Short Fiction · At Twelve Tonight (1/3)

At Twelve Tonight

I

“ ‘In this treatise,’ ” read Professor Thurstane, laying down his pen and taking up his manuscript, “ ‘I desire to present the philosopher, not as a man destitute of emotion or passion, but as one having both under such perfect control that he can say to this or that emotion or passion “go,” and it goeth, or “come,” and it cometh.’ Yes, I think that will do for a beginning.” He broke off abruptly, exclaiming, “Confound it, who’s that?” as a timid rap sounded at his door.

The Professor looked sharply round to see if his bolt were drawn. “Who’s there?” he thundered again, upon which a thin, quavering voice, that one could vow belonged to an elderly spinster, replied:

“Cousin John, something particular; I can’t shout it through the keyhole.”

“Let it alone then.”

“But I must, if you don’t open your door.”

“Shout it then, and be done with it.”

A long pause ensued, as if the owner of the timid knuckles couldn’t quite make up her mind what to do. Then just as the Professor was beginning to congratulate himself that he might get back to his work, the lady’s voice was heard again:

“It’s really serious, or I wouldn’t disturb you. Nellie has been skating all the afternoon on the pond with Piers, and it’s getting dark”⁠—here a pause for breath⁠—“and I’ve sent for her, and she won’t come in”⁠—another pause for breath⁠—“and I’ve been out to her; but as soon as she sees me on one side of the pond, she skates round to the other, and I can’t catch her.”

No answer from the Professor, but a low chuckling sound as if he were laughing.

“Cousin John, what am I to do?” pursued the lady.

“Nothing.”

“But it’s getting dark.”

“Let it get dark.”

“I’ve always done my duty in the house⁠—”

“Confound it!” shouted the Professor, “will you go away and leave me in peace? This is the hundred-and-fiftieth interruption I’ve had today, and⁠—”

But the lady didn’t hear the conclusion of the sentence. With the Professor’s voice raised to that pitch, her only terror was lest he might open his door, so she fled precipitately.

Now this Professor was by no means a typical specimen of “the poor and learned fraternity.” He was one of those unlucky individuals, who, between two stools, had fallen to the ground. Nature had intended him for a bookworm, fate had decreed that he should be a country gentleman. At a comparatively early age he had attained to the dignity of a professorship at his university; he had scarcely, so to speak, seated himself in the professorial chair, when, through the death of his elder brother, the paternal acres and the family mansion fell to his lot, and from henceforward the Professor lived out two lives in snatches. By fits and starts he was the Professor, by fits and starts the country gentleman. Inclination and fate seemed ever at cross purposes with him, inclination was forever sending him behind the iron bolt of his study door, fate was forever dragging him out of that study. First an orphan nephew⁠—Piers⁠—was thrown on his hands; he was no sooner started in life and promising to do well for himself as a barrister, than an orphan niece⁠—Nellie⁠—came upon the scene. This was a more serious responsibility still, for the young lady was not only a remarkably pretty girl, but an heiress into the bargain.

The Professor did his best to throw the half of his responsibilities on someone else’s shoulders. He invited an elderly spinster cousin to take up her abode in the house as Nellie’s chaperon, and at the same moment laid a quiet little plot on his own account to make up a match between Piers and Nellie with as little delay as possible. This desirable event, it seemed to him, would at one and the same moment relieve him of the anxiety of two youthful careers, and restore to him the possibility of a quiet life.

With this end in view Piers was invited to the house as often as possible, and the young people allowed to see as much as they liked of each other; a course of proceeding which sometimes greatly scandalised the spinster cousin, who had been so well looked after up to the age of thirty-five, that her matrimonial chances had suffered, and who now at fifty-five years of age was beginning to think her hope of a wedding-ring a forlorn one.

“The simpleton,” said the Professor to himself, as he once more dipped his pen into his ink, “I gave her a hint yesterday not to be in such a hurry to light the lamps in the drawing-room.” He turned to his manuscript once more. “Yes, I think there’s a nice ring about that can say to this or that emotion ‘go,’ and it goeth⁠—heavens and earth! another interruption! That’s Piers’ knuckles; I should know them among a thousand.”

He rose slowly from his chair, and laid his hand upon his big bolt.

“Now,” he soliloquised, “to what emotion shall I be giving admittance if I draw back this bolt? Well, I may say to any I please, since it is the philosopher’s prerogative to command his emotions as a captain commands his soldiers. Well, now, the emotion I will summon for this interview will be calmness⁠—icy, impenetrable calmness. Nothing shall induce me to lose my temper, no matter how he may try it. Confound it! what are you in such a hurry for?” This was added in a loud, irritable tone, as the raps increased in peremptoriness. “Well, now you are let in, what do you want?” This was asked as, the bolt drawn back, he stood face to face with his nephew.

The Professor was short and stout, with bushy eyebrows and bald head; the young man who faced him was dark, thin-featured, and tall; decidedly good-looking, but also as decidedly his good-looking face had a cloud of annoyance upon it.

“Well, I don’t know that I’ve very much to say, except that I think of returning to town tonight, and⁠—”

The Professor’s face grew crimson. “Going!” he repeated, “what on earth do you mean? Does Nellie know?”

“Nellie knows, and Nellie doesn’t care twopence-halfpenny whether I go or stay.”

The Professor began to storm. “If she doesn’t care twopence-halfpenny the fault is yours,” he said. “I’ve given you every opportunity⁠—”

Piers laid his hand on his uncle’s arm. “Stop,” he said, “don’t let there be any mistake. I’ve been only too glad to make use of every opportunity you’ve given me, and this afternoon, as we came back from the ice, I asked her to marry me.”

“And she said?”

“She said that she couldn’t make up her mind whether she would or she wouldn’t.”

“And you said?”

“I told her that the mere fact of her answering in that fashion showed that she had made up her mind; that this wasn’t the answer a girl would give to a man if she really cared for him.”

The Professor threw up his hands, and turned up his eyes. “Of all the pieces of folly,” he began, “to take such an answer as final! Why, you’ll no sooner be out of the house than she’ll want you back again.”

“Will she? I very much doubt it.”

“A pretty girl, and twenty thousand pounds,” ejaculated the Professor, and again he threw up his hands and eyes.

“Two very good things apart,” interrupted Piers; “but conjoined not so nice, especially if the girl gives herself airs on the strength of her twenty thousand pounds.”

“Confound it, let me speak, will you!” but another rap at the door interrupted him now, and without waiting for permission the door opened, and Nellie came in.

She was small and slight, with large violet eyes, and such coils and masses of dark hair wound about her head that it seemed as if it must be almost too much for the small head to carry. Her face, usually pale, was flushed with exercise and the keen, frosty air. She was dressed in a seal fur from head to foot, and dangled her pretty seal cap on one finger.

“I’ve come to announce visitors,” she said, addressing her uncle. But the Professor scarcely seemed to hear her, his thoughts were full of his grievance.

“Piers is going,” he exclaimed, still at fever heat, “going⁠—going⁠—going⁠—do you understand?”

“Is he?” was Nellie’s calm rejoinder. For a moment she turned to Piers: “Oh, if you must go today, you’d better go into the drawing-room at once, and see the visitors. They are cousins, and are most anxious to see you, for they say that your father and their father were great chums.”

Piers, glad to escape from Nellie’s presence, left the room immediately.

The Professor’s attention was caught now. “More relatives,” he groaned, “I didn’t know I had another in the world save and except the Spanish Harleys.”

“The very same,” said Nellie. “It is they who are downstairs. I met them on the doorstep as I came in. They own to the names of Beatrix and Guy.”

“Beatrix and Guy! Bless my soul! Are they going to throw themselves on my hands, because I’m the head of the family? They went to Granada fifteen years ago with their father and mother⁠—the mother was in a consumption and their father turned wine-grower⁠—for the sake of the climate. Both died, I remember. Ah, time passes!” He gave a sigh to the memory of the days gone by. Then a sudden terror seized him. “What are they like, Nellie? Tell me quickly.”

“Oh, Guy is very, very handsome, tall, fair, and very distinguished-looking, a lovely moustache, and⁠—”

“Confound his moustache! What is she like, that’s what I want to know?”

“Oh, I suppose some people would call her handsome, but she is not in the least the style I admire. She is very tall, and dressed very fashionably, the loveliest furs⁠—”

“Confound her furs! Does she look⁠—look⁠—lively, and⁠—and active, and⁠—and⁠—”

“I should think she was very lively, yes, and active too; for, although I only stayed five minutes in the room with them, she told me she could never keep still for long together, she must always be doing something for somebody.”

“That’s it,” cried the Professor, excitedly. “That’s Beatrix to the backbone. When I last saw her she was a handsome tomboy of fifteen or sixteen, and I have a vivid recollection of her climbing the old yew-tree, and dropping my Plato into the thrush’s nest. Then, when I fetched a ladder for I was never good at climbing⁠—and had got well into the upper branches, she made off with the ladder, and left me shouting and whistling to the gardeners the entire afternoon.” His eyes wandered anxiously towards his beloved volumes, as if he felt them already to be in danger. “But she shan’t come in here; no, I vow she shan’t! Tell her I’m ill with the measles, gout, scarlet-fever, anything, only keep her away from me!”

“I fancy they’ve come to stay a day or two,” put in Nellie, a little mischievously.

“Stay! I vow they shan’t! Take my message, do you hear? To think I should be worried in this way when I might be committing to paper my immortal thoughts! Where’s Lavinia?” he demanded. “She’ll take my messages ever so much better than you.”

“As I passed a window just now,” said Nellie, demurely, “I saw a figure swathed in thick shawls like a mummy, going towards the pond. It might have been Cousin Lavinia going to look for me. I dare say she’ll be back in half an hour.”

But at that very moment the door was pushed open, and the figure “swathed in thick shawls like a mummy” entered. It was, as Nellie supposed, Cousin Lavinia, and her features showed sharp and pinched with the cold, and her breath seemed all gone.

“I’ve been running⁠—running everywhere⁠—” she began.

The Professor turned sharply upon her.

“Now you two are going to begin, I suppose. I won’t have it; no, I tell you I’ll have no wrangling here. Is this my study, or is it not, I ask you? Will you oblige me by going downstairs to continue your discussion?” he said, almost at white heat now, and throwing back his door to expedite their departure.

They were no sooner on the doormat than the door was shut behind them, and the bolt sent into its socket with a pronounced clang.

“Heavens and earth,” they could hear him groan, “what it is to be the head of the family!”

Nellie and Cousin Lavinia looked at each other.

“There are visitors below,” said the latter. “I wanted to ask him whether I was to invite them to stay. Christmas is just at hand, and⁠—”

“Oh, ask them by all means!” said Nellie, giving a mischievous look at the closed door, and with a vivid picture of the handsome Guy still in her mind’s eye. “I should tell them, if I were you, that Uncle John will be delighted if they’ll spend ten days or a fortnight with us.”