A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

CHAPTER VII

The Upwell family in London. How Madeline promised not to get mixed up. A nice suburban boy, with a Two-Power Standard. No Jack now! The silver teapot. Miss Priscilla's extraction. Imperialism. Horace Walpole and John Bunyan. The Tapleys. How an item in the Telegraph upset Madeline. How she failed in her mission, but left a photograph behind her. The late Lady Betty Dusters's chin. How Mrs. Aiken stayed downstairs and went to sleep in an arm-chair, and of a curious experience she had. How she related the same to her cousin Volumnia. Of Icilia Ciaranfi and Donnina Magliabecchi, and of The Dust. The Psychomorphic Report. How Miss Volumnia did not lose her train.

"Why do you want the carriage, darling?"

"To call on a lady somewhere near Richmond, or Combe, I think it is."

"Won't it do to-morrow?"

"Not so well as to-day."

"Then I suppose you must have it, darling."

"Not if you want it, Mumsey!" The speaker got the head of the person she addressed in Chancery, to kiss it, using the chair-back of the latter as a fulcrum.

Lady Upwell, the victim of this manoeuvre, said, "Take care, Mad dear; you'll spoil my ruche and put your eyes out." So her daughter released her, and sat at her feet. She had on her tussore in saxe-blue, trimmed with guipure lace, and was as pretty as ever, and as sad.

"Who is it you want to go and see, darling?" said her ladyship.

"That Mrs. Aiken," said Madeline.

"Oh," said her mother, "but isn't she rather?" But Madeline shook her head, with her eyes very wide open, and kept on shaking it all the while as she replied, "Oh no, she's not rather at all. It was all her husband." Whereupon her mother said, "Oh—it was her husband, was it?" and put back a loose lock of hair on her daughter's forehead that was getting in her eyes.

This wasn't at Surley Stakes. The family had come up to Eaton Place for a week or ten days. And these ladies were sitting in a small jury drawing-room that did duty on flying visits. The real drawing-room was all packed up, and must have been rather savage when the family came to town, yet left it in statu quo. And very savage indeed with Madeline, who was begging to be allowed to stop in the country and not come to town this season at all. Indeed, she would have had her way, had not her father said that come she must, to see the new pair of carriage-horses he was thinking of purchasing, whose owner was willing to lend them for a few days on trial, but only on condition that they should not be taken away from London. So the family coachman had accompanied the family, in a certain sense clandestinely. It is needless to tell anyone who knows, that of course these ladies were themselves only theoretically in town, with those shutters all up.

Madeline helped to get the lock of hair back, remarking, "It always does," without an antecedent. It was a pity there was no one there—mothers don't count—to see how pretty her wrist looked, with the blue veins in it, as she did so. She continued talking about that Mrs. Aiken, but semi-apologetically, as if she felt abnormal in wanting to see that Mrs. Aiken.

Her mother attempted to rationalise and formulate her daughter's position. "I can't understand, dear child," she said. "You only saw this lady that one time, and only for a few minutes then. What makes you want to see her again? She doesn't seem to have produced a—a favourable impression exactly."

"N-n-not very!" is the reply; the prolonged initial conveying the speaker's hesitation to condemn. "But it isn't that."

"What isn't it, child?"

"What she's like. It's because I went there with Jack."

"I see, dear." But it isn't so very clear that her ladyship does see. For she adds:—"I quite understand. Of course. Yes!" in a tone which seems to invite further explanation.

Her daughter at least puts this interpretation on it. "Don't you see, Mumsey dear?" she says. "It's because I recollect me and Jack, and her and her husband, all talking together in that muddle of a Studio, and the lay-figure with its head on backwards. They seem to come into it somehow." The further particulars are slight, one would say, but they carry conviction, for her mother says, "I understand that, but can you do any good?" as if the substratum of a debatable point might be considered settled. Madeline goes on, encouraged to confidence. "I think perhaps. Because those Baxes we met..."

"Those whats?" her ladyship interrupts; adding, however, "Oh. I see—it's a name! Go on."

"A grim big one and a little rather jolly one. That evening at Lady Presteign's. The grim big one talked about it to me in a corner, because her sister's too young to know about such things—only she's nearly my age, and I don't see why—and told me she believed it was a perfectly ridiculous quarrel about a horrible maidservant, who was quite out of the question. And of course this Miss Bax doesn't know what we know."

"My darling Madeline!" A large amused maternal smile irradiates the speaker. "Know! What a funny child you are!"

"Well. Mumsey, don't we know, or as good as know? Do you really think Uncle Christopher made all that up? I don't."

"It was the action of his brain, my dear, not his own doing at all! Let me see—what's it called?—something ending in ism."

"Hypnotism?"

"No! Oh dear, I shall remember directly...."

"Mesmerism?"

"No, no!—do be quiet and let me think...."

"Vegetarianism?"

"You silly girl! I had just got it, and you put it out of my head ... There! ... Stop! ... No! ... Yes—I've got it. Unconscious Cerebration! How on earth did I manage to forget that? Unconscious Cerebration, of course!"

"But it doesn't end in ism. It ends in ation."

"Never mind, child! Anyhow, I have recollected it, and it's a thing one ought to be able to say. Don't let's forget it again." To Lady Upwell this world was a theatre, and the name of the piece was Society. She was always on the sweetest terms with the Management, and her benevolence to the worn-out and broken-down actors was heartfelt. Still, one had to talk one's part, and dress it. "Unconscious Cerebration" was useful gag. "But," said she, returning to the main point, "I don't see what you can do, child."

"No more do I, Mumsey dear. But I may be able to do something for all that. I should like to try, anyhow. I'm sure the picture was right. Besides, see what that Miss Bax said. You may say what you like, but she is Mrs. Aiken's first cousin, after all!"

"No doubt she's right, dear! And no doubt the picture's right." Her ladyship retires with the dignity of one withdrawing herself from mundane matters, Olympuswards. But one can never touch pitch and not be defiled. Some has clung to her, for she adds absently, "I wonder where Thyrza Presteign picks up all these odd people." In the end she forsakes speculation to say, "Of course have the carriage, darling; I don't see that any harm can come of it. Only don't get mixed up."

"I won't get mixed up," says Miss Upwell confidently, and kisses her mother on both sides, for granting the carriage to go on such a crazy quest. She for the tenth of a second associates the two kisses with the beautiful pair of greys that draw it. She loves horses very much, and gives them too much sugar. If any tongue's tip is ready with a denial of the possibility of such an impression as this, it only shows that the tongue's owner has not had a similar experience. The kisses were cash down for each horse—does that make it clearer?

Anyhow, the greys' eight hoofs rang sweetly next day on a frosty road, going south-westwards, as soon as they left the traffic—that road-spoiler—far enough behind. The sun had taken a mean advantage of its being such a glorious day, to get at nice clean frozen corners and make a nasty mess. But there were many havens of security still where what was blown snow-dust in the early morning might still have a little peace and quiet, and wait with resignation for inevitable thaw.

Such a one was—or had been—on a low window-sill of the Cheshire Cheese, behind the horse-trough which the steaming greys suggested they should empty, but were only allowed to sample. Had been, because of a boy. A boy is a reason for so many things in this world. This one, a very nice specimen, coming, well-informed, from a Gothic school near by, was showing how indifferent chubbiness can be to chilblains, by manipulating the snow on this window-sill in the manufacture of two snowballs, of which one was complete. His was a Two Power Standard, evidently.

"Ask that little boy where this place is," says Miss Upwell, from inside furs; because the carriage-lid is set back by request, and the rider is convinced of cold, but won't give in on principle. "He's a native, and ought to know. Ask him, James."

"Where's Athabasca Villa, young un? ... Don't believe he knows, Miss."

"Where's Athabasca Villa, little man? ... Don't you know? Well—where does Miss Priscilla Bax live?"

"Oh—I know she! Over yarnder." A vigorous illumination speaks to the force of Miss Priscilla Bax's identity. "Over yonder" is, however, vague; and you may have eyes like sloes, and crisp curly brown hair, and ruddy cheeks, and yet have very small powers of indicating complex routes past Daddy's—not otherwise described—and round to the left, and along to the right, and by Farmer Phipps's barn, and so on. But this is a young gentleman of resource, and he has a suggestion ready: "You let I royd up behind, and I'll poyunt out where to drive." The lady accedes to this proposal, though James is evidently uneasy lest a precedent should be established. "Let him ride behind—he won't do any harm—" says Madeline, between whom and this youth a bond of sympathy forges itself unexpectedly. It might have been more judicious to deprive him of ammunition.

For the Two Power Standard, in his case, seemed to involve a Policy of Aggression. His first snowball was aimed too low; and though it struck its object, the Incumbent of the Parish, that gentleman only laughed. The second landed neatly under the back-hair of a stout lady, and probably went down her back behind, as her indignation found voice proportionate to such a result. Miss Upwell—to her shame be it spoken—pretended not to see or hear; refusing, Gallio-like, to listen—but in this case to Gentiles—and saying to James, "Please don't stop, James—go on quick."

The infant was, however, as good as his undertaking, conducting the carriage intelligently to Athabasca Villa, and taking an unfair advantage of permission to pull its bell; he was, in fact, detached from it with some difficulty. He seemed surprised and pleased at the receipt of a douceur, and danced.

"Oh dear!" said poor Madeline to herself, as she heard him die away, with some friends he met, in the distance. "How Jack would have liked that boy!" There was to be no Jack, it seemed, now!

Mrs. Aiken, at one of the bays that flanked the doorway of Athabasca Villa, looked out upon the top and bottom half of a sun up to his middle in a chill purple mist, and waited for tea. Tea waited to be made, like Eve when she was a rib. But with a confidence based on precedent; for Tea was made every day at the same time, which Eve wasn't. Besides, Miss Priscilla Bax made tea, and wouldn't let anyone else make it. Not that there appears to be any suggestion in the story of Eve that there was ever any talk of underletting the job.

Miss Priscilla Bax had a cap out of last century, about half-way, and the cap had ribbons which had to be kept entirely out of the tea. These ribbons had no function or practical object, though an imaginative mind might have ascribed to them that, being alike on both sides, they helped the sense of equilibrium necessary to safe conduct of the unmade tea from a casket on four gouty feet, whose lid wouldn't keep up, to a black Rockingham teapot, which did for when there was no one.

Only, this time there was someone—some carriage one—and his, her, or its approach caused Mrs. Aiken to exclaim, "Good gracious, Aunty, I'm afraid it's people!"

Miss Priscilla was watching the tap of the urn run—her phrase, not ours. "How many?" said she. Then dialogue worked out as follows:

"I think I see who it is."

"How many?"

"Only one. I fancy it's that Miss What's-her-name. I wish it wasn't. It's too late to say not at home. She's seen me at the window. But you'll have to put in another heaped-up spoonful. Whenever will they stop ringing that bell?"

At this point presumably the mercenary was strangled off it, and rewarded, for the lady added, "Yes, it's her. She's talking to a boy. What on earth has brought her here? I shall go."

"You can't. You've been seen. Don't be a fool. Who do you mean by 'her'?"

"Oh—you know! Miss Upsley Pupsley of Curly something. That place in Worcestershire the picture was to go to. You know! They've a house in Eaton Square."

"Then we must have the silver teapot, and I shall have to make fresh tea." The house in Eaton Square settled that. A hurried aside caused the appearance of the silver teapot in all its glory, and a new ebullition, over the lamp, of a fresh kettle of water at par.

Thereupon Miss Upwell found herself within reach—academically speaking—of talking with this Mrs. Aiken of that lady's private domestic dissensions. But, oh, the impossibility of it! Madeline felt it now, too late. Even getting to speak of the subject at all seemed hopeless. And in another moment she became horribly aware that she was inexplicable—couldn't account for her visit at all. Still, she had too much grit in her to dream of giving in. And then, look at the motive! Besides, she had in her heart a strong suspicion that she was a beauty, and that that was why people always gave way to her. Her beauty was of no use, now that Jack was gone. Nothing being of any use to her, now, at least let it help her to do a good turn to a fellow-woman in tribulation. If this picture-ghost—so she said to herself—had told this Mrs. Aiken where Jack was, would she not come and tell, on the chance? Of course she would! Courage!

The most terrifying obstacle in her path was Aunt Priscilla. If this lady had been the inoffensive tabby Madeline's wish had been father to her thought of, she could have been treated as a negligible factor. But what is to be done when your Aunt, living under an impression that in early life she mixed in circles, recognises your distinguished young friend as having emerged from a circle. This way of putting the case transfers the embarrassment from Miss Upwell to Mrs. Aiken. Probably that lady felt it, and wished Aunt Priscilla wouldn't go on so. The fact is she was getting curious to know the reason of her visitor's unexpected appearance. There must be some reason.

It lost its opportunity of being divulged at the outset. The visitor's parade of the utter indefensibility of her intrusion, and her fib—for a fib it was in the spirit, however true in the letter—that she "was in the neighbourhood" worked on the imagination, and made the position plausible. Mrs. Aiken dropped all attempts to look amiably surprised, as one courteously awaiting a revelation, and candidly admitted an extremely clear recollection of Miss Upwell's visit to the Studio. Of course she was delighted to see her, on any terms. But the reason of her coming could get no chance of a hearing, when the first flush of conversation had once failed to give it an opening. Miss Priscilla's extraction had to be reckoned with.

If only that appalling old lady had not been there, or would even have been content to play second fiddle! But as soon as she heard the name of the village of Grewceham in Worcestershire mentioned as the nearest township to Surley Stakes, she identified that county as the cradle of her race, saying, "WE came from Sampford Plantagenet, I believe," in a tone suggestive of remote epochs, and considerable yeomen farmers, at least, vanishing into the mists of antiquity. "But my mother's family," she added, "were all Brocks, of Sampford Pagnell."

Madeline, anxious to oblige as she was, could go no farther than to believe, as an abstract truth, that there were still Brocks in Sampford Pagnell; speaking of them rather as if they ran away when seen, but might be heard occasionally, like bitterns. She could not do any Baxes at Sampford Plantagenet. However, her father would know the name Bax, and his heraldic sympathies would be stirred by it like the war-horse in Job at the sound of battle. This anticipation was founded solely on his daughter's desire to fill out the order for Baxes.

Miss Priscilla always preferred to pour the tea herself, not without a certain Imperial suggestion in the preference. Vespasian would have insisted on pouring out the tea, under like circumstances.

But the tea, when poured, brought with it no clue to the cause of Miss Upwell's visit. It had furnished a certain amount of relief, during its negotiation, by postponing discussion of the point, and by the claim it made for a chapter to itself. For a short chapter of your life-story begins when you get your tea, and ends when you've done your tea. When Madeline had ceased to be able to pretend that this chapter had not ended, her suspended sense of incomprehensibility cropped up again, and she grew painfully aware that her hostesses would soon begin waiting visibly for enlightenment, which she was no nearer being able to give than at first. How could she have guessed it would be so difficult? She was even conscious of gratitude to Miss Priscilla for her persistency in Atavism, and at heart hoped that the good lady would not stop just yet.

No fear of that! The Brocks were not nearly over, and they had to be disposed of before the Baxes could be taken in hand. Their exponent picked them up where she had dropped them. "My Mother's family," she resumed, "were well known during the Middle Ages. There were Brocks in Sampford Pagnell as early as fourteen hundred and four. They are even said to have been connected with John of Gaunt. Unhappily all the family documents, including an autograph letter of Alice Piers to Edward the Black Prince, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London." On lines like these, as we all know, a topic may be pursued for a very long time without the pursuer's hobby breaking down. It went on long enough in this case for Madeline to wish she could get a chance of utilising some courage she had been slowly mustering during the chase. This being hardly mature yet, she took another cup of tea, thank you! and sat on, supplying little notes of exclamation and pleased surprise whenever the manner of the narrator seemed to call for them.

"It seems only the other day," Aunt Priscilla continued, with her eyes half-closed to express memory at work upon the past, "that I was taken as a little girl of six, to see my great-grandmother, then in her hundredth year. She was a friend of Horace Walpole. Her mother could remember John Bunyan."

"Is it possible!" said Madeline, very shaky about dates, but ready with any amount of wonderment. She added idiotically, "Of course my father must have known all your people, quite well." Which did not follow from the apparent premisses.

Mrs. Aiken muttered in a warning voice, for her visitor's ear only, "When Aunt gets on her grandmother she never gets off. You'll see!" She took advantage of the old lady's deafness to keep up a running comment.

Miss Priscilla then approached a subject which required to be handled with the extremest delicacy. "I think, Euphemia," she said, "that after so long a time there can be no objection ... You know what I am referring to?"

"Objection?—why should there be? Oh yes, I know. Horace Walpole and your great-grandmother. No—none!" To Madeline Mrs. Aiken said in an undertone, "I told you how it would be." That young lady affected a lively interest in scandal against Queen Elizabeth, which was what she anticipated.

"I myself," said Aunt Priscilla, in the leisurely way of a lecturer who has secured an audience, "have always held to the opinion that there was a marriage, but what the motives may have been for concealing it can only be conjectured...."

This was too leisurely for her niece's patience. It provoked a species of sotto voce abstract of her Aunt's coming statement thus, "Oh yes—do get on! You cannot otherwise understand how so rigid an observer of moral law as your great-grandfather, however lamentable his religious tenets may have been, could have brought himself to marry the widow. Do get on!" Which proved to be the substance of the original, as soon as the latter was published. But it certainly got over the ground quicker, and made a spurt at the winning-post, arriving almost before the other horse started.

"This," resumed Aunt Priscilla, after a small blank for the congregation to sniff and cough, if so disposed, "was some considerable time before his accession to the Earldom. The only clue that has been suggested as a motive for concealment of the marriage was his unaccountable aversion to the title, which he could scarcely have indulged if ... There's a knock. Do see if it's the Tapleys, and don't let them go." Mrs. Aiken rose and went out, reciting rapidly another forecast, "He-never-took- his-seat-in-the-House-of-Lords-and-signed-his- letters-'the-Uncle-of-the-late-Earl-of-Orford.' She'll have done that by the time I'm back," as she left the room. Miss Upwell felt a little resentment at this lady's treatment of her Aunt. After all, is not man an Atavistic animal? Is not ancestor-worship the oldest of religions?

It was the Tapleys, if Madeline had not heard the name wrong; who had already had tea with the Outstrippingtons, subject to the same reservation. But she may easily have got both names wrong. She thought she saw a chance of speaking with the niece by herself, and at any rate appointing a counter-visit before she went back to the Stakes, if she cut her own short before she became involved with the Tapleys, as might happen; and that would be fatal, she felt. So she suddenly perceived that she must not keep the greys standing in the cold, and got past the incoming Tapleys, who seemed to be in mourning for the human race, as far as clothes went; but not sorry at all, if you came to that. She had failed, and must give up the object of her visit, and acknowledge defeat. And, oh dear, how late it was!

She could, however, get a word or two with the niece before departing, unless that young woman consigned her to a servant and fled back to her Tapleys, who were shouting about how late they were, as if they had distinguished themselves. However, Mrs. Aiken had evidently no such intention, but, for some reason, very much the contrary.

The reason came out as soon as the door shut the shouters in, leaving her and her visitor in the passage, with a cap and a white apron hanging on their outskirts, ready for prompt action.

First Mrs. Aiken said, "I am afraid Aunt must have bored you dreadfully, Miss Upwell. She and her family! Oh dear!"

Madeline answered rather stiffly: "It was very interesting. I enjoyed listening." For she would have been better pleased with this young person if she had taken her Aunt's part. Her own mother prosed, copiously, about ancestors; but she herself never tried to silence her.

However, her displeasure melted when Mrs. Aiken—having told the cap it needn't wait; she would call—coloured and hesitated, and wanted to say something.

"Yes," said Madeline.

"I was—was so grieved—to see about your friend.... Oh dear!—perhaps I oughtn't to talk about it...."

Miss Upwell felt she had to be dignified. After all she and Jack were not engaged. "You mean Captain Calverley, Mrs. Aiken," said she. "We are hoping now—I mean his family are hoping—to hear from him every day. But, of course, they are—we all are—very anxious."

Mrs. Aiken looked dubiously at her visitor's face, seeming not to see the hand that was suggesting a good-bye shake. Then she said, very hesitatingly, "I—I didn't know—is there a hope? I only see the Telegraph." Then, an instant after, she saw her mistake. She might at least have had the sense to say nothing about the Telegraph.

Madeline felt her colour come and go, and her heart getting restless. "A hope? Oh dear, yes!" How bravely she said it! "You know there is no proof whatever of his..." But she could not say "death."

"Oh no—no proof, of course! ... I should be so glad ... I suppose they only meant..."

All Madeline's courage was in the voice that succeeded in saying, "Dear Mrs. Aiken, do tell me what was said. I dare say it was all nonsense. The newspapers get all sorts of stories."

Mrs. Aiken would have given something to be allowed to say no more about it. She stumbled a good deal over an attempt to unsay her blunder. She really couldn't be positive. Quite as likely as not the paragraph might have referred to someone else. She was far from sure, after all, that the name wasn't Silverton. Yes, it certainly was, Major Silverton—that was it!

"You are only saying that," said Madeline, gently but firmly, "to make my mind easy. It is kind—but—but you had better tell me now. Haven't you got the Telegraph? I can buy one, of course, on my way home. But I would much rather know now."

Mrs. Aiken saw no way of keeping it back. "It's in here—the Telegraph" said she. That is, it was in the parlour opposite to the one they had left. There it was, sure enough, and there, in clear print, was the statement of its correspondent at Something-fontein or other, that all hopes were now given up of the reappearance of Captain Calverley, who had been missing since the action at Burghersdrift, as some of his accoutrements had been found in the river below Kroondorp, and it was now looked upon as certain that he was drowned shortly after the action.

Madeline knew quite well that she had in herself an ample store of fortitude if only she could get a fair chance to exercise it. But a horrible sort of ague-fit had possession of her, and got at her teeth and spoiled her speech. It would go off directly, and she would be able to know practically, as she now did theoretically, that it was no use paying attention to any newspaper correspondence. She would soon get right in the air. If this Mrs. Aiken would only have the sense to see that what she wanted was to get away and have herself to herself until at least her teeth stopped chattering! But instead of that the tiresome young woman must needs say, "Oh dear, you look so ill! Shan't I get you something?" Which was silly, because what on earth could she have got, except brandy, or some such horror?

Madeline made a bad shot at speech, wishing to say that she would be all right directly, but really saying, "I shall be reckly." Collapse into a proffered chair enabled her to add, "Leave me alone—it's nothing," and to sit still with her eyes shut. Nervous upsets of this sort soon pass off; and by the time Mrs. Aiken—who felt that some remedy must be exhibited, for the honour of the house—had got at one through an emissary, she was able to meet it half-way. "Oh yes—eau-de-Cologne, please! It's always delightful!" Whereat Mrs. Aiken felt proud and successful, and Madeline mopped her forehead, feeling better.

But she must get away now as quick as possible. Her card-castle had collapsed. And, indeed, she felt too late the absurdity of it all from the beginning. So far from being able to produce her ghost, or whatever it could be called, in extenuation of this young lady's reprobate husband, she had not seen her way to mentioning him at all, even under a pretext with which she had flattered her hopes, as a last resource, that she knew nothing about his quarrel with his wife and their separation. It might have brought him on the tapis, with a successful result. There was no chance now, even if she had felt at her best. And here she was, morally crippled by a severe shock! For though, of course, she was not going to pay attention to newspaper stuff, it was a severe shock all the same.

So she gathered herself up to say good-bye, and with profusest gratitude for the eau-de-Cologne departed. And Mrs. Aiken, after watching the brisk start of the greys, and thinking how bored they must have been, went slowly back into the house, to wonder what on earth could have brought an up-to-date young lady out of the Smart Set to such an unpretending mansion as Athabasca Villa.

She wondered also whether those interminable Tapleys were going to talk like that till seven o'clock, and would Aunt P. go and ask them to stay to supper? Very likely! And she would have to be civil to them all the evening, she supposed.

Reflecting thus, her eye rested on the corner of the mahogany hall-bench, with a roll at each end; to prevent very short people falling over sideways, presumably. What she saw made her say, "What's this, Anne?"

"Which, Ma'am?" said Anne. "Perhaps the Missis knows."

This thing was inside brown paper, and rectangular. The corners were hard, but the middle clicketted. Probably a passe-partout. At least, it could be nothing else. So if it wasn't a passe-partout, it was non-suited, quoad existence. Mrs. Aiken opened the drawing-room door, meeting a gust of the Tapleys, both speaking at once. It didn't matter. Aunt Priscilla heard all the plainer for a noise. There certainly was one.

Her niece said, through it, "Have you ordered a photograph, Aunty?" No, no photograph had been ordered. "Then I shall have to look at it, to see what it is," said Mrs. Aiken. The Tapleys sanctioned and encouraged this course, with loud shouts. And it really is a capital step to take when you want to find out what a thing is, to look at it and see.

It was a photograph, and was recognised at once by Mrs. Aiken as a copy from the Surley Stakes picture. It was a print of the photograph that Madeline had sent a copy of to Mr. Aiken at the Studio, a long time before. You remember how it stood on the table while he talked with Mr. Hughes? "I see," said Euphemia; "Miss Upwell must have left it behind. We must get it back to her." And she was proceeding to wrap it up again; not, however, without seeing enough of it to be sure of its identity.

But she was reckoning without her guests, who pounced simultaneously on the back of the photograph, crying out, "Stop!—it's written on. Read behind." Whereupon it was read behind that this photograph was for Mrs. Reginald Aiken, Athabasca Villa, Coombe. "I suppose she brought it for me," said that lady, rather sulkily.

"Whatever she came for I can't make out," said the niece to the Aunt after supper, and indeed after the departure of the Tapleys. For Mrs. Aiken's worst anticipations had been fulfilled, and they had been invited to stay to supper and had done so remorselessly.

The Aunt could throw no light on this sudden appearance of Miss Upwell. "She has great charm of manner," she said. "She reminds me a little of the late Lady Betty Dusters. It is in the turn of the chin." But Miss Bax's chin, cited in action to confirm this turn, was unconvincing.

Her niece ignored the late Lady Betty. "I think the girl was going lengths in coming at all," she said. "After all, what did it amount to? Just that she and this young soldier of hers came to the Studio to see a picture. And supposing it did happen on the day when Reginald behaved so detestably with that horrible girl! Doesn't that make it all the other way round?" She wished to express that if Miss Upwell had come to know about her quarrel with her husband, she should have kept her distance the more on that account. But she was not equal to the effort, and perhaps acknowledged it when she said, "You know what I mean, so it's no use drum-drum-drumming it all through, like a cart-horse or a barrel-organ. Anyhow, Miss Upsley Pupsley would have shown better taste to keep away, to my thinking!"

"I thought you seemed to like her, Euphemia," said the Aunt meekly.

"I didn't say I didn't," said the niece.

"Then I won't speak." Which resolve of Miss Priscilla's is inexplicable, unless due allowance is made for the fact that familiar domestic chat turns quite as much on the way it omits, as the way it uses words. The younger lady's manner was that of one in whom exasperation, produced by unrighteous conspiracy, was being kept in check by rare powers of self-control. That of the elder indicated constitutional toleration of the waywardness of near relations; who are, as we know, a crotchety class. When one of these, in addition to tapping with her foot and looking flushed and ready to cry on small provocation, bites articles of virtu, surely a certain amount of forbearance—an irritating practice—is permissible.

"You'll spoil the paper-knife," said Miss Priscilla. "And it was a present from your great-uncle John Bulstrode, when he came from India."

Mrs. Aiken put the paper-knife down irritably, because she knew, as you and I do, that when those little mosaic pieces once come out, it's no use trying to stick them in again. But she said, "Bother the paper-knife!" And for a few moments her soul was content to find expression in foot-tapping and lip-biting; while her Aunt forbore, and took up her knitting.

Then she got up and paced about the room restlessly. The lamp was going out, or wanted seeing to. She turned it up; but if lamps are going out for want of oil, turning them up does no good, and only burns the wick away. They have to be properly seen to. It was too late to be worth putting fresh oil in, this time. Candles would do, or for that matter, why not do without? The firelight was much nicer.

Mrs. Reginald Aiken walked about the room while Miss Priscilla Bax looked at the fire and knitted. It was getting on for bedtime.

Suddenly the walker stopped opposite the knitter. "Aunty!" said she, but in a voice that almost seemed to add, "Do talk to me and be sympathetic. I'm quite reasonable now."

Her aunt seemed to accept the concession, skipping ratifications. "Certainly, my dear Euphemia," she said, with dignity.

"Do you know how long I've been here?"

Those who know how inconsequent daily familiarity makes blood relations who live together, will see nothing odd in Miss Priscilla's reply: "My dear niece, listen to me, and do not interrupt. What was the expression I used when you first announced your engagement to Reginald? ... No—I did not say it was a come-down...."

"Yes, you did."

"Afterwards perhaps, but at first, Euphemia? Be candid. Did I, or did I not, use the expression, 'Artists are all alike?' ... I did? Very well! And I said too—and you cannot deny it—that any woman who married them did it with her eyes open, and had only herself to thank for it. They are all alike, and Reginald is no exception to the rule." At this point Miss Priscilla may have had misgivings about sustaining the performance, for she ended abruptly on the dominant, "And then you ask me if I know how long you have been here!"

"Because it's six months, Aunty—over six months! Is it any wonder that I should ask? Besides, when I first came I never meant to stay. I was going back when Reginald wrote that letter. Fancy his daring to say there was no—what was that he called it?—you know—'casus belli!' An odious girl like that! And then to say if I really believed it I ought to go into Court and swear to things! How could I, with that Sairah? Oh dear—if it had only been a lady!—or even a decent woman! Anything one could produce! But—Sairah!"

This young lady—mind you!—was only trying to express a very common feeling, which, if you happen to be a young married woman you will probably recognize and sympathize with. Suppose you were obliged to seek legal ratification of your case against a faithless spouse, think how much more cheerfully you would appear in court if the opposition charmer was a Countess! Think how grateful you would be if the culprits had made themselves indictable in terms you could use, and still know which way to look; if, for instance, they had had the decency to reside at fashionable hotels and pass themselves off as the Spenser Smyths, or the Poole Browns. These are only suggestions, to help your imagination. The present writer knows no such persons. In fact, he made these names out of his own head.

But—Sairah! Just fancy reading in the Telegraph that the petitioner complained of her husband's misconduct with ... Oh—it would be too disgusting for words! After all, she, the petitioner, had a right to be considered a—she detested the expression, but what on earth were you to say?—LADY! What had she done that she should be dragged down and degraded like that?

It had been Miss Priscilla's misfortune—as has been hinted already—to contribute to the prolongation of her niece's residence with her by the lines on which she herself seemed to be seeking to bring it to an end. Nothing irritated this injured wife more than to be reminded of feminine subordination to man as seen from an hierarchical standpoint. So when her Aunt quoted St. Paul—under the impression that extraordinary man's correspondence so frequently produces, that she was quoting His Master—her natural irritation at his oriental views of the woman question only confirmed her in her obduracy, and left her more determined than ever in her resentment against a husband who had read St. Paul very carelessly if at all, and who took no interest in churches apart from their Music and Architecture.

Therefore, when Aunt Priscilla responded to her niece's exclamation, which has been waiting so long for an answer, with her usual homily, it produced its usual result. "I can only urge you, my dear Euphemia, to turn your thoughts to the Words of One who is Wiser than ourselves. It is no use your saying it's only Colossians. Besides, it's Ephesians too. The place where it occurs is absolutely unimportant. 'Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.' Those are The Words." Miss Priscilla handled her capitals impressively. The music stopped on a majestic chord, and her rebellious niece was cowed for the moment. Not to disturb the effect, the old lady, having lighted her own bedroom candle, kissed her benedictionally, with a sense of doing it in Jacobean English—or should we say Jacobean silence?—corresponding thereto, and left her, accepting as valid a promise to follow shortly.

But there was a comfortable armchair still making, before a substantial amount of fire, its mute appeal, "Sit down in me." The fire added, "Do, and I'll roast you for twenty minutes more at least." It said nothing about chilblains, but it must have known. Mrs. Aiken acted on its advice, and sat looking at it, and listening to an intermittent volcano in one of its corners.

The volcano was flagging, subject to recrudescence—for a certain latitude has to be given to Derby Brights and Wombwell Main—before Mrs. Aiken released her underlip, bitten as a counter-irritant to Scripture precepts. Aunt Priscey was trying! But, then, how good she was! Where on earth would she, Euphemia Aiken, have gone to look for an anchorage, if it hadn't been for Aunt Priscey? She calmed down slowly, and Colossians died away in the soothing ripple of the volcano.

But the fire was hot still, and she wanted a screen. She took the first thing her hand lighted on. It was the photograph. It would do. But she hated the sight of it when the volcano made a spurt, and set the shadows dancing over the whole room. She turned it away from her towards the fire, to see the blank back only, and calm down in the stillness, unexasperated.

Presently, for some reason, it became irksome to hold it up. But it must be kept between her face and the fire. She let it fall forward on her face, still half holding it, and listened to the volcano. She could sit and think about things, and not go to sleep. Of course she could. It would never do to spoil her night's rest.

Was it really six whole months since she quarrelled with Reginald? She recited the months to make herself believe them actual, and failed. It did not really matter, though, how long it was. If Reginald had been ill, she could have gone back any time, and without any sacrifice of pride. Aunt Priscey would have found out a text, proving it a Christian duty more than ever. A little seductive drama crept through her mind, in which Reginald, smitten with some disorder of a good practicable sort for the piece—not a dangerous or nasty one, you know!—had put all his pride in his pocket, and written a letter humbly begging her forgiveness; acknowledging his weakness, his evil behaviour, and acquitting her of the smallest trace of unreasonable punctilio. It was signed, "Your lonely husband, Reginald Hay," that being a form domestic pleasantry in the past had sanctioned. Something choked in her throat over this touching episode of her own creation.

But it dispersed obsequiously when at a moment's notice—in her dream, you understand; dreamt as in the middle of dinner, to establish self-sacrifice as her portion—she started and arrived in time to save Reginald from a sinister nurse, whose elimination made an important passage in the drama. She got as far as the commencement of a letter to her Aunt, describing this achievement. At this point drowsiness got the better of her, presumably. For her imaginary pen became tangible, and her paper was beautiful, only it was stamped "At Aunt's," which seemed absurd. And she could only write the words "My pride," which seemed more so.

Then she woke, or seemed to wake, with a start, saying aloud, to no one, "This will never do; I shall spoil my night's rest." But on the very edge of her waking someone had said, in her dream, in a sort of sharp whisper, "Perhaps it is." And it was this voice that had waked her. She found it hard to believe that an outside voice had not spoken into her dream. But no one was there, and had the room been full of folk, none of them could have read the words on her dream-paper. And to her half-awake mind it seemed that "Perhaps it is" could only apply to what she had succeeded in writing. However, there can be no doubt that, at this moment, she believed herself fully awake.

Later she had reason to doubt it. Or rather, she became convinced of the contrary by the subsequent course of events, which need not be anticipated now. During what followed, one would say that she must have had misgivings that she was dreaming. But she seems not to have had many or strong ones; although she may have made use of the expression, "I could hardly believe I was awake," as a mere phrase of wonderment—just as you or I have used it before now. For when next day she described this experience to her cousin Volumnia, who had been much in her confidence during these last months, who said to her, "Of course, you were asleep, because that is the only way of accounting for it reasonably," her reply was, "Then we shall have to account for it unreasonably, because I was awake."

"Well—go on, and tell," was the reply. This cousin Volumnia, the elder sister of that little monkey Jessie, was of course the grim big Miss Bax Miss Upwell had met at Lady Presteign's; and, as we have seen, she was a very determined person, one who would stand no nonsense. "Start from where the voice woke you, Cousin Euphemia," said she. She shut her eyes, and frowned, so as to listen judicially.

"I laid the photograph on the table," said Mrs. Aiken, with circumflex accents over every other syllable, which is how to tell things clearly. But Miss Volumnia said, "You needn't pounce. I can hear." So she became normal. "I was absolutely certain there was no one else in the room. And everything seemed as usual; not the least like a dream. But for all that ... you won't believe me, Volumnia..."

"Very likely. Go on!"

"For all that I heard a voice—the same voice that waked me up...."

"Of course! You were still asleep. I know. Go on! What did the voice say?"

"No, I won't go on at all, Volumnia, if you're going to be nasty."

"Oh yes, do go on. I'm greatly interested. But you must remember that we hear thousands of these things every week at the Psychomorphic. We had a very interesting case only the other day. A man heard a dog barking.... However, go on."

"Very well, only you mustn't interrupt. What was I saying? ... Oh yes—the voice! I heard it quite distinctly, only very small.... Nonsense!—you know quite well what I mean.... What did it say? What I heard was, 'Hold me up, and let me look at you.' Now I know, my dear Volumnia, you will say I am making it improbable on purpose...."

"Not at all, my dear Euphemia! The case is commoner than you suppose, even when the subject is wide awake. Please tell it exactly as you recollect it. Soften nothing." The implication was that Psychomorphism would know how much to take, and how much to reject.

"I am telling it exactly as it happened. It said..."

"What said?"

"The picture said."

"The picture! Oh, we hadn't come to that. Now what does that mean? The picture said!"

"Volumnia!—IF you interrupt I can't tell it at all. Do let me go on my own way."

"Yes—perhaps that will be better. I can analyse afterwards."

"Well—the voice seemed to come from the picture—the photo, I mean. It said quite unmistakably, but in a tiny voice, 'Pick me up, and let me look at you.'..."

"You said 'hold' before. Now it's 'pick.'"

"Really, Cousin Volumnia, I declare I won't go on unless...."

"All right—all right! I'll be good." A little pause came here owing to Mrs. Aiken stipulating for guarantees. A modus vivendi was found, and she continued,

"I did as the voice said, and held the picture up, looking at it. I can't imagine how I came to take it so coolly. But you know, Volumnia, how it is when a perfect stranger speaks to you in an omnibus, and evidently takes you for somebody else, how civil you are? ... Well—of course, I mean a lady! How can you be so absurd? I said to it that I had never heard a photograph speak before. The voice replied, 'That is because you never listen. Mr. Perry hears me because he listens.' I asked who this was, and the voice replied, 'The little old gentleman who comes here.' I said, 'No little old gentleman comes here. Do you know where you are?' And do you know, Volumnia, the voice said, 'In the Library at Surley Stakes, over the stoofer.' What could that mean?"

"Can't imagine. But I'm not to speak, you know. That's the bargain. Go on."

"Well—I told the woman in the photograph where she was, and the voice said, 'I suppose you know,' and then asked if this was the place where she saw me before. I said no—that was my husband's Studio. 'But,' I said, 'you were not made.' She seemed not to understand, and persisted that she remembered seeing me there."

"Do excuse my interrupting just this once," said Miss Volumnia. "I won't do it again. I only wish to point out how clearly this shows the dream-character of the phenomenon. Is it credible that, admitting for the sake of hypothesis an independent intelligence, that intelligence would recollect occurrences before it came into existence. It seems to me that the picture-woman's claim to identity carries its own condemnation. How could ideas existing in the mind of the original picture reappear in the mind of a photograph, however carefully made?"

"It was the same woman, Volumnia," said Mrs. Aiken, beginning to stand on the rights of her Phenomenon, as people do. "I do think, dear, you are only cavilling and making difficulties."

"I think my objection holds good. When we consider the nature of photography..."

"Why is it more impossible than the original picture seeing me and recollecting?"

"The demand on my power of belief is greater in the case of a copy, however accurate. And it would become greater still in the case of a copy of a copy. And so on." This was not original. A paper read at her Society was responsible for most of it. "However," she added, "we needn't discuss this now. Go on."

"Then don't prose. You really are straining at gnats and swallowing camels, Volumnia. Well—where was I? ... Oh yes, the Studio! The voice went on—and now this does show that it didn't come out of my own head—'I remember the Studio, and I remember a misunderstanding between yourself and your husband that might easily have led to serious consequences.' Now you know, Volumnia, that could not have come out of my own—my own inner consciousness.... Is that right?—Now could it?"

Miss Volumnia shook an unbiassed head, on its guard against rash conclusions. "The same is true," she said, "of so many dream-impressions. Did you make the photograph acquainted with the actual position of things?"

Mrs. Aiken seemed to hesitate a moment. "Was I bound to take it into my confidence?" she said. "Anyhow it seemed to me at the time most uncalled for."

"What did you say?"

"I said—because as it was only a photograph I thought it didn't matter—I said that fortunately no such result had come about. I then pressed it to say more explicitly what it was referring to.... What?"

"Nothing—go on.... Well, I was only going to say that in my opinion you were playing with edged tools. The slightest departure from the principle of speaking the Truth is fraught with danger to the speaker.... Yes—and then?"

"Well—did it matter? Anyhow, let me get on. I asked what it meant—what misunderstanding it referred to. And do you know, Volumnia, the voice began and gave a most accurate account of Miss What's-her-name—Pupsley Wupsley's—visit to the Studio, and described that poor young Captain Thingumbob most accurately. All I can say is that it did not make a single mistake...."

"Of course not!"

"Why 'of course not'?"

"Because it was merely your own Memory unconsciously at work; doing the job on its own, as my young nephew would say. It may have been wrong, but would seem to you right."

"Then why doesn't what followed after I left the Studio seem to me right too?"

Miss Volumnia said, as from the seat of Judgment, "Let's hear it." Thereupon her friend gave, with conscientious effort to report truly, the photograph's version of what passed in the Studio between her husband and the odious Sairah. It corresponded closely with that already given in this story.

As Miss Volumnia's interruptions became frequent towards the close of this narrative, it may be best to summarise it, as near as may be, in the words of the photograph, which had said, or seemed to say: "I did indeed tremble to think what misconstruction might be put on half-heard words of this interview of this young English maiden with your husband. For I could remember well how at the little Castello in the Apennines Icilia Ciaranfi, a girl of great spirit, finding her new-made husband enacting some such pleasantry as this—but quite blamelessly—with Donnina Magliabecchi, stabbed both to death there and then; and her great grief when Donnina's lover Beppe made it clear to her that this was but a foolish jest to which he himself was privy. And thinking of this painful matter I rejoiced that you, Signora, yourself should have been guided by counsels of moderation, at most withdrawing for a term—so I understood—to the house of a relation as to a haven, when no doubt all asperity of feeling would soon give place to forgiveness. I could see that in your case, had you yielded to the mistaken impulse of Icilia, no such consolation as she found could have been yours. For I understood this—though I was young at the time—that so deeply was Beppe touched by Icilia's remorse for her rash action, and she so ready to give her love in compensation for what he had lost, that each flew as it were to the embrace of the other, and the two of them fled then and there, and thence Icilia escaped the officers of Justice. Now this surely would have been an impossible resource to yourself and the lover of la Sera, who, unless I am mistaken in thinking that those who 'keep company' are lovers in your land, was the person I heard spoken of as 'The Dust.' Which is in our tongue 'La Mondezza.' But I understood that while he was a man, and in that sense competent for Love, although called by a name fitter for a woman, yet was he socially on a level with those whom we others in Italy call spazzini, and no fit mate for a Signora of gentle birth and breeding.

"So that although I heard afar that the Signore and yourself came to high words on this subject, and gathered that you had departed in wrath to seek shelter with an aunt, I thought of this dissension as one that would soon be forgotten, and a matter of the past. The more so that your Signore's own words to his friends reassured me; to whom he said more than once that you would be the best woman in the world but for a defect I did not understand from his description, that when you flew into a blooming rage you could not keep your hair on, but that it wouldn't last and you would be back in a week, because you knew he couldn't do without you. He set my mind at rest by treating the idea of any lasting breach between you as something too absurd for speech. But I tell you this for certain, that I saw all that passed between him and la Sera, and that if you are keeping your resentment alive with the thought that he was guilty of anything but an ill-judged joke, you are doing grievous injustice to him as well as yourself. Return to him, Signora, forthwith; and beware henceforward of foolish jealousy and needless quarrels!"

The foregoing is a much more complete version of what the photograph seemed to say than Mrs. Aiken's fragmentary report to her cousin. She had not Mr. Pelly's extraordinary memory, and, moreover, she had to omit phrases and even sentences that were given in Italian. Miss Volumnia Bax, when not interrupting, checked off the narrative with nods at intervals, each nod seeming to be fraught with confirmed foresight of the preceding instalment. When it ended, she launched at once, without a moment's pause, into a well-considered judgment, or rather abstract of a Report of the Case, which her mind was already scheming, to read at the next meeting of the Psychomorphic. This Report, printed recently by the Society, containing all that Miss Volumnia said to her cousin on first hearing the tale, as well as many valuable remarks, commences as follows:

"Case 54103A. Dream or Pseudodream, reported by Miss Volumnia Bax. The subject of this experience, whom we will call Mrs. A., is reluctant to admit that she was not awake when it happened, however frequently the absurdity of this view is pointed out to her. So strong is this impression that if other members of her family had been subject to hallucination or insanity, or even victims of alcoholism, we should incline to place this case in some corresponding class. As it is, we have nothing but the word of the narrator to warrant our assigning it a place outside ordinary Somnistic Phenomena."

This story is not answerable for the technical phrases of what is, after all, merely a suburban Research Society. The Report goes on to give, very fairly, the incident as already narrated, and concludes thus:

"It will be observed that nothing that the dreamer put into the mouth of the photographic speaker was beyond her imaginative powers, subconscious or superconscious. It may be urged that the absurdly romantic Italian story implies a knowledge of Italian matters which the dreamer did not possess, or at least emphatically disclaims. But nothing but the verification of the story can prove that the names, for instance, were not due to subconscious activity of the dreamer's brain. On the other hand—and this shows how closely the investigator of Psychic Phenomena has to follow their intricacies—inquiry has elicited the fact that Mrs. A.'s husband once spent a week in Florence at a Pension in the Piazza Indipendenza and no doubt became familiar with the habits of Italians. What is more likely than that she should unconsciously remember passages of her husband's Italian experience, as narrated by himself? We are certainly warranted in assuming this as a working hypothesis, while admitting our obligation to sift Italian History for some confirmation of the dramatic (but not necessarily improbable) incident of Icilia Ciaranfi and Donnina Magliabecchi—both, by the way, suspiciously Florentine names! We repeat that, failing further evidence, we are justified in placing this story in section M103, as a Pseudo-real Hyper-mnemonism."

The Report, of course, said nothing of the advice its writer had felt warranted in giving Mrs. A., as a corollary to her summary of the views she afterwards embodied in it. "If you want my opinion, Cousin Euphemia," she said, "it is that the sooner you make it up with your husband the better! It's quite clear from the dream that you want to do so."

"How do you make that out?" asked Mrs. Aiken.

"Clearly! Your subconscious self constituted this nonsensical photograph the exponent of its automatically cryptic Idea, while you were in a state of Self-Induced Hypnosis...."

"Does that mean while I was asleep?"

"By no means. It is a condition brought about by fixing the attention. You had, by your own admission, been looking at the fire."

"No—I held up the photograph."

"Then you had been looking at the photograph."

"Only the back."

"It's the same thing. I am distinctly of opinion that it was Self-Induced Hypnosis. In this condition the subconscious self may as it were take the bit in its teeth, and energize whatever bias towards common sense the subject may happen to possess. In your case the photograph's speech and its grotesque fictions were merely pegs, so to speak, on which to hang an exposition of your own subconscious cryptic Idea. Does not the fact that you are at this moment prepared to deny the existence of this Idea prove the truth of what I say?"

"I dare say it's very clever and very wise. But I can't understand a word of it, and you can't expect me to. All I know is, that if it's to be submission and Colossians and Ephesians and stuff, back to Reginald I don't go. And as far as I can see, Science only makes it ten times worse.... So there!"

"Your attitude of mind, my dear Euphemia," said Miss Volumnia, "furnishes the strongest confirmation possible of the truth of my interpretation of the Phenomenon. But I must go or I shall lose my train."

"How I do hate patronizing people!" said Mrs. Aiken, going back into the drawing-room after seeing her cousin off.