The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories

  XXIV.

  MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART.

  Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for amonth or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation thatquite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were notlikely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. Someindeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome was notnearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and others hadgone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuckup" about "that Rome of hers." And little Lily Hardhurst had told herfriend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might"go to her old Rome and stop there; _she_ (Miss Lily Hardhurst)wouldn't grieve." And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself uponterms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphaeland Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not haveprofessed a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universalastonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, butnot too "touristy"'--Miss Winchelsea had a great dread of being"touristy"--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide itsglaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the CharingCross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great daydawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright, the Channelpassage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised well. There was thegayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented departure.

  She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her atthe training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good athistory and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to herimmensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipatedsome pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" to her own pitch ofAEsthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, andwelcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant criticism ofthe encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly "touristy" leatherstrap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket with side pockets,into which her hands were thrust. But they were much too happy withthemselves and the expedition for their friend to attempt any hint at themoment about these things. As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainlyin emphatic repetitions of "Just _fancy_! we're going to Rome, mydear!--Rome!"--they gave their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helenwas anxious to secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order todiscourage intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. MissWinchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks aboutthe accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully.

  They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen daysin Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personallyconducted party, of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but theytravelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. Thepeople were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was avociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-saltsuit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shoutedproclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an armand held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full ofpapers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personallyconducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor wantedand could not find, and people he did not want and who followed him in asteadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed,indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keepingclose to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic in hispursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping them into acarriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest of the time, one,two, or three of their heads protruded from the window wailing inquiriesabout "a little wicker-work box" whenever he drew near. There was a verystout man with a very stout wife in shiny black; there was a little oldman like an aged hostler.

  "What _can_ such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "Whatcan it mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small strawhat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. Thecontrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for"Snooks." "I always thought that name was invented by novelists," saidMiss Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which _is_ Mr. Snooks."Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute little man in a largecheck suit. "If he isn't Snooks, he ought to be," said Miss Winchelsea.

  Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner incarriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation on hisfingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma--you let me," saidone of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with a handbag shestruggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested people who bangedabout and called their mother "Ma." A young man travelling alone followed.He was not at all "touristy" in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; hisGladstone bag was of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent ofLuxembourg and Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. Hecarried an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settledin their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming of doors,and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross Station on their way toRome.

  "Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seemto believe it, even now."

  Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and thelady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general why they had "cutit so close" at the station. The two daughters called her "Ma" severaltimes, toned her down in a tactless, effective way, and drove her at lastto the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. Presentlyshe looked up. "Lor!" she said, "I didn't bring _them_!" Both thedaughters said "Oh, Ma!" But what "them" was did not appear.

  Presently Fanny produced Hare's _Walks in Rome_, a sort of mitigatedguide-book very popular among Roman visitors; and the father of the twodaughters began to examine his books of tickets minutely, apparently in asearch after English words. When he had looked at the tickets for a longtime right way up, he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountainpen and dated them with considerable care. The young man having completedan unostentatious survey of his fellow-travellers produced a book and fellto reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window atChislehurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear Empress ofthe French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took the opportunity toobserve the book the young man held. It was not a guide-book but a littlethin volume of poetry--_bound_. She glanced at his face--it seemed arefined, pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore a little gilt_pince-nez_. "Do you think she lives there now?" said Fanny, and MissWinchelsea's inspection came to an end.

  For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what shesaid was as agreeable and as stamped with refinement as she could make it.Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care that onthis occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. As they cameunder the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry away, and whenat last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed a gracefulalacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. MissWinchelsea "hated nonsense," but she was pleased to see the young manperceived at once that they were ladies, and helped them without anyviolent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to beno excuse for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out ofEngland before, and they were all excited and a little nervous at theChannel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place near themiddle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's carry-allthere and had told her it was a good place--and they watched the whiteshores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made quiet fun of theirfellow-travellers in the English way.

  They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized peoplehad taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks prevailed, on
elady lay full length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her face,and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown "touristy" suit walked allthe way from England to France along the deck, with his legs as widelyapart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent precautions, andnobody was ill. The personally-conducted party pursued the conductor aboutthe deck with inquiries, in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind therather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon rind, until at last hewent into hiding below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetrystood at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely andsad to Miss Winchelsea's eye.

  And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had notforgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. Allthree girls, though they had passed Government examinations in French toany extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and theyoung man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in acomfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelseathanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, cultivated manner--and Fannysaid he was "nice" almost before he was out of earshot. "I wonder what hecan be," said Helen. "He's going to Italy, because I noticed green ticketsin his book." Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decidednot to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them andthe young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were doing aneducated sort of thing to travel through a country whose commonestadvertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea madeunpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-boardadvertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that defacethe landscape in our land. But the north of France is really uninterestingcountry, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's _Walks_, and Heleninitiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; she hadbeen trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to Rome, butshe perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and they lunchedout of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired andsilent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only sheknew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow-passengers weretwo rather nice, critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew Frenchwell enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny awake. Therhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming landscape outsidebecame at last quite painful to the eye. They were already dreadfullytired of travelling before their night's stoppage came.

  The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the youngman, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quiteserviceable.

  His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by chance, as itseemed, he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the _table d'hote._ In spiteof her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such possibility verythoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness oftravelling--he let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did notsimply assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They weresoon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly overlookedin the conversation.. It was to be the same journey, they found; one dayfor the galleries at Florence--"from what I hear," said the young man, "itis barely enough,"--and the rest at Rome. He talked of Rome verypleasantly; he was evidently quite well read, and he quoted Horace aboutSoracte. Miss Winchelsea had "done" that book of Horace for hermatriculation, and was delighted to cap his quotation. It gave a sort oftone to things, this incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting.Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensibleremarks, but the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell toMiss Winchelsea.

  Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. Theydid not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and MissWinchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate hewas something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined withoutbeing opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain whetherhe came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid opportunities.She tried to get him to make remarks about those places to see if he wouldsay "come up" to them instead of "go down,"--she knew that was how youtold a 'Varsity man. He used the word "'Varsity"--not university--in quitethe proper way.

  They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; hemet them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting brightly,and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a great dealabout art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was fine to goround recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, especiallywhile so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit ofa prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested prigs. He had adistinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for example, without beingvulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had agrave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessonsof the pictures. Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted"she knew so little about them," and she confessed that to her they were"all beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" inclined to be a little monotonous,Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last sunny Alphad vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen saidlittle, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a trifle wanting on theaesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes shelaughed at the young man's hesitating, delicate jests and sometimes shedidn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art about them in thecontemplation of the dresses of the other visitors.

  At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather "touristy"friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to MissWinchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome," he said, "and my friendLeonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli looking at a waterfall."

  "What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly.

  "He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young manreplied--amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelseathought.

  They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what they wouldhave done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and Fanny's enormouscapacity for admiration were insatiable. They never flagged--throughpictures and sculpture galleries, immense crowded churches, ruins andmuseums, Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts and palaces, theyadmired their way unflinchingly. They never saw a stone pine or aeucalyptus but they named and admired it; they never glimpsed Soracte butthey exclaimed. Their common ways were made wonderful by imaginative play."Here Caesar may have walked," they would say. "Raphael may have seenSoracte from this very point." They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "OldBibulus," said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!"said Miss Winchelsea.

  "I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who _was_ Bibulus?"

  There was a curious little pause.

  "Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen.

  The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus," hesaid. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any lightupon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.

  Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was alwaystaciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things likethat, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told himwhere they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these youngpeople, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once theworld. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said indeedthat the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminaladvertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aestheticfeelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Romeis such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some of hermost carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken unawares,would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helenwould have liked a shop window or so in the English quarter if MissWinchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other English visitors hadnot rendered that district impossible.
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  The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and thescholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. Theexuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite admirationby playing her "beautiful" with vigour, and saying "Oh! _let's_ go,"with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was mentioned. ButHelen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the end thatdisappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to see "anything" inthe face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!--in the BarberiniGallery; and one day, when they were deploring the electric trams, shesaid rather snappishly that "people must get about somehow, and it'sbetter than torturing horses up these horrid little hills." She spoke ofthe Seven Hills of Rome as "horrid little hills "!

  And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea did not knowof this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry like that, my dear;_they_ don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the rightthings for them when we _do_ get near."

  "I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her excessivepace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short of breath.

  But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came tolook back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised how happyshe had been pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and exchanging thevery highest class of information the human mind can possess, the mostrefined impressions it is possible to convey. Insensibly emotion creptinto their intercourse, sunning itself openly and pleasantly at last whenHelen's modernity was not too near. Insensibly their interest drifted fromthe wonderful associations about them to their more intimate and personalfeelings. In a tentative way information was supplied; she spokeallusively of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladnessthat the days of "Cram" were over. He made it quite clear that he also wasa teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the necessityof sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain loneliness theysometimes felt.

  That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, becauseHelen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper galleries. Yetthe private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and concrete enough,became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured that pleasantyoung man lecturing in the most edifying way to his students, herselfmodestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; she figured arefined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of high-classbooks, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti and Burne Jones, withMorris's wall-papers and flowers in pots of beaten copper. Indeed shefigured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few precious momentstogether, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the _muro Torto_, andhe spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship was onlybeginning, that he already found her company very precious to him, thatindeed it was more than that.

  He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers asthough he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should of course,"he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual myspeaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental--orprovidential--and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting alonely tour ... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quiterecently I have found myself in a position--I have dared to think----,And----"

  He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Demn!" quitedistinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse intoprofanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drewnearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost agrin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he said. "Youpromised to be on the Piazza steps half-an-hour ago."

  Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She didnot hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must haveconsidered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not surewhether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to him. Asort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!

  Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young menwere receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face theinquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life of aheroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, observing,with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it first rangupon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in the dust. Allthe refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by that cognomen'sunavoidable vulgarity.

  What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morrispapers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredibleinscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing to the reader,but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be asrefined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:--"Snooks." Sheconceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people sheliked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality ofinsult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing 'Winchelsea'triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of "Snooks."Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terriblerejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whomher growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would makeit sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcasticcongratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for that?"It is impossible," she muttered; "impossible! _Snooks!_"

  She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For himshe had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all thetime he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanourthe badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it inthe language of sentimental science she felt he had "led her on."

  There were, of course, moments of terrible vacillation, a period even whensomething almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. Andthere was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity that madea strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a nameafter all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when Fannycame with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the horror.Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said _Snooks_. MissWinchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese,she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note.

  She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, thelittle book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was ambiguous,allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected him than she couldhave told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel something of theunspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided a dozen chances oftelling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of "obstacles she could notreveal"--"reasons why the thing he spoke of was impossible." She addressedthe note with a shiver, "E.K. Snooks."

  Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How_could_ she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. Shewas haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had givenhim intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughlyfor the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the mostchangeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not evenperceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter he dida thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made ago-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and toldher that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks,"said Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I lethim?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea wascareful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting hisdisregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painfulthough his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might bepermitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion. After shehad gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window of her littleroom. It was moonlight, and down the street a man sang "Santa Lucia" withalmost heart-dissolving tenderness... She sa
t very still.

  She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "_Snooks_."Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning hesaid to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend."

  Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogativeperplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he wouldhave retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort ofencyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea onsix separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest oflong letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her newschool--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles fromSteely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or twofirst-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even seeher at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always spokeof "him," never of Mr. Snooks--because Helen was apt to say unsympatheticthings about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, Miss Winchelseaperceived, since the old Training College days; she had become hard andcynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking refinement for weaknessas people of her stamp are apt to do, and when she heard his name wasSnooks, she said she had expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelseawas careful to spare her own feelings after that, but Fanny was lesscircumspect.

  The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a newinterest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been anincreasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new interestin life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead she wrote hera lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her return. Fannyanswered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no literary gift, but itwas new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself deploring the want of gifts ina friend. That letter was even criticised aloud in the safe solitude ofMiss Winchelsea's study, and her criticism, spoken with great bitterness,was "Twaddle!" It was full of just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter hadbeen full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only thismuch: "I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see meon two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we bothtalked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear..."

  Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information,and wrote the sweetest, long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself,dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do sowant to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote on thefifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if he_should_ ask after her, she was to be remembered to him _verykindly_ (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key ofthat "ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolishthings of those old schoolgirl days at the Training College, and sayingnot a word about Mr. Snooks!

  For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny asa go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote lesseffusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, "Have you seen Mr.Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. "I _have_ seenMr. Snooks," she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him;it was all Snooks--Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a publiclecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after thefirst glow of gratification, still found this letter a littleunsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything aboutMiss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought tohave been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second letterfrom Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering sixsheets with her loose feminine hand.

  And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that MissWinchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's naturalfemininity had prevailed even against the round and clear traditions ofthe Training College; she was one of those she-creatures born tomake all her _m'_s and _n'_s and _u'_s and _r'_s and _e'_salike, and to leave her _o'_s and _a'_s open and her _i'_sundotted. So that it was only after an elaborate comparison of word withword that Miss Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr.Snooks" at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," inher second the spelling was changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea'shand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant so much toher. For it had already begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs.Snooks might be avoided at too great a price, and suddenly--thispossibility! She turned over the six sheets, all dappled with thatcritical name, and everywhere the first letter had the form of an_e_! For a time she walked the room with a hand pressed upon herheart.

  She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of inquirythat should be at once discreet and effectual; weighing, too, what actionshe should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if thisaltered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, shewould write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage when theminor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented,but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hintthat "circumstances in my life have changed very greatly since we talkedtogether." But she never gave that hint. There came a third letter fromthat fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her "thehappiest girl alive."

  Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and satwith her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morningschool, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well underway. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. Butafter the first sheet she went on reading the third without discoveringthe error:--"told him frankly I did not like his name," the third sheetbegan. "He told me he did not like it himself--you know that sort ofsudden, frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea did know. "So I said, 'couldn'tyou change it?' He didn't see it at first. Well, you know, dear, he hadtold me what it really meant; it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down toSnooks--both Snooks and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be,are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideasat times--'If it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it backfrom Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, hecouldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoksfor the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, weshall put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him tomind that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it isjust like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew aswell as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been tentimes Snooks. But he did it all the same."

  The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, andlooked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face and with some verysmall pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they staredat her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more familiar one."Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even tone. Sheremained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. And shespent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts to Fanny,before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason struggledhopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedinglytreacherous manner.

  One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexualhostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He forgothimself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and soft and afool--a very excellent match for a Man." And by way of a wedding presentshe sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by George Meredith, andFanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that it was "_all_beautiful." Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take upthat slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote severaltimes before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their"ancient friendship," and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. AndMiss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman journey,saying nothing about the marriage,
but expressing very cordial feelings.

  They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the Augustvacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing herhome-coming and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny, weeny"little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in MissWinchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, andshe tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny"little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosy corner," said Fanny, sprawling tothe end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered inher best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements, and hopingintensely that Mr. Se'noks might see the letter. Only this hope enabledher to write at all, answering not only that letter but one in Novemberand one at Christmas.

  The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to cometo Steely Bank on a visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried tothink that _he_ had told her to ask that, but it was too much likeFanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must besick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that hewould presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Somethingsubtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sadmisunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But henever wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend."

  For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in spite ofthe reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full Sevenoaks inthe second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt lonely andwithout a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind ran once moreon what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy inher new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt _he_ had his lonelyhours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome, gone now beyond recalling?No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. Itwould be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and what harmcould it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she wrote a sonnet,all but the last two lines of the octave--which would not come; and thenext day she composed a graceful little note to tell Fanny she was comingdown.

  And so she saw him again.

  Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemedstouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversationhad already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed ajustification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in certainlights it _was_ weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about hisaffairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had come forthe sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an intelligentway. They only had one good long talk together, and that came to nothing.He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a man who had stolenan idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a very wonderful ideato Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten the names of more thanhalf the painters whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.

  It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when itcame to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again.After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, andFanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long sincefaded away.