The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope
"Who and what is Mr. Brope?" demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly.Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct roses, andthinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to mental attention. She wasone of those old-fashioned hostesses who consider that one ought to knowsomething about one's guests, and that the something ought to be to theircredit."I believe he comes from Leighton Buzzard," she observed by way of preliminaryexplanation."In these days of rapid and convenient travel," said Clovis, who was dispersinga colony of green-fly with visitations of cigarette smoke, "to come fromLeighton Buzzard does not necessarily denote any great strength of character. Itmight only mean mere restlessness. Now if he had left it under a cloud, or as aprotest against the incurable and heartless frivolity of its inhabitants, thatwould tell us something about the man and his mission in life.""What does he do?" pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially."He edits the Cathedral Monthly," said her hostess, "and he's enormously learnedabout memorial brasses and transepts and the influence of Byzantine worship onmodern liturgy, and all those sort of things. Perhaps he is just a little bitheavy and immersed in one range of subjects, but it takes all sorts to make agood house-party, you know. You don't find him too dull, do you?""Dulness I could overlook," said the aunt of Clovis: "what I cannot forgive ishis making love to my maid.""My dear Mrs. Troyle," gasped the hostess, "what an extraordinary idea! I assureyou Mr. Brope would not dream of doing such a thing.""His dreams are a matter of indifference to me; for all I care his slumbers maybe one long indiscretion of unsuitable erotic advances, in which the entireservants' hall may be involved. But in his waking hours he shall not make loveto my maid. It's no use arguing about it, I'm firm on the point.""But you must be mistaken," persisted Mrs. Riversedge; "Mr. Brope would be thelast person to do such a thing.""He is the first person to do such a thing, as far as my information goes, andif I have any voice in the matter he certainly shall be the last. Of course, Iam not referring to respectably-intentioned lovers.""I simply cannot think that a man who writes so charmingly and informingly abouttransepts and Byzantine influences would behave in such an unprincipled manner,"said Mrs. Riversedge; "what evidence have you that he's doing anything of thesort? I don't want to doubt your word, of course, but we mustn't be too ready tocondemn him unheard, must we?""Whether we condemn him or not, he has certainly not been unheard. He has theroom next to my dressing-room, and on two occasions, when I dare say he thoughtI was absent, I have plainly heard him announcing through the wall, 'I love you,Florrie.' Those partition walls upstairs are very thin; one can almost hear awatch ticking in the next room.""Is your maid called Florence?""Her name is Florinda.""What an extraordinary name to give a maid!""I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already christened.""What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with unsuitablenames I call them Jane; they soon get used to it.""An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I have gotused to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."She cut short Mrs. Riversedge's flood of apologies by abruptly remarking:"The question is not whether I'm to call my maid Florinda, but whether Mr. Bropeis to be permitted to call her Florrie. I am strongly of opinion that he shallnot.""He may have been repeating the words of some song," said Mrs. Riversedgehopefully; "there are lots of those sorts of silly refrains with girls' names,"she continued, turning to Clovis as a possible authority on the subject. " 'Youmustn't call me Mary--' ""I shouldn't think of doing so," Clovis assured her; "in the first place, I'vealways understood that your name was Henrietta; and then I hardly know you wellenough to take such a liberty.""I mean there's a song with that refrain," hurriedly explained Mrs. Riversedge,"and there's 'Rhoda, Rhoda kept a pagoda,' and 'Maisie is a daisy,' and heaps ofothers. Certainly it doesn't sound like Mr. Brope to be singing such songs, butI think we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt.""I had already done so," said Mrs. Troyle, "until further evidence came my way.She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the blessedcertainty of being implored to open them again."Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!""As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was just passing my room. Inthe most natural way in the world a piece of paper dropped out of a packet thathe held in his hand and fluttered to the ground just at my door. I was going tocall out to him 'You've dropped something,' and then for some reason I held backand didn't show myself till he was safely in his room. You see it occurred to methat I was very seldom in my room just at that hour, and that Florinda wasalmost always there tidying up things about that time. So I picked up thatinnocent-looking piece of paper."Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detectedan asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush, incidentallydecapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was just coming into bloom."What was on the paper?" she asked."Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and then underneath, crossedout with a faint line, but perfectly plain to read, 'Meet me in the garden bythe yew.' ""There is a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs. Riversedge."At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis."To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my roof!" saidMrs. Riversedge indignantly."I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under a roof," observedClovis; "I've always regarded it as a proof of the superior delicacy of the cattribe that it conducts most of its scandals above the slates.""Now I come to think of it," resumed Mrs. Riversedge, "there are things aboutMr. Brope that I've never been able to account for. His income, for instance: heonly gets two hundred a year as editor of the Cathedral Monthly, and I know thathis people are quite poor, and he hasn't any private means. Yet he manages toafford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad to Bruges and thosesorts of places every year, and always dresses well, and gives quite niceluncheon-parties in the season. You can't do all that on two hundred a year, canyou?""Does he write for any other papers?" queried Mrs. Troyle."No, you see he specializes so entirely on liturgy and ecclesiasticalarchitecture that his field is rather restricted. He once tried the Sporting andDramatic with an article on church edifices in famous fox-hunting centres, butit wasn't considered of sufficient general interest to be accepted. No, I don'tsee how he can support himself in his present style merely by what be writes.""Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts," suggested Clovis."How could you sell a transept?" said Mrs. Riversedge; "such a thing would beimpossible.""Whatever he may do to eke out his income," interrupted Mrs. Troyle, "he iscertainly not going to fill in his leisure moments by making love to my maid.""Of course not," agreed her hostess; "that must be put a stop to at once. But Idon't quite know what we ought to do.""You might put a barbed wire entanglement round the yew tree as a precautionarymeasure," said Clovis."I don't think that the disagreeable situation that has arisen is improved byflippancy," said Mrs. Riversedge; "a good maid is a treasure--""I am sure I don't know what I should do without Florinda," admitted Mrs.Troyle; "she understands my hair. I've long ago given up trying to do anythingwith it myself. I regard one's hair as I regard husbands: as long as one is seentogether in public one's private divergences don't matter. Surely that was theluncheon gong."Septimus Brope and Clovis had the smoking-room to themselves after lunch. Theformer seemed restless and preoccupied, the latter quietly observant."What is a lorry?" asked Septimus suddenly; "I don't mean the thing on wheels,of course I know what that is, but isn't there a bird with a name like that, thelarger form of a lorikeet?""I fancy it's a lory, with one 'r,' " said Clovis lazily, "in which case it's nogood to you."Septimus Brope stared in some astonishment."How do you mean, no good to me?" he asked, with more than a trace of uneasinessin his voice."Won't rhyme with Florrie," explained Clovis briefly.Septimus sat upright in his chair, with unmistakable alarm on his face."How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying to get a rhyme toFlorrie?" he asked sharply."I didn't know," said Clovis, "I only guessed. When you wanted to turn theprosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flitting through the verdure ofa tropical forest, I knew you must be working up a sonnet, and Florrie was theonly female name that suggested itself as rhyming with lorry."Septimus still looked uneasy."I believe you know more," be said.Clovis laughed quietly, but said nothing."How much do you know?" Septimus asked desperately."The yew tree in the garden," said Clovis."There! I felt certain I'd dropped it somewhere. But you must have guessedsomething before. Look here, you have surprised my secret. You won't give meaway, will you? It is nothing to be ashamed of, but it wouldn't do for theeditor of the Cathedral Monthly to go in openly for that sort of thing, wouldit?""Well, I suppose not," admitted Clovis."You see," continued Septimus, "I get quite a decent lot of money out of it. Icould never live in the style I do on what I get as editor of the CathedralMonthly."Clovis was even more startled than Septimus had been earlier in theconversation, but he was better skilled in repressing surprise."Do you mean to say you get money out of - Florrie?" he asked."Not out of Florrie, as yet," said Septimus; "in fact, I don't mind saying thatI'm having a good deal of trouble over Florrie. But there are a lot of others."Clovis's cigarette went out."This is very interesting," he said slowly. And then, with Septimus Brope's nextwords, illumination dawned on him."There are heaps of others; for instance:" 'Cora with the lips of coral,You and I will never quarrel.'"That was one of my earliest successes, and it still brings me in royalties. Andthen there is - 'Esmeralda, when I first beheld her,' and 'Fair Teresa, how Ilove to please her,' both of those have been fairly popular. And there is onerather dreadful one," continued Septimus, flushing deep carmine, "which hasbrought me in more money than any of the others:" 'Lively little LucieWith her naughty nez retrousee'."Of course, I loathe the whole lot of them; in fact, I'm rapidly becomingsomething of a woman-hater under their influence, but I can't afford todisregard the financial aspect of the matter. And at the same time you canunderstand that my position as an authority on ecclesiastical architecture andliturgical subjects would be weakened, if not altogether ruined, if it once gotabout that I was the author of 'Cora with the lips of coral' and all the rest ofthem."Clovis had recovered sufficiently to ask in a sympathetic, if rather unsteady,voice what was the special trouble with "Florrie.""I can't get her into lyric shape, try as I will," said Septimus mournfully."You see, one has to work in a lot of sentimental, sugary compliment with acatchy rhyme, and a certain amount of personal biography or prophecy. They'veall of them got to have a long string of past successes recorded about them, orelse you've got to foretell blissful things about them and yourself in thefuture. For instance, there is:" 'Dainty little girlie Mavis,She is such a rara avis.All the money I can save isAll to be for Mavis mine.'"It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for months nothing else wassung and hummed in Blackpool and other popular centres."This time Clovis's self-control broke down badly."Please excuse me," he gurgled, "but I can't help it when I remember the awfulsolemnity of that article of yours that you so kindly read us last night, on theCoptic Church in its relation to early Christian worship."Septimus groaned."You see how it would be," he said; "as soon as people knew me to be the authorof that miserable sentimental twaddle, all respect for the serious labours of mylife would be gone. I dare say I know more about memorial brasses than any oneliving, in fact I hope one day to publish a monograph on the subject, but Ishould be pointed out everywhere as the man whose ditties were in the mouths ofnigger minstrels along the entire coast-line of our Island home. Can you wonderthat I positively hate Florrie all the time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated rhapsodies about her?""Why not give free play to your emotions, and be brutally abusive? Anuncomplimentary refrain would have an instant success as a novelty if you weresufficiently outspoken.""I've never thought of that," said Septimus, "and I'm afraid I couldn't breakaway from the habit of fulsome adulation and suddenly change my style.""You needn't change your style in the least," said Clovis; "merely reverse thesentiment and keep to the inane phraseology of the thing. If you'll do the bodyof the song I'll knock off the refrain, which is the thing that principallymatters, I believe. I shall charge half-shares in the royalties, and throw in mysilence as to your guilty secret. In the eyes of the world you shall still bethe man who has devoted his life to the study of transepts and Byzantine ritual;only sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when the wind howls drearily downthe chimney and the rain beats against the windows, I shall think of you as theauthor of 'Cora with the lips of coral.' Of course, if in sheer gratitude at mysilence you like to take me for a much-needed holiday to the Adriatic orsomewhere equally interesting, paying all expenses, I shouldn't dream ofrefusing."Later in the afternoon Clovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedge indulging ingentle exercise in the Jacobean garden."I've spoken to Mr. Brope about F.," he announced."How splendid of you! What did he say?" came in a quick chorus from the twoladies."He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that I knew hissecret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentions were quite serious, ifslightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the impracticability of the course thathe was following. He said he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to thinkthat Florinda would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there wereprobably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English girls whowould be capable of understanding him, while Florinda was the only person in theworld who understood my aunt's hair. That rather weighed with him, for he's notreally a selfish animal, if you take him in the right way, and when I appealedto the memory of his happy childish days, spent amid the daisied fields ofLeighton Buzzard (I suppose daisies do grow there), he was obviously affected.Anyhow, he gave me his word that he would put Florinda absolutely out of hismind, and he has agreed to go for a short trip abroad as the best distractionfor his thoughts. I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should wishto give me a really nice scarf-pin (to be chosen by myself), as a smallrecognition of the very considerable service I had done her, I shouldn't dreamof refusing. I'm not one of those who think that because one is abroad one cango about dressed anyhow."A few weeks later in Blackpool and places where they sing, the following refrainheld undisputed sway:"How you bore me, Florrie,With those eyes of vacant blue;You'll be very sorry, Florrie,If I marry you.Though I'm easy-goin', Florrie,This I swear is true,I'll throw you down a quarry, Florrie,If I marry you."
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