VII

"You must have a talk with Ethel, have a talk with Ethel," said Charlie

Hardinge. "My dear fellow, you must have a talk with Ethel."

Philip looked gloomy and distrustful.

He did not tell himself that Ethel Hardinge always roused in him a

feeling of irritation that temporarily embraced the whole family of

Hardinge, nor did he realize that she had a precisely similar effect

upon most of those people who, with reluctant admiration, spoke of her

as being such a good mother.

He told himself instead that Ethel was the mother of three daughters,

and that therefore she understood everything about all young girls.

Without enthusiasm, he embarked upon a talk with Ethel.

"My motherless little child," said Philip, thereby involving himself

in misunderstanding at the very outset, since Ethel supposed him to be

alluding to little Kenneth.

"No, no," said Philip, pained. "Kenneth is at school. Besides, he is a

boy. It's my poor little Lily that troubles me."

"Oh, but she's not a _child_," said Ethel brightly. "I assure you, you

mustn't think of her as a child. A girl of nineteen is grown up, or she

ought to be. My Dorothy is a year younger than Lily, but I should never

dream of saying she wasn't grown up. Besides, she'd resent it so much

if I did!"

"I think Lily is content to let me judge for her----" said Philip

stiffly.

Nothing in Lily's conduct justified the assertion--rather the

reverse--but while Philip's necessity constrained him to ask for

assistance, his dignity constantly impelled him to deny any need of it.

This naturally increased the delicacy of his adviser's position, but

Ethel Hardinge was cheerfully impervious to atmospheric conditions.

"There's a stage when they get discontented and out of hand," she

remarked thoughtfully. "I went through it with Dorothy, and I'm going

through it with Janet now. Girls thinking they can't get on at home,

you know."

Philip was sincerely horrified.

"That is very sad and shocking," said he gravely. "Home is a young

girl's natural sphere above all others, I should have thought. But I

hope little Lily has no terrible ideas of that kind in her head."

"Oh, they all go through it," Ethel repeated comfortably. "It'll be my

Sylvia next."

"Indeed?" said Philip, who felt no interest in Ethel's Sylvia, but

would have thought it unsympathetic not to simulate one.

His conscientious observance of this self-imposed law retarded the

course of the consultation a good deal, since everything that either of

them said invariably served to remind Ethel of its applicability to one

or more of her own children.

"It goes off, once they get other things to think about," Mrs. Hardinge

observed optimistically. "Dorothy was quite all right again when we had

those nice boys staying here. They had plenty of fun all together, and

it quite took her mind off her grievances."

"But why should little chil--should young girls, living at home, have

grievances at all?" demanded Philip piteously. "They ought to be as

happy as the day is long."

"Of course, our kiddies have everything to make them jolly--and really,

I think they know it, at the bottom of their hearts. Dorothy and Sylvia

are cheery enough, now, and Janet is only going through a phase. But

your Lily--of course it's lonelier for her. And then, she's very

affectionate and sensitive, after all--my girls always say she wants

bracing--perhaps it rather reacts on her spirits to know that you--that

you----"

Ethel called up a fit of coughing to her aid. It was never easy to make

a personal remark to Philip Stellenthorpe.

He grew more rigid than ever as the sense of this one was borne in upon

him.

"You mean that my own happiness is, naturally, no longer to be found in

this life? But my little Lily can know nothing of that," said he in all

good faith. "I should never dream of speaking about my grief to her, or

allowing it to cloud her spirits."

"I don't see how you can help it," said Ethel bluntly.

Philip sat in astonished silence.

He had never thought of his children save as beings of quite

undeveloped perceptions, and it was to him an incredible and unwelcome

suggestion that Lily might possibly be aware of anything that had not

expressly been put into words for her information.

"We always imagined, Charlie and I, that you'd give Lily a regular

season in London as soon as she grew up. I only wish we could afford

it for our kiddies--but it's out of the question, with three of them."

"If Lily's dear mother had been spared to us, no doubt there would

have been something of that sort," said Philip dejectedly. "But in the

circumstances, it hardly occurred to me that I should actually spend

three or four months in town, and take her to balls and parties and all

the rest of it, myself. And I am really quite out of touch with London

society nowadays. But if my duty to the child requires a sacrifice----"

"No--no," said Ethel hastily.

She rightly conjectured that the spirit in which Philip would approach

the proposed immolation might safely be counted upon to victimize Lily

quite as thoroughly as himself.

"Isn't there anyone to whom you could send her? It's so easy to make

arrangements of that sort, as a rule. Most people are only too pleased

to take a pretty girl about--by arrangement, of course."

"I could only entrust the charge of Lily to near relations, naturally,"

said Philip.

If Mrs. Hardinge failed to appreciate the force of the axiom, she made

no sign of it.

"Surely there are aunts and people?"

"My wife was an only daughter, as of course you know, and her brothers

are not married. I have only one sister, and she is unmarried and lives

abroad."

Philip's manner suggested strongly that "abroad" in this connection

might cover a multitude of sins. But Ethel knew all about Miss Clotilde

Stellenthorpe.

"Oh, but wouldn't she be the very person? I remember her quite well.

Last time I was in town taking Sylvia to the dentist I met your sister

in the waiting-room. We had quite a long talk."

"My sister has a small villa in Italy, outside Rome. She lives there

almost altogether, and I fancy she would dislike London."

Ethel entirely disbelieved that any woman would dislike London for

a sojourn of which the expenses of herself and a young and pretty

companion would be liberally met. But she felt unable to put this into

words which should leave Philip's susceptibilities unwounded.

So she said instead, with an air of bright inspiration:

"Then why not send Lily to Italy? It would be a splendid education.

I've often thought how much I should like Janet to get a trip abroad!

She's the clever one, you know--it would be rather wasted on Dorothy,

I'm afraid. From what your sister told me she has a most interesting

circle of friends amongst the English colony in Rome, and knows all the

Embassy people."

"Yes, that is so."

Philip appeared to be much more favourably struck with this scheme than

with Ethel's previous suggestion.

He put from him the painful recollection of certain heartless words,

spoken nearly ten years ago, and tried only to remember that poor Clo

was his nearest relation, and Lily's aunt.

After all, she had loved the children in her own way, and Philip had

long ago euphemized her terrible speech about Vonnie into "poor Clo's

rather unsympathetic way of speaking about things that should be held

sacred."

Whenever Philip Stellenthorpe came to within measurable distance of

a decision, however, it was his invariable instinct to make earnest

search for difficulties or disadvantages that might stand in the way of

its execution.

"There are several drawbacks to the plan, of course," he began at once.

"My sister may have other arrangements of her own, or the idea may not

appeal to Lily."

"I shouldn't dream of consulting her, if I were you," said Ethel in

a surprised voice. "Just tell her it's all settled, as a tremendous

surprise for her, and she'll be delighted. Girls are like that."

"I'm sure my little girl would never be ungrateful for anything I had

arranged on her behalf," said Philip sadly. "But I don't know whether

this is the right time of year for Italy. I should have to find out

about that."

"You would hardly send her for less than six months, surely," urged the

practical Mrs. Hardinge. "_Some_ of that would be sure to be the right

time of year."

"And what about the journey?"

Philip pounced upon a further debatable point with gloomy triumph.

Ethel misunderstood him.

"That would be one point in favour of letting her go this autumn. She

wouldn't have that long journey in the heat."

"I was wondering who should take her."

"Take her? Isn't she old enough to take herself?"

"It is one of my rules," said Philip sublimely, "that Lily should not

go about alone. I have never allowed her to travel by herself, and I

shouldn't dream of letting her begin by a journey to Italy."

"Of course, if she's never travelled by herself, she can't begin by

going all that way. Our kiddies always go about together--but perhaps

one by herself may be different. Only it seems a pity she should be so

helpless at her age."

Philip looked offended as he always did at any form of criticism.

"You could send a maid with her."

"My sister's establishment would probably not admit of an additional

servant."

"She could see Lily into the train in Paris, and then come back. Come,

you wouldn't mind her going straight through in a ladies' carriage by

herself, would you?" said Ethel persuasively.

Philip reluctantly conceded that this might be permitted, less because

the idea appeared to him satisfactory, than because he had just thought

of a fresh objection to the whole scheme, and was desirous of bringing

it forward immediately.

"I should be sorry if Lily made her friends amongst Roman Catholics, I

must admit."

"I daresay most of Miss Stellenthorpe's friends are English. I believe

there's quite a colony there. In any case, she wouldn't be likely to be

attracted by a foreigner, would she?"

Ethel's abrupt descent from the general to the particular slightly

scandalized her hearer.

"No--no. I don't know that I was thinking of anything very specific,"

he said untruthfully. "Only on general grounds."

"Oh well, of course, she's very pretty. There are sure to be plenty of

people who'll admire her. That boy we had here, Colin Eastwood, was a

good deal smitten."

Ethel laughed comfortably, but Philip remained quite unsmiling.

"Boy-and-girl nonsense is all very well," he remarked in tones which

implied the contrary, "but of course it can't lead to anything, and

only puts foolish ideas into the heads of little people. I naturally

hope to see my poor little Lily happily and suitably settled some day,

but there's plenty of time before her."

"I approve of early marriages," Ethel declared stoutly. "I hope if our

girls are to marry, that they'll all marry young."

"I have no doubt of it," mechanically said Philip. "Thank you a

thousand times for your help. I shall think over our discussion, and

let you know what I decide."

He went away trying not to let himself perceive that it would afford

his own harassed sense of paternal responsibility an immense relief to

send Lily away from home for several months.

It was a disappointment to him when she received his announcement

almost doubtfully, although he would certainly have felt, and said it,

to be sad and unnatural had she exhibited unrestrained pleasure at the

prospect of leaving home.

They continued to remain, therefore, at cross-purposes during the

correspondence embarked upon with Aunt Clo, and the resulting

arrangements for Lily's journey in September to the villa at Genazzano.

"No doubt Aunt Clo will either meet you in Rome herself, or send

somebody else to meet you, and take you to Genazzano. The difficulty is

your journey as far as Rome. Your Cousin Ethel suggested sending one

of the maids with you to Paris, and letting her see you into the train

there. Or I could take you so far myself."

Philip sighed heavily. He detested travelling.

"Why couldn't I go by myself?" Lily demanded, suddenly rebellious. "I'm

sure Cousin Ethel would let Dorothy."

Philip looked at her in unfeigned surprise.

"Why, my little pet," he said gently, "you know very well that Father

doesn't allow you to go about alone."

"But why?"

"Not that argumentative tone, my child. Some day you will be very, very

grateful for all the care that I have lavished on you, and perhaps when

it's too late you may wish that you'd shown a more affectionate and

dutiful recognition of it. Now, don't let me hear anything more about

it. You know it's a very old rule that you mayn't go about by yourself,

so there's no more to be said."

And such was the time-honoured immutability of those arbitrary rules,

that there really was no more to be said. It occurred not at all to

Philip and only remotely to Lily, that the manner, if not the matter,

of his prohibitions was senselessly tyrannical. He was honestly

convinced that his favourite catchword--"Father says it will be better

so" would serve as ample justification to the minds of his children for

any commands that he might choose to lay upon them.

The resulting condition of resentful obedience induced in Lily, who was

at once too sensitive and too fond of her father to risk reducing him

to one of those states of despairing depression that were his only form

of displaying vexation, Philip described as "a nice, happy, friendly,

little home-party, with no unpleasant discussions."

Since the death of his wife, he had known no more definite happiness

than his own pitifully negative contentment whenever such a state of

affairs appeared to him to prevail in his house. He would have thought

it a disloyalty to Eleanor's memory to suppose that he could ever be

happy again.

The children might be so--in fact he wished them to be so, and was

bewildered and hurt when his own lack of proportion created an

atmosphere to which Lily, at least, reacted at a cost infinitely

greater to herself than either of them realized.

Kenneth, ten years younger, was different.

The "difference" of Kenneth, in fact, was becoming positively

appalling, to his entirely humourless father.

Kenneth disregarded the code with blatant impunity, and that not from a

spirit of defiance, but apparently from sheer constitutional inability

to regard it seriously.

He obviously did not believe that grown-up people were infallible.

Remonstrance never made him cry, nor imputations of heartlessness and

disloyalty.

He never willingly sat upon anybody's knee after he was three years

old, but would say cheerfully: "I'd rather not, thank you," as he

walked away.

He held opinions of his own, and expressed them freely.

He did not instantly relinquish them when Philip gravely and gently

told him that he was an ignorant little boy and that Father always knew

best.

He was addicted to making personal remarks.

He spoke crudely and candidly about subjects that Philip had always

tacitly impressed upon his children as being sad or unpleasant, and

therefore unfit to be mentioned freely.

He asked indiscreet questions.

"How old are you, Father?"

"Hush, hush, little boy. That's a very rude question. You know you must

never ask grown-up people their age."

"Why not?"

"Because it's very bad manners."

"Cousin Charlie asked Lily how old she was, the other day, and Lily

didn't mind."

"That's different." Philip was at last beginning to learn that one

could not put an end to Kenneth's enquiries merely by saying: "Come,

come, you know Father doesn't like arguments."

"Cousin Charlie is a great deal older than Lily, and can say what he

likes to her."

"Then it's only old people who mind being asked their age. Is that why

you won't tell me yours, Father, because you're so old?"

Philip was exceedingly sensitive about his age, and quite incapable of

assessing the utter meaninglessness of his son's estimate.

"That's a naughty, heartless way of speaking," he said, deeply hurt. "I

don't want to talk any more to little people who can speak like that."

"Oh well, it doesn't matter," said Kenneth with supreme indifference.

"I s'pose you're about seventy or eighty. I didn't know you'd mind

being asked."

In the last assertion lay the painful core of the matter. Kenneth

really didn't know, as Lily, and even Vonnie, had known, as much by

intuition as by training, what Philip would "mind."

He transgressed constantly, and was gaily impervious to the devastating

effect of his transgressions upon his father and, by reflection,

upon Lily. But Lily secretly admired Kenneth, and envied him that

pachydermatous courage of his own convictions that she herself had

never acquired.

Kenneth was never afraid of being himself, although that self in no

slightest degree corresponded to Philip's ideal of a motherless little

boy of nine years old.

He went to school and was not in the least homesick, and he seemed

to be neither grieved nor ashamed when Philip expressed great

disappointment at his first report.

"I hoped you would have been proud to bring back some nice prize or

other to show me," said Philip wistfully.

"Prizes are fearful rot," said Kenneth.

He afterwards remarked in a detached way to Lily that, after all, what

he did at school was his own business, more or less.

"Father pays for you to go there," said Lily, instinctively aware

that only such practical considerations would carry any weight to her

youthful hearer.

"Yes, of course. But he needn't want to know whether I've made any nice

friends, and rot of that sort."

"I know it's rather aggravating to be asked about that sort of

thing," half whispered Lily, feeling herself to be guilty of treason.

"But after all, it's because he's fond of us, that he wants to know

everything about us."

"Being fond is such rot," said Kenneth, in his graceless and limited

vocabulary.

Lily was quite glad to see him return to school before her own

departure for Italy.

"I'm afraid you won't see your sister at home next holidays, my boy, so

you and I will have to cheer one another up," said Philip nervously.

"But it'll be a great treat for Lily to go abroad."

"Mind you send me some stamps for my collection, Lily," Kenneth said

earnestly.

"Come, come, Kenneth. Try and not think quite so much about your own

little concerns. Now say good-bye, my boy."

But the most determined sentimentalist upon earth could extract no

conventional emotion out of Kenneth.

"Good-bye," he said casually, and turned an inattentive cheek to Lily's

salute.

She would willingly have omitted the ceremony of kissing him

altogether, knowing that he disliked it, but for her certainty

that Philip, shocked and pained, would have insisted upon its due

performance.

"I hope little Kenneth is not a heartless boy," said his father,

turning away dejectedly from the scene of farewell that had impressed

him so unsatisfactorily.

But hope was not the predominant note in his voice.

Lily was so sorry for her father--all the sorrier because she was

conscious that her own inmost sympathies lay with Kenneth's point of

view--that she felt it incumbent upon her to show no elation at all at

her own projected departure, although she was in reality fast becoming

both excited and pleased at the prospect of going into entirely new

surroundings.

The result of which filial piety was that Philip told Ethel Hardinge,

in a resigned way and with a smile of great melancholy, that little

people realized very few of the sacrifices made for them, and one must

not expect to see them display gratitude.