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

had been told that no man could be convinced, by his own reason, of his own hallucination. He would supply a case to the contrary. It would amuse him one day, if ever he came to know that girl of the railway-carriage was dead, to tell Rosalind all his experiences, and how bravely he fought against what he knew to be delusion.

But he must make an effort against this sort of thing. Here was he, who had just made up his mind--so he phrased it--to remain himself, and refuse to be Harrisson, no sooner was he left alone for a few minutes than he must needs be raking up the past. And that, too, because of a line of Horace!--sound in itself, but quite cut asunder from its origin, the book he read it in, or the voice he heard read it. What did that line matter? Leave it for Mr. Harrisson in that state of pre-existence. As well make a point of recalling the _provenance_ of any little thing that had happened in this his present life. Well, for instance, Mary and the fat boy in "Pickwick." Rosalind had read him that aloud, he knew, but he couldn't say when. Was he going to worry himself to recall that which could do him no harm to know? Surely not. And if so, why strive to bring back things better forgotten? It is useless to endeavour to make the state of Fenwick's mind, at this point of the imperfect revival of memory, appear other than incredible. A person who has had the painful experience of forgetting his own name in a dream would perhaps understand it best. Or, without going so far, can no help be got towards it from our frequent certainties about some phrase (for instance) that we think we cannot possibly forget? about some date that we believe no human power will ever obliterate? And in five minutes--gone--utterly gone! Truly, there is no evidence but a man's own word for what he does or does not, can or cannot, recollect.

* * * * *


"I say, Rosey, when was it you read to me about Mary and the fat boy in 'Pickwick'?" Fenwick, having suggested a doubt to himself about his power to recall what he supposed to have happened recently, had, of course, set about doing it directly. His question was asked of his wife as he came into her bedroom on his return. He mounted the stairs singing to himself,


"Que nous mangerons Marott-e,
Bec-a-bec et toi et moi,"


till he came in to where Rosalind was sitting reading, with her wonderful hair combed free--probably by Sally for a treat. Then he asked his question rather suddenly, and it made her start.

"I was in the middle of my book, and you made me jump." He gave her a kiss for apology. "What's the question? When did I read to you about Mary and the fat boy? I couldn't say. I feel as if I had, though."

"Was it out in the garden at K. Villa? It wasn't here." He usually called Krakatoa "K." for working purposes.

"No, it certainty wasn't here. It must have been at home, only I can't recollect when. Ask Sally."

"The kitten wasn't there."

"She would know, though. She always knows. She's not asleep yet ... Sallykin!" The young person is on the other side of a mere wooden partition, congenial to the architecture of Lobjoit's, and her reply conveys the idea of a speaker in bed who hasn't moved to answer.

"What? Be quick. I'm going to sleep."

"I'm so sorry, chick. When was it I read to this man Mary and the fat boy in 'Pickwick'?"

"How should I know? Not when I was there."

"All right, Sarah." Thus Fenwick, to whom Sarah responds:

"Good-night, Jeremiah. Go to bed, and don't keep decent Christian people awake at this hour of the night. Take mother's book away, and cut it."

Rosalind closes her book and says: "_I_ don't know, darling, if Sally doesn't. Why do you want to know?"

"Couldn't say. It crossed my mind. I know the kitten wasn't there, though. Good-night, love.... Oh yes, I shall sleep to-night. Ta, ta, Sarah--pleasant dreams!"

But he had not reached the door when the voice of Sarah came again, with the implication of a mouth that had come out into the open.

"Stop, Jeremiah!" it said. "It wasn't at K. Villa."

"Why not, chick?"

"Because Pickwick's _lost_! It was lent to those impossible people at Turnham Green, and they stole it. I know they did. Name like Marylebone."

"The Haliburtons? Why, that's ever so long ago." Thus Rosalind.

"Of course it is. It's been gone ages. I'm going to sleep. Good-night!" And Jeremiah said good-night once more and departed.

Sally didn't go straight to sleep, but she made a start on her way there. It was not a vigorous start, for she had hardly begun upon it when she desisted, and sat up in bed and listened.

"What's that, mother? Nothing wrong, is there?"

"No, darling child, what should be wrong? Go to sleep."

"I thought I heard you gasp, or snuffle, or sigh, or sob, or click in your throat. That's all. Sure you didn't?"

"Quite sure. Now, do be a reasonable kitten, and go to sleep; I shall be in bed in half-a-second."

And Sally subsides, but first makes a stipulation: "You _will_ sleep in your hair, mother darling, won't you? Or, at least, do it up, and not that hateful nightcap?"

But though Rosalind felt conscientiously able to disclaim any of the sounds Sally had described, something audible had occurred in her breathing. Sally's first word had gone nearest, but it was hardly a full-grown gasp.

Her husband's question about "Pickwick" had scarcely taken her attention off an exciting story-climax, and she really did want to know why the Archbishop turned pale as death when the Countess kissed him. Gerry was looking well and cheerful again, and there was nothing to connect his inquiry with any reminiscence of "B.C." So, as soon as he had gone, she reopened her book--not without a mental allusion to a dog in Proverbs--and went on where she had left off. The writer had not known how to manage his Archbishop and Countess, and the story went flat and slushy like an ill-whipped _zabajone_. She put the book aside, and wondered whether "Pickwick" really _had_ been alienated by the impossible Haliburtons; sat thinking, but only of the thing of _now_--nothing of buried records.

So she sat, it might be for two minutes. Then, quite suddenly, she had bitten her lip and her brows had wrinkled. And her eyes had locked to a fixed look that would stay till she had thought this out. So her face said, and the stillness of her hand.

For she had suddenly remembered when and where it was she had read to that man about Mary and the fat boy. It was in the garden at her mother's twenty-two years ago. She remembered it well now, and quite suddenly. She could remember how Gerry, young-man-wise, had tried to utilise Thackeray to show his greater knowledge of the world--had flaunted Piccadilly and Pall Mall before the dazzled eyes of an astonished suburban. She could remember how she read it aloud to him, because, when he read over her shoulder, she always turned the page before he was ready. And his decision that Dickens's characters were never gentlemen, and her saying perhaps that was why he was so amusing. And then how he got the book from her and went on reading while she went away for her lawn-tennis shoes, and when she came back found he had only two more pages to read, and then he would come and play.

But it spoke well for her husband's chances of a quiet time to-night that he should hold this memory in his mind, and yet be secure against a complete resurrection of the past. Nothing else might grow from it. He evidently thought the reading had been at Shepherd's Bush. He would hardly have said, "the kitten wasn't there," unless his ideas had been glued to that spot. But then--and Rosalind's mind swam to think of it--how very decisively the kitten was "not there" in that other garden two-and-twenty years ago.

It was at that moment the gasp, or sigh, or sob, or whatever it was, awoke Sally. Her mother had been strong against the mere memory of the happy hour of thoughtless long ago; but then, this that was to come--this thing the time was thoughtless of! Was it not enough to force a gasp from self-control itself? a cry from any creature claiming to be human? "_The kitten wasn't there!_" No, truly she was not.


CHAPTER XXXIX


HOW MEMORY CREPT BACK AND BACK, AND FENWICK KEPT HIS OWN COUNSEL. ROSALIND NEED NEVER KNOW IT. OF A JOLLY BIG BLOB OF MELTED CANDLE, AND SALLY'S HALF-BROTHER. OF FENWICK'S IMPROVED GOOD SPIRITS

That was a day of many little incidents, and a fine day into the bargain. Perhaps the next day was helped to be a flat day by the barometer, which had shown its usual untrustworthiness and gone down. The wind's grievance--very perceptible to the leeward of keyholes and window-cracks--may have been against this instability. It had been looking forward to a day's rest, and here this meteorology must needs be fussing. Neptune on the contrary was all the fresher for his half-holiday, and was trotting out tiny white ponies all over his fields, who played bo-peep with each other in and out of the valleys of the plough-land. But they were grey valleys now, that yesterday were smiling in the sun. And the sky was a mere self-coloured sky (a modern expression, as unconvincing as most of its congeners), and wanted to make everything else as grey as itself. Also there came drifts of fine rain that wetted you through, and your umbrella wasn't any good. So a great many of the visitors to St. Sennans thought they would stop at home and get those letters written.

Sally wouldn't admit that the day was flat _per se_, but only that it had become so owing to the departure of Laetitia and her husband. She reviewed the latter a good deal, as one who had recently been well under inspection and had stood the test. He was really a very nice fellow, haberdasher or no, wasn't he, mother? To which Rosalind replied that he was a very nice fellow indeed, only so quiet. If he had had his violin with him, he would have been much more perceptible. But she supposed it was best to travel with it as little as possible. For it had been decided, all things considered, that the precious Strad should be left locked up at home. "It's got an insurance policy all to itself," said Sally, "for three hundred pounds." She was quite awestruck by the three hundred golden sovereigns which these pounds would have been if they had had an existence of their own off paper.

"_You_ ought to have an insurance policy all to yourself, Sarah," said Fenwick. "Only I don't believe any office would accept you. Fancy your swimming out like that yesterday! How far did you go?"

"Round the buoy and aback again. I say, Jeremiah, if ever I get drowned, mind you rush to the bathing-machine and see if there's a copy of 'Ally Sloper'