Priscilla and Charybdis: A Story of Alternatives

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Attention was called to the fact that Mr. Kelton, the great tenor, who had come from Great Gagglington to sing at Mrs. Caffyn’s concert, was walking about the streets—to be strictly accurate, the street—of Framsby in the morning, just as if he was an ordinary person. He was greatly looked at, and it was clearly understood that he was fully cognisant of this fact, for the self-conscious way in which he tried not to appear self-conscious could scarcely fail to strike even the young women of the Glee and Madrigal choir, who, it was understood, were devoted to him, not merely collectively, but individually.

It was a great gift, surely, that with which he was endowed, but at the same time, like other precious endowments of Nature, it carried with it a great responsibility—perhaps greater than any one man should be asked to sustain, was what Mr. Eggston, the Nonconformist draper of Framsby High Street, remarked to his two assistants (male) when he had returned to the low level of his shop work, after gazing out at Mr. Kelton, who went by with Clara Gibson, of the Bank. (Mr. Kelton was the guest of the Gibsons of the Bank—the Gibsons of the Bank were said to be “very musical.”) Perhaps there was something in the Nonconformist judgment on this point, and perhaps there was also something in the view taken of the whole case of Mr. Kelton and his assumptions by the friends of Mr. Mozart Tutt, and crystallized into the one word “puppy!”

At any rate, during the day (the concert was to begin at eight o’clock in the evening) the topic of the town was the quarrel—perhaps it should rather be called an artistic misunderstanding—between Mr. Tutt and Mr. Kelton; and of course it was inevitable that the action of Miss Wadhurst in coming forward to play the accompaniment when Mr. Tutt had felt himself insulted and retired from the discharge of that duty, was widely commented on.

Some who took part in the discussion affirmed that it was rather extraordinary for a young woman, situated as she was, to place herself in a position of such prominence. Surely it would have shown better taste on her part if she had kept in the background. It was foolish for her to do anything that might have a tendency to attract attention to herself and to reawaken public interest in that other affair with which she had been connected. To be sure, it was not quite her fault, that other thing; but still, if she had made proper—even reasonable—enquiries before it happened she would not have been made a fool of. Oh, yes, it was a great pity that she had failed to learn her lesson at that time.

And then an impartial chronicler cannot neglect the criticisms of The Families—the important but not impartial families who surrounded Framsby with a cincture made up of ten generations of stupidity. The Palings, the Hamptsons, the Whiteleafifes—these represented the gems in the girdle that enclosed Framsby, and they agreed that that Wadhurst young woman was showing herself to be all that they had feared she must be. “Of course there never was a question of our looking on her as one of ourselves; but still we thought it might be possible, after a year or two, when the thing was not so fresh in people’s minds... but the young woman has not shown herself to be duly penitent for having been made a fool of, and now she is actually going to appear on a platform—a public platform.... Oh, yes, it is quite as well that we made no move.”

And all this discussion took place between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening. It was on Wednesday afternoon that the rehearsal of the music was held; the concert was to take place on the following evening. Rosa Caffyn heard a good deal of the talk that arose on all sides during this brief space of time, and she knew that, whatever surmises were made as to Priscilla’s object in agreeing to play the accompaniment, not one of them got within measurable distance of the truth. What was the true object of Priscilla’s ready compliance Rosa herself was at a loss to say; but she was quite convinced that good nature was not at the bottom of it—the suggestion made by Mrs. Caffyn and acquiesced in by the Rector—and she was equally certain that a desire to bring herself into prominence was not the impulse in the force of which she had acted. Good gracious! the prominence of the player of a pianoforte accompaniment to a single song! Good nature! the most weak-kneed of the virtues. Rosa knew perfectly well that Priscilla had too much character to be ever accused of being good-natured. Miss Caffyn was puzzled, and it was not for the first time that she was so in association with the affairs of Priscilla Wadhurst. There, for instance, was that other affair which gave Priscilla rather more than the prominence of an accompanist at a charity concert—that had puzzled Rosa. How could any girl——

But Rosa refused to allow herself to enter again into that tortuous question; all that she knew was that Priscilla Wadhurst remained before her eyes as an object worthy of admiration—a girl who could think out things beforehand, and who refused to allow herself to be got the better of by Fate; who refused to be submissive to the ways of Providence, but was always on the look-out for a by-way of her own—just what strong-minded persons are when they are busy making history. When any young woman like Rosa Caffyn has come to think of another in such a spirit, she has gone too far to be brought by much thinking into line with the rest of the world, who, though thinking they can see, are blind and incapable even of groping.

But the last criticism on Priscilla Wadhurst came from Morley Quorn and the company of “bassi.” It took the form of a shaking of the head—a sad, disappointed shake taken at three-quarter time at first, but gradually quickening until it ceased in a quiver of quavers. The “bassi” were large-hearted fellows, and had always thought the best of Miss Wadhurst. They felt quite sad to think that she had consented to help that chap Kelton up to another step in that pyramid of self-conceit to the apex of which he had been toiling for years, since he had received his first encore on a platform in Framsby and had been asked to supper at the Bowlby-Suthersts. Yes, the “bassi” shook their heads, but they determined so far as the concert was concerned to remain neutral in respect of applause; they would not stoop so low as to refuse to applaud the singing of the song, if it was well sung, simply because the singer had insulted the musical conductor. At the same time they would certainly not applaud an incompetent rendering of the song simply because a young lady who had wonderful hair and who had been rather unfortunate in other ways was playing the accompaniment.

And thus, with criticism and comment and innuendo, the hours passed until the doors of the hall were opened and the public crushed into their places, the Bowlby-Suthersts arriving a little late. Priscilla sat in the third row of the front seats by the side of her friend Rosa Caffyn and her young brother Clifford Caffyn. The Rector and his wife had, of course, seats in the front row; it was necessary that they should be in that position, so that they might welcome their patrons the Bowlby-Suthersts, and this division of the family deprived people of the power of saying that Mrs. Caffyn wholly approved of Priscilla. Mrs. Caffyn had long ago perceived that it would be dangerous if not actually detrimental to her position—well, not exactly her position, for the position of the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England is not jeopardized even by a display of Christianity—no, but still—well, Mrs. Caffyn had no notion of allowing her name to be mixed up with that of Priscilla Wadhurst, especially when any of the Bowlby-Suthersts were at hand. And the consequence was that people said that Mrs. Caffyn had acted very well in this delicate matter, and that when her daughter Rosa got a year or two older she would find that it did not pay to foster close intimacies with people who showed a tendency to be unlucky in life.

Mr. Morley Quorn got a great reception when he came forward to sing “Honour and Arms,” and when he got his second wind for one of the runs, and then went ahead of the piano through a feeling of terror lest he might not have enough breath to complete the run of “glo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-horay,” in one of those braggadocio flights of the great master, Mr. Kelton, who was among the performers on the platform, bowed his head and laughed gently to himself, but with the face of the man who laughs so that no one could fail to notice what he was about.