Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution Part 24

"Italian? _Tante grazie_, and all that! But that don't take you very far, you know. Your teeth will crack a tougher nut. Now, I'll tell you what you do. You come and see my old Aunt Wenman--"

She was highly amused. "Why should I see your old Aunt Wenman? Does she know Italian?"

"Italian! G.o.d bless you, if she knows English, it's as much as she does.

Learnt the Catechism once, I s'pose. She's a good old sort--Lady Maria Wenman, widow of my old Uncle Charles, and my mother's sister at that.

She'll take to you--she'll take to you."

"I don't see--" said Sanchia, puzzled. The youth explained.

"Well, you see--you'll forgive me, I know--it's _tone_ you want just now.

She'll give you that. She's something to pull against. You get your back up against her, and hang on. That's the ticket. She's a good soul, is Aunt Maria--lots of tone--gives parties to all and sundry. You meet some rare fish in those waters--Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics. They'll amuse you--give you bones to pick. I don't get on with 'em myself--too simple, I am, you know. They talk their politics, or domestic afflictions, and I feel so delicate I don't know what to do. There was one chap I remember-- Golowicz his name was--big, red-whiskered, conspiracy chap ... told me all about his mother--tears running down his cheeks. I didn't know her from Adam, you know, but still--Oh, you'll like Aunt Wenman. She'll want you to live with her, and you might do much worse." Sanchia listened, smiled, and pondered. It was not her way to be disposed of so simply.

What was impressive to her about this conversation was the real reticence underlying the chatter of her friend. She could feel his conviction of her want of tone; she was convinced of it herself. Her purpose in life seemed gone. Once it had been love, next it had been the ordering of affairs. The second had been so absorbing that she had not missed the first; indeed, she had believed it there until the very end, when she had called it up, and had no answer. But now--what aim had she, in this lonely, empty life she was leading, whose hours were so many that she had to fill them up with Italian got out of books? Without knowing it, it was life she wanted, not books. She with her brains, vitality, beauty, and charm had been growing in these graces unawares, flowering in secret at Wanless under her ap.r.o.ns, behind her account-books and garden gloves. Now that all these swaddling bands were stripped off her, behold her, armed at all points for the lists. So Chevenix had beheld her, it seems. Let her see the world, approve her mettle, run her career. Chevenix, watching her, judged in those pondering eyes, in that half-smile which had charmed him before, a kind of quivering expectancy new to her. He judged her tempted, and renewed his suggestions on a later day.

"What you want," he then told her, "is to try a fall or two with the world. You've been too snug, you know--too long under gla.s.s. You left the school-room to go to Wanless--and where were you there? Under cover. You want the sun, the wind, and the rain; you want to know what these things feel like--and how the rest of us take 'em. And you want to be seen, if you let me say that. We all like being looked at, I believe. I know that I do, when I'm quite sure about my hat. Now you won't get much of that in a Warwick Street two-pair front, let me tell you--no, nor in your B 17, or whatever your seat is, at the Museum. You're a star--you're to s.h.i.+ne.

Well, give 'em a turn in Charles Street. I'll fix it up for you. I wish you'd think it over."

She gave him grateful looks, but said little. Nevertheless, he went away encouraged. A week or so later she found a card upon her table: that of a Mrs. John Chevenix.

"That's my sister-in-law," the friendly youth presently told her. "That's Mrs. John. You go and see her. She's a good sort of woman. You'll meet Aunt Wenman there. I thought it all out, and that's the way to get at it.

She'll jump at you, in my opinion. She loves orphans. Collects 'em. You go!"

She was due in the city on a visit to her father, was, in fact, dressed for it in her best white frock, roses in her hat. She promised to think of it--and of course would return Mrs. John's call. The amiable Chevenix accompanied her as far eastward as it was possible for him to go. He went, indeed, farther, and in full view of Saint Paul's decided upon a visit to that sanctuary. You never know your luck, he said. He might meet Senhouse there. He had been hunting the recessed philosopher high and low.

"Great sport if we met him now--you, who look like lunching at the Savoy or somewhere, and he like a fakir! What should you do? Fall in his arms?"

Sanchia had mist over the eyes.

"I believe I should," she admitted. "I should love to see him again."

"He'll turn up at Aunt Wenman's, I'll bet you," Chevenix felt sure. "She rakes 'em in--all sorts. Do you think about her, now, there's a dear. You won't be able to stick it at home, you know."

"I am sure that I shan't go home," Sanchia said. "And I _am_ thinking about your aunt."

"Right," cried Chevenix, and briskly mounted the steps of the cathedral.

Mr. Percival had provided a tea for her which had the appearance of a banquet. The table seemed sunk in flowers; a great urn held the tea. There were buns in pyramids, snow-mantled cakes, apricot jam, strawberries, clotted cream. Nothing was too good for his beloved, as he cried aloud when he saw her, fresh and glowing in her lace frock and flower-wreathed hat.

"My girl--and upon my soul, a picture!"

She blushed at his praises, and came within kissing distance. "You make a school-treat of me, dearest. You mustn't be wicked with your money, or I shan't come any more to see you. I won't be spoiled."

"No, my dear, no--and you can't be," he a.s.sured her. "Good Lord, my child, you're the only one I've got left. All my birds flown but you! And I had five of the sweetest, sauciest, happiest girls in England once upon a time.... Now, come you and pour out a cup of tea for your foolish old father. We're snug here--hey? Better than Great c.u.mberland--hey? You monkey!" He pinched her ear--and felt that they shared a secret.

She caught his happiness, and bathed in his praises, feeling as it were the sun upon her cheeks. How she loved to be loved! How she loved to be praised for her good looks! The world had grown suddenly kind again; the world was good. There, ahead of her, stood Mrs. John Chevenix and a friendly Lady Maria, beckoning her to London delights, a friendly world of admiring eyes. She was to be looked at--she was to listen--and be heard.

Her heart beat, eyes shone starry. Life, which had seemed behind her, now danced before, a gay procession. She told her father what seemed to be in the wind. He listened and stared.

"Lady Maria, hey! We _are_ going up in the world. The peerage! Charles Street, Berkeley Square! I remember young Chevenix: he had swell connections--yes, yes. How things come about. This will please your mother, my dear. She sets a store by such things." Their eyes met, and she nodded.

"Yes, I thought of that. But what do _you_ feel about it, Papa? You see--I couldn't very well come back to Great c.u.mberland Place."

He did see that, poor man. "No, chick, no. That wouldn't work out--that sum. You and your mother never did add up very well--No, no. Much as I should have liked it. But Charles Street? Hum. I'm a plain man, you see, a plain, old comfortable merchant--and the older I grow, the more comfortable I get, I believe. Now, I don't see myself in Berkeley Square, making a bow to Lady Maria. My poor old back's too stiff for that. But if you're contented--if you're to have your deserts--for you're a little beauty, my love, and there's no mistake about it--why, what can I say? And I know you won't forget Papa in The Poultry--hey?"

She held him her hand across the tea-cups, smiling with her eyes. "Do you really think I shall?"

He caught fast to the little hand. "No, child, no! Though, mind you, I deserve it. When I think that I let you be packed out of my house--neck and crop--to the devil, for aught I knew--I grow cold. My dear, it's taken me suddenly at night--when I've been wakeful--and I've groaned in my agony. It don't do to think of--hideous! Women make fools of us men, and knaves as well. But there! You know your mother's way. I mustn't speak against her, of course. No, no. She's a good woman." He looked as if he tried hard to believe it.

Sanchia, her hand still held, had grown serious. "Papa," she said, "I want you to understand me altogether. I should do it again, I believe, if I really loved somebody."

He looked at her anxiously, then away from her, while he patted her caught hand. "Yes, my dear, yes. I understand that you feel like that. It's queer--to me, you know. I don't pretend to see it as you do. But I trust you. I know you're a good girl. Only--it's not the old-fas.h.i.+oned way; and your mother--"

"Mamma,"' she said, "is different. She thinks I'm wicked; you think I'm good. I don't know what I am--I don't understand myself at all; but I'm quite sure that I should do it again, if it had to be done." Her eyes grew large with the certainty of her argument. She had a divine seriousness, a rapt look, as of one inspired from within. "I don't see how you can help it, if you see quite clearly that the person needs you. It seems disloyalty. It seems making too much of yourself--as if what happened to that part of you mattered! And it seems making too little of yourself, too--as if you shrank, as if you were afraid of vile people. One can't afford to be afraid--for the sake of such a small thing."

Mr. Percival, nodding, patting her hand, put in a gentle remonstrance. "I shouldn't say that, Sancie, I shouldn't indeed. It used to be considered everything in the world, to a woman."

She mused, then decided. "No. I can't understand that. It's not everything in the world. It's almost nothing compared to other things--like freedom.

To me the only thing that seems to matter is one's mind. Freedom for that!

You can give up anything else. But that you must have--if you are to live at all."

He made a loyal effort to follow her thought, but it led him into dismal regions where he found himself unnerved. "I don't know, upon my soul, where you get these notions of yours, my dear. I don't indeed. Not from me, I believe."

She smiled gently at him, but with a wistful tinge, as if she felt her isolation. "I don't know, either--but there they are. I always know what I've got to do. I see it, or feel it, ahead of me. There's a path that way, a path the other. I see the fork, and have to follow one of them. I always know which."

That was equally beyond him. He left it, and returned to a more practical puzzlement. "But when--when you make up your mind about--_him_, you know?

I wish you would tell me."

"I'll tell you everything I can, dearest, of course."

"Well, now, your freedom, you know. Your freedom of mind. Now, you gave him your freedom, didn't you! And your mind too? Didn't you, now?"

She had to consider that, and he watched her with anxiety. But she looked him fairly in the face with her answer, so that he read the truth in her eyes. "No," she told him. "No. He never had that, luckily for me. I always knew what I had to do before he did. I could always see where he was right and I was wrong--or the other way about. I don't think I could ever give up my judgment. At least--" She had to think again; and again she answered him, but with heightened colour. "If I did--it would be a different sort of person altogether. Quite a different person."

His face fell. This didn't sound like marriage-bells. "Oh, my dear!" he said ruefully. "You don't mean to tell me--"

She jumped up and hugged him. "You darling old thing, of course not." But she kept her face buried in his whiskers. "If I ever did that--give up my mind, I mean--I believe I should be happier."

Mr. Percival had no doubt about that. He had old-fas.h.i.+oned opinions.

IV

Mrs. John Chevenix, a young and lively woman with ash-coloured hair, audacious nose, and a clear complexion, was devoted to her husband's family, and especially tender to our young friend and Sanchia's, with whom she had a strong alliance. Her husband had a sense of humour, which he indulged for the most part in silence. He spoke rarely, swallowed his laughter, and yet was good company. You felt his sympathy, found yourself depending on it. You gauged his relish by a twinkle, by a deeper shade of purple in his cheeks, by a twitching ear. The Stock Exchange gave him a sufficiency, and his wife, with her taste for dinner-parties, saw to it that it gave him no more. "Let's bleed old John," was Bill Chevenix's pleasant way of suggesting an escapade which might run into hundreds. "It will do him good," Mrs. John used to agree; and John Chevenix would chuckle internally, and say, "Go it, you two." On these terms they were all very happy.

Bill Chevenix had told his sister-in-law as much about Sanchia as he thought fitting. To begin with, he took all responsibility upon himself for the opening scene of her wild adventure. He had introduced "the chap"

into the Percival household, and it was he, too, who had _not_ introduced the fact of his unhappy marriage. "Took it all for granted--thought they knew it--forgot they didn't belong to that gang--your gang, my gang, Nevile's gang. Rotten of me, my dear, but there you are." Mrs. John understood him to feel more contrite than he appeared. And next he lauded Sanchia, after his own manner. As thus: "A queer young fish. You can't judge her by the rules of the game. She shows her strength by breaking 'em. She'd break anything and anybody. Oh, she's as deep as the Dogger.

But mighty pleasant with it, you know, Fine, quiet style of her own. And a beauty. My word, but she's like a rose." Then his eyes met hers confidentially. A wink pa.s.sed. "No. We're great friends. That's all there is to it, on my honour. But you can't leave a girl like that stranded, can you now? Especially when you've run her aground yourself--in a way. So I thought of old Aunt Wenman in a minute. In fact, I've seen her about it, and, by George, she hit on a phrase in a trice. 'Unfortunate attachment.'

She's perfectly happy with that, and rather keen. Now all you have to do is to give a party, and I'll ask Sancie."