Eliza, Barry Pain [best fiction novels .txt] 📗

whole subject was distasteful to me, there was one point to which I had given a few moments' consideration. Reluctant though I was to sully my lips with the name of Mopworth, I felt it a duty to myself to say that even if the Mopworths had asked us to their annual party I should have refused point-blank.

"Really?" said Eliza. This annoyed me slightly. She ought to have seen, without being told, that it was impossible for people like us to continue to know people like them.

"I am accustomed," I replied, "to say just exactly what I mean. As far as I can remember, I have lately more than once asked you to drop the Mopworths. If I have not actually done it, it has been in my mind to do so. They are connected to us by marriage, and I am not unduly proud, but still I feel that we must draw the line somewhere. I do not care to have Mopworth bragging about the place that he is on intimate terms with us."

"Well," said Eliza, "there aren't such a lot of people who ever ask us to anything. Miss Sakers is friendly, of course, especially when there are subscriptions on for the bazaar or the new organ, but she doesn't carry it to that point."

"Quite so," I said, "and I'm by no means certain about Miss Sakers. She may be all right. I hope she is. But I candidly confess that I by no means like her manner."

At this moment the girl brought in a note, delivered by hand, from Mrs. Mopworth. It said that she had sent an invitation to Eliza but had had no reply. She felt so certain that the invitation must have been delayed in the post (which was not surprising, considering the season), that she had ventured to write again, though it might be against etiquette. She hoped that we should both be able to come, and said that on the previous occasion I had been the life and soul of the party.

"Well," I said, "Eliza, what would you like to do?"

"Oh, I'm going!" she replied.

"Then if you insist, I shall go with you. I've never had a word to say against Mrs. Mopworth. It is true that he is not in every particular what—well, what I should care to be myself. Possibly he has not had my advantages. I do not want to judge him too harshly. My dress clothes are put away with my summer suit in the second drawer in the box-room. Just put them to the fire to get the creases out. And, Eliza, write a friendly note to Mrs. Mopworth, implying that we had never heard of the party. I saw from the first that the omission was a mistake."

Eliza went away smiling. Women are so variable.

 

THE PEN-WIPER

Eliza always works me some little pretty trifle for my birthday, and always has done so since the day when I led her to the hymeneal altar. But it is not done at all as a matter of course. During the days before my birthday, when she is working at the present, she keeps a clean handkerchief by her side, and flings it over the work to hide it when I enter the room. This makes it more of a surprise when the day comes. As a rule, I whistle a few bars in a careless way before entering the room, so as to give her plenty of time to get the work under the handkerchief. There is no definite arrangement about this. I merely do what good taste dictates. Last year, instead of the handkerchief, she kept a large table-napkin by her side when she was working. However, though I did not tell her so, this let the secret out. I knew that she must be doing me a pair of slippers.

This year, on my birthday, when I came down to breakfast, I found placed before me the hot-water plate with the tin cover to it—a very useful article when there happens to be an invalid in the house.

Eliza, bending down behind the tea-cosy to hide her smile, told me to be quick with my breakfast, in rather a censorious voice. I lifted the tin cover, and there on the plate was the pen-wiper which Eliza had made for me.

This rather graceful and amusing way of giving a present is not really Eliza's own invention. I did it some years ago when I gave her a pincushion. As the pincushion was made to imitate a poached egg (and really very like), perhaps the humour in that instance had rather more point. However, I do not say this at all to find fault with Eliza. I am rather one to think of novelties, and if Eliza cares to copy any of them, so much the better.

The top and bottom of the pen-wiper which Eliza had made for me were of black velvet, which always has a handsome look to my mind. On the top was worked in gold beads, "Kindly clean the pen." The interior was composed of several folds of very pale shades of art muslin. Only the day before Messrs. Howlett & Bast had refused to send any more patterns, as the last lot sent had not been returned, though twice applied for. I understood that now.

However, it made a very good pen-wiper, in pleasant, simple taste, and I thanked Eliza for it several times most warmly. At my suggestion it was placed on the centre-table in the drawing-room. One never wrote there, but it seemed naturally to belong to the drawing-room.

So far, my birthday had gone happily enough. In the evening, when I returned from the city, I sat down to write a short, sharp note to Messrs. Howlett & Bast. I explained to them that by their impertinence they were running a grave risk of entirely losing my custom, and suggested to them that the lot of patterns to which they referred might very possibly have been lost in the post.

When I had finished the letter, I wiped my pen on the inside of my coat. This is my general custom. Some men wipe their pens on their hair,—not a very cleanly habit, in my opinion,—besides, unless the colour of the hair is exceptionally dark, the ink shows.

I had no sooner wiped my pen on the inside of my coat than I remembered Eliza's present. Determined to show her that I appreciated it, I took a full dip of ink, stepped into the drawing-room, and wiped the pen on the new pen-wiper. Then I called up-stairs: "Eliza, I have just found your present very useful. Would you like to come and look?" She happened to be fastening something up the back at the time, but she came down a minute afterward.

She picked up the pen-wiper, looked at it, exclaimed "Ruined!" and then walked rapidly out of the room. I followed her, and asked what was the matter.

It appeared that the words, "Kindly clean the pen," meant that the pen was to be cleaned on a scrap of paper before the pen-wiper was used. Eliza said that I might have known that the pretty muslin was not intended to be a perfect mess of ink.

"Well," I said, "I didn't know. That's all there is to say about it."

But it was not, apparently, all that there was to say about it. In fact, the whole thing cast an unpleasant shade over the evening of my birthday. Finally I took a strong line, and refused to speak at all.

 

THE 9.43

In the course of conversation on Saturday evening it had transpired that Eliza had never been in St. Paul's Cathedral. "Then," I said, "you shall go there to-morrow morning; I will take you."

"I'm sure I'm agreeable," said Eliza.

On the Sunday morning one or two little things had happened to put me out. At breakfast I had occasion to say that the eggs were stone-cold, and Eliza contradicted me. It was very absurd of her. As I pointed out to her, what earthly motive could I have for saying that an egg was cold if it was not? What should I gain by it? Of course she had no answer—that is, no reasonable answer. Then after breakfast I broke my boot-lace in two places. No, I was not angry. I hope I can keep my temper as well as most men. But I was in a state of mind bordering on the irritable.

Eliza came down-stairs, dressed for going out, asked me why I was not ready, and said we should miss the 9.43.

"Indeed!" said I. "And what, precisely, might you mean by the 9.43?"

"I mean, precisely, the train which leaves here for the city at seventeen minutes to ten."

"One of your usual mistakes," I replied. "The train is 9.53, and not 9.43."

"Have you a time-table?" she asked.

"No."

"Because if you had a time-table I could show you that you are wrong. Why, I know it's the 9.43."

"If I had a time-table I could show you most certainly that it is the 9.53. Not that you'd believe it, even then. You're too obstinate, Eliza—too certain of yourself!"

"Look here!" I observed, after she had argued that point at some length, "let us come back to the original subject of discussion. Which of us travels most to and from London? That is the reasonable way to settle it."

"You do, on week-days. But you never go on Sundays, and the Sunday trains are different."

"I am fully aware of the difference. Every day I am thrown into constant contact with the time-tables. Only last night I was looking at them at the station. As far as I know, my memory is not going."

"No more is mine."

"Really? A week ago I purchased and brought home six new collars. They are not marked. Why? Because you forgot them! At this very moment that I am speaking to you I am wearing an unmarked collar."

"Yes; but I only forgot them one day."

"Then why did you not mark them on the other days?"

"Because on the other days you forgot to bring home the marking-ink."

"'M, yes," I said. "In a sense that is true. I have my own business to attend to in the city without always thinking about marking-ink. But what has that got to do with it? And why bring it in? We are not talking about marking-ink; we are talking about trains!"

She said that I began it, and of course I pointed out to her that I had done nothing of the kind.

We argued for some little time as to which of us had begun it, and then Eliza said, in her spiteful way—

"We are not talking about which of us began it; we are talking about trains!"

"It's very little use talking to you about trains. I know you're wrong! I would stake my life, cheerfully, that it is 9.53, and not 9.43. But you'd never own you're wrong; you're too obstinate for that!"

"Of course I don't own I'm wrong, because I'm not wrong! That would be silly!" she added, reflectively. "Even if it was 9.53, I shouldn't be wrong. All I said was, that we should miss the 9.43. Well, if there is no 9.43, we cannot catch it; and what you don't catch, you miss!"

"Absurd nonsense! If you do not catch scarlet fever, you do not say that you miss it!"

She replied: "We are not talking about scarlet fever; we are talking about trains!"

"Bah!" I exclaimed. I should have added more, but at this moment the clock on the dining-room mantelpiece struck ten.

 

THE CONUNDRUMS

I had bought the little book at the station stall, and it seemed to be very well worth the sixpence which I paid for it. It was entitled "Everybody's Book of Bright and Original Conundrums." Of course I had an idea in my head in buying the book; I am not the man to throw away my money to no purpose. I thought that these conundrums would