tales of two people 46

tales of two people 46

“Oh, isn’t it?” She looked rather troubled over this information.

 

“So the papers say--and the bishops too sometimes.”

 

“Still you wouldn’t call them exactly poor, would you?”

 

“_I_ call them poor! Good Lord!” was my observation.

 

“You know our bishop’s Palace?”

 

“A charming residence, Miss Prudence--even stately.”

 

“And Sir John says he drives awfully good horses.”

 

“Let us rely on Sir John where we can.”

 

“And Mr Davenport says he gives away a lot.”

 

“Mr Davenport?”

 

“So he can’t be poor, can he?”

 

“Mr Davenport?”

 

“Oh, I beg pardon! But you’ve met him. How forgetful you are! Papa’s

curate!”

 

“Dear me, dear me! Of course! You mean Frank?”

 

“Papa calls him Frank.”

 

“You all call him Frank.”

 

“I suppose we do--yes.”

 

“So I forgot his surname just for the minute. Does he call you

Prudence?”

 

“What has that got to do with it?”

 

“Roughly speaking, it ranges from three to seven thousand a year. More

for archbishops, according to scale, of course.”

 

“Well, that sounds plenty,” said Prudence.

 

(I have ascertained from _Crockford’s Directory_ that the value of the

vicar’s living is three hundred and twenty five pounds per annum.)

 

“Don’t be calculating, Miss Prudence!”

 

“And heartless?” The little wrinkle was on her brow again.

 

“That remark of Miss Jenkins’ seems to rankle!”

 

“I wasn’t thinking--altogether--of Clara.”

 

It seemed hard if somebody else had been calling her heartless too--or

even thinking it. And all for listening to her mother! I tried to

administer consolation.

 

“The thing is,” I observed, “a judicious balancing of considerations.

Here, on the one hand, is justice to be done to the girls--in the way of

accomplishments and appearance, I may presume?--and education to be

given to the boys--it would be no bad thing if someone taught Dick how

to make a fly, for example; on the other hand lie what I may broadly

term your inclinations and----”

 

I awoke to the fact that Miss Prudence had not been listening to the

latter portion of my remark. She was rubbing the knuckles of one hand

into the palm of the other, and frowning now quite heavily. Then she

twisted one little hand round the other; and almost inaudibly she said:

“How can one balance considerations”--(She infused a pleasant scorn into

her intonation of these respectable words)--“How can one balance

considerations when----?”

 

_Primâ facie_ that “when----” admitted of various interpretations. But I

chose one without hesitation.

 

“Then why this talk about how much a bishop gets, you calculating

heartless girl?”

 

She darted at me a look of fearful merriment.

 

“And they make them quite young sometimes in these days,” I added. And I

rounded off my period by remarking that Sir John Ffolliot seemed a

stupid sort of dog.

 

“Yes, isn’t he?”

 

“Might do for Clara Jenkins?”

 

“If I thought that----” Miss Prudence began hotly.

 

“But the idea is preposterous,” I added hastily. “One of your sisters

now?”

 

“That’s really not a bad idea,” she conceded graciously.

 

In fact, she had suddenly grown altogether very gracious--and I do not

refer merely to the marked civility of her manner towards myself. The

frown had vanished, the wrinkle was not: the hands were clasped in a

comfortable repose. She looked across to me with a ridiculously

contented smile.

 

“It’s such a good thing to have a talk with a really sensible man,” she

said.

 

I took off my hat--but I also rose to my feet. To present me as a future

bishop was asking too much of the whirligig of time. Not a kaleidoscope

could do it! Besides, I wasn’t serious about it; it was just the meadow,

the river--and the rest. In order to prove this to myself beyond

dispute, I said that I had to go to the post office and despatch an

important letter.

 

“To the post office?” said Prudence, displaying some confusion at the

mention of that institution. “Oh, then, would you mind--it would be so

kind--would you really mind----?”

 

“Calling in at the parlour window and telling Mr Davenport that you’re

going to have some tennis after tea? With pleasure, of course.”

 

“I didn’t know you knew he lodged there!” she cried.

 

“Pending promotion to the Palace, yes.”

 

I made that last remark after I had turned my back, and I didn’t look

round to see whether Miss Prudence had heard it; it was, in fact, in the

nature of an “aside”--a thing which may be heard or not at pleasure.

 

“Won’t you come too?” she called.

 

“Certainly not. I propose to meditate.” On these words I did turn round,

and waved her farewell. I think she was indulging in a most proper

forgetfulness of her brothers and sisters--and, incidentally, of myself.

So I proceeded to the post office, although of course I had no letter at

all to send.

 

I found Mr Davenport in flannels, sitting with his feet on the

mantelpiece, smoking a pipe and reading. He was an engaging six-feet of

vigour, and I delivered my message with as little rancour as could be

expected under the circumstances.

 

“I think I’ll go,” he said, briskly knocking out his pipe.

 

It was some satisfaction to me to remind him that it was only half-past

three, and that tennis didn’t begin till after tea. He put his pipe back

between his teeth with a disappointed jerk.

 

“What are you reading?” I inquired affably. I must be pictured as

standing outside the post office parlour window while conducting this

colloquy.

 

He looked a trifle ashamed. “The fact is, I sometimes try to keep up my

Latin a bit,” he explained, conscious of the eccentricity of this

proceeding. “It’s Juvenal.”

 

“Not so very clerical,” I ventured to observe.

 

“A great moralist,” he maintained--yet with an eye distantly twinkling

with the light of unregenerate days.

 

“I suppose so. That bit about prudence now----?”

 

“About who?” cried he, springing to his feet and dropping his poet on

the floor.

 

“Evidently you recollect! _Nullum numen abest si sit Prudentia_----”

 

“Curiously enough, I’ve just been having a shot at a rendering of that

couplet,” said Mr Davenport. As he spoke he approached the window: I sat

down on the sill outside and lit a cigar.

 

“Curiously enough indeed!” said I. “May I be privileged to hear it?”

 

He threw out one arm and recited--

 

“‘All Heaven’s with us, so we Prudence win:

If Fortune’s hailed a goddess, ours the sin!’”

 

“Pretty well for the spirit, but none too faithful to the letter,” I

remarked critically. “However, Dr Johnson is open to the same objection.

You remember--

 

“‘Celestial Wisdom calms the mind,

And makes the happiness she does not find.’”

 

“I call that pretty bad.”

 

“Not much to the present point, anyhow,” I agreed.

 

“I had another rhyme--and after all the rhyme’s the difficulty. How

about this?--

 

“‘All Heaven’s ours if Prudence we can gain,

Our silly hands build Fortune’s empty fane!’”

 

“Really you fire me to emulation,” I said. “I think I’ll try my own hand

at it--

 

“‘If Prudence loves, what other boon need I?’”

 

“Splendid!” he cried, puffing at his empty pipe.

 

“‘Unless a bishop’s palace by-and-by?’”

 

This audacious departure from the original affected him powerfully. He

laid a hand like a pair of tweezers on my wrist and cried excitedly--

 

“You’ve been talking to her!”