Lady Arkroyd's speech is apt to have a superseding character—to pass by lesser folks' unimportant remarks. "I liked the father at the Hospital," she says indifferently. "I hope the child isn't going to be delicate." Mr. Taylor was arrested long enough to say, oh dear no!—oh no, it was or would be all right as far as that went—and then left it, whatever it was, to finish his own beginning.
"I was just going to say what an odd chance it was that Mr. Challis's housekeeping should have absorbed Mrs. Steptoe. How does the woman answer, Challis?" For, as we have heard, these two gentlemen had become fairly well acquainted last September, in spite of the cloth of the one and the predisposition of the other—a better word for the case than "antipathies," which had almost crept into the text. One or two country-walk chats had ended in Challis giving the Rev. Athelstan practical absolution for his black stock and silk waistcoat, and the latter reflecting much on the figments of mediæval creed and formulary that make a gulf between so many intellects with concord at the root, and play into the hands of their common enemy, the Devil. Why was he glad that his friend Gus was safe in London dabbling in incense, coquetting with Holy Water, preaching Immaculate Conceptions, and not letting his left hand know that his right hand had renounced the Bishop of Rome—when a visitor like Challis might accrue at any moment at Royd Rectory, as per promise given eight months ago? Why?—simply because he felt that the bridge of his own liberality, however long the span of it, was not enough to cover the great gulf! And there was Ahriman, chuckling all the while!
"I am given to understand that Mrs. Steptoe is a good plain cook," was Challis's answer to the Rector's question. Something in the manner of it seemed to throw doubt on his good faith. Otherwise, why seek confirmatory evidence, as his hearers seemed to do?
"I suppose you dine at home?" said the Rector, going to the point.
"I don't judge so much by that. It wouldn't be fair to do so, because I gather that in our house the flues don't act, and the best kitchen-coal at twenty shillings has no burn in it, and goes to cender in no time. Also we have no saucepans the right size. Also our greengrocer supplies us with potatoes which on peeling turn out irregular polyhedrons. So it doesn't do to be biassed by what we get to eat. But I am convinced she is a good plain cook."
Lady Arkroyd was accepting all Challis said in the spirit of Bradshaw. A territorial lady knows nothing of the small domesticities of any middle class. The Rector, perceiving a danger ahead—a new-born interest in the peculiar potatoes obtaining in suburban villas—headed Lady Arkroyd off just as she had begun, "What very curious pota...!" without a smile.
"Challis isn't in earnest," said he. "It's only his chaff." Her ladyship said, "Oh!" and looked puzzled—awaited enlightenment. Challis laughed, admitting jurisdiction. But he pleaded in extenuation of his offence that it was difficult to fight against the conviction that Mrs. Steptoe was a good plain cook—whatever direct evidence there was to the contrary—in the face of her apron and the material of her dress, her punctual attendance at chapel, her handwriting and its blots, her arithmetic and its totals. She really had all the qualities of a good plain cook, except the bald and crude ability to do plain cookery—a thing no one who looks below the surface ever bothers over.
"I'm afraid the good woman's a bit of a humbug," was Athelstan Taylor's conclusion. It was welcomed by the lady, as a relief to the necessity for smiling in a well-bred way—a Debretticent way, call it—while queer arrivals from below uttered paradoxes on Olympus.
Judith might be late; she was at Thanes. Challis pretended he hadn't known this. But he knew well enough that the young lady had forgiven the Castle, because they were going to have theatricals; and she, with an imputed experience, had been petitioned to accept the principal part. All this was in her last letter, written to Challis at his club. It had also told him that William Rufus, her brother, would not be at Royd for a few days, as he was busy in town over the Great Idea, which was going to be a very great Idea indeed, as some men had come forward and were going to put a good deal of Capital into it. Challis had said, "Dear me!—how like!..." and had not finished the sentence.
A little thing occurred that amused the novelmonger's heart and stirred his sympathies. When he began talking with his hostess and the Rector, he had turned his back on the chit and the young soldier. When, as the Rector's departure provoked dispersal, he looked their way again—behold!—they had vanished, as by magic. "I think," said the second chit, "they have gone for a walk to Fern Hollow." And thenceforward there was a consciousness about this young couple and their destiny between Mr. Challis and the second chit. For had she not detected his thought about them, when his eyes looked for them and found them not?