"Let me know some night when he and Hilda are not dining here," said Will, when I reproached him for always now deserting us for his club.
For some reason there has never been any great cordiality between the cousins. Perhaps Culroyd is a little bit consequential in the way that he insists on his own dignity—a sort of instinctive attitude of self-preservation, as though he realized that he owes everything to an accident of sex and that, if Brackenbury and I changed places, he would have to change places with Will... And Will may very well have been galled by the light-hearted way in which Hilda could not get on without him one day and got on quite comfortably without him the next. No one likes ingratitude, though it was on the tip of my tongue to say that he need not grudge his leavings to poor Culroyd.
It was not so easy to find a free night, as the young people seemed to have made arrangements for days ahead, and in the end I told Will to leave them to their whispering and silliness and talk to me.
"Why you ever invited her I don't know," he grumbled; and I could see that the strain of playing cavalier for so long was telling on him.
"It was an opportunity for doing her a little kindness," I said.
"And is she going to marry Culroyd?," he asked, "or is she simply playing with him until she finds something better worth her while?"
"Isn't it rather a question whether Culroyd will marry her?," I suggested. "After all, she doesn't bring very much... They seem to get on quite well together."
"I haven't seen them," said Will. "It would be amusing to watch..."
When they all met, I can't say that it was very amusing for me. Will can be rather a tease when he likes, but I think it a pity to go on with that sort of thing if other people haven't enough humour to take it in good part. Culroyd and Hilda were so tremendously in earnest that they couldn't bear to be chaffed; and, the stiffer they became, the more irresistible they were to Will. I intervened once or twice, when I thought Culroyd was losing his temper, but the situation seemed to get suddenly out of hand; there was something very like a scene.
"If you don't know how to behave," said Culroyd—very rudely, I thought, "do hire some one to teach you. Your manners would disgrace a privates' canteen."
"Would they? I'm afraid I'm not a good judge," said Will.
It was neat; but, though I'm his mother, I feel he ought not to have said it. I expect you know that Culroyd was still at Eton when the war broke out. Brackenbury positively forbade him to take a commission before he was eighteen, so Culroyd ran away and enlisted. It was in the regular army, you understand, and they had every kind of difficulty in getting him out. He joined the Coldstream afterwards, but for a time he was a private...
"A better judge of draft-dodgers, perhaps," said Culroyd.
The word was new to me, and I had to ask for enlightenment. When it came, I was beside myself with anger. The term is American and applies to a man who "dodges" the "draft", which is their word for conscription. A wickeder or more reckless charge could not be made. Will applied for a commission within the first year and a half of the war. "You can try," I said, "but I don't think the doctor will pass you." He did, however, and Will served for three years with great distinction and was quite invaluable to his general. It was the fashion at one time to sneer at the staff, but I have yet to learn that war can be carried on without one; and I sometimes wonder whether the sneers were not mingled with a little envy on the part of men who were not efficient enough to be selected.
"Culroyd, you have no business to say that," I told him.
"Will doesn't deny it," he said.
And then I thought my boy shewed both wit and dignity.
"If any one thought it worth while to call me a homicidal maniac," he said, "I doubt if I should bother to deny it."
"They'll never accuse you of even a tendency to homicide—even in war," muttered Culroyd, but he shewed that he had got the worst of it.
I did not like to take Hilda upstairs and leave them a chance of reopening the wrangle; but, when I suggested that we should all go up together, Will remembered that he had promised to meet a man at his club.
"I'm sorry," said Hilda very nicely, though I felt that I really ought to apologize to her for the little scene. "I wanted to talk to you and him privately... There's no harm in speaking before you, Lord Culroyd, because you're one of the family. My father wrote to ask if I knew of any one suitable for a position which is being created in one of his yards—rather a good appointment. He would like to give it to a man who has been in the army, he says. I have the letter upstairs and I remember that the starting salary would be a thousand a year. I think it is the Morecambe yards." ...
My dear! ... I said to myself, "Ann Spenworth, you must keep your head." For a dozen reasons I wanted to get Will out of London. If Culroyd continued to haunt my house, I was thankful to get Will out of the way, though I cannot imagine that this ever entered Hilda's little love-lorn head. And an appointment, when we had waited so long! Besides, London is not good for Will's health. He wakes up with a head-ache and without an appetite—as a matter of course....
I telegraphed as soon as the office opened. Mr. Surdan is a man of business, and the appointment was settled before night. Next day I went up to help find the boy a comfortable home. Don't be shocked now! I am simply echoing Will when I say: "Morecambe is a God-forsaken place." Rooms were out of the question, because he must have some one to look after him. I was recommended to a worthy old clergyman, when everything else failed; and, though Will protested beforehand, he resigned himself when we reached the house. Just the father, the mother and two daughters, who seemed quite fluttered on meeting Will and hearing who he was. Quite pretty girls in a "left-to-run-wild" way... Which I, personally, did not mind. After a month of dear Hilda's nakedness it was a comfort to drop into a world where you saw more clothes than jeune fille... Oh, I don't think Will runs any risk from them; he does realize that love—in the homely old phrase—doesn't pay the butcher's book; and, after that, one has only to school oneself not to fall in love carelessly. But they will give him pleasant, bright companionship in the long evenings...
When I returned to London, Hilda was in bed. An internal chill... She wouldn't see a doctor, she said, as a few days' rest and warmth were all that she needed. I was not sorry to have a few days' rest too. First Will and then Culroyd... I found my little visitor a greater strain than I had anticipated... My "rest" was "nothing to write home about", as Will used to say, for I found myself required to cope with a lioness which had been robbed of its cub—Culroyd, I mean. He came as usual expecting to see Hilda—and pretending he only wanted to see his poor old aunt! And left the moment he had swallowed his coffee! It's a good thing I'm not vain, isn't it? Next day he came again... At first it was habit, I think; he had got into the way of meeting this child every day. Then it became more serious. If we are going to bless this union, I think we must also bless Hilda's influenza. (It developed into that. And a nice time I had! Responsible to her mother—and day after day the girl refused to see a doctor.) These boys and girls go about together so freely that there is little inducement to bring things to a head, as it were. Goodness me, when I first met Arthur, he would have liked to go about with me everywhere, but my dear mother put her foot down very firmly on that. And, when he found that it was almost impossible for us to meet, Arthur suddenly discovered that I meant more to him than he had suspected... So with Culroyd; history repeating itself, so to say... Hilda was a habit; and, when the habit was broken by influenza, she developed into a need. Culroyd had never taken much trouble before, but now he called every afternoon with flowers and wrote to her morning and evening. She was quite bewildered. A very simple child...
When she was well enough to sit up on a sofa, Culroyd fumed with impatience to see her. He insisted on coming upstairs with me, though I told him I wasn't at all sure... And so it proved: Hilda said she really wasn't equal to meeting any one. The next day she was rather stronger, and I prevailed on her just to let him bring the flowers into her room.
"Aunt Ann, will you leave us alone for one moment?," he asked.
"Really, Culroyd," I said....
Oh, I know it's done, but I was brought up in a different school. All this popping in and out of young people's bedrooms...
"Please! I beg you!," he said.
And then, before I knew where I was, he had kissed me on both cheeks, tapped at the door and disappeared... I went to see about some vases for the flowers; and, when I came back, he was on his knees by the bed and Hilda was stroking his head. My old heart warmed... I am not ashamed to confess it. A radiance that you see before young people have time to become hard, worldly...
They announced it next day to Brackenbury, though I am sure Hilda was imprudent to travel. Though I could not fairly be saddled with any responsibility, I was a little nervous to see how he would take it; every family has its scapegoat, and at the Hall they have so long found it convenient to dignify me with that position...
"Were you surprised?," I asked.
"Well, yes," Brackenbury admitted. "It was commonly reported that you were keeping Hilda up your sleeve for Will. People told me that it was impossible to walk into a restaurant or theatre without meeting them. You won't deny that you did rather throw them at each other's heads?"
"Brackenbury," I said. "If any one thought it worth while to call me a homicidal maniac, I doubt if I should bother to deny it... But are you pleased?"
"Oh, yes," he said. "They seem quite happy; and that's all that matters."
And I preferred to leave it at that. It is not a great match. Ruth, of course, is delighted, because it supports her own conduct in marrying Brackenbury....
Even Phyllida had a good word for me—which was so gratifying!
"I hope you're all as pleased as we are," she said, with a funny, unsmiling expression. Almost antagonistic...
I noticed that she had Hilda's trick of looking you straight in the eyes—a sort of challenge ... quite fearless ... and ready to change in a moment to impudence.
"I am," I said. "Your uncle Arthur is away and has not been told yet. Will is away too."
"What's Will doing?," she asked.
"He was offered a post at Morecambe," I told her. "Hilda's father wanted some one of experience and position, who was used to handling men—"
She seemed to find something to smile at in that.
"What does he get?," she interrupted.
This absorption in pounds, shillings and pence comes to them entirely from their poor mother...
"A thousand a year—to start on," I told her.
"And cheap at the price," said Phyllida.
I had to beg her to enlighten me.
"Well," she said, "I don't call a thousand a year excessive to secure Will—in Morecambe..."
Mrs. Surdan was naturally pleased. For them, at least, it is a great match.
"I little thought that it would end like this, when you asked me to take charge of Hilda for three months," I said.
And that reminded me that what they called "Hilda's pocket-money" was lying almost untouched at the bank in Arthur's name. There had been no ball, hardly anything... But I could not get Mrs. Surdan to say what should be done with it...
"I'm sure you didn't," she answered.
"So, if it's a failure, don't blame me," I said. "And, if it's a success, don't thank me."
"I shall always thank you for your kindness to Hilda," she said, "especially when she was ill."
"That was nothing," I said.
"Hilda's parents don't think so."
And then she did a difficult thing very gracefully. We must have the girl's room properly disinfected, she told me; I assured her that Arthur had already received an estimate for redecorating the whole house. Thanks to them, we were now in a position... Hilda's room, she insisted, must be her province. I have told you that in the old committee days she positively imposed her will on the rest of us; so now. She would not leave the house until she had dragged the estimate out of me by main force.
The work has recently been completed. There was the usual letter to ask if we were satisfied, and Arthur wrote out a cheque. It was returned. Mr. Surdan had asked to have the account sent to him... I was beside myself with anger at such a liberty...
I tell this against myself, because, having gone to curse, I stayed to pray, as it were. Mrs. Surdan wouldn't let me speak.
"Hilda is our only child, as Mr. Will is yours," she said. "If anything had happened to her, you can imagine what we should have thought. Is it altogether kind to say that we must not thank you for your devotion to our little girl?"
There you have the woman—clever, direct, going straight to my weak place...
What could one say?
Lady Ann (to a friend of proved discretion): I feel—don't you?—that, if the embassies can give no enlightenment, they might just as well not be there. Paris is different, of course; nowadays it is hardly more than a suburb of London; with that vast cosmopolitan army always coming and going, one is hardly expected to be one's brother's keeper. And Washington is unlike any other capital; one goes there en poste—or not at all. But in Vienna or Rome... Goodness me, in the old days when my father was ambassador, it was a matter of course. When a new star swam into your ken, you made enquiries in the English colony; if not known there or at the embassy, a wise woman stayed her hand until she had a little something to go on.
In London the corps diplomatique is more diplomatique than corps. Just a swarm of warring atoms, some of them very charming, all of them invaluable if a man fails you at the last moment—a word by telephone to the Chancery: "Two men; I must have them; golf and bridge; the 4.20 from Waterloo; not to bring a servant." ... And so on and so forth. Indispensable for entertaining on Connie Maitland's lines. They are so nice and tractable; but worse than useless if you go officially, as it were, for a whispered word of guidance. As witness Mrs. Sawyer...
I cannot remember where I first met her; probably at Lady Maitland's... Sooner or later one meets everybody there; and, with all respect to dear Connie, I, personally, should not mind if some of her protégés came a little later and left a little sooner ... before I had time to be involved, I mean. It is all this craze for collecting money and, incidentally, carving a niche for oneself as the great organizer. One pictures Connie standing blindfold over a map of England and spearing it ruthlessly with a knitting-needle. "I, Constance Maitland," you can hear her saying, "ordain that here and here and here I will erect hospitals, libraries and wash-houses." ...
Whether the locality likes it or not, as it were. If the needle pierces Grasmere, so much the worse for Grasmere. It shall have its hospital—in mid-lake, regardless of the needless additional expense. I am serious about that, because I feel that, if Connie spent more judiciously, she would not have to appeal so persistently; some of us did contrive to keep the machine running even before my Lady Maitland descended upon us... It does not affect me much, because I am never able to contribute more than a trifle; one cannot undertake her new charities indiscriminately without doing an injustice to the old. Others are more happily placed, and my only quarrel with Connie is that I must either drop her or else consent to embrace all her new friends. This Mrs. Sawyer, for instance...
I forget whether you were in London at the time... No, of course not. Well, I can testify to you that her arrival created quite a stir. The rastaquouère type is not unknown to me by any means, but I thought Mrs. Sawyer a very favourable specimen. Not more than two or three and twenty, though these South American women reach their prime very early—and pass it; jet-black hair and eyes, dead-white face, scarlet lips, really beautiful teeth; altogether a very striking young woman, with just enough of a foreign accent to give an added charm—for those who like that sort of thing. She had a wistful, mysterious manner which accorded well with the ensemble ... and with the story they told about her. I never heard her maiden name, but I was told at once that she was one of the greatest heiresses in Peru—or it may have been Argentina. This Sawyer was a ne'er-do-well Irishman who had been sent to South America ... as one does have to send these people sometimes; he fascinated her, married her, beat her (I should think) and drank himself to death, leaving her utterly broken-hearted and disillusionized—not with him alone, but with the world... She had come to Europe to find a new life. Such was the story that Connie Maitland shouted at one; and, if poor Mrs. Sawyer overheard it, so much the worse for her...
A romantic setting, do you not agree? If you had seen her come into a room with those great, tragic eyes sweeping face after face as though she were looking for the one man who would gather up the fragments of her broken youth... If I had been a man... Superb diamonds, I need hardly say; and almost an arrogance of mourning, as though she would not be comforted... All the young men followed her with their eyes—spell-bound. And some men no longer young...
Do you see much of that pathetic class of over-ripe bachelor which my boy rather naughtily calls the "Have-Beens"? They are common, I suppose, to every age and country, but England seems to contain more than her fair share. Between thirty-five and fifty, not particularly well-connected, not a parti among them, not even extravagantly popular, but useful—apparently—and ubiquitous. I could give you the names of a dozen... Several of them have been in quite good regiments at some time or other. I understand they belong to the usual clubs; most of them dance quite competently; all of them play extremely good bridge, I am told... Several women I know make out a stop-gap list of them; then, if they're short of a man—it is several grades lower than the embassies, of course, and you are not expected to give even a day's notice—, the butler can telephone to them in turn until he finds one disengaged. Delightfully simple, is it not? Having no personalities of their own, they accord well with every one; having no pride, they never resent an eleventh-hour invitation; they are too discreet to pay unduly marked attention to a married woman, they know their place too well to attempt any intimacy with the girls.
I am not ashamed to confess that I have an old-fashioned prejudice in favour of a man who is a man; but the kind I am describing seem to ask nothing more of life than invitations and more invitations—and this strange modern privilege of being "Bunny" and "Chris" and "Theo" to women who are old enough to have outgrown such nonsense. If you entertain—I do not, as you are aware—, I believe it is essential to have some such list as I have indicated; and I am told that the men repay you by running errands and being useful in a thousand ways. For their sake I hope they never hear what other men say about them, even the fellow-members of their little community—there is no more contemptuous critic of "Bunny" than "Theo"—or what the women say, for that matter. We may, if we are built that way, ask "Bunny" or "Theo" to come and look at frocks with us; but we don't respect the man who does... If any girl dared ask Will to waste a morning, talking to her while she sat for her portrait...
"Bunny" and "Theo" and "Chris" all pricked up their ears when they heard about Mrs. Sawyer. It was another house for them to lunch or dine at; and, of course, they were expected to come to the old houses primed with all the gossip they could pick up about her. I don't know whether any of them thought seriously that they had a chance with her; they must surely realize that a woman prefers a man of some spirit... And, if they do, they have no excuse for standing in a ring and keeping every one else away. Of course, they were useful to her. Major Blanstock found her a house in South Audley Street and helped her furnish it and found servants for her and so forth and so on. He even introduced her to Connie Maitland—as a short cut to knowing everybody, which I gather was her ambition.
Certainly there is no one to equal Connie for that. You have seen men in the street, unloading bricks from a cart and tossing them, three or four at a time, from one to another? Should Connie ever sustain a reverse, she will always have a second string to her bow... Major Blanstock tossed this Mrs. Sawyer to Connie, Connie tossed her to me... I was expected, I presume, to toss her on to some one else, but I happen to have been brought up in a different school; before I undertake the responsibility of introducing a complete stranger, I like to know something about her. Goodness me, I don't suggest that my recommendation counts for anything, but for my own peace of mind, when somebody says "Oh, I met her at Lady Ann's"—there is an implied guarantee—, I want to feel that my friends' confidence is not misplaced.
"Now, Major Blanstock," I said, "I want you to tell me all about your lovely young divinity, the rich widow. If I am to befriend her, I must know a little about her."
I imagine that I was not the first enquirer, for he answered with an impatience which in other days some of us might have considered uncivil.
"Is she rich?," he asked. "I know nothing about her. I don't even know she's a widow. I met her on the boat coming home from Buenos Aires; and, as she'd never been in London, I tried to make her feel at home and asked Lady Maitland to give her a helping hand."
And that was literally all I got out of him—the fountain-head. Connie knew nothing and wanted to know nothing. It was enough that Mrs. Sawyer was presentable in herself and would attach her name to any subscription-list for any amount. The others—people who are usually well-informed—simply handed on the gossip which they had themselves made up overnight. It was then that I approached my diplomatic friends.
The difficulty was to know where to start. I couldn't commit myself, I felt, by one dinner, so when my Will came back... From the north, yes. You knew that he was home? Oh, yes! Well, at the moment he is not doing anything. The Morecambe experiment was not a success; the place didn't suit him, and he didn't suit the place. That is all I care to say on the subject. Half-truths are always misleading; and I cannot tell you the full story, because I do not know it. Should it not be enough to know that for days my spirit was crucified? And the end is not yet... I have lost the thread... Ah, yes. We dined à trois: Will and Mrs. Sawyer and I. She was fascinating, magnetic. For the first time Will forgot all about the odious clergyman's odious daughter... No, it slipped out. That belongs to the unhappy Morecambe episode, and I really do not think it very kind of you to keep trying to pump me when I have said I prefer not to discuss it... When he returned after seeing her home, Will wanted to know all about her, and in such a way... I mean, if his voice and manner meant anything, they meant that he had met his fate, as it were. I could tell him little. For one thing, I didn't know; for another, his excitement had gone to my head, I saw ten things at once and, breaking through them all, this splendid, untamed creature with the flashing eyes walking side by side with my Will. Such a contrast ... and such a combination...
"Well, hadn't you better find out something about her?," said Will.
I promised to do my best, but one was sent from pillar to post in a quite too ridiculous way. I thought some one had told me she came from Buenos Aires (perhaps it was only Major Blanstock's saying he had met her on the boat coming home from there); I tried the Argentine colony and the Legation, only to be referred to the Brazilian Embassy; and there, though I am sure they had never heard of her, they were certain that she came from Peru. Until then, I had never realized how many republics there were in South America; I went from Colombia to the Argentine and from Ecuador to Chili. Invariably the first question was: "What was her name before she became Mrs. Sawyer?" And that, of course, I did not know.
There is such a thing as trop de zèle, sometimes hardly distinguishable from making oneself ridiculous...
"Surely," I said to Will, "our judgement of this person or that is a better criterion than the bald (and perhaps inaccurate) statement that a person was born here and married there. Connie Maitland has asked us to shew some little kindness to our friend; and I am not ashamed to confess that it seems grudging to insist too much on credentials. In a favourite phrase of your own, Will, she is "good enough" for me; and, if any one says: "I met her at Lady Ann's," I should be tempted to answer: "I hope you do not need a better recommendation."
"I don't want to look a fool, that's all," said Will.
"My dear boy," I reassured him, "if she were a complete impostor, does one make a fool of oneself by asking her to dinner once or twice? If so, I am afraid I rank hospitality above my own personal dignity."
As a matter of fact, it was all the other way. Mrs. Sawyer developed a mania for entertaining. I went gingerly at first, for one had seen so many rastaquouères treading that road, but no fault could be found with her methods. Either through Connie Maitland or others, she seemed to know every one, and you went to the little réunions in South Audley Street with the certainty that, if you did not meet all your friends there, at least every one that you met would be a friend. I enjoyed her parties; indeed, I only hope that she enjoyed them as much as we did, though I confess I sometimes looked at those tragic black eyes and wondered what amusement it could give her.
Stay! There was one blot: her hospitality left one no opportunity of making an adequate return. Where there is a marked difference of means, I am the last to suggest that one should proceed on the principle of "a cutlet for a cutlet and a quail for a quail", but it is uncomfortable to feel that everything is coming from one side. My own conscience is clear, for we had done our part; Mrs. Sawyer had in fact dined with us once in Mount Street—just Will and me; I am not in a position to entertain in the old sense of the word—, we had asked her again at least once, and she had never been able to come. It was always: "Oh, won't you come to me? And whom shall I ask to meet you? And would you prefer just to dine or shall we go to a play?" All in that charming almost-broken English of hers. It would have been ungracious to refuse...
I confess that I never saw and do not see to this day how some of the "Have-Beens" justified their existence. I mean, Will and I dined or lunched or went to a play with her three and four times a week, simply because Major Blanstock told us that she was alone in London and Connie Maitland had asked me to look after her. I can assure you, we never went to South Audley Street without finding a little cluster of "Bunnies" and "Theos" and the rest.
I tackled one of them about it... This is between ourselves, but it was Mr. Gorleigh—"Reggie" Gorleigh, I suppose I should call him, to be in the fashion.
"You seem a great friend of Mrs. Sawyer," I said. "I am always meeting you here. Tell me; I don't know how long she is staying in London, but one would like her to take away a pleasant memory of such hospitality as one can shew her. Is there anything we can do to make a little return? I hardly like to go on taking with both hands."
"Well, I felt that from the first," said Mr. Gorleigh. "Geordie Blanstock introduced me, and I came here once or twice... Then I felt ... as you do; and I cried off. The only thing is, she hasn't many friends, and I thought it wasn't quite fair, perhaps, to stay away out of a sort of false delicacy. The poor little woman wants companionship."
"Your feelings do you credit," I said as gravely as I could.
Really, it would have been laughable if it had not been so disgusting. A man who lives by sponging on his friends for free meals to pretend that he was coming, against his will, to give "the poor little woman" the inestimable privilege of feeding him... But, if you please, that was the accepted "eye-wash", as my boy would call it. In a spirit of pure mischief, I am afraid, I went from one to another: "Bat" Shenstone, "Laurie" Forman, "Theo" Standish, "Bunny" Fancroft. Always the same story! They didn't come to the house for what they could get out of it; I must understand that they were Mrs. Sawyer's friends. Hoity-toity! Friends with a capital "F"...
Very soon it was "Consuelo's" friends. Looking back on it all, one seems to hear a series of commands: "on the word 'loot', quick march; on reaching South Audley Street, halt and enter; on the word 'love' ..." and so forth and so on. No, it's not mine; Will drew a most amusing picture... But that is literally what happened: first of all, they were "Consuelo's" friends, then they were all in love with her.
I have suggested that men of that stamp are incapable of being serious about anything—except the next meal; but any one who was genuinely fond of the poor woman could not help seeing that this formal persecution was more than a joke. Will came to me after one of her parties and said that it was high time for us to do something.
"Get her away from all that gang," he cried; and from the agitation of his voice I could see that he was taking this to heart.
And, you know, it was rather dreadful to see that lovely creature with the tragic eyes standing like a bewildered child with all these young-old men baying round her...
"It's easier said than done," I told him.
"Uncle Tom Brackenbury's going north for the Twelfth," said Will. "Get him to lend you the Hall and ask Consuelo down."
My brother, as you know, is of so curious a temper that I have always been more than chary of even seeming to put myself under an obligation to him. One had the feeling, don't you know, that, if he did not place a wrong construction on one's request, my niece Phyllida would... Since Culroyd's engagement, however, poor Aunt Ann's shoulders have been relieved a little of their burden; the family persists in thinking that I contributed to bring it about, whereas I rigidly set my face against any planning of that kind and was only responsible to the extent that Hilda Surdan was staying in my house when my nephew Culroyd met her... The point of importance, however, is that Aunt Ann is now embarrassingly popular. Brackenbury lent me the house almost before I asked for it...
Then I had to think how the invitation might be made most attractive to Consuelo. After the excitement of her life in London, undoubtedly the best thing would have been to give her all the rest and quiet that we could. There is, however, a strain of something restless and untamed about her; one pictures her running bare-foot through the woods or plunging into the surf by moonlight; and, though she would overcome that in time, I could not conceal from myself that, on the one occasion when she had dined with us en famille, she had flagged... I told her that I hoped to secure some of our common friends; and Will and I worked hard to arrange relays of the people who would best accord, so to say...
I started with Major Blanstock, as he seemed her oldest friend. To do him justice, after the first meeting at Connie Maitland's house, I had never seen him with the jackals; he didn't pretend to be in love with her, he didn't talk about the pearls of his friendship and he didn't even refer to her as "Consuelo".
"I shall be delighted to come, if I can get away," he said.
"Your fascinating young widow is coming," I said, as a bait—though I felt that he had long ago lost interest in her.
"My widow?," he repeated. "I am alive—and unmarried, Lady Ann."
"Silly man! Our Brazilian heiress," I explained.
"Oh! Mrs. Sawyer," he said. "Is she Brazilian? I didn't know that. But it's not fair to embarrass her with my friendship. She is almost a stranger to me; I don't know that she's an heiress, I don't even know that she's a widow."
"But," I said, "surely her husband drank himself to death."
"Some one told me that he drank," said Major Blanstock. "Whether he drank himself to death I can't tell you. I didn't feel it was my affair..."
I forget whether any one was with us at the time, but this story spread... At least, it wasn't a story; several people, knowing nothing of the facts, had chosen to assume that a certain woman was a widow; one man, equally knowing nothing, said that he did not know whether she was a widow or not. Goodness me! Did it matter two pins one way or the other, so far as we were concerned? I should have been sorry to find out afterwards that there had been any kind of scandal, because one had thrown one's mantle over the woman and given an implied guarantee, as it were. That was why I did attempt to learn a little something from my diplomatic friends... But it is hardly too much to say that a panic ensued among the "Bunnies" and "Theos".
"They tell me," said Mr. "Bat" Shenstone, "that Mrs. Sawyer's husband is still living."
"Oh?," I said. That phrase—"They tell me"—! It always puts me on my guard.
I nearly told him that, if he was only a friend to her, it did not matter whether she had a husband or not... I noticed that she was "Mrs. Sawyer" now...
The stories that I met for the next few days were so fantastic that I really think some one must have been deliberately making them up. At one moment the husband was in a home for inebriates, at another he was alive and well with a formidable revolver ready for any one who became too "friendly" with his wife; at another he was supposed to be in prison for actually shooting a man; then she was said to have divorced him, then he was said to have divorced her. Finally I was assured that she had never had a husband and was an adventuress who had come to exploit London. The money, I was told, was a decoy, and in reality there was no money; she had been left a few thousands by some man with whom she had been living; and she was pouring it out right and left in the hope of ensnaring some one else before it was all spent.
I really did not know what I should be required to believe next.
"We must clear this up," said Will one night when we were all down at the Hall.
"Which story in particular?," I asked.
"All of them," he answered very decisively; and at once. I'm not thinking of us, but we can't afford to let Consuelo have these lies circulating about her. Why don't you talk to her and find out the truth?"
I am not ashamed to confess that I rather shrank from the prospect. Mrs. Sawyer had always been so singularly uncommunicative that it seemed impertinence to peer behind the veil. And the more so when she was one's guest. I don't think I could have screwed up courage, if Will's forethought had not shewn me the way; but I did tell her as gently and sweetly as I could that there was always a certain idle curiosity about foreigners who came to live in England and that, in her case, the curiosity was increased by her beauty and immediate success. I coaxed her to tell me a little about her life...
"What do you want to know?," she asked.
Those great black eyes—-how I wish you had seen her!—became cold as stone. I was frightened...
"Your husband..." I began.
"He is dead."
Truly honestly, do you know, I couldn't go on. I did find out that he had been dead eighteen months and they had been married for less than a year and there were no children. That, at least, was her story; one had no opportunity of testing it or catching her out ... even if one had wanted to. Who she was before, where the money came from, if there was any money—not a word! To this day I don't know whether she hailed from Paraguay or Venezuela...
"She is a widow," I was able to tell Will; and indeed I took great pains to scotch these ridiculous stories which had been swirling round London when I left. It was cruel that any one should say such things of any woman; and, if my boy ever thought fit to drop the handkerchief, I did not want to have any explaining-away to do. She was greatly attracted to him, and I fancy that the one doubt in his mind was the immense difference in blood and breeding: Roman Catholic (I presume; I have no certain knowledge even of that) and Anglican, Latin and Anglo-Saxon ... and so forth and so on. We really knew so very little about her that my boy prudently and properly did not seek to press his advantage with her prematurely...
I sometimes feel that in London one uproots one lie only to make room for another. A few days' "propaganda", as Will would say, convinced people that "the mystery woman", as some one christened her, had no homicidal husband lurking with a revolver behind the nearest bush. But a different story became wide-spread ... indeed, universally repeated and almost universally believed. The old story, I should say, was revived. People said that she had come over with a few thousands and had spent every penny of it.
"I have no more knowledge than you have," said Major Blanstock, when I tackled him about it one day at Brackenbury; and then he added with rather a tiresome assumption of virtue: "I didn't feel it was my affair."
"But you're her friend," I said.
"If she gives me an opportunity of proving it."
"And in some ways her sponsor," I said.
"Oh, I would stand sponsor for her at all times," he answered. "If your story is true, she will have an opportunity of proving the quality of all her friends."
And there the thing ended, so far as we were concerned. Brackenbury had lent us the house for two months; but, when Consuelo left us after a fortnight, we were not sorry to return the following day to London. I was in terror that Will might commit himself before we had really found out anything; but, the moment these stories began circulating again, he very wisely retired into his shell; I suppose it was because she felt that no progress was being made that Consuelo curtailed her visit. Or, perhaps, with that restlessness of hers, she was simply bored; my feelings would not suffer if she told me that one dull old woman... I should explain that our scheme of house-parties broke down; the women, indeed, came, but man after man failed us at the last moment. One spent Friday morning despatching one's staff in turn to the telephone with names and more names and yet more names...
I found it hard to believe that all the "Bunnies" and "Theos" were in such request, but no enlightenment was vouchsafed until our return to Mount Street. If there had been a panic when we left London, the phrase sauve-qui-peut is hardly too strong for the condition we found awaiting us. Some one had industriously spread this story that Mrs. Sawyer was a mere adventuress, and everybody was anxiously disclaiming all acquaintance with her. I have suggested that for months it was impossible to enter South Audley Street without running into Mr. "Reggie" Gorleigh; with my own ears I heard him say: "Mrs. Sawyer? Oh, that South American woman! I think I know who you mean."
For sheer audacity...
"I don't know what else you would expect," said Major Blanstock one day. "People in London will take anything from anybody—and go on taking it so long as they think there's money about. If you whisper that they may afterwards have to make a return, they vanish into thin air. I know nothing of Mrs. Sawyer's affairs; but, if it's true that she has lost all her money, I should have thought that her friends would have rallied round her and shewn that it made no difference. On a strict calculation of one meal against another, they could keep her from starving for a year or two."
"And so I have no doubt they will," I said, though I detest all this modern weighing and balancing.
Where calculation comes in, hospitality goes out.
"She's absolutely deserted!," he cried. "I know, because I'm the only man who goes near her."
"That, Major Blanstock," I said rather sharply, "is neither fair nor true. Consuelo spent a fortnight with us, she was invited to stay longer."
"But would you ask her again?," he sneered; and I could see that he was most offensively hinting that we, like the rest, had dropped her when the bubble was pricked.
"My brother has unfortunately resumed possession of Brackenbury," I told him.
And then I really had to pretend that there was somebody at the other end of the room who wanted to speak to me... I hope I am tolerably good-tempered, but I will not allow every one to make himself a ruler and a judge...
All through the summer it had been "Mrs. Sawyer this" and "Mrs. Sawyer that". Dear Consuelo was so charming, her parties were so delightful. If one did not know her, one must take steps to become acquainted. And so forth and so on... In the autumn there was what I can only describe as a guilty silence; it was in questionable taste to mention her; she dropped out completely, and one almost begged one's man not to bring the car home by way of South Audley Street. Every one seemed to fear that she might present herself any day at the door and claim to be taken in and supported by those who had only accepted her too lavish hospitality because they were "friends" and a little sorry for her lonely state. Then came the great surprise...
It can only have been a surprise to people who had jumped to conclusions without troubling to collect a shred of evidence... I purposely kept my mind a blank... There were rumours; and then one read the announcement—that she was marrying this Major Blanstock. I believe she is a great heiress, I believe her husband did drink himself to death. And I still believe, as I always believed, that she is a thoroughly nice, very unhappy woman...
She would never have done for Will... As you would be the first to agree, if you had seen her. Oh, I can't describe my relief that nothing came of that. The difference of blood and breeding—Roman Catholic and Anglican, Latin and Anglo-Saxon...
But I feel that the poor woman would have been given a fairer chance if her own people at the Legation had been able to tell us something about her. If they can't do that, I really don't know what they are there for or why one takes the trouble to invite them to one's house...
Lady Ann (to a friend of proved discretion): Oh, but I fully believe they do it! There were rumours even before the war. To my mind, the idea that any girl should ask a man to marry her is so repugnant that I can hardly think of it calmly. All so-called "Leap-Year jokes" seem to me to be in execrable taste... Since the war, with these millions of superfluous women, I am told that it has become quite common. You have always had the cranks who claimed that a woman had as much right to choose a husband as a husband to choose a wife; and now girls like my niece Phyllida say that, with the general upset of war, a little money frightens a man away and, if you want him to see that a difference of means is not a real obstacle, you have to take the first step. I'm inclined to say: "Rubbish, child, rubbish"—and again "Rubbish". Since when have young men developed these fantastic scruples? And does any girl think that the only way of securing a man is to propose to him? I should have imagined... But I was brought up in a different school...
Phyllida, of course, was struggling with her obsession. I do feel Brackenbury incurred a responsibility in not sending her right away. Ever since Colonel Butler disappeared, she has alternately fumed and fretted. Now she is becoming hard and cynical; if she were ten years older, you would call her "soured". Ridiculous at one-and-twenty, or whatever she is... And she became no more normal after giving up hope of him. Oh, yes, I'm thankful to say that I think all that is quite over, though we must expect to see an occasional relapse; hence the discussion. She said that, if she met her Hilary or ever found out where he was, she would throw herself into his arms and ask him to marry her. And sotto voce the customary hateful suggestion that I had taunted him with wanting to marry her for her money and so driven him away in order to clear the ground for my Will. It is always on the tip of my tongue to say that she seems very certain of my boy. But it is the modern fashion for a girl to think she has only to drop the handkerchief... Brackenbury patted her hand (if he had slapped her it would have been more to the point), I went on with my work. She wanted the stimulus of a little opposition, and that was just what I refused to give her. Then she began talking in general terms about the difficulty that a girl has in finding a husband nowadays: fewer men than ever, all of them uprooted by the war and uncertain of their future, widows marrying again, the older women remaining young so much longer. I felt that, to some extent, it was all true, but I was surprised to hear such truths on Phyllida's lips if she still wanted me to think she was faithful to Colonel Butler's memory...
Culroyd's marriage made a difference, of course. He was a devoted brother, according to his lights; and I think she is missing him greatly. And one wedding, like one funeral, leads to another. You have seen it again and again! The trousseau, the presents, the letters, the general excitement, the very contagion of two young lovers... All this coming at a time when she seemed deliberately to be making herself as unhappy as possible... I knew there would be a strong reaction, I was only afraid that she might throw herself at my Will's head and that he might be unable to say "no". I kept him away from the Hall as much as I could. If he really wanted her, he could drop the handkerchief—I felt—in his own good time...
"Your turn will come," I told her.
"Oh, I don't care who I marry," she answered. "I suppose I shall need a home when I'm turned out of here; and, if so, I'd better get to work while I'm still young enough to attract men. I'm open to any offer; the man mustn't be too hopeless a cad, that's all."
This mock-desperation would have been very cynical if it had not been so unconvincing. I said nothing at the time; but, when I had a moment alone with her poor mother, I did feel it my duty to say candidly that it was time somebody did something to change the girl's thoughts. Ruth agreed, but in a helpless, hopeless way that always makes me wonder how Brackenbury has put up with her for so many years. In her opinion, Phyllida was pining for her young soldier and would continue to pine, so far as I could gather, until she found him.
"Is it not better," I asked, "to face facts? Colonel Butler was certainly attracted, but he realized in time that he had hardly the means or the position to qualify him as husband to Phyllida and son-in-law to Brackenbury. Very properly he made himself scarce; and nothing in life became him so well as his leaving of it. You say he has not written? He won't write;—and I respect him for it. But, goodness me, I hope you're not going to encourage Phyllida to think that she's broken her heart in a hopeless passion. If you won't send her right away (as, you will have the justice to remember, I felt it my duty to suggest at the outset), let her come to me for a few weeks and let me see if London can't provide something to turn her thoughts."
The trouble was, if you will promise not to tell any one I said so, that Phyllida's vanity was hurt. When she was running after this young man, there was so much publicity that people began to wonder; they became spied on and whispered about; when he was summoned to Brackenbury, every one felt that now they were going to make certain of him; when he left before his time, without saying a word to her, it was naturally assumed that he had run away. Rather than believe that any man could weary of her charms, Phyllida will convince herself that I turned young Butler against her... Hence this terrible bitterness...
If you ask me whether I expected to have my offer accepted, I will frankly say "no". I think Phyllida must enjoy surprises, for she accepted the invitation at once, though perhaps a little ungraciously and with a suggestion that, within limits, any one was welcome to her... Will was at home; and, though I have never been able to decide what I should think if he told me that he was going to marry his cousin, I was certainly beginning to feel that it was time for him to find a suitable wife and settle down. Will is nearly thirty, and I have always considered that a popular and good-looking bachelor is unfairly exposed to temptation in England. They will let well alone if only others would leave them alone...
As witness that girl at Morecambe. I shall not tell you about that, because I hope—nay more; I pray—that it is all satisfactorily settled; and, also, I was never told the full story. It was enough for me that he had lost a splendid appointment and now, once more, has nothing to live on; he must marry or find a job... When the girl's father came to the house—one of these rugged, north-of-England clergymen who always have the air of intimidating you into a state of grace—, it was my husband whom he insisted on seeing. I had never known Arthur in a state of such ungovernable fury. Bursting into my room, he stamped up and down, incoherent, beside himself... To this day I do not know what Will is supposed to have done. The girl kissed him good-night or something. I suppose I am the last person to condone any freedom, but she was a mere child ten years younger than my boy—what more natural or innocent? The old father spied on them... Hence the storm. Reading between the lines, I should conjecture that the girl deliberately laid herself out to catch Will. The one time I saw this Molly Phenton, she seemed an attractive child, with deep-set, rather appealing eyes; a good deal of soft brown hair, too, and pretty hands. Quiet, simply dressed; a perfect specimen of "the old country clergyman's pretty little daughter." And that, I have no doubt, was the effect she wanted to achieve with Will, the appeal of innocence and youth to a palate grown weary of more sophisticated charms; I wonder more men are not caught in that way... Will, I am thankful to say, pulled back before the trap could close on him; I was really astounded that the father had the effrontery to come all the way from Morecambe on what was nothing less or more than a blackmailing expedition. Futile, if nothing else; Will is not one of those men who find it necessary to buy popularity by giving presents to all and sundry; and I am sure he is too prudent to write a girl foolish letters...
"Arthur, do stop walking about," I said, "and tell me what has happened."
Too often, only too often, when Will has been in trouble of any kind, I have been excluded on the pretext that this was not a woman's province. His own mother!
"What has happened?," he shouted. "Why, we have brought into this world as choice a young blackguard as any one is ever likely to meet. Phenton told me so to my face; and I had to agree with him. He said he wished he were young enough to horse-whip the fellow; I said I agreed. He wished the girl had a brother to do it; I said again that I agreed."
I really thought it best to let him wear himself out... When a man speaks in that tone about his own son, when a Christian minister talks about horse-whipping people... All these wild words made rather less than no impression on me, as I was quite sure that my boy hadn't written anything that could be used against him.
"And what is the outcome of it all?," I ventured to ask, when the storm had abated.
"The outcome?" When Arthur is moved, he has a most irritating trick of repeating one's words. For thirty years I have tried to break him of it, but he is obdurate. "You'd better find some woman who'll marry the young scamp and keep him in order. The sooner the better. And I wish her joy of him."
When Will returned to Mount Street—he lived at his club until the wild clergyman returned to Morecambe—, I begged for enlightenment, but he would say nothing. For that, I am not ashamed to confess, I respected him; however badly this Molly Phenton (or "Molly Wanton," as I prefer to call her) had behaved, Will was too chivalrous to clear himself at the expense of a woman—and this though I could see that he was worried out of his mind. To a man, that is a law of the Medes and Persians...
"Son of mine, you must try to forget the whole thing," I said. "When you are older, I am afraid that some of your ideals will be modified; in future, no doubt, you will be more on your guard; but you will never be secure until you are yourself married."
"Oh, I'm open to any offer," said Will, exactly as poor Phyllida had done.
I was disquieted, for I could see clearly that he would indeed never feel secure from this girl until he was plighted to another woman. When once a man is "Morning-Posted", as he would say, all other fancied claims dissolve into thin air... The mere sight of the Morecambe post-mark in those days sent my heart into my mouth, and I could see that the strain of this persecution was telling on his nerves. "Ann Spenworth," I said to myself, "you must make up your mind; if he wants to marry Phyllida, you must not stand in the way." ...
All my life I have shrunk from the responsibility of interfering with the destiny of a boy and girl in love. The relationship is too delicate, the consequences are too grave. Before Phyllida came, I reviewed the position and decided to make no change.
"Your cousin," I told Will, "is coming to us for a few weeks, and I wish her to carry back pleasant memories of her visit. It is no secret to you that she has been disappointed through fancying herself in love with a man who could never have been a suitable husband for the Earl of Brackenbury's daughter. We have to be kind to her; and, if I know anything of girls, you will find that one who for the moment feels forlorn and uncared-for will repay the affection of him who can overcome her sense of loneliness and convince her that the whole world is not indifferent to her happiness. The labour and heat of the day," I said, "must inevitably fall on you. I cannot hope that your cousin will be amused by the society of a dull old woman like me; and I am unequal to the physical strain of accompanying her to dances and plays. If you will relieve me of this burden, you will be doing us both a kindness; and, though I cannot hope to repay you, I should like you to feel that you may draw on me for any expenses to which you may be put in the course of keeping her amused."
Some people—especially the really good-natured—feel that they owe themselves a grumble before ever consenting to do a kind act. Will is like that; unless you knew him well, you might think that he made difficulties before putting himself out in the slightest degree, but on this occasion he promised without demur. Perhaps he hoped that in playing cavalier to Phyllida he would turn his own thoughts from that unhappy episode at Morecambe; I prefer to think that, having now suffered himself, he was more sensitive to others' suffering... I did not enquire how they spent their time; they were cousins and could go about together without being spied on and whispered about; I made over the car to them, kept Will supplied with little sums to cover their amusements and asked no questions. From start to finish, he behaved splendidly. I am not being unkind if I say that Phyllida was sometimes a little difficile... You have noticed, I expect, that, when people of a certain class become possessed of a motor-car for the first time, their ambition is to see how fast they can drive it. Phyllida, I am afraid—and I was sorry to see it, though I could hardly hope for any other fruit of poor Ruth's upbringing; you may copy the mannerisms of others, but you can only give forth the breeding that is in you... I have lost the thread... Ah, yes! Phyllida, I am afraid, seeing a loyal and attentive cavalier always by her side... She tried my Will very hard; I sometimes felt that she was deliberately experimenting to see how much he would bear.
Among places of amusement it was always her choice that prevailed; Will has a weakness for these revues—"you can at least smoke there," he says—; Phyllida seemed to have developed into a remorseless blue-stocking. By day she wore him out at exhibitions... When he was not cooling his heels in a shop... At night he was expected to stay up till all hours to bring her home from dances. And so forth and so on...
Perhaps she tried us all rather hard. Money seemed to melt in her hands; and, though I did not grudge her my last penny if it was going to turn her thoughts, I am not ashamed to confess that I have reached an age where I set great store by my personal comfort. When you have lived for thirty years under the same vine and fig-tree, you begin to regard your home as a frame and setting which you are not too anxious to share with any one; hitherto my guests, when any have done me the honour to make my house their own, have recognized that the hostess has the first claim on their consideration. Not so Phyllida, who seems to have been brought up in a very different school. She was ruthless in her unpunctuality at meals and in her general disregard of every one else's convenience; plans were chopped and changed up to the last moment, and there were times when I felt that she was deliberately making everything as difficult as possible—almost as though the absurd old feud had not been forgotten and I had put myself at her mercy. More than anything else I felt the loss of the car. They used it so unmercifully that I hourly expected the man to give notice; and in the meantime poor Aunt Ann was left to go by taxi—when she could find one.
I ought never to have lent it? My dear, you are preaching to the converted, but I have a reason different from yours. I was standing helplessly outside Covent Garden one night, when a taxi providentially drove up and I got into it. Only when I was half-way home did I remember that I had not told the man where to take me. Laugh, if you will; but I have never been so frightened! The wildest stories of kidnapping and robbery surged into my head. I was wearing my tiara, and the man had made a bee-line for me... Yet we were driving the shortest way to Mount Street, and the mystery was not explained until the man—with delightful and most unexpected civility—jumped down from the box, opened the door and stood cap in hand, waiting to help me out. Almost as though one had been Royalty...
"You have forgotten me, Lady Ann?," he asked.
And then I'm not sure that the second shock wasn't worse than the first. Colonel Butler! Phyllida's soldier-hero, driving a cab! He had won a Military Cross and a D.S.O.—with a bar, I believe; he had always seemed a manly, straightforward young fellow—and here he was driving a cab! "This—this—" I felt myself apostrophizing Phyllida, Brackenbury, that poor fool Ruth—"this is what I've saved you from." ... And then one had a certain revulsion of feeling: the pity of it! ... And then stark horror! If Phyllida met him! Not then; I knew she was at a dance with Will and would not be back for hours, but at any moment when I was not there to protect her from herself. I recalled her dreadful threat that, if she saw or heard of Hilary Butler, she would fling herself into his arms and beg him to marry her...
"But—of course I remember you," I said.
He smiled—without embarrassment of any kind—and walked up the steps with me.
"Have you a key?," he asked, "or shall I ring?"
He spoke so nicely... If you like, just a touch of what I think must be West Country; but, when things were at their worst and I felt that we had to be prepared for anything, it was a slight consolation to know that he could easily have it drilled out of him... I could have done the same for Ruth twenty-three years ago, but she seemed to pride herself on her provincialism.
Now I wonder what you would have done... When Phyllida was nursing him at the hospital—or just afterwards—, he was always in Mount Street, lunching, dining; before they took to going about by themselves quite so much, we had all been to the play, he had seen us home—just like this—and asked me—just like this—whether I had my key or whether he should ring... There was no one at home; even Arthur was in the country. I felt I couldn't suddenly freeze...
"I have my key, thanks," I said. "Won't you come in for a moment?"
He stopped his engine and came in... Now, I wonder what you would have done, if you'd been in his place? ... He took off coat and gloves (he was wearing quite a presentable blue suit underneath), and I led the way into the morning-room, where I offered him cigarettes and something to drink ... wondering the whole time, don't you know, why one had done it and how long he would stay... With the coat and cap he seemed to divest himself of what I can only call the professional manner; asked me if I wouldn't have a little of my own brandy, commented on some new curtains I'd bought when we did up the house after Hilda Culroyd's illness. Absolutely at home...
"How is Phyllida?," he asked.
"My niece is very well, thank you," I answered, hardly caring—at that moment—to notice the familiarity. "And what have you been doing with yourself since last we met?," I made haste to ask.
"Oh, as you see," he said, "I've turned taxi-man. Owner-driver. One in action, four in support and nine training."
I had to beg for enlightenment. And I am not ashamed to confess that his explanation, when it came, greatly increased my respect for him. The father, one gathered, was an estate-agent and surveyor in Devonshire, highly esteemed, but neither a millionaire himself nor in a position to make his son a millionaire simply by wishing it. The boy had realized everything—war-bonus, wound-gratuity and the rest—and had invested in a car which he learned to drive himself. One always suspected that here was a fortune for any young man who was not too proud to take off his coat, and so it proved: the one car became two, the two four and five—hence his expression "one in action and four in support." Now, I was given to understand, he was launching out more widely and negotiating for the purchase of nine more. A few of his friends—young fellows like himself discharged from the army—were coming into partnership with him; and in six months he hoped to give up driving himself and to turn his business into a limited company, partly taxis and partly those really magnificent private cars that one sees at the opera and everywhere, filled by people who one knows could not afford to buy such things at the present prices...
I complimented him most warmly on his enterprise and determination.
"It was so obvious," he answered. "Stand outside any theatre or restaurant on a wet night, and you'll agree with me. There are thousands of people living in London, hundreds of thousands coming to London for a few nights, who need a car and can't afford to keep one. By the time you've ordered dinner at fifteen shillings a head and champagne at two guineas a bottle and brandy at five shillings a glass and cigars at four shillings a-piece and stalls at twelve and six and anything else that occurs to you at any price that occurs to any one else, you don't grudge an extra guinea for a car that takes you from your house to the restaurant, from the restaurant to the theatre and from the theatre home again. You'd spend the best part of a guinea in fares and tips—without any certainty. For two guineas I give you certainty and a private car. In two years no one who can afford to dine at Claridge's or go to the stalls will dream of going any other way. Whether it pays you can judge from the progress I've made in less than a year."
Like all enthusiasts on their own hobby, he deluged me with figures until my poor head reeled. I did not complain, however, because I felt that so long as he was doing sensible hard work he would be unlikely to return and disturb our peace of mind. Apart from the one formal question he had not mentioned Phyllida; and I was strengthened in the belief which I had always held that it was a momentary infatuation and that he proved he had overcome it when he declined to communicate with her.
I hope I did nothing to suggest that one can have too much even of percentages and running expenses and allowances for depreciation and the like, but he jumped up suddenly and said:
"Well, I mustn't keep you and I mustn't be late for my next job. I hope your brother and Lady Brackenbury are all right? I see Culroyd is married."
"They are all very well," I said, as I walked with him to the door.
"If I may ask a favour, Lady Ann, don't tell any of them what I'm doing," he begged.
Do you know, that was the only jarring note... The first recognition, of course, was a shock. "D.S.O. Taxi-driver," don't you know? In some strange way it grates... Having taken the plunge, our young friend, I felt, was entitled to the highest credit, and anything like false shame would have been discordant.
"They would be the first," I said, "to join me in applauding your resolution and hoping for your success."
"But I want it to be a surprise," he said.
At that, my heart sank.
"But why?," I asked.
"For Phyllida's sake," he answered. "I've not seen her since that week-end at the Hall, I've not written to her; and she can't write to me, because she doesn't know where I am. I presume she's not engaged, because I've seen no announcement of it, but I don't want to do anything that may stand in her light. If my present scheme fails, I shall have to start on something else; if it succeeds—and when it succeeds—, it will be time enough for me to see what's happened to her. I've never forgotten our talk. If I didn't love a girl, I might cheerfully marry her for her money; but, when I do love her, I couldn't bear to have people even hinting such a thing. You told me that she had four thousand of her own; when I can go to her father and say that I'm making more than that—clear profit to my own pocket—, I shan't be afraid to look any one in the face. But I've not asked her to wait for me; and, if in the meantime she meets any one that she wants to marry more, no one will ever hear me complain."
And then he buttoned himself into his coat—even now I couldn't quite get over the disc with the number on it, hanging from a button-hole—, picked up his cap and held out his hand.
I walked to the door,—and then my heart seemed to stop. You may remember that the horn of our car has a note which I at least find unmistakable. I heard it in the distance, I heard it coming nearer. Phyllida and Will! It was only twelve, and I had not expected them for hours. Evidently the dance had not been to their liking. I prayed that I might prove equal to the crisis...
"Colonel Butler!," I cried. (One never troubled to think whether he should rightly be given his military rank). "Shut that door! Run upstairs to the drawing-room! Hide there till I fetch you, but on no account turn on the light! My niece is coming now; if you want to avoid her..."
He acted with great decision and literally dashed upstairs. I heard the door gently closing as Will fitted his key into the lock... My dear, I am too old for excitements of this kind; my heart was beating; I had no idea what to say if they asked me why a taxi was standing there unattended. Oh, and I felt sure Phyllida would say she had left her work or her book in the drawing-room...
It was agony! I could not persuade them to go to bed. First of all they wanted to know why I was still up, then they must needs tell me about their party, then Phyllida wanted a cigarette, then Will wanted to give her some soda-water. One false start after another... When at last I thought I had set them moving, Phyllida sat down again and said:
"Will dear, see if there are any letters for me, there's an angel."
Do you know, I was so much obsessed by the thought of that man in the drawing-room that I was blind to everything else. As my boy went into the hall, I felt that I had seen a change without noticing it, if you understand me. Will was transformed, elated ... and there was a new gentleness about Phyllida. When he brought the letters to her, I could see that he pressed her hand; and she sighed wistfully and then smiled. Now I could understand why they complained that the dance was so crowded, no room to sit, impossible even to talk...
"Read those upstairs, dear Phyllida," I begged.
And I took her arm and led her up, past that terrifying drawing-room, into safety. Will ... When I returned, he wanted to talk; but I implored him to go up and let me come to him in a moment. He was curious, mystified ... but at least he could not doubt my earnestness. Then at last I released my prisoner and hurried him through the hall and into the street. When I had shut the door I leaned against it, panting. I couldn't walk, I could hardly stand...
"And now, Will?," I said, when I was able to drag myself upstairs.