Part 23 (1/2)

”There's been a quarrel,” then said she.

”No,” Sanchia answered--as if thinking it out--”no, I shouldn't say that.

I should say, a difference of opinion.”

”My dear,” said Philippa--and the phrase with her was one of reproof--”on essentials there can have been none. He will wait a year, of course. Under the circ.u.mstances, a full year. But--”

Sanchia had replied, ”I don't know what he means to do. I have left Wanless.”

”Oh, of course, of course. But--I was going to say--I fully expect that he has written to Mamma.” Sanchia's eyebrows and her, ”I should think that unlikely. Why should he write to Mamma?” frightened Philippa, while to Mr.

Tompsett-King's mind they were clear gain. It was necessary, after it, to get on to surer ground. The interview terminated by an understanding that Sanchia should write to her mother.

Philippa took her husband to dine in Great c.u.mberland Place that night; and there, he with Mr. Percival, she with the lady, obtained the terms of a settlement. Sanchia was to be allowed a hundred a year--for the present.

(Mr. Percival intended privately to make it two.) Everything was to be a.s.sumed in her favour; but she was not to be asked to meet company.

Neither Mrs. Percival nor Philippa could be brought to that, and Mr.

Percival, so far as he was concerned, had no desire for any sort of company but hers. He was one of those men made rosy-gilled for happiness.

Good fellows.h.i.+p, the domestic affections--if they were not there, they must appear to be. His friends of the city were always on his lips--Old Tom Peters--Old Jack Summers--Old Bob--Old d.i.c.k. Good fellows every one.

All the pet names in the family had been his. To him belonged Pippa and Sancie, Melot and Vicky. ”My girls,” or ”My rascals,” he used to call them to Tom Peters or Jack Summers, and bring them home jerky little tin pedestrians from the city, or emus pulling little carts; or (later on) bowls of goldfish or violet nosegays from Covent Garden. If he had a nearer pa.s.sion, it was to stand well with all the world. That's two pa.s.sions, however, to his score; and the struggle between them, in Sanchia's case, had taken him as near tragedy as the easy man could go.

Heaven be praised, the good times were come again. Now he was all for the return of the prodigal, without conditions--”and no questions asked,” as he put it.

But in this he could not get his dear desire. Philippa's sense of justice was inflamed, as well as her moral sense. What! you eat a cake, and then, instead of sitting down to your plain bread and b.u.t.ter--away you flounce, and get ready to eat another cake! That's dead against the proverb, that's monstrous, that's offensive. ”Mamma, mamma,” Philippa had protested, ”you can never have her back to flourish her sin in all our faces.”

”Thank you, Philippa, for reminding me, however gratuitously, of my duties to society,” had been Mrs. Percival's acknowledgment. She liked sin as little as Philippa, but she liked being lectured a great deal less. Poor Mr. Percival had pulled his whiskers throughout the debate, and now sighed as he bit them. His girl was to be denied him--but he could give her two hundred a year, and go to see her often. That was comfort.

And then the meeting took place. First with Mamma, who had never liked her, and was now a little afraid of what she might do. For Philippa had made it quite plain that if Sanchia was not humoured, she would have nothing to say to Ingram. ”She's exhausted her criminal pa.s.sion--that's what it comes to,” was Philippa's judgment. ”Now she will have to be cajoled.” So Mrs. Percival was cowed into civility.

The pair conversed, rather painfully, for perhaps an hour. They had tea.

All the effort to talk was made by Sanchia, who broached the children-- Philippa's three, Vicky's one--and got nothing but perfunctory enthusiasm in reply. Mrs. Percival was far too sincerely interested in herself to care for children. The sons-in-law proved a better subject. Here she could point a moral inwards. She extolled them highly--never was woman so blessed in her daughters' husbands. Mr. Tompsett-King--”Tertius, the soul of honour: the most delicate-minded man I have ever known. And sensitive to a fault! I a.s.sure you--” Captain Sinclair was ”our gallant Cuthbert,”

or ”my soldier son.” ”Sweet little Vicky's knight! chivalry lives again in him. It has been the greatest blessing in my days of trouble to be sure of the ideal happiness of those two young lives. Ah! one does have one's consolations.”

Such eulogium seemed to leave little to be said for Melusine and her prize; and yet it was certain that Mrs. Percival favoured Gerald Scales above the others. A lift of the voice was observable--”Gerald, who, naturally, is quite at home at Marlborough House...” ”Gerald, with that charming old-world courtesy of his...” ”Dear Lady Scales told me that of her two sons, Gerald should have been the baronet. Poor Sir Matthew suffers from hay-fever to that extent.... But Gerald is a splendid young man. Darling Melot is, I need not tell you, fully appreciated at Winkley.”

This was the seat of Sir Matthew, in Ess.e.x.

Sanchia, for her part, having regained the throne of her serenity--from which Vicky had toppled her of late--by means of Philippa, was able to contemplate this singular parent of hers with the interest due to a curious object, and some internal amus.e.m.e.nt. She was too far removed from her to be moved, too much estranged to be hurt. She wondered at herself for feeling so little of what, in the days of babyhood, she had firmly held to be the devout opinion. She found that, from a child, she had always judged her mother, and was sure now that her mother knew it. She remembered how hopeless she had always known it to be, to explain any att.i.tude of mind she may have exhibited and been blamed for. So now, though it was abundantly clear to her what was hoped of her, and though she could see perfectly well that the chance of her doing it was so risky that she must be handled like a heavy fish on a light line, she made no effort whatever to show why what was to be hoped for was absurdly impossible. She watched her mother sail about it and about in ever narrowing circles, heard herself commended for her prompt.i.tude in leaving Wanless, answered enquiries as to Ingram's behaviour under what Mrs.

Percival otiosely called ”his bereavement,” echoed speculations at to his whereabouts--played, in short, vacantly an empty part, and kept her mother upon tenterhooks. She gained civil entreaty this way.

But her father's bustling entry changed all this. She had not known of herself how susceptible she still was. Vicky had made her cower; but her father made her cry.

He affected a bluff ease in his manner of greeting her. ”Well, Sancie, well, my dear, well, well”--and then he cleared his throat; but he did not dare to look at her. Sancie answered him by jumping into his arms, and upset him altogether. ”Oh, my girl, my girl--my little Sancie--” and then the pair of them mingled tears, while Mrs. Percival, who thought this exhibition out of place ”under the circ.u.mstances,” and not in the best possible taste, tapped her foot on the carpet, and wished that Philippa had been here.

But, once they were beyond a certain flood mark, as she know by long acquaintance, Mr. Percival's emotions must be given play. She retired, therefore, and left the clinging pair. Directly she was gone, the good gentleman's embrace of his child grew straighter, and his kisses of her brows and hair more ardent. He humbled himself before her, thanked her for coming back to him. ”My darling, it was fine of you to come! 'Pon my soul, it was fine!”

”No, darling, no,” she protested, smiling sadly at his fondness.

”I always loved you, my child! My Sancie--you know that of your old father, hey?” He pinched her cheek before he kissed it again. ”'Pon my life, it cut me down like a frost to do--what was done.”

”I know, I know,” Sanchia murmured, and then begged him not to speak of it.