mrs. ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. to this end she had founded the lunch club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. the lunch club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated “osric dane,” on the day of her arrival in hillbridge, an invitation to be present at the next meeting.
the club was to meet at mrs. bellinger’s. the other members, behind her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights in favor of mrs. plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as mrs. leveret observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on.
mrs. plinth made no secret of sharing this view. she had always regarded it as one of her obligations to entertain the lunch club’s distinguished guests. mrs. plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set herself. an all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her opinion, all that providence exacted of the more humbly stationed; but the power which had predestined mrs. plinth to keep a footman clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of responsibilities. it was the more to be regretted that mrs. ballinger, whose obligations to society were bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have been so tenacious of the right to entertain osric dane.
the question of that lady’s reception had for a month past profoundly moved the members of the lunch club. it was not that they felt themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. if such subsidiary members as mrs. leveret were fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the author of “the wings of death,” no forebodings disturbed the conscious adequacy of mrs. plinth, mrs. ballinger and miss van vluyck. “the wings of death” had, in fact, at miss van vluyck’s suggestion, been chosen as the subject of discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever sounded well in the comments of the others.
mrs. roby alone had abstained from profiting by the opportunity; but it was now openly recognised that, as a member of the lunch club, mrs. roby was a failure. “it all comes,” as miss van vluyck put it, “of accepting a woman on a man’s estimation.” mrs. roby, returning to hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in exotic lands — the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember where — had been heralded by the distinguished biologist, professor foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever met; and the members of the lunch club, impressed by an encomium that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the professor’s social sympathies would follow the line of his professional bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological member. their disillusionment was complete. at miss van vluyck’s first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl mrs. roby had confusedly murmured: “i know so little about metres — ” and after that painful betrayal of incompetence she had prudently withdrawn from farther participation in the mental gymnastics of the club.
“i suppose she flattered him,” miss van vluyck summed up — “or else it’s the way she does her hair.”
the dimensions of miss van vluyck’s dining-room having restricted the membership of the club to six, the nonconductiveness of one member was a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already been expressed that mrs. roby should care to live, as it were, on the intellectual bounty of the others. this feeling was increased by the discovery that she had not yet read “the wings of death.” she owned to having heard the name of osric dane; but that — incredible as it appeared — was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated novelist. the ladies could not conceal their surprise; but mrs. ballinger, whose pride in the club made her wish to put even mrs. roby in the best possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not had time to acquaint herself with “the wings of death,” she must at least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, “the supreme instant.”
mrs. roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she had seen the book at her brother’s, when she was staying with him in brazil, and had even carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she had never had the chance —
the picture evoked by this anecdote did not increase mrs. roby’s credit with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by mrs. plinth’s remarking:
“i can understand that, with all your other pursuits, you should not find much time for reading; but i should have thought you might at least have got up ‘the wings of death’ before osric dane’s arrival.”
mrs. roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. she had meant, she owned, to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of trollope’s that —
“no one reads trollope now,” mrs. ballinger interrupted.
mrs. roby looked pained. “i’m only just beginning,” she confessed.
“and does he interest you?” mrs. plinth enquired.
“he amuses me.”
“amusement,” said mrs. plinth, “is hardly what i look for in my choice of books.”
“oh, certainly, ‘the wings of death’ is not amusing,” ventured mrs. leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first selection does not suit.
“was it meant to be?” enquired mrs. plinth, who was fond of asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “assuredly not.”
“assuredly not — that is what i was going to say,” assented mrs. leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “it was meant to — to elevate.”
miss van vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black cap of condemnation. “i hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate however much it may instruct.”
“i meant, of course, to instruct,” said mrs. leveret, flurried by the unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be synonymous. mrs. leveret’s enjoyment of the lunch club was frequently marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes troubled by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. it was only the fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her, from a sense of hopeless inferiority.
“do they get married in the end?” mrs. roby interposed.
“they — who?” the lunch club collectively exclaimed.
“why, the girl and man. it’s a novel, isn’t it? i always think that’s the one thing that matters. if they’re parted it spoils my dinner.”
mrs. plinth and mrs. ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the latter said: “i should hardly advise you to read ‘the wings of death’ in that spirit. for my part, when there are so many books one has to read; i wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely amusing.”
“the beautiful part of it,” laura glyde murmured, “is surely just this — that no one can tell how ‘the wings of death’ ends. osric dane, overcome by the awful significance of her own meaning, has mercifully veiled it — perhaps even from herself — as apelles, in representing the sacrifice of iphigenia, veiled the face or agamemnon.”
“what’s that? is it poetry?” whispered mrs. leveret to mrs. plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: “you should look it up. i always make it a point to look things up.” her tone added — “though i might easily have it done for me by the footman.”
“i was about to say,” miss van vluyck resumed, “that it must always be a question whether a book can instruct unless it elevates.”
“oh — ” murmured mrs. leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray.
“i don’t know,” said mrs. ballinger, scenting in miss van vluyck’s tone a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining osric dane; “i don’t know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a book which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any novel since ‘robert elsmere.’”
“oh, but don’t you see,” exclaimed laura glyde, “that it’s just the dark hopelessness of it all — the wonderful tone-scheme of black on black — that makes it such an artistic achievement? it reminded me when i read it of prince rupert’s mani?¨re noire . . . the book is etched, not painted, yet one feels the colour-values so intensely. . . . ”
“who is he?” mrs. leveret whispered to her neighbour. “some one she’s met abroad?”
“the wonderful part of the book,” mrs. bellinger conceded, “is that it may be looked at from so many points of view. i hear that as a study of determinism professor lupton ranks it with ‘the data of ethics.’”
“i’m told that osric dane spent ten years in preparatory studies before beginning to write it,” said mrs. plinth. “she looks up everything — verifies everything. it has always been my principle, as you know. nothing would induce me, now, to put aside a book before i’d finished it, just because i can buy as many more as i want.”
“and what do you think of ‘the wings of death’?” mrs. roby abruptly asked her.
it was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a breach of discipline. they all knew there was nothing mrs. plinth so much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. books were written to read; if one read them what more could be expected? to be questioned in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the custom house. the club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of mrs. plinth’s. such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her house, was furnished with monumental “pieces” that were not meant to be disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the lunch club that, within her own province, each member’s habits of thought should be respected. the meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the part of the other ladies, of mrs. roby’s hopeless unfitness to be one of them.
