Marriage

Marriage Page 2

by H. G. Wells

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  THE TWO PROPOSALS OF MR. MAGNET

  Sec. 1

  It was presently quite evident to Marjorie that Mr. Magnet intended topropose marriage to her, and she did not even know whether she wantedhim to do so.

  She had met him first the previous summer while she had been stayingwith the Petley-Cresthams at High Windower, and it had been evident thathe found her extremely attractive. She had never had a real grown man ather feet before, and she had found it amazingly entertaining. She hadgone for a walk with him the morning before she came away--a frank andingenuous proceeding that made Mrs. Petley-Crestham say the girl knewwhat she was about, and she had certainly coquetted with him in anextraordinary manner at golf-croquet. After that Oxbridge had swallowedher up, and though he had called once on her mother while Marjorie wasin London during the Christmas vacation, he hadn't seen her again. Hehad written--which was exciting--a long friendly humorous letter aboutnothing in particular, with an air of its being quite the correct thingfor him to do, and she had answered, and there had been other exchanges.But all sorts of things had happened in the interval, and Marjorie hadlet him get into quite a back place in her thoughts--the fact that hewas a member of her father's club had seemed somehow to remove him froma great range of possibilities--until a drift in her mother's talktowards him and a letter from him with an indefinable change in tonetowards intimacy, had restored him to importance. Now here he was in theforeground of her world again, evidently more ardent than ever, and witha portentous air of being about to do something decisive at the veryfirst opportunity. What was he going to do? What had her mother beenhinting at? And what, in fact, did the whole thing amount to?

  Marjorie was beginning to realize that this was going to be a veryserious affair indeed for her--and that she was totally unprepared tomeet it.

  It had been very amusing, very amusing indeed, at the Petley-Cresthams',but there were moments now when she felt towards Mr. Magnet exactly asshe would have felt if he had been one of the Oxbridge tradesmenhovering about her with a "little account," full of apparentlyexaggerated items....

  Her thoughts and feelings were all in confusion about this business. Hermind was full of scraps, every sort of idea, every sort of attitudecontributed something to that Twentieth Century jumble. For example, andso far as its value went among motives, it was by no means a trivialconsideration; she wanted a proposal for its own sake. Daffy had had aproposal last year, and although it wasn't any sort of eligibleproposal, still there it was, and she had given herself tremendous airs.But Marjorie would certainly have preferred some lighter kind ofproposal than that which now threatened her. She felt that behind Mr.Magnet were sanctions; that she wasn't free to deal with this proposalas she liked. He was at Buryhamstreet almost with the air of being herparents' guest.

  Less clear and more instinctive than her desire for a proposal was herinclination to see just all that Mr. Magnet was disposed to do, and hearall that he was disposed to say. She was curious. He didn't behave inthe least as she had expected a lover to behave. But then none of theboys, the "others" with whom she had at times stretched a hand towardsthe hem of emotion, had ever done that. She had an obscure feeling thatperhaps presently Mr. Magnet must light up, be stirred and stirring.Even now his voice changed very interestingly when he was alone withher. His breath seemed to go--as though something had pricked his lung.If it hadn't been for that new, disconcerting realization of an officialpressure behind him, I think she would have been quite ready toexperiment extensively with his emotions....

  But she perceived as she lay awake next morning that she wasn't free forexperiments any longer. What she might say or do now would be taken upvery conclusively. And she had no idea what she wanted to say or do.

  Marriage regarded in the abstract--that is to say, with Mr. Magnet outof focus--was by no means an unattractive proposal to her. It was verymuch at the back of Marjorie's mind that after Oxbridge, unless she wasprepared to face a very serious row indeed and go to teach in aschool--and she didn't feel any call whatever to teach in a school--shewould probably have to return to Hartstone Square and share Daffy's roomagain, and assist in the old collective, wearisome task of propitiatingher father. The freedoms of Oxbridge had enlarged her imagination untilthat seemed an almost unendurably irksome prospect. She had tasted lifeas it could be in her father's absence, and she was beginning to realizejust what an impossible person he was. Marriage was escape from allthat; it meant not only respectful parents but a house of her very own,furniture of her choice, great freedom of movement, an authority, animportance. She had seen what it meant to be a prosperously marriedyoung woman in the person of one or two resplendent old girls revisitingBennett College, scattering invitations, offering protections andopportunities....

  Of course there is love.

  Marjorie told herself, as she had been trained to tell herself, to besensible, but something within her repeated: _there is love_.

  Of course she liked Mr. Magnet. She really did like Mr. Magnet verymuch. She had had her girlish dreams, had fallen in love with picturesof men and actors and a music master and a man who used to ride by asshe went to school; but wasn't this desolating desire forself-abandonment rather silly?--something that one left behind with muchelse when it came to putting up one's hair and sensible living,something to blush secretly about and hide from every eye?

  Among other discrepant views that lived together in her mind as cats andrats and parrots and squirrels and so forth used to live together inthose Happy Family cages unseemly men in less well-regulated days werewont to steer about our streets, was one instilled by quite a largeproportion of the novels she had read, that a girl was a sort ofself-giving prize for high moral worth. Mr. Magnet she knew was good,was kind, was brave with that truer courage, moral courage, which goeswith his type of physique; he was modest, unassuming, well off andfamous, and very much in love with her. His True Self, as Mrs. Pope hadpointed out several times, must be really very beautiful, and in someodd way a line of Shakespeare had washed up in her consciousness asbeing somehow effectual on his behalf:

  "Love looks not with the eye but with the mind."

  She felt she ought to look with the mind. Nice people surely neverlooked in any other way. It seemed from this angle almost her duty tolove him....

  Perhaps she did love him, and mistook the symptoms. She did her best tomistake the symptoms. But if she did truly love him, would it seem soqueer and important and antagonistic as it did that his hair was ratherthin upon the crown of his head?

  She wished she hadn't looked down on him....

  Poor Marjorie! She was doing her best to be sensible, and she feltherself adrift above a clamorous abyss of feared and forbidden thoughts.Down there she knew well enough it wasn't thus that love must come. Deepin her soul, the richest thing in her life indeed and the best thing shehad to give humanity, was a craving for beauty that at times becamealmost intolerable, a craving for something other than beauty and yetinseparably allied with it, a craving for deep excitement, for a sort ofglory in adventure, for passion--for things akin to great music andheroic poems and bannered traditions of romance. She had hidden away inher an immense tumultuous appetite for life, an immense tumultuouscapacity for living. To be loved beautifully was surely the crown andclimax of her being.

  She did not dare to listen to these deeps, yet these insurgent voicesfilled her. Even while she drove her little crocodile of primly sensiblethoughts to their sane appointed conclusion, her blood and nerves andall her being were protesting that Mr. Magnet would not do, thatwhatever other worthiness was in him, regarded as a lover he waspreposterous and flat and foolish and middle-aged, and that it werebetter never to have lived than to put the treasure of her life to hismeagre lips and into his hungry, unattractive arms. "The ugliness ofit! The spiritless horror of it!" so dumbly and formlessly the rebelvoices urged.

  "One has to be sensible," said Marjorie to herself, suddenly puttingdown Shaw's book on Municipal Trading, which sh
e imagined she had beenreading....

  (Perhaps all marriage was horrid, and one had to get over it.)

  That was rather what her mother had conveyed to her.

  Sec. 2

  Mr. Magnet made his first proposal in form three days later, aftercoming twice to tea and staying on to supper. He had played croquet withMr. Pope, he had been beaten twelve times in spite of twinges in thesprained ankle--heroically borne--had had three victories lucidlyexplained away, and heard all the particulars of the East Purblowexperiment three times over, first in relation to the new LabourExchanges, then regarded at rather a different angle in relation tofemale betting, tally-men, and the sanctities of the home generally, andfinally in a more exhaustive style, to show its full importance fromevery side and more particularly as demonstrating the gross injusticedone to Mr. Pope by the neglect of its lessons, a neglect too systematicto be accidental, in the social reform literature of the time. Moreover,Mr. Magnet had been made to understand thoroughly how several laterquasi-charitable attempts of a similar character had already become, ormust inevitably become, unsatisfactory through their failure to followexactly in the lines laid down by Mr. Pope.

  Mr. Pope was really very anxious to be pleasant and agreeable to Mr.Magnet, and he could think of no surer way of doing so than by givinghim an unrestrained intimacy of conversation that prevented anythingmore than momentary intercourse between his daughter and her admirer.And not only did Mr. Magnet find it difficult to get away from Mr. Popewithout offence, but whenever by any chance Mr. Pope was detached for amoment Mr. Magnet discovered that Marjorie either wasn't to be seen, orif she was she wasn't to be isolated by any device he could contrive,before the unappeasable return of Mr. Pope.

  Mr. Magnet did not get his chance therefore until Lady Petchworth'slittle gathering at Summerhay Park.

  Lady Petchworth was Mrs. Pope's oldest friend, and one of those brighterinfluences which save our English country-side from lassitude. She hadbeen more fortunate than Mrs. Pope, for while Mr. Pope with thataptitude for disadvantage natural to his temperament had, he said, beentied to a business that never gave him a chance, Lady Petchworth'shusband had been a reckless investor of exceptional good-luck. Inparticular, led by a dream, he had put most of his money into a seriesof nitrate deposits in caves in Saghalien haunted by benevolentpenguins, and had been rewarded beyond the dreams of avarice. Hisforesight had received the fitting reward of a knighthood, and SirThomas, after restoring the Parish Church at Summerhay in a costly anddestructive manner, spent his declining years in an enviable contentmentwith Lady Petchworth and the world at large, and died long beforeinfirmity made him really troublesome.

  Good fortune had brought out Lady Petchworth's social aptitudes.Summerhay Park was everything that a clever woman, inspired by thatgardening literature which has been so abundant in the opening years ofthe twentieth century, could make it. It had rosaries and rock gardens,sundials and yew hedges, pools and ponds, lead figures and stone urns,box borderings and wilderness corners and hundreds and hundreds of feetof prematurely-aged red-brick wall with broad herbaceous borders; thewalks had primroses, primulas and cowslips in a quite disingenuousabundance, and in spring the whole extent of the park was gay, here withthousands of this sort of daffodil just bursting out and here withthousands of that sort of narcissus just past its prime, and every patchready to pass itself off in its naturalized way as the accidental nativeflower of the field, if only it hadn't been for all the other differentvarieties coming on or wilting-off in adjacent patches....

  Her garden was only the beginning of Lady Petchworth's activities. Shehad a model dairy, and all her poultry was white, and so far as she wasable to manage it she made Summerhay a model village. She overflowedwith activities, it was astonishing in one so plump and blonde, andmeeting followed meeting in the artistic little red-brick andgreen-stained timber village hall she had erected. Now it was theNational Theatre and now it was the National Mourning; now it was theBreak Up of the Poor Law, and now the Majority Report, now the Mothers'Union, and now Socialism, and now Individualism, but always somethingprogressive and beneficial. She did her best to revive the old villagelife, and brought her very considerable powers of compulsion to make themen dance in simple old Morris dances, dressed up in costumes theysecretly abominated, and to induce the mothers to dress their childrenin art-coloured smocks instead of the prints and blue serge frocks theypreferred. She did not despair, she said, of creating a spontaneouspeasant art movement in the district, springing from the people andexpressing the people, but so far it had been necessary to import notonly instructors and material, but workers to keep the thing going, sosluggish had the spontaneity of our English countryside become.

  Her little gatherings were quite distinctive of her. They were a sort ofgarden party extending from mid-day to six or seven; there would be anucleus of house guests, and the highways and byeways on every handwould be raided to supply persons and interests. She had told her friendto "bring the girls over for the day," and flung an invitation to Mr.Pope, who had at once excused himself on the score of his ankle. Mr.Pope was one of those men who shun social gatherings--ostensibly becauseof a sterling simplicity of taste, but really because his intolerableegotism made him feel slighted and neglected on these occasions. He toldhis wife he would be far happier with a book at home, exhorted her notto be late, and was seen composing himself to read the "Vicar ofWakefield"--whenever they published a new book Mr. Pope pretended toread an old one--as the hired waggonette took the rest of hisfamily--Theodore very unhappy in buff silk and a wide Stuartcollar--down the avenue.

  They found a long lunch table laid on the lawn beneath the chestnuts,and in full view of the poppies and forget-me-nots around the stoneobelisk, a butler and three men servants with brass buttons and red andwhite striped waistcoats gave dignity to the scene, and beyond, on theterrace amidst abundance of deckchairs, cane chairs, rugs, and cushions,a miscellaneous and increasing company seethed under Lady Petchworth'splump but entertaining hand. There were, of course, Mr. Magnet, and hisfriend Mr. Wintersloan--Lady Petchworth had been given to understandhow the land lay; and there was Mr. Bunford Paradise the musician, whowas doing his best to teach a sullen holiday class in the villageschoolroom to sing the artless old folk songs of Surrey again, in spiteof the invincible persuasion of everybody in the class that the songswere rather indelicate and extremely silly; there were the Rev. JoplingBaynes, and two Cambridge undergraduates in flannels, and a Doctorsomething or other from London. There was also the Hon. Charles Muskett,Lord Pottinger's cousin and estate agent, in tweeds and very helpful.The ladies included Mrs. Raff, the well-known fashion writer, in awonderful costume, the anonymous doctor's wife, three or fourneighbouring mothers with an undistinguished daughter or so, and twoquiet-mannered middle-aged ladies, whose names Marjorie could not catch,and whom Lady Petchworth, in that well-controlled voice of hers,addressed as Kate and Julia, and seemed on the whole disposed to treatas humorous. There was also Fraulein Schmidt in charge of LadyPetchworth's three tall and already abundant children, Prunella,Prudence, and Mary, and a young, newly-married couple of cousins, whoaddressed each other in soft undertones and sat apart. These were thechief items that became distinctive in Marjorie's survey; but there werea number of other people who seemed to come and go, split up, fuse,change their appearance slightly, and behave in the way inadequatelyapprehended people do behave on these occasions.

  Marjorie very speedily found her disposition to take a detached andamused view of the entertainment in conflict with more urgent demands.From the outset Mr. Magnet loomed upon her--he loomed nearer and nearer.He turned his eye upon her as she came up to the wealthy expanse ofLady Petchworth's presence, like some sort of obsolescent iron-cladturning a dull-grey, respectful, loving searchlight upon a fugitivetorpedo boat, and thereafter he seemed to her to be looking at herwithout intermission, relentlessly, and urging himself towards her. Shewished he wouldn't. She hadn't at all thought he would on this occasion.

  At first she r
elied upon her natural powers of evasion, and the presenceof a large company. Then gradually it became apparent that LadyPetchworth and her mother, yes--and the party generally, and the gardensand the weather and the stars in their courses were of a mind toco-operate in giving opportunity for Mr. Magnet's unmistakableintentions.

  And Marjorie with that instability of her sex which has been a theme formasculine humour in all ages, suddenly and with an extraordinaryviolence didn't want to make up her mind about Mr. Magnet. She didn'twant to accept him; and as distinctly she didn't want to refuse him. Shedidn't even want to be thought about as making up her mind abouthim--which was, so to speak, an enlargement of her previousindisposition. She didn't even want to seem to avoid him, or to bethinking about him, or aware of his existence.

  After the greeting of Lady Petchworth she had succeeded very clumsily innot seeing Mr. Magnet, and had addressed herself to Mr. Wintersloan, whowas standing a little apart, looking under his hand, with one eye shut,at the view between the tree stems towards Buryhamstreet. He told herthat he thought he had found something "pooty" that hadn't been done,and she did her best to share his artistic interests with a vivid senseof Mr. Magnet's tentative incessant approach behind her.

  He joined them, and she made a desperate attempt to entangle Mr.Wintersloan in a three-cornered talk in vain. He turned away at thefirst possible opportunity, and left her to an embarrassed andeloquently silent _tete-a-tete_. Mr. Magnet's professional wit haddeserted him. "It's nice to see you again," he said after an immenseinterval. "Shall we go and look at the aviary?"

  "I hate to see birds in cages," said Marjorie, "and it's frightfullyjolly just here. Do you think Mr. Wintersloan will paint this? He doespaint, doesn't he?"

  "I know him best in black and white," said Mr. Magnet.

  Marjorie embarked on entirely insincere praises of Mr. Wintersloan'smanner and personal effect; Magnet replied tepidly, with an air ofreserving himself to grapple with the first conversational opportunity.

  "It's a splendid day for tennis," said Marjorie. "I think I shall playtennis all the afternoon."

  "I don't play well enough for this publicity."

  "It's glorious exercise," said Marjorie. "Almost as good as dancing,"and she decided to stick to that resolution. "I never lose a chance oftennis if I can help it."

  She glanced round and detected a widening space between themselves andthe next adjacent group.

  "They're looking at the goldfish," she said. "Let us join them."

  Everyone moved away as they came up to the little round pond, but thenMarjorie had luck, and captured Prunella, and got her to hold hands andtalk, until Fraulein Schmidt called the child away. And then Marjorieforced Mr. Magnet to introduce her to Mr. Bunford Paradise. She had abright idea of sitting between Prunella and Mary at the lunch table,but a higher providence had assigned her to a seat at the end betweenJulia--or was it Kate?--and Mr. Magnet. However, one of theundergraduates was opposite, and she saved herself from undertones bytalking across to him boldly about Newnham, though she hadn't an idea ofhis name or college. From that she came to tennis. To her inflamedimagination he behaved as if she was under a Taboo, but she wasdesperate, and had pledged him and his friend to a foursome before themeal was over.

  "Don't _you_ play?" said the undergraduate to Mr. Magnet.

  "Very little," said Mr. Magnet. "Very little--"

  At the end of an hour she was conspicuously and publicly shepherded fromthe tennis court by Mrs. Pope.

  "Other people want to play," said her mother in a clear littleundertone.

  Mr. Magnet fielded her neatly as she came off the court.

  "You play tennis like--a wild bird," he said, taking possession of her.

  Only Marjorie's entire freedom from Irish blood saved him from avindictive repartee.

  Sec. 3

  "Shall we go and look at the aviary?" said Mr. Magnet, reverting to afavourite idea of his, and then remembered she did not like to see cagedbirds.

  "Perhaps we might see the Water Garden?" he said. "The Water Garden isreally very delightful indeed--anyhow. You ought to see that."

  On the spur of the moment, Marjorie could think of no objection to theWater Garden, and he led her off.

  "I often think of that jolly walk we had last summer," said Mr. Magnet,"and how you talked about your work at Oxbridge."

  Marjorie fell into a sudden rapture of admiration for a butterfly.

  Twice more was Mr. Magnet baffled, and then they came to the little poolof water lilies with its miniature cascade of escape at the head andsource of the Water Garden. "One of Lady Petchworth's great successes,"said Mr. Magnet.

  "I suppose the lotus is like the water-lily," said Marjorie, with nohope of staving off the inevitable----

  She stood very still by the little pool, and in spite of her pensiveregard of the floating blossoms, stiffly and intensely aware of hisrelentless regard.

  "Marjorie," came his voice at last, strangely softened. "There issomething I want to say to you."

  She made no reply.

  "Ever since we met last summer----"

  A clear cold little resolution not to stand this, had established itselfin Marjorie's mind. If she must decide, she _would_ decide. He hadbrought it upon himself.

  "Marjorie," said Mr. Magnet, "I love you."

  She lifted a clear unhesitating eye to his face. "I'm sorry, Mr.Magnet," she said.

  "I wanted to ask you to marry me," he said.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she repeated.

  They looked at one another. She felt a sort of scared exultation athaving done it; her mother might say what she liked.

  "I love you very much," he said, at a loss.

  "I'm sorry," she repeated obstinately.

  "I thought you cared for me a little."

  She left that unanswered. She had a curious feeling that there was nogetting away from this splashing, babbling pool, that she was fixedthere until Mr. Magnet chose to release her, and that he didn't mean torelease her yet. In which case she would go on refusing.

  "I'm disappointed," he said.

  Marjorie could only think that she was sorry again, but as she hadalready said that three times, she remained awkwardly silent.

  "Is it because----" he began and stopped.

  "It isn't because of anything. Please let's go back to the others, Mr.Magnet. I'm sorry if I'm disappointing."

  And by a great effort she turned about.

  Mr. Magnet remained regarding her--I can only compare it to thesearching preliminary gaze of an artistic photographer. For a crucialminute in his life Marjorie hated him. "I don't understand," he said atlast.

  Then with a sort of naturalness that ought to have touched her he said:"Is it possible, Marjorie--that I might hope?--that I have beeninopportune?"

  She answered at once with absolute conviction.

  "I don't think so, Mr. Magnet."

  "I'm sorry," he said, "to have bothered you."

  "_I'm_ sorry," said Marjorie.

  A long silence followed.

  "I'm sorry too," he said.

  They said no more, but began to retrace their steps. It was over.Abruptly, Mr. Magnet's bearing had become despondent--conspicuouslydespondent. "I had hoped," he said, and sighed.

  With a thrill of horror Marjorie perceived he meant to _look_ rejected,let every one see he had been rejected--after encouragement.

  What would they think? How would they look? What conceivably might theynot say? Something of the importance of the thing she had done, becamemanifest to her. She felt first intimations of regret. They would all bewatching, Mother, Daffy, Lady Petchworth. She would reappear with thisvictim visibly suffering beside her. What could she say to straightenhis back and lift his chin? She could think of nothing. Ahead at the endof the shaded path she could see the copious white form, the agitatedfair wig and red sunshade of Lady Petchworth----

  Sec. 4

  Mrs. Pope's eye was relentless; nothing seemed hidden from it; nothingindeed was hidden fro
m it; Mr. Magnet's back was diagrammatic. Marjoriewas a little flushed and bright-eyed, and professed herself eager, withan unnatural enthusiasm, to play golf-croquet. It was eloquentlysignificant that Mr. Magnet did not share her eagerness, declined toplay, and yet when she had started with the Rev. Jopling Baynes aspartner, stood regarding the game with a sort of tender melancholy fromthe shade of the big chestnut-tree.

  Mrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively.

  "You're not playing, Mr. Magnet," she remarked.

  "I'm a looker-on, this time," he said with a sigh.

  "Marjorie's winning, I think," said Mrs. Pope.

  He made no answer for some seconds.

  "She looks so charming in that blue dress," he remarked at last, andsighed from the lowest deeps.

  "That bird's-egg blue suits her," said Mrs. Pope, ignoring the sigh."She's clever in her girlish way, she chooses all her owndresses,--colours, material, everything."

  (And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked it, she concealed herbills.)

  There came a still longer interval, which Mrs. Pope ended with theslightest of shivers. She perceived Mr. Magnet was heavy for sympathyand ripe to confide. "I think," she said, "it's a little cool here.Shall we walk to the Water Garden, and see if there are any whitelilies?"

  "There are," said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, "and they are verybeautiful--_quite_ beautiful."

  He turned to the path along which he had so recently led Marjorie.

  He glanced back as they went along between Lady Petchworth's herbaceousborder and the poppy beds. "She's so full of life," he said, with a sighin his voice.

  Mrs. Pope knew she must keep silent.

  "I asked her to marry me this afternoon," Mr. Magnet blurted out. "Icouldn't help it."

  Mrs. Pope made her silence very impressive.

  "I know I ought not to have done so without consulting you"--he went onlamely; "I'm very much in love with her. It's----It's done no harm."

  Mrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. "I had no idea, Mr. Magnet.... Youknow she is very young. Twenty. A mother----"

  "I know," said Magnet. "I can quite understand. But I've done no harm.She refused me. I shall go away to-morrow. Go right away for ever....I'm sorry."

  Another long silence.

  "To me, of course, she's just a child," Mrs. Pope said at last. "She_is_ only a child, Mr. Magnet. She could have had no idea that anythingof the sort was in your mind----"

  Her words floated away into the stillness.

  For a time they said no more. The lilies came into sight, dreaming undera rich green shade on a limpid pool of brown water, water that slept andbrimmed over as it were, unconsciously into a cool splash and ripple ofescape. "How beautiful!" cried Mrs. Pope, for a moment genuine.

  "I spoke to her here," said Mr. Magnet.

  The fountains of his confidence were unloosed.

  "Now I've spoken to you about it, Mrs. Pope," he said, "I can tell youjust how I--oh, it's the only word--adore her. She seems so sweet andeasy--so graceful----"

  Mrs. Pope turned on him abruptly, and grasped his hands; she was deeplymoved. "I can't tell you," she said, "what it means to a mother to hearsuch things----"

  Words failed her, and for some moments they engaged in a mutualpressure.

  "Ah!" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish it was the mother he had todeal with.

  "Are you sure, Mr. Magnet," Mrs. Pope went on as their emotionssubsided, "that she really meant what she said? Girls are very strangecreatures----"

  "She seems so clear and positive."

  "Her manner is always clear and positive."

  "Yes. I know."

  "I know she _has_ cared for you."

  "No!"

  "A mother sees. When your name used to be mentioned----. But these arenot things to talk about. There is something--something sacred----"

  "Yes," he said. "Yes. Only----Of course, one thing----"

  Mrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of water-lilies.

  "I wondered," said Mr. Magnet, and paused again.

  Then, almost breathlessly, "I wondered if there should be perhaps--someone else?"

  She shook her head slowly. "I should know," she said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "I know I should know."

  "Perhaps recently?"

  "I am sure I should know. A mother's intuition----"

  Memories possessed her for awhile. "A girl of twenty is a mass ofcontradictions. I can remember myself as if it was yesterday. Often onesays no, or yes--out of sheer nervousness.... I am sure there is noother attachment----"

  It occurred to her that she had said enough. "What a dignity that oldgold-fish has!" she remarked. "He waves his tail--as if he were a beadlewaving little boys out of church."

  Sec. 5

  Mrs. Pope astonished Marjorie by saying nothing about the all tooobvious event of the day for some time, but her manner to her seconddaughter on their way home was strangely gentle. It was as if she hadrealized for the first time that regret and unhappiness might come intothat young life. After supper, however, she spoke. They had all gone outjust before the children went to bed to look for the new moon; Daffy wasshowing the pseudo-twins the old moon in the new moon's arms, andMarjorie found herself standing by her mother's side. "I hope dear,"said Mrs. Pope, "that it's all for the best--and that you've donewisely, dear."

  Marjorie was astonished and moved by her mother's tone.

  "It's so difficult to know what _is_ for the best," Mrs. Pope went on.

  "I had to do--as I did," said Marjorie.

  "I only hope you may never find you have made a Great Mistake, dear. Hecares for you very, very much."

  "Oh! we see it now!" cried Rom, "we see it now! Mummy, have you seen it?Like a little old round ghost being nursed!"

  When Marjorie said "Good-night," Mrs. Pope kissed her with anunaccustomed effusion.

  It occurred to Marjorie that after all her mother had no selfish end toserve in this affair.

  Sec. 6

  The idea that perhaps after all she had made a Great Mistake, theMistake of her Life it might be, was quite firmly established in itsplace among all the other ideas in Marjorie's mind by the time she haddressed next morning. Subsequent events greatly intensified thispersuasion. A pair of new stockings she had trusted sprang a bad hole asshe put them on. She found two unmistakable bills from Oxbridge besideher plate, and her father was "horrid" at breakfast.

  Her father, it appeared, had bought the ordinary shares of a Cubanrailway very extensively, on the distinct understanding that they wouldimprove. In a decent universe, with a proper respect for meritoriousgentlemen, these shares would have improved accordingly, but the weatherhad seen fit to shatter the wisdom of Mr. Pope altogether. The sugarcrop had collapsed, the bears were at work, and every morning now sawhis nominal capital diminished by a dozen pounds or so. I do not knowwhat Mr. Pope would have done if he had not had his family to help himbear his trouble. As it was he relieved his tension by sending Theodorefrom the table for dropping a knife, telling Rom when she turned theplate round to pick the largest banana that she hadn't the self-respectof a child of five, and remarking sharply from behind the _Times_ whenDaffy asked Marjorie if she was going to sketch: "Oh, for God's sakedon't _whisper!_" Then when Mrs. Pope came round the table and tried totake his coffee cup softly to refill it without troubling him, hesnatched at it, wrenched it roughly out of her hand, and said with hismouth full, and strangely in the manner of a snarling beast: "No' readyyet. Half foo'."

  Marjorie wanted to know why every one didn't get up and leave the room.She glanced at her mother and came near to speaking.

  And very soon she would have to come home and live in the midst of thisagain--indefinitely!

  After breakfast she went to the tumbledown summer-house by the duckpond,and contemplated the bills she had not dared to open at table. One wasboots, nearly three pounds, the other books, over seven. "I _know_that's wrong," said Marjorie, and rested her chin on her hand, knittedher brows and tried
to remember the details of orders and deliveries....

  Marjorie had fallen into the net prepared for our sons and daughters bythe delicate modesty of the Oxbridge authorities in money matters, andshe was, for her circumstances, rather heavily in debt. But I must admitthat in Marjorie's nature the Oxbridge conditions had found an eager andadventurous streak that rendered her particularly apt to thesetemptations.

  I doubt if reticence is really a virtue in a teacher. But this is afearful world, and the majority of those who instruct our youth have thepainful sensitiveness of the cloistered soul to this spirit of terror inthings. The young need particularly to be told truthfully and fully allwe know of three fundamental things: the first of which is God, thenext their duty towards their neighbours in the matter of work andmoney, and the third Sex. These things, and the adequate why of them,and some sort of adequate how, make all that matters in education. Butall three are obscure and deeply moving topics, topics for which thedonnish mind has a kind of special ineptitude, and which it evades withthe utmost skill and delicacy. The middle part of this evaded triad wasnow being taken up in Marjorie's case by the Oxbridge tradespeople.

  The Oxbridge shopkeeper is peculiar among shopkeepers in the fact thathe has to do very largely with shy and immature customers with anextreme and distinctive ignorance of most commercial things. They arefor the most part short of cash, but with vague and often largeprobabilities of credit behind them, for most people, even quitestraitened people, will pull their sons and daughters out of altogetherunreasonable debts at the end of their university career; and so theOxbridge shopkeeper becomes a sort of propagandist of the charms andadvantages of insolvency. Alone among retailers he dislikes the sight ofcash, declines it, affects to regard it as a coarse ignorant truncationof a budding relationship, begs to be permitted to wait. So theyoungster just up from home discovers that money may stay in the pocket,be used for cab and train fares and light refreshments; all the rest maybe had for the asking. Marjorie, with her innate hunger for good finethings, with her quite insufficient pocket-money, and the irregularhabits of expenditure a spasmodically financed, hard-up home is apt toengender, fell very readily into this new, delightful custom of havingit put down (whatever it happened to be). She had all sorts of thingsput down. She and the elder Carmel girl used to go shopping together,having things put down. She brightened her rooms with colour-prints andengravings, got herself pretty and becoming clothes, acquired a fitteddressing-bag already noted in this story, and one or two other triflesof the sort, revised her foot-wear, created a very nice littlebookshelf, and although at times she felt a little astonished and scaredat herself, resolutely refused to estimate the total of accumulated debtshe had attained. Indeed until the bills came in it was impossible to dothat, because, following the splendid example of the Carmel girl, shehadn't even inquired the price of quite a number of things....

  She didn't dare think now of the total. She lied even to herself aboutthat. She had fixed on fifty pounds as the unendurable maximum. "It isless than fifty pounds," she said, and added: "_must_ be." But somethingin her below the threshold of consciousness knew that it was more.

  And now she was in her third year, and the Oxbridge tradesman, generallysatisfied with the dimensions of her account, and no longer anxious tosee it grow, was displaying the less obsequious side of his character.He wrote remarks at the bottom of his account, remarks about settlement,about having a bill to meet, about having something to go on with. Heasked her to give the matter her "early attention." She had adisagreeable persuasion that if she wanted many more things anywhere shewould have to pay ready money for them. She was particularly short ofstockings. She had overlooked stockings recently.

  Daffy, unfortunately, was also short of stockings.

  And now, back with her family again, everything conspired to remindMarjorie of the old stringent habits from which she had had sodelightful an interlude. She saw Daffy eye her possessions, reflect.This morning something of the awfulness of her position came to her....

  At Oxbridge she had made rather a joke of her debts.

  "I'd _swear_ I haven't had three pairs of house shoes," said Marjorie."But what can one do?"

  And about the whole position the question was, "what can one do?"

  She proceeded with tense nervous movements to tear these two distastefuldemands into very minute pieces. Then she collected them all together inthe hollow of her hand, and buried them in the loose mould in a cornerof the summer-house.

  "Madge," said Theodore, appearing in the sunshine of the doorway. "AuntPlessington's coming! She's sent a wire. Someone's got to meet her bythe twelve-forty train."

  Sec. 7

  Aunt Plessington's descent was due to her sudden discovery thatBuryhamstreet was in close proximity to Summerhay Park, indeed onlythree miles away. She had promised a lecture on her movement for LadyPetchworth's village room in Summerhay, and she found that with a slightreadjustment of dates she could combine this engagement with herpromised visit to her husband's sister, and an evening or so ofinfluence for her little Madge. So she had sent Hubert to telegraph atonce, and "here," she said triumphantly on the platform, after a hardkiss at Marjorie's cheek, "we are again."

  There, at any rate, she was, and Uncle Hubert was up the platform seeingafter the luggage, in his small anxious way.

  Aunt Plessington was a tall lean woman, with firm features, a highcolour and a bright eye, who wore hats to show she despised them, andcarefully dishevelled hair. Her dress was always good, but extremely oldand grubby, and she commanded respect chiefly by her voice. Her voicewas the true governing-class voice, a strangulated contralto, abundantand authoritative; it made everything she said clear and important, sothat if she said it was a fine morning it was like leaded print in the_Times_, and she had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietlyand with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoketasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.

  Uncle Hubert was a less distinguished figure, and just a littlereminiscent of the small attached husbands one finds among the lowercrustacea: he was much shorter and rounder than his wife, and if he hadbeen left to himself, he would probably have been comfortably fat in hisquiet little way. But Aunt Plessington had made him a Haigite, which isone of the fiercer kinds of hygienist, just in the nick of time. He hadround shoulders, a large nose, and glasses that made him lookastonished--and she said he had a great gift for practical things, andmade him see after everything in that line while she did the lecturing.His directions to the porter finished, he came up to his niece. "Hello,Marjorie!" he said, in a peculiar voice that sounded as though his mouthwas full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), "how's the FirstClass?"

  "A second's good enough for me, Uncle Hubert," said Marjorie, and askedif they would rather walk or go in the donkey cart, which was waitingoutside with Daffy. Aunt Plessington, with an air of great _bonhomie_said she'd ride in the donkey cart, and they did. But no pseudo-twins orTheodore came to meet this arrival, as both uncle and aunt had a way ofasking how the lessons were getting on that they found extremelydisagreeable. Also, their aunt measured them, and incited them with loudencouraging noises to grow one against the other in an urgent,disturbing fashion.

  Aunt Plessington's being was consumed by thoughts of getting on. She waslike Bernard Shaw's life force, and she really did not seem to thinkthere was anything in existence but shoving. She had no idea what a larklife can be, and occasionally how beautiful it can be when you do notshove, if only, which becomes increasingly hard each year, you can getaway from the shovers. She was one of an energetic family of eightsisters who had maintained themselves against a mutual pressure by theuse of their elbows from the cradle. They had all married against eachother, all sorts of people; two had driven their husbands intobishoprics and made quite typical bishop's wives, one got a leadingbarrister, one a high war-office official, and one a rich Jew, and AuntPlessington, after spending some years in just missing a rich and onlyslightly demented baronet,
had pounced--it's the only word for it--onUncle Hubert. "A woman is nothing without a husband," she said, and tookhim. He was a fairly comfortable Oxford don in his furtive way, andbringing him out and using him as a basis, she specialized inintellectual philanthropy and evolved her Movement. It was quiteremarkable how rapidly she overhauled her sisters again.

  What the Movement was, varied considerably from time to time, but it wasalways aggressively beneficial towards the lower strata of thecommunity. Among its central ideas was her belief that these lowerstrata can no more be trusted to eat than they can to drink, and thatthe licensing monopoly which has made the poor man's beer thick,lukewarm and discreditable, and so greatly minimized its consumption,should be extended to the solid side of his dietary. She wanted to placeconsiderable restrictions upon the sale of all sorts of meat, upongroceries and the less hygienic and more palatable forms of bread (whichdo not sufficiently stimulate the coatings of the stomach), to increasethe present difficulties in the way of tobacco purchasers, and to put anend to that wanton and deleterious consumption of sweets which has sobad an effect upon the enamel of the teeth of the younger generation.Closely interwoven with these proposals was an adoption of the principleof the East Purblow Experiment, the principle of Payment in Kind. Shewas quite in agreement with Mr. Pope that poor people, when they hadmoney, frittered it away, and so she proposed very extensive changes inthe Truck Act, which could enable employers, under suitable safeguards,and with the advice of a small body of spinster inspectors, to supplyhygienic housing, approved clothing of moral and wholesome sort, variousforms of insurance, edifying rations, cuisine, medical aid andeducational facilities as circumstances seemed to justify, in lieu ofthe wages the employees handled so ill....

  As no people in England will ever admit they belong to the lower strataof society, Aunt Plessington's Movement attracted adherents from everyclass in the community.

  She now, as they drove slowly to the vicarage, recounted toMarjorie--she had the utmost contempt for Daffy because of her irregularteeth and a general lack of progressive activity--the steady growth ofthe Movement, and the increasing respect shown for her and Hubert in theworld of politico-social reform. Some of the meetings she had addressedhad been quite full, various people had made various remarks about her,hostile for the most part and yet insidiously flattering, and everybodyseemed quite glad to come to the little dinners she gave in order, shesaid, to gather social support for her reforms. She had been stayingwith the Mastersteins, who were keenly interested, and after she hadpolished off Lady Petchworth she was to visit Lady Rosenbaum. It was allgoing on swimmingly, these newer English gentry were eager to learn allshe had to teach in the art of breaking in the Anglo-Saxon villagers,and now, how was Marjorie going on, and what was _she_ going to do inthe world?

  Marjorie said she was working for her final.

  "And what then?" asked Aunt Plessington.

  "Not very clear, Aunt, yet."

  "Looking around for something to take up?"

  "Yes, Aunt."

  "Well, you've time yet. And it's just as well to see how the land liesbefore you begin. It saves going back. You'll have to come up to Londonwith me for a little while, and see things, and be seen a little."

  "I should love to."

  "I'll give you a good time," said Aunt Plessington, nodding promisingly."Theodore getting on in school?"

  "He's had his remove."

  "And how's Sydney getting on with the music?"

  "Excellently."

  "And Rom. Rom getting on?"

  Marjorie indicated a more restrained success.

  "And what's Daffy doing?"

  "Oh! _get_ on!" said Daffy and suddenly whacked the donkey rather hard."I beg your pardon, Aunt?"

  "I asked what _you_ were up to, Daffy?"

  "Dusting, Aunt--and the virtues," said Daffy.

  "You ought to find something better than that."

  "Father tells me a lot about the East Purblow Experiment," said Daffyafter a perceptible interval.

  "Ah!" cried Aunt Plessington with a loud encouraging note, but evidentlymaking the best of it, "_that's_ better. Sociological observation."

  "Yes, Aunt," said Daffy, and negotiated a corner with exceptional care.

  Sec. 8

  Mrs. Pope, who had an instinctive disposition to pad when AuntPlessington was about, had secured the presence at lunch of Mr. Magnet(who was after all staying on in Buryhamstreet) and the Rev. JoplingBaynes. Aunt Plessington liked to meet the clergy, and would always ifshe could win them over to an interest in the Movement. She opened themeal with a brisk attack upon him. "Come, Mr. Baynes," she said, "whatdo your people eat here? Hubert and I are making a study of thegluttonous side of village life, and we find that no one knows so muchof that as the vicar--not even the doctor."

  The Reverend Jopling Baynes was a clergyman of the evasive type with aquite distinguished voice. He pursed his lips and made his eyes round."Well, Mrs. Plessington," he said and fingered his glass, "it's theusual dietary. The usual dietary."

  "Too much and too rich, badly cooked and eaten too fast," said AuntPlessington. "And what do you think is the remedy?"

  "We make an Effort," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, "we make an Effort. AHint here, a Word there."

  "Nothing organized?"

  "No," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, and shook his head with a kind ofresignation.

  "We are going to alter all that," said Aunt Plessington briskly, andwent on to expound the Movement and the diverse way in which it might bepossible to control and improve the domestic expenditure of the workingclasses.

  The Rev. Jopling Baynes listened sympathetically across the table andtried to satisfy a healthy appetite with as abstemious an air aspossible while he did so. Aunt Plessington passed rapidly from generalprinciples, to a sketch of the success of the movement, and Hubert, whohad hitherto been busy with his lunch, became audible from behind theexceptionally large floral trophy that concealed him from his wife,bubbling confirmatory details. She was very bright and convincing as shetold of this prominent man met and subdued, that leading antagonistconfuted, and how the Bishops were coming in. She made it clear in herswift way that an intelligent cleric resolved to get on in this world_en route_ for a better one hereafter, might do worse than take up herMovement. And this touched in, she turned her mind to Mr. Magnet.

  (That floral trophy, I should explain, by the by, was exceptionallylarge because of Mrs. Pope's firm conviction that Aunt Plessingtonstarved her husband. Accordingly, she masked him, and so was able toheap second and third helpings upon his plate without Aunt Plessingtondiscovering his lapse. The avidity with which Hubert ate confirmed herworst suspicions and evinced, so far as anything ever did evince, hisgratitude.)

  "Well, Mr. Magnet," she said, "I wish I had your sense of humour."

  "I wish you had," said Mr. Magnet.

  "I should write tracts," said Aunt Plessington.

  "I knew it was good for something," said Mr. Magnet, and Daffy laughedin a tentative way.

  "I mean it," said Aunt Plessington brightly. "Think if we had aDickens--and you are the nearest man alive to Dickens--on the side ofsocial reform to-day!"

  Mr. Magnet's light manner deserted him. "We do what we can, Mrs.Plessington," he said.

  "How much more might be done," said Aunt Plessington, "if humour couldbe organized."

  "Hear, hear!" said Mr. Pope.

  "If all the humorists of England could be induced to laugh at somethingtogether."

  "They do--at times," said Mr. Magnet, but the atmosphere was too seriousfor his light touch.

  "They could laugh it out of existence," said Aunt Plessington.

  It was evident Mr. Magnet was struck by the idea.

  "Of course," he said, "in _Punch_, to which I happen to be an obscureoccasional contributor----"

  Mrs. Pope was understood to protest that he should not say such things.

  "We _do_ remember just what we can do either in the way of advertisingor injury. I don't thin
k you'll find us up against any really _solid_institutions."

  "But do you think, Mr. Magnet, you are sufficiently kind to the New?"Aunt Plessington persisted.

  "I think we are all grateful to _Punch_," said the Rev. Jopling Baynessuddenly and sonorously, "for its steady determination to direct ourmirth into the proper channels. I do not think that any one can accuseits editor of being unmindful of his great responsibilities----"

  Marjorie found it a very interesting conversation.

  She always met her aunt again with a renewal of a kind of admiration.That loud authoritative rudeness, that bold thrusting forward of theMovement until it became the sole criterion of worth or success, thisannihilation by disregard of all that Aunt Plessington wasn't and didn'tand couldn't, always in the intervals seemed too good to be true. Ofcourse this really was the way people got on and made a mark, but shefelt it must be almost as trying to the nerves as aeronautics. Suppose,somewhere up there your engine stopped! How Aunt Plessington dominatedthe table! Marjorie tried not to catch Daffy's eye. Daffy wasunostentatiously keeping things going, watching the mustard, rescuingthe butter, restraining Theodore, and I am afraid not listening verycarefully to Aunt Plessington. The children were marvellously silent andjumpily well-behaved, and Mr. Pope, in a very unusual state of subduedamiability, sat at the end of the table with the East Purblow experimenton the tip of his tongue. He liked Aunt Plessington, and she was goodfor him. They had the same inherent distrust of the intelligence andgood intentions of their fellow creatures, and she had the knack ofmaking him feel that he too was getting on, that she was saying thingson his behalf in influential quarters, and in spite of the almostuniversal conspiracy (based on jealousy) to ignore his stern old-worldvirtues, he might still be able to battle his way to the floor of theHouse of Commons and there deliver himself before he died of a fewsorely needed home-truths about motor cars, decadence and frivolitygenerally....

  Sec. 9

  After lunch Aunt Plessington took her little Madge for an energeticwalk, and showed herself far more observant than the egotism of herconversation at that meal might have led one to suppose. Or perhaps shewas only better informed. Aunt Plessington loved a good hard walk in theafternoon; and if she could get any one else to accompany her, thenHubert stayed at home, and curled up into a ball on a sofa somewhere,and took a little siesta that made him all the brighter for theintellectual activities of the evening. The thought of a young life,new, untarnished, just at the outset, just addressing itself to the taskof getting on, always stimulated her mind extremely, and she talked toMarjorie with a very real and effectual desire to help her to the utmostof her ability.

  She talked of a start in life, and the sort of start she had had. Sheshowed how many people who began with great advantages did not shovesufficiently, and so dropped out of things and weren't seen andmentioned. She defended herself for marrying Hubert, and showed what aclever shoving thing it had been to do. It startled people a little, andmade them realize that here was a woman who wanted something more in aman than a handsome organ-grinder. She made it clear that she thought aclever marriage, if not a startlingly brilliant one, the first duty of agirl. It was a girl's normal gambit. She branched off to the thingssingle women might do, in order to justify this view. She did not thinksingle women could do very much. They might perhaps shove assuffragettes, but even there a husband helped tremendously--if only byrefusing to bail you out. She ran over the cases of a number ofprominent single women.

  "And what," said Aunt Plessington, "do they all amount to? A girl is sohampered and an old maid is so neglected," said Aunt Plessington.

  She paused.

  "Why don't you up and marry Mr. Magnet, Marjorie?" she said, with hermost brilliant flash.

  "It takes two to make a marriage, aunt," said Marjorie after a slighthesitation.

  "My dear child! he worships the ground you tread on!" said AuntPlessington.

  "He's rather--grown up," said Marjorie.

  "Not a bit of it. He's not forty. He's just the age."

  "I'm afraid it's a little impossible."

  "Impossible?"

  "You see I've refused him, aunt."

  "Naturally--the first time! But I wouldn't send him packing the second."

  There was an interval.

  Marjorie decided on a blunt question. "Do you really think, aunt, Ishould do well to marry Mr. Magnet?"

  "He'd give you everything a clever woman needs," said Aunt Plessington."Everything."

  With swift capable touches she indicated the sort of life the futureMrs. Magnet might enjoy. "He's evidently a man who wants helping to aposition," she said. "Of course his farces and things, I'm told, make noend of money, but he's just a crude gift by himself. Money like that isnothing. With a clever wife he might be all sorts of things. Without onehe'll just subside--you know the sort of thing this sort of man does. Arather eccentric humorous house in the country, golf, croquet,horse-riding, rose-growing, queer hats."

  "Isn't that rather what he would like to do, aunt?" said Marjorie.

  "That's not _our_ business, Madge," said Aunt Plessington with humorousemphasis.

  She began to sketch out a different and altogether smarter future forthe fortunate humorist. There would be a house in a good centralposition in London where Marjorie would have bright successful lunchesand dinners, very unpretending and very good, and tempt the clever smartwith the lure of the interestingly clever; there would be a brightlittle country cottage in some pretty accessible place to which Aunt andUncle Plessington and able and influential people generally could beinvited for gaily recreative and yet extremely talkative and helpfulweek-ends. Both places could be made centres of intrigue; conspiraciesfor getting on and helping and exchanging help could be organized,people could be warned against people whose getting-on was undesirable.In the midst of it all, dressed with all the natural wit she had and anenlarging experience, would be Marjorie, shining like a rising planet.It wouldn't be long, if she did things well, before she had permanentofficials and young cabinet ministers mingling with her salad of writersand humorists and the Plessington connexion.

  "Then," said Aunt Plessington with a joyous lift in her voice, "you'llbegin to _weed_ a little."

  For a time the girl's mind resisted her.

  But Marjorie was of the impressionable sex at an impressionable age, andthere was something overwhelming in the undeviating conviction of heraunt, in the clear assurance of her voice, that this life whichinterested her was the real life, the only possible successful life. Theworld reformed itself in Marjorie's fluent mind, until it was all ascheme of influence and effort and ambition and triumphs. Dinner-partiesand receptions, men wearing orders, cabinet ministers more than a littlein love asking her advice, beautiful robes, a great blaze of lights;why! she might be, said Aunt Plessington rising to enthusiasm, "anotherMarcella." The life was not without its adventurous side; it wasn't inany way dull. Aunt Plessington to illustrate that point told amusinganecdotes of how two almost impudent invitations on her part hadsucceeded, and how she had once scored off her elder sister by getting acoveted celebrity through their close family resemblance. "Afteraccepting he couldn't very well refuse because I wasn't somebody else,"she ended gleefully. "So he came--and stayed as long as anybody."

  What else was there for Marjorie to contemplate? If she didn't take thisby no means unattractive line, what was the alternative? Some sort ofemployment after a battle with her father, a parsimonious life, and eventhen the Oxbridge tradesmen and their immortal bills....

  Aunt Plessington was so intent upon her theme that she heeded nothing ofthe delightful little flowers she trampled under foot across the down,nor the jolly squirrel with an artistic temperament who saw fit to givean uninvited opinion upon her personal appearance from the security of abeech-tree in the wood. But Marjorie, noting quite a number of suchthings with the corner of her mind, and being now well under thePlessington sway, wished she had more concentration....

  In the evening after supper the customary ga
mes were suspended, and Mr.and Mrs. Plessington talked about getting on, and work and efficiencygenerally, and explained how so-and-so had spoilt his chances in life,and why so-and-so was sure to achieve nothing, and how this man ate toomuch and that man drank too much, and on the contrary what promising andcapable people the latest adherents of and subscribers to the Movementwere, until two glasses of hot water came--Aunt Plessington had beentold it was good for her digestion and she thought it just as well thatHubert should have some too--and it was time for every one to go to bed.

  Sec. 10

  Next morning an atmosphere of getting on and strenuosity generallyprevailed throughout the vicarage. The Plessingtons were preparing amemorandum on their movement for the "Reformer's Year Book," every wordwas of importance and might win or lose adherents and subscribers, andthey secured the undisturbed possession of the drawing-room, from whichthe higher notes of Aunt Plessington's voice explaining the whole thingto Hubert, who had to write it out, reached, a spur to effort, intoevery part of the house.

  Their influence touched every one.

  Marjorie, struck by the idea that she was not perhaps getting on atOxbridge so fast as she ought to do, went into the summer-house withMarshall's "Principles of Economics," read for two hours, and did notthink about her bills for more than a quarter of the time. Rom, who hadalready got up early and read through about a third of "Aurora Leigh,"now set herself with dogged determination to finish that great poem. Sydpractised an extra ten minutes--for Aunt Plessington didn't mindpractice so long as there wasn't a tune. Mrs. Pope went into the kitchenand made a long-needed fuss about the waste of rice. Mr. Pope began thepamphlet he had had in contemplation for some time upon the advantagesto public order of Payment in Kind. Theodore, who had washed behind hisears and laced his boots in all the holes, went into the yard beforebreakfast and hit a tennis ball against the wall and back, five hundredand twenty-two times--a record. He would have resumed this afterbreakfast, but his father came round the corner of the house with a penin his mouth, and asked him indistinctly, but fiercely, what the _devil_he was doing. So he went away, and after a fretful interval set himselfto revise his Latin irregular verbs. By twelve he had done wonders.

  Later in the day the widening circle of aggressive urgency reached thekitchen, and at two the cook gave notice in order, she said, to betterherself.

  Lunch, unconscious of this impending shadow, was characterized by avirtuous cheerfulness, and Aunt Plessington told in detail how her sevenand twenty nephews and nieces, the children of her various sisters, wereall getting on. On the whole, they were not getting on so brilliantly asthey might have done (which indeed is apt to be the case with thechildren of people who have loved not well but too wisely), and it wasborne in upon the mind of the respectfully listening Marjorie that, toborrow an easy colloquialism of her aunt's, she might "take the shineout of the lot of them" with a very little zeal and effort--and ofcourse Mr. Magnet.

  The lecture in the evening at Summerhay was a great success.

  The chair was taken by the Rev. Jopling Baynes, Lady Petchworth wasenthroned behind the table, Hubert was in charge of his wife's notes--ifnotes should be needed--and Mr. Pope, expectant of an invitation at theend to say a few words about the East Purblow experiment, also occupieda chair on the platform. Lady Petchworth, with her abundant soft blondhair, brightly blond still in spite of her fifty-five years, herdelicate features, her plump hands, her numerous chins and her entirelyinaudible voice, made a pleasing contrast with Aunt Plessington'sresolute personality. She had perhaps an even greater assurance ofauthority, but it was a quiet assurance; you felt that she knew that ifshe spoke in her sleep she would be obeyed, that it was quiteunnecessary to make herself heard. The two women, indeed, the one soassertive, the other so established, were at the opposite poles ofauthoritative British womanhood, and harmonized charmingly. The littleroom struck the note of a well-regulated brightness at every point, ithad been decorated in a Keltic but entirely respectful style by one ofLady Petchworth's artistic discoveries, it was lit by paraffin lampsthat smelt hardly at all, and it was gay with colour prints illustratingthe growth of the British Empire from the battle of Ethandune to thesurrender of Cronje. The hall was fairly full. Few could afford toabsent themselves from these brightening occasions, but there was atendency on the part of the younger and the less thoughtful section ofthe village manhood to accumulate at the extreme back and rumble in whatappeared to be a slightly ironical spirit, so far as it had any spirit,with its feet.

  The Rev. Jopling Baynes opened proceedings with a few well-chosenremarks, in which he complimented every one present either singly orcollectively according to their rank and importance, and then AuntPlessington came forward to the centre of the platform amidst a hecticflush of applause, and said "Haw!" in a loud clear ringing tone.

  She spoke without resorting to the notes in Hubert's little fist, veryfreely and easily. Her strangulated contralto went into every corner ofthe room and positively seemed to look for and challenge inattentiveauditors. She had come over, she said, and she had been very glad tocome over and talk to them that night, because it meant not only seeingthem but meeting her very dear delightful friend Lady Petchworth (loudapplause) and staying for a day or so with her brother-in-law Mr. Pope(unsupported outburst of applause from Mr. Magnet), to whom she andsocial reform generally owed so much. She had come to talk to them thatnight about the National Good Habits Movement, which was attracting somuch attention and which bore so closely on our National Life andCharacter; she happened to be--here Aunt Plessington smiled as shespoke--a humble person connected with that movement, just a mere womanconnected with it; she was going to explain to them as well as she couldin her womanly way and in the time at her disposal just what it was andjust what it was for, and just what means it adopted and just what endsit had in view. Well, they all knew what Habits were, and that therewere Good Habits and Bad Habits, and she supposed that the differencebetween a good man and a bad man was just that the good man had goodhabits and the bad one had bad habits. Everybody she supposed wanted toget on. If a man had good habits he got on, and if he had bad habits hedidn't get on, and she supposed it was the same with a country, if itspeople had good habits they got on, and if its people had bad habitsthey didn't get on. For her own part she and her husband (Hubert gave alittle self-conscious jump) had always cultivated good habits, and shehad to thank him with all her heart for his help in doing so. (Applausefrom the front seats.) Now, the whole idea of her movement was to ask,how can we raise the standard of the national habits? how can we get ridof bad habits and cultivate good ones?... (Here there was a slightinterruption due to some one being suddenly pushed off the end of a format the back, and coming to the floor with audible violence, after whicha choked and obstructed tittering continued intermittently for sometime.)

  Some of her audience, she remarked, had not yet acquired the habit ofsitting still.

  (Laughter, and a coarse vulgar voice: "Good old Billy Punt!")

  Well, to resume, she and her husband had made a special and carefulstudy of habits; they had consulted all sorts of people and collectedall sorts of statistics, in fact they had devoted themselves to thisquestion, and the conclusion to which they came was this, that GoodHabits were acquired by Training and Bad Habits came from neglect andcarelessness and leaving people, who weren't fit for such freedom, torun about and do just whatever they liked. And so, she went on with anote of complete demonstration, the problem resolved itself into thequestion of how far they could get more Training into the national life,and how they could check extravagant and unruly and wasteful and unwiseways of living. (Hear, hear! from Mr. Pope.) And this was the problemshe and her husband had set themselves to solve.

  (Scuffle, and a boy's voice at the back, saying: "Oh, _shut_ it, Nuts!SHUT it!")

  Well, she and her husband had worked the thing out, and they had come tothe conclusion that what was the matter with the great mass of Englishpeople was first that they had rather too much loose money, and s
econdlythat they had rather too much loose time. (A voice: "What O!" and theRev. Jopling Baynes suddenly extended his neck, knitted his brows, andbecame observant of the interrupter.) She did not say they had too muchmoney (a second voice: "Not Arf!"), but too much _loose_ money. She didnot say they had too much time but too much loose time, that is to say,they had money and time they did not know how to spend properly. And sothey got into mischief. A great number of people in this country, shemaintained, and this was especially true of the lower classes, did notknow how to spend either money or time; they bought themselves wastefulthings and injurious things, and they frittered away their hours in allsorts of foolish, unprofitable ways. And, after the most careful andscientific study of this problem, she and her husband had come to theconclusion that two main principles must underlie any remedial measuresthat were attempted, the first of which was the Principle of Payment inKind, which had already had so interesting a trial at the great carriageworks of East Purblow, and the second, the Principle of ContinuousOccupation, which had been recognized long ago in popular wisdom by thatadmirable proverb--or rather quotation--she believed it was a quotation,though she gave, she feared, very little time to poetry ("Betteremployed," from Mr. Pope)--

  "Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do."

  (Irrepressible outbreak of wild and sustained applause from the backseats, and in a sudden lull a female voice asking in a flattened,thwarted tone: "Ain't there to be no lantern then?")

  The lecturer went on to explain what was meant by either member of whatperhaps they would permit her to call this double-barrelled socialremedy.

  It was an admirable piece of lucid exposition. Slowly the picture of abetter, happier, more disciplined England grew upon the minds of themeeting. First she showed the new sort of employer her movement wouldevoke, an employer paternal, philanthropic, vaguely responsible for thesocial order of all his dependants. (Lady Petchworth was seen to nod herhead slowly at this.) Only in the last resort, and when he was satisfiedthat his worker and his worker's family were properly housed,hygienically clothed and fed, attending suitable courses of instructionand free from any vicious inclinations, would he pay wages in cash. Inthe discharge of the duties of payment he would have the assistance ofexpert advice, and the stimulus of voluntary inspectors of his ownclass. He would be the natural clan-master, the captain and leader,adviser and caretaker of his banded employees. Responsibility wouldstimulate him, and if responsibility did not stimulate him, inspectors(both men and women inspectors) would. The worker, on the other hand,would be enormously more healthy and efficient under the new regime. Hishome, designed by qualified and officially recognized architects, wouldbe prettier as well as more convenient and elevating to his taste, hischildren admirably trained and dressed in the new and more beautifulclothing with which Lady Petchworth (applause) had done so much to makethem familiar, his vital statistics compared with current results wouldbe astonishingly good, his mind free from any anxiety but the properanxiety of a man in his position, to get his work done properly and earnrecognition from those competent and duly authorized to judge it. Of allthis she spoke with the inspiring note of absolute conviction. All thiswould follow Payment in Kind and Continuous Occupation as days followsunrise. And there would always,--and here Aunt Plessington's voiceseemed to brighten--be something for the worker to get on with,something for him to do; lectures, classes, reading-rooms, improvingentertainments. His time would be filled. The proper authorities wouldsee that it was filled--and filled in the right way. Never for a momentneed he be bored. He would never have an excuse for being bored. Thatwas the second great idea, the complementary idea to the first. "Andhere it is," she said, turning a large encouraging smile on LadyPetchworth, "that the work of a National Theatre, instructive,stimulating, well regulated, and morally sustaining, would come in." Hewouldn't, of course, be _compelled_ to go, but there would be his seat,part of his payment in kind, and the public-house would be shut, mostother temptations would be removed....

  The lecture reached its end at last with only one other interruption.Some would-be humorist suddenly inquired, _a propos_ of nothing: "What'sthe fare to America, Billy?" and a voice, presumably Billy's, answeredhim: "Mor'n _you'll_ ev 'av in _you'_ pocket."

  The Rev. Jopling Baynes, before he called upon Mr. Pope for his promisedutterance about East Purblow, could not refrain from pointing out howsilly "in every sense of the word" these wanton interruptions were.What, he asked, had English social reform to do with the fare toAmerica?--and having roused the meeting to an alert silence by thelength of his pause, answered in a voice of ringing contempt:"Nothing--_whatsoever_." Then Mr. Pope made his few remarks about EastPurblow with the ease and finish that comes from long practice; much, hesaid, had to be omitted "in view of" the restricted time at hisdisposal, but he did not grudge that, the time had been better filled.("No, no," from Aunt Plessington.) Yes, yes,--by the lucid anddelightful lecture they had all enjoyed, and he not least among them.(Applause.)...

  Sec. 11

  They came out into a luminous blue night, with a crescent young moonhigh overhead. It was so fine that the Popes and the Plessingtons andMr. Magnet declined Lady Petchworth's proffered car, and walked back toBuryhamstreet across the park through a sleeping pallid cornfield, andalong by the edge of the pine woods. Mr. Pope would have liked to walkwith Mr. Magnet and explain all that the pressure on his time had causedhim to omit from his speech, and why it was he had seen fit to omit thispart and include that. Some occult power, however, baffled thisintention, and he found himself going home in the company of hisbrother-in-law and Daffy, with Aunt Plessington and his wife like abarrier between him and his desire. Marjorie, on the other hand, foundMr. Magnet's proximity inevitable. They fell a little behind and weretogether again for the first time since her refusal.

  He behaved, she thought, with very great restraint, and indeed he lefther a little doubtful on that occasion whether he had not decided totake her decision as final. He talked chiefly about the lecture, whichhad impressed him very deeply. Mrs. Plessington, he said, was sosplendid--made him feel trivial. He felt stirred up by her, wanted tohelp in this social work, this picking up of helpless people from themuddle in which they wallowed.

  He seemed not only extraordinarily modest but extraordinarily gentlethat night, and the warm moonshine gave his face a shadowed earnestnessit lacked in more emphatic lights. She felt the profound change in herfeelings towards him that had followed her rejection of him. It hadcleared away his effect of oppression upon her. She had no longer anysense of entanglement and pursuit, and all the virtues his courtship hadobscured shone clear again. He was kindly, he was patient--and she feltsomething about him a woman is said always to respect, he gave her animpression of ability. After all, he could banish the trouble thatcrushed and overwhelmed her with a movement of his little finger. Of allher load of debt he could earn the payment in a day.

  "Your aunt goes to-morrow?" he said.

  Marjorie admitted it.

  "I wish I could talk to her more. She's so inspiring."

  "You know of our little excursion for Friday?" he asked after a pause.

  She had not heard. Friday was Theodore's birthday; she knew it only toowell because she had had to part with her stamp collection--which veryluckily had chanced to get packed and come to Buryhamstreet--to meet itsdemand. Mr. Magnet explained he had thought it might be fun to give apicnic in honour of the anniversary.

  "How jolly of you!" said Marjorie.

  "There's a pretty bit of river between Wamping and Friston Hanger--I'vewanted you to see it for a long time, and Friston Hanger church has theprettiest view. The tower gets the bend of the river."

  He told her all he meant to do as if he submitted his plans for herapproval. They would drive to Wamping and get a very comfortable littlesteam launch one could hire there. Wintersloan was coming down again; anidle day of this kind just suited his temperament. Theodore would likeit, wouldn't he?

  "Theodore will think he is King of
Surrey!"

  "I'll have a rod and line if he wants to fish. I don't want to forgetanything. I want it to be _his_ day really and truly."

  The slightest touch upon the pathetic note? She could not tell.

  But that evening brought Marjorie nearer to loving Magnet than she hadever been. Before she went to sleep that night she had decided he wasquite a tolerable person again; she had been too nervous and unjust withhim. After all, his urgency and awkwardness had been just a part of hissincerity. Perhaps the faint doubt whether he would make his requestagain gave the zest of uncertainty to his devotion. Of course, she toldherself, he would ask again. And then the blissful air of limitlessmeans she might breathe. The blessed release....

  She was suddenly fast asleep.

  Sec. 12

  Friday was after all not so much Theodore's day as Mr. Magnet's.

  Until she found herself committed there was no shadow of doubt inMarjorie's mind of what she meant to do. "Before I see you again," saidAunt Plessington at the parting kiss, "I hope you'll have something totell me." She might have been Hymen thinly disguised as an aunt, wavingfrom the departing train. She continued by vigorous gestures andunstinted display of teeth and a fluttering handkerchief to encourageMarjorie to marry Mr. Magnet, until the curve of the cutting hid herfrom view....

  Fortune favoured Mr. Magnet with a beautiful day, and the excursion wasbright and successful from the outset. It was done well, and whatperhaps was more calculated to impress Marjorie, it was done with lavishgenerosity. From the outset she turned a smiling countenance upon herhost. She did her utmost to suppress a reviving irrational qualm in herbeing, to maintain clearly and simply her overnight decision, that heshould propose again and that she should accept him.

  Yet the festival was just a little dreamlike in its quality to herperceptions. She found she could not focus clearly on its details.

  Two waggonettes came from Wamping; there was room for everybody and tospare, and Wamping revealed itself a pleasant small country town withstocks under the market hall, and just that tint of green paint and thatloafing touch the presence of a boating river gives.

  The launch was brilliantly smart with abundant crimson cushions and atasselled awning, and away to the left was a fine old bridge that datedin its essentials from Plantagenet times.

  They started with much whistling and circling, and went away up riverunder overhanging trees that sometimes swished the funnel, splashing themeadow path and making the reeds and bulrushes dance with their wash.They went through a reluctant lock, steamed up a long reach, they passedthe queerly painted Potwell Inn with its picturesque group of poplarsand its absurd new notice-board of "Omlets." ... Theodore was five stoneof active happiness; he and the pseudo-twins, strictly under his ordersas the universal etiquette of birthdays prescribes, clambered round andround the boat, clutching the awning rail and hanging over the water inan entirely secure and perilous looking manner. No one, unless hisfather happened to be upset by something, would check him, he knew, onthis auspicious day. Mr. Magnet sat with the grey eye on Marjorie andlistened a little abstractedly to Mr. Pope, who was telling very fullywhat he would say if the Liberal party were to ask his advice at thepresent juncture. Mrs. Pope attended discreetly, and Daffy and Marjoriewith a less restrained interest, to Mr. Wintersloan, who showed them howto make faces out of a fist tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, how toventriloquize, how to conjure with halfpence--which he did veryamusingly--and what the buttons on a man's sleeve were for; Theodoreclambering at his back discovered what he was at, and by right ofbirthday made him do all the faces and tricks over again. Then Mr.Wintersloan told stories of all the rivers along which, he said, he hadtravelled in steamboats; the Rhine, the Danube, the Hoogly and the FallRiver, and particularly how he had been bitten by a very youngcrocodile. "It's the smell of the oil brings it all back to me," hesaid. "And the kind of sway it gives you."

  He made sinuous movements of his hand, and looked at Marjorie with thatwooden yet expressive smile.

  Friston Hanger proved to be even better than Wamping. It had a characterof its own because it was built very largely of a warm buff colouredlocal rock instead of the usual brick, and the outhouses at least of thelittle inn at which they landed were thatched. Most of the cottages hadcasement windows with diamond panes, and the streets were cobbled andvery up-and-down hill. The place ran to high walls richly suggestive ofhidden gardens, overhung by big trees and pierced by secretive importantlooking doors. And over it all rose an unusually big church, with a tallbuttressed tower surmounted by a lantern of pierced stone.

  "We'll go through the town and look at the ruins of the old castlebeyond the church," said Mr. Magnet to Marjorie, "and then I want you tosee the view from the church tower."

  And as they went through the street, he called her attention again tothe church tower in a voice that seemed to her to be inexplicablycharged with significance. "I want you to go up there," he said.

  "How about something to eat, Mr. Magnet?" remarked Theodore suddenly,and everybody felt a little surprised when Mr. Magnet answered: "Whowants things to eat on your birthday, Theodore?"

  But they saw the joke of that when they reached the castle ruins andfound in the old tilting yard, with its ivy-covered arch framing a viewof the town and stream, a table spread with a white cloth that shone inthe sunshine, glittering with glass and silver and gay with a bowl ofsalad and flowers and cold pies and a jug of claret-cup and an icepail--a silver pail! containing two promising looking bottles, in thecharge of two real live waiters, in evening dress as waiters should be,but with straw hats to protect them from the sun and weather. "Oh!"cried Mrs. Pope, "what a _splendid_ idea, Mr. Magnet," when thedestination of the feast was perfectly clear, and even Theodore seemed alittle overawed--almost as if he felt his birthday was being carried toofar and might provoke a judgment later. Manifestly Mr. Magnet must haveordered this in London, and have had it sent down, waiters and all!Theodore knew he was a very wonderful little boy in spite of the acutecriticism of four devoted sisters, and Mr. Magnet had noticed him beforeat times, but this was, well, rather immense! "Look at the pie-crusts,old man!" And on the pie-crusts, and on the icing of the cake, theirmunificent host had caused to be done in little raised letters of doughand chocolate the word "Theodore."

  "Oh, _Mr._ Magnet!" said Marjorie--his eye so obviously invited her tosay something. Mr. Pope tried a nebulous joke about "groaning boards ofFrisky Hanger," and only Mr. Wintersloan restrained his astonishment andadmiration. "You could have got those chaps in livery," hesaid--unheeded. The lunch was as a matter of fact his idea; he hadrefused to come unless it was provided, and he had somehow counted onblue coats, brass buttons, and yellow waistcoats--but everybody else ofcourse ascribed the whole invention to Mr. Magnet.

  "Well," said Mr. Pope with a fine air of epigram, "the only thing I cansay is--to eat it," and prepared to sit down.

  "Melon," cried Mr. Magnet to the waiters, "we'll begin with the melon.Have you ever tried melon with pepper and salt, Mrs. Pope?"

  "You put salt in everything," admired Mr. Pope. "Salt from those atticsof yours--Attic salt."

  "Or there's ginger!" said Mr. Magnet, after a whisper from the waiter.

  Mr. Pope said something classical about "ginger hot in the mouth."

  "Some of these days," said Mr. Wintersloan, "when I have exhausted allother sensations, I mean to try melon and mustard."

  Rom made a wonderful face at him.

  "I can think of worse things than that," said Mr. Wintersloan with ahard brightness.

  "Not till after lunch, Mr. Wintersloan!" said Rom heartily.

  "The claret cup's all right for Theodore, Mrs. Pope," said Magnet. "It'sa special twelve year old brand." (He thought of everything!)

  "Mummy," said Mr. Pope. "You'd better carve this pie, I think."

  "I want very much," said Mr. Magnet in Marjorie's ear and veryconfidentially, "to show you the view from the church tower. I think--itwill appeal to you."

  "Rom!" said Theodo
re, uncontrollably, in a tremendous stage whisper."There's peaches!... _There!_ on the hamper!"

  "Champagne, m'am?" said the waiter suddenly in Mrs. Pope's ear, wipingice-water from the bottle.

  (But what could it have cost him?)

  Sec. 13

  Marjorie would have preferred that Mr. Magnet should not have decidedwith such relentless determination to make his second proposal on thechurch tower. His purpose was luminously clear to her from thebeginning of lunch onward, and she could feel her nerves going under thestrain of that long expectation. She tried to pull herself together,tried not to think about it, tried to be amused by the high spirits andnonsense of Mr. Wintersloan and Syd and Rom and Theodore; but Mr. Magnetwas very pervasive, and her mother didn't ever look at her, looked pasther and away from her and all round her, in a profoundly observantmanner. Marjorie felt chiefly anxious to get to the top of thatpredestinate tower and have the whole thing over, and it was with astart that she was just able to prevent one of the assiduous waitersfilling her glass with champagne for the third time.

  There was a little awkwardness in dispersing after lunch. Mr. Pope, hisheart warmed by the champagne and mellowed by a subsequent excellentcigar, wanted very much to crack what he called a "postprandial jest" orso with the great humorist, while Theodore also, deeply impressed withthe discovery that there was more in Mr. Magnet than he had supposed,displayed a strong disposition to attach himself more closely than hehad hitherto done to this remarkable person, and study his quiet butenormous possibilities with greater attention. Mrs. Pope with a stillalertness did her best to get people adjusted, but Syd and Rom hadconceived a base and unnatural desire to subjugate the affections of theyoungest waiter, and wouldn't listen to her proposal that they shouldtake Theodore away into the town; Mr. Wintersloan displayedextraordinary cunning and resource in evading a _tete-a-tete_ with Mr.Pope that would have released Mr. Magnet. Now Mrs. Pope came to think ofit, Mr. Wintersloan never had had the delights of a good talk with Mr.Pope, he knew practically nothing about the East Purblow experimentexcept for what Mr. Magnet might have retailed to him, and she was verygreatly puzzled to account for his almost manifest reluctance to go intothings thoroughly. Daffy remained on hand, available but useless, andMrs. Pope, smiling at the landscape and a prey to Management within, wassuddenly inspired to take her eldest daughter into her confidence."Daffy," she said, with a guileful finger extended and pointing to thelower sky as though she was pointing out the less obvious and moreatmospheric beauties of Surrey, "get Theodore away from Mr. Magnet ifyou can. He wants to talk to Marjorie."

  Daffy looked round. "Shall I call him?" she said.

  "No," said Mrs. Pope, "do it--just--quietly."

  "I'll try," said Daffy and stared at her task, and Mrs. Pope, feelingthat this might or might not succeed but that anyhow she had done whatshe could, strolled across to her husband and laid a connubial touchupon his shoulder. "All the young people," she said, "are burning toclimb the church tower. I never _can_ understand this activity afterlunch."

  "Not me," said Mr. Pope. "Eh, Magnet?"

  "_I'm_ game," said Theodore. "Come along, Mr. Magnet."

  "I think," said Mr. Magnet looking at Marjorie, "I shall go up. I wantto show Marjorie the view."

  "We'll stay here, Mummy, eh?" said Mr. Pope, with a quite unusualgeniality, and suddenly put his arm round Mrs. Pope's waist. Hermotherly eye sought Daffy's, and indicated her mission. "I'll come withyou, Theodore," said Daffy. "There isn't room for everyone at once upthat tower."

  "I'll go with Mr. Magnet," said Theodore, relying firmly on theprivileges of the day....

  For a time they played for position, with the intentions of Mr. Magnetshowing more and more starkly through the moves of the game. At lastTheodore was lured down a side street by the sight of a huge dummy fishdangling outside a tackle and bait shop, and Mr. Magnet and Marjorie,already with a dreadful feeling of complicity, made a movement so rapidit seemed to her almost a bolt for the church tower. Whatever Mr. Magnetdesired to say, and whatever elasticity his mind had once possessed withregard to it, there can be no doubt that it had now become so rigid asto be sayable only in that one precise position, and in the exact orderhe had determined upon. But when at last they got to that high serenity,Mr. Magnet was far too hot and far too much out of breath to sayanything at all for a time except an almost explosive gust or so ofapprobation of the scenery. "Shor' breath!" he said, "win'ey stairsalways--that 'fect on me--buful sceny--Suwy--like it always."

  Marjorie found herself violently disposed to laugh; indeed she had neverbefore been so near the verge of hysterics.

  "It's a perfectly lovely view," she said. "No wonder you wanted me tosee it."

  "Naturally," said Mr. Magnet, "wanted you to see it."

  Marjorie, with a skill her mother might have envied, wriggled into ahalf-sitting position in an embrasure and concentrated herself upon thebroad wooded undulations that went about the horizon, and Mr. Magnetmopped his face with surreptitious gestures, and took deep restoringbreaths.

  "I've always wanted to bring you here," he said, "ever since I found itin the spring."

  "It was very kind of you, Mr. Magnet," said Marjorie.

  "You see," he explained, "whenever I see anything fine or rich orsplendid or beautiful now, I seem to want it for you." His voicequickened as though he were repeating something that had been long inhis mind. "I wish I could give you all this country. I wish I could putall that is beautiful in the world at your feet."

  He watched the effect of this upon her for a moment.

  "Marjorie," he said, "did you really mean what you told me the otherday, that there was indeed no hope for me? I have a sort of feeling Ibothered you that day, that perhaps you didn't mean all----"

  He stopped short.

  "I don't think I knew what I meant," said Marjorie, and Magnet gave aqueer sound of relief at her words. "I don't think I know what I meannow. I don't think I can say I love you, Mr. Magnet. I would if I could.I like you very much indeed, I think you are awfully kind, you're morekind and generous than anyone I have ever known...."

  Saying he was kind and generous made her through some obscureassociation of ideas feel that he must have understanding. She had animpulse to put her whole case before him frankly. "I wonder," she said,"if you can understand what it is to be a girl."

  Then she saw the absurdity of her idea, of any such miracle of sympathy.He was entirely concentrated upon the appeal he had come prepared tomake.

  "Marjorie," he said, "I don't ask you to love me yet. All I ask is thatyou shouldn't decide _not_ to love me."

  Marjorie became aware of Theodore, hotly followed by Daffy, in thechurchyard below. "I _know_ he's up there," Theodore was manifestlysaying.

  Marjorie faced her lover gravely.

  "Mr. Magnet," she said, "I will certainly promise you that."

  "I would rather be your servant, rather live for your happiness, than doanything else in all the world," said Mr. Magnet. "If you would trustyour life to me, if you would deign--." He paused to recover his thread."If you would deign to let me make life what it should be for you, takeevery care from your shoulders, face every responsibility----"

  Marjorie felt she had to hurry. She could almost feel the feet ofTheodore coming up that tower.

  "Mr. Magnet," she said, "you don't understand. You don't realize what Iam. You don't know how unworthy I am--what a mere ignorant child----"

  "Let me be judge of that!" cried Mr. Magnet.

  They paused almost like two actors who listen for the prompter. It wasonly too obvious that both were aware of a little medley of imperfectlysubdued noises below. Theodore had got to the ladder that made the lastpart of the ascent, and there Daffy had collared him. "_My_ birthday,"said Theodore. "Come down! You _shan't_ go up there!" said Daffy. "You_mustn't_, Theodore!" "Why not?" There was something like a scuffle, andwhispers. Then it would seem Theodore went--reluctantly and withprotests. But the conflict receded.

  "Marjorie!" said Mr. Magnet,
as though there had been no pause, "if youwould consent only to make an experiment, if you would try to love me.Suppose you _tried_ an engagement. I do not care how long I waited...."

  He paused. "Will you try?" he urged upon her distressed silence.

  She felt as though she forced the word. "_Yes!_" she said in a very lowvoice.

  Then it seemed to her that Mr. Magnet leapt upon her. She felt herselfpulled almost roughly from the embrasure, and he had kissed her. Shestruggled in his embrace. "Mr. Magnet!" she said. He lifted her face andkissed her lips. "Marjorie!" he said, and she had partly releasedherself.

  "Oh _don't_ kiss me," she cried, "don't kiss me yet!"

  "But a kiss!"

  "I don't like it."

  "I beg your pardon!" he said. "I forgot----. But you.... You.... Icouldn't help it."

  She was suddenly wildly sorry for what she had done. She felt she wasgoing to cry, to behave absurdly.

  "I want to go down," she said.

  "Marjorie, you have made me the happiest of men! All my life, all mystrength I will spend in showing you that you have made no mistake intrusting me----"

  "Yes," she said, "yes," and wondered what she could say or do. It seemedto him that her shrinking pose was the most tenderly modest thing he hadever seen.

  "Oh my dear!" he said, and restrained himself and took her passive handand kissed it.

  "I want to go down to them!" she insisted.

  He paused on the topmost rungs of the ladder, looking unspeakable thingsat her. Then he turned to go down, and for the second time in her lifeshe saw that incipient thinness....

  "I am sure you will never be sorry," he said....

  They found Mr. and Mrs. Pope in the churchyard. Mr. Pope was readingwith amusement for the third time an epitaph that had caught his fancy--

  "Lands ever bright, days ever fair, And yet we weep that _he_ is there."

  he read. "You know that's really Good. That ought to be printedsomewhere."

  Mrs. Pope glanced sharply at her daughter's white face, and found anenigma. Then she looked at Mr. Magnet.

  There was no mistake about Mr. Magnet. Marjorie had accepted him,whatever else she had felt or done.

  Sec. 14

  Marjorie's feelings for the rest of the day are only to be accounted foron the supposition that she was overwrought. She had a preposterousreaction. She had done this thing with her eyes open after days ofdeliberation, and now she felt as though she was caught in a trap. Theclearest thing in her mind was that Mr. Magnet had taken hold of her andkissed her, kissed her on the lips, and that presently he would do itagain. And also she was asking herself with futile reiteration why shehad got into debt at Oxbridge? Why she had got into debt? For such sillylittle things too!

  Nothing definite was said in her hearing about the engagement, buteverybody seemed to understand. Mr. Pope was the most demonstrative, hetook occasion to rap her hard upon the back, his face crinkled with aresolute kindliness. "Ah!" he said, "Sly Maggots!"

  He also administered several resounding blows to Magnet's shoulderblades, and irradiated the party with a glow of benevolent waggery.Marjorie submitted without an answer to these paternal intimations. Mrs.Pope did no more than watch her daughter. Invisible but overwhelmingforces were busy in bringing Marjorie and her glowing lover alonetogether again. It happened at last, as he was departing; she was almostto her inflamed imagination thrust out upon him, had to take him to thegate; and there in the shadows of the trees he kissed her "good night"with passionate effusion.

  "Madge," he said, "Madge!"

  She made no answer. She submitted passively to his embrace, and thensuddenly and dexterously disengaged herself from him, ran in, andwithout saying good-night to anyone went to her room to bed.

  Mr. Pope was greatly amused by this departure from the customary routineof life, and noted it archly.

  When Daffy came up Marjorie was ostentatiously going to sleep....

  As she herself was dropping off Daffy became aware of an odd sound,somehow familiar, and yet surprising and disconcerting.

  Suddenly wide awake again, she started up. Yes there was no mistakeabout it! And yet it was very odd.

  "Madge, what's up?"

  No answer.

  "I say! you aren't crying, Madge, are you?"

  Then after a long interval: "_Madge!_"

  An answer came in a muffled voice, almost as if Marjorie had somethingin her mouth. "Oh shut it, old Daffy."

  "But Madge?" said Daffy after reflection.

  "Shut it. _Do_ shut it! Leave me alone, I say! Can't you leave me alone?Oh!"--and for a moment she let her sobs have way with her--"Daffy, don'tworry me. Old Daffy! _Please!_"

  Daffy sat up for a long time in the stifled silence that ensued, andthen like a sensible sister gave it up, and composed herself again toslumber....

  Outside watching the window in a state of nebulous ecstasy, was Mr.Magnet, moonlit and dewy. It was a high serene night with a growing moonand a scattered company of major stars, and if no choir of nightingalessang there was at least a very active nightjar. "More than I hoped,"whispered Mr. Magnet, "more than I dared to hope." He was very sleepy,but it seemed to him improper to go to bed on such a night--on such anoccasion.

 

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