bits of them, to prove she was right. But just as often she’s wrong; only she won’t listen to me. She says it’s Telly, Tellyopathy. I say it’s flat nonsense.’

      ‘I quite agree with you,’ said Merton, with conviction. ‘After all, though, honest, as far as you hear..’

      ‘Oh yes, honest enough, but that’s all,’ interrupted Mrs. Nicholson, with a hearty sneer.

      ‘Though he bears a good character, from what you tell me he seems to be a very silly young man.’

      ‘Silly Johnny to silly Jenny,’ put in Mrs. Nicholson.

      ‘A pair with ideas so absurd could not possibly be happy.’ Merton reasoned. ‘Why don’t you take her into the world, and show her life? With her fortune and with you to take her about, she would soon forget this egregiously foolish romance.’

      ‘And me to have her snapped up by some whipper-snapper that calls himself a lord? Not me, Mr. Graham,’ said Mrs. Nicholson. ‘The money that her uncle made by the Panmedicon is not going to be spent on horses, and worse, if I can help it.’

      ‘Then,’ said Merton, ‘all I can do for you is by our ordinary method – to throw some young man of worth and education in the way of your ward, and attempt to – divert her affections.’

      ‘And have him carry her off under my very nose? Not much, Mr. Graham. Why where do I come in, in this pretty plan?’

      ‘Do not suppose me to suggest anything so – detrimental to your interests, Mrs. Nicholson. Is your ward beautiful?’

      ‘A toad!’ said Mrs. Nicholson with emphasis.

      ‘Very well. There is no danger. The gentleman of whom I speak is betrothed to one of the most beautiful girls in England. They are deeply attached, and their marriage is only deferred for prudential reasons.’

      ‘I don’t trust one of them,’ said Mrs. Nicholson.

      ‘Very well, madam,’ answered Merton severely; ‘I have done all that experience can suggest. The gentleman of whom I speak has paid especial attention to the mental delusions under which your ward is labouring, and has been successful in removing them in some cases. But as you reject my suggestion’ – he rose, so did Mrs. Nicholson СКАЧАТЬ