Somehow Good, William Frend De Morgan [essential books to read .txt] 📗

shop?' But surprise-tactics were better--I knew they would
be--and now Paggy admits I was right.

"Of course, Thomas stared when he saw who it was, and was
going to sneak off without announcing us, and Fossett, who
just crossed us in the passage, was perfectly comic. Pag said
afterwards she was bubbling over with undemonstrativeness,
which was clever for him. I simply said to Thomas that I
thought he had better announce us, as we weren't expected, and
he asked who he was to announce, miss! Actually, I was rather
relieved when Pag said, 'Say Mr. and Mrs. Julius Bradshaw.'
I should have laughed, I know. Thomas looked a model of
discretion that wouldn't commit itself either way, and did as
he was bid in an apologetic voice; but he turned round on the
stairs to say to me, 'I suppose you know, msam, there's two
ladies and a gentleman been dining here?' Because he began
miss and ended ma'am, and then turned scarlet. Pag said after
he thought Thomas wanted to caution us against a bigamist
mamma was harbouring.

"Papa was very nice, really. His allusion to our little
escapade was the only one made, and might have meant nothing
at all. 'Well, you're a nice couple of people, upon my word!'
and then, seeing that mamma remained a block (which she
can), he introduced Paggy to one of the two ladies as 'My
son-in-law, Mr. Julius Bradshaw.' I'm sure mamma gave a wooden
snort and was ashamed of it before visitors, because she did
another rather more probable one directly after, and pretended
it was only that sort. Really, except a peck for me and saying
_howd_ and nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to herself.
But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it
quite made me jump--I mean the way the lady Pag was
introduced to rushed into his arms. I wasn't sure I hadn't
better take him away at once. She was a celebrated German
pianiste that had accompanied him in Paris. Mamma was at
school with her at Frankfort. She had been inconsolable at
the disappearance of the great Carissimi, whose playing of the
Kreutzer was the only perfectly sympathetic one she had ever
met. Was she never to play it with him again? Alas, no! for
she was off to Vienna to-morrow, and then to New York, and if
the ship went down she would never play the Kreutzer with
Signore Carissimi again!

"I saw papa's eye looking mischievous, and then he pointed to
the Strad, where it was lying on the piano--locked up safe;
we saw to that--and said there was Paganini's fiddle, why not
play the _Cruet-stand_, or whatever you called it, _now_?
Mamma found her voice, but lost her judgment, for she tried
to block the performance on a fibby ground. Think how late
it was, and how it would be keeping Madame von Hoefenhoffer!
She put her head in the lion's mouth there, for the Frau
immediately said she would play all night rather than lose
a note of Signore Carissimi. The other two went, and nobody
wanted them. I've forgotten the woman's second husband's
name--he's dead--but her son's the man I told you about. Of
course, he hadn't expected to meet me, and I hope he felt like
a fool. I was so glad it wasn't him, but Paggy. They played
right through the Kreutzer, and didn't want the music, which
couldn't be found, and then did bits again, and it was
absolutely glorious. Even mamma (she's fond of music--it's her
only good quality--and where should I get mine from if she
wasn't?) couldn't stop quite stony, though she did her best,
I promise you. As for papa, he was chuckling so over mamma's
dilemma--because she wanted to trample on Paggy, and it _was_
a dilemma--that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you
know, dear, it _did_ go on--one thing after another, that Frau
glued to the clavier like a limpet not detachable without
violence--till nearly one in the morning, having begun at ten
about! And there was papa and Egerton and Theeny all
sniggering at mamma, I know, in secret, and really proud of
the connexion, if the truth were known. Mamma tried to get a
little revenge by saying to me freezingly when the Hoefenhoffer
had gone: 'I suppose you are going home with Mr. Bradshaw,
Laetitia? Good-night.' And then she said _goodn_ to Paggy just
as she had said _howd_. I thought Paggy behaved so nicely.
However, I'll tell you all about that on Monday.

"Papa was _very_ nice--came out on the doorstep to say
good-night, and, do you know--it really _is_ very odd; it must
be the sea air--papa said to Paggy as we were starting: 'How's
the head--the nerves, you know--eh, Master Julius?' And
actually Paggy said: 'Why, God bless my soul, I had forgotten
all about them!' Oh, Sally darling, just think! Suppose they
got well, and all because I treated him to a honeymoon! Oh,
my gracious, what a long letter!"

"There now! that _is_ a letter and a half. 'With love from us both,' mine affectionately. And twelve pages! And Tishy's hand's not so large, neither, as all that." This is Sally, as epilogue; but her mother puts in a correction:

"It's thirteen pages. There's a bit on a loose page you haven't read." Sally has seen that, and it was nothing--so she says; but Fenwick picks it up and reads it aloud:

"P.S.--Just a line to say I've remembered that name. She's Herrick--married a parson in India soon after her Penderfield husband died. She's great on reformatories."

Sally reread her letter with a glow of interest on her face and a passing approval or echo now and then. She noticed nothing unusual in either her mother or her stepfather; but she did not look up, so absorbed was she.

Had she done so she might have wondered why her mother had gone so pale suddenly, and why there should be that puzzled absent look on the handsome face her eyes remained fixed on across the table; but her own mind was far away, deep in her amusement at her friend's letter, full of her image of the disconcerted Dragon and the way Paganini and Beethoven in alliance had ridden rough-shod over Mrs. Grundy and social distinctions. She saw nothing, and finished a cup of coffee undisturbed, and asked for more.

Fenwick, caught by some memory or association he could not define or give its place to, for the moment looked at neither of his companions. Rosalind, only too clear about all the postscript of the letter had brought before her own mind, saw reason to dread its effect on his. The linking of the name of Penderfield and that of the clergyman who had married them at Umballa--a name that, two days since, had had a familiar sound to him when she incautiously uttered it--was using Suggestion to bait a trap for Memory. She felt she was steering through shoal-waters perilously near the wind; but she made no attempt to break his reverie. She might do as much harm as good. She only watched his face, feeling its contrast to that of the absorbed and happy merpussy, rejoicing in the fortunate outcome of her friend's anxieties.

It was a great relief when, with a deep breath and a shake, akin to a horse's when the flies won't take a hint, Fenwick flung off the oppression, whatever it was, and came back into the living world on a stepping-stone of the back-talk.

"Well done, Paganini! Nothing like it since Orpheus and Eurydice--only this time it was Proserpine, not Pluto, that had to be put to sleep.... What's the matter, darling? Anything wrong?"

"Nothing at all. I was looking at you."

"Well, _I'm_ all right!" And Sally looked up from her letter for a moment to say, "There's nothing the matter with Jeremiah," and went on reading as before. Sally's attitude about him always implied a kind of proprietorship, as in a large, fairly well-behaved dog. Rosalind felt glad she had not looked at _her_.

Presently Fenwick said: "Now, who's coming for a walk with me?" But Sally was off directly to find the Swiss girl she sometimes bathed with, and Rosalind thought it would be nice in a sheltered place on the beach. She really wanted to be alone, and knew the shortest way to this was to sit still, especially in the morning; but Gerry had better get Vereker to go for a walk. Perhaps she would look in at his mother's later. So Fenwick, after a customary caution to Sally not to drown herself, went away to find Conrad, as he generally called him now.

Rosalind was shirking a problem she dared not face from a cowardly conviction of its insolubility. What would she do if Gerry should, without some warning, identify her? She had to confess to herself that she had no clue at all to the effect it would have, coming suddenly, on him. She could at least imagine aspects, attitudes, tones of voice for him if it came slowly; but she could not supply any image of him, under other circumstances, not more or less founded on her recollections of twenty years ago. Might she not lose him again, as she lost him then? She _must_ get nearer to safety than she was now. Was she not relying on the house not catching fire instead of negotiating insurance policies or providing fire extinguishers?

She would go and sit under the shelter of one of the many unemployed machines--for only a few daring spirits would follow Sally's example to-day--and try to think it out. Just a few instructions to Mrs. Lobjoit, and a word or two of caution to Gerry not to fall over cliffs, or to get run over at level-crossings or get sunstrokes, or get cold, etc., and she would fall back on her own society and think....

Yes, that was the question! Might she not lose him again? And if she did, how live without him?... Oh yes, she would be no worse off than before, in a certain sense. She would have Sally still ... but....

Which would be the worse? The loss of the husband whom every day taught her to love more dearly, or the task of explaining the cause of her loss to Sally? The one she fixed her mind on always seemed intolerable. As for the other contingencies--difficulties of making all clear to friends, and so forth--let them go; they were not worth a thought. But she _must_ be beforehand, and know how to act, how to do her best to avert both, if the thing she dreaded came to pass....

There now! Here she was settled under the lee of a machine--happily the shadow-side, for the sun was warm--and the white foam