It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ in the letter, and went on reading: "'This young woman, I fancy, is savagely jealous of the younger sister posing as an active promoter of all sorts of upnesses-to-date....' I wish," said the reader parenthetically, "that Titus wouldn't use such unusual expressions. I dare say they are very clever, but I don't profess to understand ... what?... Oh, of course, I see what he means, but it's a kind of thing I shall never understand.... No, my dear Charlotte!—it's no use talking and trying to persuade me. 'Upnesses-to-date'—just fancy!" Now Titus had been in two minds whether to allow this phrase to remain, but had decided to do so, as better on the whole than to provoke speculation over an obliterated text. He might have speculated himself over such an erasure.

      "I don't think it implies anything," said Mrs. Eldridge, meaning of course, anything about a lady and gentleman. "I fancy he is only referring to Art Movements and Liberty silks and things. Go on." And Marianne read:

      "'All sorts of upnesses-to-date, doing things her grandmothers would have thought infra dig....' What does that mean?"

      "Lord, Marianne!—that doesn't mean anything. Do go on. Only what they would be too swell to do! That's all." Marianne continued:

      "'Infra dig., while she herself is not allowed to try her luck and face the music. She has the courage for it, evidently. Old Norman blood! By-the-bye, I've been damning William the Conqueror up and down ever since I came. For the old cock is besotted about him. Says he was the first Socialist, and never talks of anything else!'... It's not interesting, this!" She stopped.

      "No—that's not interesting. I want to hear more about the girl's looks. Couldn't you find what he says about her figure? You said he laid stress on it."

      "In his other letter. Tall and striking. Dignified kind of girl."

      "I should hardly call that laying stress on her figure, as such." Mrs. Challis reflects upon this rather paradoxical view of her friend's. She is not as clear as she might be often over her husband's elisions and hyperboles, and does not feel sure she reported him rightly. "Perhaps," she says, "I should not have said 'laid stress on.'" Her friend says oh no!—"laid stress on" was all right. But there was some indeterminateness in what he was said to have laid stress on. However, Mrs. Eldridge excuses further elucidation. "Sure there's nothing more about that girl?" she asks.

      "Yes, there's some more somewhere. Oh—here!... 'As to the lovely Judith, of course, she might prove a duffer behind the footlights. But then, again, she mightn't. She's the very thing for Aminta Torrington in "Mistaken Delicacy."' That's the name his new play's to be called. I liked 'Atalanta in Paddington' better myself."

      "Not nearly such a good title. No! If 'Mistaken Delicacy' hasn't been had a dozen times before, there couldn't be a better title. Of course, he wants her to play in it. What else is there?"

      "'Very thing for Aminta Torrington....' Oh yes!—it's here ... 'and I shall try to get her to see Prester John about it' ... that's what they call Mr.—what's his name?—the manager at the Megatherium, don't you know?... 'about it, and see if we couldn't drill her up to performance point. She couldn't be a total ...' something crossed out...."

      "Let me look ... oh no—that's nothing! Only fiasco. It's the same as failure." Mrs. Eldridge retained the letter and went on reading, unopposed. The erasure had clearly been an almost insultingly merciful one, to meet a defective knowledge half-way. She went on reading, scrapwise, half inaudibly at times; sometimes saying "hm-hm-hm," to stand for omissions.... "'Couldn't be a total failure, because it isn't every day ... thing happens ... sort of Court-beauty ... good family ... make a set-off against inexperience ...' hm-hm! ... 'elocution very good, as far as I can judge....' I don't see any more about her." Mrs. Eldridge read a good deal more of the letter to make sure of the point, although Marianne reached out her hand to take it back. The latter lady was looking rather nettled. She knew that fiasco meant fizzle perfectly well, and it was ridiculous of Titus to treat her like a schoolgirl.

      Those who know the sort of person this young mater-familias in a plain dress was, must know also what she meant by the phrase "a proper pride." It is easy for superior persons—toffs of birth, toffs of Science, Letters, Art—to decide that this phenomenon is a ridiculous egotism in anything so middle, so Victorian, so redolent of Leech or Cruikshank as Marianne Challis; to pronounce it an outcome of a simple incapacity to realize her own insignificance. Gracious mercy!—suppose we were all suddenly to "realize" our own insignificance!... But really the subject is not one that will bear thinking of. Dismiss your insignificance with a caution! And pray for a cloudy sky, that the stars may not remind you of it.

      When Charlotte Eldridge had read all down the next page of the letter, she surrendered it to the hand that was waiting for it. But, even then, not without a glance down the following one as she let it go. Her friend apologized for taking it away.

      "I shouldn't mind your reading it all, dear," she said. "But as I promised...!"

      "Quite right, dear!" And both these ladies felt they had made a sacrifice to Duty. The letter wasn't to be shown, and a great deal of it had not been shown. What more could the most exacting ask? How many ideals are as nearly attained in this imperfect world?

      "However, there's nothing in what you haven't seen that could have interested you in the very least." Having made out a good case for Conscience, why weaken it? But probably Mrs. Challis is unaware that she does so. "No!—there's not a word more about the girl." This is in answer to a question that could hardly remain unanswered merely because nobody had asked it. The negative chilled the conversation. Why was there not a word more about the girl?

      A disturbance upstairs caused Mrs. Challis to get up and leave the room. It was those children. Oh dear, what little plagues they were! Presently she came back, explanatory. She believed it was really that odious girl Martha's fault. She would have to get rid of her. But Titus always sided with the girl, and that made it so difficult.... What was it this time?... Oh, the child wanted the iron. Martha was ironing, and of course paying no attention, and Emmie had burnt herself. No—not badly; but a nasty burn! Marianne's style does not favour definition.

      The two ladies sit on into the twilight—early, from a southeast wind bringing the town-fog westward—and are less talkative. The slow-combustion grate's first snail-like manifestations this year—for the weather has been mild till to-day—begin to glimmer in a half-dusk favourable to their detection. The children will be down directly to say good-night. One can't talk till they are done with and out of the way. Presently they come, but are not allowed to rush to the cake at once. They shall have some directly. The casualty, Emmie, who yelled, exhibits an arm between four and five years old with a scar on it. She consents to goldbeater's skin on condition that she licks the place herself. But what did that matter when there was cake? All children have but one relation to cake. They want it, and when that piece is done, they want another the same size, or larger. These two were quite one with their kind on this point, but they took the first piece behind a sofa to devour it; even as a Royal Bengal Tiger at the Zoological carries away a horror a vegetarian would die of into his bedroom, lest you should get it and eat it first. But they came out for more; which the tiger never does, because he knows it isn't any use, and prefers to pretend he doesn't care to ask favours and be refused.

      "I shall give them a couple of grains of Dover's powder apiece," said their mother. "They've had nothing for a month." This good lady held with the practice of a dose now and again, independent of symptoms. "If it were not for me, they would be left altogether without medicine. It's a thing their father always opposes me about." The words "Dover's powder" were said a little too soon to be unheard by the persons concerned, and the consequence was that Emmie, the younger one, bit Martha, the nurse, going upstairs. However, this incident, with the ructions that arose from it, was closed in time; and a little more peace and quiet followed in its wake.

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