Somehow Good by William Frend De Morgan (free ebook reader for iphone .txt) 📖

the verdict stand--at least, as far as the doctor is concerned. She softens it, adds a recommendation to mercy. "Unless you'll come down and pay us a visit. We'll put you up somewhere."

"I'm afraid it isn't possible," is the answer. But the doctor can't get his eyes really off Sally. Even as a small boy might strain at the leash to get back to a source of cake against the grasp of an iron nurse, even so Dr. Conrad rebels against the grip of professional engagements, which is the name of his cold, remorseless tyrant. But Sally is harnessing up a coach-and-six to drive through human obligations. Her manner of addressing the doctor suggests previous talk on the subject.

"You _must_ get the locum, and come. You know you can, and it's all nonsense about can't." What would be effrontery in another character makes Sally speak through and across the company. A secret confidence between herself and the doctor, that you are welcome to the full knowledge of, and be hanged to you! is what the manner of the two implies.

"I spoke to Neckitt about it, and he can't manage it," says the doctor in the same manner. But the first and second violin are waiting to take leave.

"We'll say good-night, then--or good-bye, if it's for six weeks." Tishy is perfectly unblushing about the _we_. She might be conveying Mr. Tishy away. They go, and get away from Dr. Vereker, by-the-bye. An awkward third isn't wanted.

"There's plenty more Neckitts where he comes from," pursues Sally, as the "other two"--for that is how Fenwick thinks of them--get themselves and their instruments out of the house. "So don't be nonsensical, Dr. Conrad.... Stop a moment. I _must_ speak to Tishy." And Sally gives chase, and overtakes the other two just by the fire-alarm, where Fenwick came to a standstill. Do you remember? It certainly has been a record effort to "get away first." You know this experience yourself at parties? Sally speaks to Tishy in the glorious summer night, and the three talk together earnestly under innumerable constellations, and one gas-lamp that elbows the starry heavens out of the way--a self-asserting, cheeky gas-lamp.

The doctor organizes tactics rapidly. He can hear that Sally's step goes up the street, and then the voices at a distance. If he can say good-bye and rush away just as Sally does the same, why then they will meet outside, don't you see?

Rosalind and her husband seem to have wireless telegrams passing. For when Sally vanishes there is a ring as of instruction received in the tone of Fenwick's voice as he addresses the doctor:

"Couldn't you manage to get your mother to come too, Vereker? She must be terribly in want of a change."

"So I tell her; but she's so difficult to move."

"Have a sedan-chair thing----"

"I don't mean that--not physically difficult. I mean she's got so anchored no one can persuade her to move. She hasn't been away for ages."

"Sally must go and persuade her." It is Rosalind who says this. "I'm sure Sally will manage it."

"She will if any one can," says the doctor. "Of course, I could soon get a locum if there was a chance of mother." And then the conversation supports itself on the possible impossibility of finding a lodging at St. Sennans-on-Sea, and consoles itself with its intense improbability till the doctor finds it necessary to depart with the promptitude of a fire-engine suddenly rung up.

He had calculated his time to a nicety, for he met Sally just as "the other two" got safe round the corner.

* * * * *


"Oh no," said Fenwick, replying to a query; "he doesn't mean to carry it all the way. He'll pick up a cab at the corner." The query was about the violoncello, and Fenwick was coming back to the room where his wife was closing the piano in anticipation of Ann. He had discreetly launched the instrument and its owner under the stars, and left the street door standing wide open--a shallow pretence that he believed Sally already in touch with it.

"They _are_ a funny couple," Rosalind said. "Just fancy! They've known each other two years, and there they are! But I do like him. It's all his mother, you know ... what is?... why, goose--of course I mean he would speak at once if it wasn't for that obese mother of his."

"But she's so fond of Sally." In reply to this his wife kisses his cheeks, forehead, and chin consecutively, and he says it was right that time, only the other way round. This refers to a system founded on the crossing incident at Rheims.

"Of course she is, darling; or pretends she is. But he can neither divorce his mamma nor ask the kitten to marry her. You see?"

"I see--in fact, I've thought so myself. In confidence, you know. But is no compromise possible?" Rosalind shakes a slow, regretful, negative head, and her lips form a silent "No!"

"Not with her. The woman has her own share of selfishness, and her son's, too. _He_ has none."

"But Sally."

"I see what you mean. Sally goes to the wall one way if she doesn't the other. So he works out selfish, poor dear fellow! in the end. But, Gerry darling, let me tell you this: you have no idea how impossible that young man thinks it that a girl should love _him_. If he thought it possible the kitten really cared about, or could care about him, he'd go clean off his head. Indeed, I am right."

"Perhaps you are. There she is."

Sally ran straight upstairs, leaving Ann to close the door. She at once discharged her mind of its burden, _more suo_.

"Prosy thinks so, too!"

"Thinks what?"

"Thinks they'll go and get married one fine morning, whether or no!"

But she seemed to be the only one much excited about this. Something was preoccupying the other two minds, and our Sally had not the remotest notion what.

* * * * *


Nevertheless, it came about that before the next Monday--the day of Sally's departure with her mother to St. Sennans-on-Sea--that young person paid a farewell visit to the obese mother of her medical adviser, and found her knitting.

"That, my dear, is what I am constantly saying to Conrad," was her reply to a suggestion of Sally's that she wanted change and rest. "Only this very morning, when he came into my room to see that I had fresh-made toast--because you know, my dear, how tiresome servants are about toast--they make it overnight, and warm it up in the morning. Cook is no exception, and I have complained till I'm tired. I should be sorry to change, she's been here so long, but I did hear the other day of such a nice respectable person...."

Sally interrupted, catching at a slight pause: "But when Dr. Conrad came into your room, what did he say?"

"My dear, I was going to tell you." She paused, with closed eyes and folded hands of aggressive patience, for all trace of human interruption to die down; then resumed: "I said to Conrad: 'I think you might have thought of that before.' And then he was sorry. I will do him that justice. My dear boy has his faults, as I know too well, but he is always ready to admit he is wrong."

"We can get you lodgings, you know," said Sally, from sheer intuition, for she had not a particle of information, so far, about what passed over the toast. The old lady seemed to think the conversation had been sufficiently well filled out, for she merely said, "Facing the sea," and went on knitting.

Sally and her mother knew St. Sennan well--had been at his watering-place twice before--so she was able, as it were, to forecast lodgings on the spot. "I dare say Mrs. Iggulden's is vacant," she said. "I wish you could have hers, she's such a nice old body. Her husband was a pilot, and she has one son a coastguard and another in the navy. And one daughter has no legs, but can do shell-work; and the other's married a tax-collector."

But Goody Vereker was not going to be beguiled into making herself agreeable. She took up the attitude that Sally was young, and easily deceived. She threw a wet blanket over her narrative of the Iggulden family, and ignored any murmurs that came from beneath it. "Sea-faring folk are all alike," so she said. "When I was your age, my dear, I simply worshipped them. My father and all his brothers were devoted to the sea, and my Uncle David published an account of his visit to the Brazils. But you will learn by experience. At any rate, I trust there are no vermin. That is always my terror in these lodging-houses, and ill-aired beds."

Was it fair, Sally thought to herself, to expose that dear old Mrs. Iggulden, who lived in a wooden dwelling covered with tar, between two houses built of black shiny bricks, but consisting chiefly of bay-windows with elderly visitors in them looking through telescopes at the shipping, and telling the credulous it was brigs or schooners--was it fair to expose Mrs. Iggulden to this gilt-spectacled lob-worm? Sally didn't know that Mrs. Iggulden could show a proper spirit, because in her own case the conditions had never been favourable. They had practised no incantations.

"Very well, then, Mrs. Vereker. As soon as ever mamma and I have shaken down, we'll see about Iggulden's; and if they can't take you somebody else will."

"I am in your hands," said the Goody, smiling faintly and submissively. She leaned back with her eyes closed, and was afraid she had done too much. She used to have periodical convictions to that effect.

Sally had an appointment with Laetitia Wilson at the swimming bath, so the Goody, in an access of altruism, perceived that she mustn't keep her. She herself would try to rest a little.

* * * * *


All people, as we suppose, lead two lives, more or less--their outer life, that of the world and action, and an inner life they have all to themselves. But how different is the proportion of the two lives in different subjects! And how much less painful the latter life is when we feel we could tell it all if we chose. Only we don't choose, because it's no concern of yours or any one else's.

This was Sally's frame of mind. She would not have felt the ghost of a reserve of an inmost thought (from her mother, for instance) in the face of questions asked, though she kept her own counsel about many points whose elucidation was not called for. It may easily be that Rosalind asked no questions about some things, because she had no wish that her daughter should formulate their answers too decisively. Her relation with Conrad Vereker, for example. Was it love, or what? If there was to be marrying, and families, and that