Tales of two people

“So he can’t be poor, can he?”

“Mr Davenport?”

“Oh, I beg pardon! But you’ve met him. How forgetful you are! Papa’s curate!”

“Dear me, dear me! Of course! You mean Frank?”

“Papa calls him Frank.”

“You all call him Frank.”

“I suppose we do – yes.”

“So I forgot his surname just for the minute. Does he call you Prudence?”

“What has that got to do with it?”

“Roughly speaking, it ranges from three to seven thousand a year. More for archbishops, according to scale, of course.”

“Well, that sounds plenty,” said Prudence.

(I have ascertained from Crockford’s Directory that the value of the vicar’s living is three hundred and twenty five pounds per annum.)

“Don’t be calculating, Miss Prudence!”

“And heartless?” The little wrinkle was on her brow again.

“That remark of Miss Jenkins’ seems to rankle!”

“I wasn’t thinking – altogether – of Clara.”

It seemed hard if somebody else had been calling her heartless too – or even thinking it. And all for listening to her mother! I tried to administer consolation.

“The thing is,” I observed, “a judicious balancing of considerations. Here, on the one hand, is justice to be done to the girls – in the way of accomplishments and appearance, I may presume? – and education to be given to the boys – it would be no bad thing if someone taught Dick how to make a fly, for example; on the other hand lie what I may broadly term your inclinations and – ”

I awoke to the fact that Miss Prudence had not been listening to the latter portion of my remark. She was rubbing the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, and frowning now quite heavily. Then she twisted one little hand round the other; and almost inaudibly she said: “How can one balance considerations” – (She infused a pleasant scorn into her intonation of these respectable words) – “How can one balance considerations when – ?”

Primâ facie that “when – ” admitted of various interpretations. But I chose one without hesitation.

“Then why this talk about how much a bishop gets, you calculating heartless girl?”

She darted at me a look of fearful merriment.

“And they make them quite young sometimes in these days,” I added. And I rounded off my period by remarking that Sir John Ffolliot seemed a stupid sort of dog.

“Yes, isn’t he?”

“Might do for Clara Jenkins?”

“If I thought that – ” Miss Prudence began hotly.

“But the idea is preposterous,” I added hastily. “One of your sisters now?”

“That’s really not a bad idea,” she conceded graciously.

In fact, she had suddenly grown altogether very gracious – and I do not refer merely to the marked civility of her manner towards myself. The frown had vanished, the wrinkle was not: the hands were clasped in a comfortable repose. She looked across to me with a ridiculously contented smile.

“It’s such a good thing to have a talk with a really sensible man,” she said.

I took off my hat – but I also rose to my feet. To present me as a future bishop was asking too much of the whirligig of time. Not a kaleidoscope could do it! Besides, I wasn’t serious about it; it was just the meadow, the river – and the rest. In order to prove this to myself beyond dispute, I said that I had to go to the post office and despatch an important letter.

“To the post office?” said Prudence, displaying some confusion at the mention of that institution. “Oh, then, would you mind – it would be so kind – would you really mind – ?”

“Calling in at the parlour window and telling Mr Davenport that you’re going to have some tennis after tea? With pleasure, of course.”

“I didn’t know you knew he lodged there!” she cried.

“Pending promotion to the Palace, yes.”

I made that last remark after I had turned my back, and I didn’t look round to see whether Miss Prudence had heard it; it was, in fact, in the nature of an “aside” – a thing which may be heard or not at pleasure.

“Won’t you come too?” she called.

“Certainly not. I propose to meditate.” On these words I did turn round, and waved her farewell. I think she was indulging in a most proper forgetfulness of her brothers and sisters – and, incidentally, of myself. So I proceeded to the post office, although of course I had no letter at all to send.

I found Mr Davenport in flannels, sitting with his feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a pipe and reading. He was an engaging six-feet of vigour, and I delivered my message with as little rancour as could be expected under the circumstances.

“I think I’ll go,” he said, briskly knocking out his pipe.

It was some satisfaction to me to remind him that it was only half-past three, and that tennis didn’t begin till after tea. He put his pipe back between his teeth with a disappointed jerk.

“What are you reading?” I inquired affably. I must be pictured as standing outside the post office parlour window while conducting this colloquy.

He looked a trifle ashamed. “The fact is, I sometimes try to keep up my Latin a bit,” he explained, conscious of the eccentricity of this proceeding. “It’s Juvenal.”

“Not so very clerical,” I ventured to observe.

“A great moralist,” he maintained – yet with an eye distantly twinkling with the light of unregenerate days.

“I suppose so. That bit about prudence now – ?”

“About who?” cried he, springing to his feet and dropping his poet on the floor.

“Evidently you recollect! Nullum numen abest si sit Prudentia– ”

“Curiously enough, I’ve just been having a shot at a rendering of that couplet,” said Mr Davenport. As he spoke he approached the window: I sat down on the sill outside and lit a cigar.

“Curiously enough indeed!” said I. “May I be privileged to hear it?”