Penelope's Postscripts

“Who is Egeria?” asked Atlas, looking up from his own letters.  “She sounds like a character in a book.”

Mrs. Jack: “You begin, Penelope.”

Penelope: “No, I’d rather finish; then I can put in everything that you omit.”

Atlas: “Is there so much to tell?”

Tommy: “Rather.  Begin with her hair, Penelope.”

Mrs. Jack: “No; I’ll do that!  Don’t rattle your knives and forks, shut up your Baedeker, Jackie, and listen while I quote what a certain poet wrote of Egeria when she last visited us:—

“‘She has a knot of russet hair:
It seems a simple thing to wear
Through years, despite of fashion’s check,
The same deep coil about the neck,
But there it twined
When first I knew her,
And learned with passion to pursue her,
And if she changed it, to my mind
She were a creature of new kind.

“‘O first of women who has laid
Magnetic glory on a braid!
In others’ tresses we may mark
If they be silken, blonde, or dark,
But thine we praise and dare not feel them,
Not Hermes, god of theft, dare steal them;
It is enough for eye to gaze
Upon their vivifying maze.’”

Jack: “She has beautiful hair, but as an architect I shouldn’t think of mentioning it first.  Details should follow, not precede, general characteristics.  Her hair is an exquisite detail; so, you might say, is her nose, her foot, her voice; but viewed as a captivating whole, Egeria might be described epigrammatically as an animated lodestone.  When a man approaches her he feels his iron-work gently and gradually drawn out of him.”

Atlas looked distinctly incredulous at this statement, which was reinforced by the affirmative nods of the whole party.

Penelope: “A man cannot talk to Egeria an hour without wishing the assistance of the Society for First Aid to the Injured.  She is a kind of feminine fly-paper; the men are attracted by the sweetness, and in trying to absorb a little of it, they stick fast.”

Tommy: “Egeria is worth from two to two and a half times more than any girl alive; I would as lief talk to her as listen to myself.”

Atlas: “Great Jove, what a concession!  I wish I could find a woman—an unmarried woman (with a low bow to Mrs. Jack)—that would produce that effect upon me.  So you all like her?”

Aunt Celia: “She is not what I consider a well-informed girl.”

Penelope: “Now don’t carp, Miss Van Tyck.  You love her as much as we all do.  ‘Like her,’ indeed!  I detest the phrase.  Werther said when asked how he liked Charlotte, ‘What sort of creature must he be who merely liked her; whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by her!’  Some one asked me lately how I ‘liked’ Ossian.”

Atlas: “Don’t introduce Ossian, Werther and Charlotte into this delightful breakfast chat, I beseech you; the most tiresome trio that ever lived.  If they were travelling with us, how they would jar!  Ossian would tear the scenery in tatters with his apostrophes, Werther would make love to Mrs. Jack, and Charlotte couldn’t cut an English household loaf with a hatchet.  Keep to Egeria,—though if one cannot stop at liking her, she is a dangerous subject.”

Jack: “Don’t imagine from these panegyrics that, to the casual observer, Egeria is anything more than a nice girl.  The deadly qualities that were mentioned only appeal to the sympathetic eye (which you have not), and the susceptible heart (which is not yours), and after long acquaintance (which you can’t have, for she stays only a week).  Tommy, you can meet the charmer at the station; your sister will pack up, and I’ll pay the bills and make arrangements for the journey.”

Jack Copley (when left alone with his spouse): “Kitty, I wonder, why you invited Egeria to travel in the same party with Atlas.”

Mrs. Jack (fencing): “Pooh! Atlas is safe anywhere.”

Jack: “He is a man.”

Mrs. Jack: “No; he is a reformer.”

Jack: “Even reformers fall in love.”

Mrs. Jack: “Not unless they can find a woman to reform.  Egeria is too nearly perfect to attract Atlas; besides, what does it matter, anyway?”

Jack: “It matters a good deal if it makes him unhappy; he is too good a fellow.”

Mrs. Jack: “I’ve lived twenty-five years and I have never seen a man’s unhappiness last more than six months, and I have never seen a woman make a wound in a man’s heart that another woman couldn’t heal.  The modern young man is as tough as—well, I can’t think of anything tough enough to compare him to.  I’ve always thought it a pity that the material of which men’s hearts is made couldn’t be utilized for manufacturing purposes; think of its value for hinges, or for the toes of little boys’ boots, or the heels of their stockings!”

Jack: “I should think you had just been jilted, my dear; how has Atlas offended you?”

Mrs. Jack: “He hasn’t offended me; I love him, but I think he is too absent-minded lately.”

Jack: “And is Egeria invited to join us in order that she may bring his mind forcibly back to the present?”

Mrs. Jack: “Not at all; I consider Atlas as safe as a—as a church, or a dictionary, or a guide-post, or anything; he is too much interested in tenement-house reform to fall in love with a woman.”

Jack: “I think a sensible woman wouldn’t be out of place in Atlas’ schemes for the regeneration of humanity.”

Mrs. Jack: “No; but Egeria isn’t a—yes, she is, too; I can’t deny it, but I don’t believe she knows anything about the sweating system, and she adores Ossian and Fiona Macleod, so she probably won’t appeal to Atlas in his present state, which, to my mind, is unnecessarily intense.  The service of humanity renders a young man perfectly callous to feminine charms.  It’s the proverbial safety of numbers, I suppose, for it’s always the individual that leads a man into temptation, if you notice, never the universal;—Woman, not women.  I have studied Atlas profoundly, and he is nearly as blind as a bat.  He paid no attention to my new travelling-dress last week, and yesterday I wore four rings on my middle finger and two on each thumb all day long, just to see if I could catch his eye and hold his attention.  I couldn’t.”

Jack: “That may all be; a man may be blind to the charms of all women but one (and precious lucky if he is), but he is particularly keen where the one is concerned.”

Mrs. Jack: “Atlas isn’t keen about anything but the sweating system.  You needn’t worry about him; your favourite Stevenson says that a wet rag goes safely by the fire, and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery.  Atlas momentarily a wet rag and temporarily blind.  He told me on Wednesday that he intended to leave all his money to one of those long-named regenerating societies—I can’t remember which.”

Jack: “And it was on Wednesday you sent for Egeria.  I see.”

Mrs. Jack (haughtily): “Then you see a figment of your own imagination; there is nothing else to see.  There!  I’ve packed everything that belongs to me, while you’ve been smoking and gazing at that railway guide.  When do we start?”

Jack: “11.59.  We arrive in Bideford at 4.40, and have a twelve-mile drive to Clovelly.  I will telegraph for a conveyance to the inn and for five bedrooms and a sitting-room.”

Mrs. Jack: “I hope that Egeria’s train will be on time, and I hope that it will rain so that I can wear my five-guinea mackintosh.  It poured every day when I was economizing and doing without it.”

Jack: “I never could see the value of economy that ended in extra extravagance.”

Mrs. Jack: “Very likely; there are hosts of things you never can see, Jackie.  But there she is, stepping out of a hansom, the darling!  What a sweet gown!  She’s infinitely more interesting than the sweating system.”

We thought we were a merry party before Egeria joined us, but she certainly introduced a new element of interest.  I could not help thinking of it as we were flying about the Bristol station, just before entering the first-class carriage engaged by our host.  Tommy had bought us rosebuds at a penny each; Atlas had a bundle of illustrated papers under his arm—The Sketch, Black and White, The Queen, The Lady’s Pictorial, and half a dozen others.  The guard was pasting an “engaged” placard on the carriage window and piling up six luncheon-baskets in the corner on the cushions, and speedily we were off.

It is a sincere tribute to the intrinsic charm of Egeria’s character that Mrs. Jack and I admire her so unreservedly, for she is for ever being hurled at us as an example in cases where men are too stupid to see that there is no fault in us, nor any special virtue in her.  For instance, Jack tells Kitty that she could walk with less fatigue if she wore sensible shoes like Egeria’s.  Now, Egeria’s foot is very nearly as lovely as Trilby’s in the story, and much prettier than Trilby’s in the pictures; consequently, she wears a hideous, broad-toed, low-heeled boot, and looks trim and neat in it.  Her hair is another contested point: she dresses it in five minutes in the morning, walks or drives in the rain and wind for a few hours, rides in the afternoon, bathes in the surf, lies in a hammock, and, if circumstances demand, the creature can smooth it with her hands and walk in to dinner!  Kitty and I, on the contrary, rise a half-hour earlier to curl or wave; our spirit-lamps leak into our dressing-bags, and our beauty is decidedly damaged by damp or hot weather.  Most women’s hair is a mere covering to the scalp, growing out of the head, or pinned on, as the case may be.  Egeria’s is a glory like Eve’s; it is expressive, breathing a hundred delicate suggestions of herself; not tortured into frizzles, or fringes, or artificial shapes, but winding its lustrous lengths about her head, just high enough to show the beautiful nape of her neck, “where this way and that the little lighter-coloured irreclaimable curls run truant from the knot,—curls, half curls, root curls, vine ringlets, wedding-rings, fledgling feathers, tufts of down, blown wisps,—all these wave, or fall, or stray, loose and downward in the form of small, silken paws, hardly any of them thicker than a crayon shading, cunninger than long, round locks of gold to trick the heart.”

At one o’clock we lifted the covers of our luncheon-baskets.