The Odd Women Part 20

As Barfoot kept the silence of astonishment, his cousin went on to tell him that the unhappy man seemed to have lost his wits among business troubles.

'Yet I should have suggested another explanation,' remarked the young man, in his most discreet tone, 'You never met Mrs. Poppleton?'

Seeing that Miss Nunn had looked up with interest, he addressed himself to her.

'My friend Poppleton was one of the most delightful men--perhaps the best and kindest I ever knew, and so overflowing with natural wit and humour that there was no resisting his cheerful influence. To the amazement of every one who knew him, he married perhaps the dullest woman he could have found. Mrs. Poppleton not only never made a joke, but couldn't understand what joking meant. Only the flattest literalism was intelligible to her; she could follow nothing but the very macadam of conversation--had no palate for anything but the suet-pudding of talk.'

Rhoda's eyes twinkled, and Miss Barfoot laughed. Everard was allowing himself a freedom in expression which hitherto he had sedulously avoided.

'Yes,' he continued, 'she was by birth a lady--which made the infliction harder to bear. Poor old Poppleton! Again and again I have heard him--what do you think?--laboriously _explaining_ jests to her.

That was a trial, as you may imagine. There we sat, we three, in the unbeautiful little parlour--for they were anything but rich. Poppleton would say something that convulsed me with laughter--in spite of my efforts, for I always dreaded the result so much that I strove my hardest to do no more than smile appreciation. My laugh compelled Mrs.

Poppleton to stare at me--oh, her eyes I Thereupon, her husband began his dread performance. The patience, the heroic patience, of that dear, good fellow! I have known him explain, and re-explain, for a quarter of an hour, and invariably without success. It might be a mere pun; Mrs.

Poppleton no more understood the nature of a pun than of the binomial theorem. But worse was when the jest involved some allusion. When I heard Poppleton begin to elucidate, to expound, the perspiration already on his forehead, I looked at him with imploring anguish. Why _would_ he attempt the impossible? But the kind fellow couldn't disregard his wife's request. Shall I ever forget her. "Oh--yes--I see"?--when obviously she saw nothing but the wall at which she sat staring.'

'I have known her like,' said Miss Barfoot merrily.

'I am convinced his madness didn't come from business anxiety. It was the necessity, ever recurring, ever before him, of expounding jokes to his wife. Believe me, it was nothing but that.'

'It seems very probable,' a.s.serted Rhoda dryly.

'Then there's another friend of yours whose marriage has been unfortunate,' said the hostess. 'They tell me that Mr. Orchard has forsaken his wife, and without intelligible reason.'

'There, too, I can offer an explanation,' replied Barfoot quietly, 'though you may doubt whether it justifies him. I met Orchard a few months ago in Alexandria, met him by chance in the street, and didn't recognize him until he spoke to me. He was worn to skin and bone. I found that he had abandoned all his possessions to Mrs. Orchard, and just kept himself alive on casual work for the magazines, wandering about the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean like an uneasy spirit. He showed me the thing he had last written, and I see it is published in this month's _Macmillan_. Do read it. An exquisite description of a night in Alexandria. One of these days he will starve to death. A pity; he might have done fine work.'

'But we await your explanation. What business has he to desert his wife and children?'

'Let me give an account of a day I spent with him at Tintern, not long before I left England. He and his wife were having a holiday there, and I called on them. We went to walk about the Abbey. Now, for some two hours--I will be strictly truthful--whilst we were in the midst of that lovely scenery, Mrs. Orchard discoursed unceasingly of one subject--the difficulty she had with her domestic servants. Ten or twelve of these handmaidens were marshalled before our imagination; their names, their ages, their antecedents, the wages they received, were carefully specified. We listened to a _catalogue raisonne_ of the plates, cups, and other utensils that they had broken. We heard of the enormities which in each case led to their dismissal. Orchard tried repeatedly to change the subject, but only with the effect of irritating his wife.

What could he or I do but patiently give ear? Our walk was ruined, but there was no help for it. Now, be good enough to extend this kind of thing over a number of years. Picture Orchard sitting down in his home to literary work, and liable at any moment to an invasion from Mrs.

Orchard, who comes to tell him, at great length, that the butcher has charged for a joint they have not consumed--or something of that kind.

He a.s.sured me that his choice lay between flight and suicide, and I firmly believed him.'

As he concluded, his eyes met those of Miss Nunn, and the latter suddenly spoke.

'Why will men marry fools?'

Barfoot was startled. He looked down into his plate, smiling.

'A most sensible question,' said the hostess, with a laugh. 'Why, indeed?'

'But a difficult one to answer,' remarked Everard, with his most restrained smile. 'Possibly, Miss Nunn, narrow social opportunity has something to do with it. They must marry some one, and in the case of most men choice is seriously restricted.'

'I should have thought,' replied Rhoda, elevating her eyebrows, 'that to live alone was the less of two evils.'

'Undoubtedly. But men like these two we have been speaking of haven't a very logical mind.'

Miss Barfoot changed the topic.

When, not long after, the ladies left him to meditate over his gla.s.s of wine, Everard curiously surveyed the room. Then his eyelids drooped, he smiled absently, and a calm sigh seemed to relieve his chest. The claret had no particular quality to recommend it, and in any case he would have drunk very little, for as regards the bottle his nature was abstemious.

'It is as I expected,' Miss Barfoot was saying to her friend in the drawing-room. 'He has changed very noticeably.'

'Mr. Barfoot isn't quite the man your remarks had suggested to me,'

Rhoda replied.

'I fancy he is no longer the man I knew. His manners are wonderfully improved. He used to a.s.sert himself in rather alarming ways. His letter, to be sure, had the old tone, or something of it.'

'I will go to the library for an hour,' said Rhoda, who had not seated herself. 'Mr. Barfoot won't leave before ten, I suppose?'

'I don't think there will be any private talk.'

'Still, if you will let me--'

So, when Everard appeared, he found his cousin alone.

'What are you going to do?' she asked of him good-naturedly.

'To do? You mean, how do I propose to employ myself? I have nothing whatever in view, beyond enjoying life.'

'At your age?'

'So young? Or so old? Which?'

'So young, of course. You deliberately intend to waste your life?'

'To enjoy it, I said. I am not prompted to any business or profession; that's all over for me; I have learnt all I care to of the active world.'

'But what do you understand by enjoyment?' asked Miss Barfoot, with knitted brows.

'Isn't the spectacle of existence quite enough to occupy one through a lifetime? If a man merely travelled, could he possibly exhaust all the beauties and magnificences that are offered to him in every country?

For ten years and more I worked as hard as any man; I shall never regret it, for it has given me a feeling of liberty and opportunity such as I should not have known if I had always lived at my ease. It taught me a great deal, too; supplemented my so-called education as nothing else could have done. But to work for ever is to lose half of life. I can't understand those people who reconcile themselves to quitting the world without having seen a millionth part of it.'

'I am quite reconciled to that. An infinite picture gallery isn't my idea of enjoyment.'

'Nor mine. But an infinite series of modes of living. A ceaseless exercise of all one's faculties of pleasure. That sounds shameless to you? I can't understand why it should. Why is the man who toils more meritorious than he who enjoys? What is the sanction for this judgment?'

'Social usefulness, Everard.'

'I admit the demand for social usefulness, up to a certain point. But, really, I have done my share. The ma.s.s of men don't toil with any such ideal, but merely to keep themselves alive, or to get wealth. I think there is a vast amount of unnecessary labour.'

'There is an old proverb about Satan and idle hands. Pardon me; you alluded to that personage in your letter.'

'The proverb is a very true one, but, like other proverbs, it applies to the mult.i.tude. If I get into mischief, it will not be because I don't perspire for so many hours every day, but simply because it is human to err. I have no intention whatever of getting into mischief.'

The speaker stroked his beard, and smiled with a distant look.

'Your purpose is intensely selfish, and all indulged selfishness reacts on the character,' replied Miss Barfoot, still in a tone of the friendliest criticism.

'My dear cousin, for anything to be selfish, it must be a deliberate refusal of what one believes to be duty. I don't admit that I am neglecting any duty to others, and the duty to myself seems very clear indeed.'