More of the Mitchells
Edith had become an immense favourite with the Mitchells. They hardly
ever had any entertainment without her. Her success with their friends
delighted Mrs Mitchell, who was not capable of commonplace feminine
jealousy, and who regarded Edith as a find of her own. She often
reproached Winthrop, her husband, for having known Bruce eight years
without discovering his charming wife.
One evening they had a particularly gay party. Immediately after dinner
Mitchell had insisted on dressing up, and was solemnly announced in his
own house as Prince Gonoff, a Russian noble. He had a mania for
disguising himself. He had once travelled five hundred miles under the
name of Prince Gotoffski, in a fur coat, a foreign accent, a false
moustache and a special saloon carriage. Indeed, only his wife knew all
the secrets of Mitchell's wild early career of unpractical jokes, to
some of which he still clung. When he was younger he had carried it
pretty far. She encouraged him, yet at the same time she acted as
ballast, and was always explaining his jokes; sometimes she was in
danger of explaining him entirely away. She loved to tell of his
earlier exploits. How often, when younger, he had collected money for
charities (particularly for the Deaf and Dumb Cats' League, in which he
took special interest), by painting halves of salmon and ships on fire
on the cold grey pavement! Armed with an accordion, and masked to the
eyes, he had appeared at Eastbourne, and also at the Henley Regatta, as
a Mysterious Musician. At the regatta he had been warned off the
course, to his great pride and joy. Mrs Mitchell assured Edith that his
bath-chair race with a few choice spirits was still talked of at St
Leonard's (bath-chairmen, of course, are put in the chairs, and you
pull them along). Mr Mitchell was beaten by a short head, but that, Mrs
Mitchell declared, was really most unfair, because he was so
handicapped--his man was much stouter than any of the others--and the
race, by rights, should have been run again.
When he was at Oxford he had been well known for concealing under a
slightly rowdy exterior the highest spirits of any of the
undergraduates. He was looked upon as the most fascinating of
_farceurs_. It seems that he had distinguished himself there less for
writing Greek verse, though he was good at it, than for the wonderful
variety of fireworks that he persistently used to let off under the
dean's window. It was this fancy of his that led, first, to his
popularity, and afterwards to the unfortunate episode of his being sent
down; soon after which he had married privately, chiefly in order to
send his parents an announcement of his wedding in _The Morning Post_,
as a surprise.
Some people had come in after dinner--for there was going to be a
little _sauterie intime_, as Mrs Mitchell called it, speaking in an
accent of her own, so appalling that, as Vincy observed, it made it
sound quite improper. Edith watched, intensely amused, as she saw that
there were really one or two people present who, never having seen
Mitchell before, naturally did not recognise him now, so that the
disguise was considered a triumph. There was something truly agreeable
in the deference he was showing to a peculiarly yellow lady in red,
adorned with ugly real lace, and beautiful false hair. She was
obviously delighted with the Russian prince.
'Winthrop is a wonderful man!' said Mrs Mitchell to Edith, as she
watched her husband proudly. 'Who would dream he was clean-shaven! Look
at that moustache! Look at the wonderful way his coat doesn't fit; he's
got just that Russian touch with his clothes; I don't know how he's
done it, I'm sure. How I wish dear Aylmer Ross was here; he _would_
appreciate it so much.'
'Yes, I wish he were,' said Edith.
'I can't think what he went away for. I suppose he heard the East
a-calling, and all that sort of thing. The old wandering craving you
read of came over him again, I suppose. Well, let's hope he'll meet
some charming girl and bring her back as his bride. Where is he now, do
you know, Mrs Ottley?'
'In Armenia, I fancy,' said Edith.
'Oh, well, we don't want him to bring home an Armenian, do we? What
colour are they? Blue, or brown, or what? I hope no-one will tell Lady
Hartland that is my husband. She'll expect to see Winthrop tonight; she
never met him, you know; but he really ought to be introduced to her. I
think I shall tell him to go and undress, when they've had a little
dancing and she's been down to supper.'
Lady Hartland was the yellow lady in red, who thought she was flirting
with a fascinating Slav.
'She's a sort of celebrity,' continued Mrs Mitchell. 'She was an
American once, and she married Sir Charles Hartland for her money. I
hate these interested marriages, don't you?--especially when they're
international. Sir Charles isn't here; he's such a sweet boy. He's a
friend of Mr Cricker; it's through Mr Cricker I know them, really. Lady
Everard has taken _such_ a fancy to young Cricker; she won't leave him
alone. After all he's _my_ friend, and as he's not musical I don't see
that she has any special right to him; but he's there every Wednesday
now, and does his dances on their Sunday evenings too. He's got a new
one--lovely, quite lovely--an imitation of Lydia Kyasht as a
water-nymph. I wanted him to do it here tonight, but Lady Everard has
taken him to the opera. Now, won't you dance? Your husband promised he
would. You both look so young!'
Edith refused to dance. She sat in a corner with Vincy and watched the
dancers.
By special permission, as it was so _intime_, the Turkey Trot was
allowed. Bruce wanted to attempt it with Myra Mooney, but she was
horrified, and insisted on dancing the 1880 _trois-temps_ to a jerky
American two-step.
'Edith,' said Vincy; 'I think you're quieter than you used to be.
Sometimes you seem rather absent-minded.'
'Am I? I'm sorry; there's nothing so tedious to other people. Why do
you think I'm more serious?'
'I think you miss Aylmer.'
'Yes, I do. He gave a sort of meaning to everything. He's always
interesting. And there's something about him--I don't know what it is.
Oh, don't be frightened, Vincy, I'm not going to use the word
personality. Isn't that one of the words that ought to be forbidden
altogether? In all novels and newspapers that poor, tired word is
always cropping up.'
'Yes, that and magnetism, and temperament, and technique. Let's cut out
technique altogether. Don't let there be any, that's the best way; then
no-one can say anything about it. I'm fed up with it. Aren't you?'
'Oh, I don't agree with you at all. I think there ought to be any
amount of technique, and personality, and magnetism, and temperament. I
don't mind _how_ much technique there is, as long as nobody talks about
it. But neither of these expressions is quite so bad as that dreadful
thing you always find in American books, and that lots of people have
caught up--especially palmists and manicures--mentality.'
'Yes, mentality's very depressing,' said Vincy. 'I could get along
nicely without it, I think.... I had a long letter from Aylmer today.
He seemed unhappy.'
'I had a few lines yesterday,' said Edith. 'He said he was having a
very good time. What did he say to you?'
'Oh, he wrote, frankly to _me_.'
'Bored, is he?'
'Miserable; enamoured of sorrow; got the hump; frightfully off colour;
wants to come back to London. He misses the Mitchells. I suppose it's
the Mitchells.'
Edith smiled and looked pleased. 'He asked me not to come here much.'
'Ah! But he wouldn't want you to go anywhere. That is so like Aylmer.
He's not jealous; of course. How could he be? It's only a little
exclusiveness.... And how delightfully rare that is, Edith dear. I
admire him for it. Most people now seem to treasure anything they value
in proportion to the extent that it's followed about and surrounded by
the vulgar public. I sympathise with that feeling of wishing to
keep--anything of that sort--to oneself.'
'You are more secretive than jealous, yourself. But I have very much
the same feeling,' Edith said. 'Many women I know think the ideal of
happiness is to be in love with a great man, or to be the wife of a
great public success; to share his triumph! They forget you share the
man as well!'
'I suppose the idea is that, after the publicity and the acclamation
and the fame and the public glory and the shouting, you take the person
home, and feel he is only yours, really.'
'But, can a famous person be only yours? No. I shouldn't like it.
It isn't that I don't _like_ cleverness and brilliance, but I don't
care for the public glory.'
'I see; you don't mind how great a genius he is, as long as he isn't
appreciated,' replied Vincy. 'Well, then, in heaven's name let us stick
to our obscurities!'