"I suppose you had better go," said Ferlie's mother. "One had not
intended you to 'come out' so soon; but as it is impossible to tell
what the future will hold for any of us, it will be better for you to
miss no opportunity of meeting people and making friends. Peter will
no longer be able to bring men down from Cambridge for us to know."
That took her off on a different track from Lady Cardew's dance
invitation to Ferlie.
"Poor Peter," she said, "he looks so white and wretched and I am sure
the thought of his ruined future is keeping your father back."
Ferlie said she had no heart for dancing. She, also, was looking
white but as nothing had ruined her career it could only be caused by
their common anxiety for Mr. Carmichael. As a matter of fact, when
one has seen as little of one's father as had Ferlie it was not him
one missed so much as his Presence and that which he stood for in a
household.
There is no law that children and parents should be one flesh and it
was with her mother Ferlie had corresponded; not with the man whose
ideas on children's upbringing dovetailed with Mary's thread-bare
creed concerning "Her that overcometh the pudding," with the added
clause that should life not provide sufficient obstacles upon which
to test the will they must be artificially fashioned.
In the end Ferlie went to Lady Cardew's dance, clad in virgin white,
reminiscent of her confirmation, since Mrs. Carmichael's mind was
nothing if not unoriginal and Ferlie did not really care.
White was not exactly the fashion for débutantes that Season, so it
was unavoidable that she should look like a snowdrop which had
somehow mistaken the time of year and arrived among a riot of summer
flowers.
So, doubtless, would the young man have put it, lounging in rather a
tired fashion in the vicinity of the Refreshments (liquid), had he
possessed poetical leanings. As it was, conscious of the quickening
of a somewhat jaded appetite for débutantes, he decided that he would
dance this evening, after all.
Lady Cardew was greatly relieved by this decision. Girls were
plentiful, men few; and she always prided herself upon eschewing that
modern form of invitation which requests a girl to bring her
"dancing-partner."
Ferlie was more fortunate than many in the possession of a brother
whose good nature could usually be relied upon, although he did not
describe himself as a dancing-man. But Peter had not been able to
come to-night.
Lord Clifford Greville-Mainwaring, aged twenty-six, had lately, by an
unforeseen railway accident, succeeded to his uncle's estate. For a
wonder, not only were these considerable, but the means to maintain
them were adequate. He was the Catch of the Season and perfectly
aware of that interesting truth. Mammas had a furtive eye upon him;
daughters a calculating one, as they weighed his tall but rather
meagre proportions against the knowledge that Jack here and Eric
there, if infinitely better-looking, were obliged to admit that their
chins were their fortunes.
Dancers are born, not made. Ferlie was a Lucky One. Clifford
Greville-Mainwaring began to enjoy her ingenuous enjoyment. She
acknowledged very recent escape from school but wore a mystifyingly
philosophical air which intrigued him. He had been fully prepared to
initiate her into the mysteries of a first flirtation; always
excepting, he supposed, the school music or drawing-master of ascetic
or bulbous personal appearance.
But she had proved very unapproachable, even behind the most
sheltering palms in the conservatory with its cunningly shaded
lights. And he did not want to frighten her.
"There is something about you," he said, "which reminds one of a tune
one has heard and lost and which one always hopes someone will come
along humming so that one may recapture it for ever."
"But there are some tunes," Ferlie replied, "which, having
recaptured, one would give a great deal to lose again."
His was not a very fertile brain and he clung passionately to his
simile, which had struck him as perfect in its way; so passionately
that anyone more sophisticated than Ferlie might have suspected him,
with perfect justification, of being a little drunk. But she was
growing sleepy and merely thought it exceedingly civil of him to
insist on seeing her home.
His own car replaced the taxi that had brought her. She took leave
of her hostess impervious to the launched arrows of half-a-hundred
eyes.
Had Greville-Mainwaring not given his chauffeur leave of absence and
so found himself obliged to drive the new Crossley, Ferlie might not
have been so ready to accord him polite permission to call. So
indifferent that permission. She was really uncertain of the correct
procedure and, in her preoccupied state, took the easiest course, and
then forgot Mainwaring in finding a letter from Cyprian awaiting her
on the hall table.
Not till Lady Cardew put in an ecstatic appearance on the following
Sunday afternoon did Mrs. Carmichael learn that her daughter had been
considered "the success of the evening."
"Quite like an advertisement for Pompeian Scent or Powder, or
whatever it is that is supposed to attract the elusive male," said
Lady Cardew, warmly sympathetic with Mrs. Carmichael's reverse of
fortune and very much alive to the possibility of doing her a real
good turn. "My dear! Only imagine if something came of it!"
Mrs. Carmichael was a little fluttered. One had pictured Ferlie
being introduced by her father, in due course, to the eligible
officials of Burma. Though that dream had faded this was, to put it
tritely, so sudden. And Ferlie's own silence seemed remarkable.
Lady Cardew misread it.
"Girlish dignity, Linda. She could hardly assume anything on an
evening's acquaintance, even if these modern young people waste very
little time. And though there are the usual rumours that Clifford
has been a bit wild, you and I, as women of the world, realize that
it is better for a young man to have That Kind of Thing behind him
than before."
* * * * * *
On the strength of this exciting conversation Greville-Mainwaring
received a warmly uncritical reception when he casually arrived with
his card-case the following week.
It must be confessed that, up to half an hour previously, he had
forgotten Ferlie as completely as the tune so glibly cited on the
night of the dance. He was going to a bridge party in the
neighbourhood and the sudden recognition of her windows reminded him
of a half-finished piece of work.
It might be amusing to take her out driving, with Briggs discreetly
officiating at the wheel and the car half-closed. At any rate, he
might as well see her again. Now he came to think of it, that
unembarrassed survey of her fellow-creatures could not foreshadow
Victorian innocence. And Clifford prided himself upon knowing the
modern dancing girl for exactly what she was.
He was annoyed to find Ferlie "out." Gropingly, he fancied that she
should have remained at home during calling hours, until his expected
visit. Evidently, such a course had not occurred to her.
Mrs. Carmichael gave him tea at one end of the big drawing-room, full
of Eastern spoil, and Peter strolled in for his, late, abstracted and
unimpressed.
"I've heard that Ferlie is a decent dancer," he said.
And, "We shall always regret that if she, eventually, has a Season in
Simla," said Mrs. Carmichael, "her father and I will not be there to
see her a social success. Simla is always full of pretty girls, but,
sometimes, I think that Ferlie has unusual charm."
Mainwaring, thwarted in his desire to see her again, began to agree.
With Mr. Carmichael at home Clifford might, possibly, have been
weighed himself in the balance and found wanting. The cooler
judgment of Ferlie's father would not have placed the worldly goods,
with which this young man might undertake to endow his daughter,
favourably against the fact that he did not look as if he could ever
have earned even a small portion of them on his own account, either
in the past or future. The signs of dissipation on the not
ill-looking, but weak, face must have stung to criticism the Puritan
elements of a mind belonging essentially to the labourer who has
borne the burden and the heat of the day. As things were, Peter took
a more healthy interest in the make of the man's car than in his
character, and Mrs. Carmichael saw no further than that here was a
possibility of Ferlie's making up for that "K," lost to their branch
of the Family.
Accordingly, Clifford Greville-Mainwaring began, rather frequently,
to be found in the drawing-room of the house about to be sold over
the Family's heads, and Ferlie, in a few hastily-bought frocks,
frequented Thés Dansant and Private Views under the complacent eye of
Lady Cardew; at which functions Clifford, invariably hovering,
fascinated by her indifference to his marked attentions, waited to
take her home.
Ferlie, too, waited for something these days, but nobody realized
that it was the mail. Doubtful whether she realized it herself until
that inevitable event from which, in looking back afterwards, she
dated her "growing up."
Champagne-cup, mingled with the strains of "Wyoming" in a softly-lit
private ball-room, made up Clifford's vacillating mind for him; the
touch of his hands upon her thinly silk-and-chiffon-covered knees
made up Ferlie's for her. There was no mistaking the passionate
warmth of her refusal. Till this moment her swift glimpses of
"Society," overshadowed as they were by anxiety for the future, had
affected her only as part of a drugging dream. Now she awakened to
the direction in which she was drifting.
"But you don't understand," said Clifford, too amazed for coherent
thought, "I meant to ask you to marry me!"
"I know you did," admitted Ferlie gravely; "no one has ever asked me
such a thing before, but I knew at once what you meant. And if you
are disappointed I am very sorry that I don't want to."
She had a feeling that the rejection of one's first marriage proposal
should be couched in more elegant diction, but, really, there seemed
nothing more to say than just that. Marriage meant living with a
person for always. She was quite certain that she did not wish to
live with Lord Clifford Greville-Mainwaring for always. She enjoyed
dancing with him but, when you came to think of it, dancing played an
extraordinarily small part in one's existence. She was puzzled
because Clifford did not seem to understand her point of view at all,
and she wished he would sit further off. They were returning home in
the Crossley, with Briggs driving. Later, Peter, descending the turn
of the staircase, overheard Clifford's parting words.
"My dear girl, you don't know me yet! I shall go on coming until I
get a different answer. That's the sort of man I am."
Ferlie decided it would be hopeless to explain the sort of woman she
was, and wondered how often she could contrive to be absent when
Clifford called in this optimistic fashion throughout the week. She
was, somehow, inclined to surmise that his resolution would not
survive a week's rebuffs and she wondered why she had not noticed
before that he used some sort of scent on his hair. Meanwhile,
"That chap and Ferlie," said Peter, having faded away unnoticed to
his mother's sitting-room, "are brazenly approaching matrimony
to-night under the umbrella-stand. From what I could gather Ferlie
seems to consider it an over-rated institution."
Mrs. Carmichael's embroidery dropped on her lap.
"You do not mean to say she is refusing him, Peter? When Lady Cardew
and I have worked so hard."
"Oh, have you?" asked Peter. "Why?"
"It is a mystery to me," said his mother, "how short-sighted men can
be. Do you happen to know his income?"
"I happen to have noticed his shoes," Peter retorted: "they are the
genuine co-respondent article, and no mistake."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Do you like the chap, Mother?"
"What's wrong with him? There is nothing to dislike so far as I can
see."
"That's just it," Peter admitted. "There is nothing to like or
dislike--except his shoes."
Mrs. Carmichael decided that Peter was just being tiresome.
"It might mean a great deal to you if Ferlie accepted him," she
declared. "He would be sure to make a settlement upon her--and if
you could even borrow money, Peter, just now----"
Peter started slightly and began to whistle out of tune. Still
whistling, he strolled to the door. On the threshold he broke off to
say: "Well, of course, it's none of my business. To me there seems
nothing to take hold of in the man, one way or another." A little
pause, and then, "But it's Ferlie's pigeon, after all."
They waited for Ferlie to announce her dubious tidings, but, to her
mother's surprise, Ferlie said nothing.
This was making Mainwaring too exclusively her pigeon. Mrs.
Carmichael tackled her at the hair-dressing hour when the lights were
low. Extracted confession.
"But, my darling, do you realize...?" So obviously, Ferlie didn't.
She stood behind her mother and her eyes sought the shadows of
tapping branches on the window with a wistful strained expression.
The mail that week was late....
Yes, she had resolved three years earlier that she did not want to
marry. _He_ had suggested that type of husband which men in her
father's position were usually able to provide for their daughters
and she had scorned the nebulous suitor. Did He remember?
It was a long time since she had heard of Muriel Vane. After her
return from abroad Muriel had gravitated to a different "Set." There
were Rumours. Lady Cardew palpably refrained from quoting them in
the presence of the Spotless Young of the Right Set. If Muriel had
attracted Cyprian what would he have thought of Phyllis?
Peter looked quite stern at any mention of that quite ordinary
Christian name now. Ferlie wondered if it were principle or whether
he still considered himself irrevocably yoked to Phyllis's memory...
What was her mother saying about Peter? Mrs. Carmichael's plaintive
tones duetted with the singing of the kettle laying the foundations
for her nightly cup of cocoa.
"And, of course, you must do just as you think best.... Poor Peter!
Your father's convalescence is being so retarded with worry. Though,
I'm sure, at my time of life it isn't very easy to begin to do
without things. You, fresh from school, young and strong, will
probably not miss luxuries.... And ... your happiness is all that
matters, darling. I wouldn't for the world persuade you against your
inclination.... Your father always says I've been too weak with my
children.... I wonder whether Peter will ever get over it? Lady
Cardew thought Lord Clifford Greville-Mainwaring such a desirable
young man. Your father and I would have been so much relieved--for
that Simla Season may never come off. I was relying on the Durrants,
but Gwen Durrant will soon be leaving school herself. There was the
question of your passage-money too. Do you know there are more than
a million superfluous women in England...?
"... Well, good night, darling. Yes, I'm disappointed, but you
mustn't think of Us; only of Yourself. No, thank you. I don't think
I feel like cocoa to-night, after all..."
* * * * * *
Two days later, a Ferlie with brooding lips, who had twice
circumvented Clifford's indications that he came of the Bull-dog
Breed, sought Peter where he was engaged in discarding superfluous
treasures for which there would be neither nor lot in the life to
come.
"Are you sorry, too, about this marriage, Peter?"
He avoided her direct gaze.
"Girls do marry," he said, rather banally.
"I know they do. But there's such a thing as--being in love."
Peter sat back on his haunches, busily dissecting the corpse of a
camera.
"I wonder!" cryptically. Said Ferlie, "You always thought queerly
about these things."
"Perhaps I still think queerly about them. That is, if common sense
is queer.... Phyllis professed to be in love with me. Of course you
are naturally more religious. I suppose you inherit it from Mother.
I do not mean that you are an orthodox Churchwoman--save the mark!
But your sentiments are religious, Ferlie. Love, the Sacrament! ...
and so on. _I_ know that Love is a joke invented by Nature to enable
her to work out her own ends. If you ask me what I think of
Mainwaring I say he just can't be thought about. Whatever he's
heading to be he has not got there yet. You could make pretty much
what you liked of him. Also, you probably wouldn't see very much of
him after that first honeymoon farce was played through. And then
you could live your own life; one which might be made as interesting
and as full as you pleased. And, you see, it isn't as if there were
Anyone Else on the mat."
So that was what Peter thought about it. And now Ferlie knew.
In the light of which knowledge she opened a certain despatch-case
and re-read the letters she had received from Cyprian since writing
to inform him that she had left school.
The mining life seemed lonely enough and a thread of tiredness stole
in and out of the neatly-formed syllables. Ferlie, with faint
misgivings, asked herself whether Cyprian were not one of those men
who might be described in a book as having made a mess of his life.
Instinctive wisdom whispered that Muriel would have made a greater
mess of it for him had she given herself the opportunity; but it was
doubtful that Cyprian, even now, believed that. No credit to him to
be so faithful to his ideals; it was just the way he was made.
"And if I had an Ideal," Ferlie told herself, "I could be faithful to
it too."
At tea her mother asked her if she had a cold....
Articles of furniture were already beginning to disappear from the
house; two valuable pictures had gone to Christie's. Ferlie
suggested: "Margery wants me to go back for a few days. If you don't
mind, Mother, I should like to go."
"Only till Monday, then," said her mother, rather miserably; "Next
week the packing begins in earnest."
They were chivalrous to Ferlie in their studious avoidance of
Clifford Greville-Mainwaring's name.
At the back of her brain flitted the ghost of a memory: the
Zoological Gardens and a lion's cage. Somebody had told her that the
bars of those other cages, the existence of which she had guessed at,
were made of gold. Was Mainwaring unconsciously forging them now for
her? She decided to discuss the matter with Margery. There was no
nonsense about Margery. Her practical scrutiny of the situation
might lay the spectres of those unborn dreams filming Ferlie's vision.
* * * * * *
And Margery, once approached, certainly made things sound simpler.
"You have no reasonable objection to the man?"
"I don't like his touching me."
"Do you like the thought of anyone's touching you? Not experimented
yet?"
Ferlie shook her head, her face bent low over the glove-satchet she
was sorting.
"Yet everyone, even in our effete, old-fashioned Guard of Die-Hards,
has to tackle Sex in the long run," Margery reminded her.
"Otherwise, how would the world go on? The Modern Aristocracy,
_alias_ The Smart Set which gets put on the stage, believes in facing
more facts than usually exist. But it _is_ a truth that, in
marriage, familiarity breeds indifference to many matters one would
have shied at the very mention of before."
"How do you know?" questioned Ferlie resentfully.
"I have watched my girl-friends marry and invited their confidences
afterwards," said Margery with a retrospective smile. "Life is a
muddle of rough and smooth for them all, whether they went into it
with wilfully closed eyes or curiously wide-open ones. I'll tell you
someone else who always seemed to me to be looking for sacramental
happiness and getting terribly hurt when he found what he thought was
trouble, just like you. The man who ought to have been your uncle
and wasn't. I gather some folks have extra sensitive feet on the
world's highway, and a too unshaken belief in the everlasting beauty
of the hedge-flowers. By the way, do you know about that Vane woman
he was so keen on when you were a kid at school?"
"Only that she turned out--not very nice."
Margery laughed queerly but did not pursue the subject.
"It's a mercy," she said, "that your Cyprian-man will have cut his
wisdom-teeth by the time he sees her again. Do you ever hear from
him now?"
"N-not lately."
"Well, his avuncular advice would probably coincide with mine if he
were here. All men are like peas, and most women, when it comes to
the Year-after-the-Wedding. Even Tristran and Iseult would have
pretty surely grown fat at forty when the children were growing
poetical. At forty everyone grows either fat or thin and begins to
mistrust moonlight for reading the Book of Life by. In Cliff
Mainwaring--I used to know him in his college days--you will have a
husband who will never set the Thames alight, nor need to. And
you'll live very peaceable in consequence. I shall expect to be
asked to stay with you."
And that was what Margery thought about it.