VII

It is impossible to divine what might have occurred for the delectation of the very ancient borough of Oldcastle if that frivolous piece of goods, Edith, had not taken it into her head to run down from London for a few days, on the plea that London was too ridiculously hot.  She was a pretty girl, with fluffy honey-coloured hair and about thirty white frocks.  And she seemed to be quite as silly as her staid stepmother and her prim step-aunt had said.  She transformed the careful order of the house into a wild disorder, and left a novel or so lying on the drawing-room table between her stepmother’s Contemporary Review and her step-aunt’s History of European Morals.  Her taste in music was candidly and brazenly bad.  It was a fact, as her elders had stated, that she played nothing but waltzes.  What was worse, she compelled Carl Ullman to perform waltzes.  And one day she burst into the drawing-room when Carl was alone there, with a roll under her luscious arm, and said: 

“What do you think I’ve found at Barrowfoot’s?”

“I don’t know,” said Carl, gloomily smiling, and then smiling without gloom.

“Waldteufel’s waltzes arranged for four hands.  You must play them with me at once.”

And he did.  It was a sad spectacle to see the organist of St Placid’s galloping through a series of dances with the empty-headed Edith.

The worst was, he liked it.  He knew that he ought to prefer the high intellectual plane, the severe artistic tastes, of the elderly sisters.  But he did not.  He was amazed to discover that frivolity appealed more powerfully to his secret soul.  He was also amazed to discover that his gloom was leaving him.  This vanishing of gloom gave him strange sensations, akin to the sensations of a man who, after having worn gaiters into middle-age, abandons them.

After the Waldteufel she began to tell him all about herself; how she went slumming in the East End, and how jolly it was.  And how she helped in the Bloomsbury Settlement, and how jolly that was.  And, later, she said: 

“You must have thought it very odd of me, Mr Ullman, not thanking you for so bravely rescuing my poor cat; but the truth is I never heard of it till to-day.  I can’t say how grateful I am.  I should have loved to see you doing it.”

“Is Goldie your cat?” he feebly inquired.

“Why, of course?” she said.  “Didn’t you know?  Of course you did!  Goldie always belonged to me.  Grandpa bought him for me.  But I couldn’t do with him in London, so I always leave him here for them to take care of.  He adores me.  He never forgets me.  He’ll come to me before anyone.  You must have noticed that.  I can’t say how grateful I am!  It was perfectly marvellous of you!  I can’t help laughing, though, whenever I think what a state mother and auntie must have been in that night!”