And the amus.e.m.e.nt this memory makes hangs about Sally"s lips as the two sit on into a pause of silence.
The face of the mother does not catch the amus.e.m.e.nt, but remains grave and thoughtful. She does not speak; but the handsome eyes that rest so lovingly on the speaker are full of something from the past--some record that it would be an utter bewilderment to Sally to read--a bewilderment far beyond that crux of the moment which maybe has struck her young mind for the first time--the old familiar puzzle of the change that comes to all of us in our transition from first to last experience of the strange phenomenon we call a friend. Sally can"t make it out--the way a silly lad, love-struck about her indifferent self so short a while back, has become a totally altered person, the husband of her schoolmate, an actual ident.i.ty of life and thought and feeling; he who was in those early days little more than a suit of clothes and a new prayer-book.
But if that is so strange to Sally, how measurelessly stranger is she herself to her mother beside her! And the man they are waiting and watching for, who is somewhere between this and St. Egbert"s station in Padlock"s venerable "bus, what a crux is _he_, compared now to that intoxicated young lover of two-and-twenty years ago, in that lawn-tennis garden that has pa.s.sed so utterly from his memory! And a moment"s doubt, "But--has it?" is caught and absorbed by what seemed to Rosalind now an almost absurd fact--that, a week before, he had been nothing but a _fidus Achates_ of that other young man provided to make up the lawn-tennis set, and that it was that other young man at first, not he, that belonged to _her_. And he had changed away so easily to--who was it? Jessie Nairn, to be sure--and left the coast clear for his friend. Whatever now _was_ his name? Oh dear, what a fool was Rosalind! said she to herself, to have half let slip that it was _he_ that was Fenwick, and not Gerry at all. All this compares itself with Sally"s experience of Bradshaw"s metamorphosis, and her own seems the stranger.
Then a moment of sharp pain that she cannot talk to Sally of these things, but must lead a secret life in her own silent heart. And then she comes back into the living world, and finds Sally well on with the development of another topic.
"Of course, poor dears! They"ve not played a note together since the row. It"s been nothing but Kensington Gardens or the Albert Hall. But I"m afraid he"s no better. If only he _could_ be, it would make all the difference."
"What"s that, darling? _Who_ could be...? Not your father?" For, as often as not, Rosalind would speak of her husband as Sally"s father.
"Not Jeremiah--no. I was talking about Julius B. and his nervous system. Wouldn"t it?"
"Wouldn"t it what?"
"Make all the difference? I mean that he could get his violin-playing back. I told you about that letter?"
"No--what letter?"
"From an agent in Paris. Rateau, I think, was the name. Had heard Signor Carissimi had recovered his health completely, and was playing. Hoped he might be honoured with his instructions to make his arrangements in Paris, as he had done so four years ago. Wasn"t it aggravating?"
"Does it make any difference?"
"Why, of course it does, mother darling. The aggravation! Just think now! Suppose he could rely on ten pounds a night, fancy that!"
"Suppose he could!... Yes, that would be nice." But there is a preoccupation in her tone, and Sally wants sympathy to be drawn with a vigorous outline.
"What"s my maternal parent thinking about, as grave as a judge?
Jeremiah"s all right, mammy darling! _He"s_ not killed in a railway accident. Catch _him_!" This is part of a systematized relationship between the two. Each always discredits the possibility of mishap to the other. It might be described as chronic reciprocal Christian Science.
"I wasn"t thinking of Gerry." Which is true in a sense, as she does not think of the Gerry her daughter knows. And the partial untruth does not cross her mind--a tacit recognition of the powers of change.
"I was wool-gathering."
"No--what _was_ she thinking of?" For some reason the third person is thought more persuasive than the second.
"Thinking of her kitten." And this is true enough, as Rosalind is really always thinking of Sally, more or less.
"We-ell, _I"m_ all right. What"s the matter with _me_?"
"Nothing at all that I know of, darling." But it does cross the speaker"s mind that the context of circ.u.mstances might make this an opportunity for getting at some information she wants. For Sally has remained perfectly inscrutable about Conrad Vereker, and Rosalind has been asking herself whether it is possible that, after all, there _is_ nothing. She doesn"t know how to set about it, though. Perhaps the best thing would be to take a leaf out of Sally"s own book, and go straight to the bull"s-eye.
"Do you really want to know what I was thinking of, Sallykin?" But no sooner has she formulated the intention of asking a question, and allowed the intention to creep into her voice than Sally knows all about it.
"As if I don"t know already. You mean me and Prosy."
"Of course. But how did you know?"
"Mammy _dear_! As if I was born yesterday! If you want people not to know things, you mustn"t have delicate inflexions of voice. I knew you were going to catechize about Prosy the minute you got to "did I really want to know.""
"But I"m not going to catechize, chick. Only when you ask me what I"m thinking about, and really want to know, I tell you. I _was_ thinking about you and Conrad Vereker." For some mysterious reason this mention of his name in full seems to mature the conversation, and make clearer definition necessary.
Our own private opinion is that any one who closely observes human communion will see that two-thirds of it runs on lines like the foregoing. Very rarely indeed does a human creature say what it means.
Exhaustive definition, lucid statements, concise terminology--even plain English--are foreign to its nature. The congenial soil in which the fruit of Intelligence ripens is Suggestion, and the wireless telegraphs of the mind are the means by which it rejoices to communicate. Don"t try to say what you mean--because _you_ can"t. You are not clever enough. Try to mean what you want to say, and leave the dictionary to take care of itself.
This little bit of philosophizing of ours has just given Sally time, pondering gravely with the eyebrows all at rest and lips at ease, to deal with the developed position created by the mere subst.i.tution of a name for a nickname.
"Ought there to be ... anything to think about?" Thus Sally; and her mother sees, or thinks she sees, a little new colour in the girl"s cheeks. Or is it only the sunset? Then Rosalind says to herself that perhaps she has made a mistake, had better have left it alone.
Perhaps. But it"s done now. She is not one that goes back on her resolutions. It is best not to be too tugging and solemn over it. She speaks with a laugh.
"It"s not my little daughter I"m afraid of, Sallykin. She"s got the key of the position. It"s that dear good boy."
"He"s not a boy. He"s thirty-one next February. Only he"s not got a birthday, because it"s not leap-year. Going by birthdays he"s not quite half-past seven."
"Then it won"t do to go by birthdays. Even at thirty-one, though, some boys are not old enough to know better. He"s very inexperienced in some things."
"A babe unborn--only he can write prescriptions. Only they don"t do you any good. ("Ungrateful child!"... "Well, they _don"t_.") You see, he hasn"t any one to go to to ask about things except me. Of course _I_ can tell him, if you come to that!"
"There"s his mother."
"His mother! That old dianthus! Oh, mammy darling, what different sorts of mothers do crop up when you think of it!" And Sally is so moved by this scientific marvel that she suddenly kisses her mother, there out on the public parade with a gentleman in check trousers and an eye-gla.s.s coming along!
"Why do you call the old lady a dianthus, chick? Really, the way you treat that poor old body!..."
"Not when Prosy"s there. I know my place.... We-ell, you know what a dianthus"s figure is like? When the tentacles are in, I mean."
But Rosalind tacitly condemns the a.n.a.logy. Is she not herself a mother, and bound to take part with her kind, however obese? "What were you and the doctor talking about in the boat all that long time yesterday?" she asks, skipping an interval which might easily have contained a review of Mrs. Vereker inside-out like a sea-anemone.
Sally is quite equal to it.
"Resuscitation after drowning. Prosy says death is really due to carbonic acid poisoning. Anybody would think it was choking, but it"s nothing of the sort. The arterial blood is insufficiently fed with oxygen, and death ensues."
"How long did you talk about that?"
"Ever so long. Till I asked him what he should do if a visitor were drowned and couldn"t be brought to. Not at the hotel; down here. Me, for instance."
"What did he say?"
"He was jolly solemn over it, Prosy was. Said he should try his best, and as soon as he was sure it was no go, put an end to his own existence. I said that would be wrong, and besides, he couldn"t do it. He said, oh yes, he could--he could inject air into a vein, and lots of things. He went on a physiological tack, so I quoted Hamlet."
"What did he make of Hamlet?"
"Said the researches of modern science all tended to prove that extinction awaited us at death, and he would take his chance. He was quite serious over it."
"And then you said?..."
"I said, suppose it turned out that modern science was tommy-rot, wouldn"t he feel like a fool when all was said and done? He admitted that he might, in that case. But he would take his chance, he said.
And then we had a long argument, Prosy and I."
"Has he ever resuscitated a drowned person?"