Mrs. Gainsborough soon returned the hospitality of Susie’s motor by
inviting her and Cyril to dinner. Her note was rambling and agitated
like her manner, and ended with a postscript, “Please bring one of your
daughters if she would care for it. Emma will be so pleased.”
Evangeline and Teresa refused to have anything to do with it when the
letter came, but Cyril said with genuine terror to Teresa when his wife
had gone out of the room, “Dicky, you must come—promise me quick—but
don’t say anything about it——”
“All right, of course,” she assured him, “but why?”
“They’re all schoolmasters,” he explained in an undertone as Susie came
back. Nothing more was said until breakfast was over and then Teresa
plunged for her father’s sake.
“Can I go to the Gainsboroughs’, after all, Mother?”
“If you like, dear, but I thought you said just now——”
“I know,” she interrupted, “but—I should like to see the University. I
think the Gainsborough girl would like it.”
Mrs. Fulton looked suspiciously at her husband. He was filling his
cigarette case from a box on the mantelpiece, using unnecessary care to
fit them in properly.
“Strickland should have done that for you, dear. Are you off now?”
“Yes, presently,” he answered. “I’m not sure I can come to the
Gainsboroughs, Sue; we’ve some rather special business next week.”
“I think we ought to get to know everybody as much as possible, Cyril,
if only for the sake of the girls. And the University are the most
interesting of all. If you knew what a pleasure it is to me to talk
about something besides wine and money now and then!”
Cyril instantly threw diplomacy to the winds and began to enjoy himself,
standing with his back to the fire. “I don’t want to be a kill-joy,” he
replied, “but I learned more about those two subjects from old Wacks at
Cambridge than I ever have since from anybody. But he wasn’t married. I
daresay the female dons understand the use of the globes and all that.
By George! I remember their queer get-ups. Must have been some very deep
thinking that led to most of those marriages; which, after all, proves
your theory of the Higher mind. Let’s go, and take Dicky if she wants to
come,” he added with the boldness that often came to him suddenly after
hunting down one of his wife’s insincerities.
By this time she felt nothing but an irritable longing to get him out of
the room. Through the whole of their married life he had amused himself
by making a cockshy of the sentiments which she presented to the world
as the expression of her thoughts. He often exaggerated her insincerity,
for the sentiments were as much her own as any other jewellery she might
have bought to adorn herself. She admired them quite as much as any she
could have originated.
“One of the children will come, of course,” she said impatiently, “if
Mrs. Gainsborough really wants some young people. It is very kind of
her, for I don’t suppose you have the least idea how dull it is for
them, seeing nothing but soldiers and business people who have nothing
to talk about. The Gainsboroughs are probably teetotallers—in spite of
the set you mixed with at Cambridge and who had probably nothing to do
with the life there. Most clever people think very little about their
food. But you had better have your wine at the club before you start or
they will think there is something the matter with you. Isn’t the time
getting on? That clock is a little slow.”
When the time for the party came it turned out to be less of a feast of
intellect than had been hoped and feared by the Fultons. In the first
place the Carpenters were there, because Mrs. Carpenter was as difficult
to keep out of any social gathering as was King Charles’s head from Mr.
Dick’s “Memorial.” If the festivity were a heavy duty for the cementing
of business connections, Mrs. Carpenter was invited to lighten the dough
of wealth with the ferment of culture. If it were a frivolous affair for
the benefit of the young and thoughtless, she was there with her
daughters. Hostesses included her as a precaution against any subsequent
rumour that the scene had been one of unbridled licence. “Really, my
dear—of course I wasn’t there so I can’t say, but I believe, etc.” If it
were an ordinary mixed dinner, town and gown, she must be there to make
things smooth between everybody; to interpose when Mrs. Alderman Snack
was talking to Professor Cameo about rabbits, and see that the
conversation was switched off at once on to his last book. She had read
it of course and was so anxious to contradict him on one point, the
condition of India before the mutiny. “My grandfather, you know, was
there as a subaltern and he always said he was _convinced_, etc.” “A
wonderful woman, Mrs. Carpenter,” everybody said. “She talks so well
upon anything.”
Mrs. Gainsborough, being so very nervous as she was, of course had not
settled on a day to ask the new general and his wife until she had made
sure that the Carpenters would come. Mrs. Carpenter had therefore
consulted her little note-book and had chosen a day when she had only
one or two small committees and dear Amy’s dancing lesson to attend, so
that she would be “nice and fresh for the evening.” Poor Mr. Carpenter,
who was the overworked underwriter to an insurance company, was not
likely to be at all nice and fresh, even if he had a good twenty minutes
to dress after hurrying up from the office. He could be trusted to be
punctual, though, and would be quite up to a little educated chaff with
anyone of his own set—Mrs. Vachell or one of the Manleys—so long as he
hadn’t to tackle a stranger. He was, as it turned out, very happily
situated, as there were only the Vachells, and Mrs. Eric Manley and her
unmarried brother-in-law and two young men for Emma Gainsborough and
Teresa. One was David Varens, whose father, Sir Richard Varens, belonged
to a family that had owned land round Millport for three or four hundred
years. Sir Richard had given money and land to Millport University and
his son David had just left Oxford. It would never have done if Mrs.
Carpenter had not been there.
The third unmarried man was Mr. Joseph Price, the son of Mr. Manley’s
partner. Eton and Cambridge had recently handed him back to the home
nest, which he was prepared, with the backing of the Liberal Party and
his father’s money, to re-line and generally bring up to date. The old
birds were to be furbished up and taught new songs; the young lady birds
from neighbouring nests were to be simply knocked off their perches, and
Londoners coming to Millport were to understand that Millshire was young
Mr. Price’s country seat and Millport was his little village where he
went to post his letters and chat to the Mayor at election time. You
could even buy things in the town now, he was told—quite fairly decent;
of course not clothes and all that, but groceries and gloves and that
sort of thing his mother found she could get there now. But the hotels
were pretty scandalous sort of places. What? I should say so. Lots of
churches though; some quite decent ones in the old part of the town if
you’re interested in glass and all that kind of thing. And good music
too; you ought to go to the concerts if music doesn’t bore you. There
was a fellow there the other day—what’s his name—came all the way from
Russia with a little handbag—he beat everyone else hollow—never heard
anything like it—thought his arm would come off. Abs’lutely wond’f’l.
You’ve heard him b’fur ’n town, ’f course? (I have burst into Mr.
Price’s way of speaking for a moment, but I cannot reproduce it
perfectly.)
This was to Teresa, whom, owing to her father’s military position and
their having lived in London, he was treating with unusual effusiveness.
He knew Emma Gainsborough slightly and had made an honest effort to talk
to her. He always tried to keep close to the ideal manner at which he
aimed, the manner of the particular social pen through whose doors he
had been allowed to squeeze because of his politics and his father’s
money. He was already getting on very well with the manner, a sort of
mincingly polite way of speaking, with the vowels squeezed slowly out as
if through a confectioner’s icing tube, and laid along the sentence, or
else omitted altogether; the exact opposite to the broad flat tones of
his native habit. The natural rudeness of vanity was sugared over in
this way to just the “right” effect he sought; enthusiasm for this or
that “discovery,” indifference to anything tainted with popularity
unless some popular thing became discredited enough in time to make it
discoverable as a new taste.
“Been doing very much lately?” he had asked Emma Gainsborough dutifully
before turning his attention to Teresa who was really his object of the
evening. “Seen anything new?”
“No, I don’t think I have,” the poor girl replied, instantly ill at
ease. Mr. Price observed the effect he had made, and scored several
marks of superiority to himself; it made him feel good-natured.
“Peewit’s brought out another book, I see,” he said, giving her another
chance. “’ve you read it?”
“No,” said Emma, adding hurriedly, “I’m doing welfare just now and it
takes such an awful lot of time. I’m too sleepy to read after I’ve been
wading through statistics all day.”
“Welfare? Let’s see—what’s that now?” asked Mr. Price. It might possibly
be something he ought to know about, though from the way Emma did her
hair he thought it unlikely.
“Welfare? Oh, it is seeing about children—at least, my part is—finding
out things about them and seeing what happens to them and all that; I
can’t explain it, but I have been making records of imbeciles all
afternoon.” Emma was reckoned a humorist in the family circle and many
were the evenings when her father and mother went to bed exhausted by
their laughter over things noted by her with a delicacy of perception
few people would have suspected, Mr. Price less than any. His “Oh, I
see. Splendid work, I’m sure, but don’t you get tired of it?” was
followed by a minute’s horrid silence and then he devoted himself with a
clear conscience to Teresa in the way that has been described.
Teresa’s attention was wandering to her father, who seemed to be doing
very well with Mrs. Gainsborough. She wondered what they were laughing
at. She caught up Mr. Price at his short pause after the Russian with
the handbag.
“No, I didn’t see him,” she answered vaguely. “What was he doing? Was
there anything in the bag?”
Mr. Price was not very pleased. “I don’t know. Pro’b’ly the last sponge
in Russia, what? Don’t you take almonds? I shall eat them all if you
don’t stop me. Oh, prihsless caat, what are you doing? come here and
talk to me——” He broke off as Mrs. Gainsborough’s blue persian stood up
beside him and, having pretended to extract three or four long thorns
from his leg, withdrew.
“I don’t mind them one way or the other,” said Teresa, “but I want to
know something. Who is the man—the last at the end opposite—by my
mother?”
“Mr. Vachell do you mean? Don’t you really know him? No, that’s
delightful. He’s simply won’f’l man—been digging, you know—Egypt—didn’t
you read about it? You ought to read the paper, you know. He’s our show
card. When I was up at Cambridge they were fairf’lly jealous that I knew
him. I told my tutor that I’d seen him once act’lly in pyjamas and he
became quite respectf’l and let me off a lot of lectures on the strength
of it. And then you live here and ask who he is——! That’s really great,
what? isn’t it? You’ve got to say something really brilliant now to make
up or I shall think you’ve taken to good works like all the dear people
here.”
“Do you know you make me feel awfully queer,” said Teresa, looking at
him with puzzled interest. “What are you talking about really? I know
you answered my question, but what has all the rest to do with it? Why
should your tutor let you off lectures because you saw somebody who
lives here in pyjamas? I don’t understand a bit?”
“Miss Fulton, it is quite time you left that silly boy and gave me a
little attention,” said Mr. Manley, whom Mrs. Vachell had neglected so
much that he had been keeping a friendly eye on Teresa. He liked the
young and had understood that she was not enjoying herself. He included
Mr. Price in what he said with a friendly smile and Teresa turned to him
gratefully.
“I believe you are much more old-fashioned than you look,” he said to
her. “You were not getting on at all well. You didn’t mind my rudeness?”
“No, I liked it,” she answered. “I have met Mrs. Manley heaps of times,
but I’ve never seen you nor your brother to talk to. I have noticed
since we came here that you may know people for quite a long time before
you are even sure that they have a husband. One has nothing to go by
sometimes except the hats in the hall.”
“We come back sometimes to claim them, believe me,” said the old
gentleman. Teresa’s heart warmed towards him as the dinner went on. His
kindliness was real, untainted by any wish to shine or obtain credit. He
had the quick understanding of ideas half expressed, succeeding one
another like colour in changing light, which alone makes conversation
anything but a distorted image of what the mind sees. Questions come so
often from a curiosity that wishes to compare others with itself to its
own glorification. Each one that Mr. Price or Mrs. Carpenter asked had
that end in view. Mr. Manley enjoyed his game of give-and-take without
that ghostly referee to balance the score. Teresa began to understand
dimly how it was that what Strickland called “our leading families”
seemed to have been the pious founders of Millport in a way that no
Londoner’s ancestors can claim to have built their city. Millport was
the child of dead and gone Manleys; it was handed on by them to new
generations of themselves and of trusted friends who had watched over
the early days of its growth. Tutors, governors and servants were
appointed for the precious thing with that personal care that Teresa
found so puzzling in the words “duty to the city,” which recurred
constantly in public and in private. Afterwards in the drawing-room Mr.
Manley came to her again.
“If you don’t go away and forget all our conversation,” he said,
“come to me and tell me what you want to do and I’ll show you how to
set about it. You’ll find my office hat in the hall on Saturday and
Sunday afternoons—and that’s the one I keep my ideas in. I’d like to
show you some pictures I’ve got of the old town as it was in my
great-great-grandfather’s time.”
* * * * *
I had meant to say a great deal about David Varens during this dinner
party. But Millport has proved too strong for him. It always must have
been and is now overpowering for the gentle, detached characters whose
strength is in enjoyment of the immediate thing that circumstances have
put in their way to be done as well as possible; people who accept
inherited comfort and adventitious pain equally, as it comes; who love
and hate by instinct without recognition of any outside interests to
modify their decision and who never go back on a verdict given by this
tribunal of taste. He is to be Teresa’s lover and therefore his first
words to her should have been recorded, also his appearance, his manner
and what they thought of each other. They should have begun at once with
definite sensations of like or dislike. But the truth is they hardly
exchanged a word. He sat on the other side of Emma Gainsborough and
shared with Mr. Price the miasma of her longing for the whole evening to
be over. He talked to her as well as he could, patiently and easily, in
spite of her stumbles into pitfalls of silence that the least presence
of mind should have taught her to avoid. He retrieved her each time
without effort and set her on her legs again, wondering what was the
matter with the poor girl, supposing she might feel the fire at her
back. He did once suggest drawing a screen further along behind her and
they talked for some minutes about the cold of Oxford Colleges, but she
didn’t seem any better for it so he gave it up. It is no use giving Mr.
Varens any more scope just now. He will turn up in his glory when the
time comes.