Chapter 10 No.10

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."

"That's what I want to know."

"I'm sure in these days, with so much materialism about and such wickedness everywhere, when everybody who has a soul seems trying to lose it, to find any one who hadn't a soul and who is trying to find one--"

"But is she trying to get one?"

"Mr. Flange comes twice every week. He would come oftener, as you know, if there wasn't so much confirmation about."

"And when he comes he sits and touches her hand if he can, and he talks in his lowest voice, and she sits and smiles-she almost laughs outright at the things he says."

"Because he has to win his way with her. Surely Mr. Flange may do what he can to make religion attractive?"

"I don't believe she believes she will get a soul. I don't believe she wants one a bit."

She turned towards the door as if she had done.

Mrs. Bunting's pink was now permanent. She had brought up a son and two daughters, and besides she had brought down a husband to "My dear, how was I to know?" and when it was necessary to be firm-even with Adeline Glendower-she knew how to be firm just as well as anybody.

"My dear," she began in her very firmest quiet manner, "I am positive you misjudge Miss Waters. Trivial she may be-on the surface at any rate. Perhaps she laughs and makes fun a little. There are different ways of looking at things. But I am sure that at bottom she is just as serious, just as grave, as-any one. You judge her hastily. I am sure if you knew her better-as I do--"

Mrs. Bunting left an eloquent pause.

Miss Glendower had two little pink flushes in her cheeks. She turned with her hand on the door.

"At any rate," she said, "I am sure that Harry will agree with me that she can be no help to our cause. We have our work to do and it is something more than just vulgar electioneering. We have to develop and establish ideas. Harry has views that are new and wide-reaching. We want to put our whole strength into this work. Now especially. And her presence--"

She paused for a moment. "It is a digression. She divides things. She puts it all wrong. She has a way of concentrating attention about herself. She alters the values of things. She prevents my being single-minded, she will prevent Harry being single-minded--"

"I think, my dear, that you might trust my judgment a little," said Mrs. Bunting and paused.

Miss Glendower opened her mouth and shut it again, without speaking. It became evident finality was attained. Nothing remained to be said but the regrettable.

The door opened and closed smartly and Mrs. Bunting was alone.

Within an hour they all met at the luncheon table and Adeline's behaviour to the Sea Lady and to Mrs. Bunting was as pleasant and alert as any highly earnest and intellectual young lady's could be. And all that Mrs. Bunting said and did tended with what people call infinite tact-which really, you know, means a great deal more tact than is comfortable-to develop and expose the more serious aspect of the Sea Lady's mind. Mr. Bunting was unusually talkative and told them all about a glorious project he had just heard of, to cut out the rather shrubby and weedy front of the Leas and stick in something between a wine vault and the Crystal Palace as a Winter Garden-which seemed to him a very excellent idea indeed.