It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

Mrs. Eldridge's shrewd intelligence reached the issue promptly. "Perhaps you promised not to tell it. Don't tell me!" This would have disappointed Aunt Stingy, if she had believed it genuine. But she didn't, and confirmation of her disbelief came. "Only really, it's so long ago! It's almost ridiculous." The catechumen still awaited pressure. "But do just as you feel, Mrs. Steptoe. Of course, it's no affair of mine."

Aunt Stingy laughed slightingly, to remove the matter from among grave responsibilities. "Ho, as for that," she said, "I was never under any promise—only Mr. and Mrs. Hallock wished no reference made. Only, as you was sayin', such a many years after.... Is that Mrs. Challis coming?" But it wasn't.

"She's speaking to Martha upstairs. She won't come yet." Mrs. Eldridge betrays her curiosity—is very transparent. So urged, Aunt Stingy gives, not at all obscurely, a narrative some ten minutes long, which, for all purposes of this story, may be condensed as follows:—

The Mr. and Mrs. Hallock who figure in it had, for some not very evident reasons, felt justified in abetting the marriage of their nursery-governess with a man supposed to be of good means and antecedents, with the full knowledge that this marriage was concealed from her family, and was to remain so for a term. The dinner that was Aunt Stingy's culinary triumph was a festivity to welcome this happy couple on their return from a short honeymoon. The young gentleman named as Harris among the guests was a friend of the bridegroom. So far, nothing very criminal. But there was a sequel. The Hallocks, returning next season to the same apartments, where it seemed they spent every summer, frequently referred to the affair, but always with surprise that no news had reached them of the wedded couple, and this in spite of inquiries by letter. "Ungrateful girl!" was their verdict. One morning towards the end of their stay they were dumbfounded by an advertisement of a wedding, in the Telegraph. The bride actually bore the name of their ex-governess—her maiden name, that is—while the bridegroom's was, to their nearest recollection, that of the friend who had been introduced to them as Mr. Harris the year before. That was the substance of Mrs. Steptoe's story.

"They were that surprised," she said, "you might have knocked either of 'em down with an electric shock. 'My word,' says Mr. Hallock, 'to think of that!' he says. 'Then Horne must be dead, and that girl married to his friend already! And not so much as a letter!'... Oh yes! Mr. Hallock, he was resentful like, but Mrs. Hallock, she leans across to him, and she says: 'My dear, it's a coincidence! Kate never would—never! I knew the girl,' she says. So she talked him down, and they put it at a coincidence, and let it go."

"But did you hear no more?"

"They heard—not me! Or only remarks fell by chance. There come a letter next day, and they was a-talking and she a-crying over it. Little scraps they let drop, loud enough to reach. 'Ho, the miscreant!' and 'The licensual scoundrel!' And then Mrs. Hallock she says: 'Whatever could possess us, Edwin, not to make more certain about the ceremony?' Then they see me, and dropped to a whisper. Only saying to me after, not to repeat anything I'd heard, which I made the promise, as requested."

"There's Mrs. Challis coming. I wish you could have been more sure of the names, because it's interesting. Couldn't you think them up a little?"

Mrs. Steptoe cogitated. Hallock, of course, she said. Because she knew them a long time. But the other names hardly, to be any surer. Except it was the young lady's single name. Because that she see in the newspaper, when she come to look at the advertisement. Then she must have seen the bridegroom's name, said her interrogator. It seemed not; the glance was a hurried one. But she was sure about the girl's. It was Catherine Verrall.

This story has only had occasion once to refer to the name of Challis's first wife, Marianne's half-sister. And though Mrs. Eldridge had often talked with her friend about this half-sister, dead five or six years before the families became acquainted, it was always about "Kate"—no other name—or "my sister" when Marianne was the speaker. It is quite an open question whether she would at once have felt the name familiar, if it had not been for Bob's full name. Her knowledge that it was Robert Verrall Challis was perhaps what made her say, "What?—what's that?—did you say Verrall?" with stimulated interest. Mrs. Steptoe repeated "Catherine Verrall" quite distinctly, just as her mistress, returning, opened the door. Mrs. Eldridge hoped, without having had time to make up her mind why, that Marianne had not heard the name. For a few moments she thought she had not. The whole thing happened very rapidly.