Really, one is sometimes inclined to believe that imps of darkness hang about, to run and help whenever they see a little bit of mischief brewing.
CHAPTER X
CHALLIS'S adieu TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A COLD WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE. MISS ARKROYD'S MESSAGE DELIVERED
Marianne's loving Tite did not come back at the time he had appointed—not by many days. He postponed doing so in order to go back on the same day as Mr. Brownrigg, whose society he had begun to find rather amusing. Their departure together was again postponed in order that they might travel up in company with William Rufus and Lord Felixthorpe, with whom both had come to be on the best of terms, after each had denounced either to the other, in the strictest confidence, as purse-proud, rank-proud, toffish, and standoffish. They had collated their respective observations of the ingrained vices of Aristocracy, and found that they agreed. But, then, after they had unpacked their hearts with unprejudiced and candid criticism, they had suddenly volte face'd, and discerned that there was always a Something you could not define about people of this sort. They had both noticed this singular fact, and each was supplied by it with an insight into the unusual powers of penetration of the other. It was a curious coincidence that both had acquired a consciousness of this Something by comparing the courteous demeanour and graceful hospitality of their host with what they found it impossible to describe as anything but the Plebeian Vulgarity of the sitting Conservative member for the borough. Mr. Ramsey Tomes caught it hot. Then look at the indescribable grace of Lady Arkroyd, and contrast it with the dowdy personnel and awkward manners of the political gentleman's wife. Why!—there was a woman, her ladyship to wit, who could be as rude as she pleased to anyone, and the indefinable Something came in and carried it off!
Was it the indefinable Something, or a very easily definable Nothing-of-the-Sort, that brought about a still further delay in Alfred Challis's return home? Probably the latter, in the form of the gradual cordiality that comes to folk living in the same house under auspicious circumstances, and goes on growing till quarrelling time. It was of less importance when once he had overstayed his return-ticket; and the final outcome of two or three postponements, each to await a reinforcement to the homeward-bound Londoners, was that the bulk of the Royd house-party caught the two o'clock train ten days behind the date of Mr. Challis's promised return to his domestic hearth, and arrived at Euston in a drizzling mist, which knew that summer had gone, and had the atmosphere all to itself.
The porter that carried his portmanteau and his game—a hare and partridges, with which was associated a promise of pheasants next month—to a four-wheeler, might have noticed that the literary-looking gentleman and the good-looking young lady in blue said good-bye a great deal—in fact, until a carriage called out to know whether the latter was coming or not. But this porter's name was Onions, and he had no soul, except one that was wrapped up in remuneration. So he accepted fourpence and saw nothing.
But he might have. And also he might have heard the following conversation between the good-looking—or best-looking—young lady and the gentleman, after the latter had made sure that his selected four-wheeler was prepared to go as far as Wimbledon.
"Now, Mr. Challis, I know you're not to be trusted to give my message to your wife...."
"Yes, I am. She's to write you a line to say when she'll be at home."
"Stupid man! Now you know quite well it was nothing as bold as that. No, dear Mr. Challis, tell her I don't want to make a formal 'call.' I want to know her—as well as I know you. And I never shall unless we see each other quietly, when there's no one else there. Oh dear!—if only people I want to know would give me a cup of tea and say 'not at home' to everyone else!"
"I should myself! But I quite understand. I'll wrap up the message to Marianne exactly to that effect. She shall write and fix a day. And I'm not to be there—that's it, isn't it?"
"That's it. Good man! And you understand that I'm entirely in earnest about Aminta Torrington—(all right! Nobody can hear. They're all in the carriage)—and you're to speak to Mr. Magnus at the Megatherium about it."
"Oh yes! I'm going to speak. Honour bright!"
"Very well, then! Now good-bye, Mr. Challis."
"Good-bye. I have had a pleasant time." But Mr. Onions heard none of this, as, while he was disposing of the portmanteau, his attention was engaged by conversation with the cabman.
"Where's Wimbledon, Honey?" the latter had said, as he took the box from him. He seemed over-ripe, did this cabman. He could not fall off the box, though, for he had bound himself to it by tarpaulins of an inflexible nature. "Honey" was not Irish: it was short for "Onions."
"What's the use of askin' me, when you know yourself? Mean to say you don't?"
"I was born there, my son. I've lived there ever since. Likewise, I'm going to hend my days there, exceptin' I should 'appen to live for ever. I was just a-puttin' the question to see if you knew."
"Couldn't say to harf an inch where it is. But it's a place you get a pint at, every wisit."
"Right you are, my son!... All right, governor—just off, as soon as these cloths are tucked in. You never mentioned any 'urry, or I'd have seen to it!"
And then Royd and its luxurious life have finally vanished, and everyday life has come back, as the cab growls through its rather long ride. Challis was paying the penalty of coming home by a different route, and now almost wished he hadn't made up his mind to cab the whole way. But you know what it is when you have a large portmanteau that won't go on a hansom.
If it had not been for the hare and partridges, he could have managed to consider the whole thing a dream. This would have been an advantage; for no one stickles at finding waking life dull after a fascinating sleep-experience. Do not we all rather love to rub it into our waking surroundings how sweet that place was in the dream, how bright those skies and seas were, how lovable that—well, usually—person of the opposite sex was? Are you, if you are a lady, prepared to deny this last item? Not that this concerns the story, for there they were—the hare and partridges. And the memories they brought back clashed with the long perspectives of street-lamps in the drizzle, and the reflections of them; and the male umbrellas and female umbrellas bobbing endlessly past below them, or waiting for a bus that somebody may get out of, just there; and the busses that stopped to shed their passengers and fill up again with Heaven-favoured fresh ones—while they, the umbrellas, waited—and made the hearts of those no umbrella could keep dry sick with Hope deferred. This hare and partridges, fur-soft and feather-soft, though cold to the touch, were full of suggestions of the life that had been switched off finally just now at Euston Station. But then, of course—Challis ought to have recollected this, and he felt it—they were equally full of suggestion of where they were going to be devoured. Was he not going home to Marianne, and the children, and his snug little writing-room looking out on the Common across the garden, where he was on no account to be disturbed? The very word "home" had a magic in it, and so forth: consult Literature, passim!...
No, really, it was too absurd to allow his nasty cynical tone to creep into his thoughts—here in Hyde Park; for that was the Marble Arch, and the