Part 3

A tray was brought in, and this attentive lady fluttered round the little silver urn, and ministered to my _paresse_ with tea and lemon. I grew humorously melancholy, and lapsed into gentle vistas of reminiscence. I believe I sighed.

Mrs. Loring mentally referred the sigh to corpulence, for she came over with tea, and said, “There, poor man. That will cool you.”

I half rose from my reclining posture, and shook my head as I took the cup.

“No, madam,” I said, “tea-leaves cannot allay the dust of memory. I sigh for what once was, for what might have been now. I sigh for Ten Years Back. Do you ever sigh for Ten Years Back?”

From the puzzled way in which she looked at me, she evidently did not.

“Ten years back,” I continued, “you and I were yet young.”

She tried to look wrinkled.

“Ten years back you were interested in painting, and visited the National Gallery. Millie Dixon was also interested in painting and also visited the National Gallery. Loring Chatterton didn’t give a hang for painting, yet he dragged me round to the National Gallery. I paid the sixpences.”

“Anyway you were always glad enough to see Millie Dixon; you didn’t do it out of pure self-sacrifice.”

“The National Gallery,” I continued, not heeding the interruption, “is one of the great storehouses of the world’s art. It is the pride of a great nation. _I_ went there for purposes of study; but how did _you_ profit by it? You used it for rubbing shoulders and squeezing hands.”

“I know how you profited by it,” said Mrs. Loring, laughing. “You used to study the water-colours down-stairs, and you got locked in one day. Millie Dixon, by the way, got locked in too.”

“Millie Dixon always _had_ foresight,” I said musingly.

“But you never painted, and Millie Dixon did.”

“In spite of your insinuation, Mrs. Loring, I never ascertained that. Her complexion----”

“Then you ought to have done. Here are you two still hanging on in the same position as ten years ago. _I_ gave Millicent a month if she knew her business. Loring and I didn’t take so long. I am disappointed in you. I’m sure it’s not Millie’s fault.”

That was hardly fair. Millie had never thrown herself at me.

“If you’d made love to Millicent,” she went on, “you’d not have been a lonely fat old bachelor, living in a horrid flat, and wasting your time at clubs and race meetings.”

“Mrs. Loring Chatterton,” I replied, “if I’d made love to Millicent I should have been just as--mature of outline, and should still have been a bachelor. It is my gift. I was born a bachelor. I should have said, 'Miss Dixon, if you love me, let me remain a bachelor.’ She would have said, 'As a bachelor you first loved me; be always my own bachelor.’ It is, alas! my single talent. I was made for singleness.”

“Rubbish! You know you like Millicent.”

“Dear madam, I like all ladies--as a garden of flowers, yet I cannot bring myself to pluck one.”

“Then why do you sigh for ten years back?”

That is the worst of women--they have a way of being suddenly logical when no one expects it of them. Mrs. Loring is a charming woman, but I must be careful. One or two lapses into sentiment like this, and she will have me married to Miss Dixon before I know where I am. But my weakness was over. I pulled myself together.

A burning white spot of sunshine had been slowly crossing the floor in my direction, had mounted the sofa, and was threatening to disturb my repose. It brought back the hot streets and the stifling club, and was invading my sanctuary with vivid glare. I was moving along out of its way when a bell rang.

“Oh! and the tea’s cold!” said Mrs. Loring, with the first thought of a hostess. “I’ll have to get some more in.”

Miss Millicent Dixon entered unannounced.

“My Dear Molly,” cried Miss Dixon, “if you love me, give me some tea. How do you do, Mr. Butterfield? Do you know, Moll, I have been rushing about for two mortal hours trying to find a wedding present for Madge Beaumont, and I haven’t got one! Do help me--Mr. Butterfield----”

“Oh, don’t ask him,” Mrs. Loring struck in; “Mr. Butterfield’s been getting sentimental. Between ourselves, Millie, he came dangerously near to a lucid interval. He’s been sighing over a misspent life, and wishing he were years younger.”

“Is it announced yet, Mr. Butterfield?” inquired Millicent mischievously. “Who is she?”

“Promise to tell Millie before any one else, Mr. Butterfield,” said Mrs. Loring.

The machinating married woman! No bachelor is safe with her. I said nothing.

“Then it is true!” said Miss Dixon, “and I shall need two wedding presents. Mr. Butterfield, the unassailable bachelor! I shall give you _Paradise Lost_, Mr. Butterfield.”

“Ladies,” I answered, “you are unfair. You catch me in a weak moment, suffering from sunstroke, and accuse me of good resolutions. Does my previous bad character go for nothing? May I not have a half-hour’s weakness without hearing of it again? It is my first offence. Oh, how difficult is the true Bachelor Ideal!”

“Then you are not engaged, Mr. Butterfield?” said Millicent.

“Not to my knowledge, Miss Dixon. I admit to a certain wavering. If it comes again I will take you into my confidence; in the meantime we will discuss Miss Beaumont’s wedding present.”

We went into committee on the subject. I was still the Compleat Bachelor.

But I had presentiments.

VI

A CORNER IN TREACLE

I could not help smiling as I rang Mrs. Kit Carmichael’s bell. It wanted a good hour to calling time, and I was sure to arrive in that embarrassing period of the afternoon when morning attire is being exchanged for the tea-gown, and the indiscreet visitor is left to meditate on the hollowness of social obligations in an empty drawing-room. It is an hour I take a peculiar delight in. I like to see the piano before Schubert’s songs have replaced the thumbed exercise-book, and to divine midday practisings, scarcely over, by young ladies lanky in stocking, with surreptitious chewing-gum in their pockets. It has still the charm that “going behind” had for me in my early theatrical days.

I had made some masculine pretext for leaving Carrie behind, and she was to follow later. I had a small reason of my own for wishing to see Mrs. Kit alone.

Mrs. Kit’s maid admitted me. That young person always seems inclined to laugh when she sees me. I swear I have never encouraged her.

The drawing-room door was opened to me, but I walked past it, beckoned by a distant sound of childish romping, and a young mother’s call of “Come here, Chris.” I made all the noise in my approach that pretended stealth demanded; I am delicate in my freedom.

Now, that is a part that needs a nice discrimination in the true performing of it. Intimacy has no severer test. Show me the indiscreet bachelor friend whose title falls short, be it only by a syllable, of the full warranty, and I will show you a man who shall wait for invitations, and to whom the fiery sword of “not at home” shall be displayed. The young wife in particular is apt to be touchy.

My approach had been heard, and a subdued scuffling subsided as I entered the half-open nursery door. Mrs. Kit had a maid, and had at one time kept a nurse; but the nurse had gracefully relinquished the engagement on finding she had _two_ children in charge, the grown-up one scarcely more manageable than the chubby little imp who bore his father’s name. Consequently, Master Christopher occupied a good deal of his mother’s time, and was in a fair way for being spoiled.

This young gentleman of four hailed me with a shout, and childish glee in his scantiness of garment; while his mother, rosy and bright with romping, did her best to look crossly on my intrusion. Mrs. Carmichael always keeps up an appearance of formality, even with me.

“Mr. Butterfield, how dare you come into my nursery!”

“Mrs. Carmichael,” I replied, “I came to have a talk with your son in the matter of a certain giant in whom we are both interested. Perhaps you yourself would care----”

“Chris shall not hear any story till he has his pinafore on. It is as well you are a bachelor, Mr. Butterfield. You would spoil the best child in the world.”

“Unless I am mistaken, Mrs. Kit,” I answered, “you yourself were playing the part of a bear when I entered. Does one hunt bears without a pinafore?”

“I am his mother, and have to amuse him--judiciously!” returned Mrs. Carmichael. “You don’t know what a responsibility children are, Mr. Butterfield.”

“I appreciate your feelings, madam,” I replied. “I remember in my youth I kept white mice. Now, white mice----”

“White fiddlesticks,” said Mrs. Kit. “A bachelor has absolutely no idea of what trouble children are. They take the whole of your time--they are constantly to be watched--you never know what mischief they are up to.”

“I kept _four_ white mice, Mrs. Carmichael, with power to add. You have only one----”

“Oh, but Chris _is_ so mischievous! He’s so full of spirits. Scarcely an hour since he _nearly_ broke his neck trying to climb a handrail, under the impression it was a beanstalk--that was one of _your_ stories, Mr. Butterfield,--and last night he managed to get Simple Simon into his prayers.”

I shook my head.

“An inherited irreligious tendency,” I replied. “He’s probably got that from his father. I remember Kit----”

“Rubbish! It’s just pure animal spirits. Chris is getting so big and strong--_and_ noisy,” she added, as Chris broke away with the shout of pagan infancy.

“In that case, Mrs. Carmichael,” I answered, “a reducing diet of cinder-tea, judiciously administered----”

“Cinder-tea? What do _you_ know about cinder-tea?--Chris, put your arm through here--a bachelor talking about cinder-tea!”

The arrogance of these young married ladies! They are all alike. You may have seen scores of such pretty innocents installed in their first establishments. You may have known their existences from the time they played peg-top with their brothers to their perky airs over their first long frocks. You may have given them away amid rice and slippers at the rate of two a year, when their bridal blushes almost made your task superfluous. You may have known them from teething-ring to trousseau, from measles to marriage; and yet in the first wonder of a new baby life you will be told that you are an ignorant old bachelor, and that you know nothing of household affairs!

But I was not disposed to take any such talk from Mrs. Kit Carmichael. I was too old a friend of Carmichael’s, and could always make her tingle with curiosity by an artful hint of pre-nuptial reminiscence. Besides which, she herself was too much in my power. Distinctly, I had a right to rebuke her. I leaned back, and questioned her with forensic severity.

“Mrs. Carmichael,” I said, “you are young, but that is no excuse for ingratitude. Five years ago my advice was not superfluous. Whose experience was it selected you this little house, when Kit’s mind was too full of love to distinguish such details as sanitary arrangements?”

“I believe you gave some advice on the subject, Mr. Butterfield,” she retorted, “and we had workmen about the place for six months.”

I waived the thanklessness of the last phrase, and continued with dignity.

“Who put you through an exhaustive course of salads, Mrs. Carmichael?”

“Well, you _were_ rather useful in the matter of salads,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Who gave you lessons in the refinements of black coffee?” I continued, warming in a righteous cause.

“My coffee was not bad,” Mrs. Kit returned, on her defence.

I magnanimously put aside criticism of her coffee, and went on with a wave of my hand.

“To whom did you come for counsel on distemper and wall decoration and tapestry hanging? Who told you to cast on at the bottom in mending stocking knees? Who explained to you the principle of the chimney draught, the law of ventilation, and the mechanics of the picture-cord? Answer me, Mrs. Carmichael.”

She combed Master Chris’s hair vigorously and made no response. I saw the victory of a just rebuke within my grasp. I made one more thrust.

“And, finally, Mrs. Carmichael, have you made the treacle puffs you promised for my next visit?”

She yielded.

“Oh, I am _so_ sorry, Mr. Butterfield, but they were a failure. I put them into the oven, and all the treacle ran, and made, oh, such a mess!”

I leaned back with the magnanimity of a conqueror, and in that moment lost the battle. Carrie stood in the doorway.

“Treacle puffs, Rollo!” she said. “Of course they run if you forget the bread crumbs. I told you that!”

I was betrayed by her I called sister! A light came into Mrs. Kit’s eyes.

“Did _you_ give him those recipes, Carrie?” she asked.

“Of _course_ I did, Alice, and told him to be _sure_ to tell you about the bread crumbs. And he _didn’t_! Oh, Rollo”--she turned to me--“and you asked me if they would be sure to run _without_ the bread crumbs!”

I was lost. Mrs. Carmichael rose, and put aside the brush and comb.

“So, Mr. Butterfield,” she said. “I begin to see. You laid a trap for me. You got Caroline to coach you in things before coming to see me, and edited the recipes! Let me remember. You told me, did you not, that brown sugar improved poached eggs?”

“Mrs. Carmichael----” I began. She silenced me with a gesture.

“You advised me, did you not, that maccaroni should be kept in a dark place for fear it should sprout?”

“That, Mrs. Carmichael, was on the authority of the _Times_. You surely----”

Again the peremptory finger reduced me to dumbness.

“And you stepped in after all my blunders, and airily set me right! Mr. Butterfield, you are an unspeakable deception!”

That was my thanks. Carrie and I might conspire to do good by stealth--I might go out of my way to gather hints on pastry--and because, forsooth, this woman’s execution was not equal to the brilliance of the idea, I was to be branded as a fraud! The brown sugar was an original notion; and if, forsooth, like the _Great Eastern_, it turned out unmanageable in practice, that did not detract from the boldness of the conception. Women are so conservative; they lack the true inventor’s spirit.

I looked helplessly round the room. I was overpowered at the ease with which people will impute to one a base motive rather than go out of the beaten track to find a good one. How they give themselves away!

I turned and apostrophised Master Christopher.

“My poor, unwitting little boy! For you, too, the time shall come when ingratitude shall be your portion. You are a bachelor yourself--you drink cinder-tea, but the day shall arrive when you shall be told you know less about it than the hand that pours it out. Play while you can. Your least word is heeded now; but afterwards you shall cry wisdom in the nursery and shall not be regarded.”

Chris saw somehow that he was the subject of remark, and now, trimly toileted and elaborately combed, was ready for a story grim in giant and spiced with goblin. His mother, laughing at my apostrophe, made a chubby fleshy fold in the childish cheek that was pressed against her own, and looked at me in a way that admitted my capacity in fairy lore, if it discounted my more practical qualifications.

“Now, Chris,” she said, “Mr. Butterfield is going to tell you just a short story, and I’m going to receive my callers. Don’t be long, Mr. Butterfield. Come, Caroline.”

She vanished, and I entered the magic land of giants.

VII

THREE’S COMPANY

I had been told nothing about it, but I would have wagered my boot-trees that Carrie and Bassishaw had had a tiff. In the first place, Carrie had invited me to accompany them to the opera when she knew that my acceptance was possible, which was contrary to her usual practice. My presence on such occasions had of late been not indispensable; and these young people had gone about together with an aggressive air of sufficiency in each other’s company that had insulated them from my attentions and led me to muse on the thanklessness of youth.

“Are you going out with Arthur this evening, my dear?” I had asked.

“Well, yes, Rollo,” she had replied diffidently, “Arthur particularly wanted to take me to St. James’s Hall.”

“It is a refining entertainment. I haven’t heard Moore and Burgess for a long time. I think I’ll come with you.”

My sister evaded the main point, and countered on the inessential.

“It’s not Moore and Burgess,” she replied. “It’s a ballad concert.”

“'On the banks of the Wabash far away,’” I answered. “A simple sentiment would suit me exactly this evening. Yes, I think I’ll come, thank you, Caroline.”

“I should like you to, Rol, dear, you know; but your cold----”

Of course, my cold; I didn’t know I had one, but they had made a chronic asthmatic of me lately.

“And besides, Rol, Mr. Chatterton said he might call this evening. I’m awfully sorry, dear; but can you come to-morrow to the Globe matinée?”

They knew my prospective engagements better than I knew them myself. There was a trifling foolish committee meeting toward to-morrow, and with that I had to be content.

But a tiff is the Compleat Bachelor’s opportunity, and in the invitation to _Tristan_ I spied entertainment.

Carrie had sunk gently on my knee, and had placed a small finger through a buttonhole of my coat. Bassishaw had just called, dressed with the immaculate precision of one who has made up his mind to sulk in his stall, and had taken up a book on jurisprudence which I kept conscientiously on my table, an imposing reminiscence of my younger days. He watched Carrie furtively over the top of it.

“Please, Rol,” she said, the finger working detrimentally through the buttonhole. “You know you love _Tristan_, and Jean and Edouard----”

“But three cannot listen to _Tristan_,” I replied. “Whose hand am I to----”

She came closer, and a mute look in her eyes said that an Irrevocable Destiny had made of her life a Blighted Tract.

“But my cold, Caroline?” I asked consumptively.

“Oh, Rollo, you shall have hot rum directly you come in, and I’ll nurse you. _Do_ come.”

I acceded with secret joy, on the condition of being spared the remedy she suggested.

“Then we will dine out,” I added.

We did so, in a gloomy depression of spirits that was eminently desirable. Carrie’s humor was not improved by the sight of a man at the next table, apparently chastely-minded, but who took chutney to a grilled steak. She has an instinct for dietetic refinements, and looks on culinary barbarity as worse than untruthfulness.

I had to do most of the talking, which I did, I think, in a naïve unconsciousness of the summer cloudlet that loomed glowering over the party. I spoke of youth. I said, Heaven forgive me, that it was the happiest period of life; that when the heart smiled in love the skies had a blueness; and much more of the same kind. Bassishaw grunted remarks on the Transvaal prospect, and for Carrie’s benefit muttered something about shipment of troops and leave-taking at Waterloo.

“I’m going to see about my kit to-morrow,” he added, and drank three liqueurs recklessly. Three liqueurs is a great compliment to the girl you love; four the very abandonment of careless devilry.

Carrie tried feebly to show unconcern as to their effect on his constitution, and I took coffee in huge enjoyment.

Bassishaw tipped the waiter with imprudent extravagance, hailed a passing hansom cabby--“Passing, not passing handsome,” I ventured to observe, but got no response--and magnanimously bowed Carrie and myself into the cab, saying he would follow. I told Carrie on the way that I could not have wished a more desirable brother-in-law.

At the opera I modestly took the end stall of the three, but Carrie moved me along. She then settled herself listlessly on my right, while Bassishaw, who had arrived, glowered at the side-drums on my left.

He was utterly indifferent to the entrance of the conductor, and the overture to _Tristan_ evidently brought no peace to his soul. He fumed unholily, and threw himself about in his seat in a way that drew a remonstrating remark from an ardent Vaaagnerite on his left. At the end of the first act he went out for a cigarette, apologising with formality as Carrie gathered up her gown to allow him to pass. Carrie’s pretty neck bowed a graceful aloofness. When his straight back disappeared behind the curtain, my sister throwing a slanting glance to see if he turned round, I sought her eyes, and leaned over, speaking softly.

“Was it about your writing, my literary little sister?” I asked.

She assented with a little gulp.

“Tell me, my dear,” I said, turning my back on the Vaaagnerite next Arthur’s empty seat, who was talking the cult rather stridently.

She told me in pure innocence of the Conflict between Literature and Love. She spoke of the Devotion to Work and the Sacredness of a Mission. The dear little soul was going to enlighten the peoples!

“And I asked Arthur’s opinion,” she said, her breast rising.

Never till then had I realised the forgetfulness of love.

Arthur’s opinion on literature!

“And what did Arthur say, Caroline?” I asked, composing myself as best I could.

“He said he didn’t want women to be clever, and they had no business to be. He thought they only ought to be pretty, and I was only inking my fingers. Then I told him what George Eliot said, and he said I’d been reading _Half Hours with the Best Authors_.”

“And then you quarrelled?”

“Ssh--yes.”

Arthur entered at this moment, and stumbled back to his seat. The Vaaagnerite broke off Götterdammerung at the third syllable, and I fancy Arthur had trodden on his toes. I had great sympathy with Arthur. I particularly liked his views on the art question; but he would have to unbend to this poor little child on my right.

She had turned her head on her shoulder during the love duet, and I could not see her face. I held out my hand for her opera-glasses, and raised them to my eyes. The lenses were wet with tears--I suspected it. I quietly passed them on to Bassishaw, with the message still moist upon them. It is only once in a lifetime you see _Tristan_ through such a medium.

The next interval Bassishaw did not smoke, but remained in his stall. He had heard the love duet, too. I turned to him.

“That was wonderful music, Bassishaw,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. “Do you know, Butterfield, I think it’s awful fine, by Jove. I can understand Johnnies doing that kind of thing, you know.”

“Quite so,” I answered. “To the Artist-Soul”--(I capitalised the words pompously with my voice)--“to the Artist-Soul, creation is not a choice, but a need. The French realise that in their word _besogne_----”

He was not listening, and broke in:

“You know, Butterfield, a Johnny must have a darned useful brain-box on him to do that--that sort of thing. It made me feel no end queer. There’s an awful lot in it, don’t you think?”

Poor Bassishaw thought he understood the music, but it was the opera-glasses that had fetched him. He went on:

“It’s darned funny that a chap should do that instead of drill and depôt work, you know, Butterfield. You know, I always thought too confounded much of curves and trajectory, and all that stuff. I always thought a chap was a bit of a muff who fooled with music and verses and all that, do you know.”

The confession was not without a touch of the pathetic, but I maintained a diplomatic silence.

After a thoughtful pause he continued:

“Do you think, Rollo--do you think--would--would Carrie ever do anything of that sort?--I--I--mean, something that makes a chap feel--oh, hang it, you know what I mean.”

What could I say? My little sister was looking very miserable--abstract truth is all very well--I temporised.

“Well, Bassishaw, it can’t be done without trying. You’ve got to stick at it. The continual _enfantement_----”

“I know,” he interrupted, “sort of keep it up steady, like these gunnery Johnnies. It must be darned hard. Do you know, Butterfield,” he said, dropping his voice suddenly, “Carrie and I--we’ve had a kind of--nothing, you know--but--a bit of a split.”

“You surprise me,” I replied.