Richard Marsh

“ Sylvia's assistant.
"My goodness! what is this?" She was holding up what looked as if it were some weird sort of a blouse made of all the colours of the rainbow; it was certainly not part of my wedding-dress. She stared and we stared. Then she dropped on to a chair with a groan. "There's been a mistake," she gasped. "In the hurry I've brought a dress which we have been making for Mrs Markham for a fancy-dress ball, and I'm afraid your dress has gone to her."
There are moments in life when, the worst having come to the worst, obviously the only thing left to do is to look it boldly in the face. ”

“ Standing in the doorway was an individual who was dressed in a fashion in which gentlemen in the immediate neighbourhood of Hercules Buildings were not accustomed to dress. His clothes were beautiful, he wore patent leather shoes, his tie was a marvel, he carried a glossy silk hat in a well-gloved hand. He became his costume--so tall and so slender; with a little beard cut to a point; a charming moustache, the ends of which curled gracefully upwards. The vision was such an unexpected one that Lizzie, forgetful, for the moment, of her manners, stared at the stranger with bewildered surprise. ”

“ I never yet sat down to a better dinner than Gardiner had had prepared for us that night, nor one as good. No doubt the reaction, the surprise, the laughter, provided a piquant sauce. For when we realised that that monstrous menu had been but a ghastly joke, and that a banquet calculated to tempt the jaded palate of an Epicurus was awaiting the favour of our consumption, we enjoyed the joke as heartily as its perpetrator could have himself desired. ”

“ Ronald! Ronald!"
Even while the name was still upon her lips a servant was standing with the handle of the open door in his hand, announcing,--
"Mr Ferguson!"
And Mr Ferguson came in.
As Lady Griswold turned to greet him, one could not but feel that she was beautiful. Beautiful with the beauty which is the crowning beauty of all beauty in the eyes of many men. The beauty of the beautiful woman who is in the full, rich, ripe glory of her summer's prime. She advanced to him with both her hands held out. ”

“ The girl looked him up and down, as if searching for something wrong in his costume or his bearing.
"Now you've got to behave yourself."
He shuffled from one foot to the other. And he grinned.
"Don't I always behave myself?"
"You've got to behave yourself extra special well, you're in a lady's room." He looked about him, his grin continually expanding. The girl, propping up the mirror which Lizzie had left upon the table against a box, began, by its aid, to fidget with her hat, talking as she did so. "Tom Duffield, you're on your good behaviour; as I might say, you're on appro. ”

“ What had become of the hounds, and the hunt, and the array of dog-carts, and the excited pedestrian throng? Were we two all that was left of them?
While such questions passed through my brain, for which I in vain sought answers, we sat on our horses on one side of the hedge, while on the other the proud monarch of the woodland cropped the sweet grasses with the humble sheep, for all the world as if he were one of them. Plainly, we were more interested in him than he in us; the close proximity of men caused him no annoyance.
Philipson volunteered an observation. ”

“ Presently I was aware that Hollis was calling the attention of one of the strangers to me.
"This is my friend Short. Short, this is Pickard. Pickard, Short's a dark horse; one of those unattached men who have no handicaps."
"I take it that you're a plus man, Mr Short."
I perceived at once that Mr Pickard was a Scotchman. I do not desire, in any illiberal spirit, to say that I object to Scotchmen as a nation; but I do not hesitate to affirm that I realised, on the instant, that this was the type of Scotchman with whom I was not likely to find myself in sympathy. ”

“ Mrs Spencer was an individual to whom I never had felt drawn. A little, fussy woman, with a fidgety manner, who was always tangling herself up in her own sentences. When she was announced, what she wanted with me I could not guess. It was with indescribable sensations that I gradually learnt.
"Miss Wilson," she began, "you are an orphan." I admitted it. From the way in which she was regarding me she might have been expecting me to deny it. "Therefore, much should be excused you. Providence does not wish us to press hardly on the motherless." ”

“ The cigars themselves, oddly enough, he slipped, case and all, into an inner pocket of his cassock.
All at once there was borne on some current of the air the distant murmur of a crowd. He stood and listened. The sound grew louder; it seemed to be coming nearer. The light faded from the Rev. Simon's eyes; every faculty was absorbed in the act of listening. The sound was approaching; it rose and fell; now dying away in a sullen murmur, now rising to a startling yell. His hand stole into his bosom. When it reappeared it held a knife, shaped something like a surgeon's scalpel. ”

“ But he was beginning then to be conscious of an unwonted feeling of irritation.
"I am simply here, Lady Griswold, to inform you that I propose to marry."
"Propose to marry! Is that the way in which you speak of it? And you do really think that it is news to me--after all your letters? Ronald! Ronald!"
It was inconceivable that a woman could be such a fool. Yet it was so. There was a rapturous suggestion in her voice which, literally, frightened him. The devil fly away with those letters of his! If ever he even dropped so much as a shadow of a hint again! She actually began to woo him. ”

“ The Dean did know whose bag it was--he knew too well. There was no mistaking those initials and that crest. There was no necessity to examine the sermon which Mr Boulter assured him was inside. The Dean gazed at that excellent example of fine workmanship in leather bags as if he realised that he had all at once become an actor in what might turn out to be a tragedy. Words proceeded from his stammering lips.
"You are, I am sure, too reasonable a man, Mr Boulter, to jump at impossible conclusions from imperfect premisses." ”

“ A more dreadful set of people to read a musical comedy to one could not by any possibility imagine. The jokes--especially as he read them!--did not strike even me as being very good ones, and sometimes they were a little frivolous. What does one expect in a musical comedy? Had they been the finest jokes conceivable it would not have mattered. I do not believe there was a person present who could have seen a joke at all, even with the aid of a surgical operation. Each time there was a touch of frivolity the faces of the audience grew graver. ”

“ However that may be, it is quite certain that cleanliness has no connection with that particular set of bedding. It is alive. All night you lie in agony--literally. The clanging clock makes darkness hideous--it seems to accentuate the all-prevailing silence. Your brain is in a whirl--thoughts are trampling on each other's heels. To mental discomfort is added physical. When the earliest glimpse of dawn peeps through the caricature of an honest window you rise and search. There is slaughter. Rest is out of the question. Putting on your clothes you pace the cell. ”

“ But as I was conscious that the paving-stones and the black dogs between them might cost me a little fortune, in my case this was supposition only. For the future I would make a point of promenading up and down the thoroughfares which were ornamented by a trio of sooty-hued canine quadrupeds, and would persistently step on the seams in the pavement. But the past was past. It was not for me to resurrect it.
As the day appointed for that travesty of a dinner approached I became more and more alive to the unsatisfactory nature of my relations with Adeline. ”

“ Henrietta, I am ready to forgive Crookenden at any moment of any day. He has only to ask me; he will find me quite prepared. Do you mean to say that he is so dead to the beauty and the sweetness of a united parish that he is unwilling to allow to others that freedom of conscience which he claims for himself. ”

“ When she was again alone, Liz Emmett was lost in wonder. As she had said, she also was a dreamer and, as became a dreamer, had her heroes and her heroines. Theatrical heroines hers, for the most part, were; not, that is, the creations of the dramatist's fancy, but their flesh-and-blood enactors. The popular actress was the ideal creature of her waking visions. Who, on the contemporary stage, was more popular, in her own line, than Agnes Graham? There was a time when Lizzie had been more than half inclined to bate her voice when uttering her name. ”

“ He has left you in possession of a Bible, a prayer book, hymn book, an ancient and ragged volume of the Penny Post--in its way a curiosity--and a copy of Quentin Durward--Routledge's three-and-sixpenny edition, almost as good as new. Presently the first warder reappears.
"What property have you got about you?"
You give him all you have, he returning your handkerchief. Having given him everything, he satisfies himself that you have nothing more by feeling in your pockets.
"Can't I have my work? It is in my bag. Can't I work while I am here?" ”

“ Dismal, dirty, draughty carriage. Cold wind blowing. Tried every means of escaping it short of hiding underneath the seat. Stopped once at each station and twice between most of them. Changed whenever it occurred to the officials that they'd like a sort of game of "general post." Arrived at a shed which did duty as a station, chilled to the bone and feeling as if I had had the longest journey of my life. Was bumped along in a thing which I imagine was called an omnibus to Littlestone. Found Hollis awaiting me.
"Welcome to Littlestone, Short! You look another man already." ”

“ The warder, reappearing, hands you a tin and a loaf, own brother to those which you received last night.
"Can't I wash?"
"Haven't you any water?" He looks round your cell. "You haven't a water can. I'll bring you one."
He presently does--a round, open tin, painted a vivid blue, containing perhaps three quarts of water. You fill your basin and wash--the first pleasant thing you have done since you saw the gaol. Then you consider your breakfast. You are hungry, hungrier than you would have been at home--but you cannot manage the gruel, and the bread still less. ”

“ I made up my mind upon the instant. I told myself that if marrying a poor girl did mean ruin, then a poor girl you should not marry. Sir Matthew seemed even older than he was. My mother had told me, with her own lips, that it was quite possible that he would not live a year. I knew all through that you never would marry anyone but me. I knew you, Ronald! Even supposing Sir Matthew lived two years--then I should not be poor. You would not be ruined by mating yourself with poverty. ”

“ We separated, Philipson and I going off in search of a hedge--or of what, I believe, is called upon the stage a "practicable" gate; Philipson, on the way, being more voluminous on the subject of wire fencing than I ever thought he could have been.
We discovered ourselves, at last, to be in a lane, though we had not the faintest notion of where we were, or of where the hunt was either. However, we trotted on, as if we still entertained hopes of being in at whatever it may be which, in "stagging," takes the place of death. Suddenly we reached a point at which another lane turned into ours. ”

“ The vehicles in the lane began to move. A large proportion of the crowd streamed across the field with the apparent intention of seizing the deer by the heels before it had a chance of getting away. The hounds barked; men shouted; boys whistled. It was a scene of pleasing confusion. In a few seconds, I take it, the word to start was given, the huntsman blew his horn, and the hounds, barking as if with the intent to split their throats, went rushing after the people, who already were rushing after the deer. The hunt was off. ”

“ There is more in hitting a golf ball than some might imagine. There is more, even, in swinging a club--with anything, that is, approximate to ease. It is not so easy to do either as it seems to be when you watch other people doing it. When I saw Hollis and Pickard hitting their balls, what struck me most was the simplicity of the thing. Barstow's comparative failure to hit his had caused me to regard him almost with contempt. ”

“ Then a voice was heard which I recognised as Tom Boulter's.
"Excuse me, Gardiner, but if you don't mind I think I'll slip round to a tripe shop I know and dine off a saveloy. I've heard a saveloy described as a 'bag of mystery'; but, anyhow, it can hardly be more mysterious than 'cream of undertakers.'"
"Personally I never eat a dish of which I know nothing--never. And it's outrageous--simply outrageous--that we should be expected to play tricks with our digestion by attempting to eat such--such extraordinary things." ”

“ Short, you're a more remarkable player than I suspected. Pickard, I think we'll give you this hole. We may have better fortune with the next--that is, if Short is lucky."
We all marched forward in a body. Not a word was spoken. For some reason no one seemed to be in a conversational mood. Beginning to feel the silence almost irksome, I was trying to think of some appropriate remark with which to start the ball of conversation rolling, when, without the slightest warning, one of the caddies--not my caddie, but one of the others--stopped short, and began to emit yell after yell of laughter. ”

“ Hollis's reply was extraordinary.
"Don't speak to me like that, Short--don't--or the consequences may be serious! My suffering's internal."
What he meant I had not a notion. Few things are more annoying than to feel that individuals in whose society you are are revelling in a joke the entire identity of which is hidden from you. In my judgment, in such a situation, it is someone's plain duty to drop some sort of a hint as to where the jest comes in. ”

“ If I was Miss Graham I wouldn't marry him, not if he was a hundred times the Earl of Bermondsey. Don't you remember what we was reading about him only the other day--how he'd just come into his money, and what a lot of it there was? And houses, and parks, and forests, and I don't know what? My truth! He's only a kid, and a pretty sort of kid he seems to be; one of them fools what's worse than the clever ones, just because they're fools. ”

“ I am one against six; and one of those six is Henrietta. It is dreadful to think that, in public matters, my wife should be in a position to trample on me whenever she pleases. How can a woman respect her husband when he is in such a humiliating minority? ”

“ Apart from the flavour, the gruel is in such a dirty tin that you cannot but suspect its contents of being dirty too. The bread is hard, dry and sour, bearing not the faintest resemblance to any of the numerous varieties of bread which you have tasted. Hungry as you are, you give up the attempt at eating. Sitting on the bed, you take up Quentin Durward, which these many years you have almost known by heart. About half-past ten your door is thrown wide open.
"Stand up for the governor!" cries a warder.
You stand up. A short man is in front of you without a hat on, attired in civilian costume. ”