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The first was to set out upon his grand tour of the world with as little delay as possible, to shut up this Finacue Street establishment for a long time, and get rid of the soul-destroying perfections of Merkle. The second was to end his ill-advised intimacy with little Mrs. Skelmersdale as generously and cheerfully as possible.
"And a liqueur?" Benham had some Benedictine! One could not slight such sympathetic helpfulness. The Benedictine was genuine. And then came the coffee. The cup of coffee was generously conceived and honestly made. A night of clear melancholy ensued.... Hitherto Benham had not faced in any detail the problem of how to break with Mrs. Skelmersdale. Now he faced it pessimistically.
Skelmersdale, feeling dissipated and fumbling with his white tie. And she was looking tired. "God!" he said. "How did I get there?" And then suddenly he reached out his arms in the darkness and prayed aloud to the silences. "Oh, God! Give me back my visions! Give me back my visions!"
They were experienced women in their way, and found a variety of reasons; but as none of them were young, and as people will forget how youth feels, not one of them divined the fact that there was no reason, but that this improvement of spirits arose solely from the fact that the Perpetual Curate had been for two whole days miserable about Skelmersdale, and had exhausted all his powers of misery and that now youth had turned the tables, and he was still to see Lucy tonight.
Here was the real barrier that had kept him inactive for ten months. Here was the problem he had to solve. This was how he had been left out of active things, a prey to distractions, excitements, idle temptations and Mrs. Skelmersdale. Running away to shoot big game or explore wildernesses was no remedy. That was just running away. Aristocrats do not run away.
She is going to be married to Mr Shirley's excellent curate, who is a young man of the highest character. He did very well at the university, I believe," said the patroness of Skelmersdale; "but I confess I don't care much for academical honours. He is an excellent clergyman, which is a great deal more to the purpose, and I thoroughly agree with his views.
The third time he waved his hat clumsily, and she started and then answered with her hand. Then the trees hid her.... This sex business was a damnable business. If only because it made one hurt women.... He had trampled on Mrs. Skelmersdale, he had hurt and disappointed his mother. Was he a brute? Was he a cold-blooded prig? What was this aristocracy? Was his belief anything more than a theory?
If these real facts were to be got from any one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; and I set myself, therefore, still more assiduously to efface the first bad impression I had made and win his confidence to the pitch of voluntary speech. In that endeavour I had a social advantage.
It was a discipline upon which he had not calculated, and which exceeded the bounds of endurance, especially as Miss Leonora questioned him incessantly about his "work," and still dangled before him, like an unattainable sweet-meat before a child, the comforts and advantages of Skelmersdale, where poor old Mr Shirley had rallied for the fiftieth time.
"What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?" "'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said the respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks." And with that the gathering was well under weigh.
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