Part 26 (1/2)
”Going through it all over again when you've done it once before,”
continues this young philosopher. The Major thinks of asking why it should be rummer the second time than the first, but decides not to, and sips his toddy, and pats the hand that is under his. In a hazy, fossil-like way he perceives that to a young girl's mind the ”rumness”
of a second husband is exactly proportionate to the readiness of its acceptance of the first. Unity is just as intrinsic a quality of a first husband as the colour of his eyes or hair. Moreover, he is expected to outlive you. Above all, he is perfectly natural and a matter of course. We discern in all this a sneaking tribute to an idea of a hereafter; but the Major didn't go so far as that.
”She looked very jolly over it,” said he, retreating on generalities.
”So did he.”
”Gaffer Fenwick? I should think so indeed! Well he might!” Then, after a moment's consideration: ”He looked like my idea of Sir Richard Grenville. It's only an idea. I forget what he did. Elizabethan johnny.”
”What do you call him? Gaffer Fenwick? You're a nice, respectable young monkey! Well, he's not half a bad-looking fellow; well set up.” But none of this, though good in itself, is what Sally sat down to talk about. A sudden change in her manner, a new earnestness, makes the Major stop an incipient yawn he is utilising as an exordium to a hint that we ought to go to bed, and become quite wakeful to say: ”I will tell you all I can, my child.” For Sally has thrust aside talk of the day's events, making no more of the wedding ceremony than of ”Charley's Aunt,” with: ”_Why_ did my father and mother part? You _will_ tell me now, won't you, Major dear?”
Lying was necessary--inevitable. But he would minimise it. There was always the resource of the legal fiction; all babes born in matrimony are legally the children of their mother's husband, _quand-meme_. He must make that his sheet-anchor.
”You know, Sallykin, your father and mother fell out before you were born. And the first time I saw your mother--why, bless my soul, my dear! you were quite a growing girl--yes, able to get a staff-officer's thumb in your mouth, and bite it. Indeed, you did! It was General Pellew; they say he's going to be made a peer.” The Major thinks he sees his way out of the fire by sinking catechism in reminiscences. ”I can recollect it all as if it were yesterday. I said to him, 'Who's the poor pretty little mother, General?' Because he knew your mother, and I didn't. 'Don't you know?' said he. 'She's Mrs. Graythorpe.' I asked about her husband, but Pellew had known nothing except that there was a row, and they had parted.” The Major's only fiction here was that he subst.i.tuted the name Graythorpe for Palliser. ”Next time I saw her we picked up some acquaintance, and she asked if I was a Lincolns.h.i.+re Lund, because her father always used to talk of how he went to Lund's father's, near Crowland, when he was a boy. 'Stop a bit,' said I; 'what was your father's name?' 'Paul Nightingale,' says she.” Observe that nothing was untrue in this, because Rosey always spoke and thought of Paul Nightingale as her father.
”That was my grandfather?” Sally was intent on acc.u.mulating facts--would save up a.n.a.lysis till after. The Major took advantage of a slight choke over his whiskey to mix a brief nod into it; it was a lie--but, then, he himself couldn't have said which was nod and which was choke; so it hardly counted. He continued, availing himself at times of the remains of the choke to help him to slur over difficult pa.s.sages.
”He was the young brother of a sort of sweetheart of mine--a silly boyish business--a sort of calf-love. She married and died. But he was her great pet, a favourite younger brother. One keeps a recollection of this sort of thing.”--The Major makes a parade of his powers of oblivion, and his failure to carry it out sits well upon him.--”Of course, my romantic memories”--the Major smiles derision of Love's young dream--”had something to do with my interest in your mother, but I hope I should have done the same if there had been no such thing.
Well, the mere fact of your father's behaviour to your mother....” He stopped short, with misgivings that his policy of talking himself out of his difficulties was not such a very safe one, after all. Here he was, getting into a fresh mess, gratuitously!
”Mamma won't talk about that,” says Sally, ”so I suppose I'm not to ask _you_.” The Major must make a stand upon this, or the enemy will swarm over his entrenchments. Merely looking at his watch and saying it's time for us to be in bed will only bring a moment's respite. There is nothing for it but decision.
”Sally dear, your mother does not tell you because she wishes the whole thing buried and forgotten. Her wishes must be my wishes....”
He would like to stop here--to cut it short at that, at once and for good. But the pathetic anxiety of the face from which all memories of ”Charley's Aunt” have utterly vanished is too much for his fort.i.tude; and, at the risk of more semi-fibs, he extenuates the sentence.
”One day your mother may tell you all about it. She is the proper person to tell it--not me. Neither do I think I know it all to tell.”
”You know if there was or wasn't a divorce?” The Major feels very sorry he didn't let it alone.
”I'll tell you that, you inquisitive chick, if you'll promise on honour not to ask any more questions.”
”I promise.”
”Honour bright?”
”Honest Injun!”
”That's right. Now I'll tell you. There was no divorce, but there was a suit for a divorce, inst.i.tuted by him. He failed to make out a case.”
Note that the expression ”your father” was carefully excluded. ”She was absolutely blameless--to my thinking, at least. Now that's plenty for a little girl to know. And it's high time we were both in bed and asleep.”
He kisses the grave, sad young face that is yearning to hear more, but is too honourable to break its compact. ”They'll be at Rheims by now,”
says he, to lighten off the conversation.
CHAPTER XVII
SALLY'S LARK. AND HOW SHE TOOK HER MEDICAL ADVISER INTO HER CONFIDENCE AFTER DIVINE SERVICE
Though Sally cried herself to sleep after her interview with her beloved but reticent old fossil, nevertheless, when she awoke next morning and found herself mistress of the house and the situation, she became suddenly alive to the advantages of complete independence. She was an optimist const.i.tutionally; for it _is_ optimism to decide that it is ”rather a lark” to breakfast by yourself when you have just dried the tears you have been shedding over the loss of your morning companion. Sally came to this conclusion as she poured out her tea, after despatching his toast and coffee to the Major in his own room.