The Irrational Knot: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Earl of Carbury was a youngish man with no sort of turn for being a
nobleman. He could not bring himself to behave as if he was anybody in
particular; and though this passed for perfect breeding whenever he by
chance appeared in his place in society, on the magisterial bench, or in
the House of Lords, it prevented him from making the most of the
earldom, and was a standing grievance with his relatives, many of whom
were the most impudent and uppish people on the face of the earth. He
was, if he had only known it, a born republican, with no natural belief
in earls at all; but as he was rather too modest to indulge his
consciousness with broad generalizations of this kind, all he knew about
the matter was that he was sensible of being a bad hand at his
hereditary trade of territorial aristocrat. At a very early age he had
disgraced himself by asking his mother whether he might be a watchmaker
when he grew up, and his feeble sense on that occasion of the
impropriety of an earl being anything whatsoever except an earl had
given his mother an imperious contempt for him which afterward got
curiously mixed with a salutary dread of his moral superiority to her,
which was considerable. His aspiration to become a watchmaker was an
early symptom of his extraordinary turn for mechanics. An apprenticeship
of six years at the bench would have made an educated workman of him: as
it was, he pottered at every mechanical pursuit as a gentleman amateur
in a laboratory and workshop which he had got built for himself in his
park. In this magazine of toys--for such it virtually was at first--he
satisfied his itchings to play with tools and machines. He was no
sportsman; but if he saw in a shop window the most trumpery patent
improvement in a breechloader, he would go in and buy it; and as to a
new repeating rifle or liquefied gas gun, he would travel to St.
Petersburg to see it. He wrote very little; but he had sixteen different
typewriters, each guaranteed perfect by an American agent, who had also
pledged himself that the other fifteen were miserable impostures. A
really ingenious bicycle or tricycle always found in him a ready
purchaser; and he had patented a roller skate and a railway brake. When
the electric chair for dental operations was invented, he sacrificed a
tooth to satisfy his curiosity as to its operation. He could not play
brass instruments to any musical purpose; but his collection of double
slide trombones, bombardons with patent compensating pistons, comma
trumpets, and the like, would have equipped a small military band;
whilst his newly tempered harmonium with fifty-three notes to each
octave, and his pianos with simplified keyboards that nobody could play
on, were the despair of all musical amateurs who came to stay at Towers
Cottage, as his place was called. He would buy the most expensive and
elaborate lathe, and spend a month trying to make a true billiard ball
at it. At the end of that time he would have to send for a professional
hand, who would cornet the ball with apparently miraculous skill in a
few seconds. He got on better with chemistry and photography; but at
last he settled down to electrical engineering, and, giving up the idea
of doing everything with his own half-trained hand, kept a skilled man
always in his laboratory to help him out.

All along there had been a certain love of the marvelous at the bottom
of his fancy for inventions. Therefore, though he did not in the least
believe in ghosts, he would "investigate" spiritualism, and part with
innumerable guineas to mediums, slatewriters, clairvoyants, and even of
turbaned rascals from the East, who would boldly offer at midnight to
bring him out into the back yard and there and then raise the devil for
him. And just as his tendency was to magnify the success and utility of
his patent purchases, so he would lend himself more or less to gross
impostures simply because they interested him. This confirmed his
reputation for being a bit of a crank; and as he had in addition all the
restlessness and eccentricity of the active spirits of his class,
arising from the fact that no matter what he busied himself with, it
never really mattered whether he accomplished it or not, he remained an
unsatisfied and (considering the money he cost) unsatisfactory specimen
of a true man in a false position.

Towers Cottage was supposed to be a mere appendage to Carbury Towers,
which had been burnt down, to the great relief of its noble owners, in
the reign of William IV. The Cottage, a handsome one-storied Tudor
mansion, with tall chimneys, gabled roofs, and transom windows, had
since served the family as a very sufficient residence, needing a much
smaller staff of servants than the Towers, and accommodating fewer
visitors. At first it had been assumed on all hands that the stay at the
Cottage was but a temporary one, pending the re-erection of the Towers
on a scale of baronial magnificence; but this tradition, having passed
through its primal stage of being a standing excuse with the elders
into that of being a standing joke with the children, had naturally
lapsed as the children grew up. Indeed, the Cottage was now too large
for the family; for the Earl was still unmarried, and all his sisters
had contracted splendid alliances except the youngest, Lady Constance
Carbury, a maiden of twenty-two, with a thin face and slight angular
figure, who was still on her mother's hands. The illustrious matches
made by her sisters had, in fact, been secured by extravagant dowering,
which had left nothing for poor Lady Constance except a miserable three
hundred pounds a year, at which paltry figure no man had as yet offered
to take her. The Countess (Dowager) habitually assumed that Marmaduke
Lind ardently desired the hand of his cousin; and Constance herself
supported tacitly this view; but the Earl was apt to become restive when
it was put forward, though he altogether declined to improve his
sister's pecuniary position, having already speculated quite heavily
enough in brothers-in-law.

In the August following the Wandsworth concert Lord Carbury began to
take his electrical laboratory with such intensified seriousness that he
flatly refused to entertain any visitors until the 12th, and held fast
to his determination in spite of his mother's threat to leave the house,
alleging, with a laugh, that he had got hold of a discovery with money
in it at last. But he felt at such a disadvantage after this incredible
statement that he hastened to explain that his objection to visitors did
not apply to relatives who would be sufficiently at home at Towers
Cottage to require no attention from him. Under the terms of this
capitulation Marian, as universal favorite, was invited; and since there
was no getting Marian down without Elinor, she was invited too, in
spite of the Countess's strong dislike for her, a sentiment which she
requited with a pungent mixture of detestation and contempt. Marian's
brother, the Reverend George Lind, promised to come down in a day or
two; and Marmaduke, who was also invited, did not reply.

The morning after her arrival, Marian was awakened at six o'clock by a
wagon rumbling past the window of her room with a sound quite different
from that made by the dust-cart in Westbourne Terrace. She peeped out at
it, and saw that is was laden with packages of irregular shape, which,
judging by some strange-looking metal rods that projected through the
covering, she took to be apparatus for Lord Jasper's laboratory. From
the wagon, with its patiently trudging horse and dull driver, she lifted
her eyes to the lawn, where the patches of wet shadow beneath the cedars
refreshed the sunlit grass around them. It looked too fine a morning to
spend in bed. Had Marian been able to taste and smell the fragrant
country air she would not have hesitated a moment. But she had been
accustomed to believe that fresh air was unhealthy at night, and though
nothing would have induced her to wash in dirty water, she thought
nothing of breathing dirty air; and so the window was shut and the room
close. Still, the window did not exclude the loud singing of the birds
or the sunlight. She ventured to open it a little, not without a sense
of imprudence. Twenty minutes later she was dressed.

She first looked into the drawing-room, but it was stale and dreary. The
dining-room, which she tried next, made her hungry. The arrival of a
servant with a broom suggested to her that she had better get out of the
way of the household work. She felt half sorry for getting up, and went
out on the lawn to recover her spirits. There she heard a man's voice
trolling a stave somewhere in the direction of the laboratory. Thinking
that it might be Lord Carbury, and that, if so, he would probably not
wait until half past nine to break his fast, she ran gaily off round the
southwest corner of the Cottage to a terrace, from which there was
access through a great double window, now wide open, to a lofty
apartment roofed with glass.

At a large table in the middle of the room sat a man with his back to
the window. He had taken off his coat, and was bending over a small
round block with little holes sunk into it. Each hole was furnished with
a neat brass peg, topped with ebony; and the man was lifting and
replacing one of these pegs whilst he gravely watched the dial of an
instrument that resembled a small clock. A large straw hat concealed his
head, and protected it from the rays that were streaming through the
glass roof and open window. The apparent triviality of his occupation,
and his intentness upon it, amused Marian. She stole into the
laboratory, came close behind him, and said:

"Since you have nothing better to do than play cribbage with yourself,
I----"

She had gently lifted up his straw hat, and found beneath a head that
was not Lord Carbury's. The man, who had cowered with surprise at her
touch and voice, but had waited even then to finish an observation of
his galvanometer before turning, now turned and stared at her.

"I _beg_ your pardon," said Marian, blushing vigorously. "I thought it
was Lord Carbury. I have disturbed you very rudely. I----"

"Not at all," said the man. "I quite understand. I was not playing
cribbage, but I was doing nothing very important. However, as you
certainly did take me by surprise, perhaps you will excuse my coat."

"Oh, pray dont mind me. I must not interrupt your work." She looked at
his face again, but only for an instant, as he was watching her. Then,
with another blush, she put out her hand and said, "How do you do, Mr.
Conolly. I did not recognize you at first."

He shook hands, but did not offer any further conversation. "What a
wonderful place!" she said, looking round, with a view to making herself
agreeable by taking an interest in everything. "Wont you explain it all
to me? To begin with, what is electricity?"

Conolly stared rather at this question, and then shook his head. "I dont
know anything about that," he said; "I am only a workman. Perhaps Lord
Carbury can tell you: he has read a good deal about it."

Marian looked incredulously at him. "I am sure you are joking," she
said. "Lord Carbury says you know ever so much more than he does. I
suppose I asked a stupid question. What are those reels of green silk
for?"

"Ah," said Conolly, relaxing. "Come now, I can tell you that easily
enough. I dont know what it _is_, but I know what it does, and I can lay
traps to catch it. Here now, for instance----"

And he went on to deliver a sort of chatty Royal Institution Children's
Lecture on Electricity which produced a great impression on Marian, who
was accustomed to nothing better than small talk. She longed to interest
him by her comments and questions, but she found that they had a most
discouraging effect on him. Redoubling her efforts, she at last reduced
him to silence, of which she availed herself to remark, with great
earnestness, that science was a very wonderful thing.

"How do you know?" he said, a little bluntly.

"I am sure it must be," she replied, brightening; for she thought he had
now made a rather foolish remark. "Is Lord Carbury a very clever
scientist?"

Conolly looked just grave enough to suggest that the question was not
altogether a discreet one. Then, brushing off that consideration, he
replied:

"He has seen a great deal and read a great deal. You see, he has great
means at his disposal. His property is as good as a joint-stock company
at his back. Practically, he is very good, considering his method of
working: not so good, considering the means at his disposal."

"What would you do if you had his means?"

Conolly made a gesture which plainly signified that he thought he could
do a great many things.

"And is science, then, so expensive? I thought it was beyond the reach
of money."

"Oh, yes: science may be. But I am not a scientific man: I'm an
inventor. The two things are quite different. Invention is the most
expensive thing in the world. It takes no end of time, and no end of
money. Time is money; so it costs both ways."

"Then why dont you discover something and make your fortune?"

"I have already discovered something."

"Oh! What is it?"

"That it costs a fortune to make experiments enough to lead to an
invention."

"You are exaggerating, are you not? What do you mean by a fortune?"

"In my case, at least four or five hundred pounds."

"Is that all? Surely you would have no difficulty in getting five
hundred pounds."

Conolly laughed. "To be sure," said he. "What is five hundred pounds?"

"A mere nothing--considering the importance of the object. You really
ought not to allow such a consideration as that to delay your career. I
have known people spend as much in one day on the most worthless
things."

"There is something in that, Miss Lind. How would you recommend me to
begin?"

"First," said Marian, with determination, "make up your mind to spend
the money. Banish all scruples about the largeness of the sum. Resolve
not to grudge even twice as much to science."

"That is done already. I have quite made up my mind to spend the money.
What next?"

"Well, I suppose the next thing is to spend it."

"Excuse me. The next thing is to get it. It is a mere detail, I know;
but I should like to settle it before we go any further."

"But how can I tell you that? You forget that I am quite unacquainted
with your affairs. You are a man, and understand business, which of
course I dont."

"If you wanted five hundred pounds, Miss Lind, how would you set about
getting it?--if I may ask."

"What? I! But, as I say, I am only a woman. I should ask my father for
it, or sign a receipt for my trustees, or something of that sort."

"That is a very simple plan. But unfortunately I have no father and no
trustees. Worse than that, I have no money. You must suggest some other
way."

"Do what everybody else does in your circumstances. Borrow it. I am sure
Lord Carbury would lend it to you."

Conolly shook his head. "It doesnt do for a man in my position to start
borrowing the moment he makes the acquaintance of a man in Lord
Carbury's," he said. "We are working a little together already on one of
my ideas, and that is as far as I care to ask him to go. I am afraid I
must ask you for another suggestion."

"Save up all your money until you have enough."

"That would take some time. Let me see. As I am an exceptionally
fortunate and specially skilled workman, I can now calculate on making
from seventy shillings to six pounds a week. Say four pounds on the
average."

"Ah," said Marian, despondingly, "you would have to wait more than two
years to save five hundred pounds."

"And to dispense with food, clothes, and lodging in the meantime."

"True," said Marian. "Of course, I see that it is impossible for you to
save anything. And yet it seems absurd to be stopped by the want of such
a sum. I have a cousin who has no money at all, and no experiments to
make, and he paid a thousand pounds for a race-horse last spring."

Conolly nodded, to intimate that he knew that such things happened.

Marian could think of no further expedient. She stood still, thinking,
whilst Conolly took up a bit of waste and polished a brass cylinder.

"Mr. Conolly," she said at last, "I cannot absolutely promise you; but I
think I can get you five hundred pounds." Conolly stopped polishing the
cylinder, and stared at her. "If I have not enough, I am sure we could
make the rest by a bazaar or something. I should like to begin to invest
my money; and if you make some great invention, like the telegraph or
steam engine, you will be able to pay it back to me, and to lend me
money when _I_ want it."

Conolly blushed. "Thank you, Miss Lind," said he, "thank you very much
indeed. I--It would be ungrateful of me to refuse; but I am not so ready
to begin my experiments as my talking might lead you to suppose. My
estimate of their cost was a mere guess. I am not satisfied that it is
not want of time and perseverance more than of money that is the real
obstacle. However, I will--I will--a----Have you any idea of the value
of money, Miss Lind? Have you ever had the handling of it?"

"Of course," said Marian, secretly thinking that the satisfaction of
shaking his self-possession was cheap at five hundred pounds. "I keep
house at home, and do all sorts of business things."

Conolly glanced about him vaguely; picked up the piece of waste again as
if he had been looking for that; recollected himself; and looked
unintelligibly at her. Her uncertainty as to what he would do next was a
delightful sensation: why, she did not know nor care. To her intense
disappointment, Lord Carbury entered just then, and roused her from what
was unaccountably like a happy dream.

Nothing more of any importance happened that day except the arrival of a
letter from Paris, addressed to Lady Constance in Marmaduke's
handwriting. Miss McQuinch first heard of it in the fruit garden, where
she found Constance sitting with her arm around Marian's waist in a
summer-house. She sat down opposite them, at a rough oak table.

"A letter, Nelly!" said Marian. "A letter! A letter from Marmaduke! I
have extorted leave for you to read it. Here it is. Handle it carefully,
pray."

"Has he proposed?" said Elinor, taking it.

Constance changed color. Elinor opened the letter in silence, and read:

  My dear Constance:
  I hope you are quite well. I am having an awfully jolly time of it
  here. What a pity it is you dont come over! I was wishing for you
  yesterday in the Louvre, where we spent a pleasant day looking at
  the pictures. I send you the silk you wanted, and had great trouble
  hunting through half-a-dozen shops for it. Not that I mind the
  trouble, but just to let you see my devotion to you. I have no more
  to say at present, as it is nearly post hour. Remember me to the
  clan.
                                               Yours ever,
                                                         DUKE.
  P.S.--How do Nelly and your mother get along together?

Whilst Elinor was reading, the gardener passed the summer-house, and
Constance went out and spoke to him. Elinor looked significantly at
Marian.

"Nelly," returned Marian, in hushed tones of reproach, "you have stabbed
poor Constance to the heart by telling her that Marmaduke never proposed
to her. That is why she has gone out."

"Yes," said Elinor, "it was brutal. But I thought, as you made such a
fuss about the letter, that it must have been a proposal at least. It
cant be helped now. It is one more enemy for me, that is all."

"What do you think of the letter? Was it not kind of him to
write--considering how careless he is usually?"

"Hm! Did he match the silk properly?".

"To perfection. He must really have taken some trouble. You know how he
botched getting the ribbon for his fancy dress at the ball last year."

"That is just what I was thinking about. Do you remember also how he
ridiculed the Louvre after his first trip to Paris, and swore that
nothing would ever induce him to enter it again?"

"He has got more sense now. He says in the letter that he spent
yesterday there."

"Not exactly. He says '_we_ spent a pleasant day looking at the
pictures.' Who is '_we_'?"

"Some companion of his, I suppose. Why?"

"I was just thinking could it be the person who has matched the silk so
well. The same woman, I mean."

"Oh, Nelly!"

"Oh, Marian! Do you suppose Marmaduke would spend an afternoon at the
Louvre with a man, who could just as well go by himself? Do men match
silks?"

"Of course they do. Any fly-fisher can do it better than a woman.
Really, Nell, you have an odious imagination."

"Yes--when my imagination is started on an odious track. Nothing will
persuade me that Marmaduke cares a straw for Constance. He does not want
to marry her, though he is too great a coward to own it."

"Why do you say so? I grant you he is unceremonious and careless. But he
is the same to everybody."

"Yes: to everybody _we_ know. What is the use of straining after an
amiable view of things, Marian, when a cynical view is most likely to be
the true one."

"There is no harm in giving people credit for being good."

"Yes, there is, when people are not good, which is most often the case.
It sets us wrong practically, and holds virtue cheap. If Marmaduke is a
noble and warmhearted man, and Constance a lovable, innocent girl, all I
can say is that it is not worth while to be noble or lovable. If
amiability consists in maintaining that black is white, it is a quality
anyone may acquire by telling a lie and sticking to it."

"But I dont maintain that black is white. Only it seems to me that as
regards white, you are color blind. Where I see white, you see black;
and----hush! Here is Constance."

"Yes," whispered Elinor: "she comes back quickly enough when it occurs
to her that we are talking about her."

Instead of simply asking why Constance should not behave in this very
natural manner if she chose to, Marian was about to defend Constance
warmly by denying all motive to her return, when that event took place
and stopped the discussion. Marian and Nelly spent a considerable part
of their lives in bandying their likes and dislikes under the impression
that they were arguing important points of character and conduct.

They knew that Constance wanted to answer Marmaduke's letter; so they
alleged correspondence of their own, and left her to herself.

Lady Constance went to her brother's study, where there was a
comfortable writing-table. She began to write without hesitation, and
her pen gabbled rapidly until she had covered two sheets of paper,
when, instead of taking a fresh sheet, she wrote across the lines
already written. After signing the letter, she read it through, and
added two postscripts. Then she remembered something she had forgotten
to say; but there was no more room on her two sheets, and she was
reluctant to use a third, which might, in a letter to France, involve
extra postage. Whilst she was hesitating her brother entered.

"Am I in your way?" she said. "I shall have done in a moment."

"No, I am not going to write. By-the-bye, they tell me you had a letter
from Marmaduke this morning. Has he anything particular to say?"

"Nothing very particular. He is in Paris."

"Indeed? Are you writing to him?"

"Yes," said Constance, irritated by his disparaging tone. "Why not?"

"Do as you please, of course. I am afraid he is a scamp."

"Are you? You know a great deal about him, I dare say."

"I am not much reassured by those who do know about him."

"And who may they be? The only person you know who has seen much of him
is Marian, and she doesnt speak ill of people behind their backs."

"Marian takes rather a rose-colored view of everybody, Marmaduke
included. You should talk to Nelly about him."

"I knew it. I knew, the minute you began to talk, who had set you on."

"I am afraid Nelly's opinion is worth more than Marians."

"_Her_ opinion! Everybody knows what her opinion is. She is bursting
with jealousy of me."

"Jealousy!"

"What else? Marmaduke has never taken the least notice of her, and she
is madly in love with him."

"This is quite a new light upon the affair. Constance, are you sure you
are not romancing?"

"Romancing! Why, she cannot conceal her venom. She taunted me this
morning in the summer-house because Marmaduke has never made me a formal
proposal. It was the letter that made her do it. Ask Marian."

"I can hardly believe it: I should not have supposed, from what I have
observed, that she cared about him."

You should not have supposed it from what she _said_: is that what you
mean? I dont care whether you believe it or not."

"Well, if you are so confident, there is no occasion to be acrimonious
about Elinor. She is more to be pitied than blamed."

"Yes, everybody is to pity Elinor because she cant have her wish and
make me wretched," said Constance, beginning to cry. Whereupon Lord
Carbury immediately left the room.

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