It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

This phase of reflection did not come immediately on opening Marianne's note. He had passed through a brief epoch of lunch for himself and dinner for Bob and Cat and Emmie since then. It had been a riotous but not unpleasant experience, and Challis was grateful for it. Bob's greeting to him had been, exactly transcribed: "Mater's gone to Tulse Hill. I say!—if you were to give me five shillings, I could buy a phonograph, because I've saved up fifteen. Tommy Eldridge has got one that does a menagerie, and you can hear a man having his head bit off." This felt jolly and cheerful, especially as the two little girls jumped with eagerness to hear the subsidy voted. Imitations of insubordinate wild beasts, and the sounds incidental to detaching a Bengal tiger from his prey with red-hot irons, made lunch pass pleasantly, and Challis felt much happier. He granted the five shillings on condition that no operatic records should be purchased. He had heard "Voi che sapete" through a gramophone once, and he knew!

He was in his study, and Bob had probably nearly arrived at the phonograph local plague-centre in Putney, when he got to speculation, acknowledged as such, about a modus vivendi for himself and the mother of those two little wenches. He denied Judith any place in the problem, preferring to recognize, as the sole difficulty he had to fight against, the attitude of Marianne towards what he summed up as "Grosvenor Square" compendiously. He refused to admit that the class of feelings he entertained towards that lady—or might have entertained; he wouldn't quite admit them—could possibly come under discussion so long as he kept them to himself. Why, if every trifling vibration of personal feeling, every grain of salt on the dish of a man's friendship for a woman, was to be made the foundation of an indictment of faithlessness to his wife, where would matrimony be? But he nearly lost the thread of his reflections in the obligation to define what the feelings were that he was refusing to admit.

He would not allow for a moment that these feelings could possibly interfere with his affection for his wife. In fact, he actually shouted "Nonsense!" aloud in answer to some accusation to that effect for which he was not responsible. So loud, in fact, that Harmood came, and said, "Did you call, sir?" and disbelieved the "No, I didn't!" that she was met with. He would not have felt foolish on hearing his own voice getting out of bounds, but he did when it came home to him that Harmood must have heard him two rooms off at least. This would never do. He would get back to the Ostrogoths. How about Estrild's little handmaiden?—a good name for her?—something ending in illa? Favilla?—Scintilla?—Yes, that would do, without the S; otherwise, like Law Courts and tittles of evidence! Yes—certainly Cintilla! But he got no further.

Because the little sugar-plum brought back his interview of the morning. There was Judith again—he had nearly given up thinking of her as Miss Arkroyd—holding the mirror at arm's-length to make it include both faces easily, watching the ensemble with a slightly Ostrogothic effect, sympathetically resumed from some passage in the play she had half read, and knew the purport of; eyelids thrown up as per instructions of stage-trainer, to secure the glare which seems to have come so freely on the faces of all our forbears whom the Stage has thought worthy of portrayal; just a hint of what upper lip and nostrils could do, if they tried, in the way of callousness towards tortured prisoners. For Judith had been thinking over the part. And how grand her eyes were, too!—something of the dark colour of sapphires by artificial light. And the little chick's face had come so well! That episode of the monkey-soap had produced a nuance of terror-stroke; exactly how Cintilla would have looked over a Christian martyrdom; a penalty deserved by a Dissenter, but alarming, for all that. He would tell Judith next time he wrote.... Well!—he would write, of course. But it was all in the way of business. What of that?... He would tell her he had christened the child Cintilla. She would call her Cintilla now; he was sure of it.... Now he must get to work! This would never do.

He actually did get to work this time. He wrote blank verse, or prose abstract to turn into blank verse, or other blank verse that was better than the first blank verse; or, if worse, could be rejected when found wanting. But the worst was when alternatives turned out equal—impossible to make choice of. After a while, he found himself with two such samples to choose between. Which speech of the two would come best from the lips of Estrild? He had to acknowledge that he was puzzled.

And yet a good deal might depend on it. He was wavering between two courses in the plot of the play. Each of these speeches seemed to point to one. Suppose he chose the one that, afterwards, Judith liked least, and followed on the line of plot that suited it! He would not feel happy over it, that way. Obviously, Judith was the proper person to decide. Master Bob might just as well carry the speeches to a handy typewriter at Putney, wait for them to be executed, and bring them back. Or stop! Challis knew he could rely on the accuracy of this typist, at a pinch. Why not write to Judith, leaving the envelope open, and let Master Bob put the typed copy in and post it? It would save a deal of time. Then he would be able to get on with the play first thing in the morning, if an answer came by the early post, as it might. He could mention Cintilla, too.

So said, so done! Master Bob was off like a shot, though reluctant to leave his phono, whose hideous din had been audible from afar since its arrival an hour ago. No sooner was he past recall than Challis remembered that if he had decided the question himself, it never would have been necessary to show the rejected version to Judith at all! But the fact is he had got rather into the way of consulting her. Anyhow, it couldn't matter much, either way. He went back to his writing, and found something else to go on with. He went on with it peacefully until a cab arrived, and he looked out, expecting that it was Marianne. It was not, and he had an odd sensation of being glad he was sorry it was not. He saw who the visitor was, and retired.

Confound that woman! Why on earth need Charlotte Eldridge come bothering in when Marianne was away? A confirmatory announcement is followed by, "Oh, Mrs. Eldridge!—Did you tell her your mistress wasn't here?" Thus Challis to Harmood, who checks the incorrectness of his speech. "I said Mrs. Challis was not at home, sir. Mrs. Eldridge said she would come in and wait." On which Challis's comment—too much to himself to rank as an answer—is, "She'll have to wait."

"Am I to tell her so, sir?" Harmood, docile and well-bred, awaits instructions.

"No!—don't tell her anything. Perhaps your mistress will be in soon."