A Likely Story

by William De Morgan

"Whatever can your father be talking—talking—talking to the General about? Why can't they come in? What on earth can it be?" This is from her ladyship—a semi-aside. She is listening to the talking at a distance. Then Madeline said, "I hope you are convinced, Mr. Pelly," and after one more long look at the picture turned and went to the door, opened it, and listened through it. Her mother said maternally, "Madeline—my dear!" But for all that she stood and listened, as though she heard something. And Mr. Pelly, following her mother's eyes, turned and watched her as she stood. It seemed to him that something like a gasp took her, as though her breath caught with a sudden thrill, visible in her shoulders as her dress was cut, and that her white left arm, that was farthest from the door, caught up tight, and as it were grasped her heart. Her ladyship, looking at her over her shoulder, began, "Why—child—!" and immediately got up and crossed the room to her, saying, "Is anything wrong?" Then, as the girl closed the door and turned round. Mr. Pelly saw that she had gone ashy white, near as white as the clean art-paint on the door she stood by. But she only said, "I shall be all right in a minute." Her mother said, "Come and sit down, darling," which she did; but sat quite still, looking white. "I wish Sir Stopleigh would come," said her mother. Mr. Pelly was frightened, but behaved well, for a little old bachelor.

Presently her colour came again, and she said, "It must have been my fancy"; and her mother said, "What must, dear? Do tell us!" But she only said, "How on earth can I have been such a fool?" Then her mother said again, "But what was it, dear?" and she answered uneasily. "Nothing, Mumsey." Her mother and Mr. Pelly looked at one another, puzzled.

Sir Stopleigh put his head in at the door, saying to his wife would she come out for a minute and speak to him? On which Madeline said suddenly, "I shall go to bed. Good-night, Uncle Christopher!—Good-night, Pupsey and Mumsey!" and lit a candle and went away quickly upstairs. "How very funny of Mad," her mother said, as she followed her husband from the room. "Not at all like her! I'll say good-night, Uncle Christopher, but you do as you like." The momentary vision of Sir Stopleigh—who said he would come back directly—left Mr. Pelly with an impression that he was very full of something to tell. And certainly there came a great sudden exclamation of glad surprise from her ladyship almost as soon as the door closed behind her.

"I shall hear all about it in good time," said Mr. Pelly. "At least, I suppose so." He sat down contentedly in the large armchair opposite the picture, and looked at the fire. Seventy-seven can wait.

The murmur of a distant colloquy, heard through doors and passages, and quenched by carpets, assorts itself into its elements as the silence in the library gets under weigh, and sharpens Mr. Pelly's hearing. He is clear about the woman's voice: his hostess's, of course—no other. But is that George's, or the General's, the unexplained outsider's? Surely that was a third voice, just now? Never mind, Mr. Pelly can wait!

CHAPTER XI

How the picture spoke again. Abstract metaphysical questions, and no answers. How the Picture's memory was sharpened, and how Mr. Pelly woke up. Mr. Stebbings and Mrs. Buckmaster. The actule fax. Jack's resurrection, without an arm. Full particulars. All fair in love. How Mr. Pelly knew the picture could see all, and how Madeline had not gone to bed. Captain Maclagan's family. Fuller particulars. General Fordyce and the Bart, not wanted. What the picture must have seen and may have thought. Good-bye to the story. Mere postscript.

It is scarcely fair play to make a merit of patience—isn't cricket, as folk say nowadays—when you are in a comfortable armchair before a warm fire, and are feeling drowsy. But, then, Mr. Pelly was under an entirely wrong impression on this point, and had scheduled himself as wakeful, but content to bide his time. Yet he might reasonably have suspected himself of drowsiness when James, the young man, coming to wind up the contents of the room, and revise the shutters, retreated with apologies. For had he been really awake, he would certainly have said, "All right, James! Come in. Never mind me!" As it was, he deferred doing so a fraction of a second, and the consequences were fatal. He remained wide awake, no doubt—people always do. But he had not the slightest idea that James had gone, closing the door gently, when the picture said to him from the chimneypiece, in exactly the voice he had heard before, "Is it all true?"

Mr. Pelly found that, mysteriously, he took it as a matter of course that this should be so. "I presume," he said, "that you are alluding to the substance of the manuscript we have just read. I am scarcely in a position to form an opinion."