‘Cutlets à la Constance,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘I am sure that they are simple enough. Cutlets, butter, fowls’ livers, cocks’ combs, mushrooms - ‘
‘My dear, my dear, remember that she is only a parlourmaid. It is unreasonable.’
‘Ragout of fowl, chicken patties, croquettes of veal with a little browning - ‘
‘We’ve got back to Browning after all,’ cried Maude.
‘Dear me,’ said Mrs. Beecher, ‘it is all my fault, and I am so sorry. Now, Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, do please read us a little of that delightful poetry.’
‘You can always get small entrées sent down from the Stores,’ cried Maude, as a happy thought.
‘You dear, good girl, how sweet of you to think of it. Of course one can. That is really an admirable idea. There now, we may consider the entrée as being removed, so we proceed to - ‘
‘The pièce de résistance,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer solemnly, glancing down the index of the first volume. ‘I confess that my acquaintance with the poet has up to now been rather superficial. Our ambition must be to so master him that he becomes from this time forward part and parcel of ourselves. I fancy that the difficulties in understanding him have been very much exaggerated, and that with goodwill and perseverance we shall manage to overcome them.’
It was a relief to Mrs. Beecher and to Maude to realise that Mrs. Hunt Mortimer knew no more about the matter than themselves. They both ventured upon a less diffident air now that it was clear that it might be done in safety. Maude frowned thoughtfully, and Mrs. Beecher cast up her pretty brown eyes at the curtain-rod, as if she were running over in her memory the whole long catalogue of the poet’s works.
‘I will tell you what we should do,’ said she. ‘We must make a vow that we shall never pass a line until we understand it. We will go over it again and again until we grasp its meaning.’
‘What an excellent idea!’ cried Maude, with one of her little bursts of enthusiasm. ‘Now that is really splendid, Mrs. Beecher.’
‘My friends always call me Nellie,’ said the little brunette.
‘How nice of you to say so! I should love to call you so, if you don’t mind. It is such a pretty name too. Only you must call me Maude.’
‘You look like a Maude,’ said Mrs. Beecher. ‘I always picture a Maude as bright and pretty and blonde. Isn’t it strange how names associate themselves with characters. Mary is always domestic, and Rose is a flirt, and Elizabeth is dutiful, and Evelyn is dashing, and Alice is colourless, and Helen is masterful - ‘
‘And Matilda is impatient,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer, laughing. ‘Matilda has reason to be, seated here with an index in front of her while you two are exchanging compliments.’
‘Why, we were waiting for you to begin,’ said Mrs. Beecher reproachfully. ‘Do let us have something, for really the time is slipping away.’
‘It would be a pity to begin at the beginning, because that represents his immature genius,’ remarked Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘I think that on this the opening day of the Society, we should have the poet at his best.’
‘How are we to know which is his best?’ Maude asked.
‘I should be inclined to choose something with a title which suggests profundity - “A Pretty Woman,” “Love in a Life,” “Any Wife to any Husband” - ‘
‘Oh, what did she say to him?’ cried Maude.
‘Well, I was about to say that all these subjects rather suggested frivolity.’
‘Besides, it really is a very absurd title,’ remarked Mrs. Beecher, who was fond of generalising from her six months’ experience of matrimony. ‘A husband to a wife’ would be intelligible, but how can you know what any husband would say to any wife? No one can really foretell what a man will do. They really are such extraordinary creatures.’
But Mrs. Hunt Mortimer had been married for five years, and felt as competent to lay down the law about husbands as about entrées.
‘When you have had a larger experience of them, dear, you will find that there is usually a reason, or at least a primitive instinct of some sort, at the root of their actions. But, seriously, we must really concentrate our attention upon the poet, for my other engagement will call me away at four, which only leaves me ten minutes to reach Maybury.’
Mrs. Beecher and Maude settled down with anxious attention upon their faces.
‘Do please go on!’ they cried.
‘Here is “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.”’
‘Now that interests me more than I can tell,’ cried Maude, with her eyes shining with pleasure. ‘Do please read us everything there is about that dear piper.’
‘Why so?’ asked her two companions.
‘Well, the fact is,’ said Maude, ‘Frank - my husband, you know - came to a fancy-dress at St. Albans as the Pied Piper. I had no idea that it came from Browning.’
‘How did he dress for it?’ asked Mrs. Beecher. ‘We are invited to the Aston’s dress ball, and I want something suitable for George.’
‘It was a most charming dress. Red and black all over, something like Mephistopheles, you know, and a peaked hat with a bell at the top. Then he had a flute, of course, and a thin wire from his waist with a stuffed rat at the end of it.’
‘A rat! How horrid!’
‘Well, that was the story, you know. The rats all followed the Pied Piper, and so this rat followed Frank. He put it in his pocket when he danced, but once he forgot, and so it got stood upon, and the sawdust came out all over the floor.’
Mrs. Hunt Mortimer was also invited to the dress ball, and her thoughts flew away from the book in front of her.
‘How did you go, Mrs. Crosse?’ she asked.
‘I went as “Night.”’
‘What! you with your brown hair!’
‘Well, father said that I was not a very dark night. I was in black, you know, just my ordinary black silk dinner-dress. Then I had a silver half-moon over my head, and black veils round my hair, and stars all over my bodice and skirt, with a long comet right across the front. Father upset a cup of milk over me at supper, and said afterwards that it was the milky way.’
‘It is simply maddening how men will make jokes about the most important subjects,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘But I have no doubt, dear, that your dress was an exceedingly effective one. Now, for my own part, I had some idea of going as the “Duchess of Devonshire.”’
‘Charming!’ cried Mrs. Beecher and Maude.
‘It is not a very difficult costume, you know. I have some old Point d’Alençon lace which has been in the family for a century. I make it the starting-point of my costume. The gown need not be very elaborate - ‘
‘Silk?’ asked Mrs. Beecher.
‘Well, I thought that perhaps a white-flowered brocade - ‘
‘Oh yes, with pearl trimming.’
‘No, no, dear, with my lace for trimming.’
‘Of course. You said so.’
‘And then a muslin fichu coming over here.’
‘How perfectly sweet!’ cried Maude.
‘And the waist cut high, and ruffles at the sleeves. And, of course, a picture hat - you know what I mean - with a curling ostrich feather.’
‘Powdered hair, of course?’ said Mrs. Beecher.
‘Powdered in ringlets.’
‘It will suit you admirably - beautifully. You are tall enough to carry it off, and you have the figure also. How I wish I was equally certain about my own!’
‘What had you thought of, dear?’
‘Well, I had some idea about “Ophelia.” Do you think that it would do?’
‘Certainly. Had you worked it out at all?’
‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Beecher, relapsing into her pleasant confidential manner. ‘I had some views, but, of course, I should be so glad to have your opinion about it. I only saw Hamlet once, and the lady was dressed in white, with a gauzy light nun’s-veiling over it. I thought that with white pongee silk as an under-dress, and then some sort of delicate - ‘
‘Crepe
de Chine,’ Maude suggested.
‘But in Ophelia’s day such a thing had never been heard of,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘A net of silver thread - ‘
‘Exactly,’ cried Mrs. Beecher, ‘with some sort of jewelling upon it. That was just what I had imagined. Of course it should be cut classically and draped - my dressmaker is such a treasure - and I should have a gold embroidery upon the white silk.’
‘Crewel work,’ said Maude.
‘Or a plain cross-stitch pattern. Then a tiara of pearls on the head. Shakespeare - ‘
At the name of the poet their three consciences pricked simultaneously. They looked at each other and then at the clock with dismay.
‘We must - we really must go on with our reading,’ cried Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘How did we get talking about these dresses?’
‘It was my fault,’ said Mrs. Beecher, looking contrite.
‘No, dear, it was mine,’ said Maude. ‘You remember it all came from my saying that Frank had gone to the ball as the Pied Piper.’
‘I am going to read the very first poem that I open,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer remorselessly. ‘I am afraid that it is almost time that I started, but we may still be able to skim over a few pages. Now then! There! Setebos! What a funny name!’
‘What does it mean?’ asked Maude.
‘We shall find out, no doubt, as we proceed,’ said Mrs. Hunt Mortimer. ‘We shall take it line by line and draw the full meaning from it. The first line is -
‘Will sprawl now that the heat of day is best - ‘
‘Who will?’ asked Mrs. Beecher.
‘I don’t know. That’s what it says.’
‘The next line will explain, no doubt.’
‘Flat on his - ‘
‘Dear me, I had no idea that Browning was like this!’
‘Do read it, dear.’
‘I couldn’t possibly think of doing so. With your permission we will pass on to the next paragraph.’
‘But we vowed not to skip.’
‘But why read what cannot instruct or elevate us. Let us begin this next stanza, and hope for something better. The first line is - I wonder if it really can be as it is written.’
‘Do please read it!’
‘Setebos and Setebos and Setebos.’
The three students looked sadly at each other. ‘This is worse than anything I could have imagined,’ said the reader.
‘We mast skip that line.’
‘But we are skipping everything.’
‘It’s a person’s name,’ said Mrs. Beecher.
‘Or three persons.’
‘No, only one, I think.’
‘But why should he repeat it three times?’
‘For emphasis!’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs. Beecher, ‘it was Mr. Setebos, and Mrs. Setebos, and a little Setebos.’
‘Now, if you are going to make fun, I won’t read. But I think we were wrong to say that we would take it line by line. It would be easier sentence by sentence.’
‘Quite so.’
‘Then we will include the next line, which finishes the sentence. It is, “thinketh he dwelleth in the cold of the moon.”’
‘Then it was only one Setebos!’ cried Maude.
‘So it appears. It is easy to understand if one will only put it into ordinary language. This person Setebos was under the impression that his life was spent in the moonlight.’
‘But what nonsense it is!’ cried Mrs. Beecher. Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked at her reproachfully. ‘It is very easy to call everything which we do not understand “nonsense,”’ said she. ‘I have no doubt that Browning had a profound meaning in this.’
‘What was it, then?’
Mrs. Hunt Mortimer looked at the clock.
‘I am very sorry to have to go,’ said she, ‘but really I have no choice in the matter. Just as we were getting on so nicely - it is really most vexatious. You’ll come to my house next Wednesday, Mrs. Crosse, won’t you? And you also, Mrs. Beecher. Good-bye, and thanks for such a pleasant afternoon!’
But her skirts had hardly ceased to rustle in the passage before the Browning Society had been dissolved by a two-thirds’ vote of the total membership.
‘What is the use?’ cried Mrs. Beecher. ‘Two lines have positively made my head ache, and there are two volumes.’
‘We must change our poet.’
‘His verbosity!’ cried Mrs. Beecher.
‘His Setebosity!’ cried Maude.
‘And dear Mrs. Hunt Mortimer pretending to like him! Shall we propose Tennyson next week?’
‘It would be far better.’
‘But Tennyson is quite simple, is he not?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Then why should we meet to discuss him if there is nothing to discuss?’
‘You mean that we might as well each read him for herself.’
‘I think it would be easier.’
‘Why, of course it would.’
And so after one hour of precarious life, Mrs. Hunt Mortimer’s Mutual Improvement Society for the elucidation of Browning came to an untimely end.
CHAPTER XVII - AN INVESTMENT
‘I want your advice, Maude.’
She was looking very sweet and fresh in the morning sunlight. She wore a flowered, French print blouse - little sprigs of roses on a white background - and a lace frill round her pretty, white, smooth throat. The buckle of her brown leather belt just gleamed over the edge of the table-cloth. In front of her were a litter of correspondence, a white cup of coffee, and two empty eggshells - for she was a perfectly healthy young animal with an excellent appetite.
‘Well, dear, what is it?’
‘I shall take the later train. Then I need not hurry, and can walk down at my ease.’
‘How nice of you!’
‘I am not sure that Dinton will think so.’
‘Only one little hour of difference - what can it matter?’
‘They don’t run offices on those lines. An hour means a good deal in the City of London.’
‘Oh, I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.’
‘I suppose that it separates a good many loving couples every morning.’
He had come across and an egg-cup had been upset. Then he had been scolded, and they sat together laughing upon the sofa. When he had finished admiring her little, shining, patent-leather, Louis shoes and the two charming curves of open-work black stocking, she reminded him that he had asked for her advice.
‘Yes, dear, what was it?’ She knitted her brows and tried to look as her father did when he considered a matter of business. But then her father was not hampered by having a young man’s arm round his neck. It is so hard to be business-like when any one is curling one’s hair round his finger.
‘I have some money to invest.’
‘O Frank, how clever of you!’
‘It is only fifty pounds.’
‘Never mind, dear, it is a beginning.’
‘That is what I feel. It is the foundation-stone of our fortunes. And so I want Her Majesty to lay it - mustn’t wrinkle your brow though - that is not allowed.’
‘But it is a great responsibility, Frank.’
‘Yes, we must not lose it.’
‘No, dear, we must not lose it. Suppose we invest it in one of those modern fifty-guinea pianos. Our dear old Broadwood was an excellent piano when I was a girl, but it is getting so squeaky in the upper notes. Perhaps they would allow us something for it.’
He shook his head.
‘I know that we want one very badly, dear. And such a musician as you are should have the best instrument that money can buy. I promise you that when we have a little to turn round on, you shall have a beauty. But in the meantime we must not buy anything with this money - I mean nothing for ourselves - we must invest it. We cannot tell what might happen. I might fall ill. I might die.’
‘O Frank, how horrid you are this morning!’
‘Well, we have to be ready for anyt
hing. So I want to put this where we can get it on an emergency, and where in the meantime it will bring us some interest. Now what shall we buy?’
‘Papa always bought a house.’
‘But we have not enough.’
‘Not a little house?’
‘No, not the smallest.’
‘A mortgage, then?’
‘The sum is too small.’
‘Government stock, Frank - if you think it is safe.’
‘Oh, it is safe enough. But the interest is so low.’
‘How much should we get?’
‘Well, I suppose the fifty pounds would bring us in about thirty shillings a year.’
‘Thirty shillings! O Frank!’
‘Rather less than more.’
‘Fancy a great rich nation like ours taking our fifty pounds and treating us like that. How mean of them! Don’t let them have it, Frank.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘If they want it, they can make us a fair offer for it.’
‘I think we’ll try something else.’
‘Well, they have only themselves to thank. But you have some plan in your head, Frank. What is it?’
He brought the morning paper over from the table. Then he folded it so as to bring the financial columns to the top.
‘I saw a fellow in the City yesterday who knows a great deal about gold-mining. I only had a few minutes’ talk, but he strongly advised me to have some shares in the El Dorado Proprietary Gold Mine.’
‘What a nice name! I wonder if they would let us have any?’
‘Oh yes, they are to be bought in the open market. It is like this, Maude. The mine was a very good one, and paid handsome dividends. Then it had some misfortunes. First, there was no water, and then there was too much water, and the workings were flooded. So, of course, the price of the shares fell. Now they are getting the mine all right again, but the shares are still low. It certainly seems a very good chance to pick a few of them up.’
‘Are they very dear, Frank?’
‘I looked them up in the Mining Register before I came home yesterday. The original price of each share was ten shillings, but as they have had these misfortunes, one would expect to find them rather lower.’
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 613
