discussion about the fancy dress ball, as mrs. altham had said, was paramount over all other topics for at least a fortnight after the event, and the great question which annually became of such absorbing interest during july—namely, as to where to spend august, was dwarfed and never attained to its ordinary proportions till quite late on in the month. these discussions did not, as a rule, bear fruit of any kind, since, almost without exception, everybody spent august exactly where august had been spent by him for the last dozen years or so, but it was clearly wise to consider the problem afresh every year, and be prepared, in case some fresh resort suggested itself, to change the habit of years, or at least to consider doing so. the lists of hotels at the end of bradshaw, and little handbooks published by the south-eastern railway were, as a rule, almost the only form of literature indulged in during these evenings of july, and mr. altham, whose imagination was always fired by pictures of ships, often studied the sailings of river plate steamers, and considered that the fares were very reasonable, especially steerage. the fact that he was an appallingly bad sailor in no way diminished the zest with which he studied their sailings and the prices thereof. subsequently he and mrs. altham always spent august at littlestone-on-sea, in a completely{176} detached villa called blenheim, where a capable scotchwoman, who, to add colour to the illusion, maintained that her name really was churchill, boarded and lodged them on solid food and feather beds. during july, it may be remarked, mrs. altham usually contrived to quarrel with her cook, who gave notice. thus there was one mouth less to feed while they were away, and yearly, on their return, they had the excitement of new and surprising confections from the kitchen.
mrs. ames, it may be remembered, had already enjoyed a fortnight’s holiday at overstrand this year, and the last week of july saw her still disinclined to make holiday plans. they had taken a sort of bungalow near deal for the last year or two, which, among other advantages, was built in such a manner that any remark made in any part of the house could be heard in any other part of the house. it was enough almost for her to say, as she finished dressing, “we are ready for breakfast,” to hear parker replying from the kitchen, “the kettle’s just on the boil, ma’am.” this year, however, she had been late in inquiring whether it was vacant for august, and she found, when her belated letter was answered, that it was already engaged.
this fact she broke to her husband and harry, who had returned from cambridge with hair unusually wild and lank, with tempered indignation.
“considering how many years we have taken it,” she said, “i must say that i think they should have told us before letting it over our heads like this. but i always thought that mrs. mackenzie was a most grasping sort of person who would be likely to take the first offer that turned up, and i’m sure the{177} house was never very comfortable. i have no doubt we can easily find a better without much bother!”
“my bedroom ceiling always leaked,” said harry; “and there was nowhere to write at!”
mrs. ames had finished her breakfast and got up. she felt faintly in her mind that after the fancy dress ball it was time for her to do something original. yet the whole idea was so novel.... riseborough would be sure to say that they had not been able to afford a holiday. but, after all, that mattered very little.
“i really don’t know why we always take the trouble to go away to an uncomfortable lodging during august,” she said, “and leave our own comfortable house standing vacant.”
major ames, had he been a horse, would have pricked up his ears at this. but the human ear being unadapted to such movements, he contented himself with listening avidly. he had seen little of millie this last fortnight, and was beginning to realize how much he missed her presence. between them, it is true, they had come near to an intimacy which had its dangers, which he really feared more than he desired, but he felt, with that self-deception that comes so easily to those who know nothing about themselves, that he was on his guard now. meantime, he missed her, and guessed quite truly that she missed him. and, poor prig, he told himself that he had no right to cut off that which gave her pleasure. he could be spartan over his own affairs, if so minded, but he must not play lycurgus to others. and an idea that had privately occurred to him, which at the time seemed incapable of realization, suddenly leaped into the possible horizons.{178}
“and you always complain of the dampness of strange houses, lyndhurst,” she added; “and as harry says, he has no place for writing and study. why should we go away at all? i am sure, after the excitement of the last month, it would be a complete rest to remain here when everybody else is gone. i have not had a moment to myself this last month, and i should not be at all sorry to stop quietly here.”
major ames knew with sufficient accuracy the influence he had over his wife. he realized, that is to say, as far as regarded the present instance, that slight opposition on his part usually produced a corresponding firmness on hers. accentuated opposition produced various results; sometimes he won, sometimes she. but mild remonstrance always confirmed her views in opposition to his. he had a plan of his own on this occasion, and her determination to remain in riseborough would prove to be in alliance with it. therefore he mildly remonstrated.
“you would regret it before the month was out,” he said. “for me, i’m an old campaigner, and i hope i can make myself comfortable anywhere. but you would get bored before the end of august, amy, and when you get bored your digestion is invariably affected.”
“i should like to stop in riseborough,” said harry. “i hate the sea.”
“you will go wherever your mother settles to go, my boy,” said major ames, still pursuing his plan. “if she wishes to go to sheffield for august, you and i will go too, and—and no doubt learn something useful about cutlery. but don’t try stopping in riseborough, my dear amy. at least, if you take my advice, you won’t.{179}”
major ames was not very intelligent, but the highest intelligence could not have done better. he had learned the trick of slight opposition, just as a stupid dog with a conservative master can learn to growl for asquith by incessant repetition. when it has learned it, it does it right. the major had done it right on this occasion.
“i do not see why harry should not have a voice in the question of where we spend his vacation,” she said. “certainly your room at the bungalow, lyndhurst, was comfortable enough, but that was the only decent room in the house. in any case we cannot get the bungalow for this august. have you any other plans as to where we should go?”
there was room for a little more of his policy of opposition.
“well, now, brighton,” he said. “why not brighton? there’s a club there; i dare say i should get a little bridge in the evening, and no doubt you would pick up some acquaintances, amy. i think the westbournes went there last year.”
this remarkable reason for going to brighton made mrs. ames almost epigrammatic.
“and then we could go on to margate,” she remarked, “and curry favour there.”
“by all means, my dear,” said he. “i dare say the curry would be quite inexpensive.”
mrs. ames opened the door on to the verandah.
“pray let me know, lyndhurst,” she said, “if you have any serious proposition to make.”
it was major ames’ custom to start work in the garden immediately after breakfast, but this morning he got out one of his large-sized cheroots instead (these conduced to meditation), and estab{180}lished himself in a chair on the verandah. his mental development was not, in most regards, of a very high or complex order, but he possessed that rather rare attainment of being able to sit down and think about one thing to the exclusion of others. with most of us to sit down and think about one thing soon resolves itself into a confused survey of most other things; major ames could do better than that, for he could, and on this occasion did exclude all other topics from his mind, and at the end return, so to speak, “bringing his sheaves with him.” he had made a definite and reasonable plan.
harry had communicated the interesting fact of his passion for mrs. evans to the omar khayyam club, and was, of course, bound to prosecute his nefarious intrigue. he had already written several galloping lyrics, a little loose in grammar and rhyme, to his enchantress, which he had copied into a small green morocco note-book, the title-page of which he had inscribed as “dedicated to m. e.” this looked a narcissus-like proceeding to any one who did not remember what mrs. evans’ initials were. this afternoon, feeling the poetic afflatus blowing a gale within him, but having nothing definite to say, he decided to call on the inspirer of his muse, in order to gather fresh fuel for his fire. arrayed in a very low collar, which showed the full extent of his rather scraggy neck, and adorned with a red tie, for socialism was no less an orthodoxy in the club than atheistic principles and illicit love, he set secretly out, and had the good fortune to find the goddess alone, and was welcomed with that rather timid, childlike deference that he had found so adorable before.{181}
“but how good of you to come and see me,” she said, “when i’m sure you must have so many friends wanting you. i think it is so kind.”
clearly she was timid; she did not know her power. her eyes were bluer than ever; her hair was of palest gold, “as i remembered her of old,” he thought to himself, referring to the evening at the end of june. indeed, there was a poem dated june 28, rather a daring one.
“the kindness is entirely on your side,” he said, “in letting me come, and”—he longed to say—“worship,” but did not quite dare—“and have tea with you.”
“dear me, that is a selfish sort of kindness,” she said. “let us go into the garden. i think it was very unkind of you, mr. harry, not to come to my dance last week. but of course you cambridge men have more serious things to think about than little country parties.”
“i thought about nothing else but your dance for days,” said he; “but my tutor simply refused to let me come down for it. a narrow, pedantic fellow, who i don’t suppose ever danced. tell me about your dress; i like to picture you in a fancy dress.”
she could not help appearing to wish to attract. it was as much the fault of the way her head was set on to her neck, of the colour of her eyes, as of her mind.
“oh, quite a simple white frock,” she said; “and a few pearls. they—they wanted me to go as cleopatra. so silly—me with a grown-up daughter. but my husband insisted.”
the fancy dress ball had not been talked about at mrs. ames’ lately, and he had heard nothing{182} about it in the two days he had been at home. both his parents had reason for letting it pass into the region of things that are done with.
“did mother and father go?” he asked. “i suppose they felt too old to dress up?”
“oh, no. they came as antony and cleopatra. have they not told you? cousin amy looked so—so interesting. and your father was splendid as mark antony.”
“then was dr. evans mark antony too?” asked harry.
“no; he was timon of athens.”
“then who was your mark antony?” he asked.
mrs. evans felt herself flushing, and her annoyance at herself made her awkward in the pouring out of tea. she felt that harry’s narrow, gimlet-like eyes were fixed on her.
“see how stupid i am,” she said. “i have spilled your tea in the saucer. dear mr. harry, we had heaps of cleopatras: mrs. altham was one, mrs. brooks was another. we danced with hamlets, and—and anybody.”
but this crude, ridiculous youth, she felt, had some idea in his head.
“and did father and mother dance together all the evening?” he asked.
she felt herself growing impatient.
“of course not. everybody danced with everybody. we had quadrilles; all sorts of things.”
then, with the mistaken instinct that makes us cautious in the wrong place, she determined to say a little more.
“but your father was so kind to me,” she said. “he helped me with all the arrangements. i could{183} never have managed it except for him. we had tremendous days of talking and planning about it. now tell me all about cambridge.”
but harry was scenting a sonnet of the most remarkable character. it might be called the rivals, and would deal with a situation which the omar khayyam club would certainly feel to be immensely “parful.”
“i suppose mother helped you, too?” he said.
this was byronic, lacerating. she had to suffer as well as he ... there was a pungent line already complete. “but who had suffered as much as me?” was the refrain. there were thrills in store for the omar khayyam club. after a sufficiency of yellow wine.
“cousin amy was away,” said mrs. evans. “she was staying at cromer till just before my little dance. that is not far from cambridge, is it? i suppose she came over to see you.”
harry spared her, and did not press these questions. but enough had been said to show that she had broken faith with him. “rivals” could suitably become quite incoherent towards the close. incoherency was sometimes a great convenience, for exclamatory rhymes were not rare.
he smoothed the lank hair off his forehead, and tactfully changed the subject.
“and i suppose you are soon going away now,” he said. “i am lucky to have seen you at all. we are going to stop here all august, i think. my mother does not want to go away. nor do i; not that they either of them care about that.”
mrs. evans’ slight annoyance with him was suddenly merged in interest.{184}
“how wise!” she said. “it is so absurd to go to stay somewhere uncomfortably instead of remaining comfortably. i wish we were doing the same. but my husband always has to go to harrogate for a few weeks. and he likes me to be with him. i shall think of you all and envy you stopping here in this charming riseborough.”
“you like it?” asked harry.
“how should i not with so many delightful people being friendly to me? relations too; cousin amy, for instance, and major ames, and, let me see, if mrs. ames is my cousin, surely you are cousin harry?”
harry became peculiarly fascinating, and craned his long neck forward.
“oh, leave out the ‘cousin,’” he said.
“how sweet of you—harry,” she said.
that, so to speak, extracted the poison-fangs from the projected “rivals,” and six mysterious postcards were placed by the author’s hand in the pillar-box that evening. each consisted of one mystic sentence. “she calls me by my christian name.” by a most convenient circumstance, too apt to be considered accidental, there had here come to birth an octo-syllabic line, of honeyed sweetness and simplicity. he was not slow to take advantage of it, and the moon setting not long before daybreak saw another completed gem of the m. e. series.
mrs. evans that afternoon, like major ames that morning, “sat and thought,” after harry had left her. independently of the fact that all admirers, even the weirdest, always found welcome in her pale blue eyes, she felt really grateful to harry, for he had given her the information on which she based a plan{185} which was quite as sound and simple as major ames’, and was designed to secure the same object. since the night of the fancy dress ball she had only seen him once or twice, and never privately, and the greater vitality which, by the wondrous processes of affinity, he had stirred in her, hungered for its sustenance. it cannot be said that she was even now really conscious in herself of disloyalty to her husband, or that she actually contemplated any breach of faith. she had not at present sufficient force of feeling to imagine a decisive situation; but she could at most lash her helm, so to speak, so that the action of the wind would take her boat in the direction in which she wished to go, and then sit idly on deck, saying that she was not responsible for the course she was pursuing. the wind, the tide, the currents were irresistibly impelling her; she had nothing to do with the rudder, having tied it, she did not touch it. like the majority in this world of miserable sinners, she did not actively court the danger she desired, but she hung about expectant of it. at the same time she kept an anxious eye on the shore towards which she was driving. was it really coming closer? if so, why did she seem to have made no way lately?
to-day her plan betokened a more active hand in what she thought of as fate, but unfortunately, though it was as sound in itself as major ames’, it was made independently and ignorantly of that which had prompted his slight opposition this morning, so that, while each plan was admirable enough in itself, the two, taken in conjunction, would, if successful, result in a fiasco almost sublime in its completeness. the manner of which was as follows.
elsie, it so happened, was not at home that evening,{186} and she and her husband dined alone, and strolled out in the garden afterwards.
“you will miss your chess this evening, dear,” she said. “or would it amuse you to give me a queen and a few bishops and knights, and see how long it takes you to defeat me? or shall we spend a little cosy chatty evening together? i hope no horrid people will be taken ill, and send for you.”
“so do i, little woman,” he said (she was getting to detest appellation). “and as if i shouldn’t enjoy a quiet evening of talk with you more than fifty games of chess! but, dear me, i shall be glad to get away to harrogate this year! i need a month of it badly. i shall positively enjoy the foul old rotten-egg smell.”
she gave a little shudder.
“oh, don’t talk of it,” she said. “it is bad enough without thinking of it beforehand.”
“poor little woman! almost a pity you are not gouty too. then we should both look forward to it.”
she sat down on one of the shrubbery seats, and drew aside her skirts, making room for him to sit beside her.
“yes, but as i am not gouty, wilfred,” she said. “it is no use wishing i was. and i do hate harrogate so. i wonder——”
she gave a little sigh and put her arm within his.
“well, what’s the little woman wondering now?” he asked.
“i hardly like to tell you. you are always so kind to me that i don’t know why i am afraid. wilfred, would you think it dreadful of me, if i suggested not going with you this year? i’m sure it makes me ill to be there. you will have elsie; you will play chess as usual with her all evening. you see all morning{187} you are at your baths, and you usually are out bicycling all afternoon with her. i don’t think you know how i hate it.”
she had begun in her shy, tentative manner. but her voice grew more cold and decided. she put forward her arguments like a woman who has thought it all carefully over, as indeed she had.
“but what will you do with yourself, my dear?” he said. “it seems a funny plan. you can’t stop here alone.”
she sat up, taking her hand from his arm.
“indeed, i should not be as lonely here as i am at harrogate,” she said. “we don’t know anybody there, and if you think of it, i am really alone most of the time. it is different for you, because it is doing you good, and, as i say, you are bicycling with elsie all the afternoon, and you play chess together in the evening.”
a shade of trouble and perplexity came over the doctor’s face; the indictment, for it was hardly less than that, was as well-ordered and digested as if it had been prepared for a forensic argument. and the calm, passionless voice went on.
“think of my day there,” she said, going into orderly detail. “after breakfast you go off to your baths, and i have to sit in that dreadful sitting-room while they clear the things away. even a hotel would be more amusing than those furnished lodgings; one could look at the people going in and out. or if i go for a stroll in the morning, i get tired, and must rest in the afternoon. you come in to lunch, and go off with elsie afterwards. that is quite right; the exercise is good for you, but what is the use of my being there? there is nobody for me to go to see,{188} nobody comes to see me. then we have dinner, and i have the excitement of learning where you and elsie have been bicycling. you two play chess after dinner, and i have the excitement of being told who has won. here, at any rate, i can sit in a room that doesn’t smell of dinner, or i can sit in the garden. i have my own books and things about me, and there are people i know whom i can see and talk to.”
he got up, and began walking up and down the path in front of the bench where they had been sitting, his kindly soul in some perplexity.
“nothing wrong, little woman?” he asked.
“certainly not. why should you think that? i imagine there is reason enough in what i have told you. i do get so bored there, wilfred. and i hate being bored. i am sure it is not good for me, either. try to picture my life there, and see how utterly different it is from yours. besides, as i say, it is doing you good all the time, and as you yourself said, you welcome the thought of that horrible smelling water.”
he still shuffled up and down in the dusk. that, too, got on her nerves.
“pray sit down, wilfred,” she said. “your walking about like that confuses me. and surely you can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to me. if you insist on my going with you, i shall go. but i shall think it very unreasonable of you.”
“but i can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ like that, little woman,” he said. “i don’t imagine you have thought how dull riseborough will be during august. everybody goes away, i believe.”
for a moment she thought of telling him that the ames’ were going to stop here: then, with entirely{189} misplaced caution, she thought wiser to keep that to herself. she, guilty in the real reason for wishing to remain here, though coherent and logical enough in the account she had given him of her reason, thought, grossly wronging him, that some seed of suspicion might hereby enter her husband’s mind.
“there is sure to be some one here,” she said. “the althams, for instance, do not go away till the middle of august.”
“you do not particularly care for them,” said he.
“no, but they are better than nobody. all day at harrogate i have nobody. it is not companionship to sit in the room with you and elsie playing chess. besides, the westbournes will be at home. i shall go over there a great deal, i dare say. also i shall be in my own house, which is comfortable, and which i am fond of. our lodgings at harrogate disgust me. they are all oilcloth and plush; there is nowhere to sit when they are clearing away.”
his face was still clouded.
“but it is so odd for a married woman to stop alone like that,” he said.
“i think it is far odder for her husband to want her to spend a month of loneliness and boredom in lodgings,” she said. “because i have never complained, wilfred, you think i haven’t detested it. but on thinking it over it seems to me more sensible to tell you how i detest it, and ask you that i shouldn’t go.”
he was silent a moment.
“very well, little woman,” he said at length. “you shall do as you please.”
instantly the cold precision of her speech changed. she gave that little sigh of conscious content with{190} which she often woke in the morning, and linked her arm into his again.
“ah, that is dear of you,” she said. “you are always such a darling to me.”
he was not a man to give grudging consents, or spoil a gift by offering it except with the utmost cordiality.
“i only hope you’ll make a great success of it, little woman,” he said. “and it must be dull for you at harrogate. so that’s settled, and we’re all satisfied. let us see if elsie has come in yet.”
she laughed softly.
“you are a dear,” she said again.
wilfred evans was neither analytical regarding himself nor curious about analysis that might account for the action of others. just as in his professional work he was rather old-fashioned, but eminently safe and sensible, so in the ordinary conduct of his life he did not seek for abstruse causes and subtle motives. it was quite enough for him that his wife felt that she would be excruciatingly bored at harrogate, and less acutely desolate here. on the other hand, it implied violation of one of the simplest customs of life that a wife should be in one place and her husband in another. that was vaguely disquieting to him. disquieting also was the cold, precise manner with which she had conducted her case. a dozen times only, perhaps, in all their married life had she assumed this frozen rigidity of demeanour; each time he had succumbed before it. in the ordinary way, if their inclinations were at variance, she would coax and wheedle him into yielding or, though quietly adhering to her own opinion, she would let him have his way. but with her calm rigidity, rarely assumed, he had{191} never successfully combated; there was a steeliness about it that he knew to be stronger than any opposition he could bring to it. nothing seemed to affect it, neither argument nor conjugal command. she would go on saying “i do not agree with you,” in the manner of cool water dripping on a stone. or with the same inexorable quietness she would repeat, “i feel very strongly about it: i think it very unkind of you.” and a sufficiency of that always had rendered his opposition impotent: her will, when once really aroused, seemed to paralyse his. once or twice her line had turned out conspicuously ill. that seemed to make no difference: the cold, precise manner was on higher plane than the material failure which had resulted therefrom. she would merely repeat, “but it was the best thing to do under the circumstances.”
in this instance he wondered a little that she had used this manner over a matter that seemed so little vital as the question of harrogate, but by next morning he had ceased to concern himself further with it. she was completely her usual self again, and soon after breakfast set off to accomplish some little errands in the town, looking in on him in his laboratory to know if there were any commissions she could do for him. his eye at the moment was glued to his microscope: a culture of staphylococcus absorbed him, and without looking up, he said—
“nothing, thanks, little woman.”
he heard her pause: then she came across the room to him, and laid her cool hand on his shoulder.
“wilfred, you are such a dear to me,” she said. “you’re not vexed with me?”
he interrupted his observations, and put his arm round her.
“vexed?” he said. “i’ll tell you when i’m vexed.{192}”
she smiled at him, dewily, timidly.
“that’s all right, then,” she said.
so her plan was accomplished.
the affair of the staphylococcus did not long detain the doctor, and presently after major ames was announced. he had come to consult dr. evans with regard to certain gouty symptoms into which the doctor inquired and examined.
“there’s nothing whatever to worry about,” he said, after a very short investigation. “i should recommend you to cut off alcohol entirely, and not eat meat more than once a day. a fortnight’s dieting will probably cure you. and take plenty of exercise. i won’t give you any medicine. there is no use in taking drugs when you can produce the same effect by not taking other things.”
major ames fidgeted and frowned a little.
“i was thinking,” he said at length, “of taking myself more thoroughly in hand than that. i’ve never approved of half-measures, and i can’t begin now. if a tooth aches have it out, and be done with it. no fiddling about for me. now my wife does not want to go away this august, and it seemed to me that it would be a very good opportunity for me to go, as you do, i think, and take a course of waters. get rid of the tendency, don’t you know, eradicate it. what do you say to that? harrogate now; i was thinking of harrogate, if you approved. harrogate does wonders for gout, does it not?”
the doctor laughed.
“i am certainly hoping that harrogate will do wonders for me,” he said. “i go there every year. and no doubt many of us who are getting on in years would be benefited by it. but your symptoms are very{193} slight. i think you will soon get rid of them if you follow the course i suggest.”
but major ames showed a strange desire for harrogate.
“well, i like to do things thoroughly,” he said. “i like getting rid of a thing root and branch, you know. you see i may not get another opportunity. amy likes me to go with her on her holiday in august, but there is no reason why i should stop in riseborough. i haven’t spoken to her yet, but if i could say that you recommended harrogate, i’m sure she would wish me to go. indeed, she would insist on my going. she is often anxious about my gouty tendencies, more anxious, as i often tell her, than she has any need to be. but an aunt of hers had an attack which went to her heart quite unexpectedly, and killed her, poor thing. i think, indeed, it would be a weight off amy’s mind if she knew i was going to take myself thoroughly in hand, not tinker and peddle about with diet only. so would you be able to recommend me to go to harrogate?”
“a course of harrogate wouldn’t be bad for any of us who eat a good dinner every night,” said dr. evans. “but i think that if you tried——”
major ames got up, waving all further discussion aside.
“that’s enough, doctor,” he said. “if it would do me good, i know amy would wish me to go; you know what wives are. now i’m pressed for time this morning, and so i am sure are you. by the way, you needn’t mention my plan till i’ve talked it over with amy. but about lodgings, now. do you recommend lodgings or an hotel?”
dr. evans did not mention that his wife was not going to be with him this year, for, having obtained{194} permission to say that harrogate would do him good, major ames had developed a prodigious hurry, and a few moments after was going jauntily home, with the address of dr. evans’ lodgings in his pocket. he trusted to his own powers of exaggeration to remove all possible opposition on his wife’s part, and felt himself the devil of a diplomatist.
so his plan was arranged.
the third factor in this network of misconceived plots occurred the same morning. mrs. ames, visiting the high street on account of an advanced melon, met cousin millie on some similar errand to the butcher’s on account of advanced cutlets, for the weather was trying. it was natural that she announced her intention of remaining in riseborough with her family during august: it was natural also that cousin millie signified the remission from harrogate. cousin amy was cordial on the subject, and returned home. probably she would have mentioned this fact to her husband, if he had given her time to do it. but he was bursting with a more immediate communication.
“i didn’t like to tell you before, amy,” he said, “because i didn’t want to make you unnecessarily anxious. and there’s no need for anxiety now.”
mrs. ames was not very imaginative, but it occurred to her that the newly-planted magnolia had not been prospering.
“no real cause for anxiety,” he said. “but the fact is that i went to see dr. evans this morning—don’t be frightened, my dear—and got thoroughly overhauled by him, thoroughly overhauled. he said there was no reason for anxiety, assured me of it. but i’m gouty, my dear, there’s no doubt of it, and of course you remember about your poor aunt harriet.{195} well, there it is. and he says harrogate. a bore, of course, but harrogate. but no cause for anxiety: he told me so twice.”
mrs. ames gave one moment to calm, clear, oyster-like reflection, unhurried, unalarmed. there was no shadow of reason why she should tell him what mrs. evans’ plans were. but it was odd that she should suddenly decide to stop in riseborough, instead of going to harrogate, having heard from harry that the ames’ were to remain at home, and lyndhurst as suddenly be impelled to go to harrogate, instead of stopping in riseborough. a curious coincidence. everybody seemed to be making plans. at any rate she would not add to their number, but only acquiesce in those which were made.
“my dear lyndhurst, what an upset!” she said. “of course, if you tell me there is no cause for anxiety, i will not be anxious. does dr. evans recommend you to go to harrogate now? you must tell me all he said. they always go in august, do they not? that will be pleasant for you. but i am afraid you will find the waters far from palatable.”
major ames felt that he had not made a sufficiently important impression.
“of course, i told dr. evans i could decide nothing till i had consulted you,” he said. “it seems a great break-up to leave you and harry here and go away like this. it was that i was thinking of, not whether waters a palatable or not. i have more than half a mind not to go. i daresay i shall worry through all right without.”
again mrs. ames made a little pause.
“you must do as dr. evans tells you to do,” she said. “i am sure he is not faddy or fussy.”
major ames’ experience of him this morning fully{196} endorsed this. certainly he had been neither, whatever the difference between the two might be.
“well, my dear, if both you and dr. evans are agreed,” he said, “i mustn’t set myself up against you.”
“now did he tell you where to go?”
“he gave me the address of his own lodgings.”
“what a convenient arrangement! now, my dear, i beg you to waste no time. send off a telegram, and pay the reply, and we’ll pack you off to-morrow. i am sure it is the right thing to do.”
a sudden conviction, painfully real, that he was behaving currishly, descended on major ames. the feeling was so entirely new to him that he would have liked to put it down to an obsession of gout in a new place—the conscience, for instance, for he could hardly believe that he should be self-accused of paltry conduct. he felt as if there must be some mistake about it. he almost wished that amy had made difficulties; then there would have been the compensatory idea that she was behaving badly too. but she could not have conducted herself in a more guilelessly sympathetic manner; she seemed to find no inherent improbability in dr. evans having counselled harrogate, no question as to the advisability of following his advice. it was almost unpleasant to him to have things made so pleasant.
but then this salutary impression was effaced, for anything that savoured of self-reproach could not long find harbourage in his mind. instead, he pictured himself at harrogate station, welcoming the evans’. she would probably be looking rather tired and fragile after the journey, but he would have a cab ready for her, and tea would be awaiting them when they reached the lodgings....
