Arminell, Vol. 3

When he opened the door of Chillacot, his mother said – “Giles, I have secured a servant. I have promised Tamsine Kite a place in my establishment as lady’s-maid. She will attend me to town.”

“But, mother – ”

“My dear, it is settled; and see, here is Captain Tubb.”

“Captain Tubb!”

“Yes, he has come to pay me his respects before I leave, and to congratulate me on the disposal of Chillacot for so handsome a sum, and to enquire what I propose doing with the money – and even to suggest a desirable investment for it.”

CHAPTER XLVI.

ON FLOWER-POTS

Saltren moved with his mother to London, and went with her into lodgings. Mrs. Saltren had insisted on taking Thomasine with her, and incurred accordingly the additional expense of maintaining her where she was not wanted. Thomasine was not likely to be of use till the Saltrens got a house of their own, and Giles did not choose to take one till he had got into a situation and was able to see what his prospects were likely to be. As lady’s-maid to Mrs. Saltren, Thomasine was, of course, no good at all, or likely, to employ that serviceable Yorkshire word again, “to frame” as one.

“Whatever you do,” said Mrs. Saltren, “mind that we live in the West End. Why don’t you go to Shepherd’s Bush, near the Welshes? A man of my brother’s political and literary position must have hosts of distinguished acquaintances, and a woman of Tryphœna’s accomplishments and beauty must have the entrée into the highest circles. If we lived near them we might get good introductions. If we don’t get settled to my liking shortly in a fashionable quarter of town, I do not know but that I may return to Orleigh.”

“Return to Orleigh!” echoed the son, “why, mother, I thought that your desire had been to leave it. Besides, we have not a house there any more.”

“I know we have not,” answered his mother, “but what we may be without, it is possible that I might secure.”

“I do not understand,” said Jingles.

“I think,” said Mrs. Saltren, “that it is proper the money paid by the railway company for Chillacot should be put into the bank in my name and not in yours.”

“I have already told you, mother,” said Giles, “that I will not touch it myself. I consider it yours, not mine.”

“But I have not the disposal of it.”

“Indeed, mother, you have; it is entered in your name, not in mine, already. I have no account at the bank at all.”

“How can you talk nonsense,” said Mrs. Saltren; “you have all your savings – quite a fortune – which you got at the Park whilst tutor to young Giles.”

“My dear mother, I had not the time to accumulate a fortune. I was tutor there for eighteen months and what I saved was a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and that sum is already disposed of.”

“Disposed of! What have you done with it?”

“I have purchased an annuity for some one.”

“For whom? for me?”

“No, mother, not for you. You have the purchase money of Chillacot.”

“For whom then? I insist on knowing.”

“For a man who has been crippled, and is unable to earn his livelihood.”

“What nonsense! What absurd fit of heroic charity has come over you? Since you went to town in that strange, hurried fashion at the time of your father’s death, you have been altered from what you were before, as different as canister beef from that which is fresh from the ox.”

Giles said nothing in self-defence.

“But I insist on knowing on whom you have thrown this money away.”

“I do not wish to tell – on a man who has the nearest of claims on me.”

Mrs. Saltren considered, then coloured, looked mortified, and did not prosecute her inquiries. “Well,” she said petulantly, “a fool and his money is soon parted. I am very glad I insisted on having the Chillacot purchase money removed from your fingering. Please to ring for my lady’s-maid.”

“Lady’s-maid, mother?”

“For Thomasine. I want to speak to her. You may leave the room. Here we have been in town a week and the Welshes have not called. If we are to be more solitary here than we were at Chillacot, I shall go back to Orleigh. Ring for my lady’s-maid.”

Mrs. Saltren was, indeed, becoming tired of London. Her opportunities for boasting were confined to talks with her landlady and her landlady’s visitors.

It did her soul good, said the woman of the lodgings, to hear of lords and ladies; it was as comforting and improving as the words that dropped from the lips of the Reverend Hezekiah Bumpas. She felt it down to her toes.

Mrs. Saltren indulged her in this particular to her heart’s content. She knew many persons of distinction. Lady Hermione Woodhead, who lived in Portland Place, had once been her intimate friend, till they differed about Lord Lamerton’s marriage. What had made them differ? It did not become her to speak, but his lordship had set his affections elsewhere, she could not name in what direction, and had been inveigled by the Woodheads into an alliance with their family. It was a mistake, an entanglement managed by designing women.

Lord Lamerton was ill after his engagement, so was another person who must be nameless. When Lady Lamerton died, then his first flame had married – without love, and in his desperation he married again. Of course after that first estrangement she and Lady Hermione never spoke. She – Marianne Saltren – had passed the Earl of Anstey’s family repeatedly without recognition. If her landlady doubted her word, let her accompany her to Hyde Park, and when the Anstey family drove by, she would see that they took no notice of each other. After what had happened it could not be otherwise. But though Mrs. Saltren could talk what nonsense came into her vain head to the lodging-house keeper, she was disappointed that she could not to a larger circle, disappointed at the little notice she attracted in town. It was most strange that the Welshes took no notice of her. She feared that they were going to treat her with coldness and not introduce her to the distinguished circle of acquaintances in which they moved.

I knew a young girl who was given lessons in oil-painting before she had learned how to draw, and a somewhat similar inversion of order went on in the instruction of Thomasine Kite, whom Marianne Saltren began to train to be a lady’s-maid before the girl knew the elements of domestic service, having previously been a farm-maid, feeding pigs and scouring milk-pails.

Thomasine did not take readily to instruction, least of all could she acquire deference towards her mistress; and Mrs. Saltren was irritated at the freedom with which the girl accosted her, and at the laughter she provoked in Thomasine when she, Marianne, assumed her grand manner. Moreover, she discovered that her landlady had been questioning the girl in private as to the circumstances and former position of her mistress, and Mrs. Saltren was afraid that the revelations in the kitchen might cause some of her stories to be discounted. Fortunately for her, the broad dialect of Thomasine was almost unintelligible to the landlady, and the girl had the cunning of the uneducated, which leads them to evade giving a direct answer to any question put to them.

Giles Inglett Saltren was unaware till he came to town that Arminell was settled in the house of the Welshes. He knew that his uncle had undertaken to arrange matters of business for her, and to look out for a house and companion for her, but he had refrained from asking questions about her, from motives of delicacy. Indeed, he had scarcely written to Mr. Welsh since his return to Orleigh. He was resolved not again to seek his assistance on his own behalf, but to find a situation for himself. When, however, he came to town, and met his uncle at an office in the city, he learned from him where Arminell was, and at once urged on Mr. Welsh the mischief which would ensue should Mrs. Saltren discover that Miss Inglett was alive and their lodger. Welsh saw that, and undertook to prevent his wife from calling on Mrs. Saltren, and promised to keep his eye open for an opportunity of placing Arminell elsewhere. Marianne Saltren shared the prevailing opinion that Miss Inglett was dead and Giles was specially anxious lest she should discover that this was not the case. If she were to see Arminell, would it be possible to control her tongue? Would she not be eager to publish the fact that the Honourable Miss Inglett was a guest of her brother and sister-in-law?

It had been Saltren’s intention to keep away from Arminell, but under this alarm he felt it his duty to see her and precipitate her departure from Shepherd’s Bush. His mother could not be kept indefinitely away from her brother’s house. One word from his mother might frustrate Arminell’s intention, upset her plans. From Mrs. Saltren the report would rapidly spread. Mrs. Cribbage had ears like those of the trusty servant on the Winchester escutcheon, and without the trusty servant’s padlock on the tongue. If once the truth got wind, to what difficulties would the Lamerton family be put, now that they had accepted and published the death of the girl!

The author of this novel was involved many years ago in an amateur performance of “Macbeth,” but the sole part he took in the tragedy was to sit in the midst of the witches’ cauldron, and ignite the several coloured fires which were destined to flame, as scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, liver of blaspheming Jew, were cast in. But when, to Locke’s lovely music, the imps and witches danced around the vessel, then it was his function to explode a so-called flower-pot, which is a roaring, spirting composition of fire-work. Unfortunately, at the first chorus and circular dance, the blazing flower-pot tumbled back upon the author, concealed within the depths of the cauldron, and, to save himself from an auto-da-fé end, he enveloped the flower-pot in a rug, and screwed it up tight and sat on it. So the scene ended, and, believing that the fire-work was completely extinguished, he then unfolded the rug. No sooner, however, did the air reach the smothered fire-work, than it bounced, and roared, and blazed with doubled vigour. It threw out sheaths of flame, it shot off Roman candles, it ejected a score of crackers, and filled the entire stage with smoke, and very nearly burnt down the theatre.

Saltren dreaded something of this sort happening now. The fire-work of scandal had, indeed, been muffled up and smothered, when first it began to fizz; but – who could tell? – if it got air again, even through a pin-hole, it would burst into furious conflagration and defy all efforts made to suppress it.

The writer of this story takes this occasion of apologising – if apology be necessary – for the introduction, on more than one occasion, of his own adventures, his own opinions, and, if you will it, his own prejudices into the course of his narrative. He will be told that the author should disappear as a personality, just as the actor merges his individuality in that of the character he represents. He must treat himself as a flower-pot and wrap himself up in the garde-robe of his dramatis personæ. I might, of course, have told that story of the flower-pot in the cauldron as having happened to Jingles at Orleigh, but then I could never have told that story again at a dinner-party, for my guest, next but one, would say, “Ah! that happened to my brother, or to my uncle, or to an intimate friend;” and how can I deny that Jingles did not stand in one of these relations to him?

Montaigne, the essayist, was a sad sinner in the introduction of himself into his prose. The essay on which he was engaged might be on the history of Virgil, or Julius Cæsar, but there was certain to creep into it more of Montaigne than of either. The younger Scaliger rebuked him for it, and, after having acquainted the world with the ancestry of Montaigne, he adds, “His great fault is this, that he must needs inform you, ‘For my part I am a lover of white wines or red wines.’ What the Devil signifies it to the public,” adds Scaliger, “whether he is a lover of white wines or red wines?” So, but with more delicacy, and without the introduction of that personage whose name has been written with a capital D, the reader may say to the author, What the blank does it signify what you think, what you like, what you did, whether you ever sat in a cauldron, whether you ever had a flower-pot fall on your head, whether you sought to extinguish it by sitting on it? – go on with your story.

But a man’s personality – I mean my own – is like that piece of pyrotechnic contrivance, a flower-pot. He wraps it up, he smothers it under fold after fold of fiction; but, fizz! fizz! out it comes at last – here, there, on all sides, and cannot be disguised. There is, to be sure, that subterfuge, the use of the first person plural in place of the first person singular, but is it not more vainglorious to talk of We, as if we were royalties, instead of plain and modest I?

When Giles Saltren arrived at the house in the Avenue, Shepherd’s Bush, Arminell flushed with pleasure, sprang from her seat, and with outstretched hand started to receive him; then she checked herself, and said, “I am glad to see you. Oh, Mr. Saltren, I hear nothing of Orleigh, of dear, dear Orleigh! I have the heartache for news. I want to hear my own tongue wag on the subject nearest my heart, and to listen to tidings about the people I knew there. I am like a departed soul looking back on familiar scenes, and unable to visit them and old friends, and unable to communicate with them. I am Dives, and Orleigh is to me Paradise. You have come thence with a drop of fresh news wherewith to cool my thirsty tongue.”

“I am Lazarus indeed,” said Saltren, “but out of Paradise. Ask me what you will about Orleigh, and I will answer what I can.”

“There is one matter that teases me,” she said; “I promised a poor fellow, before I left, that he should have employment at a small wage, and I do not suppose he has had what I undertook to give him.”

“Do you mean Samuel Ceely? He is provided for.”

“How so?”

“He has come in, unexpectedly, for a little money, wherewith an annuity has been purchased.”

“I am glad of that. And – my mother and Giles, have you seen them?”

“Yes, I called to say farewell to both. Lady Lamerton looks worn and sad, and your dear brother is out of spirits; but this could not be otherwise.”

Arminell’s eyes filled, and she went to the window and dried her tears.

“Miss Inglett,” said the young man, after she had been given time to recover herself, “I have only ventured to call on you for one reason, that I might impress on you the necessity of leaving this house. My mother is in town, and she must not be allowed to know or even suspect that you are alive and here.”

Arminell did not speak for some time. Presently she said, “Do not let us talk about anything at present but Orleigh. I am parched for news. I daresay there is nothing of tremendous importance to relate, but I care for little details. How was the house looking? Were the trees turning to their autumn tints? The Virginian creeper, was that touched with crimson? How are Mr. and Mrs. Macduff? I could not abide them when I was at Orleigh; I could be thankful now for a sound of their delightful Scotch brogue. What is Giles going to do? dear little boy! I would give a week’s sunlight for a kiss from his moist lips – which formerly I objected to. And mamma – has she been to the Sunday School since – since – ?”

Then Arminell’s tears flowed again.

After another pause, during which the young man looked through the photographic album on the table, Arminell recovered herself, and said, “Do not suppose for a moment that I regret my decision. My conscience is relieved. I am beginning to acquire fresh interests. I am now making a frock for baby. I am godmother to Mrs. Welsh’s child, and have come to be very fond of him. But there – tell me something about Orleigh, and Giles, and my mother – about any person or animal, or shrub or tree there. And, oh! can you obtain for me some photographs of the place? I should cherish them above everything I have. I dream of Orleigh. I think of Orleigh, and – I shall never see dear Orleigh again.”

“I will come another day, Miss Inglett, and tell you all that I can, but to-day I must urge on you the vital necessity of at once leaving this house.”

“Your aunt can hardly get on without me.”

“She managed formerly without you, she must do the same again.”

“But there was no baby in the house then. And, besides, the new cook who was to have come has failed. The last went up a ladder sixty feet high, and it took several constables and a sergeant to get her down.”

Arminell laughed through her tears.

“Miss Inglett, consider what the difficulty would be in which her ladyship would be placed should it become known – ”

“Mrs. Saltren and her lady’s-maid!”

The door was thrown open by the maid of-all-work, and she ushered into the drawing-room the person of all others – except perhaps Mrs. Cribbage – whom it was desired to keep from the house, and she was followed by Thomasine Kite.

Verily, the flower-pot was not smothered. It was about to fizz and puff again.

CHAPTER XLVII.

EQUILIBRIUM

The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a dish-cover, and a married pair introduced into the dining-room and invited to partake of every dish except that which remained covered. When left to themselves, the woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the cover, and out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima to open one door in his castle, and of course she tried the forbidden key. There was one tree in the midst of Paradise of which our first parents were not allowed to eat, and of course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted. All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be retained from human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a mouse more than an apple or a dead wife of Blue Beard, for the mouse escapes when once uncovered and can no more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when eaten, and the dead woman is locked up again. A secret when once out is all over the house, and is far too wary to be trapped again.

Who would expect to find a mouse under a dish-cover? So with secrets, they are let loose from the most unlikely places, and many of us know that so well that we devote our energies to, and spend our time in lifting china cups, opening snuff-boxes, removing lids of tea caddies, unsnapping purses, pulling out drawers, boring holes in casks, in the hopes of letting out secrets. We suspect our acquaintance and “visit” their goods, as if we were custom-house officers in search of what is contraband. We know that they have a forbidden secret somewhere, and we search and probe everywhere to discover it.

There are mice everywhere; if we hold our breath and remain still for two minutes we can hear them scratching and squeaking; and there are secrets everywhere, behind the wainscot, under the floor, in the cupboard. Once I knew of a nest of mice in a gentleman’s boot, and once in a lady’s muff; and secrets nest and breed in quite as extraordinary places – in a pocket, in a bunch of flowers, in envelopes, under pillows.

Æsop tells of a beautiful cat that was transformed into a woman, but this woman could never forget her feline instinct to run after a mouse. A great many ladies I know have the same feline instinct to spring out of bed, up from their sofas, to make a dart after a secret, if they hear but the slightest footsteps, see but a whisker. I do not blame them. Men are sportsmen, why should not women be mousers? We find pleasure in starting a hare, why should not a woman find as much in starting a couching secret?

I do not blame them for their love of sport, but for what they do with their game when it is caught. We bag ours, they let theirs run. Samson did the same. He caught foxes and tied firebrands to their tails and sent them into the standing corn of the Philistines. Our secret-hunters, when they have caught their game, tie brimstone matches to their tails and send them among the stores of their neighbours.

I do not believe in the possibility of concealing secrets, and therefore never try to keep them. As for pursuing a secret when once out, that is labour in vain, it changes form, it doubles, it dives, it has as many artifices as a chased fox. As soon recover a secret as recondense volatile essential oils that have been spilt. A secret is not safe in our own heads, for our heads are of amber, and the secret is visible to every one who looks at us, like a congealed fly therein.

In one of the Arabian Nights’ Tales a princess goes after a necromancer who has transformed himself into a scorpion, and she takes the shape of a serpent; the wizard, hard pressed, becomes a cat, and the princess attacks him in the disguise of a wolf. Then the cat becomes a seed, and the wolf a cock, thereat the seed falls into a canal and is transmuted into a trout, which is at once chased by the princess in shape of a pike. Finally both issue in flames from the water, the wizard is reduced to ashes, but so also is the princess. If we try to overtake and make an end of a secret, we shall meet with less success than did this princess. She at last succeeded in destroying her game, but we, in our efforts to catch and make an end of an unpleasant secret, get set on flames ourselves. If we have anything we do not want our neighbours to know, and it has got out, we had better let it run; we cannot recover it. Indeed I believe that the best way to conceal what we do not want to have known is to expose it for sale, to dangle it before the eyes of every one, like those men outside the Exchange who offer spiders at the end of threads of elastic for one penny. Nobody buys. No one even looks at them. But were one of these fellows to hide such a black putty spider in his hat, up his arm, in his pocket, a crowd would collect and pull him to pieces to find the spider.

It was not immediately that Arminell realised the serious consequences of Mrs. Saltren’s visit, but the young man knew at once that all chance of the secret being respected was at an end.

“I am interrupting,” said the widow, knowingly, “I am sure I hadn’t the wish. I came to see Mrs. Welsh, and never expected to find my son here, much less Miss Inglett.”

“Mrs. Welsh is upstairs with the baby,” said Arminell. “You have not seen your nephew. Shall I fetch him, Mrs. Saltren?”

“Not for the world, Miss Inglett. I will run upstairs and find my sister-in-law, who, I do say, has been negligent in calling on me. But if the mountain won’t go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I’m sure I don’t want to intrude here. You may leave the room, Thomasine, I don’t want you to follow me up to the nursery. Go down to the kitchen. Every one ought to know her own place.”

When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confidentially, “We brought the young person to town, and she don’t understand how to friz the hair, and me wanting to wear a fringe. However she could have had the face to offer for my situation as lady’s-maid, passes my understanding. But, Miss, the conceit of the rising generation is surprising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off my hands in any capacity she likes to name. She might do as parlour-maid, or nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady’s-maid. I’ve tried to teach her to fold gowns, but folding is like music or painting – you must be born with the gift; it cannot be learnt; and as some have no ear for tune, and others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for folding. You can’t make, as they say, a fichu out of a bustle. I had once a red flannel coverlet, and a hole was burnt in it, so I turned it into a petticoat. When the hot weather came I couldn’t bear it, and as the Band of Hope wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and very inspiriting it was. It is the same with girls. Some you can adapt to all sorts of purposes, others you can’t.”

When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her sister-in-law and the baby, Giles said in a tone of discouragement, “I do not know what is to be done. It is inevitable that the news of your being here should reach Orleigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through both, not perhaps at once, but eventually. Then – what a difficult position Lady Lamerton will be in!”

Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the pattern with her foot. Presently she looked up and said, “I see – I never did justice to the merits of humdrum. Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged my fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold step, not altogether justifiable, because it landed me in falsehood, and involved others in untruth. But I thought then it was the simplest course for me to follow to escape having to equivocate and even lie. The straight course is always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not always lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted with less precipitation and more modesty, had listened to your advice and acted without dissimulation. For myself now I do not care, but I do not see how my mother and other relations can extricate themselves from the dilemma in which I have placed them.”