It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

At his second ring he suspected, at his third was convinced, that non-admission was a parti-pris, in his case, at Glenvairloch. The dictatorial voice had been, not Marianne's, but her parent's, who, probably, had also been the scout at the window. If the household had made up its mind not to admit him, what could he do? A scheme for burglarious entry, suggested by a boy at large, in the hope of reward, did not recommend itself. Even this boy asking the cook next door to let him through, and him to climb through a back-winder, seemed a lawless course to Challis's mind. He found, too, that this boy caused the sudden appearance from space of other boys, and that as they agglutinated round him, passers-by, apparently crétins, wanted to know whether it was a fire. He saw no alternative but to give it up. He did so, resolving to return next day. As it chanced, some pressing appointments made the day after more convenient.

This time he went early in the morning, hoping to effect a surprise. But he knew quite well that if no one else came to the door whose admission was de rigueur, he was practically at the mercy of the garrison. No portcullis need be lifted unless it chose.

A lucky chance befell, in the shape of a butcher-boy, who could not well leave a pound of steak impaled on the gate rails, nor slip three ounces of dripping into the letter-box. Taken into confidence by Challis, he said: "They'll come along for me, you bet." He knew his power, this butcher-boy; but he yelled as well as rang, from sweetness of disposition, although not bound to yell by contract. Indeed, he also shouted an exhortation: "Git them stockin's on, Hemmer, and come along! Can't wait here till Sunday!"

But Emma was really up and dressed, for it was past three o'clock. She took in the meat, and said she would ask, please, if Mrs. Challis was in. Challis raised no objection, but walked into the house beside her, for all that. You see, he was one of the family, however seldom he visited his mother-in-law. And it does not come into practice for a young servant to repulse an applicant for admission; under such circumstances, Emma had admitted Mr. Challis more than once. How could she turn on him and say, "You're not to come in this time"?

He had never been a frequent visitor at the house, though always nominally—or we might say technically—welcome. There had been little open warfare between him and its occupant since his first widowerhood, when his scanty attendances at Divine Service, conceded during his short period of married life, to keep the peace, were discontinued altogether. His perdition had then become an article of the old lady's faith; but she seemed to have decided that the Fires of Hell during the remainder of Eternity would be a sufficient penalty for her son-in-law's delinquencies, without the added sting of incivility from herself when he occasionally found himself under her roof. Moreover, Challis had made a great concession in surrendering Bob to Marianne. His way of describing this surrender of his son was shockingly blasphemous; in fact, he used to indulge in parallels founded on recollections of his own short church-going experience in a way that would have estranged his second wife and her mother for ever from him had their information on the details of their own faith been equal to their conviction that they held it. As it was, the impression sometimes produced on their minds by Challis's irreverent whimsicalities was that there must be the raw material of Salvation somewhere in a person capable of repeating so many correct religious phrases. The story only dwells on these things now because Challis did so as he sat waiting for the appearance of his mother-in-law, and wondering what form her indignation would take.

He had just recollected an occasion when, after a visit to the old lady, he had said to his wife: "Really, Polly Anne, I think I produced quite a devout impression on grandmamma to-day," and her unsuspicious reply, "I thought you spoke very nicely, dear!" when the old lady herself became audible in the lobby without, mixing an asthmatic cough with reprimands to the servant.

"You gurls!" The speaker seemed for a moment almost paralyzed by the force of her indignation against the class she denounced. Then it burst forth in almost a shout—"Why couldn't-you-do-as-I-told-you-and-say-your-orders-were...?" and so on. But the very vehemence of the fusillade that followed the artillery was suicidal, for the cough cut short what might almost have been printed as a continuous word. Then speech got a turn again, on a revised line, "Why-can't-you-do-as-you're-told?" the gunshot coming this time as a wind-up. Variations followed, to the same effect.

Emma the gurl seemed of a timid and sensitive nature, prone to dissolve in sobs and sniffs. Her defence, Challis gathered, was that he had walked in through the kitchen-door, and that her troops were outflanked by such an unusual move. He felt the defence was good, and that he ought to help. He showed himself at the room-door.

"Don't scold Emma, grandmamma," said he. "It was no fault of hers. If she had given me your message fifty times over, I should have come in just the same. Where's Marianne?"

"Be good enough not to interfere between me and my servants." She had a proper spirit, this old lady, and it was shown at intervals—short ones. As she mellowed with age, these intervals grew shorter.