Part 37 (1/2)
This is the wild and unjust way in which women talk. For aught Cousin Jane knew the Chelsea Registrar might have been an Antinous for beauty.
Mrs. Oldrieve shook her head sadly. She had known how it would be. If only they had been married in church by their good vicar, this calamity could not have befallen them.
”All the churches and all the vicars and all the archbishops couldn't have made that man anything else than a doddering idiot! How Emmy could have borne with him for a day pa.s.ses my understanding. She has done well to get rid of him. She has made a mess of it, of course. People who marry in that way generally do. It serves her right.”
So spoke Cousin Jane, whom Sypher found, in a sense, an unexpected ally.
She made his task easier. Mrs. Oldrieve remained unconvinced.
”And the baby just a month or so old. Poor little thing! What's to become of it?”
”Emmy will have to come here,” said Cousin Jane firmly, ”and I'll bring it up. Emmy isn't fit to educate a rabbit. You had better write and order her to come home at once.”
”I'll write to-morrow,” sighed Mrs. Oldrieve.
Sypher reflected on the impossibilities of the proposition and on the reasons Emmy still had for remaining in exile in Paris. He also pitied the child that was to be brought up by Cousin Jane. It had extravagant tastes.
He smiled.
”My friend Dix is already thinking of sending him to the University; so you see they have plans for his education.”
Cousin Jane sniffed. She would make plans for them! As for the University--if it could turn out a doddering idiot like Septimus, it was criminal to send any young man to such a seat of unlearning. She would not allow him to have a voice in the matter. Emmy was to be summoned to Nunsmere.
Sypher was about to deprecate the idea when he reflected again, and thought of Hotspur and the spirits from the vasty deep. Cousin Jane could call, and so could Mrs. Oldrieve. But would Emmy come? As the answer to the question was in the negative he left Cousin Jane to her comfortable resolutions.
”You will no doubt discuss the matter with Dix,” he said.
Cousin Jane threw up her hands. ”Oh, for goodness' sake, don't let him come here! I couldn't bear the sight of him.”
Sypher looked inquiringly at Mrs. Oldrieve.
”It has been a great shock to me,” said the gentle lady. ”It will take time to get over it. Perhaps he had better wait a little.”
Sypher walked home in a wrathful mood. Ostracism was to be added to Septimus's crown of martyrdom.
Perhaps, on the other hand, the closing of ”The Nook” doors was advantageous. He had dreaded the result of Cousin Jane's cross-examination, as lying was not one of his friend's conspicuous accomplishments. Soothed by this reflection he smoked a pipe, and took down Bunyan's ”Pilgrim's Progress” from his shelves.
While he was deriving spiritual entertainment from the great battle between Christian and Apollyon and consolation from the latter's discomfiture, Septimus was walking down the road to the post-office, a letter in his hand. The envelope was addressed to ”Mrs. Middlemist, White Star Co.'s S.S.
_Cedric_, Ma.r.s.eilles.” It contained a blank sheet of headed note-paper and the tail of a little china dog.
CHAPTER XVIII
As soon as a woman knows what she wants she generally gets it. Some philosophers a.s.sert that her methods are circuitous; others, on the other hand, maintain that she rides in a bee line toward the desired object, galloping ruthlessly over conventions, susceptibilities, hearts, and such like obstacles. All, however, agree that she is unscrupulous, that the wish of the woman is the politely insincere wish of the Deity, and that she pursues her course with a serene sureness unknown to man. It is when a woman does not know what she wants that she baffles the philosopher just as the ant in her aimless discursiveness baffles the entomologist. Of course, if the philosopher has guessed her unformulated desire, then things are easy for him, and he can discourse with cert.i.tude on feminine vagaries, as Rattenden did on the journeyings of Zora Middlemist. He has the word of the enigma. But to the woman herself her state of mind is an exasperating puzzle, and to her friends, philosophic or otherwise, her consequent actions are disconcerting.
Zora went to California, where she was hospitably entertained, and shown the sights of several vast neighborhoods. She peeped into the Chinese quarter at San Francisco, and visited the Yosemite Valley. Attentive young men strewed her path with flowers and candy. Young women vowed her eternal devotion. She came into touch with the intimate problems of the most wonderful social organism the world has ever seen, and was confronted with stupendous works of nature and illimitable solitudes wherein the soul stands appalled. She also ate a great quant.i.ty of peaches. When her visit to the Callenders had come to an end she armed herself with introductions and started off by herself to see America. She traveled across the Continent, beheld the majesty of Niagara and the bewildering life of New York. She went to Was.h.i.+ngton and Boston. In fact, she learned many things about a great country which were very good for her to know, receiving impressions with the alertness of a sympathetic intellect, and pigeonholing them with feminine conscientiousness for future reference.
It was all very pleasant, healthful, and instructive, but it no more helped her in her quest than gazing at the jewelers' windows in the Rue de la Paix. Snow-capped Sierras and crowded tram-cars were equally unsuggestive of a mission in life. In the rare moments which activity allowed her for depression she began to wonder whether she was not chasing the phantom of a wild goose. A damsel to whom in a moment of expansion she revealed the object of her journeying exclaimed: ”What other mission in life has a woman than to spend money and look beautiful?”
Zora laughed incredulously.