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Septimus

<h2>[69]CHAPTER VI</h2> Things happen slowly at Nunsmere—from the grasping of an idea to the pace of the church choir over the hymns. Life there is no vulgar, tearing two-step, as it is in Godalming, London, and other vortices of human passions, but the stately measure of a minuet. Delights are deliberate and have lingering ends. A hen would scorn to hatch a chicken with the indecent haste of her sister in the next parish. Six months passed, and Zora wondered what had become of them. Only a few visits to London, where she had consorted somewhat gaily with Emmy's acquaintances, had marked their flight, and the gentle fingers of Nunsmere had graduated the reawakening of her nostalgia for the great world. She spoke now and then of visiting Japan and America and South Africa, somewhat to her mother's consternation; but no irresistible force drove her thither. She found contentment in procrastination. It had also been a mild amusement to settle Septimus Dix, after his recovery, in a little house facing the common. He had to inhabit some portion of this planet, and as he had no choice of spot save Hackney Downs, which Wiggleswick suggested, Zora waved her hand to the tenantless house and told him to take it. As there was an outhouse at the end of the garden which he could use as a workshop, his principal desideratum in a residence, he obeyed her readily. She then bought his furniture, plate, and linen, [70]and a complicated kitchen battery over whose uses Wiggleswick scratched a bewildered head. "A saucepan I know, and a frying-pan I know, but what you're to put in those things with holes in them fairly licks me." "Perhaps we might grow geraniums in them," said Septimus brightly, alter a fit of musing. "If you do," said Zora, "I'll put a female cook in charge of you both, and wash my hands of you." Whereupon she explained the uses of a cullender, and gave Wiggleswick to understand that she was a woman of her word, and that an undrained cabbage would be the signal for the execution of her threat. From the first she had assumed despotic power over Wiggleswick, of whose influence with his master she had been absurdly jealous. But Wiggleswick, bent, hoary, deaf, crabbed, evil old ruffian that he was, like most ex-prisoners instinctively obeyed the word of command, and meekly accepted Zora as his taskmistress. For Septimus began happy days wherein the clock was disregarded. The vague projects that had filled his head for the construction of a new type of quick-firing gun took definite shape. Some queer corner of his brain had assimilated a marvelous knowledge of field artillery, and Zora was amazed at the extent of his technical library, which Wiggleswick had overlooked in his statement of the salvage from the burned-down house at Shepherd's Bush. Now and then he would creep from the shyness which enveloped the inventive side of his nature, and would talk with her with unintelligible earnestness of these dreadful engines; of radial and initial hoop pressures, of drift angles, of ballistics, of longitudinal tensions, and would jot down trigo[71]nometrical formulae illustrated by diagrams until her brain reeled; or of his treatise on guns of large caliber just written and now in the printers' hands, and of the revolution in warfare these astounding machines would effect. His eyes would lose their dreamy haze and would become luminous, his nervous fingers would become effectual, the man would become transfigured; but as soon as the fervid fit passed off he would turn with amiable aimlessness to his usual irrelevance. Sometimes he would work all night, either in his room or his workshop, at his inventions. Sometimes he would dream for days together. There was an old-fashioned pond in the middle of the common, with rough benches placed here and there at the brink. Septimus loved to sit on one of them and look at the ducks. He said he was fascinated by the way they wagged their tails. It suggested an invention: of what nature he could not yet determine. He also formed a brotherly intimacy with a lame donkey belonging to the sexton, and used to feed him with pâté de foie gras sandwiches, specially prepared by Wiggleswick, until he was authoritatively informed that raw carrots would be more acceptable. To see the two of them side by side watching the ducks in the pond wag their tails was a touching spectacle. Another amenity in Septimus's peaceful existence was Emmy. Being at this time out of an engagement, she paid various flying visits to Nunsmere, bringing with her an echo of comic opera and an odor of Peau d'Espagne. She dawned on Septimus's horizon like a mischievous and impertinent planet, so different from Zora, the great fixed star of his heaven, yet so pretty, so twinkling, so artlessly and so obviously revolving round some twopenny-halfpenny sun of [72]her own, that he took her, with Wiggleswick, the ducks and the donkey, into his close comradeship. It was she who had ordained the carrots. She had hair like golden thistledown, and the dainty, blonde skin that betrays every motion of the blood. She could blush like the pink tea-rose of an old-fashioned English garden. She could blanch to the whiteness of alabaster. Her eyes were forget-me-nots after rain. Her mouth was made for pretty slang and kisses. Neither her features nor her most often photographed expression showed the tiniest scrap of what the austere of her sex used to call character. When the world smiled on her she laughed: when it frowned, she cried. When she met Septimus Dix, she flew to him as a child does to a new toy, and spent gorgeous hours in pulling him to pieces to see how he worked. "Why aren't you married?" she asked him one day. He looked up at the sky—they were on the common—an autumn stretch of pearls and purples, with here and there a streak of wistful blue, as if seeking the inspiration of a reason. "Because no one has married me," he replied. Emmy laughed. "That's just like you. You expect a woman to drag you out of your house by the scruff of your neck and haul you to church without your so much as asking her." "I've heard that lots of women do," said Septimus. Emmy looked at him sharply. Every woman resents a universal criticism of her sex, but cannot help feeling a twinge of respect for the critic. She took refuge in scorn. "A real man goes out and looks for a wife." "But suppose he doesn't want one?" "[73]He must want a woman to love. What can his life be without a woman in it? What can anybody's life be without some one to care for? I really believe you're made of sawdust. Why don't you fall in love?" Septimus took off his hat, ran his fingers through his upstanding hair, re-covered his head, and looked at her helplessly. "Oh, no! I'm booked. It's no use your falling in love with me." "I wouldn't—presume to do such a thing," he stammered, somewhat scared. "I think love is serious. It's like an invention: sometimes it lies deep down inside you, great and quiet—and at other times it racks you and keeps you from sleeping." "Oho!" cried Emmy. "So you know all about it. You are in love. Now, tell me, who is she?" "It was many years ago," said Septimus. "She wore pigtails and I burned a hole in her pinafore with a toy cannon and she slapped my face. Afterwards she married a butcher." He looked at her with his wan smile, and again raised his hat and ran his hand through his hair. Emmy was not convinced. "I believe," she said, "you have fallen in love with Zora." He did not reply for a moment or two; then he touched her arm. "Please don't say that," he said, in an altered tone. Emmy edged up close to him, as they walked. It was her nature, even while she teased, to be kind and caressing. "Not even if it's true? Why not?" "Things like that are not spoken of," he said soberly. "They're only felt." [74]This time it was she who put a hand on his arm, with a charming, sisterly air. "I hope you won't make yourself miserable over it. You see, Zora is impossible. She'll never marry again. I do hope it's not serious. Is it?" As he did not answer, she continued: "It would be such—such rot wasting your life over a thing you haven't a chance of getting." "Why?" said Septimus. "Isn't that the history of the best lives?" This philosophic plane was too high for Emmy, who had her pleasant being in a less rarified atmosphere. "To want, to get, to enjoy," was the guiding motto of her existence. What was the use of wanting unless you got, and what was the use of getting unless you enjoyed? She came to the conclusion that Septimus was only sentimentally in love with Zora, and she regarded his tepid passion as a matter of no importance. At the same time her easy discovery delighted her. It invested Septimus with a fresh air of comicality. "You're just the sort of man to write poetry about her. Don't you?" "Oh, no!" said Septimus. "Then what do you do?" "I play the bassoon," said he. Emmy clapped her hands with joy, thereby scaring a hen that was straying on the common. "Another accomplishment? Why didn't you tell us? I'm sure Zora doesn't know of it. Where did you learn?" "Wiggleswick taught me," said he. "He was once in a band." "You must bring it round," cried Emmy. But when Septimus, prevailed on by her entreaties, did [75]appear with the instrument in Mrs. Oldrieve's drawing-room, he made such unearthly and terrific noises that Mrs. Oldrieve grew pale and Zora politely but firmly took it from his hands and deposited it in the umbrella-stand in the hall. "I hope you don't mind," she said. "Oh, dear, no," said Septimus mildly. "I could never make out why anybody liked it." Seeing that Septimus had a sentimental side to his character, Emmy gradually took him into her confidence, until Septimus knew things that Zora did not dream of. Zora, who had been married, and had seen the world from Nunsmere Pond to the crater of Mount Vesuvius, treated her sister with matronly indulgence, as a child to whom Great Things were unrevealed. She did not reckon with the rough-and-tumble experiences of life which a girl must gain from a two years' battle on the stage. In fact, she did not reckon with any of the circumstances of Emmy's position. She herself was too ignorant, too much centered as yet in her own young impulses and aspirations, and far too serene in her unquestioning faith in the impeccability of the Oldrieve family. To her Emmy was still the fluffy-haired little sister with caressing ways whom she could send upstairs for her work-basket or could reprimand for a flirtation. Emmy knew that Zora loved her dearly; but she was the least bit in the world afraid of her, and felt that in affairs of the heart she would be unsympathetic. So Emmy withheld her confidence from Zora, and gave it to Septimus. Besides, it always pleases a woman more to tell her secrets to a man than to another woman. There is more excitement in it, even though the man be as unmoved as a stock-fish. [76]Thus it fell out that Septimus heard of Mordaunt Prince, whose constant appearance in Emmy's London circle of friends Zora had viewed with plentiful lack of interest. He was a paragon of men. He acted like a Salvini and sang like an angel. He had been far too clever to take his degree at Oxford. He had just bought a thousand-guinea motor car, and—Septimus was not to whisper a word of it to Zora—she had recently been on a three-days' excursion with him. Mordaunt Prince said this and Mordaunt Prince said that. Mordaunt paid three guineas a pair for his brown boots. He had lately divorced his wife, an unspeakable creature only too anxious for freedom. Mordaunt came to see her every day in London, and every day during their absence they corresponded. Her existence was wrapped up in Mordaunt Prince. She traveled about with a suit-case (or so it appeared to Septimus) full of his photographs. He had been the leading man at the theater where she had her last engagement, and had fallen madly, devotedly, passionately in love with her. As soon as the divorce was made absolute they would be married. She had quarreled with her best friend, who had tried to make mischief between them with a view to securing Mordaunt for herself. Had Septimus ever heard of such a cat? Septimus hadn't. He was greatly interested in as much of the story as he could follow—Emmy was somewhat discursive—and as his interjectory remarks were unprovocative of argument, he constituted himself a good listener. Besides, romance had never come his way. It was new to him, even Emmy's commonplace little romance, like a field of roses to a town-bred child, and it seemed sweet and gracious, a thing to dream about. His own distant worship of Zora did not [77]strike him as romantic. It was a part of himself, like the hallowed memory of his mother and the conception of his devastating guns. Had he been more worldly-wise he would have seen possible danger in Emmy's romance, and insisted on Zora being taken into their confidence. But Septimus believed that the radiant beings of the earth, such as Emmy and Mordaunt Prince, from whom a quaint destiny kept him aloof, could only lead radiant lives, and the thought of harm did not cross his candid mind. Even while keeping Emmy's secret from Zora, he regarded it as a romantic and even dainty deceit. Zora, seeing him happy with his guns and Wiggleswick and Emmy, applauded herself mightily as a contriver of good. Her mother also put ideas into her head. From the drawing-room window they once saw Emmy and Septimus part at the little front gate. They had evidently returned from a walk. She plucked a great white chrysanthemum bloom from a bunch she was carrying, flicked it laughingly in his face, and stuck it in his buttonhole. "What a good thing it would be for Emmy," said Mrs. Oldrieve, with a sigh. "To marry Septimus? Oh, mother!" She laughed merrily; then all at once she became serious. "Why not?" she cried, and kissed her mother. Mrs. Oldrieve settled her cap. She was small and Zora was large, and Zora's embraces were often disarranging. "He is a gentleman and can afford to keep a wife." "And steady?" said Zora, with a smile. "I should think quite steady," said Mrs. Oldrieve, without one. "And he would amuse Emmy all day long." "[78]I don't think it is part of a husband's duty, dear, to amuse his wife," said Mrs. Oldrieve. The sudden entrance of Emmy, full of fresh air, laughter, and chrysanthemums, put an end to the conversation; but thenceforward Zora thought seriously of romantic possibilities. Like her mother, she did not entirely approve of Emmy's London circle. It was characterized by too much freedom, too great a lack of reticence. People said whatever came into their minds, and did, apparently, whatever occurred to their bodies. She could not quite escape from her mother's Puritan strain. For herself she felt secure. She, Zora, could wander unattended over Europe, mixing without spot or stain with whatever company she listed; that was because she was Zora Middlemist, a young woman of exceptional personality and experience of life. Ordinary young persons, for their own safe conduct, ought to obey the conventions which were made with that end in view; and Emmy was an ordinary young person. She should marry; it would conduce to her moral welfare, and it would be an excellent thing for Septimus. The marriage was therefore made in the unclouded heaven of Zora's mind. She shed all her graciousness over the young couple. Never had Emmy felt herself enwrapped in more sisterly affection. Never had Septimus dreamed of such tender solicitude. Yet she sang Septimus's praises to Emmy and Emmy's praises to Septimus in so natural a manner that neither of the two was puzzled. "It is the natural instinct that makes every woman a matchmaker. She works blindly towards the baby. If she cannot have one directly, she will have it vicariously. The sourest of old maids is thus doomed to have a hand in the perpetuation of the race." [79]Thus spake the Literary Man from London, discoursing generally—out of earshot of the Vicar and his wife, to whom he was paying one of his periodical visits—in a corner of their drawing-room. Zora, conscious of matchmaking, declared him to be horrid and physiological. "A woman is much more refined and delicate in her motives." "The highly civilized woman," said Rattenden, "is delightfully refined in her table manners, and eats cucumber sandwiches in the most delicate way in the world; but she is obeying the same instinct that makes your lady cannibal thrust raw gobbets of missionary into her mouth with her fingers." "Your conversation is revolting," said Zora. "Because I speak the truth? Truth is a Mokanna." "What on earth is that?" asked Zora. The Literary man sighed. "The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, Lalla Rookh, Tom Moore. Ichabod." "It sounds like a cypher cablegram," said Zora flippantly. "But go on." "I will. Truth, I say, is a Mokanna. So long as it's decently covered with a silver veil, you all prostrate yourselves before it and pretend to worship it. When anyone lifts the veil and reveals the revolting horror of it, you run away screaming, with your hands before your eyes. Why do you want truth to be pretty? Why can't you look its ghastliness bravely in the face? How can you expect to learn anything if you don't? How can you expect to form judgments on men and things? How can you expect to get to the meaning of life on which you were so keen a year ago?" "I want beauty, and not disgustfulness," said Zora. "[80]Should it happen, for the sake of argument, that I wanted two dear friends to marry, it is only because I know how happy they would be together. The ulterior motive you suggest is repulsive." "But it's true," said Rattenden. "I wish I could talk to you more. I could teach you a great deal. At any rate I know that you'll think about what I've said to-day." "I won't," she declared. "You will," said he. And then he dropped a very buttery piece of buttered toast on the carpet and, picking it up, said "damn" under his breath; and then they both laughed, and Zora found him human. "Why are you so bent on educating me?" she asked. "Because," said he, "I am one of the few men of your acquaintance who doesn't want to marry you." "Indeed?" said Zora sarcastically, yet hating herself for feeling a little pang of displeasure. "May I ask why?" "Because," said he, "I've a wife and five children already." <hr style='width: 45%;' /> On the top of her matchmaking and her reflections on Truth in the guise of the Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, came Clem Sypher to take possession of his new house. Since Zora had seen him in Monte Carlo he had been to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, fighting the Jebusa Jones dragon in its lair. He had written Zora stout dispatches during the campaign. Here a victory. There a defeat. Everywhere a Napoleonic will to conquer—but everywhere also an implied admission of the almost invulnerable strength of his enemy. "I'm physically tired," said he, on the first day of his arrival, spreading his large frame luxuriously among the [81]cushions of Mrs. Oldrieve's chintz-covered Chesterfield. "I'm tired for the only time in my life. I wanted you," he added, with one of his quick, piercing looks. "It's a curious thing, but I've kept saying to myself for the last month, 'If I could only come into Zora Middlemist's presence and drink in some of her vitality, I should be a new man.' I've never wanted a human being before. It's strange, isn't it?" Zora came up to him, tea in hand, a pleasant smile on her face. "The Nunsmere air will rest you," she said demurely. "I don't think much of the air if you're not in it. It's like whiskey-less soda water." He drew a long breath. "My God! It's good to see you again. You're the one creature on this earth who believes in the Cure as I do myself." Zora glanced at him guiltily. Her enthusiasm for the Cure as a religion was tepid. In her heart she did not believe in it. She had tried it a few weeks before on the sore head of a village baby, with disastrous results; then the mother had called in the doctor, who wrote out a simple prescription which healed the child immediately. The only real evidence of its powers she had seen was on Septimus's brown boots. Humanity, however, forbade her to deny the faith with which Clem Sypher credited her; also a genuine feeling of admiration mingled with pity for the man. "Do you find much scepticism about?" she asked. "It's lack of enthusiasm I complain of," he replied. "Instead of accepting it as the one heaven-sent remedy, people will use any other puffed and advertised stuff. Chemists are even lukewarm. A grain of mustard seed of faith among them would save me thousands of pounds a year.[82] Not that I want to roll in money, Mrs. Middlemist. I'm not an avaricious man. But a great business requires capital—and to spend money merely in flogging the invertebrate is waste—desperate waste." It was the first time that Zora had heard the note of depression. "Now that you are here, you must stay for a breathing space," she said kindly. "You must forget it, put it out of your mind, take a holiday. Strong as you are, you are not cast iron, and if you broke down, think what a disaster it would be for the Cure." "Will you help me to have a holiday?" She laughed. "To the best of my ability—and provided you don't want to make me shock Nunsmere too much." He waved his hand in the direction of the village and said, Napoleonically: "I'll look after Nunsmere. I have the motor here. We can go all over the country. Will you come?" "On one condition." "And that?" "That you won't spread the Cure among our Surrey villages, and that you'll talk of something else all the time." He rose and put out his hand. "I accept," he cried frankly. "I'm not a fool. I know you're right. When are you coming to see Penton Court? I will give a housewarming You say that Dix has settled down here. I'll look him up. I'll be glad to see the muddle-headed seraph again. I'll ask him to come, too, so there will be you and he—and perhaps your sister will honor me, and your mother, Mrs. Oldrieve?" "Mother doesn't go out much nowadays," said Zora. "But Emmy will no doubt be delighted to come." "[83]I have a surprise for you," said Sypher. "It's a brilliant idea—have had it in my head for months—you must tell me what you think of it." The entrance of Mrs. Oldrieve and Emmy put an end to further talk of an intimate nature, and as Mrs. Oldrieve preferred the simple graces of stereotyped conversation, the remainder of Sypher's visit was uneventful. When he had taken his leave she remarked that he seemed to be a most superior person. "I'm so glad he has made a good impression on mother," said Zora afterwards. "Why?" asked Emmy. "It's only natural that I should be glad." "Oho!" said Emmy. "What do you mean?" "Nothing, dear." "Look here, Emmy," said Zora, half laughing, half angry. "If you say or think such a thing I'll—I'll slap you. Mr. Sypher and I are friends. He hasn't the remotest idea of our being anything else. If he had, I would never speak to him again as long as I live." Emmy whistled a comedy air, and drummed on the window-pane. "He's a very remarkable man," said Zora. "A most superior person," mimicked Emmy. "And I don't think it's very good taste in us to discuss him in this manner." "But, my dear," said Emmy, "it's you that are discussing him. I'm not. The only remark I made about him was a quotation from mother." "I'm going up to dress for dinner," said Zora. She was just a little indignant. Only into Emmy's fluffy [84]head could so preposterous an idea have entered. Clem Sypher in love with her? If so, why not Septimus Dix? The thing thus reduced itself to an absurdity. She laughed to herself, half ashamed of having allowed Emmy to see that she took her child's foolishness seriously, and came down to dinner serene and indulgent. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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