Our Friend the Charlatan Part 21

Miss Bride's countenance was a study of subdued expression. Lady Ogram--who probably had never heard of 'Piers the Plowman'--glanced inquiringly at her secretary, and seemed to suspend judgment.

"We, too, take a good deal of interest in that kind of thing," she remarked. "I see that we shall understand each other. Do your relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Rooke, work with you?"

"They haven't quite the same point of view," said Miss Tomalin, smiling indulgently. "I'm afraid they represent rather the old way of thinking about the poor--the common-sense way, they call it; it means, as far as I can see, not thinking much about the poor at all. Of course I try to make them understand that this is neglect of duty. We have no right whatever to live in enjoyment of our privileges and pay no heed to those less fortunate. Every educated person is really a missionary, whose duty it is to go forth and spread the light. I feel it so strongly that I could not, simply could _not_, be satisfied to pursue my own culture; it seems to me the worst kind of selfishness. The other day I went, on the business of our society, into a dreadfully poor home, where the people, I'm sure, often suffer from hunger. I couldn't give money--for one thing, I have very little, and then it's so demoralising, and one never knows whether the people will be offended--but I sat down and told the poor woman all about the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and you can't think how interested she was, and how grateful! It quite brightened the day for her. One felt one had done _some_ good."

There was silence. Lady Ogram looked admiringly at the girl. If anyone else had talked to her in this way, no vehemence of language would have sufficed to express her scorn; but in May Tomalin such ideals seemed to her a very amiable trait. She was anxious to see everything May said or did in a favourable light.

"Have you tried the effect of music?" asked Constance, gravely, when Miss Tomalin chanced to regard her.

"Oh, we haven't forgotten that. Next winter we hope to give a few concerts in a schoolroom. Of course it must be really good music; we shan't have anything of a popular kind--at least, we shan't if my view prevails. It isn't our object to _amuse_ people; it would be really humiliating to play and sing the kind of things the ignorant poor like.

We want to train their intelligence. Some of our friends say it will be absurd to give them cla.s.sical music, which will weary and discontent them. But they must be made to understand that their weariness and discontent is _wrong_. We have to show them how bad and poor their taste is, that they may strive to develop a higher and n.o.bler. I, for one, shall utterly decline to have anything to do with the concerts if the programme doesn't consist exclusively of the really great, Bach and Beethoven and so on. Don't you agree with me?"

"In principle," replied Lady Ogram, "certainly. We shall have lots of things to talk about, I see."

"I delight in talk about serious things!" cried May.

But Lady Ogram's physical strength was not equal to the excitement she had gone through. Long before dinner-time her voice failed, and she had no choice but to withdraw into privacy, leaving Constance Bride to play the hostess. Alone with a companion of not much more than her own age, Miss Tomalin manifested relief; she began to move about, looking at things with frank curiosity, and talking in a more girlish way. The evening was cloudy, and did not tempt forth, but May asked whether they could not walk a little in the garden.

"This is a beautiful place! I shall enjoy myself here tremendously! And it's all so unexpected. Of course you know, Miss Bride, that I had never heard of Lady Ogram until a few days ago?"

"Yes, I have heard the story."

"Do let us get our hats and run out. I want to see everything."

They went into the garden, and May, whilst delighting in all she saw, asked a mult.i.tude of questions about her great-aunt. It was only in the intellectual domain that she evinced pretentiousness and grew grandiloquent; talking of her private affairs, she was very direct and simple, with no inclination to unhealthy ways of thought. She spoke of her birth in Canada, and her childish recollections of that country.

"I used to be rather sorry that we had come back to England, for the truth is I don't much care for Northampton, and I have never been quite comfortable with my relatives there. But now, of course, everything is different. It seems a great pity that I should have had such a relative as Lady Ogram and known nothing about it doesn't it? Strange how the branches of a family lose sight of each other? Can you tell me Lady Ogram's age?"

Constance replied that it was not far from eighty.

"Really, I should have taken her for older still. She seems very nice; I think I shall like her. I wonder whether she will ask me often to Rivenoak? Do you know whether she means to?"

When she came down after dressing for dinner, Constance found Miss Tomalin in the dining-room, standing before her great-aunt's portrait.

"Surely that isn't--_can_ that be Lady Ogram?" exclaimed the girl.

"Yes; more than fifty years ago."

"Do you know, I think she was rather like _me_!"

Constance smiled, and said that there was certainly a family resemblance. It appeared more strongly in the girl's face attired as she now was, her neck at liberty from the white linen collar, and her features cast into relief by a dress of dark material. Having felt a little apprehensive about the young lady's evening garb, Constance was surprised to find that it erred, if anything, on the side of simplicity. Though, for several reasons, not at all predisposed to like Miss Tomalin, she began to feel her prejudice waning, and by the end of dinner they were conversing in a very friendly tone. May chatted of her friends at Northampton, and several times mentioned a Mr. Yabsley, whom it was evident she held in much esteem. Mr. Yabsley, it appeared, was the originator of the society for civilising the ignorant poor; Mr.

Yabsley lectured on very large subjects, and gave readings from very serious authors; Mr. Yabsley believed in the glorious destinies of the human race, especially of that branch of it known as Anglo-Saxon.

"He is an elderly gentleman?" asked Constance, with a half-smile of mischief.

"Old! Oh dear, no! Mr. Yabsley is only about thirty--not quite that, I think."

And May suddenly turned to talk of Browning, whom she felt it a "positive duty" to know from end to end. Had Miss Bride really mastered "Sordello?"

"I never tried to," Constance answered. "Why should I worry about unintelligible stuff that would give me no pleasure even if I could understand it?"

"Oh! Oh! _Don't_ speak like that!" cried the other, distressfully. "I'm sure you don't mean it!"

"I care very little for poetry of any kind," said Constance, in all sincerity.

"Oh, how I grieve to hear that!--But then, of course we all have our special interests. Yours is science, I know. I've worked a good deal at science; of course one can't possibly neglect it; it's a simple duty to make oneself as many-sided as possible, don't you think? Just now, I'm giving half an hour before breakfast every day to Huxley's book on the Crayfish. Mr. Yabsley suggested it to me. Not long ago he was in correspondence with Huxley about something--I don't quite know what but he takes a great interest in Evolution. Of course you know that volume on the Crayfish?"

"I'm afraid I don't. You arrange your day, I see, very methodically."

"Oh, without method _nothing_ can be done. Of course I have a time-table. I try to put in a great many things, but I'm sure it's no use sitting down to any study for less than half an hour--do you think so? At present I can only give half an hour to Herbert Spencer--I think I shall have to cut out my folk-lore to make more time for him. Yet folk-lore is so fascinating! Of course you delight in it?"

"I never had time for it at all," replied Constance.

"Just now I'm quite excited about ghost-wors.h.i.+p. Mr. Yabsley doesn't think it is sufficient to explain the origin of religious ideas."

"Mr. Yabsley," remarked Constance, "has p.r.o.nounced opinions on most things?"

"Oh, he is very wide, indeed. Very wide, and very thorough. There's no end to the examinations he has pa.s.sed. He's thinking of taking the D.

Litt at London; it's awfully stiff, you know."

When they parted, about eleven o'clock, Miss Tomalin went upstairs humming a pa.s.sage from a Beethoven sonata. She declared herself enchanted with her room, and hoped she might wake early, to make the coming day all the longer.

At ten next morning, Constance was summoned to the upstairs room where Lady Ogram sometimes sat when neither so unwell as to stay in bed nor quite well enough to come down. A bad night had left the old lady with a ghastly visage, but she smiled with grim contentment as her secretary entered.

"Come, I want you to tell me what you talked about. Where is she now?

What is she doing?"

"Miss Tomalin is in the library, rejoicing among the books."

"She is very intellectual," said Lady Ogram. "I never knew anyone so keen about knowledge. But what did you talk about last night?"

"Of very many things. Canada and Northampton, religion and crayfish, Huxley and--Yabsley."

"Yabsley? Who's Yabsley?"

"A gentleman of Northampton, a man of light and leading, a great friend of Miss Tomalin's."

"An old man, I suppose?" asked Lady Ogram, sharply.

"Not quite thirty."

"But married? Of course married?"

"I didn't ask; but, I fancy, not."

Lady Ogram flushed, and fell into extreme agitation. Why had she not been told about this Yabsley? Why had not that idiot Kerchever made inquiries and heard about him? This very morning she would write him a severe letter. What, May was engaged? To a man called Yabsley?

Constance, as soon as interposition was possible, protested against this over-hasty view of the matter. She did not for a moment think that May was engaged, and, after all, Mr. Yabsley might even be married.