Part 19 (1/2)

Crushed by this Socratic reasoning, Priam kept silence, nursing his knees and staring into the fire.

Alice went to the sideboard where she kept her best china, and took out three extra cups and saucers.

”I think we'd all better have some tea,” she said tranquilly. And then she got the tea-caddy and put seven teaspoonfuls of tea into one of the tea-pots.

”It's very kind of you, I'm sure,” whimpered the authentic Mrs. Henry Leek.

”Now, mother, don't give way!” the curates admonished her.

”Don't you remember, Henry,” she went on whimpering to Priam, ”how you said you wouldn't be married in a church, not for anybody? And how I gave way to you, like I always did? And don't you remember how you wouldn't let poor little Johnnie be baptized? Well, I do hope your opinions have altered. Eh, but it's strange, it's strange, how two of your sons, and just them two that you'd never set eyes on until this day, should have made up their minds to go into the church! And thanks to Johnnie there, they've been able to. If I was to tell you all the struggles we've had, you wouldn't believe me. They were clerks, and they might have been clerks to this day, if it hadn't been for Johnnie. But Johnnie could always earn money. It's that engineering! And now Matthew's second curate at St. Paul's and getting fifty pounds a year, and Henry'll have a curacy next month at Bermondsey--it's been promised, and all thanks to Johnnie!” She wept.

Johnnie, in the corner, who had so far done nought but knock at the door, maintained stiffly his policy of non-interference.

Priam Farll, angry, resentful, and quite untouched by the recital, shrugged his shoulders. He was animated by the sole desire to fly from the widow and progeny of his late valet. But he could not fly. The Herculean John was too close to the door. So he shrugged his shoulders a second time.

”Yes, sir,” said Matthew, ”you may shrug your shoulders, but you can't shrug us out of existence. Here we are, and you can't get over us. You are our father, and I presume that a kind of respect is due to you. Yet how can you hope for our respect? Have you earned it? Did you earn it when you ill-treated our poor mother? Did you earn it when you left her, with the most inhuman cruelty, to fend for herself in the world? Did you earn it when you abandoned your children born and unborn? You are a bigamist, sir; a deceiver of women! Heaven knows--”

”Would you mind just toasting this bread?” Alice interrupted his impa.s.sioned discourse by putting the loaded toasting-fork into his hands, ”while I make the tea?”

It was a novel way of stopping a mustang in full career, but it succeeded.

While somewhat perfunctorily holding the fork to the fire, Matthew glared about him, to signify his righteous horror, and other sentiments.

”Please don't burn it,” said Alice gently. ”Suppose you were to sit down on this foot-stool.” And then she poured boiling water on the tea, put the lid on the pot, and looked at the clock to note the exact second at which the process of infusion had begun.

”Of course,” burst out Henry, the twin of Matthew, ”I need not say, madam, that you have all our sympathies. You are in a----”

”Do you mean me?” Alice asked.

In an undertone Priam could be heard obstinately repeating, ”Never set eyes upon her before! Never set eyes on the woman before!”

”I do, madam,” said Henry, not to be cowed nor deflected from his course. ”I speak for all of us. You have our sympathies. You could not know the character of the man you married, or rather with whom you went through the ceremony of marriage. However, we have heard, by inquiry, that you made his acquaintance through the medium of a matrimonial agency; and indirectly, when one does that sort of thing, one takes one's chance. Your position is an extremely delicate one; but it is not too much to say that you brought it on yourself. In my work, I have encountered many sad instances of the result of lax moral principles; but I little thought to encounter the saddest of all in my own family.

The discovery is just as great a blow to us as it is to you. We have suffered; my mother has suffered. And now, I fear, it is your turn to suffer. You are not this man's wife. Nothing can make you his wife. You are living in the same house with him--under circ.u.mstances--er--without a chaperon. I hesitate to characterize your situation in plain words. It would scarcely become me, or mine, to do so. But really no lady could possibly find herself in a situation more false than--I am afraid there is only one word, open immorality, and--er--to put yourself right with society there is one thing, and only one, left for you to--er--do. I--I speak for the family, and I--”

”Sugar?” Alice questioned the mother of curates.

”Yes, please.”

”One lump, or two?”

”Two, please.”

”Speaking for the family--” Henry resumed.

”Will you kindly pa.s.s this cup to your mother?” Alice suggested.

Henry was obliged to take the cup. Excited by the fever of eloquence, he unfortunately upset it before it had reached his mother's hands.

”Oh, Henry!” murmured the lady, mournfully aghast. ”You always were so clumsy! And a clean cloth, too!”