Chapter XVII Phyllis
Misfortunes never come singly. After the meeting with Mrs. Bangley-Brown I was nervous of going on the river at all, but upon the following Sunday grandpapa persuaded me to accompany him. Most young men would have chosen the society of their own sex, but grandfather was loyal to his old granddaughter; and I will say that with regard to my growing weakness for stimulant, he did everything in his power to shame me out of it. I tried my best, but alcohol had become a necessity, and, as I have said elsewhere, was the only thing I could rely upon to keep my nerves steady at a crisis.
To return, we proceeded that Sunday to Teddington Lock, when suddenly, alongside of us, waiting for the lock to open, appeared Susan Marks and the young man Tomkins. The woman recognised us both instantly, and proclaimed the fact.
“Lor! if that ain’t that little beast Dolphin! Look, Tommy; and it was that old Guy Fawkes as ’eard me ’n you talking. She split an’ told him. But it shan’t wash; I swear it shan’t. He’s promised marriage, you know that; and all the old grandmothers in the world shan’t save him!”
“Who are you, you brazen creature? I don’t know you—never saw you before in my life,” said grandfather, calmly.
“Don’t you talk to me like that, you wretch,” bawled the virago, “or I’ll come over and wring your neck.”
“Poor soul! Take her out of the sun and send for a medical man,” said my grandfather.
Then Tomkins spoke. He was a small, weak person.
“You can’t bounce it like that, you know,” he said. “You’re Dan Dolphin, engaged to Miss Marks; I ought to know you well enough; I’ve had a summons out against you for three months. You’d better give me your address, and not make a scene here.”
“You’re labouring under a case of mistaken identity,” said grandfather, not taking any notice of the intimation to give his address. “And as for that beauty there, if she’s engaged to me or some other fellow, what are you doing with her here on the river? Now row away, and try and behave yourselves. I’m afraid you’re no better than you ought to be, either of you.”
In this cool manner, with a quiet air of experience and superiority, did grandfather cow the man Tomkins. The woman Marks, however, was not cowed. She shook her fist and raved and disgraced her sex and made a scene; but grandfather only laughed and proceeded. As he truly remarked, they had got “precious little change” out of him.
Not less than an hour later, I saw another of grandpapa’s old flames; one whom I had never met before. The Princess Hopskipschoff, with a party of younger sons and music-hall artistes, passed us in a steam-launch. Grandpapa was very excited, and his admiration for her, which waxed at forty-five and dwindled to nothing at thirty, now at twenty-one, burst out anew.
“A glorious woman—a goddess, by Jove! How sickening she must find the twaddle of those boys!” said grandpapa. “Ah, she doesn’t know, as she glances at me from under her dark lids, that the young fellow in the yellow and green ‘blazer’ was once engaged to marry her. How sweet and fresh she is still! I wonder if she’ll be at Henley?”
Then he sighed and caught a “crab” in the wash of the steamer. I was amazed to hear him talk thus, and ventured to expostulate.
“The big woman under the red-and-white parasol? Why, grandpapa, she’s forty, and painted up to the eyes!”
“Don’t blaspheme,” he said. “Don’t discuss her. You needn’t be jealous of the princess. To think that she has never forgotten me, that she seeks me yet! But her dream would be rather rudely shattered if she knew. Well, well, let us talk of something else. What fiend made me leave her? To think of all I lost!”
From which I have since drawn the curious conclusion that very young men and quite middle-aged ones are often attracted by the same sort of women.
“A fellow cannot get on without woman’s love,” said grandpapa, suddenly, after a long silence. “At least, some fellows can’t—I can’t for one.”
“A mother’s love is what you will soon be needing, dear one. I shall do the best I can.”
“Bosh!” he said angrily. “That’s not love at all; it’s instinct. And I don’t want you to fuss over me when I become a child, mind that. Just keep me clean and tidy, and give me toys and tell me Bible stories. But don’t pretend you’re my mother then, because that’s outraging the laws of Nature, and people will laugh at you. I’m not talking of those matters now; I’m alluding to love.”
“You said, when you left Upper Norwood, that you had done with that for ever.”
“Yes, very likely; young men say foolish things. You can’t help fate. Marriages are made in heaven wholesale, though I admit they never guarantee the quality, and turn out a lot of goods that don’t wear. You observe that lock ahead? We’re going to lunch there. The lock-keeper is called Rose, and he has a daughter named Phyllis. She’s the daintiest, most exquisite, human thing I ever saw. No brains, thank God—I’ve had enough of clever women—but the disposition of an angel, eyes like grey rainclouds with sunshine in ’em, hair brown, lily-white hands, tiny feet, and everything complete. What’s more, the girl understands me.”
“I may assume, then, grandfather, that you are engaged?”
“I will not deceive you, Martha; we are.”
“How far has it gone?”
“To the ‘second time of asking.’ I mean business this journey. We’re to be married after Henley. I didn’t tell you, because it would only have worried you, and, I fear, make you take kinder than ever to stimulant. I’ve arranged it all. We’re going to Scotland. Then, when I get a bit younger, I shall leave her a letter with all my money in it, and clear out and make away with myself. I was only pretending just now. I couldn’t stand childhood again, not even with you, let alone as a married man. I want you to be friends with her, and live with her after I am gone.”
His voice broke, and, at the same moment we reached the lock.