Part 33 (1/2)
Septimus took off his cap and brought his hair to its normal perpendicularity. Emmy laughed.
”Dear me! What are you going to say?”
Septimus reflected for a moment.
”If I dine off a bloater in a soup-plate in the drawing-room, or if my bed isn't made at six o'clock in the evening, and my house is a cross between a pigsty and an ironmonger's shop, n.o.body minds. It is only Septimus Dix's extraordinary habits. But if the woman who is my wife in the eyes of the world--”
”Yes, yes, I see,” she said hurriedly. ”I hadn't looked at it in that light.”
”The boy is going to Cambridge,” he murmured. ”Then I should like him to go into Parliament. There are deuced clever fellows in Parliament. I met one in Venice two or three years ago. He knew an awful lot of things. We spent an evening together on the Grand Ca.n.a.l and he talked all the time most interestingly on the drainage system of Barrow-in-Furness. I wonder how fellows get to know about drains.”
Emmy said: ”Would it make you happy?”
From her tone he gathered that she referred to the subject of contention between them and not to his thirst for sanitary information.
”Of course it would.”
”But how shall I ever repay you?”
”Perhaps once a year,” he said. ”You can settle up in full, as you did just now.”
There was a long silence and then Emmy remarked that it was a heavenly night.
CHAPTER XVI
In the course of time Sypher returned to London to fight a losing battle against the Powers of Darkness and derive whatever inspiration he could from Zora's letters. He also called dutifully at ”The Nook” during his week-end visits to Penton Court, where he found restfulness in the atmosphere of lavender. Mrs. Oldrieve continued to regard him as a most superior person. Cousin Jane, as became a gentlewoman of breeding, received him with courtesy--but a courtesy marked by that shade of reserve which is due from a lady of quality to the grandfatherless. If she had not striven against the unregeneracy of mortal flesh she would have disapproved of him offhand because she disapproved of Zora; but she was a conscientious woman, and took great pride in overcoming prejudices. She also collected pewter, the history of which Sypher, during his years of self-education, had once studied, in the confused notion that it was culture. All knowledge is good; from the theory of quaternions to the way to cut a ham-frill. It is sure to come in useful, somehow. An authority on Central African dialects has been known to find them invaluable in altercations with cabmen, and a converted burglar has, before now, become an admirable house-agent. What Sypher, therefore, had considered merely learned lumber in his head cemented his friends.h.i.+p with Cousin Jane--or rather, to speak by the book, soldered it with pewter. As for the Cure, however, she did not believe in it, and told him so, roundly. She had been brought up to believe in doctors, the Catechism, the House of Lords, the inequality of the s.e.xes, and the Oldrieve family, and in that faith she would live and die. Sypher bore her no malice. She did not call the Cure pestilential quackery. He was beginning not to despise the day of small things.
”It may be very good in its way,” she said, ”just as Liberalism and Darwinism and eating in restaurants may be good things. But they are not for me.”
Cousin Jane's conversation provided him with much innocent entertainment.
Mrs. Oldrieve was content to talk about the weather, and what Zora and Emmy used to like to eat when they were little girls: subjects interesting in themselves but not conducive to discussion. Cousin Jane was nothing if not argumentative. She held views, expounded them, and maintained them. Nothing short of a declaration from Jehovah bursting in glory through the sky could have convinced her of error. Even then she would have been annoyed. She profoundly disapproved of Emmy's marriage to Septimus, whom she characterized as a doddering idiot. Sypher defended his friend warmly. He also defended Wiggleswick at whose ways and habits the good lady expressed unrestrained indignation. She could not have spoken more disrespectfully of Antichrist.
”You mark my words,” she said, ”he'll murder them both in their sleep.”
Concerning Zora, too, she was emphatic.
”I am not one of those who think every woman ought to get married; but if she can't conduct herself decently without a husband, she ought to have one.”
”But surely Mrs. Middlemist's conduct is irreproachable,” said Sypher.
”Irreproachable? Do you think trapesing about alone all over the earth--mixing with all sorts of people she doesn't know from Adam, and going goodness knows where and doing goodness knows what, and idling her life away, never putting a darn in her stockings even--is irreproachable conduct on the part of a young woman of Zora's birth and appearance? The way she dresses must attract attention, wherever she goes. It's supposed to be 'stylish' nowadays. In my time it was immodest. When a young woman was forced to journey alone she made herself as inconspicuous as possible. Zora ought to have a husband to look after her. Then she could do as she liked--or as he liked, which would be much the best thing for her.”
”I happen to be in Mrs. Middlemist's confidence,” said Sypher. ”She has told me many times that she would never marry again. Her marriage--”
”Stuff and rubbis.h.!.+” cried Cousin Jane. ”You wait until the man comes along who has made up his mind to marry her. It must be a big strong man who won't stand any nonsense and will take her by the shoulders and shake her.
She'll marry him fast enough. We'll see what happens to her in California.”
”I hope she won't marry one of those dreadful creatures with la.s.sos,” said Mrs. Oldrieve, whose hazy ideas of California were based on hazier memories of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show which she had seen many years ago in London.