If Only etc. Part 2

"Oh, she will not mind; but we will go down to my den shortly. You see, Meynell, I'm a bit of a Bohemian, although I like to preserve the customs of the civilised world all the same, to a certain extent.

But my little wife--well--she--she--I daresay you may have heard she was on the stage before I married her."

"No, indeed I hadn't." Gus Meynell looked a good deal surprised.

"Well, I mention it because perhaps she is not quite like the ordinary run of women."

Meynell could no longer be blind to the want of ease in his host's manner, and in his turn became proportionately uncomfortable.

"Hang it all! A man marries to please himself," he said awkwardly.

"She is just the dearest girl in the world," continued Jack Chetwynd, with warmth. "I'm not only fond of her, but proud of her too, but you know--"

"I perfectly understand what you mean. To my idea unconventionality is the most charming thing a woman can have. I hate the bride manufactured out of the schoolgirl. The oppressive resemblance between most of our friends' wives is one of the safe-guards of society."

"What is that?" Chetwynd broke in upon his friend's speech with a nervous start and exclamation. The hall door opened with a loud bang and a woman's noisy laugh could be heard as a pelter of high-heeled shoes came along the tesselated hall and then the vision of a pretty girl at the doorway, accompanied by a man and two women.

"Hallo, Jack! You are home before me, then."

"Bella, my dear, I must introduce you to an old friend of mine: Meynell, my wife."

Bella bowed a little coldly.

"My sister, Mr. Meynell," she said, seeing that the doctor was looking straight over Saidie's head. "My sister, Miss Saidie Blackall; daresay you have seen her from the front before." Then, looking towards the open door, "Come in, come in. Jack, I think you have already met Mr. and Mrs. Doss."

Chetwynd looked terribly annoyed; but there was no choice left for him but to extend his hand and mutter something to the effect that he had not had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his wife's friends before.

"Glad to know you, sir--not one of us--not in the profession, I think?"

"No--er--no," responded Chetwynd feebly.

"And the 'appier you, take my tip for it. The wear and tear of the 'alls, sir, no one but a pro can estimate."

Here his wife, an over-dressed, showy individual a shade more of a c.o.c.kney than himself, interposed with a coa.r.s.e laugh.

"Get along, you jolly old humbug, you! You couldn't live away from them--could he, dear?" addressing Saidie, who was maliciously enjoying the effect that their sudden entrance had produced upon her brother-in-law and his friend.

"Ah; you think so, d'ye? that's all you know about it. Give me a nice quiet 'public' with a hold-established trade and me and the missis cosy-like in the private bar; that's the life for yours truly when he can take the farewell ben."

"How soon are your friends going to take their leave, Bella?" asked Chetwynd in an undertone to his wife.

But Bella turned her back upon him without deigning to give him so much as a word.

"I think I had the pleasure of seeing you perform the other night, Mrs. Doss," remarked Mr. Meynell.

"Don't she look a figger in tights? now tell the truth and shame the old gentleman: a female as fat as my wife ought not never to leave off her petticoats, that's what I says."

"Samuel, fie! You make me blush." His wife coughed discreetly behind her hand. "It's a new departure, I grant; but I've had a good many compliments paid me since I took to the nautical style, I can tell you."

"Gammon!" grunted Mr. Doss, with a dissatisfied air. "Did you see her as the 'Rabbit Queen,' sir? My! the patience that woman displayed in the training of them little furry animals would have astonished you.

Struck the line, sir, out of her own 'ed! 'I'm going, Samuel,' she said, 'to supply a want.' 'You!' I says. 'Me!' says she; 'they have got their serpents,' she says, 'and their ducks, and their pigeons and their kangaroos,' 'What's their void?' said I. 'Rabbits,' she says, and there you are!"

"Saidie, why don't you sit down? We will have some supper directly,"

said Bella.

"Oh, my dear, I'm dying for a drink!" cried Miss Blackall, flinging herself in an att.i.tude more easy than graceful into an armchair.

Bella opened the chiffonier and produced gla.s.ses and a spirit stand.

"Saves the trouble of ringing for the servant," she said archly to Meynell.

Chetwynd could fairly have groaned; and when his wife put the climax upon everything by drinking out of her sister's gla.s.s he could contain himself no longer. "I never saw you touch spirits before," he said, determined that his friend should know that his wife was an abstemious woman.

"Ah," she said lightly, "there are lots of things you never saw me do, Jack, which I am capable of, all the same." Whereupon Saidie burst out laughing as at some prodigious joke.

"Good for you, Bella! All right, dear! I'm not one to tell tales out of school."

"Are you a married man, sir, may I ask?"

Doss put his thumbs under his arm-pits and looked scrutinisingly into Meynell's face. "I should say not."

"No, I'm a bachelor, and likely to continue one."

"Well," remarked Mrs. Doss sentimentally, "I don't know nothing jollier than courting time. Such little ordinary things seem sweet like, then."

"Hark at the old girl," chuckled Doss.

"You can't kidd me, Doss. You know it, too. I think of our own billing and cooing, sir--his and mine. I was not a draw in those days; the last turn in the bill at the "Middles.e.x" was about my mark, and Doss, he hadn't risen, neither. We used to walk 'ome that lovin'

up Drury Lane, and Doss, he would say, 'fish, Tilda,' and I would say, 'if you could fancy a bit, Sam.' And in he would pop for two penny slices and chips. And eat--lor', how we did eat. When I look back on that fish, sometimes I could cry. Money and fame ain't everythink in the world, believe me, they ain't. You may be 'appy in your 'umbleness."

All this was gall and wormwood to John Chetwynd, and he approached his wife again and whispered.

"It is getting late--are these people never going?"

"Not until they have had supper, most certainly."

"And do you expect my friend to join you?"

"You can please yourselves. I don't think either of you would be much acquisition in your present frame of mind. Mrs. Doss, somebody interrupted you; you were talking about a kindred soul and an attic.

Money and position are not everything you were saying. I agree with you. Give me an easy life and no stilts."

John Chetwynd could stand it no longer.

"Madam," he said, addressing Mrs. Doss; "I must really apologise, but Mr. Meynell and I have important business to discuss, and--"

Mrs. Doss might be vulgar, but she was not obtuse. Seeing she and her husband were not wanted, she sprang to her feet.

"Sam--right about face; we must be off 'ome."

"Nonsense, you must have some supper before you go," said Bella.