CHAPTER V

Turquand did not answer immediately.

"No," he said at last; "I'm not astonished. Nothing could astonish me, excepting good news. When is the event to take place?"

"That's not settled. Soon.... We shall always be pals, Turk?"

"I'll come and see you sometimes--oh yes. Father consented?"

"Things are quite smooth all round."

"H'mph!"

He looked hard at the wall and pulled his beard.

"You said it would happen, didn't you? I didn't see a glimmer of a possibility myself."

"Love's blind, you know."

"You said, too, it--er--it wouldn't be altogether a wise step. You'll change your mind about that one day, Turk."

"Hope so," said Turquand. "Can't to-night."

"You still believe I'm making a mistake?"

"What need is there to discuss it now?"

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Why _should_ we? Why argue with a man whether the ice will bear after he has made a hole in it?"

"We shan't be extravagant, and I shall work like blazes. I've a plot simmering already."

"Happy ending this time?"

"I don't quite see it, to be consistent--no."

"You must manage it. They like happy endings, consistent or not."

"Damn it, I mean to be true! I won't sell my birthright for a third edition! I shall work like blazes, and we shall live quite quietly somewhere in a little house----"

"That's impossible," said Turquand. "You may live in a little house, or you may live quietly, but you can't do both things at the same time."

"In the suburbs--in Streatham, probably. Her people live in Streatham, and of course she would like to be near them."

"And you will have a general servant, eh, with large and fiery hands--like Cornelia downstairs? Only she'll look worse than Cornelia, because your wife will dress her up in muslins and streamers, and try to disguise the _generality_. If you work in the front of your pretty little house, your nervous system 'll be shattered by the shrieks of your neighbours' children swinging on the gates--forty-pound-a-year houses in the suburbs are infested with children; nothing seems to exterminate them, and the inevitable gates groan like souls in hell--and if you choose the back, you'll be assisted by the arrival of the joint, and the vegetables, and the slap of the milk-cans, and Cornelia the Second's altercations with the errand-boys. A general servant with a tin pail alone is warranted to make herself heard for eleven hundred and sixty yards."

"Life hasn't made an optimist of you," observed Kent, less cheerfully, "that you clack about 'happy endings'!"

"The optimist is like the poet--he's born, he _isn't_ made. Speaking of life, I suppose you'll assure yours when you marry?"

"Yes," said Kent meditatively; "yes, that's a good idea. I shall.... But your suggestions are none of them too exhilarating," he added; "let's go to dinner!"

The sub-editor put on his jacket and sought his boots.

"I'm ready," he announced. "By the way, I never thought to inquire: Mrs. Walford hasn't a large family, has she?"

"A son as well, that's all. Why?"

"I congratulate you," said Turquand; it was the first time the word had passed his lips. "It's a truism to say that a man should never marry; anybody; but if he must blunder with someone, let him choose an only child! Marrying into a large family's more expensive still. His wife has for ever got a sister having a wedding, or a christening, or a birthday and wanting a present; or a brother asking for a loan, or dying and plunging her into costly crape. Yes, I congratulate you."

Humphrey expressed no thanks, and he determined to avoid the subject of his engagement as much as possible in their conversations hence-forward.

He was due at The Hawthorns the following afternoon at five o'clock, and his impatience to see the girl again was intensified by the knowledge that he was about to see her in her home. The day was tedious. In the morning it was showery, and he was chagrined to think that he was doomed to enter the drawing-room in muddy shoes; but after lunch the sky cleared, and when he reached Victoria the pavements were dry. The train started late, and travelled slowly; but he heard a porter bawling "Stretta Mill!" on the welcome platform at last, and, making the station's acquaintance with affectionate eyes, he hastened up the steps, and in the direction of the house.

He was prepossessed by its exterior, and his anticipations were confirmed on entering the hall.

Mrs. Walford was in the garden, he was told, and the parlourmaid led him there. It was an extremely charming garden. It was well designed, and it had a cedar and a tennis-court, which was pleasant to look at, though tennis was not an accomplishment that his life had furnished opportunities for acquiring; and it contained a tea-table under the cedar's boughs, and Cynthia in a basket-chair and a ravishing frock.

He was welcomed with effusion, and he presented his chocolates. Mr. Walford, already returned from town, was quite parental in his greeting. Tea was very nice and English in the cedar's shade and Cynthia's presence. It was very nice, too, to be made so much of in the circumstances. Really they were very delightful people!

The son was in Germany, he learnt.

"Or we could have given you a treat, my boy, if you are fond of music!" exclaimed the stock-jobber. "You will hear a voice when he comes back. That's luck for a fellow, to be born with an organ like Cæsar's! He'll be making five hundred a week in twelve months. I tell you it's wonderful!"

"'Five hundred a week'?" echoed Mrs. Walford.

"He'll be making more than five hundred a week, I hope, before long! They get two or three hundred a night--_not_ voices as fine as Cæsar's--and won't go on the stage till they have had their money, either. You talk such nonsense, Sam ... absurd!"

"I said 'in twelve months,'" murmured her husband deprecatingly. "I said in 'twelve months,' my dear." He turned to Kent, and added confidentially, "There isn't a bass in existence to compare with him. You'll say so when you hear. Ah, let me introduce you to another member of the family--my wife's sister."

Kent saw that they had been joined by a spare little woman with a thin, pursed mouth and a nose slightly pink. She was evidently a maiden lady, and his hostess's senior. Her tones were tart, and when she said that she was pleased to meet him, he permitted himself no illusion that she spoke the truth.

Miss Wix, as a matter of fact, was not particularly pleased to meet anybody. She lived with the Walfords because she had no means of her own and it was essential for her to live somewhere; but she accepted her dependence with mental indignation, and fate had soured her. Under a chilly demeanour she often burned secretly with the consciousness that she was not wanted, and the knowledge found expression at long intervals in an emotional outbreak, in which she quarrelled with Louisa violently, and proclaimed an immediate intention of "taking a situation." What kind of situation she thought she was competent to fill nobody inquired; neither did the "threat" ever impose on anyone, nor did she take more than a preliminary step towards fulfilling it. She nursed the "Wanted" columns of the _Telegraph_ ostentatiously for a day or two, and waited for the olive-branch. The household were aware that she must be persuaded to forgive them, and she was duly persuaded--relapsing into the acidulated person, in whom hysteria looked impossible. A year or so later the outbreak would be repeated, and she would then threaten to "take a situation" quite as vehemently as before.

"Tea, Aunt Emily?"

"Yes, please, if it hasn't got cold."

Humphrey took it to her. She stirred the cup briskly, and eyed him with critical disfavour.

"I've read your book, Mr. Kent."

"Oh," he responded, as she did not say any more. "Have you, Miss Wix?"

"Very good, I'm sure," she brought out, after a further silence. He would not have imagined the simple words capable of conveying so clearly that she thought it very small beer indeed. "I suppose you're in the middle of another?"

"No," he replied, "not yet."

"Really?"

She obviously considered that he ought to be.

"You should call her 'aunt,'" exclaimed Sam Walford. "You'll have to call her 'Aunt Emily.' We don't go in for formality, my boy. Rough diamonds!"

"Perhaps Mr. Kent thinks it would be rather premature," suggested Miss Wix.

He talked to Cynthia.

Fruit and fowls might be admired if he liked, and she and papa took him on a tour of inspection. There were moments when he was alone with Cynthia, while her father discovered that there weren't any eggs.

"He is very good-looking," said Mrs. Walford; "don't you think so?"

"I can't say he struck me as being remarkable for beauty," said the spinster.

"I didn't say he was 'remarkable for beauty,' but he has--er--distinction--decided distinction. I'm surprised you don't see it. And he has very fine eyes."

"His eyes won't give 'em any carriage-and-pair," replied Miss Wix. "_I_ used to have fine eyes, my dear, but I've stared at hard times so long."

"I don't know where the 'hard times' come in, I'm sure!" exclaimed Mrs. Walford sharply. "And he wanted to give her a carriage directly they marry, but Sam's forbidden it."

The maiden sniffed.

"He is most modest for his position! I tell you, he was chased in Dieppe; the women ran after him. A baroness in the hotel positively threw her daughter at his head.... He wouldn't look at anybody but Cynthia.... The Baroness was _miserable_ the day the engagement was known."

"Cynthia ought to be very proud," returned her sister dryly.

"Oh, of course the girl is making a wonderful match--no doubt about it! He sold his novel for an extraordinary sum--quite extraordinary!--and the publishers have implored him to let them have another at his own terms; I saw the telegrams.... Astonishing position for such a young man!"

"She's in luck!"

"She's a very taking girl. Her smile is so sweet, and her teeth are quite perfect."

"She was in luck to meet such a catch--some I people didn't have the opportunity.... I once had a beautiful set of teeth," added Miss Wix morosely; "but you can't pick rich husbands off gooseberry-bushes."

On the white balcony, after dinner, Kent begged Cynthia to fix the wedding-day. After she had named one in May, it was agreed that, subject to her parents' approval, they should be married two months hence. He made his way to the station about eleven o'clock, with a flower in his coat and rapture in his soul.

The first weeks of the period were interminable.

He went to The Hawthorns daily, and Mrs. Walford was so good as to look about for a house for them in the neighbourhood. He was in love, but not a fool; he was determined not to cripple himself at the outset by a heavy rental. In conference with the fiancée he intimated that it would be preposterous for them to think of paying a higher rent than fifty pounds. Cynthia was a little disappointed, for mamma had just seen a villa at sixty-five that was a "picturesque duck." He strangled an impulse to say, "We'll take it," and repeated that as soon as their circumstances brightened they could remove. She did not argue the point, though the _rara avis_ evidently allured her, and Kent felt her acquiescence to be very gracious, and wondered if he sounded mean.

The outlay on furniture did not worry him much. As Mrs. Walford pointed out, the things would "always be there" and "once they were bought, they were bought!" In her company they proceeded to Tottenham Court Road every morning for a week, and this one sped more quickly to him than any yet. It was a foretaste of life with Cynthia to choose armchairs, and etchings, and ornaments, and the rest, for their home together. They had found a house at fifty pounds per annum; it was about ten minutes' walk from The Hawthorns, a semi-detached villa in red brick, with nice wide windows, and electric bells, and rose-trees on either side of the tessellated path. They wanted to be able to drive up to it when they returned from the honeymoon and find it ready for them. Mrs. Walford was to buy the kitchen utensils, and engage a servant while they were away. All they had to do now was to buy the articles of interest, and settle the wall-papers, and have little intermediate luncheons, and go back to the shop, and sip tea while rolls of carpet were displayed. It was great fun.

In the shops, though, the things seldom seemed to look so nice as they had done in the catalogues, and it was generally necessary to pay more than had been foreseen. But, again, "once they were bought, they were bought!" The thought was sustaining. If Kent felt blank when he contemplated the total of what they had spent, and remembered that the kitchen clamoured still, he reflected that to kiss Cynthia in such a jolly little menage would certainly be charming, and the girl averred ecstatically that the dessert service "looked better than mamma's!" He estimated that they could live in comfort on two hundred and fifty a year--for the first year, at all events; and by then he would have finished a novel, which, in view of the Press notices that he had had, he believed would bring them in as much as that. Even if it did not, there would be a substantial portion of his capital remaining; and with the third book----No, he had no cause for dismay, he told himself.

They had decided upon Mentone for the wedding trip--a fortnight. It was long enough, and they both felt that they would rather go to Mentone for a fortnight than to Bournemouth or Ventnor for a month. It would amount to much the same thing financially, and be much more pleasant.

"The morning after we come back, darling," said Kent, "I shall go straight to my desk after breakfast, and you know you'll see scarcely more of me till evening than if I were a business man and had to go to the City."

"Y-e-s," concurred Cynthia meekly. "Of course--I understand."