The Three Fates 4

The Three Fates 4

“Do not be silly, George!” she exclaimed with a little laugh.

 

“I am not,” George answered, in a tone of conviction.

 

“Oh, I know you are clever enough,” retorted his cousin. “But that is

quite a different thing. Besides, I was not thinking seriously of your

marrying.”

 

“I guessed as much, from the fact of your mentioning it,” observed the

young man quietly.

 

Mrs. Trimm stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again.

 

“Am I never thinking seriously of what I am saying?”

 

“Tell me about these girls,” said George, avoiding an answer. “If they

are rich and unmarried, they must be old and hideous——”

 

“They are neither.”

 

“Mere children then——”

 

“Yes—they are younger than you.”

 

“Poor little things! I see—you want me to play with them, and teach them

games and things of that sort. What is the salary? I am open to an

engagement in any respectable calling. Or perhaps you would prefer Mrs.

Macwhirter, my old nurse. It is true that she is blind of one eye and

limps a little, but she would make a reduction in consideration of her

infirmities, if money is an object.”

 

“Try and be serious; I want you to know them.”

 

“Do I look like a man who wastes time in laughing?” inquired George,

whose imperturbable gravity was one of his chief characteristics.

 

“No—you have other resources at your command for getting at the same

result.”

 

“Thanks. You are always flattering. When am I to begin amusing your

little friends?”

 

“To-day, if you like. We can go to them at once.”

 

George Wood glanced down almost unconsciously at the clothes he wore,

with the habit of a man who is very poor and is not always sure of being

presentable at a moment’s notice. His preoccupation did not escape

cousin Totty, whose keen instinct penetrated his thoughts and found

there an additional incentive to the execution of her beneficent

intentions. It was a shame, she thought, that any relation of hers

should need to think of such miserable details as the possession of a

decent coat and whole shoes. At the present moment, indeed, George was

arrayed with all appropriate correctness, but Totty remembered to have

caught sight of him sometimes when he was evidently not expecting to

meet any acquaintance, and she had noticed on those occasions that his

dress was very shabby indeed. It was many years since she had seen his

father, and she wondered whether he, too, went about in old clothes,

sure of not meeting anybody he knew. The thought was not altogether

pleasant, and she put it from her. It was a part of her method of life

not to think disagreeable thoughts, and though her plan to bring about a

rich marriage for her cousin was but a scheme for quieting her

conscience, she determined to believe that she was putting herself to

great inconvenience out of spontaneous generosity, for which George

would owe her a debt of lifelong gratitude.

 

George, having satisfied himself that his appearance would pass muster,

and realising that Totty must have noticed his self-inspection,

immediately asked her opinion.

 

“Will I do?” he asked with an odd shade of shyness, and glancing again

at the sleeve of his coat, as though to explain what he meant, well

knowing that all explanation was unnecessary.

 

Totty, who had thoroughly inspected him before proposing that they

should go out together, now pretended to look him over with a critical

eye.

 

“Of course—perfectly,” she said, after three or four seconds. “Wait for

me a moment, and I will get ready,” she added, as she rose and left the

room.

 

When George was alone, he leaned back in his comfortable chair and

looked at the familiar objects about him with a weary __EXPRESSION__ which

he had not worn while his cousin had been present. He could not tell

exactly why he came to see cousin Totty, and he generally went home

after his visits to her with a vague sense of disappointment. In the

first place, he always felt that there was a sort of disloyalty in

coming at all. He knew the details of his father’s past life, and was

aware that old Tom Craik had been the cause of his ruin, and he guessed

that Totty had profited by the same catastrophe, since he had always

heard that her brother managed her property. He even fancied that Totty

was not so harmless as she looked, and that she was very fond of money,

though he was astonished at his own boldness in suspecting the facts to

be so much at variance with the outward appearance. He was very young,

and he feared to trust his own judgment, though he had an intimate

conviction that his instincts were right. On the whole he was forced to

admit to himself that there were many reasons against his periodical

visits to the Trimms, and he was quite ready to allow that it was not

Totty’s personality or conversation that attracted him to the house.

Yet, as he rested in the cushioned chair he had selected and felt the

thick carpet under his feet, and breathed that indefinable atmosphere

which impregnates every corner of a really luxurious house, he knew that

it would be very hard to give up the habit of enjoying all these things

at regular intervals. He imagined that his thoughts liquefied and became

more mobile under the genial influence, forgetting the grooves and

moulds so unpleasantly familiar to them. Hosts of ideas and fancies

presented themselves to him, which he recognised as belonging to a self

that only came to life from time to time; a self full of delicate

sensations and endowed with brilliant powers of __EXPRESSION__; a self of

which he did not know whether to be ashamed or proud; a self as

overflowing with ready appreciation, as his other common, daily self was

inclined to depreciate all that the world admired, and to find fault

with everything that was presented to its view. Though conscious of all

this, however, George did not care to analyse his own motives too

closely. It was disagreeable to his pride to find that he attached so

much importance to what he described collectively as furniture and tea.

He was disappointed with himself, and he did all in his power not to

increase his disappointment. Then an extreme depression came upon him,

and showed itself in his face. He felt impelled to escape from the

house, to renounce the visit Totty had proposed, to go home, get into

his oldest clothes and work desperately at something, no matter what.

But for his cousin’s opportune return, he might have yielded to the

impulse. She re-entered the room briskly, dressed for walking and

smiling as usual. George’s __EXPRESSION__ changed as he heard the latch move

in the door, and Mrs. Sherrington Trimm must have been even keener than

she was, to guess what had been passing in his mind. She was not,

however, in the observant mood, but in the subjective, for she felt that

she was now about to appear as her cousin’s benefactress, and, having

got rid of her qualms of conscience, she experienced a certain elation

at her own skill in the management of her soul.

 

George took his hat and rose with alacrity. There was nothing

essentially distasteful to him in the prospect of being presented to a

pair of pretty sisters, who had doubtless been warned of his coming, and

his foolish longing for his old clothes and his work disappeared as

suddenly as it had come.

 

It was still winter, and the low afternoon sun fell across the avenue

from the westward streets in broad golden patches. It was still winter,

but the promise of spring was already in the air, and a faint mist hung

about the vanishing point of the seemingly endless rows of buildings.

The trees were yet far from budding, but the leafless branches no longer

looked dead, and the small twigs were growing smooth and glossy with the

returning circulation of the sap. There were many people on foot in the

avenue, and Totty constantly nodded and smiled to her passing

acquaintances, who generally looked with some interest at George as they

acknowledged or forestalled his companion’s salutation. He knew a few of

them by sight, but not one passed with whom he had ever spoken, and he

felt somewhat foolishly ashamed of not knowing every one. When he was

alone the thought did not occur to him, but his cousin’s incessant

smiles and nods made him realise vividly the difference between her

social position and his own. He wondered whether the gulf would ever be

bridged over, and whether at any future time those very correct people

who now looked at him with inquiring eyes would be as anxious to know

him and be recognised by him as they now seemed desirous of knowing

Totty and being saluted by her.

 

“Do you mean to say that you really remember the names of all these

friends of yours?” he asked, presently.

 

“Why not? I have known most of them since I was a baby, and they have

known me. You could learn their names fast enough if you would take the

trouble.”

 

“Why should I? They do not want me. I should never be a part of their

lives.”

 

“Why not? You could if you liked, and I am always telling you so.

Society never wants anybody who does not want it. It is founded on the

principle of giving and receiving in return. If you show that you like

people, they will show that they like you.”

 

“That would depend upon my motives.”

 

Mrs. Sherrington Trimm laughed, lowered her parasol, and turned her head

so that she could see George’s face.

 

“Motives!” she exclaimed. “Nobody cares about your motives, provided you

have good manners. It is only in business that people talk about

motives.”

 

“Then any adventurer who chose might take his place in society,”

objected George.

 

“Of course he might—and does. It occurs constantly, and nothing

unpleasant happens to him, unless he makes love in the wrong direction

or borrows money without returning it. Unfortunately those are just the