Part 30 (1/2)
When you come back from a holiday to a sodden and monstrous London, it is best to be welcomed by something young--by a creature that is convinced that it has been enjoying itself, and that convinces you as well, although you can't for the life of you understand the details.
Why should anything enjoy itself or anything else in this Cimmerian gloom, while away over there the great Alpine peaks are white against the blue, and otherwhere the music of a hundred seas mixes with their thunder on a thousand sh.o.r.es? Why come home?
But when we do and find that nothing particular has happened, and that there's a card for us on the mantelpiece, how stuffy are our welcomers, and how well they tone into the surrounding grey when they are elderly and respectable? It is different when we find that, from their point of view, it is we that have been the losers by our absence from all the great and glorious fun the days have been made of while we were away on a mistaken and deluded continent, far from this delectable human ant-hill--this centre and climax of Life with a capital letter. But then, when this is so, they have to be young, as Sally was.
The ex-honeymooners came back to jubilant records of that young lady's experience during the five weeks of separation. She listened with impatience to counter records of adventures abroad, much preferring to tell of her own at home. Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick acquiesced in the _role_ of listeners, and left the rostrum to Sally after they had been revived with soup, and declined cutlets, because they really had had plenty to eat on the way. The rostrum happened to be a ha.s.sock on the hearthrug, before the little bit of fire that wasn't at all unwelcome, because September had set in quite cold already, and there was certain to be a warm Christmas if it went on like this, and it would be very unhealthy.
”And oh, do you know”--thus Sally, after many other matters had been disposed of--”there has been such an awful row between Tishy and her mother about Julius Bradshaw?” Sally is serious and impressed; doesn't see the comic side, if there is one. Her mother felt that if there was to be a volley of indignation discharged at Mrs. Wilson for her share in the row, she herself, as belonging to the cla.s.s mother, might feel called on to support her, and was reserved accordingly.
”I suppose Laet.i.tia wants to marry Mr. Bradshaw. Is that it?”
”Of course that's it! He hasn't proposed, because he's promised not to; but he will any time Tishy gives a hint. Meanwhile Goody Wilson has refused to sanction his visits at the house, and Laet.i.tia has said she will go into lodgings.”
”Sally darling, I do wish you wouldn't call all the married ladies of your acquaintance _Goody_. You'll do it some day to their faces.”
”It's only the middle-aged bouncers.”
”Well, dear chick, do try and not call them Goody. What did Goo--there!
I was going to do it myself. What did Mrs. Wilson say to that?”
”Said Tishy's allowance wouldn't cover lodgings, and she had nothing else to fall back on. So we go into the Park instead.”
Even Mrs. Fenwick's habituation to her daughter's incisive method is no proof against this. She breaks into an affectionate laugh, and kisses its provoker, who protests.
”We-e-ell! There's nothing in _that_. We have tea in the s.h.i.+lling places under the trees in Kensington Gardens. _That's_ all right.”
”Of course that's all right--with a _chaperon_ like you! Who _could_ say anything? But do tell me, Sally darling, does Mrs. Wilson dislike this young man on his own account, or is it only the shop?”
”Only the shop, I do believe. And Tishy's twenty-four! What _is_ my stepfather sitting smiling at there in that contented way? Is that a Mossoo cigar? It smells very nice.”
”I was smiling at you, Sarah. No, it's not a Mossoo that I know of. A German Baron gave it me.... No, dearest! It really _was_ all right....
No--I really can't exactly say how; but it _was_ all right for all that....” This was in answer to a comment of his wife.
”Never mind the German Baron,” Sally interrupts. ”What business have you to smile at me, Jeremiah?” They had christened each other Jeremiah and Sarah for working purposes.
”Because I chose--because you're such a funny little article.” He comes a little nearer to her, and putting his arm round her neck, pinches her off-cheek. She gives him a very short kiss--hardly a real one--just an acknowledgment. He remains with her little white hand in his great hairy one, and she leans against him and accepts the position. But that cigar is on her mother's mind.
”How many did he give you, Gerry? Now tell the truth.”
”He gave me a lot. I smuggled them. I can't tell you _why_ it seemed all right I should accept them. But it _did_.”
”I suppose you know best, dear. Men are men, and I'm a female. But he was such a perfect stranger.” She, of course, knew quite well that he was not, but there was nettle-grasping in it on her part.
”Yes, he was. But somehow he didn't seem so. Perhaps it was because I flew into such a rage with him about what he called his 'crade chogue.'
But it wasn't _only_ that. Something about the chap himself--I can't tell what.” And Fenwick becomes _distrait_, with a sort of restless searching on his face. He sits on, silent, patting Sally's little white hand in his, and letting the prized cigar take care of itself, and remains silent until, after a few more interesting details about the ”great row” at Ladbroke Grove Road, all three agree that sleep is overdue, and depart to receive payment.
Rosalind knows the meaning of it all perfectly. Some tiny trace of memory of the fat Kreutzkammer lingered in her husband's crippled mind--something as confused as the revolving engine's connexion with the German volkslied. But enough to prevent his feeling the ten francs'
worth of cigars an oppressive benevolence. It was very strange to her that it should so happen, but, having happened, it did not seem unnatural. What was stranger still was that Gerry should be there, loving Sally like a father--just as her own stepfather Paul Nightingale had come to love _her_--caressing her, and never dreaming for a moment how that funny little article came about. Yes, come what might, she would do her best to protect these two from that knowledge, however many lies she had to tell. She was far too good and honourable a woman to care a particle about truthfulness as a means to an easy conscience; she did not mind the least how much hers suffered if it was necessary to the happiness of others that it should do so. And in her judgment--though we admit she may have been wrong--a revelation of the past would have taken all the warmth and light out of the happy and contented little world of Krakatoa Villa. So long as she had the cloud to herself, and saw the others out in the suns.h.i.+ne, she felt safe, and that all was well.
She would have liked companions.h.i.+p inside the cloud, for all that. It was a cruel disappointment to find, when she came to reflect on it, that she could not carry out a first intention of taking Colonel Lund into her confidence about the Baron, and the undoubted insight he had given into some portion of Fenwick's previous life. Obviously it would have involved telling her husband's whole story. Her belief that he was Harrisson involved her knowledge that he was not Fenwick. The Major would have said at once: ”Why not tell him all this Baron told you, and see if it wouldn't bring all his life back to him?” And then she would have to tell the Major who he really was, to show him the need of keeping silence about the story. No, no! Danger lay that way. Too much finessing would be wanted; too many reserves.