The Talking Horse, and Other Tales

Soon after the engagement, however, an invalid aunt with whom Ella had always been a great favourite was ordered to the south of France, and implored her to go with her; which Ella, who had a real affection for her relative, as well as a strong sense of duty, had consented to do.

This was a misfortune in one of two ways: it either curtailed that most necessary and most delightful period during which fiancés discover one another's idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, or it made it necessary to postpone the marriage.

George naturally preferred the former, as the more endurable evil; but Ella's letters from abroad began to hint more and more plainly at delay. Her aunt might remain on the Continent all the summer, and she could not possibly leave her; there was so much to be done after her return that could not be done in a hurry; they had not even begun to furnish the pretty little house on Campden Hill that was to be their new home – it would be better to wait till November, or even later.

The mere idea was alarming to George, and he remonstrated as far as he dared; but Ella remained firm, and he grew desperate.

He might have spared himself the trouble. About the middle of June Ella's aunt – who, of course, had had to leave the Riviera – grew tired of travelling, and Ella, to George's intense satisfaction, returned to her mother's house in Linden Gardens, Notting Hill.

And now, when our story opens, George, who had managed to get away from office-work two hours before his usual time, was hurrying towards Linden Gardens as fast as a hansom could take him, to see his betrothed for the first time after their long separation.

He was eager, naturally, and a little nervous. Would Ella still persist in her wish for delay? or would he be able to convince her that there were no obstacles in the way? He felt he had strong arguments on his side, if only – and here was the real seat of his anxiety – if only her objections were not raised from some other motive! She might have been trying to prepare him for a final rupture, and then – 'Well,' he concluded, with his customary good sense, 'no use meeting trouble halfway – in five minutes I shall know for certain!'

At the same moment Mrs. Hylton and her daughter Flossie, a vivacious girl in the transitionary sixteen-year-old stage, were in the drawing-room at Linden Gardens. It was the ordinary double drawing-room of a London house, but everything in it was beautiful and harmonious. The eye was vaguely rested by the delicate and subdued colour of walls and hangings; cabinets, antique Persian pottery, rare bits of china, all occupied the precise place in which their decorative value was most felt; a room, in short, of exceptional individuality and distinction.

Flossie was standing at the window, from which a glimpse could just be caught of fresh green foliage and the lodge-gates, with the bustle of the traffic in the High Street beyond; Mrs. Hylton was writing at a Flemish bureau in the corner.

'I suppose,' said Flossie meditatively, as she fingered a piece of old stained glass that was hanging in the window, 'we shall have George here this afternoon.'

Mrs. Hylton raised her head. She had a striking face, tinted a clear olive, with a high wave of silver hair crowning the forehead; her eyebrows were dark, and so were the brilliant eyes; the nose was aquiline, and the thin, well-cut mouth a little hard. She was a woman who had been much admired in her time, and who still retained a certain attraction, though some were apt to find her somewhat cold and unsympathetic. Her daughter Ella, for example, was always secretly a little in awe of her mother, who, however, had no terrors for audacious, outspoken Flossie.

'If he comes, Flossie, he will be very welcome,' she said, 'but I hardly expect him yet. George is not likely to neglect his duties, even for Ella.'

Flossie pursed her mouth rather scornfully: 'Oh, George is immaculate!' she murmured.

'If he was, it would hardly be a reproach,' said her mother, catching the word; 'but, at all events, George has thoroughly good principles, and is sure to succeed in the world. I have every reason to be pleased.'

'Every reason? – ah! but are you pleased? Mother, dear, you know he's as dull as dull!'

'Ella does not find him so – and, Flossie, I don't like to hear you say such things, even in Ella's absence.'

'Oh, I never abuse him to Ella; it wouldn't be any use: she's firmly convinced that he's perfection – at least she was before she went away.'

'Why? do you mean that she has altered? – have you seen any sign of it, Flossie?'

Mrs. Hylton made this inquiry sharply, but not as if such a circumstance would be altogether displeasing to her.

'Oh, no; only she hasn't seen him for so long, you know. Perhaps, when she comes to look at him with fresh eyes, she'll notice things more. Ah, here is George, just getting out of a hansom – so he has played truant for once! There's one thing I do think Ella might do – persuade him to shave off some of those straggly whiskers. I wonder why he never seems to get a hat or anything else like other people's!'

Presently George was announced. He was slightly above middle height, broad-shouldered and fresh-coloured; the obnoxious whiskers did indeed cover more of his cheeks than modern fashion prescribes for men of his age, and had evidently never known a razor; he wore a turn-down collar and a necktie of a rather crude red; his clothes were neat and well brushed, but not remarkable for their cut.

'Well, my dear George,' said Mrs. Hylton, 'we have seen very little of you while Ella has been away.'

'I know,' he said awkwardly; 'I've had a lot of things to look after in one way and another.'

'What? after your work at the office was over!' cried Flossie incredulously.

'Yes – after that; it's taken up my time a good deal.'

'And so you couldn't spare any to call here – I see!' said Flossie. 'George,' she added, with a sudden diversion, 'I wonder you aren't afraid of catching cold! How can you go about in such absurdly thin boots as those?'

'These?' he said, inspecting them doubtfully – they were strong, sensible boots with notched and projecting soles of ponderous thickness – 'why, what's the matter with them, Flossie, eh? Don't you think they're strong enough for walking in?'

'No, George; they're the very things for an afternoon dance, and quite a lot of couples could dance in them, you see. But for walking – ah, I'm afraid you sacrifice too much to appearances.'

'I don't, really!' George protested in all good faith; 'now do I, Mrs. Hylton?'

'Flossie is making fun of you, George; you mustn't mind her impertinence.'

'Oh, is that all? Do you know, I really thought for the moment that she meant they were too small for me! You like getting a rise out of me, Flossie, don't you?'

And he laughed with such genuine and good-natured amusement that the young lady felt somehow a little small, and almost ashamed, although it took the form of suppressed irritation. 'He really ought not to come here in such things,' she said to herself; 'and I don't believe that, even now, he sees what I meant.'

Just at this point Ella came in, with the least touch of shyness, perhaps, at meeting him before witnesses after so long an absence; but she only looked the more charming in consequence, and, demure as her greeting was, her pretty eyes had a sparkle of pleasure that scattered all George Chapman's fears to the winds. Even Flossie felt instinctively that straggly-whiskered, red-necktied, thick-booted George had lost none of his divinity for Ella.

They did not seem to have much to say to one another, notwithstanding; possibly because Ella was called upon to dispense the tea which had just been brought in. George sat nursing the hat which Flossie found so objectionable, while he balanced a teacup with the anxious eye of a juggler out of practice, and the conversation flagged. At last, under pretence of renewing his tea, most of which he had squandered upon a Persian rug, he crossed to Ella: 'I say,' he suggested, 'don't you think you could come out for a little while? I've such lots to tell you and – and I want you to go somewhere with me.'

Mrs. Hylton made no objection, beyond stipulating that Ella must not be allowed to tire herself after her journey, and so, a few minutes later, Miss Hylton came down in her pretty summer hat and light cape, and she and George were allowed to set out.

Once outside the house, he drew a long breath of mingled relief and pleasure: 'By Jove, Ella, I am glad to get you back again! I say, how jolly you do look in that hat! Now, do you know where I'm going to take you?'

'It will be quietest in the Gardens,' said Ella.

'Ah, but that's not where you're going now,' he said with a delicious assumption of authority; 'you're coming with me to see a certain house on Campden Hill you may have heard of.'

'That will be delightful. I do want to see our dear little house again very much. And, George, we will go carefully over all the rooms, and settle what can be done with each of them. Then we can begin directly; we haven't too much time.'

'Perhaps,' he said with a conscious laugh, 'it won't take so much time as you think.'

'Oh, but it must– to do properly. And while I've been away I've had some splendid ideas for some of the rooms – I've planned them out so beautifully. You know that delightful little room at the back? – the one I said should be your own den, with the window all festooned with creepers and looking out on the garden – well – ?'

'Take my advice,' he said, 'and don't make any plans till you see it. And as for plans, these furnishing fellows do all that – they don't care to be bothered with plans.'

'They will have to carry out ours, though. I shall love settling how it is all to be – it will be such fun.'

'You wouldn't call it fun if you knew what it was like, I can tell you.'

'But I do know. Mother and I rearranged most of the rooms at home only last year – so you see I have some experience. And what experience can you have had, if you please?'

Ella had a mental vision as she spoke of the house in Dawson Place when George lived with his mother and sisters – a house in which furniture and everything else were commonplace and bourgeois to the last degree, and where nothing could have been altered since his boyhood; indeed she had often secretly pitied him for having to live in such surroundings, and admired the filial patience that had made him endure them so long.

'I've had my share, Ella, and I should be very sorry for you to have all the worry and bother I've been through over it!'

'But when, George? How? I don't understand.'

'Ah, that's my secret!' he said provokingly; 'and you know, Ella, if we began furnishing now, it would take no end of a time, with all these wonderful plans of yours, and – and I couldn't stand having to wait till next November for you – I couldn't do it!'

'Mother thinks the marriage need not be put off now,' said Ella simply, 'and we shall have six weeks till then; the house can be quite ready for us by the time we want it.'

'Six weeks!' he said impatiently, 'what's six weeks? You've no idea what these chaps are, Ella! And then there are all your own things to get, and they would take up most of your time. No, we should have had to put it off, whatever you may say. And that would mean another separation – for, of course, you would go away in August, and I should have to stay in town: the office wouldn't give me my fortnight twice over – honeymoon or no honeymoon!'

Ella looked completely puzzled. 'But what are you trying to prove now, George?'

'I was only showing you that, even though you have come back earlier, we couldn't possibly have got things ready in time, if I hadn't – ' but here he stopped. 'No, I want that to be a surprise for you, Ella; you'll see presently,' he added.

Ella's delicate eyebrows contracted. 'I like to be prepared for my surprises, please, George. Tell me now.'

They had turned up one of the quiet streets leading to the hill. They were so near the house that George thought he might abandon further mystery, not to mention that he was only too anxious to reveal his secret.

'Well, then, Ella, if you must have it,' he said triumphantly, 'the house is very nearly ready now– what do you think of that?'

'Do you mean that – that it is furnished, George?'

'Papered, painted, decorated, furnished – everything, from top to bottom! I thought that would surprise you, Ella!'

'I think,' she answered slowly, 'you might have told me you were doing it.'

'What! before it was all done? That would have spoilt it all, dear. I should have written, though, if you hadn't been coming home so soon. And now it's finished I must say it looks uncommonly jolly. I'm sure you'll be pleased with it – it looks quite a different place.'

She tried to smile: 'And did you do it all yourself, George?'

'Well, no – not exactly. I flatter myself I know how to see that the work's properly done, and all that; but there are some things I don't pretend to be much of a hand at, so I got certain ladies to give me some wrinkles.'

Ella felt relieved. She was disappointed, it is true – hurt, even, at having been deprived of any voice in the matter. She had been looking forward so much to carrying out her pet schemes, to enjoying her friends' admiration of the wonders wrought by her artistic invention. And she had never thought of George, somehow, as likely to have any strikingly original ideas on the subject of decoration, although she liked him none the less for that.

But it was something that he had had the good sense to take her mother and Flossie into his confidence: she knew she could trust them to preserve him from any serious mistakes.

'You see,' said George, half apologetically, 'I would ever so much rather have waited till you came back, only I couldn't tell when that would be. I really couldn't help myself. You're sure you don't mind about it? If you only knew how I worked over it, rushing about from one place to another, as soon as I could get away from the office, picking up bits of furniture here and there, standing over those beggars of painters and keeping 'em at it, and working out estimates and seeing foremen and managers and all kinds of chaps! I used to get home dead-tired of an evening; but I didn't mind that: I felt it was all bringing you nearer to me, darling, and that made everything a pleasure!'

There was such honest affection in his look and voice; he had so evidently intended to please her, and had been in such manifest dread of any further separation from her, that she was completely disarmed.

'Dear George,' she said gently, 'I am so sorry you took all the trouble on yourself; it was very, very good of you to care so much, and I know I shall be delighted with the house.'

'Well,' said George, 'I'm not much afraid about that, because I expect our tastes are pretty much the same in most things.'

They were by this time at the house, and George, after a little fumbling with his as yet unfamiliar latchkey, threw open the door with a flourish and said, 'There you are, little woman! Walk in and you'll see what you shall see!'

No sooner was Ella inside the hall than her heart sank: 'Looks neat and nice, doesn't it?' said George cheerfully. 'You'd almost take that paper for real marble, wouldn't you? See how well they've done those veins. I like this yellowish colour better than green, don't you? It looks so cool in summer. That's a good strong hall-lamp – not what you call high art, exactly – but gives a rattling good light, and that's the main thing. Here, I'll light it up for you – confound it! they haven't turned the gas on yet. However, there's too much sunshine for it to show much, if they had. This linoleum is a capital thing: you might scrub as long as you liked and you'd never get that pattern out!'

'No,' Ella agreed, with a tragic little smile, 'it – it looks as if it would last.'

'Last! I should just think so! And here's a hatstand – you could almost swear it was carved wood of some sort, but it's only cast-iron painted; indestructible, you see; they told me that was the latest dodge – wonderful how cheaply they turn them out, isn't it?'

'I thought you said you were helped?'

'Oh, I didn't want any help here– this is only the passage, you know!'

Yes, it was only the passage – and yet she had been picturing such a charming entrance, with a draped arch, a graceful lamp, a fresh bright paper, a small buffet of genuine old oak, and so on. She suppressed a sigh as she passed on; after all, so long as the rooms themselves were all right, it did not so very much matter, and she knew that her mother's taste could be trusted.

But on the threshold of the dining-room she stopped aghast. The walls had been distempered a particularly hideous drab; the curtains were mustard yellow; the carpet was a dull brown; the mottled marble mantelpiece, for which she had been intending to substitute one in walnut wood with tiles, still shone in slabs of petrified brawn; there was a huge mahogany sideboard of a kind she had only seen in old-fashioned hotels.

'Comfortable, eh?' remarked George. 'Lots of wear in those curtains!'

Unhappily there was, as Ella was only too well aware. 'You did this room yourself too, then, George?' she managed to say, without betraying herself by her voice.

'Yes, I chose everything here. You see, Ella, we shall only use this room for meals.'

'Only for meals, yes,' she acquiesced with a shudder; 'but – George, surely you said mother had helped you with the rooms?'

'What! your mother? No, Ella; her notions are rather too grand for me. It was Jessie and Carrie I meant. Just come and see what they've made of my den.'

Ella followed. The window – which had commanded such a cheerful outlook into one of the pretty gardens, with a pink thorn, a laburnum-tree or two, and some sycamores which still flourish fresh and fair on Campden Hill – was obscured now by some detestable contrivance in transparent paper imitating stained glass.

'That was the girls' notion,' said George, following the direction of her eyes; 'they fixed it all themselves – it was their present to me. Pretty of them to think of it, wasn't it? I call it an immense improvement, and, you see, it's stuck on with some patent cement varnish, so it can't rub off. You get the effect better if you stand here —now, see how well the colours come out in the sun!'

If only they would come out! But what could she do but stand and admire hypocritically? Her eyes, in spite of herself, seemed drawn to that bright-hued sham intersected by black lines intended to represent leading; of the room itself she only saw vaguely that it was not unworthy of the window.

'Nothing to what they've done with the drawing-room!' said innocent George, beaming; 'come along, darling, you'll scarcely know the place.'

And Ella, reduced to a condition of stony stupor, followed to the drawing-room. She did not know the place, indeed. It was a quaintly-shaped, irregular room, with French windows opening upon the garden on one side and a deep bow-window on another; when she had last seen it, the walls were covered with a paper so pleasing in tone and design that she had almost decided to retain it. That paper was gone, and in its place a gaudy semi-Chinese pattern of unknown birds, flying and perching on sprawling branches laden with impossible flowers. And then the furniture – the 'elegant drawing-room suite' in brilliant plush and shiny satin, the cheap cabinets, and the ready-made black and gilt overmantel, with its panels of swans, hawthorn-blossom, and landscapes sketchily daubed on dead gold – surely it had all been transferred bodily from the stage of some carelessly mounted farcical comedy!

Ella's horrified gaze gradually took in other features – the china monkeys swinging on cords, the porcelain parrots hanging in great brass rings, huge misshapen terra-cotta jars and pots, dead grass in bloated drain-pipes, tambourines, beribboned and painted with kittens and robins, enormous wooden sabots, gilded Japanese fans, a woolly white rug and a bright Kidderminster carpet.

'Oh, George!' burst involuntarily from her lips.

'I knew you'd be pleased!' he said complacently; 'but I mustn't take all the credit myself. It was like this, you see: I felt all right enough about the other rooms, but the drawing-room – that's your room, and I was awfully afraid of not having it exactly as it ought to be. So I went to the girls, and I said, "You know all about these things – just make it what you think Ella will like, and then we can't go wrong!" We had that Grosvenor Gallery paper down first of all. "Choose something bright and cheerful," I said, and I don't think they've chosen badly. Then the pottery and china and all that – those are the girls' presents to you, with their best love.'

'It – it's very good of them,' said poor Ella, on the verge of tears.

'Oh, they think a lot of you! They were rather nervous about doing anything at first, for fear you mightn't like it; but I told them they needn't be afraid. "What I like, Ella will like," I said; and, I must say, no one could wish to see a prettier drawing-room than they've turned it into – they've a good deal of taste, those two girls.'

Ella stood there in a kind of dreary dream. What had happened to the world since she came into this house? What was this change in her? She was afraid to speak, lest the intense rebellious anger she felt should gain the mastery. Was it she that had these wicked thoughts of George – poor, kind, unsuspecting, loving George? She felt a little faint, for the windows were closed and the room stuffy with the odour of the new furniture and the atmosphere of the workshop; everything here seemed to her commonplace and repulsive.

'How about those plans of yours now, Ella, eh?' cried George.

This was too much; her overtried patience broke down. 'George!' she cried impulsively, and her voice sounded hoarse and strange to her own ear; 'George! I must speak – I must tell you! – ' and then she checked herself. She must keep command of herself, or she could not, without utter loss of dignity, find the words that were to sting him into a sense of what he had done and allowed to be done. Before she could go on, George had drawn her to him, and was patting her shoulder tenderly. 'I know, dear little girl,' he said, 'I know; don't try to tell me anything. I'm so awfully glad you're pleased; but all the money and pains in the world wouldn't make the place good enough for my Ella!'

She released herself with a little cry of impotent despair. How could she say the sharp, cruel speeches that were struggling to reach her tongue now? It was no use; she was a coward; she simply had not the courage to undeceive him here, on the very first day of their reunion, too!

'You haven't been upstairs yet,' said George, dropping sentiment abruptly; 'shall we go up?'

Ella assented submissively, much as even this cost her; but it was better, she reflected, to get it over and know the very worst. However, she was spared this ordeal for the present; as they returned to the hall, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a dingy man, whose face was surrounded by a fringe of black whiskers and crowned by a shock of fleecy hair.

'Who on earth are you?' demanded George, as the man rose from the kitchen-stairs.

'No offence, sir and lady! Peagrum, that's my name, fust shop round the corner as you go into Silver Street, plumber and sanitry hengineer, gas-fittin' and hartistic decorating, bell-'anging in all its branches. I received instructions from Mr. Jones that I was to look into a little matter o' leakage in the back-kitchen sink; also to see what taps, if hany, required seein' to, and gen'ally to put things straight like. So I come round, 'aving the keys, jest to cast a heye over them, as I may term it, preliminry to commencing work in the course of a week or so, as soon as I'm at libity to attend to it pussonally.'

'Oh, the landlord sent you? All right, then.'

'Correct, sir,' said the plumber affably. 'While I've been 'ere, I took the freedom of going all over this little 'ouse, and a nice cosy little 'ouse you've made of it, for such a nouse as it is! You've done it up very tysty – very tysty you've done this little 'ouse up; and I've some claim to speak, seein' as how I've had the decoration throughout of a many 'ouses in my time, likewise mansions. You ain't been too ambitious, which is the error most parties falls into with small 'ouses. Now the parties as 'ad the place before you – by the name o' Rummles – well, I daresay they satisfied theirselves, but the 'ouse never looked right – not to my taste, it didn't!'