Mammon and Co.

"Nothing in the paper," she said.

"I thought there was a famine in Florida," he observed dryly.

Kit regarded him for a moment in irritating silence.

"Florida is a long way off," she said at length. "Probably it is only a geographical expression. There are many places and people, Toby, much nearer than Florida."

The second link in the chain of circumstances which led to Toby's going punting in the heat was shorter. It occurred that same evening after dinner. Kit was sitting with Mrs. Murchison in the window of the hall, while the others were out on the lawn, when Lily entered, followed by Toby.

"I'm going to bed, mother," she said. "Good-night, Lady Conybeare; good-night, Lord Evelyn."

"Let me give you a candle," said Toby; and they left the room.

Then said Kit very softly, as if to herself: "Poor Toby! poor dear Toby."

Mrs. Murchison heard (she was meant to hear). Hence, on the following afternoon she wished for a private conversation with Toby, and at this moment they were in the punt together. Mrs. Murchison was, considered as a conversationalist, a little liable to be discursive, and heat and a heavy lunch combined to emphasize this tendency; they melted her brains, and a perfect stream of information concerning all parts of the globe came rioting out. Besides this natural bent, she considered it best to approach the subject, on which she particularly wanted to talk to Toby, by imperceptible degrees, not run at him with it as if she was a charging Dervish fighting for Allah. This accounts for her saying that the Thames reminded her so much of the Nile.

Now, Toby, like many others, snatched a fearful joy from Mrs. Murchison's conversation. He saw that the flood-gates were opening, and, with a sigh of delighted anticipation, he said that he supposed it was very like indeed.

"Quite remarkably like, quite," said Mrs. Murchison, "and the closer you look, the more the simile grows upon you. Dear me, how I enjoyed that winter we spent in Egypt! How often I thought over the psalm, 'When Israel came out of Egypt'! We spent a fortnight in Cairo first, and what between the dances and the bazaars and the tombs of the Marmadukes, and the excursions, we had plenty to do. I remember so well one ride to the Pyramids of Sahara, where we met a very famous archeologist whose name I forget, but he had red whiskers and a very nervous manner, and showed us over them."

"That must have been very pleasant," said Toby.

"Most delicious. Then another day we went to see the tree under which the Virgin Mary sat when she went to Egypt, which was really a remarkable coincidence, because my name is Mary, too, and the guide gave us a leaf from it as a Memento Mary. Ah, dear me, how charming and quaint it all was! Then we went up the river in our own private diabetes and stuck on a sandbank for weeks."

Toby's breath caught in his throat for a moment, but he stiffened his risible muscle like a man.

"Didn't you find that rather tedious?" he asked.

"No, not at all; I was quite sorry when we got off, because the air was so fresh, like champagne, and the sunsets so beautiful, and every evening great flocks of ibexes and pelicans used to fly down to the river to drink. But now I come to think of it, we weren't there for weeks, but only for an hour or two, and very tiresome it was, as we wanted to get on, and Mr. Murchison's language – Then at Luxor such sights, the great Colossus of Mammon, and the temples and the hotel gardens. And while we were there some professor or another – not the one with the red whiskers, you must understand – discovered a cylinder covered with cruciform writing, but it seemed to me quite common. And the donkey-boys were so amusing; we used to throw them piazzas, and see them scramble for them."

"Threw them what?" asked Toby politely.

"Piazzas and half-piazzas. The small silver coin of the country."

"Oh yes. You must have travelled a good deal."

"Indeed we have: Mr. Murchison was so devoted to it; I used to call him the Wandering Jew. Then from Egypt we went on to the Holy Land, La Sainte Terre, you know the French call it – so poetical. And we saw Tyre and Sodom and all those places, and where Cicero was killed at the brook Jabbok, and where Elijah went up to heaven, and Damascus – quite lovely! – and the temples of Baalzac – or was it the temple of Baal?"

"Did you go with one of Cook's tours?"

"Indeed we did not; it would have spoiled all the poetry and romance to me if we had done that. No, Mr. Murchison took his yacht, so we could go where we pleased and when we pleased and how we pleased. Then from there we went to Athens, and on through the Straits of Messina, and saw that volcano – Hecla, is it not? – and got to Rome for Easter."

"Rome is delightful, is it not?" said Toby, still playing the part of Greek-play chorus. "I have hardly travelled at all."

"Most interesting; I quite longed to be one of those poky little professors who spend all their lives hunting for grafficos in the Christian catafalques. I assure you we had quite a Childe Harold-al-Raschid pilgrimage, what with Egypt and all, quite like the Arabian Knight. It was wonderful. Travelling is so opening to the mind; I am sure I never really understood what 'from Dan even to Beersheba,' meant until I went and did it too."

"Did you go to Naples?" asked Toby, who still wanted more.

"Indeed we did, and saw Vesuvio in an eruction. Vesuvius you call it, but, somehow, when one has been to Italy, the Italian point-de-vue seems to strike one more. Dear me, yes! Vesuvio, Napoli – all those names are so much more life-like than Leghorn and Florence. And those queer little dirty picturesque streets in Napoli, where the Gomorrah live! I have often given myself up as murdered."

A spasm of inward laughter shook Toby like an aspen leaf as this incomparable lady gave him this wonderful example of the widening effects of foreign travel. But it passed in a moment.

"So like the Nile – so like the Nile," she murmured, as they slewed slowly through beds of water-lilies. "If you can imagine most of the trees taken away, Lord Evelyn, and the remainder changed into palms, and sand instead of meadows, you literally have the Nile. Indeed, the only other difference would be that the water of the Nile is quite thick and muddy, not clear like this, and, of course, the sky is much bluer. Dear Lily, how she enjoyed it!"

"Was Miss Murchison with you?" asked Toby.

Her mother settled herself comfortably in her cushions. This was more like business, and she congratulated herself on the diplomacy she had shown in leading the conversation round so naturally, via Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and Italy, to this point.

"Yes, indeed she was; I never stir anywhere without my sweet Lily. Lily of the valley, I call her sometimes. My precious child! You see, Lord Evelyn, she was brought up in England, and for years I never saw her once. And I shall so soon have to part with her again!"

Toby, who had been leaning over the side of the punt, dabbling his blunt fingers in the cool water, sat up suddenly.

"How is that?" he asked.

"Oh, Lord Evelyn, you nearly upset the boat! These punts are so insecure! Only a plank between us and death. You see, I can't expect her to live with me always. She will marry. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and the same applies to a woman. I would not have her remain single all her life in order to be near me," said Mrs. Murchison, with a deep altruistic sigh.

Toby gave a little laugh of relief.

"Oh, I see. For the moment I thought you meant that – that something was already settled."

"No," said Mrs. Murchison; "the dear child is not so easy to please. Half London has been at her feet. But dear Lily has nothing to say to them. She sends them empty away, like the Magnificat."

Mrs. Murchison sighed.

"You are not a mother, Lord Evelyn," she went on, "and you cannot know all that is in a mother's heart, though I am sure you are delightfully sympathetic and understanding. I tell you I hardly sleep a wink at night for dreaming of Lily's future. I want her to marry some Englishman, of course. Some nice pleasant man out of the titled classes. She was born to be titled. I often shut my eyes when I look at her, and say to myself, 'Some day my darling will go into dinner before her own mother.' She has had the opportunity many times, and I have wondered lately whether my dearest has not someone in her eye – I should say her heart."

"I wonder," said Toby, with marked indifference.

"So like the Nile," said Mrs. Murchison diplomatically, giving it to be understood that the conversation was still quite general. "But the mysteries of a maiden's heart, Lord Evelyn!" she sighed. "Lily takes after me; as a child, I was so mysterious that nobody thought I should live."

"Miss Murchison is not delicate?" asked Toby.

"Dear me, no! most indelicate. Her health never gave me a moment's anxiety since she left her cradle. But she is very reticent about some things, and very thoughtful. When I was a child I used to fall in love a hundred times a day; it may have been Vanderbilt or a postman, and I used to put down their initials in a little green morocco pocket-book; but I never used to tell anyone about it, just like Lily. But you can see by her forehead how thoughtful she is, like Marie Antoinette. Doesn't Tennyson speak of the 'bar of Marie Antoinette'? She has it most marked above the eyes."

Toby's ignorance of "In Memoriam" was even less profound than Mrs. Murchison's knowledge of it, and he only murmured that he seemed to remember it, which was not true.

"Thoughtful and pensive," said Mrs. Murchison. "Dear child! how she looked forward to coming down here! And so gay at times. And never, Lord Evelyn," said Mrs. Muchison very earnestly, "has she said an unkind word to me."

By this time Toby had already turned the punt round, and was propelling it deftly back towards the lawn.

"Yes, if I could see her nicely married to some such man," said Mrs. Murchison, growing bolder. "I should be content to lie like some glorious Milton in a country churchyard. Dear me, how lovely the river is, and so like the Nile! Well, I suppose we must be going back; it should be near tea-time. I have so enjoyed my little excursion with you, Lord Toby – I beg your pardon, Lord Evelyn; and what a pleasant chat we have had, to be sure!"

And the good, kind, excellent, worldly woman beamed at Toby's brown face.

Toby never wasted time in making resolutions. Instead, he went and did the thing; and now he walked cheerfully up to the group on the lawn with his coat on his arm, and inquired if anyone had seen Miss Murchison.

"Because perhaps she would like to go for a bit in the punt," he explained.