George came back from his yachting tour with the Scillys very brown and
cheerful, having collected enough sunshine for a new book, and Christina
is typing it at his dictation.
George is a cranky dictator, and it takes her all her time to keep in
touch with him. I have watched her at it. Sometimes he stops and can't
for the life of him find the right word, and I can tell by her eyes that
she knows it, and is too polite to give it him; just the way one longs
to help out a stutterer. But I have seen her put the word down out of
her own head long before George has shouted it at her, as he does in the
end. She picks and chooses, too, a little, for George is a tidy swearer,
as the cabman said. I suppose he learned it in the high society he goes
among! He does it all the time he is composing; it relieves the tension,
he says, and she doesn't mind. She manages him. George pretends he knows
he is being managed, which shows that he doesn't really think he is. I
asked her once why she didn't marry, but she said the profession of
typewriting was not so binding as the other, for you could get down off
your high stool if you wanted.
Christina always says rude things about epigrams and marriage. She is
not very old, only thirty; but she says she has outgrown them both. Of
course in this house epigrams are the same as bread-and-butter, hers and
ours, for George pays her a good salary for typing those that he makes
ready for print. As for epigrams, she says she can make them herself,
and here are some I found written out in her handwriting on a china
memorandum tablet. I expect she keeps a separate tablet for her remarks
on Marriage.
1. Man cannot live by epigram alone.
2. Epigrams are like the paper-streamers they fling out of the boxes at
a _bal masqué_ at the Opera. They flat fall immediately afterwards.
3. An epigram is like the deadly Upas Tree, and blights everything in
the shape of conversation that grows near it.
4. Reverse an epigram and you get a platitude.
5. The savage, sour, and friendless epigram. The last sounds to me all
wrong, for it has no verb. But I give it as I find it.
George's new novel is to be called _The Senior Epigrammatist_, and the
scene is laid in the Smart Sea Islands.
"Our well-known blend," said Mr. Aix, "of opaline sea and crystal
epigram knocks the public every time! But mark me, Christina dear, this
sunlight soap won't wash clothes. It isn't for home consumption. It
gladdens publishers' offices, but leaves the domestic hearth cold. The
fires of passion----"
"Don't talk to me of passion," said Christina. "I just detest the word.
Passion is piggish! It's a perfect disgrace to have primitive instincts,
and I wouldn't be seen dead with a temperament, in these days."
She was putting a new ribbon into her typewriter and trying it. She
typed something like this--
Christina x x x Ball x x C.B. x x (----) C. Ball B B----
"Who is Ball?" said Mr. Aix anxiously.
Christina answered as if she meant to bite his head off.
"A man who never made an epigram in his life, and stands six foot six in
his shoes."
"The noble savage, eh? Well, well, I wish him luck!"
I knew who Ball was; it is Peter Ball, and Christina likes him. She
hasn't said or typed anything against marriage since she knew him.
It was at a concert that some friends of hers gave in Queen's Gate, that
she first met him. I was with her, and we all sat in rows on rout seats,
that skidded and flew off like shirt-buttons across the room whenever
you got up suddenly. Peter Ball sat next us, and his legs were long,
though his feet were small. He had a golden beard, which I hate, and so,
I thought, did Christina. She had always said there was one thing she
would not marry, and that was a beard.
He wished out loud that he hadn't got let in for the sitting-down seats,
so that he could not make a clean bolt of it when he had had enough of
Miss Squallini. There was not any Miss of that name on the programme, so
though he said loud, no one could be offended. A Maddle. Xeres told us
quite slyly, lifting her eyebrows up and down, that "she knew a bank!"
as if she had got up early like the worm, and found it all by herself.
After that, one of the spare hostesses came wandering by and introduced
him to us. He began to talk to Christina without looking at her, and
gradually he forgot his legs and put one under the rout seat in front of
him and lifted it up without thinking. The lady on it looked round
indignantly and Christina smiled. After that he talked to us all through
the programme though people shoo'd him, and then he stopped for a little
and apologized, and went on again.
"I don't often turn up at this sort of function, do you?" he asked
Christina.
"No, I do not," she replied, "I have too much to do as a general thing."
"And stay at home and do it," said he; "you're wise."
"I have to!" said Christina. "Oh," she sighed, "I am so dreadfully hot."
It was June.
"Why do you wear that bag?" he said, meaning her motor tulle veil, which
was absurdly thick and made her look as if she had small-pox. But every
one else apparently had a different form of the same disease, shown by a
different size in spots. She said so, and that she wore a veil like
every one else.
"Get out of it, can't you, and let me take care of it for you, and that
boa thing you have got round your neck."
She took it off, and the boa, and gave them to him.
"I am afraid you will drop the boa, and let the veil work under the
seat," she said in a fright, as he nipped them both in one great hand.
So he pinned them, boa, veil, and all, to his grey speckled trousers
with her hat-pin, and sat all through the rest of the concert, looking
at the bunch at his knee. I never saw a man like that before, he didn't
seem at all like the people who come to Cinque Cento House. I didn't
seem to see him there, and I rather thought I should like to. Why, he
would make George straighten his back!
"I say," he said presently, "do you like gramophones?"
"I love them," said Christina, and I knew it was a lie.
"My people have a perfectly splendid one!" said he, and his whole face
lighted up. "I wish you could hear it."
Christina wished she could, and he said--
"Oh, then, we will manage it somehow."
When the concert was over he didn't bolt as he had said he wanted to,
but gave us ices, Christina one, me two, and then Christina put the bag
on again.
"If you were in my motor in that thing in a shower you'd get drowned,"
said he. "Why, it would _hold_ the water. I should like to drive you in
my motor all the same. I say, can't I call on you?"
Christina told him very nicely that she was private secretary to the
author, Mr. George Vero-Taylor, and hadn't much time for herself. She
seemed to say that this made a call impossible.
"Ah, I see! Live in, do you? Well, I'll call there, drop my pasteboard,
all straight and formal, you know, and then there can be no objection to
my giving you a spin in the motor. Right you are! Sinky Cento House.
What a rum name! Suggests drains! Never mind, I'll be there, and then
when I've made the acquaintance of your chaperon, she'll allow you to
come to tea with my mater, and make the acquaintance of the gramophone.
My mater's too old to go out. It's a ripper, the gramophone, I mean,
like some other people I am thinking of!"
"What a breezy man!" said Christina, on the way home. "He reminds me of
The Northman I used to draw at South Kensington. I broke him, and had to
pay seven-and-six for him." Then she began to think--I believe it was
about Peter Ball. He _was_ handsome, for he had blue eyes and a little
short, straight nose like the Sovereigns in Madame Tussaud's.
"Isn't he exactly like Harold of England?" I said to Christina. "I hope
George won't snub him when he comes to see you?"
"He won't come," said she; "but if he did he wouldn't know he was being
snubbed."
"No, he would say to George, 'Keep your snubs for a man of your own
size.' But, Christina dear, I always _thought_ you hated both marriage
and gramophones."
"I am not so sure about gramophones," said she. "Perhaps a very big
one----?"
"A six-footer, like Mr. Peter Ball, eh?"
She was quite moody and absent in the 'bus going home, and wouldn't go
on top to please me. Then I accidentally stuck my umbrella in over the
top of her shoe as I walked beside her, and then she was too cross to
speak at all. I respected her mood. That is why I am beloved in the home
circle. But I have my own ideas, and they keep me amused.
I was unfortunately out of the way when Mr. Peter Ball did call, three
days later. Mother and Christina were in, and Ariadne, who gave me a
true account of it all. She says the first thing he said to Christina
was, "I hope you don't think I have been too precipitate?" I suppose he
meant in calling? He stared about him a good deal at first, and she
thought that George's queer furniture made him feel shy, and that he
thought the ivory figure of Buddha quite indecent. She was sure he
didn't admire her (Ariadne), but only Christina, because Christina is a
"tailor-made" girl, that men like. Mother made the tea very strong that
afternoon, so as to make him feel at home, and then after all he didn't
touch tea. She kindly offered him a brandy-and-soda and he declined
that, but I expect it was only because it would have seemed
disrespectful to Christina. All men are alike, and prone to a b. and s.
if they can get it without disgrace. Mother was sure that he had fallen
head-over-ears in love with Christina, and she with him at the very
first sight. She told me so, and said she meant to help it on.
"It is because Christina is so used to seeing George every day," said I.
"Peter Ball is very different, isn't he?"
Mother said that there was no accounting for tastes, and that for her
part she considered George's type was the nicest. But whatever we did,
she said, we were not to chaff Christina about it, and put her off a
very good match. A girl of Christina's sort never took kindly to chaff,
and though she should be sorry to lose Christina as a secretary to
George, it being impossible to tell what sort of minx he might engage in
her place, she for one wouldn't like any personal consideration whatever
to interfere with Christina's establishment in life. Peter Ball is a
landed gentry. He is M.F.H. in the county of Northumberland to the
Rattenraw Hunt, and a capital shot and first-rate angler. When his old
mother dies he will be richer, but he is a good son, and often stays
with her in Leinster Gardens where he has asked me and Christina to go
to tea next week.
I promised not to chaff, but if she had only known, it would have taken
a steam-crane to put Christina off that particular thing. She talked
lots about Peter. He was the "finest specimen of humanity she had ever
come across!" "Such a contrast to the little anæmic, effete,
ambisextrous (I hope I have got it right?) creatures that haunt Cinque
Cento House, who are all trying to get more out of their heads than is
in them!" "Greek in his simplicity, a sort of mixture of John Bull and
Antinöus!" I say, just wait till you see his mother; nice men's mothers
are sometimes sad eye-openers, and Peter Ball is always talking about
his. Also it is quite on the cards that she may not like Christina, and
then I am sure he will never propose to her. He is an admirable son. I
believe he keeps a gramophone just to attract the girls he admires into
his mother's cave, and give her the opportunity of looking over them,
and making up her mind if they are fit to be her Peter's wife or no.
When the eventful day came, Christina was on thorns. She didn't know how
to dress. She finally left off the chiffon bag and wore a fringe-net,
and her best-cut "tailor-made," and took out her ear-rings lest they
should damn her in his mother's eyes. Then at exactly five minutes to
four we rang the bell in 1000 Leinster Square.
A proud butler opened the door. George will only let us have maids,
although he could afford ten butlers.
The house was beautiful, and not a bit like ours. "Early Victorian,"
Christina whispered me. She was dreadfully nervous, and made me too. I
dropped my umbrella in the rack with such a clatter that she blushed and
scolded me. Then a palm-leaf tickled my head as I went by, and I begged
its pardon, thinking some one behind was trying to attract my
attention. We were taken into a big room with pedestal things in gold
and stucco set down at intervals, and a clock with a bare pendulum which
looks simply undressed to me, and a bronze Father Time with his sickle
lying lazily across the top. On another clock there was a gilt man in a
gilt cart whipping up two gilt horses. The carpet had large bouquets of
roses on it, and I thought what a good game it would be to pretend they
were islands and hop across from one to the other. I began, but she
stopped me. In a corner was the gramophone, like a great brass ear put
out to hear what you were saying. It was playing when we went in, like
an old man with a wheeze, and in came Peter Ball looking as if he had
just got out of a bath, and said, "How-do-you-do! it is playing
'Coppelia.'" Then it played "Valse Bleue" and "Casey at the Wake," and
"Casey as Doctor," and "When other Lips," and then Peter Ball said his
mother was ready.
Into another room we went, full of Berlin wool-work chairs, and screens
of Potiphar and his wife, and the curtains were of green rep with ropes
of silk to tie them back and gilt festoons to hide their beginnings, and
an old old lady in a big arm-chair and a lace cap with nodding bugles
was in a corner, just like another and older bit of furniture.
We were introduced; she was very deaf and very blind, and I am not sure
she didn't think I was the girl Peter wanted to marry. However that
might be, she seemed pleased with us, and we talked of her son and the
house. Christina, who used to say she preferred a Chéret poster to a
Titian, and plain deal to mahogany, admired everything freely. The
rosewood wheelbarrow with silver fittings given to Peter Ball's father
when he laid a first stone somewhere, she said was superb and so
graceful; the picture of old Mrs. Ball by Ingres in a poke bonnet and
short waist she said was far superior to anything by Burne Jones.
"Who is Burne Jones?" said the old lady, and Christina denied Burne
Jones cheerfully. I thought of my favourite piece of poetry--
"See, ye Ladies that are coy,
What the mighty Love can do!"
Then we had tea (the cake in a silver basket on a fringed mat, if you
please!), and after we had talked a little more, we said good-bye, and
Peter took us out. He had rushed out of the room just five minutes
before, when the first symptoms of leave-taking manifested themselves,
and we saw why, when we passed out through the first room where the
gramophone was. It played us out with "The Wedding March," surely a
graceful thought of Peter Ball's!
"He's very nice, but what a pity he hasn't got taste!" I said as we came
away. You see, I am used to Cinque Cento House, and I have always been
told that there is only one taste, and that ours is it.
"Taste!" Christina mooned, as we got into a 'bus. "There's so much of it
about, isn't there? On my word, it will soon be quite _chic_ to be
vulgar."
It was not difficult to tell which way the wind was blowing after that.
It was about this time that Mr. Aix found Christina typing her own name
and Peter's on a sheet of III Imperial. He hadn't even set eyes on Peter
Ball then, but he did a few days later, when Peter Ball came to tea,
holding his grey kid gloves in his hand. George, luckily, was out again,
really out, not pretending to be in his study, and Mr. Aix it was who
opened the front-door for Peter when he went away at seven.
"A man!" he said, when he came back to us all in the winter garden, and
Christina was just going out--escaping to her own room to think over
Peter Ball, I dare say--and she said as she passed him--
"I could hug you for saying that, Mr. Aix."
"No, you couldn't," said he. "I am popularly supposed to be repellent. A
lady said I was like a white stick of celery grown in a dark cellar.
Another, of music-hall celebrity, compared me to a blasted pipe-stem. I
do not look for success with your sex. It was kind of you to think of
it, though."
Peter Ball meant business, or else we could not have all spoken of it so
openly. George was awfully cross at the idea of having to find a new
secretary. Lady Scilly said she thought he could do better than
Christina, who was too forward (and too pretty). She tried very hard to
flirt with Peter herself, but perhaps Peter thought _he_ could do
better, and wouldn't. She looked into his face and said, "You great big
beauty!" She told him "high" stories, as Christina and I call them, and
he wouldn't laugh. She asked him right out why he wouldn't, and he
answered equally right out, "Because I disapprove of all jesting with
regard to the relations of the sexes!"
Lady Scilly looked disgusted, and left him severely alone, as he meant
her to.
For weeks after this he was like a full pail of water one is afraid to
carry without spilling. At last he slopped over, and asked Christina to
be his wife. I wasn't in the room, of course, but Christina was nice and
told us afterwards. He went on his knees, she says, and I believe her,
because I found a cushion on the floor immediately after, before the
housemaid had tidied the room, and I think he had managed to put it
under his knees without her seeing. Our floor is bony.
"The very moment," she said, "he had got me to say yes, he jumped up and
rushed out without his hat, to send a telegram to his mother with the
good news!"
She thought this so nice of him and so flattering, as showing that he
hadn't made quite sure of her. For though we all knew she meant to take
him, he was not supposed to be aware of it. Considering that Christina
is grown up, she ought to be able to make a man think exactly what she
wishes him to think about her. Such power comes, or should come, with
advancing years, and is one of its compensations. Ariadne, of course,
isn't old enough to have left off being quite transparent, and regrets
it deeply in some of her poetry.
Christina was married to Peter Ball almost directly, and Ariadne and I
were her bridesmaids. Mrs. Mander gave us our dresses and hats. They
were quite fashionable; she would have no nonsense or necklaces. Ariadne
looked smart and like other people, for once. She didn't look so pretty,
but it is a mistake to want to go about the streets looking like a
picture. Prettiness isn't everything, and the really smartest people
would disdain to look simply ready for an artist to paint them.
Simon Hermyre, Lady Scilly's best friend, was Peter Ball's best man. He
had met Ariadne at the Scillys', but at Christina's wedding he said that
he should not have known her again. He began to take some notice of her.
She at once asked him to call, and it was a great mistake, for he never
did. It is awkward for Ariadne, I admit, for Mother not going out, and
George being perfectly useless as a father, she has to do all her own
asking.
That can't be helped, but Ariadne is always hasty and strikes while the
iron is too hot. Simon Hermyre did _rather_ like her, but he wasn't
quite sure that he actually wanted to take her on, and all that that
means--and whether he liked her enough to risk making Lady Scilly angry
about it, as of course she would be. At all events he didn't come--his
chief kept him in till six o'clock every day, or some excuse of that
sort. As if a man couldn't always manage a call if he wanted to, even if
he were third secretary to some one in the planet Mars!