Opera Glasses
Whether to behave with some coolness to Mitchell, and be stand-offish,
as though it had been all his fault, or to be lavishly apologetic, was
the question. Bruce could not make up his mind which attitude to take.
In a way, it was all the Mitchells' fault. They oughtn't to have given
him a verbal invitation. It was rude, Bohemian, wanting in good form;
it showed an absolute and complete ignorance of the most ordinary and
elementary usages of society. It was wanting in common courtesy;
really, when one came to think about it, it was an insult. On the other
hand, technically, Bruce was in the wrong. Having accepted he ought to
have turned up on the right night. It may have served them right (as he
said), but the fact of going on the wrong night being a lesson to them
seemed a little obscure. Edith found it difficult to see the point.
Then he had a more brilliant idea; to go into the office as cheerily as
ever, and say to Mitchell pleasantly, 'We're looking forward to next
Saturday, old chap,' pretending to have believed from the first that
the invitation had been for the Saturday week; and that the dinner was
still to come....
This, Edith said, would have been excellent, provided that the
parlourmaid hadn't told them that she and Bruce had arrived about a
quarter to ten on Sunday evening and asked if the Mitchells had begun
dinner. The chances against the servant having kept this curious
incident to herself were almost too great.
After long argument and great indecision the matter was settled by a
cordial letter from Mrs Mitchell, asking them to dinner on the
following Thursday, and saying she feared there had been some mistake.
So that was all right.
Bruce was in good spirits again; he was pleased too, because he was
going to the theatre that evening with Edith and Vincy, to see a play
that he thought wouldn't be very good. He had almost beforehand settled
what he thought of it, and practically what he intended to say.
But when he came in that evening he was overheard to have a strenuous
and increasingly violent argument with Archie in the hall.
Edith opened the door and wanted to know what the row was about.
'Will you tell me, Edith, where your son learns such language? He keeps
on worrying me to take him to the Zoological Gardens to see
the--well--you'll hear what he says. The child's a perfect nuisance.
Who put it into his head to want to go and see this animal? I was
obliged to speak quite firmly to him about it.'
Edith was not alarmed that Bruce had been severe. She thought it much
more likely that Archie had spoken very firmly to him. He was always
strict with his father, and when he was good Bruce found fault with
him. As soon as he grew really tiresome his father became abjectly
apologetic.
Archie was called and came in, dragging his feet, and pouting, in tears
that he was making a strenuous effort to encourage.
'You must be firm with him,' continued Bruce. 'Hang it! Good heavens!
Am I master in my own house or am I not?'
There was no reply to this rhetorical question.
He turned to Archie and said in a gentle, conciliating voice:
'Archie, old chap, tell your mother what it is you want to see. Don't
cry, dear.'
'Want to see the damned chameleon,' said Archie, with his hands in his
eyes. 'Want father to take me to the Zoo.'
'You can't go to the Zoo this time of the evening. What do you mean?'
'I want to see the damned chameleon.'
'You hear!' exclaimed Bruce to Edith.
'Who taught you this language?'
'Miss Townsend taught it me.'
'There! It's dreadful, Edith; he's becoming a reckless liar. Fancy her
dreaming of teaching him such things! If she did, of course she must be
mad, and you must send her away at once. But I'm quite sure she
didn't.'
'Come, Archie, you know Miss Townsend never taught you to say that.
What have you got into your head?'
'Well, she didn't exactly teach me to say it--she didn't give me
lessons in it--but she says it herself. She said the damned chameleon
was lovely; and I want to see it. She didn't say I ought to see it. But
I want to. I've been wanting to ever since. She said it at lunch today,
and I do want to. Lots of other boys go to the Zoo, and why shouldn't
I? I want to see it so much.'
'Edith, I must speak to Miss Townsend about this very seriously. In the
first place, people have got no right to talk about queer animals to
the boy at all--we all know what he is--and in such language! I should
have thought a girl like Miss Townsend, who has passed examinations in
Germany, and so forth, would have had more sense of her
responsibility--more tact. It shows a dreadful want of--I hardly know
what to think of it--the daughter of a clergyman, too!'
'It's all right, Bruce,' Edith laughed. 'Miss Townsend told me she had
been to see the _Dame aux Camélias_ some time ago. She was enthusiastic
about it. Archie dear, I'll take you to the Zoological Gardens and
we'll see lots of other animals. And don't use that expression.'
'What! Can't I see the da--'
'Mr Vincy,' announced the servant.
'I must go and dress,' said Bruce.
Vincy Wenham Vincy was always called by everyone simply Vincy. Applied
to him it seemed like a pet name. He had arrived at the right moment,
as he always did. He was very devoted to both Edith and Bruce, and he
was a confidant of both. He sometimes said to Edith that he felt he was
just what was wanted in the little home; an intimate stranger coming in
occasionally with a fresh atmosphere was often of great value (as, for
instance, now) in calming or averting storms.
Had anyone asked Vincy exactly what he was he would probably have said
he was an Observer, and really he did very little else, though after he
left Oxford he had taken to writing a little, and painting less. He was
very fair, the fairest person one could imagine over five years old. He
had pale silky hair, a minute fair moustache, very good features, a
single eyeglass, and the appearance, always, of having been very
recently taken out of a bandbox.
But when people fancied from this look of his that he was an
empty-headed fop they soon found themselves immensely mistaken.
He was thirty-eight, but looked a gilded youth of twenty; and _was_
sufficiently gilded (as he said), not perhaps exactly to be
comfortable, but to enable him to get about comfortably, and see those
who were.
He had a number of relatives in high places, who bored him, and were
always trying to get him married. He had taken up various occupations
and travelled a good deal. But his greatest pleasure was the study of
people. There was nothing cold in his observation, nothing of the
cynical analyst. He was impulsive, though very quiet, immensely and
ardently sympathetic and almost too impressionable and enthusiastic. It
was not surprising that he was immensely popular generally, as well as
specially; he was so interested in everyone except himself.
No-one was ever a greater general favourite. There seemed to be no type
of person on whom he jarred. People who disagreed on every other
subject agreed in liking Vincy.
But he did not care in the least for acquaintances, and spent much
ingenuity in trying to avoid them; he only liked intimate friends, and
of all he had perhaps the Ottleys were his greatest favourites.
His affection for them dated from a summer they had spent in the same
hotel in France. He had become extraordinarily interested in them. He
delighted in Bruce, but had with Edith, of course, more mutual
understanding and intellectual sympathy, and though they met
constantly, his friendship with her had never been misunderstood.
Frivolous friends of his who did not know her might amuse themselves by
being humorous and flippant about Vincy's little Ottleys, but no-one
who had ever seen them together could possibly make a mistake. They
were an example of the absurdity of a tradition--'the world's'
proneness to calumny. Such friendships, when genuine, are never
misconstrued. Perhaps society is more often taken in the other way. But
as a matter of fact the truth on this subject, as on most others, is
always known in time. No-one had ever even tried to explain away the
intimacy, though Bruce had all the air of being unable to do without
Vincy's society sometimes cynically attributed to husbands in a
different position.
Vincy was pleased with the story of the Mitchells that Edith told him,
and she was glad to hear that he knew the Mitchells and had been to the
house.
'How like you to know everyone. What did they do?'
'The night I was there they played games,' said Vincy. He spoke in a
soft, even voice. 'It was just a little--well--perhaps just a _tiny_
bit ghastly, I thought; but don't tell Bruce. That evening I thought
the people weren't quite young enough, and when they played 'Oranges
and Lemons, and the Bells of St Clements,' and so on--their bones
seemed to--well, sort of rattle, if you know what I mean. But still
perhaps it was only my fancy. Mitchell has such very high spirits, you
see, and is determined to make everything go. He won't have
conventional parties, and insists on plenty of verve; so, of course,
one's forced to have it.' He sighed. 'They haven't any children, and
they make a kind of hobby of entertaining in an unconventional way.'
'It sounds rather fun. Perhaps you will be asked next Thursday. Try.'
'I'll try. I'll call, and remind her of me. I daresay she'll ask me.
She's very good-natured. She believes in spiritualism, too.'
'I wonder who'll be there?'
'Anyone might be there, or anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a
lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual séance, or Kubelik,
or fancy dress heads.'
'Fancy dress heads!'
'Yes. Or a cotillion, or just bridge. You never know. The house is
rather like a country house, and they behave accordingly. Even
hide-and-seek, I believe, sometimes. And Mitchell adores unpractical
jokes, too.'
'I see. It's rather exciting that I'm going to the Mitchells at last.'
'Yes, perhaps it will be the turning-point of your life,' said Vincy.
'Ah! here's Bruce.'
'I don't think much of that opera glass your mother gave you,' Bruce
remarked to his wife, soon after the curtain rose.
'It's the fashion,' said Edith. 'It's jade--the latest thing.'
'I don't care if it is the fashion. It's no use. Here, try it, Vincy.'
He handed it to Vincy, who gave Bruce a quick look, and then tried it.
'Rather quaint and pretty, I think. I like the effect,' he said,
handing it back to Bruce.
'It may be quaint and pretty, and it may be the latest thing, and it
may be jade,' said Bruce rather sarcastically, 'but I'm not a slave to
fashion. I never was. And I don't see any use whatever in an opera
glass that makes everything look smaller instead of larger, and at a
greater distance instead of nearer. I call it rot. I always say what I
think. And you can tell your mother what I said if you like.'
'You're looking through it the wrong side, dear,' said Edith.