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At the Assembly Rooms gentlemen and gentlewomen held conversation; at the Marine Library they were supposed to be decently silent and with book; at the little theatre their obligation was to sit and listen, and yet these three situations were apt to become confused. There were occasions when no one listened and everybody talked.

At the Marine Library there were many volumes of sermons, poetry, biography, tremendous treatises upon natural science, and novels—of the proper flavour. You could read Gibbon and Hazlitt, and Dean Swift. Even some of the biographies dealt with makers of fiction, and these books were considered to be literature, yet, as the witty and mordant Marquis de Beaucourt expressed it: ‘If you produce novels you are nothing, but if you write the life of a Fielding or a Dickens, you are literature.’ Moreover, Tom Jones was not quite ‘Caroline Terrace’.

The latest papers, gazettes, and journals lay upon the table in one of the ground-floor rooms, nor was silence considered sacred here. Very naturally gentlemen wished to discuss the news, and comment upon the activities of kings, parliaments, and politicians. The gentlewomen of South End possessed a room of their own upon the first floor, and here the conversation was less elevated and more concerned with the social realities. In summer the ladies would gather at the great bow window, in winter about the massive brass fender, with a mirror reflecting their fans and their head-dresses, their fal-lals, and animated faces. The Marquise de Beaucourt, a lady who was as witty as her husband, declared that you could gauge the quality of the scandal in the air by the animation of the ladies’ faces.

Two rooms constituted the library proper, or improper. The more solid works inhabited one room, the lighter literature the other. Belles-lettres and poetry sometimes hovered between the two. The Misses Megson, of No. 13, Caroline Terrace, presided as librarians, tall, lean, vibrant spinsters in perpetual black, who took literature with immense seriousness, and saw to it that young maidens never obtained a book that could cloud their innocent souls.

The Marquis and Marquise de Beaucourt, strolling down the hill, overtook Mr. and Mrs. Pankridge, who had paused to watch some ladies bathing. A white horse had drawn one machine well out into the water, and a figure in white and blue was wading breast-deep into the sea. The figure spread itself and swam, and Mrs. Pankridge was shocked. Gentlewomen of breeding confined themselves to splashings beneath the great white hoods. The Marquis raised his hat. These French aristocrats had crossed from France after the affair of Charles the Tenth and, finding England peculiarly to their liking, had remained as exiles in Prospect House, which faced one wing of the Royal Hotel.

Mrs. Pankridge returned the Marquis’s salute, and Mr. Pankridge swept a hat to the lady. The De Beaucourts belonged to the most aristocratic set, which included the Merrimans, the Gages, Sir Hereward Lancaster of Porter’s Grange and the Neaths of Holywell Priory. Clarissa Pankridge had a way of waggling her posterior when social satisfactions were to be gathered. Monsieur le Marquis was so darkly distinguished, so pale and gracious. Madame was piquant and petite, and a mirror of fashion.

‘Delightful weather we are having, monsieur.’

The Marquis agreed that the weather was all that it should be, and Mrs. Pankridge all that a woman should not be.

Madame was regarding the bathing-machines, with Mrs. Pankridge standing hatless beside her.

‘Some bold girl swims. I wonder——’

Mrs. Pankridge caught the wrong reflection.

‘Too bold, madame, if you ask me.’

Madame had not asked her.

‘You think it—dangerous?’

Clarissa was still at sea.

‘I do, madame, to a gentlewoman’s modesty.’

The Marquise did not argue the point. She had somewhat advanced ideas upon feminine freedom, and Clarissa Pankridge was pure prig. She caught her husband’s eye with a questioning twinkle. The Marquis flicked a speck of dust from the lapel of his blue coat.

‘Shall we proceed?’

The party moved down and on to the green-roofed verandas and white door of the Marine Library, and Mr. Pankridge stood aside with his wife linked to his arm. He swept a hat.

‘After you, sir.’

Monsieur le Marquis gave him a little bow, and a glance that he did not understand.

‘Thank you, monsieur.’

And all the courtesies were satisfied.

‘What charming people!’ said Clarissa in a voice that was intended for hearing.

Madame pressed an elbow into the Marquis’s ribs. They exchanged oblique glances, but no words.

Monsieur de Beaucourt conducted his wife up the stairs to the ladies’ room, and then descended to join the gentlemen. Some political scandal was in the air, and a group by the bay window was tearing it to tatters. Mr. Horatio Harbourn, hands in pockets, stood leaning against a closed shutter, his white waistcoat bulging with indignation. Sir Montague Merriman was taking snuff. Captain Hector Bullard straddled a chair. Sir Hugh Latimer stood caressing reflective whiskers. Major Miller shook his head over some choleric statement by the Nabob, and the wen on his head waggled mild disapproval.

‘The Duke ought to be in. He’d give these scoundrels a dose of powder.’

Monsieur de Beaucourt, who had seen and very much misliked one revolution, laid his gloves and hat on a side-table, and with a little bow, accepted Sir Montague’s snuff-box. He took a pinch of the brown powder between a fine first finger and thumb, and, with a graceful gesture, inhaled the sharp savour of the snuff, and, without a wink or a sneeze, joined in the conversation.

‘You talk of revolution, gentlemen. I have seen one, and I did not like it.’

‘Ha, sir,’ said Horatio Harbourn, ‘your kind did not give the soldiers a lead——’

‘Nor lead, sir. It should be easy to control the mob, before it becomes one.’

Sir Montague took more snuff.

‘You would suggest, Beaucourt, that these Chartist fellows should be pandered to?’

The Marquis rested his arms on the back of a Chinese Chippendale chair. He was smiling, but his smile was edged with irony.

‘Men, sir, can be made drunk with ideas, and such intoxications may be dangerous. They may indicate a state of physical poverty which can provoke internal disorder. Bloody revolution need not happen.’

Captain Bullard let out a chuckle.

‘You would make ’em so drunk, sir, that they would shout for King Bung and the Bishops?’

There was laughter, and when it subsided, the quiet voice of Major Miller was heard. His wen appeared in a state of agitation.

‘Monsieur le Marquis is right, and means more than he said. Is not poverty the father of all discontent? These poor people have their grievances. I, gentlemen, have seen the common man in action. I should not be here but for the courage and devotion of a common man.’

Captain Bullard smacked a knee.

‘Right, Miller, right. Fellows who stick to the guns when you are taking and giving broadsides are not just muck.’

The Nabob was ready to develop the argument.

‘That’s all very well, Bullard, but what of corn and circuses? Why did Rome not——?’

‘Perhaps, because there were not enough Romans, sir.’

‘Yes, my dear sir, only a debauched remnant. But if I were a parson——’

‘What—what!’ cried the voice of yet another gentleman arriving—and slapping his hat upon the table. ‘Who wants to be buried or united in holy matrimony? I am here, gentlemen, I am here.’

More than one of the gentlemen present gave the Rev. Nicholas Parbury enigmatic glances. Mr. Parbury was the vicar of the new church of St. John’s, and he liked to describe himself as a sporting parson. He rode to hounds, was a passable shot, and as cunning at cards as any old London club-man. Mr. Parbury did not know it, but the old town and Caroline Mews knew him as the Port-wine Parson. In fact, his beak of a nose was the colour of the rose, which, in winter, became an exquisite purple. He had a sharp chin, restless black eyes, a fine head of grizzled hair, and a collection of stories that were not fit for the ladies. As for gossip, he devoured it and republished it bound in the best calf.

‘What—what,’ said this quidnunc.

Sir Montague regarded him as he might have regarded a glass of corked wine. If the country was in an unhappy ferment, might not some of these disharmonies be due to clerics like Mr. Parbury?

‘We were discussing Chartism, sir.’

Mr. Parbury took snuff and his colourful nose responded.

‘A-tish-oo. Chartism. Poof! A-tish-oo. The fools need discipline.’

‘Or—sympathy,’ said the quiet voice of Major Miller.

‘Castor oil, sir.’

The group stirred uneasily as though the presence of Mr. Parbury had tied the conversation piece into a knot. Major Miller moved towards the door. Captain Bullard became interested in a yacht that was tacking beyond the pier.

Mr. Parbury took more snuff.

‘Let ’em shout, sir. The bigger the dung-heap the sooner it rots. By the way, can anyone recommend me a mild curate?’

There was silence.

‘I get no proper time for—exercise. The doctor says I should ride more.’

‘And drink less,’ said Captain Bullard sotto voce.

The Nabob was playing with his watch-chain.

‘Are there such creatures as mild curates, sir?’

‘All curates should be mild,’ said the vicar. ‘Yes, sir, a-tishoo.’

The Marquis de Beaucourt, with a fastidious and oblique look at the parson’s waistcoat, turned to the table, picked up a gazette, and sat down to read. Sir Montague and Captain Bullard went out arm in arm. Mr. Parbury was left with the Nabob, whom he buttonholed as the only sympathetic person present. A minute later they were joined by Mr. Pankridge, who had escaped from Clarissa and a little coterie of earnest ladies. Mr. Pankridge and the vicar of St. John’s got on very well together, especially so in the business of swapping smutty stories.

Miss Luce was out with the children, and the dear children, with sundry other playmates, were exploring the cliff paths. Isabella, accepting solitude and an interval of peace, found a seat and surveyed the scene. The sun was well in the west, and the tide on the turn, and the slanting light played upon the gleaming mud and glorified it. That which Mrs. Pankridge described as disgusting mud, had for Miss Luce’s eyes a strange garment of colour. It was black and it was purple: it gleamed and grew opalescent as the soft sea withdrew, and over yonder were the hills of Kent dimly green with young corn. Distant sand strips shone. The spacious scene spread eastwards to the Nore. White sails and brown sails caught the light. The trees of the Shrubbery were serene and still.

How strange and mysterious was all this! It had for Isabella a kind of spiritual value. It was music and colour and secret dreaming. It consoled; it strengthened. And assuredly she needed both. Nature could be your friend, when you were friendless, and your life was a round of admonitions, lessons, attempts to persuade two hostile urchins into some interest in arithmetic, spelling, and elementary French. Most of her day was an essay in patience, and there were times when patience wore very thin.

Came yells from the steep slope below her. Albert and another small boy were in the midst of a tempestuous scuffle. Isabella’s face lost its dreaminess. She rose, sat down, rose a second time. Was she responsible for urchin tempers? Assuredly she was. She went towards the cliff edge, and met Victoria.

‘What’s the matter, dear?’

Victoria was blubbing.

‘Nasty boy took my whip.’

‘What is Albert doing?’

‘He’s fighting, and his nose is bleeding.’

Oh, bother bleeding noses, and scuffling urchins. But she would be held responsible. She moved towards the cliff edge, but someone else relieved her of the problem. Captain Bullard came stumping up. She had not seen him crossing the grass towards her seat.

‘Hullo, what’s this?’

‘I’m afraid the boys are fighting.’

‘Let ’em, my dear, let ’em. Sit down and let one of ’em learn to be licked.’

Captain Bullard sat down and yanked Victoria on to his sound knee. She struggled and was suppressed. Captain Bullard began tickling her, knowing that even small girls must exhibit emotion which may be both negative and positive. In half a minute he had Victoria giggling, wriggling and smiling.

‘Oo, you are a funny man.’

Then Master Albert appeared, bloody of nose and wet with grief and anger. Obviously he had been licked.

‘Boo-hoo, Harold hit me.’

Captain Bullard was bouncing Victoria up and down.

‘Got a handkerchief, my lad? Blow your nose, and stop blubbing.’

And strange to say Albert did so.

Clarissa took her husband by the arm.

‘Percival, I have an idea.’

‘Is that so, my dear?’

‘Yes, quite an idea.’

Mr. Pankridge walked like a man going to the altar and making the best of it, for, when his wife announced an idea, her husband stiffened his back and prepared to receive cavalry. He might be a man of means, but some of Clarissa’s inspirations had cost him much money, and on one occasion had landed him in expensive litigation.

Clarissa was arch with him as they climbed the hill to Caroline Terrace.

‘Guess, Percival.’

Mr. Pankridge squared his shoulders, and prepared to play the man.

‘Feather, fish, or good red herring?’

‘Don’t be frivolous, dear.’

‘Well, well, out with it.’

‘The Misses Megson are going to live at the Library.’

Mr. Pankridge quite failed to discover any significance in the domicile of these earnest ladies.

‘Well, what of it, my dear?’

‘No. 13 will be vacant, Percival. We must take it. The air here agrees with me, and the society is so—er—chic.’

‘But—13?’

‘Don’t be silly and superstitious. We can re-christen it 12A.’

‘Yes, I suppose we could, my dear.’

‘And keep our carriage. I think it is an excellent idea, Percival.’

Mr. Pankridge realized that he would have to think so too.