CHAPTER V
MR. ELY DEPARTS
Mr. Ely returned to town on the following morning, and Miss Truscottwas an engaged young woman. The interval between the moment of herbecoming engaged and the departure of the gentleman was not--we arerather at a loss for the proper word to use--let us put it, was notexactly so pleasant as it might have been.
Although the man and the maid had plighted troth they certainly didnot seem like lovers; they scarcely even seemed to be friends. Theposition seemed to be a little strained. Mr. Ely noticed this as theday wore on. He resented it.
In the garden after dinner he relieved his mind. The lady was seated,the admirable Pompey on her knee, so engaged in reading as to appearwholly oblivious that the gentleman was in her neighbourhood. For sometime Mr. Ely fidgeted about in silence. The lady did not appear evento notice that. At last he could keep still no longer.
"You seem very fond of reading?"
"I am." The lady did not even take her eyes off her book to answerhim, but read tranquilly on.
"I hope I'm not in your way."
"Not at all"; which was true enough. He might have been miles away forall the notice the lady appeared to take of him.
"One has to come into the country to learn manners."
"One has to come into the country to do what?"
As if conscious that he was skating on thin ice, Mr. Ely endeavouredto retrace his steps.
"Considering that only this morning you promised to be my wife, Ithink that you might have something to say."
Partially closing the book, but keeping one slender finger within itto mark the place, the lady condescended to look up.
"Why should you think that?"
"I believe it is usual for persons in our situation to have somethingto say to each other, but I don't know, I'm sure."
The lady entirely closed her book and placed it on a little table ather side. "What shall we talk about?"
The gentleman was still. Under such circumstances the most giftedpersons might have found it difficult to commence a conversation.
"Are you interested in questions of millinery?"
"In questions of millinery!"
"Or do you take a wider range, and take a living interest in theburning questions of the progress of revolution and the advance ofman?"
Mr. Ely felt clear in his own mind that the lady was chaffing him, buthe did not quite see his way to tell her so.
"I'm fond of common sense."
"Ah, but common sense is a term which conveys such different meanings.I suppose, that, in its strictest definition, common sense is thehighest, rarest sense of all. I suppose that you use the term in adifferent way."
This was exasperating. Mr. Ely felt it was.
"I suppose you mean that I'm a fool."
"There again--who shall define folly? The noblest spirits of them allhave been by the world called fools."
Miss Truscott gazed before her with a rapt intensity of vision, asthough she saw the noble spirits referred to standing in the glow ofthe western sky.
"I must say you have nice ideas of sociability."
"I have had my ideas at times. I have dreamed of a social intercoursewhich should be perfect sympathy. But they were but dreams."
Mr. Ely held his peace. This sort of thing was not at all his idea ofconversation. It is within the range of possibility to suspect thathis idea of perfect conversation was perfect shop--an eternalreiteration of the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of stocks andshares. However that might be, it came to pass that neither of thesetwo people went in a loverlike frame of mind to bed. But this actedupon each of them in different ways.
For instance, it was hours after Miss Truscott had retired to herchamber before the young lady placed herself between the sheets. For along time she sat before the open window, looking out upon thestar-lit sky. Then she began restlessly pacing to and fro. All hertranquillity seemed gone.
"I have been ill-mannered--and a fool!"
And again there was that hysteric interlacing of her hands whichseemed to be a familiar trick of hers when her mind was muchdisturbed.
"I have made the greatest mistake of all. I have promised myself to aman I--loathe."
She shuddered when she arrived at that emphatic word.
"A man with whom I have not one single thing in common; a man whounderstands a woman as much as--less than Pompey does. I believe thatselfish Pompey cares for me much more. A man whose whole soul is boundup in playing conjuring tricks with stocks and shares. And where areall my dreams of love? Oh! they have flown away!"
Then she threw herself upon the bed and cried.
"Oh, Willy! Willy! why have you been false? If you had been only true!I believe that I am so weak a thing that if you should call to meto-morrow, I would come."
After she had had enough of crying--which was only after a veryconsiderable period had elapsed--she got up and dried her eyes--thosebig eyes of hers, whose meaning for the life of him Mr. Ely could notunderstand!
"What does it matter? I suppose that existence is a dead level ofmonotony. If even for a moment you gain the heights, you are sure tofall, and your state is all the worse because you have seen that thereare better things above."
This was the lady's point of view. The gentleman's was of quiteanother kind. As he had said, sentiment was not at all his line. Whenhe reached his room, he wasted no time getting into bed. While heperformed his rapid toilet he considered the situation in his ownpeculiar way.
"That's the most impudent girl I ever met."
This he told himself as he took off his coat.
"I like her all the better for it, too."
Here he removed his vest.
"She doesn't care for me a snap--not one single rap. I hate yourspoony kind of girl, the sort that goes pawing a man about. If shebegins by pawing you she'll be pawing another fellow soon. Oh! I'veseen a bit of it, I have!"
Here he removed his collar and tie.
"What I want's a woman who can cut a dash--not the rag-bag sort, allflounces and fluster--but a high-toned dash, you know. The sort ofwoman that can make all the other women want to have her life; who cansit with two hundred other women in a room and make 'em all feel thatshe doesn't know that there's another person there. By Jove! she'd doit, too!"
Mr. Ely laughed. But perhaps--as he was a sort of man who neverlaughed, in whom the bump of humour was entirely wanting--it would bemore correct to describe the sound he made as a clearing of thethroat. At this point he was engaged in details of the toilet intowhich it would be unwise to enter. But we really cannot refrain frommentioning what a very little man he looked in his shirt. Quitedifferent to the Mr. Ely of the white waistcoat and frockcoat.
The next morning he took his departure. He had been under the painfulnecessity of spending one day away from town; he could not possiblysurvive through two. In fact he tore himself away by the very earliesttrain--in his habits he was an early little man--not with reluctancebut delight: by so early a train, indeed, that he had left long beforehis lady-love came down. Mrs. Clive did the honours and sped theparting guest. She, poor lady, was not used to quite such early hoursand felt a little out of sorts, but she did her best.
"Shall I give dear Lily a message when you are gone?"
Mr. Ely was swallowing ham and eggs as though he were engaged in amatch against time. A healthy appetite for breakfast was one of hisstrong points.
"Tell her that dog of hers is ever so much too fat."
Pompey, who was at that moment reclining on a cushion on the rug, wasperhaps a trifle stout--say about as broad as he was long. Still, Mrs.Clive did not like the observation all the same.
"Pompey is not Lily's dog, but mine."
"Ah! then if I were you, I'd starve the beggar for a week."
Mrs. Clive bridled. If she had a tender point it was her dog.
"I can assure you, Mr. Ely, that the greatest care is taken in theselection of dear Pompey's food."
r /> "That's where it is, you take too much. Shut him in the stable, with aSpratt's biscuit to keep him company."
"A Spratt's biscuit!--Pompey would sooner die!"
"It wouldn't be a bad thing for him if he did. By the look of him hecan't find much fun in living--it's all that he can do to breathe. Itseems to me every woman must have some beast for a pet. An aunt ofmine has got a cat. Her cat ought to meet your dog. They'd both ofthem be thinner before they went away."
It is not surprising that Mr. Ely did not leave an altogether pleasantimpression when he had gone. That last allusion to his aunt's catrankled in the old lady's mind.
"A cat! My precious Pompey!" She raised the apoplectic creature in herarms; "when you have such an objection to a cat! It is dreadful tothink of such a thing, even when it is spoken only in jest."
But Mr. Ely had not spoken in jest. He was not a jesting kind of man.
When Miss Truscott made her appearance she asked no questions abouther lover. If he had sent a message, or if he indeed had gone, sheshowed no curiosity upon these points at all. She seemed in a dreamyframe of mind, as if her thoughts were not of things of life but ofthings of air. She dawdled over the breakfast-table, eating nothingall the while. And when she had dismissed the meal she dawdled in aneasy chair. Such behaviour was unusual for her, for she was not adawdling kind of girl.