The Essential G. B. Shaw: Celebrated Plays, Novels, Personal Letters, Essays & Articles. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ this letter all the same if you didn’t know B-flat from a bull’s foot. If you will just for this once screw up your courage and say yes, I undertake on my on my part that you shall never regret it.

      An early answer will shorten my suspense. Not that I want you to write without taking plenty of time for consideration; but just remember that it will appear cent per cent longer to me than to you. Hoping you will excuse me if I have been unreasonable in following up my wishes, — I am, dear Miss Sutherland,

      Sincerely yours,

       John Hoskyn.

      Mary thrust the letter into its envelope, and knit her brows. Lady Geraldine watched her, pretending meanwhile to be occupied with her own correspondence. “Do you know any of Mrs. Phipson’s family?” said Mary slowly, after some minutes.

      “No,” replied Lady Geraldine, somewhat contemptuously. Then, recollecting that Mr Phipson’s daughter was Mary’s sister-in-law, she added, “There are brothers in Australia and Columbia who are very rich; and the youngest is a friend of Sir John’s. He’s in the Conolly Company, and is said to be a shrewd man of business. They all were, I believe. Then there were two sisters, Sarah and Lizzie Hoskyn. I can remember Lizzie when she was exactly like your brother Dick’s wife. She married a great Cornhill goldsmith in her first season. Altogether, they are a wonderful family: making money, marrying money, putting each other in the way of making and marrying more, and falling on their feet everywhere.”

      “Are they the sort of people you like?”

      “What do you mean by that, my dear?”

      “I think I mean what I say,” said Mary laughing. “But do you think, for example, that Mrs. Phipson’s brothers and sisters are ladies and gentlemen?”

      “Whether Dick’s wife’s aunts or uncles are ladies and gentlemen, eh?”

      “Never mind about Dick. I have a reason for asking.”

      “Well then, I think it must be sufficiently obvious to everybody that they are not what used to be called ladies and gentlemen. But what has that to do with it? Rich middle class tradespeople have had their own way in society and in everything else as long as I can remember. Even if we could go back to the ladies and gentlemen now, we could not stand them. Look at the county set here — either vapid people with affected manners, or pigheaded people with no manners at all. Each set seems the worst until you try another.”

      “I quite agree with you — I mean about the Hoskyns, “ said Mary. And she changed the subject. But at bedtime, when she bade Lady Geraldine goodnight, she handed her Hoskyn’s letter, saying, “Read that; and tell me tomorrow what you think of it.”

      Lady Geraldine read the letter in bed, and lay awake, thinking of it for half an hour later than usual. In the morning, Mary, before leaving her room, received a note. It ran:

      “Sir John will come by the three train. We can chat afterwards — when he and Mr Conolly are settled here and off my mind. —

      G. P.

      Mary understood from this that she was not to approach the subject of Mr Hoskyn until Lady Geraldine invited her. At breakfast no allusion was made to him, except that once, when they chanced to look at one another, they laughed. But Lady Geraldine immediately after became graver than usual, and began to talk about the dairy farm.

      At three o’clock Sir John, heavy, double chinned and white haired arrived with a younger man in a grey suit.

      “Well, Mr Conolly,” said Sir John, as they passed under the Doric portico, “Here we are at last.”

      “At home,” said Conolly, contentedly. Lady Geraldine, who was there to welcome them, looked at him quickly, her hospitality gratified by the word. Then the thought of what what he had made of his own home hardened her heart against him. Her habitual candid manner and abundance of shrewd comment forsook her in his presence. She was silent and scrupulously polite, and by that Mary and Sir John knew that she was under the constraint of strong dislike to her guest.

      Later in the afternoon, Conolly asked permission to visit the farm, and inquired whether there was any running water in the neighborhood. Sir John proposed to accompany him; but he declined, on the ground that a prospecting engineer was the worst of bad company. When he was gone, Lady Geraldine’s bosom heaved with relief: she recovered her spirits, and presently followed Sir John to the library, where they had a long conversation together. Having concluded it to her satisfaction, she was leaving the room, when Sir John, who was seated at a writing table, coughed and said mildly:

      “ My dear.”

      Lady Geraldine closed the door again, and turned to listen.

      “I was thinking, as we came down together,” said Sir John slowly, smiling and combing his beard with his fingers, “that perhaps he might take a fancy that way.”

      “Who?”

      “Conolly, my dear.”

      “Stuff!” said Lady Geraldine sharply. Sir John smiled in deprecation. “At least,” she added, repenting, “I mean that he is married already.”

      “But he is free to marry again.”

      “Besides, he is not a gentleman.”

      “Well,” said Sir John, good humoredly, “I think we agreed just now that that did not matter.”

      “Yes, in Hoskyn’s case.”

      “Just so. Now Conolly is a man of greater culture than Hoskyn. Of course, it is only a notion of mine; and I dare say you are quite right if you disapprove of it. But since Mary is a girl with nice tastes — for art and so forth — I thought that perhaps she might not suit a thorough man of business. Hoskyn is only an Americanized commercial traveler.”

      “Conolly is an American too. But that has nothing to do with it. Conolly treated his wife badly: that is enough for me. I am certain he would make any woman miserable.”

      “If he really did.”

      “But, dear,” interrupted Lady Geraldine, with restrained impatience, “don’t you know he did? Everybody knows it.”

      Sir John shrugged himself placidly. “They say so,” he said. “I am afraid he was not all that he should have been to her. She was a charming creature — a great beauty, and, I thought, great rectitude. Dear me! You are right, as usual, Joldie, it would not suit.”

      Lady Geraldine left the library, and went to dress for dinner, disturbed by the possibility which Sir John had suggested. At dinner she watched Conolly and observed that he conversed chiefly with Mary, and seemed to know more than she on all her favorite subjects. Afterwards, when they were in the drawing room, Mary asked him whether he played the piano. As he replied in the affirmative, Lady Geraldine was compelled to ask him to favor her with a performance. At their request he played some of Jack’s music, much more calmly and accurately than Jack, himself played it. Then he made Mary sing, and was struck by her declamatory style, which jarred Lady Geraldine’s nerves nearly as much as it had Mrs Phipson’s. He next sang himself, Mary accompanying him, and at first soothed Lady Geraldine by his rich baritone voice, and then roused her suspicions by singing a serenade with great expression, which she privately set down as a coldblooded hypocrisy on his part. She at last persuaded herself that he was deliberately СКАЧАТЬ