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

of course, I know I can rely upon you--but, of course, it doesn't really matter...." A genial superior tone of toleration for mankind's foibles as seen by the two speakers from an elevation comes in at this point juicily. It meets an appreciative response in the prolonged first syllable of Rosalind's "_Cer_tainly. I never should dream," etc., whose length makes up for an imperfect finish--a dispersal of context from which a farewell good-morning emerges clear, hand-in-hand with a false statement that the speaker has enjoyed sitting there talking.

Rosalind had not enjoyed it at all. She was utilising the merpussy's return to land as a means of escape, because, had there been no Mrs. Arkwright, and no folk-chatter, Sally would have come scranching up the shingle, and flung herself down beside her mother. As it was, Rosalind's "Oh, _I am_ so glad to get away from that woman!" told a tale. And Sally's truthful soul interpreted the upshot of that tale as prohibitive of merely going away and sitting down elsewhere. She and her mother were in honour bound to have promised to meet somebody somewhere--say, for instance, Mrs. Vereker and her son and donkey-chair. Sally said it, for instance, seeing something of the sort would soothe the position; and the two of them met the three, or rather the three and a half, for we had forgotten the boy to whom the control of the donkey was entrusted, and whose interpretation of his mission was to beat the donkey incessantly like a carpet, and to drag it the other way. The last held good of all directions soever. Which the donkey, who was small, but by nature immovable, requited by taking absolutely no notice whatever of his exertions.

"What's become of my step-parent? I thought he was going to take you for a walk." So spoke Sally to Dr. Conrad as she and her mother met the three others, and the half. The doctor replied:

"He's gone for a walk along the cliff by himself. I would have gone...." The doctor pauses a moment till the donkey-chair is a few paces ahead, accompanied by Mrs. Fenwick. "I would have gone, only, you see, it's just mother's last day or two...." Sally apprehends perfectly. But he shouldn't have dropped his voice. He was quite distant enough to be inaudible by the Octopus as far as overhearing words went. But any one can hear when a voice is dropped suddenly, and words are no longer audible. Dr. Conrad is a very poor Machiavelli, when all is said and done.

"I can hear _every word_ my boy is saying to your girl, Mrs. Fenwick." This is delivered with exemplary sweetness by the Octopus, who then guesses with diabolical acumen at almost the exact wording of her son's speech. Apparently, no amount of woollen wraps, no double thickness of green veil to keep the glare out, no smoked glasses with flanges to make it harmless if it gets in, can obscure the Goody's penetrative powers when invoked for the discomfiture of her kind. "But does not my dear boy know," she continues gushily, "that I am _al_ways content to be _alone_ as long as I can be _sure_ that he is happily employed _elsewhere_. I am a _dull old woman_, I know; but, at least, my wish is not to be a burden. That was the wish of my great-aunt Eliza--your great-great-aunt, Conrad; you never saw her--in her last illness. I borrow her expression--'not to be a burden.'" The Octopus, having seized her prey in this tentacle, was then at liberty to enlarge upon the unselfish character of her great-aunt, reaping the advantages of a vicarious egoism from an hypnotic suggestion that that character was also her own. The great-aunt had, it appeared, lost the use, broadly speaking, of her anatomy, and could only communicate by signs; but when she died she was none the less missed by her own circle, whose grief for her loss took the form of a tablet. The speaker paused a moment for her hearers to contemplate the tablet, and perhaps ask for the inscription, when Sally saw an opening, and took advantage of it.

"Dr. Conrad's going to be very selfish this afternoon, Mrs. Vereker, and come with us to Chalke, where that dear little church is that looks like a barn. I mean to find the sexton and get the key this time."

"My dear, I shall be _per_fectly happy knitting. Do not trouble about me for one moment. I shall think how you are enjoying yourselves. When I was a girl there was nothing I enjoyed more than ransacking old churches...."

And so forth. Rosalind felt almost certain that Sally either said or telegraphed to the doctor, who was wavering, "You'll come, you know. Now, mind; two-thirty punc.," and resolved, if he did _not_ come, to go to Iggulden's and extract him from the tentacles of his mamma, and remain entangled herself, if necessary.

In fact, this was how the arrangement for the afternoon worked out. Dr. Conrad did _not_ turn up, as expected, and Rosalind carried out her intention. She rescued the doctor, and sent him round to join her husband and Sally, promising to follow shortly and catch them up. The three started to walk, but Fenwick, after a little slow walking to allow Rosalind to overtake them, had misgivings that she had got caught, and went back to rescue her, telling Sally and the doctor it was no use to wait--they would follow on, and take their chance. And the programme so indicated was acted on.


CHAPTER XLI


OF LOVE, CONSIDERED AS A THUNDERSTORM, AND OF AGUR, THE SON OF JAKEH (PROV. XXX.). OF A COUNTRY WALK AND A JUDICIOUSLY RESTORED CHURCH. OF TWO CLASPED HANDS, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. NOTHING SO VERY REMARKABLE AFTER ALL!

Love, like a thunderstorm, is very much more intelligible in its beginnings--to its chronicler, at least--than it becomes when it is, so to speak, overhead. We all know the clear-cut magnificence of the great thundercloud against the sky, its tremendous deliberation, its hills and valleys of curdling mist, fraught with God knows what potential of destruction in volts and ohms; the ceaseless muttering of its wrath as it speaks to its own heart, and its sullen secrets reverberate from cavern to cavern in the very core of its innermost blackness. We know the last prismatic benedictions of the sun it means to hide from us--the strange gleams of despairing light on the other clouds--clouds that are not in it, mere outsiders or spectators. We can remember them after we have got home in time to avoid a wetting, and can get our moist water-colours out and do a recollection of them before they go out of our heads--or think we can.

But we know, too, that there comes a time of a sudden wind and agitated panic of the trees, and then big, warm preliminary drops, and then the first clap of thunder, clear in its own mind and full of purpose. Then the first downpour of rain, that isn't quite so clear, and wavers for a breathing-space, till the tart reminder of the first swift, decisive lightning-flash recalls it to its duty, and it becomes a steady, intolerable torrent that empties roads and streets of passers-by, and makes the gutters rivulets. And then the storm itself--flash upon flash--peal upon peal--up to the blinding and deafening climax, glare and thunderbolt in a breath. And then it's overhead, and we are sure something has been struck that time.

It was all plain sailing, two days since, in the love-storm we want the foregoing sketch of a thunderstorm to illustrate, that was brewing in the firmament of Conrad Vereker's soul. At the point corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder--wherever it was--Chaos set in in that firmament. And Chaos was developing rapidly at the time when the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity from the maternal clutch, started on what he believed would be his last walk with his idol at St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he got back to London, though there might be, academically speaking, opportunities of seeing Sally, it wasn't going to be the same thing. That was the phrase his mind used, and we know quite well what it meant.

Of course, when some peevish author or invalid sends out a servant to make you take your organ farther off, a good way down the street, you can begin again exactly where you left off, lower down. But a barrel-organ has no soul, and one has one oneself, usually. Dr. Vereker's soul, on this occasion, was the sport of the love-storm of our analogy, and was tossed and driven by whirlwinds, beaten down by torrents, dazzled by lightning and deafened by thunder, out of reach of all sane record by the most eloquent of chroniclers. It was not in a state to accept calmly the idea of transference to Shepherd's Bush. A tranquil mind would have said, "By all means, go home and start afresh." But no; the music in this case refused to welcome the change. Still, he would forget it--make light of it and ignore it--to enjoy this last little expedition with Sally to the village church across the downs, that had been so sweetly decorated for the harvest festival. A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. _Carpe diem!_

So Dr. Conrad seemed to have grown younger than ever when he and Sally got away from all the world, after Fenwick had fallen back to rescue the captive, octopus-caught. Whereat Sally's heart rejoiced; for this young man's state of subordination to his skilful and overwhelming parent was a constant thorn in her side. To say she felt for him is to say nothing. To say that she would have jumped out of her skin with joy at hearing that he was engaged to that young lady, unknown; and that that young lady had successfully made terms of capitulation, involving the disbanding of the Goody, and her ultimate dispersal to Bedford Park with a companion--to vouch for this actually happening might be rash. But Sally told herself--and her mother, for that matter--that she should so jump out of her skin; and you may believe her, perhaps. We happen not to; but it may have been true, for all that.

Agur, the son of Jakeh (Prov. xxx.), evidently thought the souls of women not worth analysis, and the way of a maid with a man not a matter for Ithiel and Ucal to spend time and thought over, as they seem to have said nothing to King Solomon on the subject. But then Agur candidly admitted that he was more brutish than any man, and had not the understanding of a man. So he contented himself with wondering at the way of a man with a maid, and made no remarks about the opposite case. Even with the understanding of a man, would he have been any nearer seeing into the mystery of a girl's heart? As for ourselves, we give it up. We have to be content with watching what Miss Sally will do next, not trying to understand her.

She certainly _believed_ she believed--we may go that far--when she started to walk to Chalke Church with a young man she felt a strong interest in, and wanted to see happily settled in life--(all her words, please, not ours)--that she intended, this walk, to get out of Prosy who the young lady was that he had hinted at, and, what was more, she knew exactly how she was going to lead up to it. Only she wouldn't rush the matter; it would do just as well, or better, after they had seen the little church, and were walking back in the twilight. They could be jolly and chatty