When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

The most promising feature in the lady's state of mind was that she was formulating consolations, dormant now, but actively available if by chance the gentleman did not see his way. She was saying to herself that if another flower attracted this bee, she herself would thereby only lose an admirer with a disposition—only a slight one perhaps, but still undeniable—to become corpulent in the course of the next few years. She could subordinate her dislike of smoking so long as she could suppose him ever so little in earnest; but, if he did waver by any chance, what a satisfaction it would be to dwell on her escape from—here a mixed metaphor came in—the arms of a tobacco shop! She could shut her eyes, if she was satisfied of the sincerity of a redeeming attachment to herself, to all the contingencies of the previous life of a middle-aged bachelor about town; but they would no doubt supply a set-off to his disaffection, if that was written on the next page of her book of Fate. In short, she would be prepared in that case to accept the conviction that she was well rid of him. But all this was subcutaneous. Given only the one great essential, that he was not merely philandering, and then neither his escapades in the past, nor his cigars, nor even his suggestions towards a corporation, would stand in the way of a whole-hearted acceptance of a companion for life who had somehow managed to be such a pleasant companion during that visit at the Towers. At least, she would be better off than her four sisters. For this lady had a wholesome aversion for her brothers-in-law, tending to support the creed which teaches that the sacrament of marriage makes of its votaries, or victims, not only parties to a contract, but one flesh, and opens up undreamed-of possibilities of real fraternal dissension.

The gentleman, on the other hand, was in what we may suppose to be a corresponding stage of uncertainty. He too was able to perceive, or affect a perception, that, after all, if he came to the scratch and the scratch eventuated—as scratches do sometimes—in a paralysis of astonishment on the lady's part that such an idea should ever have entered into the applicant's calculations, it wouldn't be a thing to break his heart about exactly. He would have made rather an ass of himself, certainly. But he was quite prepared not to be any the worse.

This was, however, not subcutaneous, with him. He said it to himself, quite openly. His concealment of himself from himself turned on a sort of passive resistance he was offering to a growing reluctance to hear a negative to his application. He was, despite himself, entertaining the question:—Was this woman whom he had been assessing and wavering over, more masculino, conceivably likely to reject him on his merits? Might she not say to him:—"I have seen your drift, and found you too pleasant an acquaintance to condemn offhand. But now that you force me to ask myself the question, 'Can I love you?' you leave me no choice but to answer, 'I can't.'" And he was beginning to have a misgiving that he would very much rather that that scratch, if ever he came to it, should end on very different lines from this. All this, mind you, was under the skin of his reflections.

As he walked away slowly in the moonlight, with the appointment fresh in his mind to return next day on a shallow archæological pretext, he may have been himself at a loss for his reason for completing a tour of the square, and pausing to look up at the house before making a definite start for his Club, or his rooms in Brook Street. Was any reason necessary, beyond the fineness of the night? He had an indisputable right to walk round Cavendish Square without a reason, and he exercised it. He rather resented the policeman on his beat saying goodnight to him, as though he were abnormal, and walked away in the opposite direction from that officer, who was searchlighting areas for want of something to do, with an implication of profound purpose. He decided on loneliness and a walk exactly the length of a cigar, throwing its last effort to burn his fingers away on his doorstep. He carried the animation of his thoughts on his face upstairs to bed with him, for it lasted through a meditation at an open window, through a chorus of cats about their private affairs, and the usual controversy about the hour among all the town-clocks, which becomes embittered when there is only one hour to talk about, and compromise is impossible. Mr. Pellew heard the last opinion and retired for the night at nine minutes past. But he first made sure that that Quarterly Review was in evidence, and glanced at the Egyptian article to confirm his impression of the contents. They were still there. He believed all his actions were sane and well balanced, but this was credulity. One stretches a point sometimes, to believe oneself reasonable.

It was a model September afternoon—and what can one say more of weather?—when at half-past three precisely Mr. Pellew's hansom overshot the door of 102, Cavendish Square, and firmly but amiably insisted on turning round to deposit its fare according to the exact terms of its contract. Its proprietor said what he could in extenuation of its maladroitness. They shouldn't build these here houses at the corners of streets; it was misguiding to the most penetrating intellect. He addressed his fare as Captain, asking him to make it another sixpence. He had been put to a lot of expense last month, along of the strike, and looked to the public to make it up to him. For the cabbies had struck, some weeks since, against sixpence a mile instead of eightpence. Mr. Pellew's heart was touched, and he conceded the other sixpence.

There at the door was Miss Grahame's open landaulet, and there were she and Gwen in it, just starting to see the former's little boy. That was how Dave was spoken of, at the risk of creating a scandal. They immediately lent themselves to a gratuitous farce, having for its object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson from external influence.

"Constance was back, wasn't she?" Thus Miss Grahame; and Gwen had the effrontery to say she was almost certain, but couldn't be quite sure. If she wasn't there, she would have to go without that pulverised Pharaoh, as Sir Somebody Something's just yearnings for his Quarterly were not to be made light of. "Don't you let Maggie take the book up to her, Percy. You go up in the sitting-room—you know, where we were playing last night?—and if she doesn't turn up in five minutes don't you wait for her!" Then the two ladies talked telegraphically, to the exclusion of Mr. Pellew, to the effect that Aunt Constance had only gone to buy a pair of gloves in Oxford Street, and was pledged to an early return. The curtain fell on the farce, and a very brief interview with Mary at the door ended in Mr. Pellew being shown upstairs, without reservation. So he and Aunt Constance had the house to themselves.

To do them justice, the attention shown to the covering fiction of the book-loan was of the very smallest. It could not be ignored altogether; so Miss Dickenson looked at the article. She did not read a word of it, but she looked at it. She went further, and said it was interesting. Then it was allowed to lie on the table. When the last possible book has been printed—for even Literature must come to an end some time, if Time itself does not collapse—that will be the last privilege accorded to it. It will lie on the table, while all but a few of its predecessors will stand on a bookshelf.

"It's quite warm out of doors," said Mr. Pellew.

"Warmer than yesterday, I think," said Miss Dickenson. And then talk went on, stiffly, each of its contribuents execrating its stiffness, but seeing no way to relaxation.