Poor Relations Part 19

You'll excuse me, Johnnie, while I go and t.i.tivate myself. I sha'n't be a minute."

Beatrice retired to the bedroom whence she could be heard humming over her beautification.

"You're not meditating marriage, are you?" James mocked.

The bachelor shook his head.

"At the same time," he protested, stoutly, "I don't think you're ent.i.tled to sneer at Beatrice. Considering--" he was about to say "everything," but feeling that this would include his brother too pointedly he subst.i.tuted, "the weather, she's wonderfully cheerful. And you know I've always insisted that these rooms are cramped."

"Yes, well, when a popular success oils my palm, John, we'll move next door to you in Church Row."

John wished that James would not always harp upon their respective fortunes: it made him feel uncomfortable, especially when he was sitting down to cold mutton. Besides, it was unfair; had he not once advised James to abandon criticism and take up--he had been going to suggest "anything except literature," but he had noticed James' angry dismay and had subst.i.tuted "creative work." What had been the result? An outburst of contemptuous abuse, a violent renunciation of anything that approximated to his own work. If James despised his romantic plays, why could he not be consistent and despise equally the wealth they brought him? He honored his brother's intellectual sincerity, why could not his brother do as much for his?

"What beats me," James had once exclaimed, "is how a man like you who professes to admire--no, I believe you're honest--who does admire Stendhal, Turgenev, Flaubert and Merimee, who recognizes the perfection of _Manon Lescaut_ and _Adolphe_, who in a word has taste, can bring himself to eructate the _Fall of Babylon_."

"It's all a matter of knowing one's own limitations," John had replied.

"I tried to write realistic novels. But my temperament is not realistic."

"No, if it were," James had murmured, "you wouldn't stand my affectation of superiority."

It was this way James had of once in a very long while putting himself in the wrong that used always to heal John's wounded generosity. But these occasional lapses--as he supposed his cynical brother would call them--were becoming less and less frequent, and John had no longer much excuse for clinging to his romantic reverence for the unlucky head of his family.

During the first half of supper Beatrice delivered a kind of lecture on housekeeping in London on two pounds twelve s.h.i.+llings and sixpence a week, including bones for the dog; by the time that the stewed figs were put on the table this monologue had reduced both brothers to such a state of gloom by striking at James' experience and John's imagination, that the sourness of the cream came as a natural corollary; anything but sour cream would have seemed an obtrusive reminder of housekeeping on more than two pounds twelve s.h.i.+llings and sixpence a week, including bones for the dog. John was convinced by his sister-in-law's mood that she would enjoy a short rest from speculating upon the comparative versatility of mutton and beef, and by James' reception of her remarks that he would appreciate her housekeeping all the more after being compelled to regard for a while the long procession of chops that his landlady would inevitably marshal for him while his wife was away. The moment seemed propitious to the unfolding of his plan.

"I want to ask you both a favor," he began. "No, no, Beatrice, I disagree with you. I don't think the cream is really sour. I find it delicious, but I daren't ever eat more than a few figs. The cream, however, is particularly delicious. In fact I was on the point of inquiring the name of your dairy."

"If we have cream on Sundays," Beatrice explained, "Jimmie has to put up with custard-powder on Wednesdays. But if we don't have cream on Sundays, I can spare enough eggs on Wednesdays for real custard."

"That's very ingenious of you," John declared. "But you didn't hear what I was saying when I broke off in defense of the cream, _which_ is delicious. I said that I wanted to ask a favor of you both."

"King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," James chuckled. "Or were you going to suggest to Beatrice that next time you have supper with us she should experiment not only with fresh cream, but also with some rare dish like nightingales' tongues--or even veal, for instance?"

"Now, Jimmie, you're always puttin' hits in at me about veal; but if I get veal, it throws me out for the whole week."

John made another effort to wrench the conversation free from the topic of food:

"No, no, James. I was going to ask you to let Beatrice come and give me a hand with our nephew and our niece." He slightly accentuated the p.r.o.noun of plural possession. "Of course, that is to say, if Beatrice would be so kind."

"What do you want her to do? Beat them?" James asked.

"No, no, no, James. I'm not joking. As I explained to you, I've got these two children--er--staying with me. It appears that George is too overstrained, too ill, that is, to manage them during the few weeks that Eleanor will be away on tour, and I thought that if Beatrice could be my guest for a week or two until the governess has re-created her nervous system, which I understand will take about a month, I should feel a great weight off my mind. A bachelor household, you know, is not primarily constructed to withstand an invasion by children. You'd find them very difficult here, James, if you hadn't got Beatrice."

"Oh, Johnnie, I should love it," his sister-in-law cried. "That is if Jimmie could spare me."

"Of course, I could. You'd better take her back with you to-night."

"No, really?" said John. "Why that would be splendid. I'm immensely obliged to you both."

"He's quite anxious to get rid of me," Beatrice laughed, happily. "I sha'n't be long packin'. Fancy lookin' after Eleanor's two youngsters.

I've often thought I _would_ rather like to see if I couldn't bring up children."

"Now's your chance," John jovially offered.

"Jimmie didn't ever care much for youngsters," Beatrice explained.

Her husband laughed bitterly.

"Quite enough people hate me, as it is," he sneered, "without deliberately creating a child of my own to add to the number."

"Oh, no, of course, dear, I know we're better off as we are," Beatrice said with a soothing pat for her husband's round shoulders. "Only the idea comes into my head now and again that I'd just like to see if I couldn't manage them, that's all, dear. I'm not complaining."

"I don't want to hurry you away," James muttered. "But I've got some work to do."

"We'd better send the servant out to look for a taxi at once," John suggested. "It's Sunday night, you know."

Twenty minutes later, Beatrice looking quite fas.h.i.+onable now in her excitement--so many years had it obliterated--was seated in the taxi; John was half-way along the garden path on his way to join her, when his brother called him back.

"Oh, by the way, Johnnie," he said in gruff embarra.s.sment, "I've got an article on Alfred de Vigny coming out soon in _The Nineteenth Century_.

It can't bring me in less than fifteen guineas, but it might not be published for another three months. I can show you the editor's letter, if you like. I wonder if you could advance me ten guineas? I'm a little bothered just at the moment. There was a vet's bill for the dog and...."

"Of course, of course, my dear fellow. I'll send you a check to-night.

Thanks very much for--er--releasing Beatrice, I mean--helping me out of a difficulty with Beatrice. Very good of you. Good-night. I'll send the check at once."

"Don't cross it," said James.

On the way back to Hampstead in the dank murkiness of the cab, Beatrice became confidential.

"Jimmie always hated me to pa.s.s remarks about havin' children, don't you know, but it's my belief that he feels it as much as anyone. Look at the fuss he makes of poor old Bill Bailey. And bein' the eldest son and havin' the pictures of his grandfather and grandmother, I'm sure there are times when he'd give a lot to explain to a youngster of his own who they really were. It isn't so interestin' to explain to me, don't you know, because they aren't my relations, except, of course, by marriage.

I always feel myself that Jimmie for an eldest son has been very unlucky. Well, there's you, for instance. I don't mean to say he's jealous, because he's not; but still I dare say he sometimes thinks that he ought to be where you are, though, of course, that doesn't mean to say that he'd like you to be where he is. But a person can't help feelin' that there's no reason why you shouldn't both have been where you are. The trouble with Jimmie was that he wasted a lot of time when he was young, and sometimes, though I wouldn't say this to anybody but you, sometimes I do wonder if he doesn't think he married too much in a hurry. Then there were his dragon-flies. There they all are falling to pieces from want of interest. I don't suppose anybody in England has taken so much trouble as Jimmie over dragon-flies, but what is a dragon-fly? They'll never be popular with the general public, because though they don't sting, people think they do. And then that fellow--who is it--it begins with an M--oh dear, my memory is something chronic!

Well, anyway, he wrote a book about bees, and it's tremendously popular.

Why? Because a bee is well-known. Certainly they sting too, but then they have honey and people keep them. If people kept dragon-flies, it would be different. No, my opinion is that for an eldest son Jimmie has been very unlucky."

The next day Bertram disappeared to school at an hour of the morning which John remembered did exist in his youth, but which he had for long regarded as a portion of the great backward and abysm of time. Beatrice tactfully removed his niece immediately after breakfast, not the auroral breakfast of Bertram, but the comfortable meal of ten o'clock; and except for a rehearsal of the _bolero_ in the room over the library John was able to put in a morning of undisturbed diligence. Beatrice took Viola for a walk in the afternoon, and when Bertram arrived back from school about six o'clock she nearly spoilt her own dinner by the a.s.sistance she gave him with his tea. John had a couple of quiet hours with _Joan of Arc_ before dinner, when he was only once interrupted by Beatrice's coming as her nephew's amba.s.sador to ask what was the past participle of some Latin verb, which cost him five minutes' search for a dictionary. After dinner John played two sets of piquet with his sister-in-law and having won both began to feel that there was a good deal to be said for a woman's presence in the house.

But about eleven o'clock on the morning of the next day James arrived, and not only James but Beyle the bulldog, who had, if one might judge by his behavior, as profound a contempt as his master for John's library, and a much more unpleasant way of showing it.

"I wish you'd leave your dog in the hall," John protested. "Look at him now; he's upset the paper-basket. Get down off that chair! I say, do look at him!"

Beyle was coursing round the room, steering himself with the kinked blob that served him for a tail.

"He likes the soft carpet," his master explained. "He thinks it's gra.s.s."

"What an idiotic dog," John scoffed. "And I suppose he thinks my Aubusson is an herbaceous border. Drop it, you brute, will you. I say, do put him downstairs. He's going to worry it in a minute, and all agree that bulldogs can't be induced to let go of anything they've once fairly gripped. Lie down, will you!"

James roared with laughter at his brother's disgust, but finally he turned the dog out of the room, and John heard what he fancied was a panic-stricken descent of the stairs by Maud or....

"I say, I hope he isn't chasing Mrs. Worfolk up and down the house," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as he hurried out on the landing. What ever Beyle had been doing, he was at rest now and smiling up at John from the front-door mat. "I hope it wasn't Mrs. Worfolk," he said, coming back. "She's in a very delicate state just at present."

"What?" James shouted, incredulously.