The Dillings returned to Ottawa refreshed in body and spirit. Their
summer in Pinto Plains had been a prolonged triumph and its effect,
beneficial. Not only had they been welcomed with affectionate deference,
entertained sedulously, and permitted to depart with honest regret and a
dash of frank envy, but they had been reclaimed by that splendid
illusion from which six months in the Capital had freed them.
By the time they turned their faces eastward, they were quite prepared
to attribute their disheartening experiences of the previous winter to
hyper-sensitiveness—the difficulty generally felt in accommodating
oneself to a new environment.
It was during the last stages of the journey that uneasiness returned,
and expressed itself in remarks such as,
“Just think . . . this time last year we were strangers, and now, it
seems almost like coming home!” or
“It’s nice to know that we have friends here, isn’t it? We won’t be so
lonely, this year, will we?”
Each in a characteristic way tried to capture a sense of confidence, a
glow of happiness, and to feel that being no longer aliens, Ottawa would
be different—that is, as each would like to find it.
Marjorie succeeded better than her husband.
“It’s awfully exciting, isn’t it?” she cried, as the train panted along
beside the canal, and familiar landmarks unfolded before her.
Across the muddy water where barges and the Rideau Royal Pair were tied
up for the winter, she could see the Driveway, spotted with children and
women casually attendant upon perambulators. The Pavilion at Somerset
Street, where she used to sit with her little brood, looked bleak and
uninviting, but she was glad to see it, just the same. Two lovers
occupied a bench in front of the Collegiate, and kissed shamelessly as
the train moved past. Marjorie’s heart warmed to them, not that she
approved of kissing in public places, but because there was something
human about them; they added weight to her theory that Ottawa was not so
forbidding and formidable, after all.
Dilling stared out of the window, too, but he did not see the lovers,
the Armouries, the Laurier Avenue Bridge, the Arena, nor the warehouses
flanked by the Russell Hotel. He saw a straggling little lumber village,
gay with the costumes of Red Men, voyageurs, and the uniforms of sappers
and miners, who were at work on the Canal. What a mammoth undertaking
and how freighted with significance! By the building of a hundred and
twenty-six miles of waterway that linked Kingston with the infant
Bytown, English statesmen provided an expedient for adding to the
impregnability of the British Empire!
“War,” he mused. “How it has stimulated the ingenuity of man! With
sacrifice, with blood and tears, we carve a niche for ourselves out of
the resistant rock, in the hope that there we will find peace, but
immediately the task is finished, we set ourselves to fortify it against
the hour of war.”
He pictured the Cave Dweller, bent over his crude instruments of
destruction, clubs of bone and stone, which, in all probability, the
modern man could scarcely lift. He considered the inventor of primitive
projectiles. That was a long step toward the mechanism of modern
homicide. One could lie, ambushed, behind a mound and use a sling, a
boomerang, a blow-pipe or a javelin, and arrows . . . he gave a mental
shudder and thanked God that he had not lived a hundred years ago. There
was something about an Indian that made his flesh creep; a traditional
antagonism that he did not try to overcome. The romance of the Red Man
never gripped him. Like all unimaginative people, his prejudices were
sharp and immutable.
He picked the word “blunderbuss” from a confusion of pictures that
combined Gibraltar and Queenston Heights, and cumbrous cannon that were
dangerous alike to friend and foe, and repeated,
“War! Always fashioning some new tool to strengthen the hand of Death.
They spent a million pounds on a ‘military measure’ to safeguard the
Colony from invasion on the South . . . and behold, the Rideau Canal!”
* * * * *
He started when Marjorie thrust parcels into his arms, and observed that
at last they had arrived.
Azalea met them at the station. She had opened their tiny house, and
with the assistance of Mrs. Plum had put it in order.
Hers had been an exceptionally uneventful summer, and she had looked
forward to the Dillings’ return with an impatience that astonished her.
From the last of June until the first of September, Ottawa is like a
City of the Dead. Despite the fact that these are the pleasantest weeks
of the year, the town is deserted by every one who can get away, even
though the exodus extends no farther than Chelsea, on the other side of
the river. But Azalea hadn’t even got so far, this summer. Her time had
been pretty fully occupied carrying out commissions for more fortunate
friends. Lady Denby who had gone to the sea, asked her to superintend
the installation of the winter’s coal. Mrs. Long preferring the
irresponsibility of Banff to the responsibility of presiding over her
country home and a succession of unappreciated house-parties, decided
that this was an excellent opportunity for papering some of the obscurer
portions of her town residence, and ‘knew that Azalea wouldn’t mind
overseeing the work’. She interviewed a cook for Mrs. Blaine, hunted up
a photograph of Sir Mortimer Fanshawe taken on the golf links (before he
had acquired the game) and excellent as a pictorial feature for a
sporting supplement. She shopped, exchanged articles, paid bills that
had been forgotten, and found herself generally confronted with the _res
angusta domi_ of a woman without an income. She did not grumble. At the
same time, she could imagine a hundred happier ways of spending a
summer.
Mr. and Mrs. Deane left the shelter of their comfortable home to suffer
in turn the hospitality of each of their married daughters, who
holidayed according to their means (i.e., spent a good deal more money
than they could afford, and returned home soured by the necessity for
retrenchment). Azalea could have gone, too, but there were limits even
to her endurance.
The Dillings fell upon her joyously, not only Marjorie and the children,
but Raymond.
“You must come home with us,” he cried, “and tell us all the news. Is it
true that Pratt is running for the Federal House? I heard a rumour to
that effect on the train.”
Azalea nodded.
“You can’t be surprised. This has been his wife’s ambition for years.
She’ll achieve it, too, if there’s anything in persistent campaigning.
But I’ve something else to say—I wrote you about it a few days ago,
before your wire came. The house that Lady Denby has been so keen for
you to take, is empty. I have an option on it in your name.”
Marjorie could not suppress an exclamation. The house in question was
large, and in her opinion, unduly pretentious. Their living expenses
would be more than doubled. It seemed strange to her that people of
their modest means should be encouraged—urged, indeed—to make such
extravagant outlay. Display of any sort was, in the eyes of Pinto
Plains, vulgar, and a cardinal sin upon which her friends felt
themselves qualified to sit in judgment, was that of trying to appear
above one’s station.
To Marjorie, one of the most amazing features about life in the Capital
was the discovery that women who dressed with most conspicuous elegance,
lived in impressive style and drove in motor cars, commanded only a
Civil Servant’s meagre salary. Later, she learned that over their heads
a cloud of debt continually hung, but it caused them no more distress
than did the dome of the sky. The infamous credit system in the city was
responsible for these moral callouses which she simply could not
understand. Debt, to her, was synonymous with dishonesty, and that
anyone could become accustomed to living in its shadow, was beyond the
limits of her comprehension. It was a shock for her to learn that
respected families had unpaid accounts at the large stores extending
over a period of twenty years!
Virtually, any tradesman would supply merchandise on account to a Civil
Servant, because although the salary could no longer be garnisheed, they
hoped that a small payment would be snipped with regularity from the
infallible Governmental cheque.
“Why don’t you buy a set of sectional bookcases for your husband’s
books?” asked Azalea’s sister, Flossie, during the progress of a call.
Marjorie’s reply was ingenuous, naively truthful. “We’ve been under so
much expense lately,” she said, “I felt that I couldn’t afford them.”
Mrs. Howard, whose husband was an anaemic little man, occupying a humble
post in the Department of Labor, opened her eyes in genuine
astonishment.
“You don’t have to _pay_ for them,” she cried. “Hapgood is most
considerate in the matter of his accounts. I generally have to beg for
mine!”
This latter remark was not strictly in line with the truth—not in Mrs.
Howard’s case. She had heard it, however, dropped from the lips of one
of Ottawa’s twenty-three millionaires, and appropriated it, she felt,
with some effect.
But Marjorie couldn’t see any future happiness at all, knowing that she
would be faced with financial problems, and she was absolutely unable to
understand the attitude of Lady Denby, who, throughout the previous
winter, had stressed the necessity for making a better appearance “for
the sake of the Party”.
“When people are wealthy and have an assured position,” she counselled,
“they can enjoy a freedom of action that is denied those less
fortunately conditioned. Mrs. Hudson is an example. She could, if one of
her extraordinary whims dictated, dine at Government House in her
great-grandmother’s faded bombazine, without injuring her position in
the slightest degree. On the other hand, should _you_ attempt the
smallest unconventionality, I assure you the result would be socially
disastrous. The same principle applies in the matter of entertaining.
You are no less a part of public life than is your husband, and you can
render him no greater assistance than by displaying a judicious and
well-regulated hospitality. Cultivate _nice_ people—er—the Minister’s
wives, and so on . . . Entertain them and entertain them well, but—”
she broke off, abruptly, “—you can’t do it _here_!”
It quite took Marjorie’s breath away to learn that Lady Denby considered
women important in politics, and that they might sway their husbands for
or against a fellow member was an idea that had never entered her mind.
Neither could she understand how her own popularity could be a factor in
Raymond’s success, and that it was dependent upon maintaining a position
she would not afford, instead of living according to her means and
simplicity of requirement—was an attitude of mind that she never
completely grasped. But the necessity for it all was made evident even
to Raymond, and by no less a person than Sir Eric himself, who ably
coached by his wife, remarked that “to save, one must first learn to
spend!”
“Establish yourself, my dear fellow,” were his words, “establish
yourself in the life of the Capital, and when the roots are firmly
implanted in this loamy soil, draw in your horns—if one may be
permitted to mix a metaphor. I am not advocating a reckless expenditure
of more than you have to spend,” emphasised the advocate of all the
verbotens, “but rather the point that it is not advisable for a young
politician to appear to hoard his salary. Education, you say? The
children’s education will, I trust, be well provided for by a generous
and appreciative country.”
So the Dillings moved, and Marjorie memorialised the occasion by issuing
invitations to a large tea.
“I suppose you didn’t keep a visiting list?”
“No!”
Azalea had expected a negative answer, so she was not disappointed. But
Marjorie added,
“I’m sure I shan’t forget any of my friends.”
“Doubtless! The difficulty will lie in remembering all your active
enemies!”
“Oh, Miss Deane—I mean Azalea—what shocking things you say! Surely, I
don’t have to ask people who have—that is, who haven’t—who aren’t
exactly what you might call friendly with me?”
“Positively!”
“Oh, but that doesn’t seem right!” protested Marjorie, in dismay. “It’s
deceitful! There’s no use liking people if you treat the ones you don’t
like just as well!”
“Sound logic, my dear, but impractical from a social standpoint. You
see, it’s something like this—” Azalea slipped a thin gold bracelet
from her arm, pouring within and about it, a quantity of pen nibs.
“Society is like this bangle, and these nibs are the people who compose
it. I’ll jostle the desk and then see what happens to those who are not
safe within its golden boundary. They fall off and go down to oblivion.
The others, though disturbed, are in a sense secure, so you can see, my
dear, that the paramount business of life in the Capital is to get
_inside_. Of course, there are circles within circles, and you must
learn about them, later. But for the moment, concentrate upon getting
within the shining rim. Once there, you can stick, and prick, and jab,
and stab to your heart’s content, and you need not treat your friends
and enemies alike. But until you _do_ get there—well, you really won’t
matter, one way or the other. Your friendship will be prized scarcely
more than your enmity will be deplored.”
“But,” objected Marjorie. “I never heard of dividing people into lots,
unless—” a sudden thought occurred to her “—unless you mean that all
the nice people are inside and the other kind are not. Is that it?”
“Indubitably,” laughed Azalea. “And you must affirm your belief that
this is so, on each and every occasion.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why, you must find all the people within the circle charming and
brilliant and desirable, and all those outside commonplace and dull, and
not worth while. You must like the former and despise the latter. Oh,
it’s quite simple, really!”
Marjorie smiled the smile she reserved for her husband’s excursions in
wit. She thought, of course, that Azalea was joking.
“Now, there’s sometimes a little difficulty in classifying people who
teeter on the edge,” she poised a nib on the golden circle to illustrate
her point. “A little push one way or the other will decide which way
they will go, and until they get pushed, I admit they are something of a
problem. However, we’ll begin with the certainties, and then I’ll borrow
a list from Lady Denby, so as to be sure not to overlook anybody . . .
The Ministers’ wives—Mrs. Blaine, Mrs. Carewe, Mrs. Haldane, Mrs.
Carmichael, Lady Denby . . .”
Azalea wrote rapidly for a few moments, carefully spelling the French
names as she recalled them.
“Then the wife of the Black Rod: she goes everywhere—”
“And I like her,” interrupted Marjorie. “She’s not a bit stiff, is she?”
Azalea laughed and shook her head. Marjorie’s dread of women who were
“stiff” and men who were “sarcastic”, amused her.
Between consultations with Lady Denby, the Parliamentary Guide and the
Telephone Book, the invitations were issued, and Azalea sat back,
sighing after her labours.
“Now you will have paid off all your tea obligations,” she said, “but
you really must keep a list. Separate ones for luncheons, dinners and
suppers. Probably, a dinner will be the next thing.”
“And who must I ask for dinner, when I give one?” enquired Marjorie,
ignoring in her distress the rules of grammar.
“Why, the people who have had you, of course! Not luncheon people, not
tea people, mind!” Azalea was quite stern. “But the people who have had
you for _dinner_! It will be simple until you have been entertained
frequently, and then you will have to sort out members of different
sets.”
“I don’t like it,” said Raymond Dilling’s wife. “I don’t want to
entertain that way. I tell you, it’s deceitful!”
“Entertaining,” said Azalea, with a suspicion of hardness in her voice,
“is an admirable illustration of the ‘eye for an eye’ transaction
mentioned in Holy Writ. Only, in the Capital, an astute woman schemes to
obtain two eyes for one optic, and a whole set, upper and lower, for the
molar she has sacrificed. When she accomplishes this, my dear, then she
has achieved real social success. Bismillah!”