And here I pause and blush. For it strikes me as so intimately characteristic of our whole relation—in that earlier stage, at least—that I should have written all this on the subject of Heber Pogson without making one solitary mention of his wife. She existed. Was permanently in evidences—or wasn't it, rather, in eclipse?—as a shadowy parasitic entity perambulating the hinterland of his domestic life. She must have been by some years his junior—a tall, thin, flat-chested woman, having heavy, yellowish brown hair, a complexion to match, and pale, nervous eyes. Her clothes hung on her as on a clothes-peg. She affected vivid greens—as was the mistaken habit of Victorian ladies possessing the colouring falsely called "auburn"—but clouded their excessive verdure to neutrality by semi-transparent over-draperies of black. Harry Lessingham, in a crudely unchivalrous mood, once described her as "without form and void," adding that she "had a mouth like a fish." These statements I considered unduly harsh, yet admitted her almost miraculously negative. She mattered less, when one was in the room with her, than anything human and feminine which I, so far, had ever run across. And I was at least normally susceptible, I'm very sure of that.
As a matter of course, on our arrival at the blest house in Church Street, we one and all respectfully greeted her, passed, to put it vulgarly, the time of day with her. But there intercourse ceased. At some subsequent instant she faded out—whether into space or into some adjacent connubial chamber, I had no notion. I only realized, when the act was accomplished, that we now were without her, that she had vanished, leaving behind her no faintest moral or emotional trace.
But, on the occasion in question, she did not vanish. We fed her at supper. And still she remained—in the interests of social propriety, as we imagined, since for once the Pogson symposium included a stranger, an eminently attractive lady guest.
Harry Lessingham had begged to bring his sister with him. He told me of this beforehand, and I rejoiced. Lessingham had long been dear to me as a brother; while that Arabella should only be dear to me as a sister was, just then, I own, among the things I wished least. I craved, therefore, to have her share our happy worship. She had a pretty turn for literature herself. I coveted to see her dazzled, exalted, impressed—it would be a fascinating spectacle. Before I slept that night, or rather next morning, I recognized her coming as a disastrous mistake. For she had received insufficient instruction in ritual, in the suitable forms of approach to so august a presence as that of our host. She played round him, flickering, darting, like lightning round a cathedral tower, metal tipped. Where we, in our young male modesty, had but gently drawn or furtively shoved, she tickled the soft, sedentary creature's ribs as with a rapier point. And—to us agitated watchers—the amazing thing was, that Pogson didn't seem to mind. He neither rebuked her nor laughed her off; but purred, veritably purred, under her alternate teasing and petting like some big, sleek cat.
At last, with a cajoling but really alarming audacity, she went for him straight.
"Of course, dear Mr. Pogson, Harry has told me all about your wonderful novel," she said. "I am so interested, so thrilled—and so grateful to you for letting me join your audience to-night. But I want quite frightfully to know more. Speaking not only for myself, but for all who are present, may I implore a further revelation? Pray don't send us empty away in respect of the wonderful book. It would be so lovely while we sit here at your feet."...
She, in fact, sat by his side, her chair placed decidedly close to his.
"If you would read us a chapter.... A chapter is impossible?"...
Her charming, pliant mouth; her charming dancing eyes; her caressing voice—I won't swear even her caressing hands didn't, for a brief space, take part—all wooed him to surrender.
"Well, a page then, a paragraph? Ah! don't be obdurate. The merest sentence? Surely we may claim as much as that? Picture our pride, our happiness."