It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

Thereupon Mrs. Protheroe, who had "got" Challis after some effort of memory, had said uneasily: "I hope that would not be the same gentleman...." And Mr. Elphinstone had asked, "What gentleman?" On which Mrs. Protheroe pleaded, apologetically, guilty to gossip. Perhaps she ought not to have said it. But there, it was only the child, after all. Little Tilley! All nonsense, most likely! Being pressed, she had produced a letter from Cintilla, saying boldly that "Miss Judith's lover had reappeared, and they'd made it up; only her ladyship and Sir Murgatroyd refused to see him." The pretty little ex-dairy maiden, whom a course of spoiling had not improved, had withheld the name of Miss Judith's admirer. Mrs. Protheroe might guess. It was then that Mr. Elphinstone noted his desire that his words should be marked. No doubt Mrs. Protheroe marked them as little as you and I have done in response to like appeals.

However, this April chat, more than ten months after Challis wrote his letter to Judith, to get her to try to whitewash him in Marianne's eyes, will serve to show how the pieces have shifted on the board. For an untold gap in a tale is like the hour of the game of chess you, the spectator, were called away from to speak to Mrs. Smith. When you left, not a piece was lost, and Black had taken the opportunity to castle. When you returned, White and Black had exchanged queens, and heaps of pawns and pieces were smiling sickly smiles upon the floor, and had lost interest in the proceedings, as you had done yourself. Still, you pretended that you could see exactly what had happened, which was fibs. But you recovered interest in the game then, and may do so in the story. However, the intervening hiatus cannot be left an absolute blank.

It was made up, for Challis, of more or less disguised dangling at the heels of Judith Arkroyd, broken by several short excursions, pleasant enough, abroad, and one short, dreary sojourn at his own empty home. This was chosen at the period of Bob's holidays, which were divided by that young man impartially between Wimbledon and Broadstairs. He showed an accommodating, unenquiring spirit in his acceptance of the status quo, as somehow or other right; offering to fight any disputant of his own sex and weight who suggested that his domestic arrangements were exceptional. He silenced controversy by trenchant expressions, such as "You shut up, anyhow!" and went so far once as to tell Tillotson—who had two Camberwell Beauties, certainly, but was in all other human relations an Awful Little Humbug—that Dean Tillotson, his father, and Lady Augusta Tillotson, his mother, only resided together to produce a false impression of concord on the cathedral-town society they were central pivot of. Once out of the public sight, according to Bob, this worthy prelate—of whom he knew absolutely nothing—and his aristocratic wife "went on" like a cat and dog. Morally, of course! Bob admitted, under catechism, that her ladyship was not driven up trees and afraid to come down because the Dean was barking at the bottom; but, metaphorically speaking, he held to his indictment—provisionally, at least, until it should be shown in a fair ordeal of battle that the owner of the Camberwell Beauties could lick its promulgator. Challis ventured to dwell on the unfairness of making the preservation of an unblemished family reputation turn on such an issue, but Bob was deaf to argument. Europe would see, next term, if he didn't give Tillotson an awful licking, and thereby prove his words true. He would have done so last term, only that old fool Spit had caught the combatants in flagrante delicto, and made them write alternate verses of the sixth book of the "Iliad" all through, off the same copy.

Bob's reports of the household at Broadstairs were Challis's only information about Marianne and the little girls, and it appeared from these that his mother had been loyal to her husband in one respect; she had kept back the reasons of their separation from the children. Circumstances had been glossed over—veils drawn. Young folk can be easily duped by guardians and parents, who do not generally scruple—did yours?—to take advantage of their simplicity. As long as his father and mother were satisfied, Bob was content. And as long as his sisters felt in some sort of touch with "at home," through his own holiday visits "at grandmamma's," their inquiries took no very active form. Challis could not ask his boy the questions he longed to ask. How was it possible, for instance, to say to him, "Do Chobbles and Mumps never ask after their Pappy?" He was constantly in dread of saying something that would set the boy's curiosity on the alert. And he was thankful, when the time for school came again, that it was still, so far as he knew, at rest.

But the joy of oblivion, in change of scene and association, grew on him. He left England for the South of France, as we have seen, shortly after Bob departed for Broadstairs the first time, midway in his summer holiday. He wandered about a little in old French towns after Judith returned for her sister's wedding, catching the last half of Bob's Christmas holiday, that youth having spent the first half partly at his grandmamma's and partly in a visit to a school-friend. If you know and understand boys, you will feel no surprise on hearing that this was Tillotson! Bob had a high old time at the Deanery at Inchester to tell his father of when he went to the Hermitage in January. And his spontaneous narratives of the distinguishing features of Inchester and Broadstairs, to the disadvantage of the latter, did more to bring an image of Marianne and her present surroundings to her husband's mind than more carefully prepared statements, substantially true, could have done. Grandmamma was not a stinking old Salvation Army Dissenter, but a properly enrolled member of the Establishment. Nevertheless, Bob's contrast between what he called "her style" and that of the Venerable Dean was full of suggestion to his father, whose imagination could supply the merely academical accuracy needed for a perfect picture.

When Bob went back to school Challis remained at the Hermitage long enough to complete the correction of the proofs of his forthcoming novel for the Spring issue. "The Hangman's Orphan" had been already announced in the press, and only a revise or two was wanting to complete it. He arranged that this should be posted to him at Mentone, where he expected to remain through January. He could wire corrections if needful.

Whether his selection of Mentone for a winter sojourn was the result of a suggestion from Judith or not is of little importance to the story. What does concern it is the question how Challis came to be admitted on the family visiting-list at all when he left his card at the Hôtel de la Paix on their arrival. Remember what Sibyl's report may have—must have—been of the little drama she had distinguished in "Tophet" in the moonlight of last June. Certainly Challis had "left cards" in Grosvenor Square once or twice; had, at Judith's suggestion, been engaged elsewhere when once asked to dinner, but had had no real intercourse with any of the Family, except that time when he was caught and brought into the house by Cintilla. Of course, if Judith's hand had been free, things would have been different. Still, something is needed to account for the position of affairs at Mentone. There was certainly a change.

Our own belief is that the brilliant success of a play of our author's at the Megatherium Theatre had a great deal to do with it.

Nice scruples bow before great booms; and although Sibyl's antipathy, shared to a great extent by her mother, and her father's irresolution before their united forces, were obstacles to Miss Arkroyd's perfect freedom of intercourse with that Mr. Challis who had married his Deceased Wife's Sister, and was living apart from her, they were obstacles of a sort liable to disappear under a sufficiently lofty heap of laurels. Even her Grace of Rankshire, who had condemned Challis off-hand, and recommended that the doors of Royd Hall should be closed against him, softened in the Royal box before the thunders of applause that accompanied the call for the author when the curtain fell on "Aminta Torrington." He wasn't Shakespeare, of course; but, then, he wasn't Ibsen, and what a comfort that was! And one couldn't stand against a popular verdict. "And, after all," said she to Lady Arkroyd, "we probably only know half the story."

"Well, Thyringia," said Lady Arkroyd, thereon, "you know it isn't me that is making the fuss," which was not only bad grammar, but untrue. "If you would say a word to Sir Murgatroyd to influence him, it would have such weight. And then the man could come to a reception or something, and Ju would let me have a little peace. I can't tell you how sick and tired I am of it all."