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  |=================================================| | MR. WELLS HAS ALSO WRITTEN | | The following Novels: | | | | TONO BUNGAY | | LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM | | KIPPS ANN VERONICA | | THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY | | and THE NEW MACHIAVELLI | | | | Numerous short stories now published | | in a single volume under the title. | | THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND | | | | The following fantastic Romances: | | | | THE TIME MACHINE | | THE WONDERFUL VISIT | | THE INVISIBLE MAN | | THE WAR OF THE WORLDS | | THE SEA LADY | | IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET | | THE SLEEPER AWAKES | | THE FOOD OF THE GODS | | THE WAR IN THE AIR | | THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON | | and THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU | | | | And a series of books upon social and political | | questions of which | | | | A MODERN UTOPIA | | FIRST AND LAST THINGS (RELIGION) | | NEW WORLDS FOR OLD | | THE FUTURE IN AMERICA | | and ANTICIPATIONS | | are the chief. | |=================================================|

  MARRIAGE

  BY

  H. G. WELLS

  "And the Poor Dears haven't the shadow of a doubt they will live happily ever afterwards."--_From a Private Letter_.

 

  NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 1912

  COPYRIGHT, 1912 DUFFIELD & COMPANY

  _FRATERNALLY TO ARNOLD BENNETT_

  BOOK THE FIRST MARJORIE MARRIES

  MARRIAGE

  CHAPTER THE FIRST

  A DAY WITH THE POPES

  Sec. 1

  An extremely pretty girl occupied a second-class compartment in one ofthose trains which percolate through the rural tranquillities of middleEngland from Ganford in Oxfordshire to Rumbold Junction in Kent. She wasgoing to join her family at Buryhamstreet after a visit to someGloucestershire friends. Her father, Mr. Pope, once a leader in thecoach-building world and now by retirement a gentleman, had taken theBuryhamstreet vicarage furnished for two months (beginning on thefifteenth of July) at his maximum summer rental of seven guineas a week.His daughter was on her way to this retreat.

  At first she had been an animated traveller, erect and keenly regardfulof every detail upon the platforms of the stations at which herconveyance lingered, but the tedium of the journey and the warmth of thesunny afternoon had relaxed her pose by imperceptible degrees, and shesat now comfortably in the corner, with her neat toes upon the seatbefore her, ready to drop them primly at the first sign of afellow-traveller. Her expression lapsed more and more towards an almostsomnolent reverie. She wished she had not taken a second-class ticket,because then she might have afforded a cup of tea at Reading, and sofortified herself against this insinuating indolence.

  She was travelling second class, instead of third as she ought to havedone, through one of those lapses so inevitable to young people in herposition. The two Carmel boys and a cousin, two greyhounds and a chowhad come to see her off; they had made a brilliant and prosperous groupon the platform and extorted the manifest admiration of two youthfulporters, and it had been altogether too much for Marjorie Pope to admitit was the family custom--except when her father's nerves had to beconsidered--to go third class. So she had made a hasty calculation--sheknew her balance to a penny because of the recent tipping--and found itwould just run to it. Fourpence remained,--and there would be a porterat Buryhamstreet!

  Her mother had said: "You will have Ample." Well, opinions of amplitudevary. With numerous details fresh in her mind, Marjorie decided it wouldbe wiser to avoid financial discussion during her first few days atBuryhamstreet.

  There was much in Marjorie's equipment in the key of travelling secondclass at the sacrifice of afternoon tea. There was, for example, acertain quiet goodness of style about her clothes, though the skirtbetrayed age, and an entire absence of style about her luggage, whichwas all in the compartment with her, and which consisted of a distendedhold-all, a very good tennis racquet in a stretcher, a portmanteau ofcheap white basketwork held together by straps, and a very new,expensive-looking and meretricious dressing-bag of imitation morocco,which had been one of her chief financial errors at Oxbridge. Thecollection was eloquent indeed of incompatible standards....

  Marjorie had a chin that was small in size if resolute in form, and amouth that was not noticeably soft and weak because it was conspicuouslysoft and pretty. Her nose was delicately aquiline and very subtly andfinely modelled, and she looked out upon the world with steady,grey-blue eyes beneath broad, level brows that contradicted in a largemeasure the hint of weakness below. She had an abundance of copper-redhair, which flowed back very prettily from her broad, low forehead andover her delicate ears, and she had that warm-tinted clear skin thatgoes so well with reddish hair. She had a very dainty neck, and the longslender lines of her body were full of the promise of a riper beauty.She had the good open shoulders of a tennis-player and a swimmer. Someday she was to be a tall, ruddy, beautiful woman. She wore simpleclothes of silvery grey and soft green, and about her waist was a beltof grey leather in which there now wilted two creamy-petalled roses.

  That was the visible Marjorie. Somewhere out of time and space was aninvisible Marjorie who looked out on the world with those steady eyes,and smiled or drooped with the soft red lips, and dreamt, and wondered,and desired.

  Sec. 2

  What a queer thing the invisible human being would appear if, by somediscovery as yet inconceivable, some spiritual X-ray photography, wecould flash it into sight! Long ago I read a book called "Soul Shapes"that was full of ingenious ideas, but I doubt very much if the thing sorevealed would have any shape, any abiding solid outline at all. It issomething more fluctuating and discursive than that--at any rate, forevery one young enough not to have set and hardened. Things come intoit and become it, things drift out of it and cease to be it, things turnupside down in it and change and colour and dissolve, and grow and eddyabout and blend into each other. One might figure it, I suppose, as apreposterous jumble animated by a will; a floundering disconnectednessthrough which an old hump of impulse rises and thrusts unaccountably; ariver beast of purpose wallowing in a back eddy of mud and weeds andfloating objects and creatures drowned. Now the sunshine of gladnessmakes it all vivid, now it is sombre and grimly insistent under the skyof some darkling mood, now an emotional gale sweeps across it and it isone confused agitation....

  And surely these invisible selves of men were never so jumbled, socrowded, complicated, and stirred about as they are at the present time.Once I am told they had a sort of order, were sphered in religiousbeliefs, crystal clear, were arranged in a cosmogony that fitted them ashand fits glove, were separated by definite standards of right and wrongwhich presented life as planned in all its essential aspects from thecradle to the grave. Things are so no longer. That sphere is broken formost of us; even if it is tied about and mended again, it is burst likea seed case; things have fa
llen out and things have fallen in....

  Can I convey in any measure how it was with Marjorie?

  What was her religion?

  In college forms and returns, and suchlike documents, she would describeherself as "Church of England." She had been baptized according to theusages of that body, but she had hitherto evaded confirmation into it,and although it is a large, wealthy, and powerful organization withmany minds to serve it, it had never succeeded in getting into her quickand apprehensive intelligence any lucid and persuasive conception ofwhat it considered God and the universe were up to with her. It hadfailed to catch her attention and state itself to her. A number ofhumorous and other writers and the general trend of talk around her, andperhaps her own shrewd little observation of superficial things, had, onthe other hand, created a fairly definite belief in her that it wasn'tas a matter of fact up to very much at all, that what it said wasn'tsaid with that absolute honesty which is a logical necessity in everyreligious authority, and that its hierarchy had all sorts of politicaland social considerations confusing its treatment of her immortalsoul....

  Marjorie followed her father in abstaining from church. He too professedhimself "Church of England," but he was, if we are to set aside merelysuperficial classifications, an irascible atheist with a respect forusage and Good Taste, and an abject fear of the disapproval of othergentlemen of his class. For the rest he secretly disliked clergymen onaccount of the peculiarity of their collars, and a certain influencethey had with women. When Marjorie at the age of fourteen had displayeda hankering after ecclesiastical ceremony and emotional religion, he haddeclared: "We don't want any of _that_ nonsense," and sent her into thecountry to a farm where there were young calves and a bottle-fed lamband kittens. At times her mother went to church and displayedconsiderable orthodoxy and punctilio, at times the good lady didn't, andat times she thought in a broad-minded way that there was a Lot inChristian Science, and subjected herself to the ministrations of anAmerican named Silas Root. But his ministrations were too expensive forcontinuous use, and so the old faith did not lose its hold upon thefamily altogether.

  * * * * *

  At school Marjorie had been taught what I may best describe as MuffledChristianity--a temperate and discreet system designed primarily not toirritate parents, in which the painful symbol of the crucifixion and theriddle of what Salvation was to save her from, and, indeed, the coarseraspects of religion generally, were entirely subordinate to images ofamiable perambulations, and a rich mist of finer feelings. She had beenshielded, not only from arguments against her religion, but fromarguments for it--the two things go together--and I do not think it wasparticularly her fault if she was now growing up like the great majorityof respectable English people, with her religious faculty as it were,artificially faded, and an acquired disposition to regard anyspeculation of why she was, and whence and whither, as rather foolish,not very important, and in the very worst possible taste.

  And so, the crystal globe being broken which once held souls together,you may expect to find her a little dispersed and inconsistent in hermotives, and with none of that assurance a simpler age possessed of theexact specification of goodness or badness, the exact delimitation ofright and wrong. Indeed, she did not live in a world of right and wrong,or anything so stern; "horrid" and "jolly" had replaced these archaicorientations. In a world where a mercantile gentility has conqueredpassion and God is neither blasphemed nor adored, there necessarilyarises this generation of young people, a little perplexed, indeed, andwith a sense of something missing, but feeling their way inevitably atlast to the great releasing question, "Then why shouldn't we have agood time?"

  Yet there was something in Marjorie, as in most human beings, thatdemanded some general idea, some aim, to hold her life together. A girlupon the borders of her set at college was fond of the phrase "livingfor the moment," and Marjorie associated with it the speaker's laxmouth, sloe-like eyes, soft, quick-flushing, boneless face, and a habitof squawking and bouncing in a forced and graceless manner. Marjorie'snatural disposition was to deal with life in a steadier spirit thanthat. Yet all sorts of powers and forces were at work in her, someexalted, some elvish, some vulgar, some subtle. She felt keenly anddesired strongly, and in effect she came perhaps nearer the realizationof that offending phrase than its original exponent. She had a cleanintensity of feeling that made her delight in a thousand various things,in sunlight and textures, and the vividly quick acts of animals, inlandscape, and the beauty of other girls, in wit, and people's voices,and good strong reasoning, and the desire and skill of art. She had aclear, rapid memory that made her excel perhaps a little too easily atschool and college, an eagerness of sympathetic interest that won peoplevery quickly and led to disappointments, and a very strong sense of theprimary importance of Miss Marjorie Pope in the world. And when any verydefinite dream of what she would like to be and what she would like todo, such as being the principal of a ladies' college, or the first womanmember of Parliament, or the wife of a barbaric chief in Borneo, or agreat explorer, or the wife of a millionaire and a great social leader,or George Sand, or Saint Teresa, had had possession of her imaginationfor a few weeks, an entirely contrasted and equally attractive dreamwould presently arise beside it and compete with it and replace it. Itwasn't so much that she turned against the old one as that she wasattracted by the new, and she forgot the old dream rather than abandonedit, simply because she was only one person, and hadn't therefore thepossibility of realizing both.

  In certain types Marjorie's impressionability aroused a passion ofproselytism. People of the most diverse kinds sought to influence her,and they invariably did so. Quite a number of people, including hermother and the principal of her college, believed themselves to be theleading influence in her life. And this was particularly the case withher aunt Plessington. Her aunt Plessington was devoted to social andpolitical work of an austere and aggressive sort (in which Mr.Plessington participated); she was childless, and had a Movement of herown, the Good Habits Movement, a progressive movement of the utmostscope and benevolence which aimed at extensive interferences with thefood and domestic intimacies of the more defenceless lower classes bymeans ultimately of legislation, and she had Marjorie up to see her,took her for long walks while she influenced with earnestness andvigour, and at times had an air of bequeathing her mantle, movement andeverything, quite definitely to her "little Madge." She spoke oftraining her niece to succeed her, and bought all the novels of Mrs.Humphry Ward for her as they appeared, in the hope of quickening in herthat flame of politico-social ambition, that insatiable craving fordinner-parties with important guests, which is so distinctive of themore influential variety of English womanhood. It was due rather to herown habit of monologue than to any reserve on the part of Marjorie thatshe entertained the belief that her niece was entirely acquiescent inthese projects. They went into Marjorie's mind and passed. For nearly aweek, it is true, she had dramatized herself as the angel andinspiration of some great modern statesman, but this had been ousted bya far more insistent dream, begotten by a picture she had seen in someexhibition, of a life of careless savagery, whose central and constantlyrecurrent incident was the riding of barebacked horses out ofdeep-shadowed forest into a foamy sunlit sea--in a costume that wouldcertainly have struck Aunt Plessington as a mistake.

  If you could have seen Marjorie in her railway compartment, with thesunshine, sunshine mottled by the dirty window, tangled in her hair andcreeping to and fro over her face as the train followed the curves ofthe line, you would certainly have agreed with me that she was pretty,and you might even have thought her beautiful. But it was necessary tofall in love with Marjorie before you could find her absolutelybeautiful. You might have speculated just what business was going onbehind those drowsily thoughtful eyes. If you are--as peoplesay--"Victorian," you might even have whispered "Day Dreams," at thesight of her....

  She _was_ dreaming, and in a sense she was thinking of beautiful things.But only mediately. She was thinki
ng how very much she would enjoyspending freely and vigorously, quite a considerable amount ofmoney,--heaps of money.

  You see, the Carmels, with whom she had just been staying, wereshockingly well off. They had two motor cars with them in the country,and the boys had the use of the second one as though it was just an oldbicycle. Marjorie had had a cheap white dinner-dress, made the yearbefore by a Chelsea French girl, a happy find of her mother's, and itwas shapely and simple and not at all bad, and she had worn her greenbeads and her Egyptian necklace of jade; but Kitty Carmel and her sisterhad had a new costume nearly every night, and pretty bracelets, andrubies, big pearls, and woven gold, and half a score of delightful andprecious things for neck and hair. Everything in the place was brightand good and abundant, the servants were easy and well-mannered, withouta trace of hurry or resentment, and one didn't have to be sharp aboutthe eggs and things at breakfast in the morning, or go without. Allthrough the day, and even when they had gone to bathe from the smartlittle white and green shed on the upper lake, Marjorie had been made tofeel the insufficiency of her equipment. Kitty Carmel, being twenty-one,possessed her own cheque-book and had accounts running at half a dozenWest-end shops; and both sisters had furnished their own rooms accordingto their taste, with a sense of obvious effect that had set Marjoriespeculating just how a room might be done by a girl with a real eye forcolour and a real brain behind it....

  The train slowed down for the seventeenth time. Marjorie looked up andread "Buryhamstreet."

  Sec. 3

  Her reverie vanished, and by a complex but almost instantaneous movementshe had her basket off the rack and the carriage door open. She becameteeming anticipations. There, advancing in a string, were Daffy, herelder sister, Theodore, her younger brother, and the dog Toupee. Sydneyand Rom hadn't come. Daffy was not copper red like her sister, butreally quite coarsely red-haired; she was bigger than Marjorie, and withirregular teeth instead of Marjorie's neat row; she confessed them in abroad simple smile of welcome. Theodore was hatless, rustilyfuzzy-headed, and now a wealth of quasi-humorous gesture. The dog Toupeewas straining at a leash, and doing its best in a yapping, confusedmanner, to welcome the wrong people by getting its lead round theirlegs.

  "Toupee!" cried Marjorie, waving the basket. "Toupee!"

  They all called it Toupee because it was like one, but the name wasforbidden in her father's hearing. Her father had decided that theproper name for a family dog in England is Towser, and did his utmost tosuppress a sobriquet that was at once unprecedented and not in the bestpossible taste. Which was why the whole family, with the exception ofMrs. Pope, of course, stuck to Toupee....

  Marjorie flashed a second's contrast with the Carmel splendours.

  "Hullo, old Daffy. What's it like?" she asked, handing out the basket asher sister came up.

  "It's a lark," said Daffy. "Where's the dressing-bag?"

  "Thoddy," said Marjorie, following up the dressing-bag with thehold-all. "Lend a hand."

  "Stow it, Toupee," said Theodore, and caught the hold-all in time.

  In another moment Marjorie was out of the train, had done the swiftkissing proper to the occasion, and rolled a hand over Toupee'shead--Toupee, who, after a passionate lunge at a particularly savourydrover from the next compartment, was now frantically trying to indicatethat Marjorie was the one human being he had ever cared for. Brother andsister were both sketching out the state of affairs at BuryhamstreetVicarage in rapid competitive jerks, each eager to tell thingsfirst--and the whole party moved confusedly towards the station exit.Things pelted into Marjorie's mind.

  "We've got an old donkey-cart. I thought we shouldn't get here--ever....Madge, we can go up the church tower whenever we like, only old Daffywon't let me shin up the flagstaff. It's _perfectly_ safe--you couldn'tfall off if you tried.... Had positively to get out at the levelcrossing and _pull_ him over.... There's a sort of moat in thegarden.... You never saw such furniture, Madge! And the study! It's hungwith texts, and stuffed with books about the Scarlet Woman.... Piano'srather good, it's a Broadwood.... The Dad's got a war on about thetennis net. Oh, frightful! You'll see. It won't keep up. He's had aletter kept waiting by the _Times_ for a fortnight, and it's a terror atbreakfast. Says the motor people have used influence to silence him.Says that's a game two can play at.... Old Sid got herself upsetstuffing windfalls. Rather a sell for old Sid, considering how refinedshe's getting...."

  There was a brief lull as the party got into the waiting governess cart.Toupee, after a preliminary refusal to enter, made a determined attempton the best seat, from which he would be able to bark in a persistent,official manner at anything that passed. That suppressed, and Theodore'sproposal to drive refused, they were able to start, and attention wasconcentrated upon Daffy's negotiation of the station approach. Marjorieturned on her brother with a smile of warm affection.

  "How are you, old Theodore?"

  "I'm all right, old Madge."

  "Mummy?"

  "Every one's all right," said Theodore; "if it wasn't for that damnedinfernal net----"

  "Ssssh!" cried both sisters together.

  "_He_ says it," said Theodore.

  Both sisters conveyed a grave and relentless disapproval.

  "Pretty bit of road," said Marjorie. "I like that little house at thecorner."

  A pause and the eyes of the sisters met.

  "_He's_ here," said Daffy.

  Marjorie affected ignorance.

  "Who's here?"

  "_Il vostro senior Miraculoso_."

  "Just as though a fellow couldn't understand your kiddy little Italian,"said Theodore, pulling Toupee's ear.

  "Oh well, I thought he might be," said Marjorie, regardless of herbrother.

  "Oh!" said Daffy. "I didn't know----"

  Both sisters looked at each other, and then both glanced at Theodore. Hemet Marjorie's eyes with a grimace of profound solemnity.

  "Little brothers," he said, "shouldn't know. Just as though they didn't!Rot! But let's change the subject, my dears, all the same. Lemme see.There are a new sort of flea on Toupee, Madge, that he gets from thehens."

  "_Is_ a new sort," corrected Daffy. "He's horrider than ever, Madge. Heleaves his soap in soak now to make us think he has used it. This is thevillage High Street. Isn't it jolly?"

  "Corners don't _bite_ people," said Theodore, with a critical eye to thedriving.

  Marjorie surveyed the High Street, while Daffy devoted a few moments toTheodore.

  The particular success of the village was its brace of chestnut treeswhich, with that noble disregard of triteness which is one of the charmsof villages the whole world over, shadowed the village smithy. On eitherside of the roadway between it and the paths was a careless width ofvivid grass protected by white posts, which gave way to admit a generousaccess on either hand to a jolly public house, leering over red blinds,and swinging a painted sign against its competitor. Several of thecottages had real thatch and most had porches; they had creepers nailedto their faces, and their gardens, crowded now with flowers, marigolds,begonias, snapdragon, delphiniums, white foxgloves, and monkshood,seemed almost too good to be true. The doctor's house was pleasantlyGeorgian, and the village shop, which was also a post and telegraphoffice, lay back with a slight air of repletion, keeping its bulgingdouble shop-windows wide open in a manifest attempt not to fall asleep.Two score of shock-headed boys and pinafored girls were drilling upon abald space of ground before the village school, and near by, thenational emotion at the ever-memorable Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoriahad evoked an artistic drinking-fountain of grey stone. Beyond thesubsequent green--there were the correctest geese thereon--the villagenarrowed almost to a normal road again, and then, recalling itself witha start, lifted a little to the churchyard wall about the grey and amplechurch. "It's just like all the villages that ever were," said Marjorie,and gave a cry of delight when Daffy, pointing to the white gate betweentwo elm trees that led to the vicarage, remarked: "That's us."

  In confirmation of which statement, Sydney
and Rom, the two sisters nextin succession to Marjorie, and with a strong tendency to be twins inspite of the year between them, appeared in a state of vociferousincivility opening the way for the donkey-carriage. Sydney was Sydney,and Rom was just short for Romola--one of her mother's favouriteheroines in fiction.

  "Old Madge," they said; and then throwing respect to the winds, "OldGargoo!" which was Marjorie's forbidden nickname, and short for gargoyle(though surely only Victorian Gothic, ever produced a gargoyle that hadthe remotest right to be associated with the neat brightness ofMarjorie's face).

  She overlooked the offence, and the pseudo-twins boarded the cart frombehind, whereupon the already overburthened donkey, being old and in amanner wise, quickened his pace for the house to get the whole thingover.

  "It's really an avenue," said Daffy; but Marjorie, with her mind strungup to the Carmel standards, couldn't agree. It was like calling a row ofboy-scouts Potsdam grenadiers. The trees were at irregular distances, ofvarious ages, and mostly on one side. Still it was a shady, pleasantapproach.

  And the vicarage was truly very interesting and amusing. To theseLondoners accustomed to live in a state of compression, elbowspractically touching, in a tall, narrow fore-and-aft stucco house, allwindow and staircase, in a despondent Brompton square, there was aneffect of maundering freedom about the place, of enlargement almost tothe pitch of adventure and sunlight to the pitch of intoxication. Thehouse itself was long and low, as if a London house holidaying in thecountry had flung itself asprawl; it had two disconnected and roomystaircases, and when it had exhausted itself completely as a house, itturned to the right and began again as rambling, empty stables, coachhouse, cart sheds, men's bedrooms up ladders, and outhouses of the mostvarious kinds. On one hand was a neglected orchard, in the front of thehouse was a bald, worried-looking lawn area capable of simultaneoustennis and croquet, and at the other side a copious and confusedvegetable and flower garden full of roses, honesty, hollyhocks, andsuchlike herbaceous biennials and perennials, lapsed at last intoshrubbery, where a sickle-shaped, weedy lagoon of uncertain aims, whichhad evidently, as a rustic bridge and a weeping willow confessed,aspired to be an "ornamental water," declined at last to ducks. Andthere was access to the church, and the key of the church tower, and onewent across the corner of the lawn, and by a little iron gate into thechurchyard to decipher inscriptions, as if the tombs of allBuryhamstreet were no more than a part of the accommodation relinquishedby the vicar's household.

  Marjorie was hurried over the chief points of all this at a breakneckpace by Sydney and Rom, and when Sydney was called away to the horrorsof practice--for Sydney in spite of considerable reluctance was destinedby her father to be "the musical one"--Rom developed a copiousaffection, due apparently to some occult aesthetic influence inMarjorie's silvery-grey and green, and led her into the unlocked vestry,and there prayed in a whisper that she might be given "one good hug,just _one_"--and so they came out with their arms about each other veryaffectionately to visit the lagoon again. And then Rom remembered thatMarjorie hadn't seen either the walnut-tree in the orchard, or the henwith nine chicks....

  Somewhere among all these interests came tea and Mrs. Pope.

  Mrs. Pope kissed her daughter with an air of having really wanted tokiss her half an hour ago, but of having been distracted since. She wasa fine-featured, anxious-looking little woman, with a close resemblanceto all her children, in spite of the fact that they were markedlydissimilar one to the other, except only that they took their ruddycolourings from their father. She was dressed in a neat blue dress thathad perhaps been hurriedly chosen, and her method of doing her hair wasa manifest compromise between duty and pleasure. She embarked at onceupon an exposition of the bedroom arrangements, which evidently involveddifficult issues. Marjorie was to share a room with Daffy--that was thegist of it--as the only other available apartment, originally promisedto Marjorie, had been secured by Mr. Pope for what he called his"matutinal ablutions, _videlicet_ tub."

  "Then, when your Aunt Plessington comes, you won't have to move," saidMrs. Pope with an air of a special concession. "Your father's lookingforward to seeing you, but he mustn't be disturbed just yet. He's in thevicar's study. He's had his tea in there. He's writing a letter to the_Times_ answering something they said in a leader, and also a privatenote calling attention to their delay in printing his previouscommunication, and he wants to be delicately ironical without being inany way offensive. He wants to hint without actually threatening thatvery probably he will go over to the _Spectator_ altogether if they donot become more attentive. The _Times_ used to print his letterspunctually, but latterly these automobile people seem to have got holdof it.... He has the window on the lawn open, so that I think, perhaps,we'd better not stay out here--for fear our voices might disturb him."

  "Better get right round the other side of the church," said Daffy.

  "He'd hear far less of us if we went indoors," said Mrs. Pope.

  Sec. 4

  The vicarage seemed tight packed with human interest for Marjorie andher mother and sisters. Going over houses is one of the amusementsproper to her sex, and she and all three sisters and her mother, as soonas they had finished an inaudible tea, went to see the bedroom she wasto share with Daffy, and then examined, carefully and in order, thefurniture and decoration of the other bedrooms, went through the roomsdownstairs, always excepting and avoiding very carefully and closing asmany doors as possible on, and hushing their voices whenever theyapproached the study in which her father was being delicately ironicalwithout being offensive to the _Times_. None of them had seen any of thevicarage people at all--Mr. Pope had come on a bicycle and managed allthe negotiations--and it was curious to speculate about the individualswhose personalities pervaded the worn and faded furnishings of theplace.

  The Popes' keen-eyed inspection came at times, I think, dangerously nearprying. The ideals of decoration and interests of the vanished familywere so absolutely dissimilar to the London standards as to arouse asort of astonished wonder in their minds. Some of the things theydecided were perfectly hideous, some quaint, some were simply and weaklysilly. Everything was different from Hartstone Square. Daffy was perhapsmore inclined to contempt, and Mrs. Pope to refined amusement and wittyappreciation than Marjorie. Marjorie felt there was something in thesepeople that she didn't begin to understand, she needed some missingclue that would unlock the secret of their confused peculiarity. She wasone of those people who have an almost instinctive turn for decorationin costume and furniture; she had already had a taste of how to dothings in arranging her rooms at Bennett College, Oxbridge, where alsoshe was in great demand among the richer girls as an adviser. She knewwhat it was to try and fail as well as to try and succeed, and thesepeople, she felt, hadn't tried for anything she comprehended. Shecouldn't quite see why it was that there was at the same time an attemptat ornament and a disregard of beauty, she couldn't quite do as hermother did and dismiss it as an absurdity and have done with it. Shecouldn't understand, too, why everything should be as if it were fadedand weakened from something originally bright and clear.

  All the rooms were thick with queer little objects that indicated aquite beaver-like industry in the production of "work." There wereembroidered covers for nearly every article on the wash-hand-stand, andmats of wool and crochet wherever anything stood on anything; there were"tidies" everywhere, and odd little brackets covered with gilded andvarnished fir cones and bearing framed photographs and little jars andall sorts of colourless, dusty little objects, and everywhere on thewalls tacks sustained crossed fans with badly painted flowers ortransfer pictures. There was a jar on the bedroom mantel covered withvarnished postage stamps and containing grey-haired dried grasses. Thereseemed to be a moral element in all this, for in the room Sydney sharedwith Rom there was a decorative piece of lettering which declared that--

  "Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose."

  There were a great number of texts that set Marjorie's mind stirringd
imly with intimations of a missed significance. Over her own bed,within the lattice of an Oxford frame, was the photograph of a pictureof an extremely composed young woman in a trailing robe, clinging to theRock of Ages in the midst of histrionically aggressive waves, and shehad a feeling, rather than a thought, that perhaps for all the oddity ofthe presentation it did convey something acutely desirable, that sheherself had had moods when she would have found something verycomforting in just such an impassioned grip. And on a framed,floriferous card, these incomprehensible words:

  |================================| |THY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ME. | |================================|

  seemed to be saying something to her tantalizingly just outside herrange of apprehension.

  Did all these things light up somehow to those dispossessed people--fromsome angle she didn't attain? Were they living and moving realities whenthose others were at home again?

  The drawing-room had no texts; it was altogether more pretentious andless haunted by the faint and faded flavour of religion that pervadedthe bedrooms. It had, however, evidences of travel in Switzerland andthe Mediterranean. There was a piano in black and gold, a little out oftune, and surmounted by a Benares brass jar, enveloping a scarletgeranium in a pot. There was a Japanese screen of gold wrought uponblack, that screened nothing. There was a framed chromo-lithograph ofJerusalem hot in the sunset, and another of Jerusalem cold under asub-tropical moon, and there were gourds, roses of Jericho, sandalwoodrosaries and kindred trash from the Holy Land in no little profusionupon a what-not. Such books as the room had contained had been arrangedas symmetrically as possible about a large, pink-shaded lamp upon theclaret-coloured cloth of a round table, and were to be replaced, Mrs.Pope said, at their departure. At present they were piled on aside-table. The girls had been through them all, and were ready with thechoicer morsels for Marjorie's amusement. There was "Black Beauty," thesympathetic story of a soundly Anglican horse, and a large Bibleextra-illustrated with photographs of every well-known scripturalpicture from Michael Angelo to Dore, and a book of injunctions to youngladies upon their behaviour and deportment that Rom and Sydney foundparticularly entertaining. Marjorie discovered that Sydney had picked upa new favourite phrase. "I'm afraid we're all dreadfully cynical," saidSydney, several times.

  A more advanced note was struck by a copy of "Aurora Leigh," richlyunderlined in pencil, but with exclamation marks at some of the bolderpassages....

  And presently, still avoiding the open study window very elaborately,this little group of twentieth century people went again into thechurch--the church whose foundations were laid in A.D. 912--foundationsof rubble and cement that included flat Roman bricks from a stillremoter basilica. Their voices dropped instinctively, as they came intoits shaded quiet from the exterior sunshine. Marjorie went a littleapart and sat in a pew that gave her a glimpse of the one goodstained-glass window. Rom followed her, and perceiving her mood to berestful, sat a yard away. Syd began a whispered dispute with her motherwhether it wasn't possible to try the organ, and whether Theodore mightnot be bribed to blow. Daffy discovered relics of a lepers' squint and aholy-water stoup, and then went to scrutinize the lettering of the tencommandments of the Mosaic law that shone black and red on gold oneither side of the I.H.S. monogram behind the white-clothed communiontable that had once been the altar. Upon a notice board hung about thewaist of the portly pulpit were the numbers of hymns that had been sungthree days ago. The sound Protestantism of the vicar had banishedsuperfluous crosses from the building; the Bible reposed upon the wingsof a great brass eagle; shining blue and crimson in the window, SaintChristopher carried his Lord. What a harmonized synthesis of conflicts acountry church presents! What invisible mysteries of filiation spreadbetween these ancient ornaments and symbols and the new young minds fromthe whirlpool of the town that looked upon them now with such bright,keen eyes, wondering a little, feeling a little, missing so much?

  It was all so very cool and quiet now--with something of the immobileserenity of death.

  Sec. 5

  When Mr. Pope had finished his letter to the _Times_, he got out of thewindow of the study, treading on a flower-bed as he did so--he was thesort of man who treads on flower-beds--partly with the purpose ofreading his composition aloud to as many members of his family as hecould assemble for the purpose, and so giving them a chance ofappreciating the nuances of his irony more fully than if they saw itjust in cold print without the advantage of his intonation, and partlywith the belated idea of welcoming Marjorie. The law presented a ratherdiscouraging desolation. Then he became aware that the church towerfrothed with his daughters. In view of his need of an audience, hedecided after a brief doubt that their presence there wasunobjectionable, and waved his MS. amiably. Marjorie flapped ahandkerchief in reply....

  The subsequent hour was just the sort of hour that gave Mr. Pope analmost meteorological importance to his family. He began with anamiability that had no fault, except, perhaps, that it was a littleforced after the epistolary strain in the study, and his welcome toMarjorie was more than cordial. "Well, little Madge-cat!" he said,giving her an affectionate but sound and heavy thump on the leftshoulder-blade, "got a kiss for the old daddy?"

  Marjorie submitted a cheek.

  "That's right," said Mr. Pope; "and now I just want you all to adviseme----"

  He led the way to a group of wicker garden chairs. "You're coming,mummy?" he said, and seated himself comfortably and drew out a spectaclecase, while his family grouped itself dutifully. It made a charminglittle picture of a Man and his Womankind. "I don't often flattermyself," he said, "but this time I think I've been neat--neat's the wordfor it."

  He cleared his throat, put on his spectacles, and emitted a long, flatpreliminary note, rather like the sound of a child's trumpet. "Er--'DearSir!'"

  "Rom," said Mrs. Pope, "don't creak your chair."

  "It's Daffy, mother," said Rom.

  "Oh, _Rom!_" said Daffy.

  Mr. Pope paused, and looked with a warning eye over his leftspectacle-glass at Rom.

  "Don't creak your chair, Rom," he said, "when your mother tells you."

  "I was _not_ creaking my chair," said Rom.

  "I heard it," said Mr. Pope, suavely.

  "It was Daffy."

  "Your mother does not think so," said Mr. Pope.

  "Oh, all right! I'll sit on the ground," said Rom, crimson to the rootsof her hair.

  "Me too," said Daffy. "I'd rather."

  Mr. Pope watched the transfer gravely. Then he readjusted his glasses,cleared his throat again, trumpeted, and began. "Er--'Dear Sir,'"

  "Oughtn't it to be simply 'Sir,' father, for an editor?" said Marjorie.

  "Perhaps I didn't explain, Marjorie," said her father, with the calm ofgreat self-restraint, and dabbing his left hand on the manuscript in hisright, "that this is a _private_ letter--a private letter."

  "I didn't understand," said Marjorie.

  "It would have been evident as I went on," said Mr. Pope, and preparedto read again.

  This time he was allowed to proceed, but the interruptions had ruffledhim, and the gentle stresses that should have lifted the subtleties ofhis irony into prominence missed the words, and he had to go back and dohis sentences again. Then Rom suddenly, horribly, uncontrollably, wasseized with hiccups. At the second hiccup Mr. Pope paused, and lookedvery hard at his daughter with magnified eyes; as he was about toresume, the third burst its way through the unhappy child's utmosteffort.

  Mr. Pope rose with an awful resignation. "That's enough," he said. Heregarded the pseudo-twin vindictively. "You haven't the self-control ofa child of six," he said. Then very touchingly to Mrs. Pope: "Mummy,shall we try a game of tennis with the New Generation?"

  "Can't you read it after supper?" asked Mrs. Pope.

  "It must go by the eight o'clock post," said Mr. Pope, putting themasterpiece into his breast pocket, the little masterpiece that wouldnow perhaps never be read aloud to any human being. "Daffy, dear, do youmind going in fo
r the racquets and balls?"

  The social atmosphere was now sultry, and overcast, and Mr. Pope'sdecision to spend the interval before Daffy returned in seeing whetherhe couldn't do something to the net, which was certainly veryunsatisfactory, did not improve matters. Then, unhappily, Marjorie, whohad got rather keen upon tennis at the Carmels', claimed her father'sfirst two services as faults, contrary to the etiquette of the family.It happened that Mr. Pope had a really very good, hard, difficult,smart-looking serve, whose only defect was that it always went eithertoo far or else into the net, and so a feeling had been fostered andestablished by his wife that, on the whole, it was advisable to regardthe former variety as a legitimate extension of a father's authority.Naturally, therefore, Mr. Pope was nettled at Marjorie's ruling, and hisirritation increased when his next two services to Daffy perished in thenet. ("Damn that net! Puts one's eye out.") Then Marjorie gave him anunexpected soft return which he somehow muffed, and then Daffy justdropped a return over the top of the net. (Love-game.) It was thenMarjorie's turn to serve, which she did with a new twist acquired fromthe eldest Carmel boy that struck Mr. Pope as un-English. "Go on," hesaid concisely. "Fifteen love."

  She was gentle with her mother and they got their first rally, and whenit was over Mr. Pope had to explain to Marjorie that if she returnedright up into his corner of the court he would have to run backwardsvery fast and might fall over down the silly slope at that end. Shewould have to consider him and the court. One didn't get everything outof a game by playing merely to win. She said "All right, Daddy," ratheroff-handedly, and immediately served to him again, and he, taken alittle unawares, hit the ball with the edge of his racquet and sent itout, and then he changed racquets with Daffy--it seemed he had known allalong she had taken his, but he had preferred to say nothing--uttered aword of advice to his wife just on her stroke, and she, failing to grasphis intention as quickly as she ought to have done, left the scoreforty-fifteen. He felt better when he returned Marjorie's serve, andthen before she could control herself she repeated her new unpleasanttrick of playing into the corner again, whereupon, leaping back with anagility that would have shamed many a younger man, Mr. Pope came upondisaster. He went spinning down the treacherous slope behind, twistedhis ankle painfully and collapsed against the iron railings of theshrubbery. It was too much, and he lost control of himself. Hisdaughters had one instant's glimpse of the linguistic possibilities of astrong man's agony. "I told her," he went on as if he had said nothing."_Tennis!_"

  For a second perhaps he seemed to hesitate upon a course of action. Thenas if by a great effort he took his coat from the net post and addressedhimself houseward, incarnate Grand Dudgeon--limping.

  "Had enough of it, Mummy," he said, and added some happily inaudiblecomment on Marjorie's new style of play.

  The evening's exercise was at an end.

  The three ladies regarded one another in silence for some moments.

  "I will take in the racquets, dear," said Mrs. Pope.

  "I think the other ball is at your end," said Daffy....

  The apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister strolled thoughtfullyaway from the house.

  "There's croquet here too," said Daffy. "We've not had the things outyet!"....

  "He'll play, I suppose."

  "He wants to play."...

  "Of course," said Marjorie after a long pause, "there's no _reasoning_with Dad!"

  Sec. 6

  Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, butsome Englishmen have it to excess. Mr. Pope had.

  He was one of that large and representative class which imparts adignity to national commerce by inheriting big businesses from itsancestors. He was a coach-builder by birth, and a gentleman by educationand training. He had been to City Merchant's and Cambridge.

  Throughout the earlier half of the nineteenth century the Popes had beenthe princes of the coach-building world. Mr. Pope's great-grandfatherhad been a North London wheelwright of conspicuous dexterity andintegrity, who had founded the family business; his son, Mr. Pope'sgrandfather, had made that business the occupation of his life andbrought it to the pinnacle of pre-eminence; his son, who was Marjorie'sgrandfather, had displayed a lesser enthusiasm, left the house at theworks for a home ten miles away and sent a second son into the Church.It was in the days of the third Pope that the business ceased to expand,and began to suffer severely from the competition of an enterprisingperson who had originally supplied the firm with varnish, graduallypicked up the trade in most other materials and accessories needed incoach-building, and passed on by almost imperceptible stages todelivering the article complete--dispensing at last altogether with theintervention of Pope and Son--to the customer. Marjorie's father hadsucceeded in the fulness of time to the inheritance this insurgent haddamaged.

  Mr. Pope was a man of firm and resentful temper, with an admiration forCato, Brutus, Cincinnatus, Cromwell, Washington, and the sterner heroesgenerally, and by nature a little ill-used and offended at things. Hesuffered from indigestion and extreme irritability. He found himself incontrol of a business where more flexible virtues were needed. The Popesbased their fame on a heavy, proud type of vehicle, which the increasingluxury and triviality of the age tended to replace by lighter forms ofcarriage, carriages with diminutive and apologetic names. As theselighter forms were not only lighter but less expensive, Mr. Pope with apathetic confidence in the loyalty of the better class of West Endcustomer, determined to "make a stand" against them. He was the sort ofman to whom making a stand is in itself a sombre joy. If he had had tochoose his pose for a portrait, he would certainly have decided to haveone foot advanced, the other planted like a British oak behind, the armsfolded and the brows corrugated,--making a stand.

  Unhappily the stars in their courses and the general improvement ofroads throughout the country fought against him. The lighter carriages,and especially the lighter carriages of that varnish-selling firm, whichwas now absorbing businesses right and left, prevailed over Mr. Pope'sresistance. For crossing a mountain pass or fording a river, for drivingover the scene of a recent earthquake or following a retreating army,for being run away with by frantic horses or crushing a personal enemy,there can be no doubt the Pope carriages remained to the very last thebest possible ones and fully worth the inflexible price demanded.Unhappily all carriages in a civilization essentially decadent are notsubjected to these tests, and the manufactures of his rivals were notonly much cheaper, but had a sort of meretricious smartness, adisingenuous elasticity, above all a levity, hateful indeed to thespirit of Mr. Pope yet attractive to the wanton customer. Businessdwindled. Nevertheless the habitual element in the good class customerdid keep things going, albeit on a shrinking scale, until Mr. Pope cameto the unfortunate decision that he would make a stand againstautomobiles. He regarded them as an intrusive nuisance which had to beseen only to be disowned by the landed gentry of England. Rather thanbuild a car he said he would go out of business. He went out ofbusiness. Within five years of this determination he sold out the name,good will, and other vestiges of his concern to a mysterious buyer whoturned out to be no more than an agent for these persistently expandingvarnish makers, and he retired with a genuine grievance upon the familyaccumulations--chiefly in Consols and Home Railways.

  He refused however to regard his defeat as final, put great faith in theapproaching exhaustion of the petrol supply, and talked in a manner thatshould have made the Automobile Association uneasy, of devoting therest of his days to the purification of England from these aggressivemechanisms. "It was a mistake," he said, "to let them in." He becamemore frequent at his excellent West End club, and directed a certainportion of his capital to largely indecisive but on the wholeunprofitable speculations in South African and South Americanenterprises. He mingled a little in affairs. He was a tough conventionalspeaker, rich in established phrases and never abashed by hearinghimself say commonplace things, and in addition to his campaign againstautomobiles he found time to engage also in quasi-political activities,
taking chairs, saying a few words and so on, cherishing a fluctuatinghope that his eloquence might ultimately win him an invitation tocontest a constituency in the interests of reaction and the sounderelements in the Liberal party.

  He had a public-spirited side, and he was particularly attracted by thatmass of modern legislative proposals which aims at a more systematiccontrol of the lives of lower class persons for their own good by theirbetters. Indeed, in the first enthusiasm of his proprietorship of thePope works at East Purblow, he had organized one of those benevolentindustrial experiments that are now so common. He felt strongly againstthe drink evil, that is to say, the unrestricted liberty of commonpeople to drink what they prefer, and he was acutely impressed by thefact that working-class families do not spend their money in the waythat seems most desirable to upper middle-class critics. Accordingly hedid his best to replace the dangerous freedoms of money by that ideal ofthe social reformer, Payment in Kind. To use his invariable phrase, theEast Purblow experiment did "no mean service" to the cause of socialreform. Unhappily it came to an end through a prosecution under theTruck Act, that blot upon the Statute Book, designed, it would appear,even deliberately to vitiate man's benevolent control of his fellow man.The lessons to be drawn from that experience, however, grew if anythingwith the years. He rarely spoke without an allusion to it, and it wasquite remarkable how readily it could be adapted to illuminate a hundreddifferent issues in the hospitable columns of the _Spectator_....

  Sec. 7

  At seven o'clock Marjorie found herself upstairs changing into herapple-green frock. She had had a good refreshing wash in cold softwater, and it was pleasant to change into thinner silk stockings anddainty satin slippers and let down and at last brush her hair and dressloiteringly after the fatigues of her journey and the activities of herarrival. She looked out on the big church and the big trees behind itagainst the golden quiet of a summer evening with extreme approval.

  "I suppose those birds are rooks," she said.

  But Daffy had gone to see that the pseudo-twins had done themselvesjustice in their muslin frocks and pink sashes; they were apt to be alittle sketchy with their less accessible buttons.

  Marjorie became aware of two gentlemen with her mother on the lawnbelow.

  One was her almost affianced lover, Will Magnet, the humorous writer.She had been doing her best not to think about him all day, but now hebecame an unavoidable central fact. She regarded him with an almostperplexed scrutiny, and wondered vividly why she had been so excited andpleased by his attentions during the previous summer.

  Mr. Magnet was one of those quiet, deliberately unassuming people who donot even attempt to be beautiful. Not for him was it to pretend, but toprick the bladder of pretence. He was a fairish man of forty, pale, witha large protuberant, observant grey eye--I speak particularly of theleft--and a face of quiet animation warily alert for the wit'sopportunity. His nose and chin were pointed, and his lips thin andquaintly pressed together. He was dressed in grey, with a low-collaredsilken shirt showing a thin neck, and a flowing black tie, and hecarried a grey felt hat in his joined hands behind his back. She couldhear the insinuating cadences of his voice as he talked in her mother'sear. The other gentleman, silent on her mother's right, must, she knew,be Mr. Wintersloan, whom Mr. Magnet had proposed to bring over. Hisdress betrayed that modest gaiety of disposition becoming in an artist,and indeed he was one of Mr. Magnet's favourite illustrators. He was ina dark bluish-grey suit; a black tie that was quite unusually broad wenttwice around his neck before succumbing to the bow, and his waistcoatappeared to be of some gaily-patterned orange silk. Marjorie's eyesreturned to Mr. Magnet. Hitherto she had never had an opportunity ofremarking that his hair was more than a little attenuated towards thecrown. It was funny how his tie came out under his chin to the right.

  What an odd thing men's dress had become, she thought. Why did they wearthose ridiculous collars and ties? Why didn't they always dress inflannels and look as fine and slender and active as the elder Carmel boyfor example? Mr. Magnet couldn't be such an ill-shaped man. Why didn'tevery one dress to be just as beautiful and splendid aspossible?--instead of wearing queer things!

  "Coming down?" said Daffy, a vision of sulphur-yellow, appearing in thedoorway.

  "Let _them_ go first," said Marjorie, with a finer sense of effect. "AndTheodore. We don't want to make part of a comic entry with Theodore,Daffy."

  Accordingly, the two sisters watched discreetly--they had to be wary onaccount of Mr. Magnet's increasingly frequent glances at thewindows--and when at last all the rest of the family had appeared below,they decided their cue had come. Mr. Pope strolled into the group, withno trace of his recent debacle except a slight limp. He was wearing ajacket of damson-coloured velvet, which he affected in the country, andall traces of his Grand Dudgeon were gone. But then he rarely had GrandDudgeon except in the sanctities of family life, and hardly ever whenany other man was about.

  "Well," his daughters heard him say, with a witty allusiveness that wasdifficult to follow, "so the Magnet has come to the Mountain again--eh?"

  "Come on, Madge," said Daffy, and the two sisters emerged harmoniouslytogether from the house.

  It would have been manifest to a meaner capacity than any present thatevening that Mr. Magnet regarded Marjorie with a distinguishedsignificance. He had two eyes, but he had that mysterious quality sofrequently associated with a bluish-grey iris which gives the effect oflooking hard with one large orb, a sort of grey searchlight effect, andhe used this eye ray now to convey a respectful but firm admiration inthe most unequivocal manner. He saluted Daffy courteously, and thenallowed himself to retain Marjorie's hand for just a second longer thanwas necessary as he said--very simply--"I am very pleased indeed to meetyou again--very."

  A slight embarrassment fell between them.

  "You are staying near here, Mr. Magnet?"

  "At the inn," said Mr. Magnet, and then, "I chose it because it would benear you."

  His eye pressed upon her again for a moment.

  "Is it comfortable?" said Marjorie.

  "So charmingly simple," said Mr. Magnet. "I love it."

  A tinkling bell announced the preparedness of supper, and roused theothers to the consciousness that they were silently watching Mr. Magnetand Marjorie.

  "It's quite a simple farmhouse supper," said Mrs. Pope.

  Sec. 8

  There were ducks, green peas, and adolescent new potatoes for supper,and afterwards stewed fruit and cream and junket and cheese, bottledbeer, Gilbey's Burgundy, and home-made lemonade. Mrs. Pope carved,because Mr. Pope splashed too much, and bones upset him and made himwant to show up chicken in the _Times_. So he sat at the other end andrallied his guests while Mrs. Pope distributed the viands. He showed nota trace of his recent umbrage. Theodore sat between Daffy and his motherbecause of his table manners, and Marjorie was on her father's righthand and next to Mr. Wintersloan, while Mr. Magnet was in the middle ofthe table on the opposite side in a position convenient for looking ather. Both maids waited.

  The presence of Magnet invariably stirred the latent humorist in Mr.Pope. He felt that he who talks to humorists should himself be humorous,and it was his private persuasion that with more attention he might havebeen, to use a favourite form of expression, "no mean jester." Quite alot of little things of his were cherished as "Good" both by himselfand, with occasional inaccuracies, by Mrs. Pope. He opened out now in astrain of rich allusiveness.

  "What will you drink, Mr. Wintersloan?" he said. "Wine of the country,yclept beer, red wine from France, or my wife's potent brew from thegolden lemon?"

  Mr. Wintersloan thought he would take Burgundy. Mr. Magnet preferredbeer.

  "I've heard there's iron in the Beer, And I believe it,"

  misquoted Mr. Pope, and nodded as it were to the marker to score. "Daffyand Marjorie are still in the lemonade stage. Will you take a littleBurgundy to-night, Mummy?"

  Mrs. Pope decided she would, and was inspired to ask Mr. Wintersloan ifhe h
ad been in that part of the country before. Topography ensued. Mr.Wintersloan had a style of his own, and spoke of the Buryhamstreetdistrict as a "pooty little country--pooty little hills, with a swirl inthem."

  This pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes met for a moment.

  Then Mr. Magnet, with a ray full on Marjorie, said he had always beenfond of Surrey. "I think if ever I made a home in the country I shouldlike it to be here."

  Mr. Wintersloan said Surrey would tire him, it was too bossy and curly,too flocculent; he would prefer to look on broader, simpler lines, withjust a sudden catch in the breath in them--if you understand me?

  Marjorie did, and said so.

  "A sob--such as you get at the break of a pinewood on a hill."

  This baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. "Or the short dry cough ofa cliff," she said.

  "Exactly," said Mr. Wintersloan, and having turned a little deliberateclose-lipped smile on her for a moment, resumed his wing.

  "So long as a landscape doesn't _sneeze_" said Mr. Magnet, in thatirresistible dry way of his, and Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked.

  "Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn," mused Mr. Pope, coming in allright at the end.

  Then Mrs. Pope asked Mr. Wintersloan, about his route to Buryhamstreet,and then Mr. Pope asked Mr. Magnet whether he was playing at a new workor working at a new play.

  Mr. Magnet said he was dreaming over a play. He wanted to bring out themore serious side of his humour, go a little deeper into things than hehad hitherto done.

  "Mingling smiles and tears," said Mr. Pope approvingly.

  Mr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour did that.

  Then Mrs. Pope asked what the play was to be about, and Mr. Magnet, whoseemed disinclined to give an answer, turned the subject by saying hehad to prepare an address on humour for the next dinner of the_Literati_. "It's to be a humourist's dinner, and they've made me theguest of the evening--by way of a joke to begin with," he said with thatdry smile again.

  Mrs. Pope said he shouldn't say things like that. She then said "Syd!"quietly but sharply to Sydney, who was making a disdainful, squintingface at Theodore, and told the parlourmaid to clear the plates forsweets. Mr. Magnet professed great horror of public speaking. He saidthat whenever he rose to make an after-dinner speech all the ices he hadever eaten seemed to come out of the past, and sit on his backbone.

  The talk centered for awhile on Mr. Magnet's address, and apropos ofTests of Humour Mr. Pope, who in his way was "no mean raconteur,"related the story of the man who took the salad dressing with his hand,and when his host asked why he did that, replied: "Oh! I thought it wasspinach!"

  "Many people," added Mr. Pope, "wouldn't see the point of that. And ifthey don't see the point they can't--and the more they try the less theydo."

  All four girls hoped secretly and not too confidently that theirlaughter had not sounded hollow.

  And then for a time the men told stories as they came into their headsin an easy, irresponsible way. Mr. Magnet spoke of the humour of theomnibus-driver who always dangled and twiddled his badge "by way of ajoke" when he passed the conductor whose father had been hanged, and Mr.Pope, perhaps, a little irrelevantly, told the story of the little boywho was asked his father's last words, and said "mother was with him tothe end," which particularly amused Mrs. Pope. Mr. Wintersloan gave thestory of the woman who was taking her son to the hospital with his headjammed into a saucepan, and explained to the other people in theomnibus: "You see, what makes it so annoying, it's me only saucepan!"Then they came back to the Sense of Humour with the dentist who shoutedwith laughter, and when asked the reason by his patient, choked out:"Wrong tooth!" and then Mr. Pope reminded them of the heartless husbandwho, suddenly informed that his mother-in-law was dead, exclaimed "Oh,don't make me laugh, please, I've got a split lip...."

  Sec. 9

  The conversation assumed a less anecdotal quality with the removal tothe drawing-room. On Mr. Magnet's initiative the gentlemen followed theladies almost immediately, and it was Mr. Magnet who remembered thatMarjorie could sing.

  Both the elder sisters indeed had sweet clear voices, and they hadlearnt a number of those jolly songs the English made before the dullHanoverians came. Syd accompanied, and Rom sat back in the low chair inthe corner and fell deeply in love with Mr. Wintersloan. The threemusicians in their green and sulphur-yellow and white made a prettygroup in the light of the shaded lamp against the black and goldBroadwood, the tawdry screen, its pattern thin glittering upon darkness,and the deep shadows behind. Marjorie loved singing, and forgot herselfas she sang.

  "I love, and he loves me again, Yet dare I not tell who; For if the nymphs should know my swain, I fear they'd love him too,"

  she sang, and Mr. Magnet could not conceal the intensity of hisadmiration.

  Mr. Pope had fallen into a pleasant musing; several other ripe oldyarns, dear delicious old things, had come into his mind that he felt hemight presently recall when this unavoidable display of accomplishmentswas overpast, and it was with one of them almost on his lips that heglanced across at his guest. He was surprised to see Mr. Magnet's facetransfigured. He was sitting forward, looking up at Marjorie, and he hadcaught something of the expression of those blessed boys who froth atthe feet of an Assumption. For an instant Mr. Pope did not understand.

  Then he understood. It was Marjorie! He had a twinge of surprise, andglanced at his own daughter as though he had never seen her before. Heperceived in a flash for the first time that this troublesome, clever,disrespectful child was tall and shapely and sweet, and indeed quite abeautiful young woman. He forgot his anecdotes. His being was suffusedwith pride and responsibility and the sense of virtue rewarded. He didnot reflect for a moment that Marjorie embodied in almost equalproportions the very best points in his mother and his mother-in-law,and avoided his own more salient characteristics with so neat adexterity that from top to toe, except for the one matter of colour, notonly did she not resemble him but she scarcely even alluded to him. Hethought simply that she was his daughter, that she derived from him,that her beauty was his. She was the outcome of his meritoriouspreparations. He recalled all the moments when he had been kind andindulgent to her, all the bills he had paid for her; all the stressesand trials of the coach-building collapse, all the fluctuations of hisspeculative adventures, became things he had faced patiently andvaliantly for her sake. He forgot the endless times when he had beenviciously cross with her, all the times when he had pished and tushedand sworn in her hearing. He had on provocation and in spite of hermother's protests slapped her pretty vigorously, but such things arebetter forgotten; nor did he recall how bitterly he had opposed thecollege education which had made her now so clear in eye and thought,nor the frightful shindy, only three months since, about that identicalgreen dress in which she now stood delightful. He forgot these pettydetails, as an idealist should. There she was, his daughter. An immensebenevolence irradiated his soul--for Marjorie--for Magnet. His eyes weresuffused with a not ignoble tenderness. The man, he knew, was worth atleast thirty-five thousand pounds, a discussion of investments had madethat clear, and he must be making at least five thousand a year! Abeautiful girl, a worthy man! A good fellow, a sound good fellow, acareful fellow too--as these fellows went!

  Old Daddy would lose his treasure of course.

  Well, a father must learn resignation, and he for one would not stand inthe way of his girl's happiness. A day would come when, very beautifullyand tenderly, he would hand her over to Magnet, his favourite daughterto his trusted friend. "Well, my boy, there's no one in all theworld----" he would begin.

  It would be a touching parting. "Don't forget your old father, Maggots,"he would say. At such a moment that quaint nickname would surely not beresented....

  He reflected how much he had always preferred Marjorie to Daffy. She wasbrighter--more like him. Daffy was unresponsive, with a touch ofbitterness under her tongue....

  He was already dreaming he was a widower, rather
infirm, the object ofMagnet's and Marjorie's devoted care, when the song ceased, and the wifehe had for the purpose of reveries just consigned so carelessly to thecemetery proposed that they should have a little game that every onecould play at. A number of pencils and slips of paper appeared in herhands. She did not want the girls to exhaust their repertory on thisfirst occasion--and besides, Mr. Pope liked games in which one didthings with pencils and strips of paper. Mr. Magnet wished the singingto go on, he said, but he was overruled.

  So for a time every one played a little game in which Mr. Pope wasparticularly proficient. Indeed, it was rare that any one won but Mr.Pope. It was called "The Great Departed," and it had such considerableeducational value that all the children had to play at it whenever hewished.

  It was played in this manner; one of the pseudo twins opened a book anddabbed a finger on the page, and read out the letter immediately at thetip of her finger, then all of them began to write as hard as theycould, writing down the names of every great person they could think of,whose name began with that letter. At the end of five minutes Mr. Popesaid Stop! and then began to read his list out, beginning with the firstname. Everybody who had that name crossed it out and scored one, andafter his list was exhausted all the surviving names on the next listwere read over in the same way, and so on. The names had to be the namesof dead celebrated people, only one monarch of the same name of the samedynasty was allowed, and Mr. Pope adjudicated on all doubtful cases. Itwas great fun.

  The first two games were won as usual by Mr. Pope, and then Mr.Wintersloan, who had been a little distraught in his manner, brightenedup and scribbled furiously.

  The letter was _D_, and after Mr. Pope had rehearsed a tale of nine andtwenty names, Mr. Wintersloan read out his list in that curious voice ofhis which suggested nothing so much as some mobile drink glucking out ofthe neck of a bottle held upside down.

  "Dahl," he began.

  "Who was Dahl?" asked Mr. Pope.

  "'Vented dahlias," said Mr. Wintersloan, with a sigh. "Danton."

  "Forgot him," said Mr. Pope.

  "Davis."

  "Davis?"

  "Davis Straits. Doe."

  "Who?"

  "John Doe, Richard Roe."

  "Legal fiction, I'm afraid," said Mr. Pope.

  "Dam," said Mr. Wintersloan, and added after a slight pause: "Anthonyvan."

  Mr. Pope made an interrogative noise.

  "Painter--eighteenth century--Dutch. Dam, Jan van, his son. Dam,Frederich van. Dam, Wilhelm van. Dam, Diedrich van. Dam, Wilhelmina,wood engraver, gifted woman. Diehl."

  "Who?"

  "Painter--dead--famous. See Duesseldorf. It's all painters now--allguaranteed dead, all good men. Deeds of Norfolk, the aquarellist,Denton, Dibbs."

  "Er?" said Mr. Pope.

  "The Warwick Claude, _you_ know. Died 1823."

  "Dickson, Dunting, John Dickery. Peter Dickery, William Dock--I beg yourpardon?"

  Mr. Pope was making a protesting gesture, but Mr. Wintersloan's bearingwas invincible, and he proceeded.

  In the end he emerged triumphant with forty-nine names, mostly paintersfor whose fame he answered, but whose reputations were certainly new toevery one else present. "I can go on like that," said Mr. Wintersloan,"with any letter," and turned that hard little smile full on Marjorie."I didn't see how to do it at first. I just cast about. But I know afrightful lot of painters. No end. Shall we try again?"

  Marjorie glanced at her father. Mr. Wintersloan's methods were all tooevident to her. A curious feeling pervaded the room that Mr. Pope didn'tthink Mr. Wintersloan's conduct honourable, and that he might even gosome way towards saying so.

  So Mrs. Pope became very brisk and stirring, and said she thought thatnow perhaps a charade would be more amusing. It didn't do to keep on ata game too long. She asked Rom and Daphne and Theodore and Mr.Wintersloan to go out, and they all agreed readily, particularly Rom."Come on!" said Rom to Mr. Wintersloan. Everybody else shifted into anaudience-like group between the piano and the what-not. Mr. Magnet satat Marjorie's feet, while Syd played a kind of voluntary, and Mr. Popeleant back in his chair, with his brows knit and lips moving, trying toremember something.

  The charade _was_ very amusing. The word was Catarrh, and Mr.Wintersloan, as the patient in the last act being given gruel, surpassedeven the children's very high expectations. Rom, as his nurse, couldn'tkeep her hands off him. Then the younger people kissed round and werepacked off to bed, and the rest of the party went to the door upon thelawn and admired the night. It was a glorious summer night, deep blue,and rimmed warmly by the afterglow, moonless, and with a few biglamp-like stars above the black still shapes of trees.

  Mrs. Pope said they would all accompany their guests to the gate at theend of the avenue--in spite of the cockchafers.

  Mr. Pope's ankle, however, excused him; the cordiality of his partingfrom Mr. Wintersloan seemed a trifle forced, and he limped thoughtfullyand a little sombrely towards the study to see if he could find anEncyclopaedia or some such book of reference that would give the names ofthe lesser lights of Dutch, Italian, and English painting during thelast two centuries.

  He felt that Mr. Wintersloan had established an extraordinarily badprecedent.

  Sec. 10

  Marjorie discovered that she and Mr. Magnet had fallen a little behindthe others. She would have quickened her pace, but Mr. Magnet stoppedshort and said: "Marjorie!"

  "When I saw you standing there and singing," said Mr. Magnet, and wasshort of breath for a moment.

  Marjorie's natural gift for interruption failed her altogether.

  "I felt I would rather be able to call you mine--than win an empire."

  The pause seemed to lengthen, between them, and Marjorie's remark whenshe made it at last struck her even as she made it as being but poorlyconceived. She had some weak idea of being self-depreciatory.

  "I think you had better win an empire, Mr. Magnet," she said meekly.

  Then, before anything more was possible, they had come up to Daffy andMr. Wintersloan and her mother at the gate....

  As they returned Mrs. Pope was loud in the praises of Will Magnet. Shehad a little clear-cut voice, very carefully and very skilfullycontrolled, and she dilated on his modesty, his quiet helpfulness attable, his ready presence of mind. She pointed out instances of thoseadmirable traits, incidents small in themselves but charming in theirimplications. When somebody wanted junket, he had made no fuss, he hadjust helped them to junket. "So modest and unassuming," sang Mrs. Pope."You'd never dream he was quite rich and famous. Yet every book hewrites is translated into Russian and German and all sorts of languages.I suppose he's almost the greatest humorist we have. That play of his;what is it called?--_Our Owd Woman_--has been performed nearly twelvehundred times! I think that is the most wonderful of gifts. Think of thepeople it has made happy."

  The conversation was mainly monologue. Both Marjorie and Daffy wereunusually thoughtful.

  Sec. 11

  Marjorie ended the long day in a worldly mood.

  "Penny for your thoughts," said Daffy abruptly, brushing the longfirelit rapids of her hair.

  "Not for sale," said Marjorie, and roused herself. "I've had a longday."

  "It's always just the time I particularly wish I was a man," sheremarked after a brief return to meditation. "Fancy, no hair-pins, nobrushing, no tie-up to get lost about, no strings. I suppose theyhaven't strings?"

  "They haven't," said Daffy with conviction.

  She met Marjorie's interrogative eye. "Father would swear at them," sheexplained. "He'd naturally tie himself up--and we should hear of it."

  "I didn't think of that," said Marjorie, and stuck out her chin upon herfists. "Sound induction."

  She forgot this transitory curiosity.

  "Suppose one had a maid, Daffy--a real maid ... a maid who mended yourthings ... did your hair while you read...."

  "Oh! here goes," and she stood up and grappled with the task ofundressing.