The Jesting of Arlington Stringham

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

---

Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin House,and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great manyangles. It is possible that it was unintentional, but a fellow-member, who didnot wish it to be supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut,laughed. One or two of the papers noted "a laugh" in brackets, and another,which was notorious for the carelessness of its political news, mentioned"laughter." Things often begin in that way."Arlington made a joke in the House last night," said Eleanor Stringham to hermother; "in all the years we've been married neither of us has made jokes, and Idon't like it now. I'm afraid it's the beginning of the rift in the lute.""What lute?" said her mother."It's a quotation," said Eleanor.To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method, in Eleanor's eyes,for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you could always defend indifferentlamb late in the season by saying "It's mutton."And, of course, Arlington Stringham continued to tread the thorny path ofconscious humour into which Fate had beckoned him."The country's looking very green, but, after all, that's what it's there for,"he remarked to his wife two days later."That's very modern, and I daresay very clever, but I'm afraid it's wasted onme," she observed coldly. If she had known how much effort it had cost him tomake the remark she might have greeted it in a kinder spirit. It is the tragedyof human endeavour that it works so often unseen and unguessed.Arlington said nothing, not from injured pride, but because he was thinking hardfor something to say. Eleanor mistook his silence for an assumption of tolerantsuperiority, and her anger prompted her to a further gibe."You had better tell it to Lady Isobel. I've no doubt she would appreciate it."Lady Isobel was seen everywhere with a fawn-coloured collie at a time when everyone else kept nothing but Pekinese, and she had once eaten four green apples atan afternoon tea in the Botanical Gardens, so she was widely credited with arather unpleasant wit. The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understoodYeats's poems, but her family denied both stories."The rift is widening to an abyss," said Eleanor to her mother that afternoon."I should not tell that to any one," remarked her mother, after long reflection."Naturally, I should not talk about it very much," said Eleanor, "but whyshouldn't I mention it to any one?""Because you can't have an abyss in a lute. There isn't room."Eleanor's outlook on life did not improve as the afternoon wore on. The page-boyhad brought from the library By Mere and Wold instead of By Mere Chance, thebook which every one denied having read. The unwelcome substitute appeared to bea collection of nature notes contributed by the author to the pages of someNorthern weekly, and when one had been prepared to plunge with disapproving mindinto a regrettable chronicle of ill-spent lives it was intensely irritating toread "the dainty yellow-hammers are now with us, and flaunt their jaundicedlivery from every bush and hillock." Besides, the thing was so obviously untrue;either there must be hardly any bushes or hillocks in those parts or the countrymust be fearfully overstocked with yellow-hammers. The thing scarcely seemedworth telling such a lie about. And the page-boy stood there, with his sleeklybrushed and parted hair, and his air of chaste and callous indifference to thedesires and passions of the world. Eleanor hated boys, and she would have likedto have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a womanwho had no children of her own.She turned at random to another paragraph. "Lie quietly concealed in the fernand bramble in the gap by the old rowan tree, and you may see, almost everyevening during early summer, a pair of lesser whitethroats creeping up and downthe nettles and hedge-growth that mask their nesting-place."The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation! Eleanor would not havewatched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty's Theatre for a singleevening under such uncomfortable circumstances, and to be asked to watch lesserwhitethroats creeping up and down a nettle "almost every evening" during theheight of the season struck her as an imputation on her intelligence that waspositively offensive. Impatiently she transferred her attention to the dinnermenu, which the boy had thoughtfully brought in as an alternative to the moresolid literary fare. "Rabbit curry," met her eye, and the lines of disapprovaldeepened on her already puckered brow. The cook was a great believer in theinfluence of environment, and nourished an obstinate conviction that if youbrought rabbit and curry-powder together in one dish a rabbit curry would be theresult. And Clovis and the odious Bertie van Tahn were coming to dinner. Surely,thought Eleanor, if Arlington knew how much she had had that day to try her, hewould refrain from joke-making.At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name of a certainstatesman, who may be decently covered under the disguise of X."X.," said Arlington Stringham, "has the soul of a meringue."It was a useful remark to have on hand, because it applied equally well to fourprominent statesmen of the day, which quadrupled the opportunities for using it."Meringues haven't got souls," said Eleanor's mother."It's a mercy that they haven't," said Clovis; "they would be always losingthem, and people like my aunt would get up missions to meringues, and say it waswonderful how much one could teach them and how much more one could learn fromthem.""What could you learn from a meringue?" asked Eleanor's mother."My aunt has been known to learn humility from an ex-Viceroy," said Clovis."I wish cook would learn to make curry, or have the sense to leave it alone,"said Arlington, suddenly and savagely.Eleanor's face softened. It was like one of his old remarks in the days whenthere was no abyss between them.It was during the debate on the Foreign Office vote that Stringham made hisgreat remark that "the people of Crete unfortunately make more history than theycan consume locally." It was not brilliant, but it came in the middle of a dullspeech, and the House was quite pleased with it. Old gentlemen with bad memoriessaid it reminded them of Disraeli.It was Eleanor's friend, Gertrude Ilpton, who drew her attention to Arlington'snewest outbreak. Eleanor in these days avoided the morning papers."It's very modern, and I suppose very clever," she observed."Of course it's clever," said Gertrude; "all Lady Isobel's sayings are clever,and luckily they bear repeating.""Are you sure it's one of her sayings?" asked Eleanor."My dear, I've heard her say it dozens of times.""So that is where he gets his humour," said Eleanor slowly, and the hard linesdeepened round her mouth.The death of Eleanor Stringham from an overdose of chloral, occurring at the endof a rather uneventful season, excited a certain amount of unobtrusivespeculation. Clovis, who perhaps exaggerated the importance of curry in thehome, hinted at domestic sorrow.And of course Arlington never knew. It was the tragedy of his life that heshould miss the fullest effect of his jesting.

---

---