Mrs. Seaton

“ It is better than we might have expected for a girl without a penny, like Di.”
Jasper Seaton started slightly, then he repeated—
“John Pechford Carteret—going into the Church! What nonsense. Quite unsuitable for a girl like Di. Is he going to teach her theology?” And his lip curled contemptuously.
“I am sure it is a great blessing,” murmured Mrs. Seaton. “Other people’s children are never like one’s own. One never knows what to do with them. How Robert Ellis could think of leaving you guardian to his child I cannot imagine. ”

“ Still the old face solemnly blinked at me in silence.
“You must find it very lonely, Miss Seaton, with Arthur away?”
“I was never lonely in my life,” she said sourly. “I don't look to flesh and blood for my company. When you've got to be my age, Mr. Smithers (which God forbid) , you'll find life a very different affair from what you seem to think it is now. You won't seek company then, I'll be bound. It's thrust on you.” Her face edged round into the clear green light, and her eyes groped, as it were, over my vacant, disconcerted face. ”

“ The goddess of neglect brooded in secret.
“You ain't much of a gardener, Seaton,” I said, with a sigh of ease.
“I think, do you know, I like it best like this,” said Seaton. “We haven't any man now, of course. Can't afford it.” He stood staring at his little dark square of freshly-turned earth. “And it always seems to me,” he went on ruminatingly, “that, after all, we are nothing better than interlopers on the earth, disfiguring and staining wherever we go. ”

“ Every fellow's a bit off his pluck at night, and you may think it a fine sport to try your rubbish on me. I heard your aunt come upstairs before I fell asleep. And I'll bet you a level tanner she's in bed now. What's more, you can keep your blessed ghosts to yourself. It's a guilty conscience, I should think.”
Seaton looked at me curiously, without answering for a moment. “I'm not a liar, Withers; but I'm not going to quarrel either. You're the only chap I care a button for; or, at any rate, you're the only chap that's ever come here; and it's something to tell a fellow what you feel. ”

“ I am Diana Ellis. I live at the Manor House, with Mrs. Seaton and Jasper. Mrs. Seaton is the grand lady of the place, and thinks a great deal of the rector. They do religion together; but I don’t see that much good comes of it. Jasper is not a bit religious, and doesn’t pretend to be. And I—I was born in India, and I half believe that I am a heathen. Sometimes I wonder if I have even a soul. Is there any one who could possibly be without a soul?” she asked, looking up eagerly. “Undine wanted one, you know, and it brought her trouble. ”

“ Seaton watched, as he had often done before, till her light went out; and then he flung himself on the wet grass and stared at the sky in utter misery.
The mind is often clearest in the middle of the night; and all of a sudden he saw, as if written on the sky, that she was going to England expressly to marry Arthur Wardlaw. ”

“ Seaton's aunt was there—under an old brass lamp. Her hair was as barbarously massed and curled as ever. Her eye-lids, I think, hung even a little heavier in age over their slow-moving inscrutable pupils. We filed in softly out of the evening, and I made my bow.
"In this short interval, Mr. Withers," she remarked amiably, "you have put off youth, put on the man. Dear me, how sad it is to see the young days vanishing! Sit down. My nephew tells me you met by chance—or act of Providence, shall we call it?—and in my beloved Strand! ”

“ This, however, was mainly because the window reached all but to the floor of her bedroom. She was in reality rather an under-sized woman, in spite of her long face and big head. She must have stood, I think, unusually still, with eyes fixed on us, though this impression may be due to Seaton's sudden warning and to my consciousness of the cautious and subdued air that had fallen on him at sight of her. ”

“ Withers, if ever there was one. Get a shawl, my dear Arthur, and take Alice for a little promenade. I dare say we old cronies will manage to keep awake. Hasten, hasten, Romeo! My poor, poor Alice, how laggard a lover!”
Seaton returned with a shawl. They drifted out into the moonlight. My companion gazed after them till they were out of hearing, turned to me gravely, and suddenly twisted her white face into such a convulsion of contemptuous amusement that I could only stare blankly in reply. ”

“ Seaton turned gloomily and spoke in a very low voice.
"Don't appear to be talking of her, if you wouldn't mind. It's—because she's in league with the devil." He nodded his head and stooped to pick up a round flat pebble. "I tell you," he said, still stooping, "you fellows don't realise what it is. I know I'm a bit close and all that. But so would you be if you had that old hag listening to every thought you think." ”

“ Arthur Seaton still lived with his aunt at the big house just beyond the village. He poked his head in at the little parlour door.
"Here's a gentleman enquiring after young Mr. Seaton, Millie," he said. "He's dead, ain't he?"
"Why, yes, bless you," replied a cheerful voice from within. "Dead and buried these three months or more—young Mr. Seaton. And just before he was to be married, don't you remember, Bob?" ”

“ I'm going to bed.” His lips quivered, but he made no answer. I poured out some water into my basin and, with that cold pictured azure eye fixed on us, bespattered Seaton's sallow face and forehead and dabbled his hair. He presently sighed and opened fish-like eyes.
“Come on!” I said. “Don't get shamming, there's a good chap. Get on my back, if you like, and I'll carry you into your bedroom.”
He waved me away and stood up. So, with my candle in one hand, I took him under the arm and walked him along according to his direction down the corridor. ”

“ And after that he was always telling me awful low things about my mother—"
Seaton interrupted firmly. "Not your mother. Call her Luigi's wife."
Nucky moistened his lips. "Luigi's wife. And it used to drive me crazy. And he told me all women was like that only some less and some worse. Mr. Seaton, is that true?"
"Enoch, it's a contemptible, unspeakable lie! The majority of women are pure and sweet as no man can hope to be. ”

“ Seaton retraced his steps up the beach. He had no notion where he was going, but habit led him back to his own verandah, where he remained, staring before him with wide unseeing eyes, until dawn.
The following day elicited nothing. Wade was adrift on the Coral Sea by now, that was all Seaton knew. He pictured him at the tiller, steering for deep water with his awful knowledge as sole company. The little scene became etched on Seaton's brain. He could not erase it. He could neither sleep nor eat for it. Yet what had he done? Everything, he told himself viciously. ”

“ Miss Seaton (whispering) . Now, darling, be careful—you know what I told you—you mustn't tell tales or repeat things!
Gwen. Not even if I'm asked, Miss Seaton?... No?... Would you be displeased? Then I won't. (Returning to her seat and addressing Lord S. confidentially.) Do you know why I've come to sit next to you? Because I want to see how you behave. You aren't just like one of our regular dinner-party guests, are you, you know? ”

“ Seaton was about the only fellow at Gummidge's who ever had the ostentation to use bad language. He had suffered for it too. But it wasn't, I think, bravado. I believe he really felt certain things more intensely than most of the other fellows, and they were generally things that fortunate and average people do not feel at all—the peculiar quality, for instance, of the British schoolboy's imagination.
“I tell you, Withers,” he went on moodily, slinking across the meadow with his hands covered up in his pockets, “she sees everything. And what she doesn't see she knows without.” ”

“ It was something past the hour of nine, when Agnes, leaning on the arm of Sir Christopher Seaton, and followed by Lady Seaton and two young girls, their attendants, entered the church, and walked, with an unfaltering step and firm though modest mien, up to the altar, beside which Nigel already stood. She was robed entirely in white, without the smallest ornament save the emerald clasp which secured, and the beautiful pearl embroidery which adorned her girdle. Her mantle was of white silk, its little hood thrown back, disclosing a rich lining of the white fox fur. ”

“ The truth is, Withers, I don't care about leaving her too long with my aunt.”
I hesitated. He looked at me questioningly.
“Look here, Seaton,” I said, “you know well enough that I don't want to interfere in your affairs, or to offer advice where it is not wanted. But don't you think perhaps you may not treat your aunt quite in the right way? As one gets old, you know, a little give and take. I have an old godmother, or something. She talks, too. ... A little allowance: it does no harm. ”

“ Seaton answered cheerfully. "If we're not a match for you and your gang, on foot or in the air, in body or in mind, we'll deserve whatever we get. We can outrun you, outjump you, throw you down, or lick you; we can run faster, hit harder, dive deeper, and come up dryer, than you can. We'll play any game you want to deal, whenever you want to deal it; for fun, money, chalk, or marbles."
His brow darkened in anger as a thought struck him, and the steady gray eyes bored into the unflinching black ones as he continued, with no trace of his former levity in his voice:
"But listen to this. ”

“ After a few days of impatient waiting and of eager anticipation, Seaton had settled down into the friendly and companionable routine of the flight. But inaction palled upon his vigorous nature and, physical outlet denied, he began to delve deeper and deeper into the almost-unknown, scarcely plumbed recesses of his new mind—a mind stored with the accumulated knowledge of thousands of generations of the Rovol and of the Drasnik; generations of specialists in research in two widely separated fields of knowledge. ”

“ I knew the man to be able; I thought him fitted for Seaton’s place. I made up my mind what to do, believing this. Seaton went on to say that he would rather take my opinion.
“‘You know him well?’ he asked. ‘You’ve known him some time—seen quite a bit of him?’
“I said simply: ‘Yes.’ You know, my boy, that [Pg 270] one can at times lie and steal and commit murder with a syllable? Well, I did that. But Seaton wanted it clear. He looked at me sharply. ”

“ I'd fight like a wildcat if my husband tried to have other wives!"
"We get along splendidly, of course," returned the Osnomian princess in equal surprise. "I would not think of being a man's only wife. I wouldn't consider marrying a man who could win only one wife—think what a disgrace it would be! And think how lonely one would be while her husband is away at war—we would go insane if we did not have the company of the other wives. There are six of us, and we could not get along at all without each other."
"I've got a compliment for you and Peggy, Dottie," said Seaton. ”

“ For the moment, she was no longer Cicely Farrell, extravagantly dressed, but the shrewd hospital worker, who although she would accept no responsibility that fettered her goings and comings beyond a certain point, was yet, as he well knew, invaluable, as a force in the background, to both the nursing and medical staff of Carton.
'Well, what did Seaton say?'
'That you would have another bad relapse, if you attempted yet to go to work.'
'I shall risk it.'
'That's so like you. You never take anyone's advice.'
'On the contrary, I am the meekest and most docile of men.' She shrugged her shoulders. ”

“ After all, it is we plain women that triumph, Mr. Withers, beyond the mockery of time. Alice, now! Fleeting, fleeting is youth, my child. What's that you were confiding to your plate, Arthur? Satirical boy. He laughs at his old aunt: nay, but thou didst laugh. He detests all sentiment. He whispers the most acid asides. Come, my love, we will leave these cynics; we will go and commiserate with each other on our sex. The choice of two evils, Mr. Smithers! ”

“ All this time Judith and her followers were at a loss to account for Marian Seaton. It was just like her to go off in comfort and expect her abject contingent to do her troublesome bidding, and certainly, no one could mistake the hand that ran the opposition; yet in spite of that argument Marian might reasonably be expected to lend a hand through the unexpected difficulty, and, at least, give the ship a push to start it out on the troubled waters. ”

“ Ralton was examining his niblick with unusual care. "This old club seems to have suffered some."
"Is that your story?" demanded the girl.
"Yes, that is the story. The story of a man who posed."
"You mean..." began Ruth Seaton, tentatively.
"I mean that the thought which had come to him in his dugout, the thought which he had striven so hard against, was that he didn't really want to die. He was young, and his wife's death was beginning to lose its sting. He wanted to live; to see his son; and he posed because he thought it was disloyal to her memory. He posed even to himself. ”

“ He led Seaton out of earshot of the others and said in a low voice:
"It is no part of Nalboon's plan to kill the two women. They are so beautiful, so different from our Osnomian women, that he intends to keep them—alive. Understand?"
"Yes," returned Seaton grimly, his eyes turning hard, "I get you all right—but what he'll do and what he thinks he'll do are two entirely different breeds of cats."
Returning to the others, they found Dorothy and Sitar deep in conversation.
"So a man has half a dozen or so wives?" Dorothy was asking in surprise. "How do you get along together? ”