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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XLVII. Poor Miss Wilks

Chapter XLVII. Poor Miss Wilks.

'I begin to understand,' said Fairweather, half an hour later, at dinner, 'I begin to understand how a fellow can resign himself to a perpetual squat, Paget.'

'Yes?' inquiringly.

'Yes, when he has a place as luxuriously fitted up as this of yours. Different from our old crib, Tempest, isn't it?'

Philiberta assented.

'There's more than mere comfort here,' continued Fairweather, looking round from the perfection of napery and dinner-service that graced the table to the pictures and furniture that embellished the room. 'It's bad form to make remarks about a fellow's things to his face, but between friends, you know, Paget, you're doosidly well fixed here; you are indeed.'

'Glad you think so, old man. I like pleasant surroundings; and when one lives for years in one place comforts and pleasant things accumulate.'

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'It all depends. They did not accumulate with me. Rather the contrary. But then—you mean to stay here all your life, I suppose?'

'It's not unlikely that I shall. You see, I had knocked about the world a lot before I settled here; and I settled here because I liked the place and was tired of knocking about.'

'Most people are for making a pile and going home to the old country,' said Fairweather.

'Like you, for instance,' said Paget. 'I don't care a straw now about the old country. My folks are all dead or scattered, my interests are all colonial, and if ever I have a pile to spend, I'll spend it in the colonies. I am fond of Australia, and I am fond of Yoanderruk. I never contemplated leaving it but once, and then the fates willed otherwise, so I came back.'

'Was that when there was some talk of Yoanderruk's being in the market?'

'Not exactly. When I thought of quitting was long before there was any talk of Yoanderruk's sale. That sale would have been a compulsory affair.'

'So I heard. It was during the big grind that wound so many of us up, wasn't it? How did you pull through, Paget, if it's a fair question?'

'Did you never hear? I had an idea I had told you. Myall and Box, you know—'

Then followed the story we have heard before.

'The oddest thing is,' said Paget, in conclusion, 'that although they know perfectly well now that I am safe beyond almost any possible contingency, they won't accept a penny of that money back.'

'Perhaps it really wasn't their doing after all,' said Fairweather.

'It must have been. There was no one else for it.'

'Then,' said Fairweather gravely, 'depend upon it, they did it to salve their consciences for some big swindle they had put upon you previously.'

Paget laughed. 'That is an original theory,' he said, 'but I'm afraid it won't hold. Miss Wilks, some more wine?'

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'The ways of men are deceitful and past finding out,' observed Miss Wilks, passing her glass.

She had been silent until now, and Fairweather stared at her in puzzled wonderment as to whether her remark had reference to Myall's and Box's ways or Edgar Paget's invitation to wine.

'Mrs. Paget is not coming to dinner?' he said, presently, for this also was a puzzle to him—the absence of his host's wife.

'Mrs. Paget is not well. She has retired,' replied Paget, shortly.

'I am very sorry. Nothing serious, I hope?'—'Oh, no.'

Then, as if to change the subject, 'What kind of weather have you had up here since I have been away, Miss Wilks?'

'Hot weather, Mr. Paget. Hot enough to make us think of the near hereafter.'

'I suppose you mean down there,' said Fairweather smiling amusedly, and suggesting with his finger the lower region supposed to be exclusively under the dominion of Beelzebub.

'No, sir, I do not mean "down there," as you call it,' said Miss Wilks, severely. 'Have you not heard of the recent great prediction?'

'I regret to say I have not, Miss Wilks.'

'That is a pity. If you had, you might have been better prepared.'

'May I venture to ask you for what?'

'For the end of the world,' said Miss Wilks, dropping her voice to a sepulchral solemnity.

'Oh, indeed! Is it coming off soon, then?'

Mr. Fairweather was feeling wicked, and scented fun.

'No man knoweth the hour or the day thereof,' said Miss Wilks, rising and putting on a prophetess aspect, 'but the time is at hand. In the twinkling of an eye the elect shall be snatched home. In the twinkling of an eye——'

'Almost before you could say wink, as it were,' put in Fairweather, but with such a simple gravity of expression that Miss Wilks could not decide whether he was in earnest, or making fun of her.

'The elect,' she continued. 'The elect will be with you— page 308at your side—before your eyes, at one moment. In the next they will have vanished for ever from your vision.'

'A sort of a "now you see it, gentlemen, and now you don't see it,"' said Fairweather, cleverly but sinfully imitating a thimble-and-pea-and-coin trick prestidigitateur he had lately seen in Paddy's Market.

Miss Wilks came to a dead halt, and fixed a piercing glance upon the villain's face. Not a smile was there, not the shadow of an expression that would not have done credit to a Primitive Methodist, or to Coppin in the 'Serious Family.'

'Mr. Fairweather, what do you believe in?' inquired Miss Wilks, with sudden directness.

'Oh, heaps of things—too numerous to mention, as the saying is.'

'Do you believe in heaven?'

'In the presence of an angel, how can I do otherwise?' said Fairweather, neatly.

'Empty compliments are wasted upon me, sir. Do you believe in hell?'

'In the ordinary acceptation of the idea——' began Fair-weather.

'There can be but one acceptation, sir,' interrupted Miss Wilks, 'and that the literal one. The Word is never ambiguous, and the Word says a lake of fire and brimstone where those cast out from before the throne shall burn for ever and ever, amen!'

'You say that so unctuously, Miss Wilks, that I half believe you wouldn't be sorry over the burning of us poor, sinful beggars.'

'The elect can never be sorry over the burning of sinners. Sympathy with sinners can never exist in the elect,' said Miss Wilks.

'Then I'm awfully glad I don't belong to the elect.'

'No man knoweth whether he is of the elect or not until the day when all things are made known.'

'Then I can only say that I hope I am not of the elect But the sympathy I have with sinners makes me pretty safe, I think.'

'Mr. Fairweather, I believe you are an infidel.'

'Well, between you and me, Miss Wilks, and in strictest Confidence, I believe you are right.'

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'Then I wish I had not spoken to you as I have.'

'Oh, don't apologise, I beg,' said Fairweather, amiably.

'I was not apologising, sir,' cried Miss Wilks, with emphatic scorn. 'Such a thing was the furthest from my thoughts. What I regret is that I have been casting my pearls before swine.'

'Come now, Miss Wilks, that's rather a neat way of calling me a pig.'

'Every word I have said to you, Mr Fairweather, is a pearl.'

'I am open to admit that freely. Ladies' words are invariably pearls, except when they're diamonds, as in the case of that young party in the fairy tale who got so sat upon by her stepmother. By-the-bye, Miss Wilks, what a heavenly stepmother you would make! I never so deeply regretted not being a widower with a small family as I do at this moment.'

'Mr. Fairweather, I overlook your rudeness and frivolity in my anxiety for your immortal welfare. Tell me, sir, are you beyond hope and prayer? Are you an infidel who won't believe, or only an infidel who, owing to benightedness and evil assailments, cannot believe?'

'Miss Wilks, in the language of the immortal showman, "you pays your money and you takes your choice.'" Miss Wilks gnashed her teeth. They were false teeth, and not a good fit. They had a way of moving up and down when Miss Wilks talked that was unpleasant, and when she smiled there was revealed a ghastly black gap between the teeth and the gums. To do her justice, she did not often inflict smiles upon people; austerity of expression became her better.

She towered above Mr. Fairweather; she shook her forefinger at him, and she said:

'I will pray for you, sir. I will pray for you without ceasing. My only consolation under the labour will be that prayer is useless, that you are damned beyond remedy.'

'Really, Miss Wilks,' here interposed Paget, 'I don't mind anything in reason from a lady, but when she takes to swearing at my guests in this fashion it is time for me to interfere. Far be it from me to stint you in the luxury of bad language—we page 310all know what a relief it is to the feelings sometimes, but the line must be drawn somewhere.'

Miss Wilks denounced him, denounced Fairweather, denounced the entire household, and then swept out of the room to order her horse that she might depart at once and shake the dust of Yoanderruk for ever from off her feet.

'Do you have this kind of cheerful relaxation often up here?' asked Fairweather, with a sigh of relief at her exit.

'She doesn't often go this length,' said Paget, 'but she is always very mad, and generally very aggravating. Bother her! I wish she'd stay at home.'

'Where is her home?'

'Tarragut. She's Wilks's sister. You know Wilks!'

'Yes. Poor Wilks!'

'Oh, he is not troubled with her much. She travels round to every place she can get a footing in. People tolerate her, partly for Wilks's sake, partly because they know she is mad and not quite responsible. And then there's always the blessed possibility of her breaking her neck off her horse or something.'

'Without wishing to appear murderous,' said Fairweather fervently, 'I do hope she'll do that to-night.'

'Oh, but she won't. She won't leave here to-night. She'll come up fresh and smiling at breakfast to-morrow, you'll see, and probably propose marriage to Tempest there before the day is out'

Which she actually did, as will be seen.

'Well, she would be a treasure of a wife to any man,' said Fairweather. 'I should think Wilks and all the rest of you would club up something handsome for anyone who would undertake her permanently and get her off your hands. If you don't mind, Paget, I'll go to bed. I feel weak after all that pelting of fire and brimstone. And I shall need a good night's rest if I have to face that festive damsel in the morning again.'

'I am afraid you will have to,' said Paget, with a smile, 'but I'll get rid of her as soon as ever I can, I promise you.'

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