The season, as Mrs. Romayne had told Dennis Falconer, was to be a short
one, and its proceedings were apparently to be regulated on the old
principle of a short life and a merry one. Gaieties overtook one another
in too rapid succession, and an unusually sunny and breezy May and June,
with the inevitable action of such weather on human beings, even under
the most artificial conditions, rendered these gaieties a shade more
really gay than usual.
The atmosphere was not, again, so close as it had been on the afternoon
when Dennis Falconer called on Mrs. Romayne, and it is presumable that
the weather must have been responsible for her general unusualness of
mood on the evening of that day; for if she was not quite herself on the
following morning, the touch of self-compulsion in her brightness was
so slight as to be hardly perceptible, and a day or two later it had
entirely disappeared.
Certainly if constant stir and movement are conducive to good spirits,
there was nothing wonderful in Mrs. Romayne’s satisfaction with life.
For she had not, as she complained laughingly, a single moment to
herself.
“It’s a regular treadmill!” she exclaimed gaily one day to Lord Garstin.
“I had really forgotten what a terrible thing a London season was!”
“It seems to agree with you,” was the answer. “There is one lady of my
acquaintance, and only one, who seems to grow younger every day!”
“You can’t mean me,” she laughed. “I assure you, I am growing grey with
incessantly running after that boy of mine! He is as difficult to catch
as any lion of the season. I never see him except at parties!”
Julian’s intimacy with Marston Loring had grown apace, and it had led to
sundry social consequences which were, his mother said, “so good for
him.” Little dinners at the club, to which he had been duly elected;
dinners at which he was now guest, now host; jovial little bachelor
suppers made up among the very best “sets.” Loring himself was very
careful--though he knew better than to make his care perceptible, except
in its results--never to allow himself to be placed in the position of a
rival to Mrs. Romayne for her son’s time and company. He lost no
opportunity of making himself useful and agreeable to Mrs. Romayne; now
using pleasantly arrogated rights as Julian’s friend; now his superior
brain-power and knowledge of the world; until he gradually assumed the
position of friend of the house. But club life necessarily created in
Julian interests apart from his mother--interests which she was
apparently well content that he should have, so long as his ever-ready
chatter to her on the subject revealed that they were all connected with
good “sets.”
It was furthermore a season of very pretty _débutantes_, a large
majority of whom elected to look upon Mr. Romayne as “such a nice boy,”
and to exact--or permit--any amount of slavery from him in the matters
of fetching and carrying and general attendance. “You’re known to be so
profoundly ineligible, you see!” his mother would say to him, laughing.
“Nobody is in the least afraid of you, poor boy!” And she looked on with
perfect calmness as he danced, and rode, and did church parade; looked
on with a calmness which might have been mistaken for indifference, but
for the significant fact that she always knew which of his “jolly girls”
was in the ascendant for the moment.
Miss Newton had gone home on the day following the meeting at the
theatre.
Falconer was to be seen about throughout the season, making his grave
concession to the weaknesses of society. Mrs. Romayne and Julian met him
constantly, and he was asked to, and attended, the most formal of the
dinners given at Queen Anne Street. But the intercourse between him and
his “connection,” as Mrs. Romayne called herself, was of the most
distant and non-progressive type. Julian did not take to him at all. “He
is such a solemn fellow, mother!” he said. “He seems to think that I’m
doing something wrong all the time.” An observation to which Mrs.
Romayne replied by laughing a rather forced laugh and changing the
conversation.
The last event of the season, as it became evident as the weeks ran on,
would be the bazaar in aid of Mrs. Halse’s discovery among charities. It
was, perhaps, as well that the institution in question was by no means
in such urgent need of patronage as might have been argued from Mrs.
Halse’s demeanour towards it earlier in the proceedings; for that lady’s
enthusiasm on the subject had suffered severely in the contest with the
numerous other enthusiasms which had succeeded it, and the affairs of
the bazaar had been pursued by all its supporters with energy which is
most charitably to be described as intermittent. Three separate dates
had been fixed for the opening day; and, after a great deal of money had
been spent in printing and advertising, each of these in succession had
had to be abandoned owing to the singular incompleteness of every
fundamental arrangement--though, as Mrs. Halse observed impatiently,
after the third postponement, there were “heaps and heaps of Chinese
lanterns.” Finally it was announced for the fifth and sixth of July;
and owing to herculean efforts on the part of half-a-dozen unfortunate
men enlisted in the cause; who apparently braced themselves to the task
with a desperate sense that if the affair was not somehow or another
carried through now, by fair means or foul, they were doomed to struggle
in a tumultuous sea of fashionable feminine futility for the remainder
of their miserable lives; on the fifth the bazaar was actually opened.
It was late in the evening of that eventful day, and in various
fashionable drawing-rooms exhausted ladies stretched on sofas were
recruiting their forces after their severe labours. It had been the
fashion for the last week or more among the prospective stall-holders to
allude to the fatigue before them with resigned and heroic sighs of
awful import; consequently they were now convinced to a woman that they
were in the last stages of exhaustion. As a matter of fact it is
doubtful whether out of the sensations of all the “smart” helpers
concerned--with the exception of the devoted half-dozen before
mentioned, who had retired to various clubs in a state of collapse--a
decent state of fatigue could have been constructed; and the reason for
this was threefold. In the first place, so much money had been spent in
announcing the dates when the bazaar did not take place, that there was
exceedingly little forthcoming to announce the date when it did take
place; consequently its attractive existence remained almost unknown to
the general public, and the services of the sellers were in very slight
demand. In the second place, the greater part of the work which could
not be done by proxy was left undone. And in the third place, each lady
had been throughout the day so deeply convinced of the “frightfully
tiring” nature of her occupation, that she thought it only her duty to
“save herself” whenever that course was open to her--which was almost
always.
In the drawing-room at Chelsea, very cool and pretty with its open
windows and its plentiful supply of flowers and ferns, Mrs. Romayne was
lying on the sofa, as the exigencies of the moment, socially speaking,
demanded of her, in an attitude of graceful weariness; an attitude which
was rather belied by the alert expression of her contented face. She
had dined at home--“just a quiet little dinner, you know--cold, because
goodness knows when we shall get it!”--with Julian and Loring at
half-past seven. The bazaar did not close until nine, but all the
principal stall-holders had thought it their duty to the following day
not to wear themselves quite out, and had left the last two hours to the
care of one or other of the hangers-on, of whom “smart” women may
usually have a supply if they choose; and Mrs. Romayne’s quiet little
dinner was only one of a score of similar functions, very dainty and
luxurious in view of the tremendous exertions which had preceded them,
which were being held in various fashionable parts of London. At ten
o’clock Loring had taken his leave, declaring sympathetically that Mrs.
Romayne must long for perfect quiet after her exertions. It was then
that Mrs. Romayne had betaken herself to her sofa and her papers.
“What an immense time it is since we have had such a domesticated hour!”
Mrs. Romayne had laid down her literature some moments before, and had
been lying looking at Julian with that curious expression in her eyes
which would creep into them now and again when they rested on the
good-looking young figure, and which harmonised so ill with the shallow,
vivacious prettiness of the rest of her face. She spoke, however, with
her usual light laugh at herself, and Julian laughed too as he threw
down his magazine and turned towards her.
“It is an age, isn’t it?” he said.
During the final agony of preparation for the bazaar, Julian had been in
immense request. Not that he was one of the devoted half-dozen, or that
he did much definite work; but he was always ready to discuss any lady’s
private fad with her for any length of time, and to rush all over London
about nothing. His exertions, and the exhaustion engendered thereby, had
rendered necessary a great deal of recreation at the club. He had
repaired thither very frequently of late, instead of escorting his
mother home on the conclusion of their tale of parties for the night.
“It is a comfort to think that it is so nearly over!” observed Mrs.
Romayne carelessly. It is never worth while, in the world in which Mrs.
Romayne moved, to express more than half your meaning in words, and
Julian quite understood that she alluded, not to the domestic hour, but
to the season. Her words were not prompted by any actual weariness of
the round of life she characterised as “it,” but the sentiment was in
the air--the fashionable air, that is to say. She and Julian, in common
with the greater part of their world, were leaving London at the end of
the week.
“It has been awfully jolly!” said Julian, leaning back in his chair and
resting his head against his loosely locked hands. “I had no idea that
life was such a first-rate business!”
His mother smiled, and there was a strange touch of triumph in her
smile.
“It is a first-rate business,” she assented, “if one lives it among the
right people and in the right position. I imagine you see by this time
that it isn’t much use otherwise!”
He laughed as though his appreciation of her words rendered them almost
a truism to him, and there was a moment’s silence. It was broken by
Julian.
“It costs a lot of money,” he said, in a casual, indefinite way, but
with a quick glance at his mother.
“Well, it isn’t cheap, certainly,” was the laughing answer: “but I think
we shall manage.” Then noticing something a little deprecating about his
pose and expression, Mrs. Romayne added, with mock reprehension, “You’re
not going to ask me to raise your allowance, you extravagant boy?”
Julian moved, and leaning forward, clasped his hands round one knee as
if the uncomfortable and transitory pose assisted explanation. He
laughed back at her, but he was looking nevertheless somewhat ashamed of
himself.
“No, it’s not that--exactly,” he began rather lamely. “It’s a splendid
allowance, mother dear, and I’m no end grateful; but the fact is, there
has been a good deal of card-playing lately at the club. I don’t care
for cards, you know, but one must play a bit, and I have been rather a
fool. Look here, dear, I suppose--I suppose you couldn’t let me have two
hundred, could you--before we go away, you know?”
“Two hundred, Julian! My dear boy!”
There was a strong tone of surprise and remonstrance in Mrs. Romayne’s
voice, and there was also a very distinct note of annoyance; but all
these sentiments seemed rather to apply to the demand, which was
apparently unseasonable, than to the desirability of the transaction.
She was neither startled nor distressed.
“It is young Fordyce, mother,” continued her son deprecatingly. “It was
awfully foolish to play with him, he’s so beastly lucky. And you see I
must settle it before I go away.”
“And have you none of your own?” demanded his mother, with some asperity
in her tone. Julian’s creditor was a young man who had the reputation of
being a “very good sort of fellow,” who would never “do” in society.
“I’m awfully sorry to say I haven’t!” returned Julian meekly.
There was a moment’s pause, and Mrs. Romayne tapped impatiently on the
papers lying by her.
“It is such an inconvenient moment,” she said at last. “I have just made
all my arrangements for the quarter--I don’t mean that you can’t have
it, of course you can, dear--but it is difficult to lay my hand on it at
this moment.”
“Falconer could arrange it for you,” suggested Julian, alluding to
Falconer in his capacity of trustee for the first time, as it happened.
Mrs. Romayne started violently, and a sharp exclamation of dissent rose
to her lips. She stopped it half uttered, and paused a moment,
controlling herself with difficulty.
“No,” she said at last, in rather a hard tone. “I would rather not do
that. I will think it over and see what can be done. We must raise your
allowance, sir. I can’t have mines sprung on me like this!”
She had risen as she spoke, and as he followed her example she lifted
her face towards him for the good-night kiss which always passed between
them.
“I will sleep upon it,” she said. “Good night, extravagant boy.”