"Had I been asked--had you consulted me, my dear--I should certainly have advised that Mr. Fenwick should have been accompanied by another married man, certainly not by a young, single gentleman. The man himself--I am referring to the owner of the boat--would have done quite well, whether married or single. Boatmen are seldom unmarried, though frequently tattooed with ladies' names when they have been in the navy. You see something to laugh at, Conrad? In your mother! But I am used to it." The doctor's smile was in memory of two sun-browned arms that had pushed the boat off two hours ago. One had Elinor and Kate on it, the other Bessie and a Union Jack.

"Don't you think, mother dear," said the doctor at last, "that if Mrs. Fenwick, who knew all about it, had seen anything outrageous she would have spoken? She really only seemed anxious none of us should get drowned."

"Very likely, my dear; she would be. You will, I am sure, do me this justice, that I have throughout said, from the very beginning, that Mrs. Fenwick is a most excellent person, though I have sometimes found her tiring."

"I am sorry she has tired you. You must always tell her, you know, when you're tired, and then she'll come and fetch me." The doctor resisted a temptation to ask, "From the very beginning of _what_?"

For the suggestion that materials for laceration were simmering was without foundation; was, in fact, only an example of the speaker's method. She followed it with another.

"It is so often the case with women who have pa.s.sed a good deal of time in India."

"Are women tiring when they have pa.s.sed a good deal of time in India?"

"My dear Conrad, _is it likely_ I should talk such nonsense? You know perfectly well what I mean." But the doctor merely awaited natural development, which came. "Mind, I do not say I _believe_ Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story. But it would quite account for it--fully!"

What would account for what? Heaven only knew! However, the speaker was getting the bit in her teeth, and earth would know very soon. Dr.

Conrad was conscious at this moment of the sensation which had once made Sally speak of his mamma as an Octopus. She threw out a tentacle.

"And, of course, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story may be nothing but idle talk. I am the last person to give credit to mere irresponsible gossip. Let us hope it is ill founded."

Whereupon her son, who knew another tentacle would come and entangle him if he slipped clear from this one, surrendered at discretion. What _was_ Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's story? A most uncandid way of putting it, for the fact was he had heard it all from Sally in the strictest confidence. So the insincerity was compulsory, in a sense.

The Octopus, who was by this time anch.o.r.ed in her knitting-chair and awaiting her mixture--two tablespoonfuls after every meal--closed her eyes to pursue the subject, but warmed to the chace visibly.

"Are you going to tell me, my dear Conrad, that you do _not_ know that it has been said--I vouch for nothing, remember--that Miss Nightingale's mother was divorced from her father twenty years ago in India?"

"I don't think it's any concern of yours or mine." But having said this, he would have liked to recall it and subst.i.tute something else.

It was brusque, and he was not sure that it was a fair way of stating the case, especially as this matter had been freely discussed between them in the days of their first acquaintance with Sally and her mother. Dr. Conrad felt mean for renegading from his apparent admission at that time that the divorce was an affair they might properly speculate about. Mrs. Vereker knew well that her son would be hard on himself for the slightest unfairness, and forthwith climbed up to a pinnacle of flawless rect.i.tude, for his confusion.

"My dear, it is absolutely _none_. Am I saying that it is? People's past lives are no affair of ours. Am I saying that they are?"

"Well, no!"

"Very well, then, my dear, listen to what I do say, and do not misrepresent me. What I say is this--(Are you sure Perkins has mixed this medicine the same as the last? The taste's different)--Now listen! What I say is, and I can repeat it any number of times, that it is useless to expect sensitiveness on such points under such circ.u.mstances. I am certain that your father, or your great-uncle, Dr. Everett Gayler, would not have hesitated to endorse my opinion that on the broad question of whether a girl should or should not dive off a boat rowed by an unmarried man, no one is less likely to form a correct judgment than a lady who was divorced from her husband twenty years ago in India. But I say nothing against Mrs. Fenwick. She is, so far as she is known to me, an excellent person, and a good wife and mother. Now, my dear Conrad, I must rest, for I fear I have talked too much."

Poor Prosy! All the edge of his joy of the morning was taken off. But never mind! It would very soon be Sally herself again, and his thirsty soul would be drinking deep draughts of her at the pier-end, where the appointment was to be kept with the young lady and her dolly.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

OF AN INTERMITTENT CURRENT AT THE PIER-END, AND OF DOLLY'S FORt.i.tUDE.

HOW FENWICK PUT HIS HEAD IN THE JAWS OF THE FUTURE UNAWARES, AND PROSY DIDN'T COME. HOW SALLY AND HER STEP SAW PUNCH, AND OF A THIN END OF A FATAL WEDGE. BUT ROSALIND SAW NO COMING CLOUD

An iron pier, with a sense of lattice structure about it, is not to our old-fashioned minds nearly so fascinating as the wooden fabric of our early memories at more than one seaside resort of our boyhood. St.

Sennan was of another school, or had become a convert or pervert, if a Saint may be judged by his pier. For this was iron or steel all through, barring the timber flooring whose planks were a quarter of an inch apart, so that you could kneel down to see the water through if you were too short to see over the advertis.e.m.e.nts a sordid spirit of commercialism had blocked the side-railings with. And if you were three or four, and there was n.o.body to hold you up (because they were carrying baby), you did so kneel, and as like as not got tar on your knees, and it wouldn't come off. Anyhow, Miss Gwendolen Arkwright did, on her way to the appointment, and was reproved therefore. On which she also reproved dolly in identical terms, dolly having had a look through as well, though, indeed, she can hardly be said to have knelt.

But to console us for the loss of the solid groins and bolted timbers of our youth, and to make it palatable to us that the great seas should follow each other for ever almost unopposed--instead of being broken into floods of drenching foam visitors get wet-through in--this unsubstantial-looking piece of cage-work expanded as soon as it was well out in the open channel, and almost provided John Bull with another "other island." And whereon the pier-company's sordid commercialism had suggested the construction of a Chinese joss-house, or Indian bungalow--our description is a random one--that lent itself, or was lent by the company, at really an almost nominal figure, for entertainments in the afternoon all through the season. And round this structure were things desirable by all mankind, and supposed to be desired by possessors of one penny willing to part with it. For a penny-in-the-slot you could learn your fate from a Sibyl, and repent of having spent your penny on it. For another you could scent your pocket-handkerchief, and be sorry you hadn't kept your penny for chocolate. For another you could have the chocolate, and wish you had waited and taken a cigarette. And for another you could take the cigarette, and realise how ill-a.s.sorted are the flavours of chocolate and the best Virginian tobacco.

But the pennyworth that seemed the worthiest of its penny was, no doubt, the old-fashioned galvanic battery, which shocked you for a sixth part of the smallest sum required by literature on first publication. It had bra.s.s handles you took hold of, and bra.s.s basins with unholy water in them that made you curl up, and anybody else would do so too. And there was a bunch of wires to push in, and agonize the victim who, from motives not easily understood, laid himself open to torture. And it certainly said "whizzy-wizzy-wizz."

But Gwenny's description had been wrong in one point. For it was yourself, the investigator, not the machine, that said "e-e-e-e!"

Now this machine was in charge of a young woman, who was also the custodian of an invisible lady, who was to be seen for a penny each person, children half-price. This appeared to be a contradiction in terms, but public apathy accepted it without cavil. The taking of this phenomenon's gate-money seemed to be almost a sinecure. Not so the galvanic battery, which never disappointed any one. It might disgust, or repel, those who had had no occasion to study this branch of science, but it always acted up to its professions. Those investigators who declined to have any more never could go away and complain that they had not had enough. And no one had ever been discontented with its baneful results when all the bundle of wires was put in; indeed, the young person in charge said she had never known any one to drain this cup of scientific experience to the dregs.

"Halfway in's enough for most," was her report of human endurance.

It was a spirited little machine, though old-fashioned.

Miss Arkwright and her dolly, accompanied, as we have hinted, by her Nurse Jane and baby, whose violent temper had condemned his perambulator, and compelled his attendant to carry him--so she said--were beforehand at the place and hour named. For security against possible disappointment a fiction was resorted to that dolly wouldn't cry if her mamma talked seriously to her, and it was pointed out that Mr. Fenwick was coming, and Mrs. Fenwick was coming, and Miss Nightingale was coming, and Dr. Vereker was coming--advantage being taken of an infant's love of vain repet.i.tions. But all these four events turned on dolly being good and not crying, and the reflex action of this stipulation produced goodness in dolly's mamma, with the effect that she didn't roar, as, it seemed, she might otherwise have done.

Miss Gwendolen was, however, _that_ impatient that no dramatic subterfuge, however skilfully engineered, could be relied upon to last. Fortunately, a young lady she recognised, and a gentleman whom she did not personally know, but had seen on the beach, became interested in baby, who took no notice of them, and hiccupped. But, then, his eyes were too beady to have any human expression; perhaps it was more this than a contempt for vapid compliment that made him seem unsympathetic. The young lady, however, congratulated him on his _personnel_ and on the variety of his attainments; and this interested Miss Gwendolen, who continued not to roar, and presently volunteered a statement on her own account.

"My mummar zis a-comin', and Miss Ninedale zis a-comin', and Miss Ninedale's mummar zis a-comin', and...." But Nurse Jane interposed, on the ground that the lady knew already who was coming. She had no reason for supposing this; but a general atmosphere of omniscience among grown-up cla.s.ses is morally desirable. It was, however, limited to Clause 1. Miss Gwenny went on to the consideration of Clause 2 without taking a division.

"To see dolly danvalised for a penny. My mummar says--see--sall--div me a penny...."

"To galvanise dolly? How nice that will be!--Isn't she a dear little thing, Paggy?--And we're just in time to see it. Now, that _is_ nice!"

Observe Laet.i.tia's family name for her husband, born of Cattley's.

"Isn't that them coming, Tish?" Yes, it is. They are conscientiously negotiating the turnstile at the pier-entrance, where one gets a ticket that lets you on all day, and you lose it. Conscientiously, because the pier-company often left its side-gate open, and relied on public spirit to acquiesce in its turnstile without dispute.

But Bradshaw has the misfortune to fall in Nurse's good opinion. For he asks who the important-looking party is, and is called to order.

"Sh-sh-iii-sh, love! Do take care! Gwenny's mamma--Mrs. Chesterfield Arkwright. They've a house at Boxley Heath--friends of the Hugh Jameses--those very high-flying people." This is not _a pleine voix_, and a well-disciplined Nurse knows better than to hear it.

Miss Gwenny and dolly consent to accompany the lady and gentleman to meet the party, the former undertaking to point out her mamma. "I sail sow you wiss," she says; and then gives descriptive particulars of the conduct of the galvanic battery, and forecasts its effect on dolly.

"There's that dear little pet," says Sally; and resumes the operation of spoiling the little pet on the spot. She isn't sorry to tally the pet (whose phonetics we employ) "dest wunced round the p on her soulders, only zis wunced." She is a little silent, is Sally, and preoccupied--perhaps won't object to a romp to divert her thoughts.

Because she is afraid poor Prosy is in the tentacles of the Octopus.

She evidently is not in love with him; if she were she would be feeling piqued at his not being in time to the appointment, not fidgeting about his losing the fun. She made some parade, at any rate, of her misgivings that poor Dr. Conrad had got hooked by his Goody, and would be late. If she _was_ piqued she concealed it. Whichever it was, she found it congenial to "tally" Miss Arkwright on her "soulders" twiced round the pier-end before the party arrived within range of the battery. They meanwhile--that is to say, Rosalind and her husband, Laet.i.tia and hers, with Sally and Gwenny's mamma--lingered slowly along the pier listening to the experiences of the latter, of men, women, and things among the right sort of people.

"You really never know, and one cannot be too careful. So much turns on the sort of people you let your daughter get mixed up with. I'm sure Mrs. Fenwick will agree with me that Mrs. Hugh James was right.

You see, I've known her from a child, and a more unworldly creature never breathed. But she asked me, and I could only say what I did: 'Take the child at once to Paris and Ems and Wiesbaden--anywhere for a change. Even a tradesman is better than a professional man. In that case there may be money. But nowadays none of the professions pay.

And their connexions are most undesirable.'"

"Now _I_ should call that a brig." Thus Bradshaw, pursuing the great controversy. But Fenwick knows better, or thinks he does. She's a brigantine, and there are sprits'ls on both masts, and only one square sail on the foremast. He may be right, for anything we know. Anyhow, her sheets are white in the sun, as she tacks down channel against the west or south-west wind, which has freshened. And she is a glorious sight as she comes in quite close to the pier-head, and goes into stays--(is that right?)--and her great sails flap and swing, and a person to whom caution is unknown, and who cares for nothing in heaven or earth, sits unconcerned on a string underneath her bowsprit, and gets wet through every time she plunges, doing something nautical in connexion with her foresail overhead. And then she leans over in the breeze, and the white sheets catch it full--so near you can hear the boom click as it swings, and the rattle of the cordage as it runs through the blocks--and then she gets her way on her, and shoots off through a diamond-drench of broken seas, and we who can borrow the coastguard's telescope can know that she is the Mary of Penzance, but are none the wiser. And a man stripped to the waist, who is washing radishes on the p.o.o.p, continues washing radishes unmoved, and ignores all things else.

"As far as the young man himself goes, I believe there is nothing to be said. But the mother is quite unpresentable, perfectly impossible.

And the eldest sister is married to a Dissenting clergyman--a very worthy man, no doubt, but not exactly. And the girls are loud, etc., etc., etc." Miss Arkwright's mamma ripples on, even as persons of condition ripple; and Tishy, whose views in this direction have undergone expansion, manages to forget how she has done the same herself--not long ago, neither!--and decides that the woman is detestable.

Not so her daughter, who, with Sally as guardian and dolly as ward, is awaiting the arrival of the party at the galvanic battery. She is yearning for the great event; not for a promised land of jerks and spasms for herself, but for her putative offspring. She encourages the latter, telling her not to be pitened and kye. Dolly doesn't seem apprehensive--shows great self-command, in fact.

But this detestable mother of a lovable daughter and an untempting granddaughter is destined to become still more detestable in the eyes of the Julius Bradshaws before she exhausts her topic. For as the party draws near to the scene of scientific recreation--and progress is slow, as she is deliberate as well as detestable; and, of course, is the pace-maker--she climbs up to a higher platform, as it were, for the contemplation of a lower deep. She a.s.sumes, for purposes of temporary handling of the subject, the air of one too far removed to know more about its details than the seismograph at Greenwich knows about the earthquake in the Andes. A dim contemplation of a thing afar--to be forgotten on the spot, after record made.

"Luckily, it's not so bad in this case as--(Gwenny, you're tiring Miss Nightingale. Come down!)--not so bad in this case as--(no, my dear! you _must_ wait for dolly to be galvanised. Come down at once, and don't make conditions.)"

"But I love having her dearly--do let me keep her!" from Sally.

And from the human creature on her shoulders, "Miss Ninedale says '_No!_'"