The Tysons | Page 7

little afraid of him
and showed it); he noticed with relief that his mother-in-law was
beginning to look almost like a lady, and he attributed this pleasing
effect to the fact that she was now unable to commit any of her former
atrocities of color. He respected her, too, for wearing her weeds with an
air of genial worldliness. There was something about Mrs. Wilcox that
evaded the touch of sorrow; but from certain things--food, clothes,
furniture--she seemed to catch, as it were, the sense of tears,
suggestions of the human tragedy. She was peculiarly sensitive to
interiors, and a drawing-room "without any of the little refinements and
luxuries, you know--not so much as a flower-pot or a
basket-table"--weighed heavily on her happy soul. Needless to say she
had never dreamed that Nevill would let the house remain in its present
state; her intellect could never have grasped so melancholy a possibility,
and the fact was somewhat unsettling to her faith in Nevill Tyson. "Isn't
it--for a young bride, you know--just a little--a little _triste_?" And
being more than a little afraid of her son-in-law, she waved her hands
to give an inoffensive vagueness to her idea. Tyson said he didn't care

to spend money on a place like Thorneytoft; he didn't know how long
he would stay in it; he never stayed anywhere long; he was a pilgrim
and a stranger, a sort of cosmopolitan Cain, and he might go abroad
again, or he might take a flat in town for the season. And at the mention
of a flat in town all Mrs. Wilcox's beautiful beliefs came back to her
unimpaired. A flat in town, and a house in the country that you can
afford to look down upon--what more could you desire?
Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not take the furniture very seriously. For quite
three days after her arrival she was content to sit in that very
respectable drawing-room, waiting for the callers who never came. She
could not have taken the callers very seriously either (what did Mrs.
Nevill Tyson take seriously, I should like to know?), or else, surely she
would have had some little regard for appearances; she would never
have risked being caught at four o'clock in the afternoon sitting on
Tyson's knee, doing all sorts of absurd things to his face. First, she
stroked his hair straight down over his forehead, which had a singularly
brutalizing effect, so that she was obliged to push it back again and
make it all neat with one of the little tortoise-shell combs that kept her
own curls in order. Then she lifted up his mustache till the lip curled in
a dreadful mechanical smile, showing a slightly crooked, slightly
prominent tooth.
"Oh, what an ugly tooth!" said Mrs. Nevill Tyson; and she let the lip
fall again like a curtain. "How could I marry a man with a tooth like
that! Do you know, poor papa used to say you were just like
Phorc--Phorc--something with a fork in it."
"Phorcyas?"
"Yes. How clever you are! Who was Phorc-y-as?" Mrs. Nevill Tyson
made a face over the word.
"It's another name for Mephistopheles." (Tyson knew his Goethe better
than his classics.)
"And Mephistopheles is another name for--the devil! Oh!" She took the
tips of his ears with the tips of her fingers and held his head straight

while she stared into his eyes. "Look me straight in the face now. No
blinking. Are you the devil, I wonder?" She put her head on one side as
if she were considering him judicially from an entirely new point of
view. "I wonder why papa didn't like you?"
"He didn't think me good enough for his little girl, and he was quite
right there."
"He didn't mind so much when I got engaged to Willie Payne. He said
we were admirably suited to each other. That was because Willie was a
fool. Oh--I forgot you didn't know!"
"Ah, I know now. And how many more, Mrs. Molly?"
"No more--only you. And Willie doesn't count. It was ages ago, when I
was at school. Look here." She pushed back the ruffles of her sleeve
and showed him a little livid mark running across the back of her hand.
"Did I ever tell you what that meant? It means that they shoved Willie's
letters into the big fireplace--with the tongs--and that I stuck my hand
between the bars and pulled them out."
"I say--you must have been rather gone on Willie, you know."
"No. I didn't like him much. But I loved his letters." Mrs. Nevill Tyson
looked at the tips of her little shoes, and Mr. Nevill Tyson looked at
her.
"So Willie doesn't count, doesn't he?"
"No. He was a fool. He never did anything. Nevill, what did father
think