The Second Mrs. Tanqueray Part 21

PAULA.

My dear man, you're a blessing. I must telegraph to London for more fis.h.!.+ A strange appet.i.te to cater for! Something to do, to do, to do!

[_She goes out in a mood of almost childish delight._

DRUMMLE.

[_Eyeing Aubrey._] Well?

AUBREY.

[_With a wearied, anxious look._] Well, Cayley?

DRUMMLE.

How are you getting on?

AUBREY.

My position doesn't grow less difficult. I told you, when I met you last week, of this feverish, jealous attachment of Paula's for Ellean?

DRUMMLE.

Yes. I hardly know why, but I came to the conclusion that you don't consider it an altogether fortunate attachment.

AUBREY.

Ellean doesn't respond to it.

DRUMMLE.

These are early days. Ellean will warm towards your wife by-and-by.

AUBREY.

Ah, but there's the question, Cayley!

DRUMMLE.

What question?

AUBREY.

The question which positively distracts me. Ellean is so different from--most women; I don't believe a purer creature exists out of heaven. And I--I ask myself, am I doing right in exposing her to the influence of poor Paula's light, careless nature?

DRUMMLE.

My dear Aubrey!

AUBREY.

That shocks you! So it does me. I a.s.sure you I long to urge my girl to break down the reserve which keeps her apart from Paula, but somehow I can't do it--well, I don't do it. How can I make you understand? But when you come to us you'll understand quickly enough. Cayley, there's hardly a subject you can broach on which poor Paula hasn't some strange, out-of-the-way thought to give utterance to; some curious, warped notion. They are not mere worldly thoughts--unless, good G.o.d! they belong to the little h.e.l.lish world which our blackguardism has created: no, her ideas have too little calculation in them to be called worldly. But it makes it the more dreadful that such thoughts should be ready, spontaneous; that expressing them has become a perfectly natural process; that her words, acts even, have almost lost their proper significance for her, and seem beyond her control. Ah, and the pain of listening to it all from the woman one loves, the woman one hoped to make happy and contented, who is really and truly a good woman, as it were, maimed! Well, this is my burden, and I shouldn't speak to you of it but for my anxiety about Ellean. Ellean! What is to be her future?

It is in my hands; what am I to do? Cayley, when I remember how Ellean comes to me, from another world I always think, when I realise the charge that's laid on me, I find myself wis.h.i.+ng, in a sort of terror, that my child were safe under the ground!

DRUMMLE.

My dear Aubrey, aren't you making a mistake?

AUBREY.

Very likely. What is it?

DRUMMLE.

A mistake, not in regarding your Ellean as an angel, but in believing that, under any circ.u.mstances, it would be possible for her to go through life without getting her white robe--shall we say, a little dusty at the hem? Don't take me for a cynic. I am sure there are many women upon earth who are almost divinely innocent; but being on earth, they must send their robes to the laundry occasionally. Ah, and it's right that they should have to do so, for what can they learn from the checking of their little was.h.i.+ng-bills but lessons of charity? Now I see but two courses open to you for the disposal of your angel.

AUBREY.

Yes?

DRUMMLE.

You must either restrict her to a paradise which is, like every earthly paradise, necessarily somewhat imperfect, or treat her as an ordinary flesh-and-blood young woman, and give her the advantages of that society to which she properly belongs.

AUBREY.

Advantages?

DRUMMLE.

My dear Aubrey, of all forms of innocence mere ignorance is the least admirable. Take my advice, let her walk and talk and suffer and be healed with the great crowd. Do it, and hope that she'll some day meet a good, honest fellow who'll make her life complete, happy, secure. Now you see what I'm driving at.

AUBREY.

A sanguine programme, my dear Cayley! Oh, I'm not pooh-poohing it.

Putting sentiment aside, of course I know that a fortunate marriage for Ellean would be the best--perhaps the only--solution of my difficulty. But you forget the danger of the course you suggest.

DRUMMLE.

Danger?

AUBREY.

If Ellean goes among men and women, how can she escape from learning, sooner or later, the history of--poor Paula's--old life?

DRUMMLE.

H'm! You remember the episode of the Jeweller's Son in the Arabian Nights? Of course you don't. Well, if your daughter lives, she _can't_ escape--what you're afraid of. [AUBREY _gives a half stifled exclamation of pain._] And when she does hear the story, surely it would be better that she should have some knowledge of the world to help her to understand it.