Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

was rather thoughtless very often. I don’t want you to think that I’m going to marry her now from any sense of duty. I love her. At the same time when people argue that she’s not the correct young Miss they apparently expect me to marry, I’m left unmoved. Pasts belong to men as well as to women.”

Mrs. Ross nodded slowly. Kenneth came rushing up, shouting that he had caught a frightfully rare butterfly. Michael looked at it.

“A female Orange Tip,” was the verdict.

“But isn’t that frightfully rare?”

Michael shook his head.

“No rarer than the males; but you don’t notice them, that’s all.”

Kenneth retired to find some more.

“And you’re sure you’ll be happy with her?” Mrs. Ross asked.

“As sure as I am that I shall be happy with anybody. I ought to be married to her by now. This delay that I’ve so weakly allowed isn’t going to effect much.”

Michael sighed. He had meant to be in Provence this month of May.

“But the delay can’t do any harm,” Mrs. Ross pointed out. “At any rate, it will enable you to feel more sure of yourself, and more sure of her, too.”

“I don’t know,” said Michael doubtfully. “My theory has always been that if a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing at once.”

“And after you’re married,” she asked, “what are you going to do? Just lead a lazy life?”

“Oh, no; I suppose I shall find some occupation that will keep me out of mischief.”

“That sounds a little cynical. Ah, well, I suppose it is a disappointment to me.”

“What’s a disappointment?”

“I’ve hoped and prayed so much lately that you would have a vocation.⁠ ⁠…”

“A priest,” he interrupted quickly, “It’s no good, Mrs. Ross. I have thought of being one, but I’m always put off by the professional side of it. And there are ways of doing what a priest does without being one.”

“Of course, I can’t agree with you there,” she said.

“Well, apart from the sacraments, I mean. Lately I’ve seen something of the underworld, and I shall think of some way of being useful down there. Already I believe I’ve done a bit.”

They talked of the problems of the underworld and Michael was encouraged by what he fancied was a much greater breadth in her point of view nowadays to speak of things that formerly would have made her gray eyes harden in fastidious disapproval.

“I feel happier about you since this talk,” she said. “As long as you won’t be content to let your great gift of humanity be wasted, as long as you won’t be content to think that in marrying your Lily you have done with all your obligations.”

“Oh, no, I shan’t feel that. In fact, I shall be all the more anxious to justify myself.”

Kenneth came back to importune Michael for a walk as far as Grogg’s Folly.

“It’s such fun for Kenneth to have you here!” Mrs. Ross exclaimed. “I’ve never seen him so boisterously happy.”

“I used to enjoy myself here just as much as he does,” said Michael. “Though perhaps I didn’t show it. I always think of myself as rather a dreary little beast when I was a kid.”

“On the contrary, you were a most attractive boy; such a wide-eyed little boy,” said Mrs. Ross softly, looking back into time. “I’ve seldom seen you so happy as just before I blew out your candle the first night of your first stay here.”

“I say, do come up the hill,” interrupted Kenneth despairingly.

“A thousand apologies, my lord,” said Michael. “We’ll go now.”

They did not stop until they reached the tower on the summit.

“When I was your age,” Michael told him, “I used to think that I could see the whole of England from here.”

“Could you really?” said Kenneth, in admiration. “Could you see any of France, too?”

“I expect so,” Michael answered. “I expect really I thought I could see the whole world. Kenneth, what are you going to be when you grow up? A soldier?”

“Yes, if I can⁠—or what is a philosopher?”

“A philosopher philosophizes.”

“Does he really? Is that a difficult thing to do, to philosopherize?”

“Yes; it’s almost harder to do than to pronounce.”

Soon they were tearing down the hill, frightening the larks to right and left of their progress.

The weather grew warmer every day, and at last Mrs. Carthew came out in a wheelchair to see the long-spurred columbines, claret and gold, watchet, rose and white.

“Really quite a display,” she said to Michael. “And so you’re to get married?”

He nodded.

“What for?” the old lady demanded, looking at him over her spectacles.

“Well, principally because I want to,” Michael answered, after a short pause.

“The best reason,” she agreed. “But in your case insufficient, and I’ll tell you why⁠—you aren’t old enough yet to know what you do want.”

“Twenty-three,” Michael reminded her.

“Twenty-fiddlesticks!” she snapped. “And isn’t there a good deal of opposition?”

“A good deal.”

“And no doubt you feel a fine romantical heroical young fellow?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue against your marrying her,” said Mrs. Carthew. “Because I know quite well that the more I proved you to be wrong, the more you’d be determined to prove I was. But I can give you advice about marriage, because I’ve been married and you haven’t. Is she dark? If she’s dark, be very cold for a year, and if she doesn’t leave you in that time, she’ll adore you for the rest of her life.”

“But she’s fair,” said Michael. “Very fair indeed.”

“Then beat her. Not actually, of course; but beat her figuratively for a year. If you don’t, she’ll either be a shrew or a whiner. Both impossible to live with.”

“Which did Captain Carthew do to you?” asked Michael, twinkling.

“Neither; I ruled him with a rod of iron.”

“But do you think I’m wise to wait like this before marrying her?” Michael asked.

“There’s no wisdom in waiting to do an unwise thing.”

“You’re so sure it is unwise?”

“All marriages are unwise,” said Mrs. Carthew sharply. “That’s why everybody gets married. For most people it is the only imprudence they have an opportunity of committing. After that, they’re permanently cured of rashness, and