It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ by any other lady. The impropriety—yes! impropriety—of the whole thing...."

      "Please don't make a scene, with Elphinstone every half-minute, and mamma just coming down. I never said we were alone. If you had asked me, I should have told you that Mrs. Eldridge was with us."

      "Who's Mrs. Eldridge?"

      "A very nice person, a friend of Marianne Challis. Her husband's in the Post Office. Madame Louise could dress her to look almost pretty, if her complexion were better. And propriety—oh dear!—the very pink! She rather bored me, in fact, because she wouldn't let it alone."

      "And was this Mrs. Ostrich—or whatever her name is—satisfied?"

      "Perfectly. She has known Alfred Challis since before his first wife died, and has the most absolute confidence in him."

      "I don't fancy your Mrs. Ostrich. Where was Mr. Challis's wife all this time?... well!—this deceased wife's sister, anyhow."

      "Sibyl! I won't talk to you. Marianne Challis was where we left her, in the stage-box. I don't suppose she left it, but I didn't ask her."

      "And then did she and Mrs. Ostrich go home separately?"

      "Eldridge. Marianne Challis and she went away together. They were not going home; Wimbledon's too far, where they are. I really don't know where they are staying."

      "I'm not curious. But you and Mr. Challis drove home lovingly in a hansom, after acting lovers in a play! There!—you needn't fly out...."

      Was it any wonder that Judith then lost her temper? For she had not flown out. The insinuation that she would do so was based on Sibyl's knowledge that she would have been perfectly justified in doing so. But now, she did lose her temper, subject to that disguise of self-command which tells for more than any outburst.

      "You are taking too much on yourself, Sibyl. Mamma knows. At least, she knows Alfred Challis and his wife. They have dined here, and we agreed—mamma and I—to know nothing about the deceased wife's sister business. It may even be false from beginning to end.... Ask her, did you say? I should never dream of doing so.... And as for your other disgraceful—yes! disgraceful—speech just now...."

      "Well—it's true! You had been, and you know you had."

      "Had been what?"

      "Acting Moorhouse and Aminta Dorrington."

      "That's not the way you put it. But I don't care about that. It's only your silliness and inexperience makes you say these things...."

      "What is it you do care about, then?"

      "I won't submit to be catechized, Sibyl. But I'll tell you. I do care about what the madre thinks—and papa. And I shall tell her.... I wonder who that can be?"

      The "that" in question was a knock at the front door, one that expressed confidence that it was at the right house, and even that it would find someone at home—well-founded confidence in both cases. For the Miss Arkroyds, listening for the identity of the abnormal visitor—at ten o'clock in the morning!—only wait for a barely perceptible instalment of voice and footstep to exclaim jointly: "The Rector ... just fancy—what can he want?... In here, Elphinstone!" And it may be neither is sorry for the interruption. How very frequently a visitor is the resolution of a family discord! Judith, pale with suppressed anger, recovers her colour. Sibyl's flush of excitement dies.

      It is the Rector of Royd, no doubt of that! And something equivalent to a breeze of fresh air, or the tide in an estuary, or the new crackle of a clean pine-wood fire—but not exactly any one of the three—comes into the room with him and his laugh. He has an effect that is usual with him. The under-housemaid, who has passed him on to Mr. Elphinstone, hopes she won't have done dusting when he comes out. Mr. Elphinstone is seriously hurt at his having breakfasted three hours ago and now refusing food, which would have promoted their intercourse; and the young ladies are not sorry, on inquiry, to hear that her ladyship is not coming down, but will have her breakfast upstairs, because thereby they will have the Rev. Athelstan all to themselves longer.

      However, they chorus sorrow which they don't feel about their mother; and affect an equally hypocritical satisfaction at a probable appearance of their father, which they don't believe in.

      "You'll see papa will come in presently and say he never heard the bell." Thus Judith, who shows her pack by adding: "Now do let's talk and be comfortable till he comes." All right—nem. con.!

      "I think you the most profligate and dissipated family in London and Westminster.... Come nearer the fire? Not if I know it. Both you girls are scorching.... Well now! What was it last night?"

      "They went to 'Ibsen.'" Judith summarizes, abruptly. Sibyl says: "And you went to the Megatherium," rather as a counter-accusation than a contribution of fact. The visitor looks quickly from the one to the other. Whatever he notes, he passes it by.

      "I've been to 'Ibsen,'" he says, "and know all about it. The people commit suicide. What was the other play?"

      "A stupid thing. I really hardly made out what it was about. But the author's a friend of the people I went with. You remember Mr. Challis, Mr. Taylor? I brought him to tea at the Rectory."

      "Of course. I thought him such a shy customer. But I met him after that. We had quite a chat."

      "Oh yes—I remember he talked about it to me. I'm afraid you found him a great heathen."

      "Absolutely." Mr. Taylor laughs cheerfully over Alfred Challis's heathenism. "But a very good Christian for all that. I shouldn't say so to the Bishop, though. He never came to church, and I wasn't sorry...."

      "Do take care, Mr. Taylor. We shall tell the Bishop."

      "... Not on his account, you know—on my own. He would have convicted me of plagiarism. I took all his ideas for my sermon."

      This was incidental chat, leading to nothing. Then followed inquiry, overdue, about the Rector's establishment, especially his locum tenens at Royd, the reporting of whom brought disquiet to his face. His hearers knew he was making the best of it; he was not a good actor. This led naturally to conversation about his own temporary locus tenendus in his friend's behalf, and so to the miserable tragedy of the drunkard's death in the canal-lock. Now it was well over four months since either young lady had done any slumming in the Tallack Street quarter: indeed, their visits there soon lost the charm of novelty, so neither recollected its inhabitants off-hand. The description failed to identify, until Mr. Taylor mentioned the unhappy Uncle Bob by name, first heard by him at the inquest. Then a recollection struck Judith.

      "That must have been the man that said he was 'mine truly, Robert Steptoe,'" said she. "How very shocking!" The horror of the story of course increased tenfold the moment a nexus was established. Reminiscence, at work in Sibyl's mind, caused her to strike in upon Mr. Taylor's continuation of his narrative; on which he arrested it to hear what she was going to say. She said: "Never mind, go on!" till pressed to take her turn first; then said: "Wasn't that the blind beggar and the little girl—the same family, I mean?"

      "Exactly. I was just coming to them." And then the Rev. Athelstan proceeded with a full account of poor Jim's sad plight in the Hospital, and of how the little girl had been a great source of anxiety to Addie Fossett. He contrived to assign the whole of the activities on Lizarann's behalf to that lady; having, indeed, a most happy impersonal faculty СКАЧАТЬ