The Odd Women Part 23

'I don't care to talk about it here. Let us go somewhere and eat together. I invite you to have dinner with me--or lunch, as I suppose you would call it, in your aristocratic language.'

'No, you had better have lunch with me. Come to my club.'

'Confound your impudence! Am I not your father in mathematics?'

'Be so good as to put on a decent pair of trousers, and brush your hair. Ah, here is your Trilinear production. I'll look over it whilst you make yourself presentable.'

'There's a bad misprint in the Preface. Let me show you--'

'It's all the same to me, my dear fellow.'

But Micklethwaite was not content until he had indicated the error, and had talked for five minutes about the absurdities that it involved.

'How do you suppose I got the thing published?' he then asked. 'Old Bennet, the Sheffield headmaster, is security for loss if the book doesn't pay for itself in two years' time. Kind of him, wasn't it? He pressed the offer upon me, and I think he's prouder of the book than I am myself. But it's quite remarkable how kind people are when one is fortunate. I fancy a great deal of nonsense is talked about the world's enviousness. Now as soon as it got known that I was coming to this post in London, people behaved to me with surprising good nature all round.

Old Bennet talked in quite an affectionate strain. "Of course," he said, "I have long known that you ought to be in a better place than this; your payment is altogether inadequate; if it had depended upon _me_, I should long ago have increased it. I truly rejoice that you have found a more fitting sphere for your remarkable abilities." No; I maintain that the world is always ready to congratulate you with sincerity, if you will only give it a chance.'

'Very gracious of you to give it the chance. But, by-the-bye, how did it come about?'

'Yes, I ought to tell you that. Why, about a year ago, I wrote an answer to a communication signed by a Big Gun in one of the scientific papers. It was a question in Probability--you wouldn't understand it.

My answer was printed, and the Big Gun wrote privately to me--a very flattering letter. That correspondence led to my appointment; the Big Gun exerted himself on my behalf. The fact is, the world is bursting with good nature.'

'Obviously. And how long did it take you to write this little book?'

'Oh, only about seven years--the actual composition. I never had much time to myself, you must remember.'

'You're a good soul, Thomas. Go and equip yourself for civilized society.'

To the club they repaired on foot. Micklethwaite would talk of anything but that which his companion most desired to hear.

'There are solemnities in life,' he answered to an impatient question, 'things that can't be spoken of in the highway. When we have eaten, let us go to your flat, and there I will tell you everything.'

They lunched joyously. The mathematician drank a bottle of excellent hock, and did corresponding justice to the dishes. His eyes gleamed with happiness; again he enlarged upon the benevolence of mankind, and the admirable ordering of the world. From the club they drove to Bayswater, and made themselves comfortable in Barfoot's flat, which was very plainly, but sufficiently, furnished. Micklethwaite, cigar in mouth, threw his legs over the side of the easy-chair in which he was sitting.

'Now,' he began gravely, 'I don't mind telling you that your conjecture was right. I _am_ going to be married.'

'Well,' said the other, 'you have reached the age of discretion. I must suppose that you know what you are about.'

'Yes, I think I do. The story is unexciting. I am not a romantic person, nor is my future wife. Now, you must know that when I was about twenty-three years old I fell in love. You never suspected me of that, I dare say?'

'Why not?'

'Well, I did fall in love. The lady was a clergyman's daughter at Hereford, where I had a place in a school; she taught the infants in an elementary school connected with ours; her age was exactly the same as my own. Now, the remarkable thing was that she took a liking for me, and when I was scoundrel enough to tell her of my feeling, she didn't reject me.'

'Scoundrel enough? Why scoundrel?'

'Why? But I hadn't a penny in the world. I lived at the school, and received a salary of thirty pounds, half of which had to go towards the support of my mother. What could possibly have been more villainous?

What earthly prospect was there of my being able to marry?'

'Well, grant the monstrosity of it.'

'This lady--a very little lower than the angels--declared that she was content to wait an indefinite time. She believed in me, and hoped for my future. Her father--the mother was dead--sanctioned our engagement.

She had three sisters, one of them a governess, another keeping house, and the third a blind girl. Excellent people, all of them. I was at their house as often as possible, and they made much of me. It was a pity, you know, for in those few leisure hours I ought to have been working like a n.i.g.g.e.r.'

'Plainly you ought.'

'Fortunately, I left Hereford, and went to a school at Gloucester, where I had thirty-five pounds. How we gloried over that extra five pounds! But it's no use going on with the story in this way; it would take me till to-morrow morning. Seven years went by; we were thirty years old, and no prospect whatever of our engagement coming to anything. I had worked pretty hard; I had taken my London degree; but not a penny had I saved, and all I could spare was still needful to my mother. It struck me all at once that I had no right to continue the engagement. On my thirtieth birthday I wrote a letter to f.a.n.n.y--that is her name--and begged her to be free. Now, would you have done the same, or not?'

'Really, I am not imaginative enough to put myself in such a position.

It would need a stupendous effort, at all events.'

'But was there anything gross in the proceeding?'

'The lady took it ill?'

'Not in the sense of being offended. But she said it had caused her much suffering. She begged me to consider _myself_ free. She would remain Faithful, and if, in time to come, I cared to write to her again--After all these years, I can't speak of it without huskiness. It seemed to me that I had behaved more like a scoundrel than ever. I thought I had better kill myself, and even planned ways of doing it--I did indeed. But after all we decided that our engagement should continue.'

'Of course.'

'You think it natural? Well, the engagement has continued till this day. A month ago I was forty, so that we have waited for seventeen years.'

Micklethwaite paused on a note of awe.

'Two of f.a.n.n.y's sisters are dead; they never married. The blind one f.a.n.n.y has long supported, and she will come to live with us. Long, long ago we had both of us given up thought of marriage. I have never spoken to any one of the engagement; it was something too absurd, and also too sacred.'

The smile died from Everard's face, and he sat in thought.

'Now, when are _you_ going to marry?' cried Micklethwaite, with a revival of his cheerfulness.

'Probably never.'

'Then I think you will neglect a grave duty. Yes. It is the duty of every man, who has sufficient means, to maintain a wife. The life of unmarried women is a wretched one; every man who is able ought to save one of them from that fate.'

'I should like my cousin Mary and her female friends to hear you talk in that way. They would overwhelm you with scorn.'

'Not sincere scorn, is my belief. Of course I have heard of that kind of woman. Tell me something about them.'

Barfoot was led on to a broad expression of his views.

'I admire your old-fas.h.i.+oned sentiment, Micklethwaite. It sits well on you, and you're a fine fellow. But I have much more sympathy with the new idea that women should think Of marriage only as men do--I mean, not to grow up in the thought that they must marry or be blighted creatures. My own views are rather extreme, perhaps; strictly, I don't believe in marriage at all. And I haven't anything like the respect for women, as women, that you have. You belong to the Ruskin school; and I--well, perhaps my experience has been unusual, though I don't think so. You know, by-the-bye, that my relatives consider me a blackguard?'

'That affair you told me about some years ago?'

'Chiefly that. I have a good mind to tell you the true story; I didn't care to at the time. I accepted the charge of black-guardism; it didn't matter much. My cousin will never forgive me, though she has an air of friendliness once more. And I suspect she had told her friend Miss Nunn all about me. Perhaps to put Miss Nunn on her guard--Heaven knows!'

He laughed merrily.

'Miss Nunn, I dare say, needs no protection against you.'

'I had an odd thought whilst I was there.' Everard leaned his head back, and half closed his eyes. 'Miss Nunn, I warrant, considers herself proof against any kind of wooing. She is one of the grandly severe women; a terror, I imagine, to any young girl at their place who betrays weak thoughts of matrimony. Now, it's rather a temptation to a man of my kind. There would be something piquant in making vigorous love to Miss Nunn, just to prove her sincerity.'