“There is a good deal to be said for subscription lists all the same,”
said Mr. Manley. “How could you have the hospitals and other places kept
going?” Teresa often went to the old man for help in her schemes, as he
had invited her to do on their first acquaintance. They were good
friends, though his tolerance of institutions, governors, spiritual
pastors and masters puzzled her when she tried to piece it together with
the other side of his character; the side which made him impatient with
all sorts of pomposity and humbug. He delighted in the removal of
lifeless traditions and he welcomed to his house the whole of the small
army of people who fought for the life of the city against vanity,
self-interest and stupidity.
“But the way people go home to a fat dinner, with servants running round
the table with more dishes, after they have sat listening to speeches
about all sorts of deadly necessities makes me sick,” she said. “They
sign a cheque for a sum that is just large enough to look impressive on
a list, but that won’t make the least difference to the way they live;
and then they think they have done everything that can possibly be
required of them.”
“If would be a dull world if there were no kindness, only obligation and
compulsion,” he remarked. “I like people who are charitable to the
poverty of my intelligence, so why not to the poverty of my comforts.”
“But if some starving genius were to head a list of people who were kind
to Mr. Price’s intelligence he wouldn’t be grateful.”
“Well, if we are going to pounce upon ingratitude and snobbery in one
place let us be down on it all round,” he said. “I tell you that
kindness is a good thing anywhere, and though giving and taking is
always a ticklish business because people think too much of themselves,
that doesn’t make it any less good. By the way, did you know that Fisk
has got himself locked up?”
“I am delighted to hear it,” said Teresa, “but what for especially?”
“Inciting to breach of the peace. Of course that has finished him so far
as his career goes. He never got his degree and now he is too old and
too mad. He was quite a decent boy. I used to employ his father and knew
him quite well. He was as keen as possible on educating the lad.
Cranston has a great deal to answer for, wasting these boys’ time so
that they don’t work at anything. Fisk will have to be a paid agitator
when he comes out in order to make a living. He’ll never go back to
learn a trade now.”
“How do you manage to stand the Prices?” Teresa resumed presently, going
back to her train of thought. “I have often wondered. And Mrs.
Carpenter—— Oh, dear me, I have got to hate rich people since we came
here. At first I was worried about the poor. I wanted money not to
matter either way, so that one could make friends anywhere and there
shouldn’t be a barrier of habits and manners that some of them were born
into and that cut them off from their natural friends in other classes.”
“But that is nothing new,” he said, “I saw when I first met you that
that was what you were after and you thought none of us here had ever
had the same idea at all except good old Emma. That is why I wanted to
make friends with you. I didn’t want the barrier of a rich dinner table
to separate you from your natural friend here.”
Teresa laughed. “Well, it didn’t, you see. But still, I don’t seem able
to leap across the pineapples to Mr. and Mrs. Price. What does she mean
by saying that her people are communists? It does seem the silliest
rot.”
“They are intellectual socialists. People who see that the world is
untidy, which it certainly is, but they haven’t the taste for the
characters that can only come out of an untidy world. I am a bit of a
reader of the classics, as I haven’t a wife to talk to, and I can’t see
any of the people I love best in books coming out of a world where
everything is as neat as a bedded-out garden. I have a great dislike of
culture, as it is called. Education is one thing and so is enterprise,
and Price is enterprising; but I must say I don’t like Botticelli
pictures and cocoa in a public-house, and that is what Mrs. Price means
by saying her people are communists. They are wealthy themselves with
all sorts of art tastes and live comfortably, and they like to preach.
They don’t understand commerce and are ashamed of having any connection
with it. You may always suspect a man who is prepared to run a business
he hasn’t served in. I’ve the same suspicion of parsons. They see so
many notices up everywhere, ‘Beware of the Devil!’ that they get
tripping about here, there and everywhere in such a state of nerves that
they forget they are not there to run God’s business, but to find out
what He wants done. It is all this assuming of moral responsibility
instead of working that I think is the mistake. Now you see what I meant
when you were running down charitable institutions. You do your bit, my
dear, and help to keep the machinery going. You can’t run it alone and
improvements are being made all the time.” Teresa got up to go.
“Do you know Mother is making a speech to-day?” she said doubtfully.
“The first she has ever made outside a drawing-room, and I have to
go—shall you be there? It is in the small room at the Town Hall.”
“What is the meeting for?” he asked.
“The Mary Popley Home for women.”
“No,” he said, “I have given a subscription, but I am not coming to-day.
I am sure she will do it well; she is so gentle and tactful. We want
more women like that on our committees. Some of them are so very fierce.
That is why I like Mrs. Vachell, though I am never sure what she has got
up her sleeve; she’s rather an enigma.”
“She hates men, that is all I know,” said Teresa.
“Does she really? How very remarkable. I never knew that. And living
among such excellent men and great scholars as she does! Good-bye, my
dear, good-bye.”
* * * * *
“I suppose you are not coming, Cyril?” said Susie, later, putting on her
gloves. “We are dining with the Gainsboroughs after the meeting; without
dressing.”
“No, your subjects are too deep for me, Sue,” he replied. “I’ll have
something ready to wet your whistle when you come back, and keep up the
fire and let the cat out and that sort of thing.”
“Strickland will see to all that, dear,” she said. “I think you had
better go to bed if you feel tired. I expect one of the maids will be up
to make tea if we want it.”
When they arrived at the Town Hall they were shown into a small room
where the general committees of charitable institutions were often held.
Reports were read, giving an outline of the year’s work and a statement
of the financial position and requirements; an attempt was made to rouse
public interest, accounts were then passed and votes of thanks to the
principal helpers and the chairman were proposed, seconded and carried.
Susie had been asked to second the vote of thanks to the committee.
The audience consisted of a large number of her personal friends, a few
dowdily dressed women with serious, lined faces, whom she knew by sight,
and dreaded a little for their habit of turning up at tea-parties and
saying tactless things about the behaviour of young girls in the Park
after sunset, the cruelty of parents and the tendency of wives to drink
to excess, in spite of industrious husbands. Very often they introduced
these subjects just when she herself had been expounding the perfection
of the mother instinct or the disastrous result of confidence in a young
and innocent mind. They had a way of referring to crime as if it were a
flaw in a work of art, rather than a snare set by wicked poachers for
the Almighty’s pet rabbits. A few of the outside public were also
present, with the usual vacant faces, perfunctory clothes, thin hair,
and those curious eyes of the English stranger, which, if they are
indeed windows of the soul, certainly do not belong to a country where
romances are carried on at the lattice. Those eyes suggest Nottingham
lace curtains and an aspidistra behind the dim panes which the owner
never approaches, unless there is a street accident or a ring at the
bell. They enclose many human preoccupations, but nothing that is likely
to be shared with the passersby.
Susie faced the eyes, the friendly eyes, the business-like eyes and the
aspidistra eyes. The chairman had called on her to second the vote of
thanks, after a short-sighted glance round to make sure she was there.
Her dimple, the little crease in the satin cushion of her cheek,
appeared, and she smiled, catching the attention of the first few rows.
“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “I think it extremely
kind of you to ask me to second this vote of thanks, because you are all
so busy and I am not used to speaking, nor experienced enough in your
work to be of very much help. But in thanking our splendid committee for
all they have done, I want to try and tell everybody if I can, how
deeply I feel that we all ought to do a great deal more to help these
poor women. Vice is so pitifully easy to women in a great city like this
(murmured approval was heard at the back). I am not going to say
anything against men. We are the wives and mothers and sisters of men,
and the responsibility lies with us (slight signs of cynicism from an
aspidistra eye in the fifth row). But what I say is this. All our
influence is necessarily—must necessarily be—of no use so long as our
girls are wilfully misled by the idea that their love and innocent
confidence will be understood and valued at its true worth by the
naturally coarser and rougher nature. (“How thankful I am father didn’t
come!” thought Teresa.) Men go into the world and become accustomed to
hardness and cruelty, especially in foreign countries, with which a
great port like this is constantly in touch. They drink and quarrel, and
their poor homes have so little beauty to encourage them. Is it to be
wondered at that a young girl who dreams of romance and her own little
home and the sound of baby feet should refuse to believe that these
things are of less value to the rough sailor or soldier or merchant,
drunk with wine and full of strong passions that have no place in her
finer nature? (The chairman, the treasurer and a doctor, who happened to
be there, were gazing meditatively at the electric light fixtures, the
desk, the floor, anywhere that would afford a sufficiently obscure
resting-place for any involuntary expression of opinion on their faces.
They felt a friendly approval of Susie as a nice, tender-hearted little
woman, but all the same they hoped she would wind up soon.) What I feel
so much is this, that although great sympathy and great patience with
these poor girls must be shown, and although they must, of course, be
taught to see the dreadful evil that they do, yet until wives and
mothers and sisters impress their men with a better understanding of a
woman’s feeling about these things, and make them see that the finer and
higher view is not necessarily foolish and sentimental—that they hurt us
by coarse jokes and rough actions, by mistaking love of motherhood for
vulgar flirtation—that until they see all this in its true light it is
useless to expect that trust will not be betrayed and happy girls flung
back into these Homes, ruined and disgraced. Marriage may mean so much
to a girl. It is surely worth an effort from us, who have had our trials
and difficulties and misunderstandings, to bring home to the boys who
are growing up a sense of those qualities which they lack by nature. I
have much pleasure in seconding this vote of thanks to our committee.”
She sat down amidst whole-hearted applause from her friends and several
of the aspidistra-eyed. The ladies whom she feared gave a few
business-like taps with one hand upon the other and fidgeted
impatiently. Everything that interested them in the meeting was over and
most of them had other engagements or voluminous documents at home to
attend to.
The vote of thanks to the chairman and his reply only occupied another
ten minutes, and then there was tea in the Lady Mayoress’s parlour.
“What a splendid speech you made,” said Mrs. Eric Manley, coming up to
Susie. “I don’t know that I go quite as far as you do about the
innocence of girls, but still——”
“Oh, don’t you?” said Susie. “Of course a great many are not innocent,
because they have been taught so young by seeing all kinds of dreadful
things. But I think a woman’s natural character is much less suspicious
than a man’s.” Mrs. Vachell came up and under the pretext of finding a
chair drew Susie away from the crowd.
“I have been waiting to see you,” she said. “I have just seen Evangeline
off to Drage again and I am very much worried about her. Has she written
to you much about herself?”
“No, her letters are generally full of darling Ivor,” said Susie.
Mrs. Vachell looked her up and down for an instant as if considering
whether she could make a cut in Susie’s plump little figure without
letting out too much sawdust and spoiling it.
“She didn’t tell you that her husband thinks of sending Ivor away from
her?”
Susie’s eyes grew startled, but she said quietly, “Don’t you think you
have mistaken a joke of his? Why should he do such a thing?”
“I think he is a little mad,” said Mrs. Vachell. “The war shook a good
many of them. He was always very strict with Ivor, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yes, but then men are so silly about children,” said Susie, a little
reassured. “They never do understand them.”
“You were saying this afternoon that the responsibility for making them
understand lies with women,” said Mrs. Vachell. “If you really believe
that, it is time for you to help Evangeline. Her situation seems to me
to be desperate.”
“What did he say he was going to do?” Susie asked.
“He told me in confidence that he means to send him away quite soon, in
a year perhaps—not to a boy’s school, of course, but a sort of place
kept by religious ladies. But Evangeline was not to know that. He is
afraid she might do something violent, come to you and her father or
make some public scandal. He hates having his affairs discussed and
preferred to wait until the time comes.”
“Men are really very tiresome and difficult sometimes, aren’t they,”
said Susie with a sigh. “I do wish they would keep to their own affairs.
Suppose I interfered with my husband’s soldiers and you put all Mr.
Vachell’s diggings upside down on the shelves when he had arranged them.
I can’t think how they can be so stupid. I am dreadfully worried about
what you tell me, because, of course, it is all nonsense. If dear Evan
suffers from his head that is no reason why he should vent it on a
little boy. Perhaps a doctor might advise some tonic that would do him
good.”
“There is no tonic for a bullying disposition,” said Mrs. Vachell.
“Oh, don’t you think so?” said Susie. “I am sure the blood has so much
effect on those kind of ideas. If people are well, you know, they see
things quite differently, though, of course, there are some things that
they will never understand, unless they are poets or artists. That makes
a great deal of difference, I think, being in touch with beautiful
things. Those religious ideas of his are a great mistake, I think; all
about Jehovah, and being so full of judgment and wrath and so on. It
gives them quite a wrong idea of the Bible. But I think his mother must
have been a masculine sort of woman from what he says. Quite a little
joke sometimes upsets him. Teresa and I are going on to the
Gainsboroughs. Can we drop you?”
All through the evening Susie was a little preoccupied. She was thinking
out a plan of campaign by which she might save Evangeline from the harsh
authority of her husband, as she had saved her from the prosy ethics of
the schoolroom when she was a child. But, as in those days so now, she
had no wish to reveal herself as a fighter. Once recognised as a
partisan she would lay herself open to attack and perhaps be driven from
her high ground of superiority to earthly passions. She represented in
her own mind idealism, tender remoteness from all ugly thoughts,
innocence of all desires save love for everybody. Could power be more
strongly hedged about from attack?
She had a short time alone with Mrs. Gainsborough, as the Principal
retired to work in his study and Emma took Teresa away to her room.
“I heard from a sister of mine at Drage to-day,” Mrs. Gainsborough
began, “that they think they will probably be sent to Egypt quite soon.
Will that affect Captain Hatton or will the special work he is doing
keep him behind?”
“I don’t know at all,” said Susie. “I hadn’t heard there was any idea of
their going, but I think my husband did say that Evan would probably
have to move soon in any case. Those special jobs they get are only
temporary.”
“Would Evangeline go with him?” asked Mrs. Gainsborough; “would it be
all right for Ivor?” A possible solution to all difficulties at once
presented itself to Susie. “I hardly think he could afford to take them
both,” she said. “Without the extra pay he has been getting they will
have to be very careful for a time, and I hear everything in Egypt is an
awful price. He may be glad to leave Evangeline and the boy with us; I
hope so.”
“Oh, poor girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Gainsborough, “she wouldn’t like that.”
“No, of course it would be a dreadful separation,” Susie agreed, “but it
might be necessary until he got something else. He probably would very
soon. He is so popular with everyone and so high principled. Anything to
do with engineering delights him, and I should think there must be a
great deal of that sort of thing going on everywhere just now. The whole
world is making an effort to better everybody’s lives—except ours, of
course, who have to pay for it. But one doesn’t grudge that. Personally
I don’t mind how simply I live so long as I can have the things I want.”
“I am very sorry I couldn’t come and hear you speak this afternoon,”
said Mrs. Gainsborough. “But the fact is, my old cook, Annie, is being
married and we gave her a little send-off from here. She has married
such a nice respectable man—a widower—a plumber and decorator; we have
known him for years—a man of the name of Fisk. But you know all about
young Fisk, the son? How stupid of me! A horrid nuisance he is and a
great worry to his father. He won’t have anything to do with poor old
Annie. Turns up his nose at her altogether.”
“How horrid of him!” said Susie.
“Yes, I believe he thinks we arranged it all as a studied insult to him;
vulgar little wretch!”
“You will miss Annie, won’t you?” said Susie. “She has been with you
such a long time.”
“Oh, she is not exactly leaving us,” said Mrs. Gainsborough. “She will
still come for the day about eleven o’clock to do all the cooking, and
she will go home in the afternoon to give her husband his tea and then
come back and dish up the dinner. You see, her home is only just round
the corner and he is out all day so she is glad of the company and to
earn the extra money. I fancy young Fisk takes a good bit of what his
father makes.”
They had hardly finished dinner when the maid handed a note to Susie.
The girl, she said, was waiting for an answer. It was from Mrs. Vachell.
“DEAR MRS. FULTON,” it said.
“You told me you are dining with the Gainsboroughs. I wonder if you
would have time to come in here for a few minutes on your way home. If
Teresa is tired she could drop you and send the car back? I have heard
from Evangeline by the last post with some reference to what I
suggested to you this afternoon. She is sure to have written to you at
the same time, but I cannot answer her letter without consulting you,
and as you are always so busy it might save time if I can catch you
between your good deeds.”
“Would you ask the girl to tell Mrs. Vachell I shall be very glad to
come round later,” she said to the maid; then she turned with an apology
to Mrs. Gainsborough. “If one once takes up these public things there
are so many little details to think out. Mrs. Vachell wants to talk over
one or two points that she suggested this afternoon. I will send Teresa
home when the car comes in case my husband wonders what has become of
us, and it can come back for me to Mrs. Vachell’s.”
Mrs. Vachell was alone when Susie was shown up. “My husband is out at
one of those dreary men’s dinners where they play Bridge till all
hours,” she explained. “I wanted to tell you, though you are sure to
find a letter from Evangeline when you get back, that there seems to be
an idea that his regiment is going to Egypt and he will probably have to
go with them. In that case he is sure to make it the excuse for the
separation I told you of.”
“But surely all such things must be decided between themselves,” said
Susie. “Evangeline and he are sure to talk it over and decide what is
best to be done.”
“Mrs. Fulton, have you seen your son-in-law lately?” Mrs. Vachell asked,
looking at her searchingly. “Do you know how strongly he has got to feel
on this point? I have been down there for a month with them and I
realised that Evangeline has no idea what an obsession it has become
with him. He seemed to want to pour it out to somebody and you know
yourself how a man always chooses a woman to listen to him because of
the very qualities he despises in her—shall we call it flexibility of
judgment? He knows she is not likely to say, ‘My dear chap, that’s all
rot. Have a whiskey and soda?’”
“That is so true,” said Susie with a sigh. “How well I know it!”
“You understand then how I come to know more of his intentions than you
do. He wouldn’t feel that you were an impartial judge and also——” her
mouth twitched slightly—“I am afraid he thinks you a little—frivolous.
He mistakes your delicacy of thought for want of earnestness.”
“Yes, I daresay,” said Susie, slightly stung, “I am quite used to being
thought absurd just because there is so much in spiritual things that
one cannot explain in black and white. Those very dogmatic people always
seem to me to miss the whole point of everything.”
“Well, now, the question is this. I know—I tell you this in all
seriousness—I know what he means to do with the child at the last
moment, and the last moment will come sooner than we expected if he is
ordered to Egypt. So please do dispossess yourself of any fancy ideas of
its all blowing over or all coming right. What can you do? You will
probably offer to take Ivor and Evangeline too. He will refuse because
he thinks you are even worse for the boy than she is.” Susie betrayed no
sign of anger, but her eyes narrowed a little and there was no dimple in
her cheek as she listened attentively. “What will you do then?” Mrs.
Vachell went on. “There are some terrible women he knows of who keep a
school away down in Cornwall. I don’t mean that they are intentionally
cruel, but Ivor has your sensitive nature. He is a little boy whom you
might as well whip with a cat-o’-nine-tails as send to women like that.”
Tears sprang to Susie’s eyes and her lips trembled. “I will do anything
you suggest,” she promised. “I don’t care what it is. I think I could
almost kill him. Thank heaven he trusts you!”
Mrs. Vachell laughed. “It is against all my principles and theories,”
she said, “but they force us to do these things. Some day when we are in
power we can be our true selves and enjoy the luxury of the straight
path. At present we lie for the children and the women like Evangeline
who suffer in their foolish reverence for the male. I don’t know what
you advise, but I don’t see any better way out of it than that
Evangeline should be supposed to be going overland to join him and just
not turn up. The boy will be left with me on the understanding that I
take him to Cornwall as soon as Evangeline has left or perhaps a month
or two after.”
“It doesn’t sound at all the sort of thing Evan would do,” said Susie
doubtfully. “He is always so very downright.”
“No, you are quite right,” said Mrs. Vachell. “He hasn’t thought of it
yet. He has only got as far as the old ladies. But I can make him see
the difficulty of a scene with Evangeline. She is very much liked at
Drage. Evan’s Colonel and his wife are devoted to her. There would be
awful talk and gossip and indignation if she let herself go and got the
rest of them down on to it. He is secretive and hates outside
interference.”
“But then why not let public opinion have the chance to make him give
in?” asked Susie.
“He wouldn’t do that. He would make some plan for a temporary
arrangement with me or someone else and it is safer that it should be
with me.”
“But when you have got him off, what next? The school will be expecting
him, they will be furious and write to Evan and he will order you to
give up Ivor. He may send a solicitor’s letter. He may get special leave
and come back.”
“That he couldn’t possibly afford,” said Mrs. Vachell. “It is a very
expensive journey just now. And as for the solicitor’s letter—do you
know I am not at all sure that I shouldn’t leave that to your husband. I
can’t tell you why, but I think he could manage Captain Hatton even now;
the only thing is that he wouldn’t. You have to get things into a mess
first before a man like that will move. They never will do anything to
prevent a row if it means making a plan, but they will shovel away the
mess afterwards quite willingly.”
“I think I might sound him,” said Susie reflectively.
“Very well, but remember if you give him the least hint of a plan he
will forbid you to do it and then it becomes rather a nuisance; it would
be fifty per cent more complicated. If you do the thing first you can
pretend to be sorry and say how stupid you were not to have thought of
the consequences. A man will always swallow that.”
Susie changed the subject. “And what about Evangeline?” she asked.
“Shall I write to her?”
“No, indeed, you won’t. Don’t write a line except the usual
grandmotherly stuff. I will ring her up and get her to take a day’s
shopping in London; I am going there next week. Then after that I will
go on to Drage to see a young cousin of mine. Evan will know by that
time whether he is going or not. If he does I can persuade him to lend
me Ivor for a month or two or even more. Even he understands that he is
rather a baby to go to strangers alone and he is sorry for me for having
no children——” She gave a little laugh. “You might, perhaps, make it
easier by saying that you want to have Ivor yourself, but that there is
difficulty about the nurse. He trusts her, and she doesn’t, in fact,
like being with you.”
“Doesn’t she?” asked Susie, very much surprised.
“No, not at all. She went so far as to threaten to give notice if she
stayed with you again. She complains that you spoil Ivor.”
“What a horrid woman!” said Susie.
“Yes, you will probably have to get another in the end. But all that
will be much simpler when we once get him out there. It is difficult for
anyone to make arrangements with such a long post in between.”
“Dear me,” Susie said with a sigh, “it is all very sad. I think I will
go home now. There may be a letter from Evangeline and I can see what my
husband says.”
“Well,” said Cyril when she came back, “Dicky says you are a great
orator, Sue. Got the nail plumb on the head and brought tears to every
eye. I sent her to bed as she looked tired. Strickland said she was
going to bring you some tea as soon as you came in.”
“Are there any letters for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I believe there are. I put them down somewhere. Evan has written
to me to say that the regiment is going to Egypt and he will have to go
unless he gets anything else.”
“Is he likely to do that?”
“I don’t know. He will have to run his own show now. I should think he
is most likely to go.” Susie found her letters and looked through them.
There was nothing from Evangeline. “I wonder why she writes to Mrs.
Vachell and not to me,” she thought, but she felt no jealousy; nothing
more than a little surprise, such as she might have felt if one of her
children had chosen to have tea with the housemaid instead of coming
down to the drawing-room.
“What sort of a country is Egypt for children?” she asked presently when
Strickland had brought the tea.
“I’ve never been there, but I shouldn’t think it was very good for
them,” said Cyril.
“Wouldn’t it be the best plan for Ivor to stay with us and have a
governess?” she suggested.
“Well, I suppose that is for Chips to settle.”
“When you talk of her settling do you realise that Evan has very odd
views about children and that he is a little obstinate sometimes?”
“What are you getting at, Sue?” he asked. “I haven’t studied the insect
world enough to be always sure what particular idea you are after. If
you will tell me the shape of twig you want to resemble——”
“I haven’t an idea what you are talking about, Cyril, but I was asking
for Evangeline’s sake. You always seem to understand men so much better
than I do.”
“That is because they say what they mean,” he replied. “There is no
difficulty about that.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Vachell scarcely recognised Evangeline when she rose out of a
corner of the shop lounge where they had arranged to meet. She was not
only thin and heavy-eyed, but she looked hunted. Behind the sphinx face
that looked into hers bitter pity was hard at work. “My dear child,”
Mrs. Vachell said, holding out both her hands, “don’t worry. It is
perfectly all right.”
“But you don’t know,” said Evangeline in a low, frightened voice. “I
haven’t told you. He is going to Egypt and insists on my going too. Ivor
is to be sent away——” Her voice broke.
“No, no, nonsense,” said Mrs. Vachell. “Here, come and sit down. Ivor
isn’t going away. He will be sent to me first and you won’t go on the
boat at all. You can either be supposed to join him at Marseilles, or if
that makes too much fuss you can go on board and slip off among the
crowd when people are being sent ashore at the last minute. There are
lots of ways and we will think out the best. Once he is safely off, you
will go back to your parents and he will find the devil of a difficulty
in dislodging you. It is a temporary remedy, I know, but we shall have
time to think of something else when the next obstacle turns up. He is
one man against three women, remember. You know your mother by this
time. I am not sure but what she is stronger than either of us. And you
will have all the regiment with you if they get to know of it.”
“But Mother doesn’t know,” said Evangeline. “I didn’t think it was any
use telling her.”
“Then you are a fool, dear. Never mind; I have told her; and if Evan
thinks he is any match for her he is mistaken. He might as well try to
fight a climate.”
“But how did you know anything about it?” she asked, more and more
puzzled. “He only told me yesterday, and I don’t know now where he wants
to send Ivor. It may be to his sisters, which is bad enough.”
“I knew a month ago what he intended to do some day, and I made plans
for you as soon as I heard that he might be going to Egypt. Don’t waste
time being jealous of me, Evangeline. I would wring the man’s neck like
a turkey’s if I could.”
“Oh, you are wicked!” gasped Evangeline.
“No, I am not. Don’t be stupid. You will lose your faith in men too some
day, and then you won’t stick at anything to help a woman. What other
weapons have we to defend our lives as yet? Do you want Ivor or do you
not?”
“Do I?” said Evangeline, nervously hunting for her handkerchief. “I
didn’t sleep last night and I’ve had no breakfast.”
“Very well, have lunch now, then,” said Mrs. Vachell, rising. During
lunch they matured their plan. Evan had not yet explained definitely
where he intended to send Ivor, though he had once mentioned two friends
of his mother’s, “the best women in the world,” he called them. Mrs.
Vachell related all she knew of the place where they lived and their
methods of training the young mind. Perhaps she exaggerated and perhaps
Evan had laid unfair stress on the items he was most anxious about.
“They believe in making a child independent of physical comforts,” she
said, “and not allowing a light in the room at night and that sort of
thing.”
“Oh, God! Ivor will go mad,” said Evangeline. “He is so good about the
dark and getting used to it, but he hates it—and without me!”
Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. “I came across men in hospital,”
she said, “to whom their childish terrors used to come back. Of course
it made them able to stand anything as they grew up, for nothing they
were likely to meet afterwards in an ordinary life could be such
torture. But it seems a little like burning down the house to get roast
pig. And, after all, the war has shown that it wasn’t worth while,
because boys from happy homes were just as undefeatable as the children
of brutes. In fact some of them who took it most simply had had the
happiest childhood. Good schools do just as well now when the boys come
by train as when they were frozen on the tops of coaches on the way and
tortured when they got there.”
“Yes,” said Evangeline.
“I shall have to fool your husband a good deal before I get Ivor handed
over to me,” Mrs. Vachell said, looking at her attentively.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Evangeline answered carelessly. “He doesn’t love the
real you. That is the only thing that would annoy me.” Mrs. Vachell gave
a little laugh.
“Who says women can’t stick together or tell the truth?” she said.
“Do they?” said Evangeline with indifference. “I wonder why.”
“Well, let’s get on,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I must do my shopping in a few
minutes. I shall come to Drage next week, and, in the meantime, just
behave as you would if you believed it was all going to happen as he
says. Try to forget that it isn’t; and when I come you will find that
the old ladies will be postponed for a few months at least. And another
thing. You had better beg for Ivor to be sent to your mother. I want
your husband to have knocked off that idea before I come or I should
have to suggest it and fail. He shall tell you himself that it won’t do,
and he will be getting uneasy about the old duchesses by that time if
you are tragic enough.”
“Oh, it is beastly!” said Evangeline. “Hateful! disgusting! How can a
man be so mean as to force his wife to filthy, low tricks to keep their
only son with her while he is a baby and she has done nothing wrong. How
dare he do it! I shall be a wicked woman before he has done with me.”
Mrs. Vachell again shrugged her shoulders. “Wait,” she said, “it is
coming. There can be no stopping it in the end. We are in Parliament; we
are almost in the Law; we have one foot in the Church. Wait, Evangeline,
my dear. And in the meantime we won’t throw away the old weapons till
the new are ready. They haven’t done bad service in the past.”