Somehow Good by William Frend De Morgan (best short novels TXT) 📕

not bear to lose, but the living record, the very outcome, of the poisoned soil in that field of her life her memory shrank from treading?

What was that old Scotchman--he seemed to have come back--what was he saying outside there? Yes, listen! Fenwick starts up, all his life roused into his face. If only that clock would end that long unnecessary roll of warning, and strike! But before the long-deferred single stroke comes to say another hour has passed, he is up and at the door, with Rosalind clinging to him terrified.

"What's the news, doctor? Tell it out, man!--never fear." Rosalind dares not ask; her heart gives a great bound, and stops, and her teeth chatter and close tight. She could not speak if she tried.

"I wouldna like to be over-confeedent, Mr. Fenwick, and ye'll understand I'm only geevin' ye my own eempression...."

"Yes, quite right--go on...."

"Vara parteecularly because our young friend Dr. Vereker is unwulling to commeet himself ... but I should say a pairceptible...."

He is interrupted. For with a loud shout Dr. Conrad himself, dishevelled and ashy-white of face, comes running from the door opposite. The word he has shouted so loudly he repeats twice; then turns as though to go back. But he does not reach the door, for he staggers suddenly, like a man struck by a bullet, and falls heavily, insensible.

There is a movement and a shouting among the scattered groups that have been waiting, three hours past, as those nearest at hand run to help and raise him; and the sound of voices and exultation passes from group to group. For what he shouted was the one word "Breath!" And Rosalind knew its meaning as her head swam and she heard no more.


CHAPTER XLVII


WAS IT THE LITTLE GALVANIC BATTERY? THE LAST CHAPTER RETOLD BY THE PRESS. A PROPER RAILING. BUT THEY _WEREN'T_ DROWNED. WHAT'S THE FUSS? MASTER CHANCELLORSHIP APPEARS AND VANISHES. ELECTUARY OF ST. SENNA. AT GEORGIANA TERRACE. A LETTER FROM SALLY. ANOTHER FROM CONRAD. EVERYTHING VANISHES!

Professor Sales Wilson, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's papa, was enjoying himself thoroughly. He was the sole occupant of 260, Ladbroke Grove Road, servants apart. All his blood-connected household had departed two days after the musical evening described in Chapter XL., and there was nothing that pleased him better than to have London to himself--that is to say, to himself and five millions of perfect strangers. He had it now, and could wallow unmolested in Sabellian researches, and tear the flimsy theories of Bopsius--whose name we haven't got quite right--to tatters. Indeed, we are not really sure the researches _were_ Sabellian. But no matter!

Just at the moment at which we find him, the Professor was not engaged in any researches at all, unless running one's eye down the columns of a leading journal, to make sure there is nothing in them, is a research. That is what he was doing in his library. And he was also talking to himself--a person from whom he had no reserves or concealments. What he had to say ran in this wise:

"H'm!--h'm!--'The Cyclopean Cyclopaedia.' Forty volumes in calf. Net price thirty-five pounds. A digest of human knowledge, past, present, and probable. With a brief appendix enumerating the things of which we are still ignorant, and of our future ignorance of which we are scientifically certain ... h'm! h'm!... not dear at the price. But stop a bit! 'Until twelve o'clock on Saturday next copies of the above, with revolving bookcase, can be secured for the low price of seven pounds ten.'..." This did not seem to increase the speaker's confidence and he continued, as he wrestled with a rearrangement of the sheet: "Shiny paper, and every volume weighs a ton. Very full of matter--everything in it except the thing you want to know. By-the-bye ... what a singular thing it is, when you come to think of it, that so many people will sell you a thing worth a pound for sixpence, who won't give you a shilling outright on any terms! It must have to do with their unwillingness to encourage mendicancy. A noble self-denial, prompted by charity organizations! Hullo!--what's this? 'Heroic rescue from drowning at St. Sennans-on-Sea.' H'm--h'm--h'm!--can't read all that. But _that's_ where the married couple went--St. Sennans-on-Sea. The bride announced her intention yesterday of looking in at five to-day for tea. So I suppose I shall be disturbed shortly."

The soliloquist thought it necessary to repeat his last words twice to convince himself and the atmosphere that his position was one of grievance. Having done this, and feeling he ought to substantiate his suggestion that he was just on the point of putting salt on the tail of an unidentified Samnite, or a finishing touch on the demolition of Bopsius, he folded his newspaper, which we suspect he had not been reading candidly from, and resumed his writing.

Did you ever have a quarter of an hour of absolutely unalloyed happiness? Probably not, if you have never known the joys of profound antiquarian erudition, with an unelucidated past behind you, and inexpensive publication before. The Professor's fifteen minutes that followed were not only without alloy, but had this additional zest--that that girl would come bothering in directly, and he would get his grievance, and work it. And at no serious expense, for he was really very partial to his daughter, and meant, _au fond de soi_, to enjoy her visit. Nevertheless, discipline had to be maintained, if only for purposes of self-deception, and the Professor really believed in his own "Humph! I supposed it would be that," when Laetitia's knock came at the street door.

"Such a shame to disturb you, papa dear! But you'll have to give me tea--you said you would."

"It isn't five o'clock yet. Well--never mind. Sit down and don't fidget. I shall have done presently.... No! make yourself useful now you _are_ here. Get me 'Passeri Picturae Etruscorum,' volume three, out of shelf C near the window ... that's right. Very good find for a young married woman. Now sit down and read the paper--there's something will interest you. You may ring for tea, only don't talk."

The Professor then became demonstratively absorbed in the Sabellians, or Bopsius, or both, and Laetitia acted as instructed, but without coming on the newspaper-paragraph. She couldn't ask for a clue after so broad a hint, so she had to be contented with supposing her father referred to the return of Sir Charles Penderfield, Bart., as a Home Rule Unionist and Protectionist Free Trader. Only if it was that, it was the first she had ever known of her father being aware of the Bart.'s admiration for herself. So she made the tea, and waited till the pen-scratching stopped, and the Sabellians or Bopsius were blotted, glanced through, and ratified.

"There, that'll do for that, I suppose." His tone surrendered the grievance as an act of liberality, but maintained the principle. "Well, have we found it?"

"Found what?"

"The heroic rescue--at your place--Saint Somebody--Saint Senanus...."

"No! Do show me that." Laetitia forms a mental image of a lifeboat going out to a wreck. How excited Sally must have been!

"Here, give it me and I'll find it.... Yes--that's right--a big lump and a little lump. I'm to take less sugar because of gout. Very good! Oh ... yes ... here we are. 'Heroic Rescue at St. Sennans' ... just under 'Startling Elopement at Clapham Rise'.... Got it?"

Laetitia supplied the cup of tea, poured one for herself, and took the paper from her father without the slightest suspicion of what was coming. "It will have to wait a minute till I've had some tea," she said. "I'm as thirsty as I can be. I've been to see my mother-in-law and Constance"--this was Julius's sister--"off to Southend. And just fancy, papa; Pag and I played from nine till a quarter-to-one last night, and he never felt it, nor had any headache nor anything." The topic is so interesting that the unread paragraph has to wait.

The Professor cannot think of any form of perversion better than "Very discreditable to him. I hope you blew him well up?"

"Now, papa, don't be nonsensical! Do you know, I'm really beginning to believe Pag's right, and it _was_ the little galvanic battery. Shouldn't you say so, though, seriously?"

"Why, yes. If there wasn't a big galvanic battery, it must have been the little one. It stands to reason. But _what_ does my musical son-in-law think was the little galvanic battery?"

"Oh dear, papa, how ridiculous you are! Why, of course, his nerves going away--as they really _have_ done, you know; and I can't see any good pretending they haven't. Yesterday was the fourth evening he hasn't felt them...."

"Stop a bit! There is a lack of scientific precision in the structure of your sentences. A young married woman ought really to be more accurate. Now let's look it over, and do a little considering. I gather, in the first place, that my son-in-law's nerves going away was, or were, a little galvanic battery...."

"Dear papa, don't paradox and catch me out. Just this once, be reasonable! Think what a glorious thing it would be for us if his nerves _had_ gone for good. Another cup? Was the last one right?"

"My position is peculiar. (Yes, the tea was all right.) I find myself requested to be reasonable, and to embark on a career of reasonableness by considering the substantial advantages to my daughter and her husband of the disappearance of his nervous system...."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't! _Do_ be serious...." The Professor looked at her reflectively as he drank the cup of tea, and it seemed to dawn on him slowly that his daughter _was_ serious. The fact is, Tishy was very serious indeed, and was longing for sympathy over a matter for great elation. She and Julius had been purposely playing continuously for long hours to test the apparent suspension or cessation of his nervous affection, and had not so far seen a sign of a return; but they were dreadfully afraid of counting their chickens in advance.

"I noticed the other evening"--the Professor has surrendered, and become serious--"that Julius wasn't any the worse, and he had played a long time. What should you do?" Tishy looked inquiringly. "Well, I mean what steps could be taken if it were...?"

"If we could trust to it? Oh, no difficulty at all! Any number of engagements directly."

"It would please your mother." Tishy cannot help a passing thought on the oddity of her parents' relations to one another. Even though he spoke of the Dragon as a connexion of his daughter he was but little concerned with, the first thought that crossed his mind was a sort of satisfaction under protest that she would have something to be pleased about. Tishy wondered whether she and Julius would end up like that. Of course they wouldn't! What pity people's parents were so unreasonable!

"Yes; mamma wouldn't be at all sorry. Fiddlers are not Baronets, but anything is better than haberdashing. _I'm_ not ashamed of it, you know." She had subjected herself gratuitously to her own suspicion that she might be, and resented it.

Her father looked at her with an amused face; looked down at these social fads of poor humanity from the height of his Olympus. If he knew anything about the Unionist Home Ruler's aspirations for Laetitia, he said nothing. Then he asked a natural question--what _was_ the little galvanic battery? Tishy gave her account of it, but before she had done the Professor was thinking about Sabines or Lucanians. The fact is that Tishy was never at her best with her