He is quite calm as Willie Hornung admits him. “I have come to see Constance,” he says. Hornung is at least sensible enough not to go in for any damn-fool bluster, or insist on being present himself. Arthur goes upstairs to Connie’s sitting room. He explains to her, in straightforward terms, as he has never done—never needed to do—before. About what Touie’s illness entails. About his sudden love, his utter love, for Jean. About how that love will remain platonic. Yet how a large side of his life, so long unoccupied, has now been filled. About the strain and depression they both suffer from intermittently. About how Connie only saw them together, obviously in love, because they let their guard down; and how it is a torment never to be able to show their love in front of others. How every smile, every laugh has to be measured and rationed, every companion tested. How Arthur does not think he can survive if his family, who are as dear to him as the world itself, does not understand his plight and support him.
He is playing at Lord’s again tomorrow, and he asks, no, he entreats Connie to come, and this time meet Jean properly. It is the only way. What happened today must be set aside, put behind them at once, else it will fester. She will come tomorrow, and have lunch with Jean and know her better. Won’t she?
Connie agrees. Willie, as he lets him out, says, “Arthur, I’m prepared to back your dealings with any woman at sight and without question.” In the cab, Arthur feels as if something terrible has just been averted. He is quite weary, and a little light-headed. He knows he can count on Connie, as he can on all his family. And he is a little ashamed of what he caught himself thinking about Willie Hornung. This damn temper of his is not getting any better. He puts it down to being half Irish. The Scottish half of him has the devil of a job keeping the upper hand.
No, Willie is a fine fellow, who will back him without question. Willie has a good, sharp brain, and is a very decent wicketkeeper. He may dislike golf, but at least gives the best reason Arthur has yet heard for such a prejudice: “I consider it unsportsmanlike to hit a sitting ball.” That was good. And the one about the sprinter’s error. And the one Arthur has spread most widely, which is Willie’s assessment of his brother-in-law’s consulting detective: “Though he might be more humble, there is no police like Holmes.” No police like Holmes! Arthur throws himself back against the seat at the memory of the line.
The next morning, as he is preparing to leave for Lord’s, a telegram is delivered. Constance Hornung must excuse herself from their lunch engagement today because she has a toothache and is obliged to go to the dentist.
He sends a note to Jean, his apologies to Lord’s—“urgent family business” for once is no euphemism—and takes a cab to Pitt Street. They will be expecting him. They know he is not the man for intrigue or diplomatic silence. You look a fellow in the eye, you speak the truth, and you take the consequences: such is the Doyle creed. Women are allowed different rules, of course—or rather, women seem to have developed different rules for themselves regardless; but even so, he does not think much of emergency dental treatment as an excuse. Its very transparency gets Arthur’s dander up. Perhaps she knows this; perhaps it is designed as the plainest rebuke, like that turned-away head of hers. Connie, to her credit, does not palter any more than he does.
He knows he must keep his temper. What matters is first of all Jean, and then the unity of the family. He wonders if Connie has changed Hornung’s mind, or Hornung Connie’s. “I’m prepared to back your dealings with any woman at sight and without question.” Nothing equivocal there. But neither had there been about Connie’s apparent understanding of his situation. In advance, he searches for reasons. Perhaps Connie has become a respectable married woman rather more quickly than he would have thought possible; perhaps she has always been jealous that Lottie is his favourite sister. As for Hornung: doubtless he is envious of his brother-in-law’s fame; or maybe the success of Raffles has gone to his head. Something has sparked this sudden display of independence and rebellion. Well, Arthur will soon find out.
“Connie is upstairs, resting,” says Hornung as he opens the door. Plain enough. So it will be man to man, which is how Arthur prefers it.
Little Willie Hornung is the same height as Arthur, a fact he occasionally forgets. And Hornung in his own house is different from the Hornung of Arthur’s furious re-creation; also different from the flattering, eager-to-please Willie who darted across the tennis court at West Norwood and brought bons mots to the table by way of ingratiation. In the front sitting room he indicates a leather armchair, waits for Arthur to be seated, and then remains standing himself. As he speaks, he begins to prance around the room. Nerves, doubtless, but it has the effect of a prosecuting counsel showing off to a non-existent jury.
“Arthur, this is not going to be easy. Connie has told me what you said to her last night, and we have discussed the matter.”
“And you have changed your minds. Or you have changed her mind. Or she yours. Yesterday you said you would back me without question.”
“I know what I said. And it is not a matter of my changing Connie’s mind, or her changing mine. We have discussed it, and we are agreed.”
“I congratulate you.”
“Arthur, let me put it this way. Yesterday we spoke to you with our hearts. You know how Connie loves you, how she always has. You know my enormous admiration for you, how proud I am to say that Arthur Conan Doyle is my brother-in-law. That’s why we went to Lord’s yesterday, to watch you with pride, to support you.”
“Which you have decided no longer to do.”
“But today we are thinking, and speaking, with our heads.”
“And what do your two heads tell you?” Arthur reins his anger back to mere sarcasm. It is the best he can do. He sits four-square in his chair and watches Willie dance and shuffle in front of him, as he dances and shuffles his argument.
“Our heads—our two heads—tell us what our eyes see and our consciences dictate. Your behaviour is . . . compromising.”
“To whom?”
“To your family. To your wife. To your . . . lady-friend. To yourself.”
“You do not wish to include the Marylebone Cricket Club as well? And the readers of my books? And the staff of Gamages emporium?”
“Arthur, if you cannot see it, others must point it out to you.”
“Which you seem to be relishing. I thought I had merely acquired a brother-in-law. I did not realize the family had acquired a conscience. I was not aware we needed one. You should get yourself a priest’s robe.”
“I do not need a priest’s robe to tell me that if you stroll around Lord’s with a grin on your face and a woman who is not your wife on your arm, you compromise that wife and your behaviour reflects upon your family.”
“Touie will always be shielded from pain and dishonour. That is my first principle. It will remain so.”
“Who else saw you yesterday apart from us? And what might they conclude?”
“And what did you conclude, you and Constance?”
“That you were extremely reckless. That you did the reputation of the woman on your arm no good. That you compromised your wife. And your family.”
“You are a sudden expert on my family for such a johnny-come-lately.”
“Perhaps because I see more clearly.”
“Perhaps because you have less loyalty. Hornung, I do not pretend the situation is not difficult, damned difficult. There’s no denying it. At times it is intolerable. I do not need to rehearse what I said to Connie yesterday. I am doing the best I can, we both are, Jean and I. Our . . . alliance has been accepted, has been approved by the Mam, by Jean’s parents, by Touie’s mother, by my brother and sisters. Until yesterday, by you. When have I ever failed in loyalty to any member of my family? And when before have I appealed to them?”
“And if your wife heard of yesterday’s behaviour?”
“She will not. She cannot.”
“Arthur. There is always gossip. There is always the tattle of maids and servants. People writ
e anonymous letters. Journalists drop hints in newspapers.”
“Then I shall sue. Or, more likely, I shall knock the fellow down.”
“Which would be a further act of recklessness. Besides, you cannot knock down an anonymous letter.”
“Hornung, this conversation is fruitless. Evidently you grant yourself a higher sense of honour than you do me. If a vacancy occurs as head of the family, I shall consider your application.”
“Quis custodiet, Arthur? Who tells the head of the family he is at fault?”
“Hornung, for the last time. I shall state the matter plainly. I am a man of honour. My name, and the family’s name, mean everything to me. Jean Leckie is a woman of the utmost honour, and the utmost virtue. The relationship is platonic. It always will be. I shall remain Touie’s husband, and treat her with honour, until the coffin lid closes over one or the other of us.”
Arthur is used to making definitive statements which conclude discussions. He thinks he has made another, but Hornung is still shuffling about like a batsman at the crease.
“It seems to me,” he replies, “that you attach too much importance to whether these relations are platonic or not. I can’t see that it makes much difference. What is the difference?”
Arthur stands up. “What is the difference?” he bellows. He does not care if his sister is resting, if little Oscar Arthur is taking a nap, if the servant has her ear to the door. “It’s all the difference in the world! It’s the difference between innocence and guilt, that’s what it is.”
“I disagree, Arthur. There is what you think and what the world thinks. There is what you believe and what the world believes. There is what you know and what the world knows. Honour is not just a matter of internal good feeling, but also of external behaviour.”
“I will not be lectured on the subject of honour,” Arthur roars. “I will not. I will not. And especially not by a man who writes a thief for a hero.”
He takes his hat from the peg and crushes it down to his ears. Well, that is that, he decides, that is that. The world is either for you or against you. And it makes things clearer, at least, to see how a prissy prosecuting counsel goes about his business.
Despite this disapproval—or perhaps to prove it misconceived—Arthur begins, very cautiously, to introduce Jean into the social life of Undershaw. He has made the acquaintance in London of a charming family called the Leckies, who have a country place in Crowborough; Malcolm Leckie, the son, is a splendid fellow with a sister called—what is it now? And so Jean’s name appears in the Undershaw visitors’ book, always beside that of her brother or one of her parents. Arthur cannot claim to be entirely at his ease when uttering sentences such as, “Malcolm Leckie said he might motor over with his sister,” but they are sentences that have to be uttered if he is not to go mad. And on these occasions—a large lunch party, a tennis afternoon—he is never entirely sure his behaviour is natural. Has he been over-attentive to Touie, and did she notice? Was he too stiffly correct with Jean, and might she have taken offence? But the problem is his to be borne. Touie never gives an indication that she finds anything amiss. And Jean—bless her—behaves with an ease and decorum which reassures him that nothing will go wrong. She never seeks him out in private, never slips a lover’s note into his hand. At times, it is true, he thinks she is making a show of flirting with him. But when he considers it afterwards, he decides that she is deliberately behaving as she would do if they knew one another no better than they were pretending to. Perhaps the best way to show a wife that you have no designs on her husband is to flirt with him in front of her. If so, that is remarkably clever thinking.
And twice a year, they are able to escape to Masongill together. They arrive and leave by separate trains, like weekend guests who just happen to coincide. Arthur stays in his mother’s cottage, while Jean is lodged with Mr. and Mrs. Denny at Parr Bank Farm. On the Saturday they sup at Masongill House. The Mam presides at Waller’s table, as she always has, and presumably always will.
Except that things are no longer as simple as they were when the Mam first came here—not that they were ever simple then. For Waller has somehow managed to get himself married. Miss Ada Anderson, a clergyman’s daughter from St. Andrews, came to Thornton Vicarage as governess, and, so village gossip asserts, instantly set her cap at the master of Masongill House. She succeeded in marrying the man, only to find—and here gossip turned moralizing—that she could not change him. For the new husband had no intention of letting mere matrimony alter the way of life he had established. To be specific: he visits the Mam as often as he ever did; he dines with her en tête-à-tête; and he has a special bell installed at the back door of her cottage, which only he is allowed to ring. The Waller marriage does not bring forth children.
Mrs. Waller never sets foot in Masongill Cottage, and absents herself when the Mam comes to sup at the House. If Waller desires that woman to preside, then so be it, but her authority at the table will not be recognized by the mistress of the house. Mrs. Waller increasingly busies herself with her Siamese cats and a rose garden laid out with the rigour of a parade ground or vegetable plot. During a brief encounter with Arthur she showed herself both shy and stand-offish: the fact that he came from Edinburgh and she from St. Andrews was no ground for intimacy, her manner suggested.
And so the four of them—Waller, the Mam, Arthur and Jean—sit round the supper table together. Food is brought and taken away, glasses shine in the candlelight, the talk is of books, and everyone behaves as if Waller were still a bachelor. From time to time, Arthur’s eye is caught by the silhouette of a cat slipping along the wall and keeping well clear of Waller’s boot. A sinuous form, easing its way through the shadows, like the memory of a wife discreetly absenting herself. Does every marriage have its own damn secret? Is there never anything straightforward at the heart of it all?
Still, Arthur long ago accepted that Waller would have to be endured. And since he cannot be with Jean all the time, he is content to golf with Waller. For a short and scholarly type, the master of Masongill House has a neat enough game. He lacks distance, of course, but is rather tidier, it has to be admitted, than Arthur, who still tends to despatch the ball in improbable directions. Apart from golf, there is decent shooting to be had in Waller’s woods—partridge, grouse and rooks. The two men also go ferreting together. For five shillings the butcher’s boy will arrive with his three ferrets and work them all morning to Waller’s satisfaction, scaring up the contents of numerous rabbit pies.
But then there are the hours earned by such dutiful endeavour—the hours alone with Jean. They take the Mam’s pony-and-dog cart and drive to nearby villages; they explore the range of wold and fell and sudden valleys north of Ingleton. Though Arthur’s returns here are never uncomplicated—the taint of kidnap and betrayal will always linger—the role of tourist agent comes to him naturally and full-heartedly. He shows Jean the Twiss Valley and Pecca Falls, the gorge of the Doe and Beezley Falls. He watches her nerveless on a bridge sixty feet above Yew Tree Gorge. They climb Ingleborough together, and he cannot prevent himself feeling how good it is for a man to have a healthy young woman at his side. He is making no comparison, impugning nobody, just grateful that they do not have to make constant frustrating halts and rests. At the top, he plays archaeologist and points out the vestiges of the Brigantian stronghold; then topographer as they look west towards Morecambe, St. George’s Channel and the Isle of Man, while far to the north-west the Lake mountains and the Cumbrian ranges discreetly show themselves.
Inevitably, there are constraints and awkwardnesses. They may be far from home, but decorum cannot be abandoned; Arthur is, even here, a well-known figure, while the Mam has her position in local society. So a glance is sometimes required to rein in a certain tendency to candour and expressiveness on Jean’s part. And though Arthur is more free to articulate his devotion, he cannot always feel as a lover should—like a man freshly invented. They are driving through Thornton one day, Jean’s arm resting on his
, the sun high in the sky and the prospect of an afternoon alone together, when she says,
“What a pretty church, Arthur. Stop, let us go in.”
He acts deaf for a moment, then replies, rather stiffly, “It is not so pretty. Only the tower is original. Most of it is no more than thirty years old. It is all specious restoration.”
Jean does not press her interest, deferring to Arthur’s gruff judgement as chief tourist agent. He snaps the reins against the idiosyncratic Mooi, and they drive on. It does not seem the moment to tell her that the church was no more than fifteen years restored when he walked down its aisle, a newly married man, with Touie’s hand on his arm just where Jean’s is now.
His return to Undershaw this time is not without guilt.
Arthur’s way of being a father is to leave the children to their mother’s care and then descend from time to time with sudden plans and presents. It seems to him that being a father is like being a slightly more responsible brother. You protect your children, you provide for them, you set an example; beyond that, you make them understand what they are, which is children, that is to say imperfect, even defective, adults. Yet he is also a generous man, and does not believe it necessary or morally improving for them to be deprived of what he was deprived of as a boy. At Hindhead, as at Norwood, there is a tennis ground; also a rifle range behind the house, where Kingsley and Mary are encouraged to improve their marksmanship. In the garden he installs a monorail, which skims and swoops through the hollows and rises of his four acres. Driven by electricity and stabilized by gyroscope, the monorail is the transport of the future. His friend Wells is certain of this, and Arthur agrees.
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