A Charming Fellow Volume Iii Part 11

"You have always entertained that opinion, I believe, ma'am."

"Oh, but, my dear boy, I think he is demented in real downright earnest now. I do indeed. I'm sure the things that poor weak-minded Mrs.

Thimbleby tells me about him----! He has delusions of all kinds; hears voices, sees visions. I should say it is a case of what your father would have called 'melancholy madness.' Really, Algy, I frequently think about it. It is quite alarming sometimes in the night if I happen to wake up, to remember that there is a lunatic sleeping overhead. You know he might take it into his head to murder one! Or if he only killed himself--which is perhaps more likely--it would be a highly unpleasant circ.u.mstance. I could not possibly remain in the lodgings, you know. Out of the question! And so I told that silly Thimbleby. I said to her, 'Observe, Mrs. Thimbleby, if any dreadful thing happens in this house--a suicide or anything of that sort--I shall leave you at an hour's notice.

I wish you well, and I have no desire to withdraw my patronage from you, but you could not expect me to look over a coroner's inquest.'"

Algernon threw his head back and laughed heartily. "That was a fair warning, at any rate!" said he. "And if Mr. David Powell has any consideration for his landlady, he will profit by it--that is to say, supposing Mrs. Thimbleby tells him of it. What did she say?"

"Oh, she merely cried and whimpered, and hid her face in her ap.r.o.n. She is terribly weak-minded, poor creature."

Castalia had been listening in silence. All at once she said, "How many miserable people there are!"

"Very true, Ca.s.sy; provincial postmasters and others. And part of my miserable lot is to go down to the office again for an hour to-night."

"My poor boy!" "Go to the office again to-night?" exclaimed his mother and his wife simultaneously.

"Yes; it is now half-past eight. I have an appointment. At least--I shall be back in an hour, I have no doubt."

Algernon walked off with an air of good-humoured resignation, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. The two women, left alone together, took his departure very differently. Mrs. Errington was majestically wrathful with a system of things which involved so much discomfort to a scion of the house of Ancram. She was of opinion that some strong representations should be made to the ministry; that Parliament should be appealed to.

And she rather enjoyed her own eloquence, and was led on by it to make some most astounding a.s.sertions, and utter some scathing condemnations with an air of comfortable self-satisfaction. Castalia, on the other hand, remained gloomily taciturn, huddled into an easy-chair by the hearth, and staring fixedly at the fire.

It has been recorded in these pages that Mrs. Errington did not much object to silence on the part of her companion for the time being; she only required an a.s.senting or admiring interjection now and then, to enable her to carry on what she supposed to be a very agreeable conversation, but she did like her confidante to do that much towards social intercourse. And she liked, moreover, to see some look of pleasure, interest, or sympathy on the confidante's face. Looking at Castalia's moody and abstracted countenance, she could not but remember the gentle listener in whom she had been wont for so many years to find a sweet response to all her utterances.

"Oddly enough," she said, "I have been disappointed of a visitor this evening, and so should have been quite alone if you and Algy had not come in. I had asked Rhoda to spend the evening with me."

Castalia looked round at the sound of that name. "Why didn't she come?"

she asked abruptly.

"Oh, I don't know. She merely said she could not leave home to-night.

That old father of hers sometimes takes tyrannical fancies into his head. He has been kinder to dear Rhoda of late, and has treated her more becomingly--chiefly, I believe I may say, owing to my influence, although the old b.o.o.by chose to quarrel with me--but when he takes a thing into his head he is as obstinate as a mule."

"I don't know about treating her 'becomingly,' but I think she needs some one to look after her and keep her in check."

"Who, Rhoda? My dear Castalia, she is the very sweetest-tempered creature I ever met with in my life; and that is saying a good deal, let me tell you, for the Ancram temper was something quite special. A gift.

I don't boast of it, because I believe it was simply const.i.tutional. But such was the fact."

"The girl is dressed up beyond her station. The last time I saw her it was absurd. Scarcely reputable, I should think."

Mrs. Errington by no means liked this attack. Over and above the fact that Rhoda was her pet and her _protge_, which would have sufficed to make any animadversions on her appear impertinent, she was genuinely fond of the girl, and answered with some warmth, "I am sure, Castalia, that whatever Rhoda Maxfield might be dressed in, she would look modest and sweet, not to say excessively pretty, for I suppose there cannot be a doubt about that?"

"I thought you were a stickler for people keeping to their own station, and not aping their betters!"

"We must distinguish, Castalia. Birth will ever be with me the first consideration. Coming of the race I do, it could not be otherwise. But it is useless to shut one's eyes to the fact that money nowadays will do much. Look at our best families!--families of lineage as good as my own.

What do we see? We see them allying themselves with commercial people right and left. Now, there was Miss Pickleham. The way in which she was thrown at Algy's head would surprise you. She had a hundred thousand pounds of her own on the day she married, and expectations of much more on old Picklekam's decease. But I never encouraged the thing. Perhaps I was wrong. However!--she married Sir Peregrine Puffin last season. And the Puffins were in Cornwall before the Conquest."

Castalia shrugged her shoulders in undisguised scorn. "All that nonsense is nothing to the purpose," said she, throwing her head back against the cushion of the chair she sat on. Mrs. Errington opened her blue eyes to their widest extent. "Really, Castalia! 'All that nonsense!' You are not very polite."

"I'm sick of all the pretences, and shams, and deceptions," returned Castalia, her eyes glittering feverishly, and her thin fingers twining themselves together with nervous restlessness. "I don't know whether you are made a fool of yourself, or are trying to make a fool of me----"

"Castalia!"

"But, in either case, I am not duped. Your 'sweet Rhoda!' Don't you know that she is an artful, false coquette--perhaps worse!"

"Castalia!"

"Yes, worse. Why should she not be as bad as any other low-bred creature who lures on gentlemen to make love to her? Men are such idiots! So false and fickle! But, though I may be injured and insulted, I will not be laughed at for a dupe."

"Good heavens, Castalia! What does this mean?"

"And I will tell you another thing, if you really are so blind to what goes on, and has been going on, for years: I don't believe Ancram has gone to the post-office to-night at all. I believe he has gone to see Rhoda. It would not be the first time he has deceived me on that score!"

Mrs. Errington sat holding the arms of her easy-chair with both hands, and staring at her daughter-in-law. The poor lady felt as if the world were turned upside down. It was not so long since old Maxfield had astonished her by plainly showing that he thought her of no importance, and choosing to turn her out of his house. And now, here was Castalia conducting herself in a still more amazing manner. Whilst she revolved the case in her brain--much confused and bewildered as that organ was--and endeavoured to come to some clear opinion on it, the younger woman got up and walked up and down the room with the restless, aimless, anxious gait of a caged animal.

At length Mrs. Errington slowly nodded her head two or three times, drew a long breath, folded her hands, and, a.s.suming a judicial air, spoke as follows:

"My dear Castalia! I shall overlook the unbecomingness of certain expressions that you have used towards myself, because I can make allowance for an excited state of feeling. But you must permit me to give you a little advice. Endeavour to control yourself; try to look at things with calmness and judgment, and you will soon perceive how wrong and foolish your present conduct is. And, moreover, you need not be startled if I have discovered the real motive at the bottom of all this display of temper. There never was a member of my family yet who had not a wonderful gift of reading motives. I'm sure it is nothing to envy us!

I have often, for my own part, wished myself as slow of perception as other people, for the truth is not always pleasant. But I must say that I can see one thing very plainly--and that is, that you are most unfortunately and most unreasonably giving way to jealousy! I can see it, Castalia, as plain as possible."

Mrs. Errington had finished her harangue with much majesty, bringing out the closing sentences as if they were a most unexpected and powerful climax, when the effect of the whole was marred by her giving a violent start and exclaiming, with more naturalness than dignity, "Mercy on us!

Castalia, what will you do next? Do shut that window, for pity's sake! I shall get my death of cold!"

Castalia had opened the window, and was leaning out of it, regardless of the sleet which fell in slanting lines and beat against her cheek. "I knew that was his step," she said, speaking, as it seemed, more to herself than to her mother-in-law. "And he has no umbrella, and those light shoes on!" She ran to the fireplace and stirred the fire into a blaze, displaying an activity which was singularly contrasted with her usual languid slowness of movement. "Can't you give him some hot wine and water?" she asked, ringing the bell at the same time. When her husband came in she removed his damp great-coat with her own hands, made him sit down near the fire, and brought him a pair of his mother's slippers, which were quite sufficiently roomy to admit his slender feet. Algernon submitted to be thus cherished and taken care of, declaring, with an amused smile, as he sipped the hot negus, that this fuss was very kind, but entirely unnecessary, as he had not been three minutes in the rain.

As to Mrs. Errington, she was so perplexed by her daughter-in-law's sudden change of mood and manner, that she lost her presence of mind, and remained gazing from Algernon to his wife very blankly. "I never knew such a thing!" thought the good lady. "One moment she's raging and scolding, and abusing her husband for deceiving her, and the next she is petting him up as if he was a baby!"

When the fly was announced, and Castalia left the little drawing-room to put on her cloak and bonnet, Mrs. Errington drew near to her son and whispered to him solemnly, "Algy, there is something very strange about your wife. I never saw such a changed creature within the last few weeks. Don't you think you should have some one to see her?--some professional person I mean? I fear that her brain is affected!"

"Good gracious, mother! Another lunatic? You are getting to have a monomania on that subject yourself!" Algernon laughed as he said it.

"My dear, there may be two persons afflicted in the same way, may there not? But I said nothing about lunatics, Algy. Only--really, I think some temporary disturbance of the brain is going on. I do, indeed."

"Pooh, pooh! Nonsense, ma'am! But it is odd enough that you are the second person who has made that agreeable suggestion to me within a fortnight. Poor Ca.s.sy! That's all she gets by her airs and her temper."

"Another person, was there?"

"Yes; it was little Miss Chubb, and----"

"Miss Chubb! Upon my word, I think that Miss Chubb was guilty of taking a considerable liberty in suggesting anything of the kind about the Honourable Mrs. Ancram Errington!"

"Oh, I don't know about liberty; but, of course, I laughed at her; and, of course, you will too, if she says anything of the kind to you."

"I shall undoubtedly check her pretty severely if she attempts anything of the sort with me! Miss Chubb, indeed!"

The consequence was, that Mrs. Errington went about among her Whitford friends elaborately contradicting and denying "the innuendos spread abroad about her daughter-in-law by certain presumptuous and gossiping persons;" and thus brought the suggestion before many who would not otherwise have heard of it. All which, of course, surprised and annoyed Algernon very much, who had, naturally, not expected anything of the sort from his mother's well-known tact and discretion.

CHAPTER X.