Part 13 (1/2)
”I can only say that the matter is most mysterious and annoying.
Perhaps, however, you will be willing to promise that in other respects you will be more considerate for the future, so that I may be able to work with less disturbance from the noise overhead?”
”I am afraid I cannot see my way to giving any such promise, for I fail to see how we _can_ be quieter without interfering with our own duties.
I have three sisters, and music is the profession by which one of them hopes to make a living. If she gave up practising it would seriously injure her prospects. The others are busy all day long, and naturally wish for a little relaxation at night. Although you give us no credit for consideration, I may tell you that we are constantly calling our young brother to order in case he should disturb you, but I should not feel it right to make home dull and cheerless by forbidding any noise whatever.”
”It does not occur to you that under those circ.u.mstances you are hardly the right tenants for a flat, but ought to be in a house of your own?”
”It occurs to me that we are the best judges of our own actions,”
returned Philippa icily, fighting down the wild longing that arose, even as she spoke, for a place of their own--a nest, however small, where they might dwell in peace and freedom. ”You are not the only tenant, Mr Neil, who has to endure disagreeables from his neighbours; we also might find ground for complaint, if we wished to be disagreeable. My sisters sleep above your study, and they say you keep poking the fire until two in the morning and waking them up with a start. Then, too, you have a hanging lamp or chandelier which you push up, and which makes a most unpleasant noise; and in the autumn evenings you smoked strong cigars on your balcony until we were poisoned with the smell. Oh, there are a thousand things which I could mention,” cried Philippa--though in truth she would have been puzzled to add one more complaint to her list--”but I would not stoop to it! It is too miserably petty and degrading to be everlastingly picking quarrels. I am sick of it.”
”Not more heartily than I am. I have lived in these buildings for nearly ten years and have only once before made a complaint--which, I may remark, was met in a very different spirit.” The Hermit was evidently growing ruffled in his turn, and could not resist a parting shot before he left the room. ”As I said before, I should be sorry to have to complain at headquarters, but I do not intend to have my comfort ruined by new-comers who have no claim on the establishment. If it becomes impossible for us both to live under one roof, I have little doubt who would be asked to remain.”
He was gone. The door closed behind him, and Philippa sank into a chair with a sudden feeling of collapse. ”Oh! oh!” she cried, and her hands went up to her head, and her breath grew short and strangled. All her pride and independence were swept aside by the remembrance of those last pregnant words: ”Impossible for us both--little doubt in whose favour!”
Suppose--oh, suppose, the Hermit complained to the committee, and she were served with a notice to quit! Suppose, with one set of bills barely settled, she were called upon to incur a second! With characteristic Charrington impetuosity she beheld ruin stalk towards her, and the faces of brothers and sisters filled with a pale reproach.
Her head dropped forward on to the table; the tears rolled down her cheeks. She was just about to indulge in the luxury of a good cry, when suddenly there was a sound in the room, an exclamation of distress, and there stood the Hermit, picking up the hat which still lay on the table, and murmuring disconnected sentences of explanation.
”I forgot my hat. The door was still open; I forgot to shut it. I turned back--_Crying_! I hope that I--that nothing that I have said--I should be most distressed--”
Philippa stared at him helplessly. Her impulse was to deny the suggestion with scorn, but how was that possible with the tears rolling down her cheeks? She tried to control herself, to steady her voice sufficiently to reply, but the floodgates were open and could not be restrained. An agony of dread seized her lest she should humiliate herself still further, and, pointing to the door with childlike helplessness, she sobbed out a pitiful ”Please, go--please, go!” and buried her face in her hands.
The Hermit crept back to his room, but he could not work. Between himself and his books rose the vision of a girl's face, tremulous and tearful. The dark eyes looked into his with pathetic reproach. He called himself a brute and a coward for having dared to distress her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE CULPRIT DISCOVERED.
Acting on the rule of all good housewives, Philippa breathed no word of the unpleasant incident of the afternoon until dinner was over, and the workers had been fed and rested after their day's labours. Stephen, it is true, noted the pucker on her brow, and questioned her dumbly across the table; but she frowned a warning, and eagerly questioned the girls as to the success of their expedition. The circulars, it appeared, were promised in a week's time; and pending their arrival Hope had called on the vicar on the way home, and arranged to give her first performance to the members of his infant cla.s.s on the following Monday. She had confided to him her anxiety to rehea.r.s.e her entertainment, and he had laughingly promised to find her occupation for as many nights as she liked to give, either in his own parish or in those neighbouring ones which were even more in need of help.
”So you will gain experience and do good at the same time--a most agreeable arrangement,” said Philippa, smiling. ”The next thing is to buy yourself a really smart frock with the remainder of Uncle Loftus's cheque, so that you may be ready for the social engagements when they come. You have nothing suitable, and in this case it is a duty to be provided with the prettiest and most becoming gown you can find.”
”That's the sort of duty I should like. I could be a martyr to it if I had the chance,” cried Madge, with a sigh. ”No mortal being knows how it harrows my artistic soul to wear ugly clothes. I sometimes feel inclined to kneel down and, do obeisance before the dresses in the Bond Street shops. And they look so lovely just now! I've had a horrible temptation sometimes to ask for things to be sent on approval, just for the pleasure of trying them on and seeing how I look in them.”
”Do you think it is an honourable thing to send for things that you have no earthly intention of buying?” asked Philippa the literal, with a solemn air, which delighted her mischievous sister.
”No, I don't; I think it's a mean trick. But I'm so dull! I want to do something reckless for a change. You needn't alarm yourself, Philippa; if I wrote asking for a selection of Court dresses to be sent on approval to an address off the Tottenham Court Road, they wouldn't pay much attention to the order, I'm afraid.”
Theo thought not, indeed; while Hope looked pained and penitent, and said, ”I seem to have all the changes--all the good things. I suppose I ought to dress for the part. But remember the 'Amalgamated Sisters'!
Whatever I gain must be divided in equal shares.”
”If you want excitement, it is a pity you weren't at home this afternoon, Madge,” said Philippa. Dinner was over by this time, and she felt free to unburden her mind and receive the longed-for sympathy. ”I had an adventure all to myself, and found it more exciting than I liked.
The Hermit called, and Mary announced him in her own original fas.h.i.+on-- that is to say, left him standing on the mat. He came to lodge some more complaints, and we had a row royal. I think he is mad, for he made the most extraordinary statements. But he is worse than mad; he is dangerous, and means to complain and get us turned out if he can. There is not the slightest ground for his complaints, but he is an old tenant and we are new, and it is only natural that his word should be taken before ours.”
”Don't worry yourself about that old girl,” said Stephen kindly. ”I have not the slightest fear of being turned out Neighbours in flats are constantly having these little frictions, and the authorities must turn a deaf ear to complaints if they wish to succeed or to have any peace in life. I'll go down some night and talk to the old fellow, and see if I can bring him to reason. We have been so quiet, too, since Hope went away. What on earth did he find to grumble about?”
”Oh, my dear, the wildest fancies! He didn't like Hope practising the children's songs this morning, and was blightingly superior about her taste; but the worst grievance is that there is a tapping at his study window which gets on his nerves, and that something wakes him up every morning before it is light. It sounds too ridiculous to be true, but he actually supposed that we were responsible.”
”What utter folly!” began Stephen angrily; but the next moment he stopped short, and with one accord four pairs of eyes followed his towards the corner of the room where Barney sat--shaking, red-faced, apoplectic. ”_Barney_!” cried the head of the house in a terrible voice. ”What is the meaning of this? Do you mean to say that this is _your_ doing? Have you had any hand in this business? Speak up this moment.”