On a thousand little occasions this Parker showed a sense of propriety that was penetratingly fine. For example, in the shop one day when “things” of an intimate sort were being purchased, she suddenly intervened.
“There are stockings, Mem,” she said in a discreet undertone, behind, but not too vulgarly behind, a fluttering straight hand.
“Stockings!” cried Mrs. Bunting. “But——!”
“I think, Mem, she should have stockings,” said Parker, quietly but very firmly.
And come to think of it, why should an unavoidable deficiency in a lady excuse one that can be avoided? It’s there we touch the very quintessence and central principle of the proper life.
But Mrs. Bunting, you know, would never have seen it like that.
III
Let me add here, regretfully but with infinite respect, one other thing about Parker, and then she shall drop into her proper place.
I must confess, with a slight tinge of humiliation, that I pursued this young woman to her present situation at Highton Towers—maid she is to that eminent religious and social propagandist, the Lady Jane Glanville. There were certain details of which I stood in need, certain scenes and conversations of which my passion for verisimilitude had scarcely a crumb to go upon. And from first to last, what she must have seen and learnt and inferred would amount practically to everything.
I put this to her frankly. She made no pretence of not understanding me nor of ignorance of certain hidden things. When I had finished she regarded me with a level regard.
“I couldn’t think of it, sir,” she said. “It wouldn’t be at all according to my ideas.”
“But!—It surely couldn’t possibly hurt you now to tell me.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t, sir.”
“It couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“It isn’t that, sir.”
“I should see you didn’t lose by it, you know.”
She looked at me politely, having said what she intended to say.
And, in spite of what became at last very fine and handsome inducements, that remained the inflexible Parker’s reply. Even after I had come to an end with my finesse and attempted to bribe her in the grossest manner, she displayed nothing but a becoming respect for my impregnable social superiority.
“I couldn’t think of it, sir,” she repeated. “It wouldn’t be at all according to my ideas.”
And if in the end you should find this story to any extent vague or incomplete, I trust you will remember how the inflexible severity of Parker’s ideas stood in my way.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
THE ABSENCE AND RETURN OF MR. HARRY CHATTERIS
I
These digressions about Parker and the journalists have certainly led me astray from the story a little. You will, however, understand that while the rising young journalist was still in pursuit of information, Hope and Banghurst, and Parker merely a budding perfection, the carriage not even thought of, things were already developing in that bright little establishment beneath the evergreen oaks on the Folkestone Riviera. So soon as the minds of the Buntings ceased to be altogether focused upon this new and amazing social addition, they—of all people—had most indisputably discovered, it became at first faintly and then very clearly evident that their own simple pleasure in the possession of a guest so beautiful as Miss Waters, so solidly wealthy and—in a manner—so distinguished, was not entirely shared by the two young ladies who were to have been their principal guests for the season.
This little rift was perceptible the very first time Mrs. Bunting had an opportunity of talking over her new arrangements with Miss Glendower.
“And is she really going to stay with you all the summer?” said Adeline.
“Surely, dear, you don’t mind?”
“It takes me a little by surprise.”
“She’s asked me, my dear——”
“I’m thinking of Harry. If the general election comes on in September—and every one seems to think it will —You promised you would let us inundate you with electioneering.”
“But do you think she——”
“She will be dreadfully in the way.”
She added after an interval, “She stops my working.”
“But, my dear!”
“She’s out of harmony,” said Adeline.
Mrs. Bunting looked out of her window at the tamarisk and the sea. “I’m sure I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Harry’s prospects. You know how enthusiastic we all are. Randolph would do anything. But are you sure she will be in the way?”
“What else can she be?”
“She might help even.”
“Oh, help!”
“She might canvass. She’s very attractive, you know, dear.”
“Not to me,” said Miss Glendower. “I don’t trust her.”
“But to some people. And as Harry says, at election times every one who can do anything must be let do it. Cut them—do anything afterwards, but at the time—you know he talked of it when Mr. Fison and he were here. If you left electioneering only to the really nice people——”
“It was Mr. Fison said that, not Harry. And besides, she wouldn’t help.”
“I think you misjudge her there, dear. She has been asking——”
“To help?”
“Yes, and all about it,” said Mrs. Bunting, with a transient pink. “She keeps asking questions about why we are having the election and what it is all about, and why Harry is a candidate and all that. She wants to go into it quite deeply. I can’t answer half the things she asks.”
“And that’s why she keeps up those long conversations with Mr. Melville, I suppose, and why Fred goes about neglecting Mabel——”
“My dear!” said Mrs. Bunting.
“I wouldn’t have her canvassing with us for anything,” said Miss Glendower. “She’d spoil everything. She is frivolous and satirical. She looks at you with incredulous eyes, she seems to blight all one’s earnestness.… I don’t think you quite understand, dear Mrs. Bunting, what this election and my studies mean to me—and Harry. She comes across all that—like a contradiction.”
“Surely, my dear! I’ve never heard her contradict.”
“Oh, she doesn’t contradict. But she— There is something about her— One feels that things that are most important and vital are nothing to her. Don’t you feel it? She comes from another world to us.”
Mrs. Bunting remained judicial. Adeline dropped to a lower key again. “I think,” she said, “anyhow, that we’re taking her very easily. How do we know what she is? Down there, out there, she may be anything. She may have had excellent reasons for coming to land——”
“My dear!” cried Mrs. Bunting. “Is that charity?”
“How do they live?”
“If she hadn’t lived nicely I’m sure she couldn’t behave so nicely.”
“Besides—coming here! She had no invitation——”
“I’ve invited her now,” said Mrs. Bunting gently.
“You could hardly help yourself. I only hope your kindness——”
“It’s not a kindness,” said Mrs. Bunting, “it’s a duty. If she were only half as charming as she is. You seem to forget”—her voice dropped—“what it is she comes for.”