The stay in Venice had naturally curtailed for Mrs. Osborne the weeks of
her London season, but she had never intended to begin entertaining on
the scale required by the prodigious success of the fancy-dress ball
last year till after Whitsuntide. Before leaving town in May she had
sent out all invitations for the larger functions (except those which
her invited guests subsequently asked for on behalf of their friends,
and which she always granted), and it was clear that the world in
general was going to pass a good deal of its time at No. 92. Indeed,
when she went through her engagement book on her return from Venice to
Grote, hospitable though she was, and greatly enjoying the exercise of
that admirable virtue, she was rather appalled at the magnitude of what
she had undertaken. She was going to give three balls (real balls),
three concerts, two big dinner parties every week, and a series of
week-ends down at Grote, while on such other nights as she was not
dining out herself there were a series of little parties. In addition
Sheffield friends coming to stay with them for the insides of weeks to
finish up with one of the Grote week-ends. These visits she looked
forward to with peculiarly pleasant anticipations, for the dear soul
could not but feel an intense and secret gratification at the thought of
such local celebrities as Sir Thomas and the Prices seeing her and Mr.
O. absolutely at the top of the tree, and entertaining princes and
duchesses and what not just as they had entertained aldermen and
manufacturers at Sheffield. Also there was a secret that Mr. Osborne had
told her, which filled her with feelings that were almost too solemn to
be glee. The secret was not to be talked about yet, but in private he no
longer called her Mrs. O., but “my lady.” She hoped Sir Thomas would be
with them when the honours were published, for secretly she still took
her bearings, so to speak, by the stars as they appeared in Sheffield.
There Sir Thomas Ewart, Bart., and Lady had been the very Pole-star to
which quite important constellations reverently pointed. But now, as by
some new and wonderful telescope, she saw herself and Mr. O. high above
Sir Thomas. Why, even Per would be the Honourable Per, and Sir Thomas
would have to say, “After you, Per, my boy.” She and Mr. O. had already
had more than one broken night in thinking of a title which he could
submit for approval. Mrs. Osborne was all for something old and
territorial.
“There’s Hurstmonceaux, my dear,” she said, “that ruined old castle
which we drove over to see when you was down at Hastings with your
attack of gout. I don’t doubt you could buy it for a song, and there
you’ll be.”
“And then next you’d be wanting me to do up the Castle and live in it,”
said he. “Besides, it’s a regular stumper to say, and French at that.
No, my dear, we must think of something more British than that; there’s
plenty of good names without crossing the Channel, so to speak, for
something to call yourself by. But it’s puzzling work, and new to me, to
have to think of christening yourself afresh.”
“Lor’, Mr. Osborne, you don’t mean to say that you’ve got to change your
Christian name, too?”
“No, no, my dear. There’s no Christian name to bother about; I don’t
deal any more in Christian names--not officially, anyhow.”
He blew out the light.
“Good night, my dear,” he said. “And God bless you.”
It was all very well to say “Good night,” but Mrs. Osborne could no more
sleep than she could think of a name. After an interval she heard Mr.
Osborne turn himself ponderously round in his bed, and knew that he was
awake too.
“There’s some things called ‘Hundreds,’” she said. “I seem to remember
that all England is cut up into Hundreds, which is a queer thing to
think upon. It’ll be worth while seeing in what Hundred the East End of
Sheffield lies.”
“There’s something in that,” said Mr. Osborne, “and it would bring the
business into it. Lor’, Mrs. Osborne, my lady, I’m glad I had nothing to
say to a knighthood five years ago. I’d have been put on the shelf for
good if I’d jumped at it. But not I! It’s this parliamentary business
coming on top of all I did at Sheffield that has given the extra turn.
And I’ve been liberal, I’m sure, to the party. What was the name of the
street now where I built the church in Sheffield? I declare it’s gone
out of my head. Thinking of new names drives the old ones out.”
“Commercial Road, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, “for I thought of the
name myself when you was building the street.”
“Then we ain’t no further on yet. Grote, too; that’s not to be thought
of, as it’s Lord Austell’s second title.”
“After all, we only take the place on hire,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and it
doesn’t bring the business in.”
“That’s what beats me,” said Mr. Osborne. “How to bring the business in!
Lord Hardware, Tinware; that would be a thing to laugh at.”
* * * * *
The matter was still in debate on that morning when Mrs. Osborne went
through her engagement book down at Grote and found so heavy a programme
in front of her. And somehow to-day she did not feel markedly
exhilarated by it. The journey back from Venice had tired her very much,
and though she had felt sure that a good night’s rest coupled with a day
or two of solid English food would set her up again, she still felt
overdone and devitalized. She was disposed to attribute this in the main
to the unnutritious character of Venetian diet, where, if you got a bit
of veal for your dinner, that was as much butcher’s meat as you were
likely to see; while, to make up, there would be nothing more than a
slice of some unknown fish and the half of a chicken that was no bigger
than a blackbird. As for a nice filet of beef or a choice leg of lamb,
it was a thing unheard of. Yet she had not felt much inclined for the
filet of beef when it was accessible again; it seemed to suit her as
little as the rice and maccaroni had done. For the last week, too, she
had had from time to time little attacks of internal pain. No doubt it
was of no consequence, but it was a pain that she did not know and could
not quite localize.
Once or twice she had thought of consulting a doctor, a thing that Mr.
Osborne had urged on her before the Venetian visit, but some vague and
curious fear prevented her--the fear of being told that something was
seriously wrong, and that she would have to give up their London
programme which she had planned so delightedly. That was a thing not to
be contemplated; the London plans were, to her mind, part of the
immutable order of things, and it was therefore essentially important
that Mr. Osborne should not guess that she was out of sorts, for she
well knew, if he had so much as a guess of that, he would have carried
her off, by force if necessary, and not let go of her till he had
deposited her in some eminent consulting room, with specialists dangling
at the end of the telephone. But she had never been lacking in spirit,
and it would be a singular thing if she could not be genial and hearty
to all the world for a few weeks more.
But what she doubted was her power of getting through the physical
strain of it. She knew how tiring the standing about and the receiving
was, and every day now she felt tired even before the fatigues of it had
begun. If only she had a daughter, who could quite naturally take some
of this off her hands, and let her sit down while the “company” were
arriving. And then an idea struck her.
Dora and Claude were intending to occupy the flat in Mount Street till
the end of the summer. After that they would come down to Grote, and
soon, please God! the flat in Mount Street would be too small for them
“and what would be theirs”--this elegant circumlocution was exactly the
phrase that passed through Mrs. Osborne’s mind--and when they returned
to London again in the autumn, it would be to a house of their own in
Green Street with place for a nursery. This, however, they were only
going to take at Michaelmas; but Dora had written to her mother-in-law
this very morning (and her innocent letter suggested possibilities to
Mrs. Osborne), saying that Mount Street really seemed to be hotter than
Venice, and dreadfully stuffy, which Venice was not. What if Dora and
Claude would come and live with them in Park Lane till the end of July?
She remembered how Dora had acted hostess down at Grote in the winter,
and they might play the game again. But this time there would be a real
object to be served by it; Dora would help her in the entertaining,
which prospectively, as she planned it, had seemed so delightful, but
now appeared so difficult. It was an excellent idea, if only she could
compass it.
The large Indian gong had already boomed through the house, announcing
that lunch was ready, and next moment Mr. Osborne came into her
“boudoir,” announcing that he was ready too. Venetian habit still
lingered with him.
“Well, lunch is _pronto_, my lady,” he said, “but you’re busy yet, and
still at the plan of campaign for the summer. But in your plan of
campaign don’t forget the commissariat; and here’s your lieutenant Marie
come to tell you that my lady is served. Balls, concerts, dinners;
dinners, balls, concerts; my lady is a regular Whiteley to the _élite_:
she gives them all there’s to be had. You’ll be pauperizing the dukes
and duchesses, my dear; they’ll be thinking of nothing but the
amusements you provide for them.”
Mrs. Osborne was not without the rudiments of diplomacy, though, it may
be remarked, nothing in the least advanced in that line was necessary
with her husband. Still it was better that, if possible, he should
suggest Dora and Claude coming to them than that she should. She laughed
dutifully at Mr. O.’s joke about the dukes and duchesses, and proceeded.
“I had a note from Dora this morning,” she said, as they sat down.
“Bless her heart,” said Mr. Osborne parenthetically. “For what we are
going to receive, my lady.”
“Amen, my dear. There’s some of that rice with bits of chicken in it as
I got the recipe of from Pietro, and I could fancy a bit myself. Well,
she wrote and said she was very well, and she’d seen--she’d been to call
in Harley Street.”
Mr. Osborne again interrupted.
“And was anything said about September?” he asked.
“There was some mention of September. And there was something else, too.
Oh yes, she finds that pokey little flat in Mount Street hotter than
Venice, she says.”
“Well, then, why don’t she and Claude take a cab round to No. 92, and
let the luggage follow?” said Mr. Osborne rather hotly. “Claude’s not
got a grain of sense: he should have thought of it long ago, if Dora
feels it stuffy and hot there, and suggested their installing themselves
there, cool and comfortable. Bless the boy, all the same. But after I’ve
had my lunch I’ll get one end of the telephone and him the other, and
see if you don’t hear the front door slam and them drive away to Park
Lane before I’ve lit my cigar. That’ll suit you, my lady, will it?
You’ll like to have them dear children in the house, I know.”
“Bless them, let them come,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and the longer they
stop the better I shall be pleased. Dora will be a help too: she will
help me with the dinners and what not.”
The two were alone on this their last day at Grote, but all six
wasp-coloured footmen marshalled by Thoresby formed a sort of frieze
round the table, occasionally changing a plate or handling a dish.
Generous though he was with money, Mr. Osborne had very distinct notions
about getting his money’s worth when he had paid it, and since the house
required six footmen he saw no reason why they should not all wait at
table, even when only he and Mrs. O. were having their lunch. Nor was
the number of dishes curtailed because they were alone; Mr. Osborne
always ate of them all, and because there was “no company” that was no
reason why he should go starved. It was not, therefore, for nearly an
hour after the time they sat down that he went to the telephone--so
accurately depicted by Sabincourt--and rang up Claude.
He joined Mrs. Osborne on the terrace a minute or two afterwards.
“Claude’s willing enough, and thank you,” he said, “but he says he must
speak to Dora first. So you’d better telephone to 92, my lady, and tell
them to make ready whatever rooms you think right. Give them a nice
sitting-room, my dear, so that they can feel independent.”
“Better hear from Dora first,” said Mrs. Osborne.
“Just as you please; but when the girl says as the flat in Mount Street
is hot and stuffy, and there’s the coolest house in London waiting for
her just round the corner, I don’t see there’s much call to wait. Well,
my lady, I must be off. There’s a committee been sitting in the Lords on
the Bill about the Employers’ Liability Act, and I must get all they’ve
talked about at my fingers’ ends. Who knows, but Mrs. O., but that I’ll
be able to tell them a thing or two in that chamber before the summer’s
out? It’s a strange thing to me how clever men, such as have taken
degrees and fellowships at Oxford, should have so little common sense on
other matters. As if there wasn’t a difference between one sort of risk
and another, and they want to lump them all on to the employer. I doubt
most of them Liberals are either Socialists or afraid of the Socialists.
But there! the noble lords have had a committee and I must see what’s
been said and done.”
“Just to think of it! And have you got any idea about your new name
yet?”
“No, I daresay something will suggest itself. After all, I shall smell
as sweet by any other name, hey?”
“Lor’, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne with a slight accent of reproof; for
Thoresby had come to see if there were any orders, and must have heard.
* * * * *
The question, however, about this move of Dora and Claude to Park Lane
was not so foregone a conclusion as Mr. Osborne had anticipated. Claude
had gone to the telephone when he was rung up, and came back beaming to
tell Dora of this delightful offer.
“Dad and the mater invite us to go to Park Lane till the end of July,”
he said. “I’m blowed if there are many fathers who would want a son and
daughter-in-law in the house all the time. Of course I said that I must
consult you first; that was only proper.”
“Oh, Claude,” said she, “of course it’s awfully kind. But, but do you
think so?”
“But why not? It’s just like the governor to have guessed that we should
feel stuffy and cramped in the flat during this hot weather.”
Dora remembered her letter.
“I’m afraid I may be responsible for that,” she said. “At least I wrote
to your mother yesterday saying it was very hot and airless here. Oh
dear, I hope she won’t think I hinted at this.”
“Not she. You don’t catch her imputing motives, specially when there
weren’t any. She’s got more to think about than that. I say, Dora, are
you sure you didn’t have that in your mind? Awfully sharp of you if you
did.”
Dora resented this; indignant that he could have supposed her capable of
it, and a little of this indignation coloured her words.
“I’m afraid that I can’t lay claim to sharpness,” she said, “because the
fact is that if I had thought such an offer was possible, I should have
said it was cool and airy here.”
Claude’s profile was outlined against the hot, hard blue of the sky
outside, and Dora noticed how perfect it was. But she noticed it in some
detached sort of way; it did not seem to concern her. At this he turned
round, and came across the room to her.
“What’s the matter, dear?” he said. “Why is it you don’t want to go?”
“Oh, Claude, if you don’t see, you wouldn’t understand if I explained,”
she said. “And I can’t quite explain, either.”
“Try,” he said.
“Well, I married you, do you see, and you are master of the house, and
I’m mistress, and it isn’t quite the same thing if we go and live with
other people. They are angelic, of course, to suggest it. But oh, I wish
people wouldn’t be quite so kind--or, rather, that they would mix a
little tact with their kindness. They’ve made it hard to refuse,
telephoning like that. It’s--it’s like a word-of-mouth invitation for a
month ahead. You’ve got to say ‘Yes.’”
Claude took up a rather listless hand of hers that lay on the arm of her
chair.
“Ah, then I do understand,” he said, “and I love your reasons. I guessed
it before you said it; you want to be alone with me. Well, it’s the same
here. But I’ve no doubt they’ll give us a sitting room and all that.”
Though Dora had meant something very like that, it sounded rather
dreadful to hear Claude say it, and say also that he had guessed. He
oughtn’t to have guessed, although he assured her it was “the same
here.” There was an unconscious complacency about his guessing that she
did not like. But he went on without pause.
“As for its being tactless,” he said, “I think you’re rather hard on the
governor. When a man’s as kind as he can be, and as devoted as he is to
you, I don’t think you should say that.”
Claude stuck out his chin a little over this, and Dora, though she knew
he was right from his point of view, knew that she had been right too.
Kindness, even the most sincere, can easily be embarrassing: it needs
refining, like sugar. But that was the sort of thing that Claude could
not understand: the tact of good nature had been left out of him just as
it had been left out of his father. So her reply was sincere.
“Yes, dear; it was a pity I said that,” she said.
But somehow the admission was bitter; the truth was that it was a pity
to say it, because she ought to have been more careful in what she said
to him, not because the impulse that prompted her speech was a mistaken
one. But all that was unconjectured by him.
“My darling,” he said, “you are so sweet with me. If I have to criticise
anything you do, you never take it amiss. And now I’ll tell you another
reason why I think we had better go, apart from the comfort and
convenience of it. It is that I don’t think the mater is very strong,
for all that she eats so heartily. She gets very easily tired, and she’s
laid down a programme for the next six weeks which might well knock
anybody out. Now it would be awfully good of you if you would help her
with it.”
That appealed to Dora much more.
“Oh, then, let’s go, let’s go,” she said. “Telephone at once. No, I
think I will. I think Dad would like me to.”
“You think of everything,” he said. “I hoped you would think of that.
He’ll be so pleased at your telephoning. ‘8003 Lewes,’ you know.”
Claude had a meeting at Brentwood that afternoon and had to leave
immediately, taking a cab to the station and the train from there, so
that Dora might use the motor if she wished. He felt that this was a
perfectly natural and ordinary thing to do, but at the same time he had
to tell her he had done it.
“It takes but a very little longer,” he said in answer to her urging him
to take the motor himself, “and a walk from the station at the other end
will do me good. I wish I was going to prowl about with you all
afternoon. But men must work, you know. Though when I come back I hope I
shan’t find that you’ve been weeping. But you wouldn’t like your
‘Claudius Imperator’ to be a drone. Good-bye, my darling; I shall be
back in time to dine and take you to the play.”
He lingered a moment still.
“If you haven’t got anything special to do, you might go down to
Richmond and have tea with Uncle Alf,” he said. “He’d like it, and you
haven’t seen him for some time.”
“Yes, I’ll go by all means,” she said.
“Thanks, dear. You see, after all, he gives us fifteen thou. a year.”
* * * * *
Dora ordered the motor, and set off on her drive to Richmond at once.
The day was exceedingly hot, and the reverberation of the sun from the
grilling pavements struck like a blow when she went out. A languid,
airless wind raised stinging grit from the wood pavements, and the reek
of the streets hung heavy in the air. She longed with an aching sense of
physical want for the soft, dustless atmosphere of Venice, the cluck and
ripple of its green waterways, and with no less an ache and thirst of
the spirit for all that those things had once symbolized to her. Yet
this last visit had not been the rapturous success of the one before.
Venice was there unchanged, with the gold mist of romance that Claude
had woven for her about it, but he, the magical weaver, or she, the
woman for whom it had been woven, had altered somehow, and perhaps even
in the enchanted city a certain vague but growing trouble that was in
her mind would not be completely dissipated. In general outline she knew
what it was, but hitherto she had not focussed her vision on it. But now
she felt that it had better be examined, for it cried out to her from
the darkness of her mind where she had been at pains to hide it. Perhaps
on examination it might prove to be imagination only, to have no real
existence except in her own mind. And the trouble was Claude.
It seemed to her ages ago, though in point of fact it was still scarcely
twelve months, that she had told May Franklin that sometimes he said
things that gave her a check. But it seemed almost longer ago, though it
was only a few weeks, that she had sat alone one afternoon, when Claude
was at Milan meeting his father and mother, and registered the fact that
he again gave her checks. Between those two occasions lay romance, a
golden dream, an experience which, common though it may be in this world
of men and women, was none the less marvellous, miraculous. He, his
love for her, and her love for him, had lifted life out of the levels on
which it had hitherto moved, had made of it a winged and iridescent
thing, which had soared many-coloured into sunlight and moonlight. And
that marvel, the enchantment of it, had seemed to her then to be a thing
indestructible and eternal. While she was she, and while Claude was
Claude, it could never change, nor shed one feather from its rainbow
wings. Often had she whispered to him, or he to her: “It will be like
this for ever”; more often had the tense silence testified with greater
authority than any voice, even his. In those months whatever her senses
perceived was glorified: she looked at the world through the radiance of
love.
That conviction that their romance would last for ever was part of the
divine madness of love: she saw that now clearly enough. She who had
believed that they, and they alone, were different from all others, had
not been truly sane when she believed it: she had been living in a
world, real no doubt while it existed, yet not only capable of being
extinguished but doomed to extinction. Once, before their marriage, she
had talked to Claude about what she called “the gray-business” of life,
and he, she remembered, had given the gray-business a “facer,” to use
his words, by pointing to the example of his father and mother. That had
seemed to Dora, already ripening for romance, to fall very short of the
reply she wanted. She had wanted lover’s nonsense which would assure her
that for them romance could never fade. But it had faded: it always
faded. The question now was concerned with what was left. Did even the
consolation of Claude’s “facer” remain to her? Had she, to put her part
of it baldly and brutally, got as great an admiration, respect, and
affection for her husband as Mrs. Osborne had for hers? She knew she had
not.
To-day she could look undazzled at the materials out of which her
romance had been constructed and analyse them. It was made of her
passion for beauty. She had fallen in love with his good looks. And she
was getting used to them: she had got used to them. What else was there?
What was left to learn, now she had that by heart?
There was a great deal left. So she told herself, but without emotion.
There was his character left, which was sterling; his qualities, which
were excellent; his kindness, his safeness, his--to go to purely
material things--his wealth. And his vulgarity.
The word was coined: her thought for the first time definitely allowed
it to pass into currency, and she had to reckon with it.
What a topsy-turvy affair it had been! How strikingly different a
disposition from that which she had contemplated had come about! She had
told herself that she must for ever be in love with that beautiful face,
that slim, active body, those deft, decided movements; and she had told
herself that his vulgarities were things of no moment, things to which
she would swiftly get used. But events had been evolved otherwise. She
was used to his beauty; his vulgarities were cumulative in their effect
on her; instead of getting used to them she was daily more irritated by
them and--more ashamed of them. She had imagined even that it would be
easy to cure them, to eradicate them. But it proved to be a task like
that of emptying a spring with a teacup. She had thought that they lay,
so to speak, like casual water on the surface of the ground, a mere
puddle that the sun would swiftly drink up. It was not so; they sprang
from his nature, and came welling up bubbling and plenteous and
inexhaustible.
And there was something about them, so it seemed to her now, that tinged
and made unpalatable all the good qualities in which he was so rich. You
could draw a gallon of pure fresh kindness from that well-spring which
was inexhaustible, but even before you had time to put your lips to it,
and drink of it, some drop--quite a little drop--would trickle in from
the source of his vulgarity and taint it all. It was even worse than
that; there was a permanent leak from the one into the other, the
kindness was tainted at the source.
Dora did not indulge in these reflections from any spirit of idle
criticism or morbid dissection. She wanted to see how they stood, how
bad things were, and what chance there was of their righting themselves.
They were no longer mere surface vulgarities in him (or so she believed)
that got on her nerves: she no longer particularly minded whether he
said “handsome lady” or not; what she did mind was the impulse that
prompted him, for instance, to suggest that she might go down and see
Uncle Alf _because_ he gave them “fifteen thou.” a year. She minded his
saying he had guessed the reason why she did not want to establish
herself in Park Lane; namely, because she wanted to be alone with him.
She minded the suggestion that she had written to say the flat was
stuffy, in order to be asked there. It was all common, common; he judged
her by impossible standards, standards that were inconceivable. And yet
all the time he was good, he was kind, he had all the qualities that
should make her love him, make her devotion an imperishable thing. As it
was, they had been married scarcely six months, and already she knew
that at times he so got on to her nerves that she could have screamed.
Already, as she began to look closely at these things, she felt she was
glad they were going to Park Lane; she was glad that limitations were
placed on her being alone with him.
It was a little cooler out of town, and Richmond Park was in the full
luxuriance of its summer beauty. They had entered by the Roehampton
Gate; she had still half an hour to spare before the time she had said
she would be at Uncle Alfred’s, and she directed her driver to turn up
to the left, past the White Lodge, and go round by Robin Hood Gate and
Kingston Gate. A delicious smell of greenness and coolness came from the
noble groves of trees, beneath the clear shade of which, knee-deep in
the varnished green of the young bracken, stood herds of fallow deer
with twitching ears and switching tails, warding off the persistence of
the flies. All the sweet forest sights and sounds were there: the air
was full of the buzz of insects, and hidden birds called to each other
from among the branches. Distantly on the right she could see gleams of
water, where the Pen Ponds lay basking in the sunlight, and the flush of
mauve and red from the great rhododendron thickets above them. All the
triumph of summer time was there; all the joy of the ripeness and
maturity of the year, of the kindled and immortal vitality of the world.
But for herself, though every day brought nearer to her the miracle of
motherhood, it seemed as if summer had stopped.
Once more she faced the situation as she conceived it to be. The time of
romance, those months in the autumn were over: the red and gold of the
autumn were withered from the trees. Brief had been their glory, which
should have shed its light over many years yet; but, as far as she was
concerned, what had made their flame was just the personal beauty of her
husband. And out of them should already have sprung a deep and tender
affection, the friendship which is not only the true and noble sequel of
love, but is an integral part of love itself, perhaps even love’s heart.
But was it there? It seemed to her rather that something bitter had come
out of it, something in which regret for the past was mingled with the
gall of disillusionment. And even regret had but small part in it; those
months of gold seemed already unreal to her: she felt that she was
regretting a dream. It was the same in little things too, for the little
things all took their colour from what had been to her then the one
great reality. He had referred to himself, for instance, that very
afternoon as “Claudius Imperator,” and it was with a sense of unreality
that she remembered the genesis of that very microscopic joke. She had
bought a Roman coin in Venice with that inscription on it, and had given
it to him, saying it was his label in case he was lost. To-day she could
not conceive doing such a thing: she could not recapture the state of
mind in which she did it, the impulse even that made such a trifle
conceivable. In any case, the thing was one that might be said once and
then be forgotten. But Claude had the retentive Osborne sense of humour.
With him it was “Once a joke, always a joke,” and from time to time, as
to-day, he brought out the “Claudius Imperator” again. The Osborne
humour had a heavy tread--a slow, heavy, slouching rustic tread--and a
guffaw of a laugh.
* * * * *
There is a Spectator within each of us who for ever watches our thoughts
and words, and criticises them. It may be called conscience, or
guidance, or the devil, as the case may be; for some folk are gifted
with a Spectator that is their best self, others with a Spectator which
is but a parody of themselves. Dora’s Spectator was above the average;
he was optimistic anyhow, and kindly, and at this point he came to her
aid with, so to speak, several smart raps over her knuckles. Whatever
was the truth of the whole matter--if, indeed, there is any absolute
truth to be arrived at in the fluid and ever-varying adjustments of our
relationships with others--only one attitude is compatible with
self-respect; namely, to find out and hoard like grains of gold all that
is fine and generous and lovable in others, and do our best to find
something in ourselves worthy of being matched with it. Instead of this,
so said Dora’s Spectator to her now, she had, with acute and avid eye,
been picking out all that in Claude seemed to her to be trivial or
ludicrous or tiresome, and been finding in herself, to match it,
intolerance and want of charity. There had been no difficulty, so said
her Spectator, in laying hands on plenty of those.
She had but one word to say in self-defence, and the moment it was said
she perceived that it amounted to self-accusation. She had fallen in
love with his beauty: how could she not despond when she found that she
was in love with it--like that--no longer? It had blinded her to all
else: she had seen his vulgarities but dimly, if at all, even as she had
seen his panoply of excellent qualities but dimly. Now she saw only the
vulgarities, or at any rate she saw them right in the foreground, big
and blinding; while behind, in the distance, so to speak, sat the rest
of him. Was it not reasonable that her outlook, which must take its
colour from the past, should be pessimistic? And then even that piece of
self-defence was turned into self-accusation. If that was the case, the
fault had been hers from the beginning. But that was what she had done;
she had separated him, the man, into packets: she had fallen in love
with one packet, and now she was spreading in front of her another that
only irritated and almost disgusted her. She had yet to learn the true
and the wider outlook, to feel that fire of love that fuses all things
together, and loves though it can tenderly laugh, and is gentle always,
and rejoices in the weaknesses and imperfections and faults of the
beloved, simply because they are his. For though there are many ways of
love, the spirit that animates them all is just that; they are all
swayed by one magical tune. But that Dora did not yet know, she had not
heard a note of it, she did not even know the region of the soul where
it made melody all day long. All that she had learned in the last few
minutes was that she had with considerable acuteness been spying out
causes for complaint, excuses for dissatisfaction. She could do a
little better than that.
* * * * *
By this time she had arrived at Uncle Alf’s and though the severe
remarks of the Spectator had partially braced her again, after the
rather sloppy abandonment of self-pity and dejection into which her
introspection had brought her, it must be confessed that there was
something about Uncle Alf, caustic and malicious though he was, that
restored her more efficaciously. For out of all the weapons with which
it is fair to fight the disappointments and despondencies that are
incidental to human life, there is none sharper or more rapier-like in
attack or defence than the sense of humour. And Uncle Alf was well
equipped there: not even the picture dealer whom he habitually worsted
would have denied that he had that. It was lambent and ill-natured; it
twinkled and stung; but it had the enviable trick of perceiving what was
ludicrous.
“And I hear poor old Eddie has been out with you and Claude in Venice,
my dear,” he said; “and I can’t say which I’m the most sorry for--you,
or him, or Claude, or Venice.”
“Oh, why Claude?” asked she, for she had not thought of being sorry for
Claude.
“Because you had taught him probably to admire Tintoret--or say he
did--and Eddie would want him to admire the railway station. He would
have to trim. A very funny party you must have been, my dear.”
Dora laughed; till this moment she had thought of them all as a rather
tragic party, and the other aspect had not occurred to her.
“Do you know, I expect we were,” she said; “and all the time I took it
seriously. I wonder if that was a mistake, Uncle Alf.”
“To be sure it was. There’s many things in this world that will depress
you, and make you good for nothing, if you take them seriously, and that
cheer you up if you don’t.”
That was not exactly wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,
since Uncle Alf was a very old man, but it was a sort of elementary
wisdom which a child might have hit on. And she felt that below the
surface of this wizened, crabbed little old man there was something that
was human. She had never suspected it before: in her shallowness she had
been content to look upon him as a mask with a money-bag. To be sure, he
was devoted to Claude: she had not even reckoned with what that implied,
not given him credit for the power of feeling affection.
“I believe you are right,” she said.
“And when you’re as old as me, my dear, you will know it,” said he.
“Lord, I’ve had a lot of amusement out of life--digging for it, you
understand, not picking it up. Poor old Eddie amuses me more than I can
say. Why, his hair is turning gray with success and pleasure.”
“Ah, not a word against him,” said Dora; “he’s the kindest Dad that ever
lived.”
“I daresay; but there are things to laugh at in poor old Eddie, thank
God. He and his Grote, and his Park Lane, and all! Did you ever see such
a set-out, my dear? But Eddie in Venice must have been a shade finer
yet. Tell me about it. He and Maria on the Grand Canal, and you and
Claude; all in the same gondola, I’ll be bound, so as to make a family
party. ‘This is the way we English go,’ good Lord. I wouldn’t have been
your gondoliers on a hot day, not even for the entertainment of seeing
you all like Noah’s Ark. Your gondoliers were thin men that evening, my
dear, poor devils!”
Alfred had guessed the situation with the unerring eye of cynical
malice, and his words brought the scene back to Dora with amazing
accuracy. That day had depressed her at the time; she had never guessed
how funny it was; and here she was laughing at it now, when it was a
month old!
Alfred continued:
“Eddie among the pictures, too,” he said. “A bull in a china shop would
have been more suitably housed! Why, I nearly came out myself in order
to see the fun. ‘What a holy look there’s about that, Maria,’ he’d say;
or, ‘My, I don’t believe it would go into the gallery at Grote unless
you took the roof off.’ And he wrote to me yesterday that he had bought
a copy of that housemaid among the clouds by Titian--what a daub, my
dear!--with a frame to match!”
It was too much for Uncle Alfred, and he gave a series of little squeaks
on a very high note, shaking his head.
“Eddie’s a silly man,” he said; “a very silly man is poor old Eddie, and
he gets sillier as he gets older. What does he want with his Assumption
of the Virgin and his six powdered footmen? What good do they do him? As
little as my liniment does me. Lord, my dear, he says something too in
his letter that makes me think they’re going to make a peer of him. He
hints it: ah, I wish I’d kept the letter; but it made me feel sick, and
I threw it away. But Eddie a peer, my dear. And I saw in a leader in the
_Times_ the other day that the Prime Minister hadn’t got a sense of
humour! I reckon they’ll sack that leader writer if it’s true that
Eddie’s going to have a peerage! Lord deliver us: Lord Saucepan: let’s
think of half a dozen names and send some picture post cards of Venice
to Lord Saucepan, care of Mr. Osborne, Park Lane; Lord Lavatory, Lord
Kitchen-sink. Fancy Per too, an honourable, and Mrs. Per. My dear, I
hate that woman worse than poison. I should like to smack her face. She
thinks she’s a lady, and Maria thinks she’s a lady. Why, Maria’s more of
a lady herself--and that’s not saying much. To see Mrs. Per and you
talking together about art or acting would make a cat laugh. I wonder at
your marrying Claude when you thought of his relations.”
Dora smiled at him.
“But that’s just what I didn’t do,” she said. “I only thought of
Claude.”
“And well you might. My dear, I love that boy. He’s got into proper
hands too: you can make a lot of him. Lord Toasting-fork, Lord
Egg-whisk, Lord Frying-pan.”
Uncle Alfred could not get away from inventing titles for “poor old
Eddie,” and he did it with a malicious relish that was rather
instructive to Dora. It could not be called kind, but it hurt nobody;
and his frank amusement at the idea of the peerage was certainly better
than the heart-sinkings with which the prospect of the event had
inspired Dora when she thought of the genial pomposity with which it
would be received. Throughout she had been too heavy, too ponderous:
she had pulled long faces instead of laughing, had seen the depressing
side of expeditions like the family party in the gondola instead of its
humorous aspect. That was a hint worth attending to. She had got a sense
of humour, so she believed, yet somehow it had never occurred to her to
look at those spoiled days of Venice in a humorous light.
Soon she rose to go.
“Uncle Alfred,” she said, “you’ve done me good, do you know? It is
better to be amused than depressed, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my dear, and I hope you’ll laugh at me all the way back to town,
me and my great-coat on a day like this, and my goloshes to keep the
damp out, and a strip of flannel, I assure you, round the small of my
back. Eh, I had the lumbago bad when first I saw you down at Grote, but
the sight of those pictures of Sabincourt’s of Eddie and Maria did me
more good than a pint of liniment. What a pair of guys! Lord and Lady
Biscuit-tin.”
Dora laughed again.
“How horrid of you!” she said. “Well, I must go. Claude and I are going
to the theatre to-night. And we are leaving the flat in Mount Street,
Uncle Alf, and are to live in the house in Park Lane till the end of the
season. Wasn’t it kind of Dad to suggest it?”
“Not a bit of it. You’ll help entertain Maria’s fine friends, half of
whom she don’t know by sight. Not but what I envy you: Maria’s as good
as a play down at Grote, and Maria in London must be enough to empty the
music-halls. She does too, so they tell me. She asks everybody in the
‘London Directory,’ and they all come. Good-bye, my dear; come down
again some time and tell me all they do and say. Write it down every
evening, else one’s liable to forget the plums.”
Dora had given orders that their personal luggage should be transferred
from the flat to No. 92 during the afternoon, and on her return she
drove straight to that house. Claude had already arrived, and was
sitting in the big Italian drawing room. He had had a most successful
meeting, and was in excellent spirits.
“This is a bit better than the flat,” he said. “I went in there just
now, and it was like a furnace. But here you wouldn’t know it was a hot
day. It’s a handsome apartment: the governor bought nothing but the best
when he had it done. And how’s Uncle Alf?”
“Very well, I thought, and very amusing,” said she. “Oh, Claude, he had
a great-coat on, and goloshes. He is too funny!”
Claude did not reply for a moment.
“Darling, I hate criticising you,” he said at length, “but I don’t think
you ought to laugh at Uncle Alf, considering all he does for us.”
“But he recommended me to,” said she. “He said he hoped I should laugh
at him all the way back to town. In fact we talked about laughing at
people, and he said what a good plan it was.”
Claude paused again. He felt strongly about this subject.
“Did he laugh at the governor?” he asked.
“Well, yes, a little,” said Dora.
“I hope you stuck up for him. I’m sure you did.”
Dora gave a hopeless little sigh: she wondered if Uncle Alfred could
have seen the humorous aspect of this; personally she could not.
“It was no question of sticking up for him,” she said. “It was all
chaff, fun.”
Claude got up, with his chin a good deal protruded.
“Ah, fun is all very well in its right place,” he said, “and I’m sure no
one likes a joke more than me. But there are certain things one should
hold exempt from one’s fun----”
Dora tried the humorous plan recommended by Uncle Alfred.
“Darling, I hope you don’t consider yourself exempt,” she said. “I am
laughing at you now. You are ridiculous, dear. You take things heavily,
and I do too. We must try not to. So I hereby give you leave to laugh at
mother and Austell as much as you like--and me.”
“Dora, I am serious,” he said.
“I know; that is just the trouble,” she said, still lightly.
Claude’s face darkened.
“Well, it’s a trouble you must learn to put up with,” he said rather
sharply. “I daresay I’m old-fashioned: you may call me what you like.
But I ask you to respect my father. I daresay he and the mater seem to
you ridiculous at times. If they do, I ask you to keep your humorous
observations to yourself. I hate speaking like this, but I am obliged
to.”
Dora felt her hands grow suddenly cold and damp. She was not afraid of
him exactly, but there was some physical shrinking from him that was
rather like fear.
“I don’t see the obligation,” she said.
“Perhaps not. It is sufficient that I do. Now let’s have done. We spoke
on the same subject, your attitude to my father, in Venice. Don’t let us
speak of it again!”
“You say your say, and I am to make no reply. Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes; that is it. I know I am right. Come, Dora.” But the appeal had no
effect, and for the moment she did not know how to apply Uncle Alf’s
wise counsels.
“And if I know you are wrong?” she asked. “If I tell you that you don’t
understand?”
“It will make no difference. Look here: the governor has done lots for
you. You’ve never expressed a wish but what he hasn’t gratified.”
“Then ask him if he is satisfied with my attitude toward him,” said
Dora. “See what he says. Tell him that Uncle Alfred has laughed at him,
and I laughed too. Tell him all.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him like that,” said Claude.
Dora walked to the window and back again. She felt helpless in a
situation she believed to be trivial. But she could not laugh it off:
she could think of no light reply that would act as a dissolvent to it.
And if she could find no light reply, only a serious answer or silence
was possible. She chose the latter. If more words were to be said, she
wished that Claude should have the responsibility of them. Eventually he
took it.
“And I’m sure we’ve all been good enough to your people,” he said; “made
them welcome at Grote for as long as they chose, and behaved friendly.
And it was only ten minutes before you came in that I wrote to Jim,
telling him he could live in the flat and welcome till the end of July.
I don’t see what I could do more.”
The logical reply was on the tip of Dora’s tongue--the reply “That did
not cost you anything”--but she let it get no further. Only she rebelled
against the thought that it was a kindness to do something that did not
cost anything. He thought it was kind--and so in a way it was--to give
Jim the flat rent free. He might perhaps have let it for fifty pounds.
But he did not want fifty pounds. Yet he thought that it was kind: it
seemed to him kind. It must be taken at that: it was no use arguing,
going into the reasons for which it was no real kindness at all. And he
had told her that now, she felt sure, to contrast his friendliness to
her relations with her ridicule--so he would put it--of his. But he had
done his best: she was bound to take it like that, not point out the
cheapness of it.
“Claude, dear, that was nice of you,” she said, searching for anything
that should magnify his kindness. “And Jim will be an awful tenant. He
will leave your books about and smoke your cigars. I hope you’ve locked
them up.”
“Not a thing,” said he. “He just steps in. He’ll find a sovereign on my
dressing table, I believe, if he looks, and a box of cigars in a drawer
of my writing table which he’s welcome to. One doesn’t bother about
things like that.”
That was the worst: the parade of generosity could not go further than
saying that there was no parade at all. Dora could not reply any more to
that: she could only repeat.
“It’s awfully kind of you,” she said again. “We must go and dress if we
are to be in time for the first act.”