“Well now, tell me,” said Mrs. Carpenter, drawing her chair near to Mrs.
Vachell’s tea-table. “What is all this about the Hattons, do you know?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” said Mrs. Vachell. “What have they, or
rather, what has she, been doing?”
“Haven’t you heard that he is coming home?”
“Let me see, where was it he went to? Egypt, wasn’t it? I haven’t seen
Evangeline for some time.”
“Amy,” Mrs. Carpenter said earnestly, wedging her large face close up to
Mrs. Vachell, “tell me now—you know I never repeat things—what did
happen then? You know people say all sorts of things, and some of them
have really said so much about you that I want to be able to contradict
them.”
“You can contradict them all, certainly,” said Mrs. Vachell.
“I may do that from you, may I?”
“No, not from me, from yourself. I don’t know what they have said, but
whatever it is, I am sure you can safely say it is untrue.”
“You really had nothing to do with his going to Egypt? I was told
to-day, on the very best authority, that you had sent him off because
Evangeline—you know those young wives—they can’t bear anyone even to
look at their husbands, can they? Do you know, I thought she was quite
strange in her manner one evening at our house when he would talk to me
all the time about India. We said something about the heat, and I
remember I thought to myself, ‘Yes, my dear boy, you would find it very
hot indeed out there with a wife who looks after you with those eyes!’
Why, half the women at any station would run after him on purpose, if
they saw she was jealous.”
“Yes,—women!” said Mrs. Vachell. “How these Christians love one another,
don’t they? We are a very united sex when we are running with the hounds
to show what the hare can do to please them.”
“Then it really wasn’t you who made him go to Egypt?” Mrs. Carpenter
persisted.
“No. I am very much flattered at being mistaken for the War Office, but
it wasn’t me. I should like to take the credit for ridding the country
of the dullest regiment in England, but I am afraid I can’t truthfully.”
“That is very sarcastic of you, dear Amy, but I know you don’t like
soldiers,” said Mrs. Carpenter affectionately. “You have never mixed
with them enough to know how honest and simple they are. What do you
think of General Fulton, though, really and truly? He is an odd sort of
man, isn’t he? I get on with him very well because I love his humour and
we have great arguments together, but I know he is not popular as a
rule. He is very naughty in the things he says to her sometimes, and she
never seems to see. Emmie Trotter doesn’t like her at all; she thinks
she is not genuine, but I don’t think that. I think she is perfectly
sincere in the work she does but I don’t think she is business-like.
Someone told me that Evan Hatton is coming back and going into business.
Had you heard of it?”
“Yes, I had heard that,” said Mrs. Vachell. “And Teresa has given up her
work with Emma and is going to study unemployment from the most
favourable standpoint, by having nothing to do. She is very lucky, I
think, though I couldn’t do it myself.”
“You mean you don’t care for the Varens’?”
“I know nothing about them one way or the other. He used to be in and
out of the University, I don’t know what for; learning to make chemical
manures perhaps; but I never saw much of him. He belongs to what Mrs.
Harding calls the ‘polo set’ and they don’t interest me.”
“Oh, now, some of them are very charming and delightful. All the
Brackenbury set are dears. Bobo, as they call him, is a splendid player
and a real dear boy. However, the Duke says he can’t afford to let him
play next year and he must do something. You have heard about the girls
setting up an inn, haven’t you? It is a pity, I think, but as Bobo says,
what are you to do? He pretends he is going to run a circus, but
seriously, I’m sure I don’t know. They can’t keep themselves in the army
now, not even in the Guards. But David Varens—how did we get off the
track——? He is all right, apparently. His father seems to have left him
plenty of money, and of course he is not extravagant like Bobo and that
terrible elder brother. Wasn’t it dreadful about him! Did you say Teresa
is going to give up all her work as soon as she marries? Now I do think
that is a great mistake, don’t you? All the more reason she should go on
with it now that she will have money. Of course I can see that she
couldn’t come in every day in the same way, but there is no reason why
she shouldn’t visit and take an interest in it all. A few meetings would
be good for her and prevent her from getting self-centred.”
The door opened and Mr. Vachell was heard to say, “Come in. I think my
wife is in here,” and Teresa walked into the room, followed by the
little man with a pile of books. “I was bringing these back,” she said
to Mrs. Vachell. “They are some that you lent to Evangeline and she had
forgotten about them. I am so sorry. I met Mr. Vachell on the step and
he brought me up, but I am afraid I mustn’t stay.”
“Yes, you must,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I haven’t seen any of you for so
long and Mrs. Carpenter was saying just now that I am given credit for
all sorts of things in your family—for Captain Hatton’s regiment being
sent to Egypt and—what else was it, Mrs. Carpenter? I have just told her
that I never see you, but she is still suspicious.”
Teresa frowned and blushed and had nothing to say for a minute. Then she
turned on Mrs. Carpenter in sudden wrath. “I do wish women wouldn’t be
sweet when they want to make mischief,” she said. “I never knew anything
like this place. It is like a lot of flies walking in muck and then
settling on the jam.” The expression on Mrs. Carpenter’s face moved her
to compunction, and she stopped. After all, the woman had had children
and battled with pain and death and denied herself for her
fellow-creatures in more ways than Teresa, for she had no love of them
to carry her over the discomforts of bearing other people’s burdens. If
she did gossip and preach and plume herself by the way, she was entitled
to that relaxation, knowing no other. So long as Britons never shall be
slaves let us allow the Potters their public-house, the Carpenters their
tea-table, the Fisks their blood and the passionate philanthropists
their feast of reason and flow of soul. The Emma Gainsboroughs will go
on patiently and methodically clearing up, taking no notice of
themselves, and by-and-bye, as Susie so often justly remarked, “Anything
that is really good is sure to make the rest seem so small in
comparison.”
“What was it you wanted to know?” she asked Mrs. Carpenter gently. “I
would so much rather tell you, if you are interested, than have you
going about asking all sorts of people whether they have heard
anything.”
“Dear little Teresa!” Mrs. Carpenter said, recovering her usual smile.
“What a set-down for poor me! You fierce little thing! Well then, since
you ask, tell me what Evangeline has been doing to set all the tongues
wagging? I shouldn’t have liked to ask you, dear, until you offered me
your confidence so sweetly. I appreciate it, I assure you. But you know
it is distressing to hear a thing hinted at everywhere and not to be
able to put it right authoritatively. Now we will have it all fair and
square, shall we? Sit down there and tell me——have they separated?”
“No, they haven’t,” said Teresa. “Mrs. Vachell lent Evangeline those
books that I have brought back, and they are all written to dish up rows
that needn’t happen if people’s minds weren’t as stuffy as mouldy
cupboards. Evangeline’s is like a wide open door, you know; she is not
at all stuffy; but she wants so much to have everyone enjoy everything
they can that she took on the idea of women being oppressed, and of
course, wanted to help to let them out, as she thought. That is true,
isn’t it?” she turned to Mrs. Vachell.
Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. “It is true as far as it goes,” she
said. “Yes.”
“Well then, you know Evan Hatton, don’t you,” Teresa continued. She had
forgotten her anger against Mrs. Carpenter, and was trying to tell the
story as if she were in a Court of Justice, presenting Evangeline’s case
and Evan’s as one against the world. “He is not so naturally anxious for
everyone to be happy. In fact he doesn’t mind whether they are enjoying
themselves or not, so long as he thinks they are doing what has got to
be done. He got really worried about her trying to undo all the doors
and locks everywhere. I think he got a sort of panic about it; as if she
would or could possibly have done any harm! Anyhow, he thought it was
the thing to do, so they had it out; that is all. And now he is coming
back. They hated being away from each other, and he is going into Mr.
Price’s engineering place, a new one he has started near London. Now
aren’t you sorry you helped to make people think there was some nasty,
frowsy mystery?”
“That is nonsense, dear Teresa,” Mrs. Carpenter protested. “You ought
not to let yourself run away with such ideas. But I am more than
delighted it is so simple as you say. You know Mrs. Trotter had quite a
different impression, and I must say Evangeline talked to her a good
deal when you were all together that summer.”
“Yes, that is what she does,” Teresa admitted regretfully. “She talks to
everybody as if they were all straight and decent, and she doesn’t
realise what worms some of them are. Of course they just mix whatever
she says with slime.”
Mrs. Carpenter gave the little laugh which she used to express offence.
“Hardly flattering to her audience, is it?” she said.
“No, I didn’t mean to flatter them,” said Teresa. “They can do that for
themselves when they have finished. I was telling you how it looks to me
when I know how Evangeline loves all sunny and kind things.”
“I hear you are going to be married and give up all your work,” said
Mrs. Carpenter. “I must congratulate you and I hope you will be very
happy. Aldwych is a lovely place and David Varens is quite delightful I
think. You find you can’t keep on with your poor people, don’t you? With
so many new interests, I daresay it is not easy for young people to
think of others.”
“Yes,” said Teresa, her cheeks glowing. “But you know you will never
make anything different out of Mrs. Potter, any more than I have.”
“Who is Mrs. Potter? I don’t remember her,” asked Mrs. Carpenter.
“There are some people called Potter in that long street—Boaling
Street—just by Emma’s office; but I don’t mean them alone. I was
thinking of them as a class, and I forgot you didn’t know them. I don’t
think either you or I are any good to them. They laugh at you for
thinking you are wiser than they are, and they think I am mad because I
keep on supposing they are feeling the same things as I do. Emma
understands everything they say and is never surprised, nor ever tells
them anything about herself, so they think she is perfectly normal and
never suspect her of being a lady. She is just ‘The lady at the depôt,’
like the girl behind the counter is ‘the young lady in the shop.’ They
go to her when they want sensible things, and I don’t suppose they have
any more theory as to why she is there than they have about any
official. They probably think she is paid by the Government.”
“And you are really sure you are not going to keep it up, even twice a
week?” said Mrs. Carpenter. Then, without waiting for further answer,
she changed the subject. “By-the-bye, Mr. Vachell, can you tell me what
the Sphinx really is? Someone was asking the other day, and I said you
could tell us if anyone could.”
Teresa excused herself and went away, depressed by what had happened.
She felt crushed by the weight of the heaviest burden that society
brings, the failure to impress a living thought on a dead comprehension.
She had offered sincerity, and been met with the corpse-like hand of
offence.
“Both those Fulton girls have been very much spoiled,” said Mrs.
Carpenter, when she had shut the door.
When Teresa got home she found David sitting stiffly in a chair beside
Susie, who was knitting a small coat for her grandchild. There had been
a conversation between them which it may be worth recording, and Teresa
arrived at a critical moment. Susie’s knitting was a curious
performance, and David, sadly at a loss for an occupation while he
waited for Teresa, had watched it and wondered in what way it differed
from his mother’s. Lady Varens at work with needles suggested Penelope
filling in time to avert the intrusion of emotions. Susie evidently
undertook the thing as part of the equipment of a rôle. It was like all
household affairs performed by stage characters, the dusting of a room
by a saucy maid who flicks the mantelpiece twice and then gets on with
her lines, the dinner-party where everything is swept away after the
first morsel of fish has been tasted. Susie’s knitting was the
“business” connected with the rôle of “Mrs. Fulton; beautiful, refined,
well-dressed, awaiting the eventide of life with the calm philosophy of
one who has known much suffering.” She was now “discovered seated,
centre R.f., expecting the return of her husband, a typical twentieth
century rake.”
“You do a great deal of knitting, don’t you?” David remarked at last.
“Not as much as I should like,” said Susie. “I hope that when you and
Dicky are married you will encourage her to do something of that kind in
the evening. If she is giving up all her other work she will need
something to take its place. You don’t sing or play at all, do you?”
“No,” he said, feeling some apology was needed, “I don’t.”
“I almost think I should take up some interest if I were you,” she said
gently. “Of course there is no doubt that there is no happiness like
being married if people understand each other, but at the same time it
is impossible not to feel the need for change of thought sometimes. You
are not fond of wine, are you, David?”
“No, not at odd times, thanks very much,” David replied. He was mildly
startled by the question and wondered what she was driving at.
“And no more is Dicky. She never cared for it at all, and yet Evangeline
would always take a glass when it was offered her. It gives people quite
a different outlook. I don’t know how far you have studied Dicky’s
character but I understand her, in a way, better than Evangeline. Dicky
takes a much wider view of spiritual things.”
“Yes, I expect so,” said David, polite and noncommittal.
“And just for that reason I am a little sad at her giving up all her
work among the poor. I am afraid she will feel the want of it.” David
was struck dumb, so she went on, supposing his silence to be due to a
wish to hear more. “She has no artistic interests, you see. When I was
her age I had a great many. I was devoted to music, for instance, and if
I had not fallen in love with my husband the course of my life might
have been quite different. I hope you will forgive these little bits of
personal history, dear David, but I should be so glad if they helped you
in any way to clear up difficulties that may come when the ‘first fine
careless rapture,’ as I heard it described the other day at a wonderful
lecture of Professor Gaskie’s—I thought of you two at once—when that is
over. I felt it so much when I had to give up all that side of things
when I married. You see my husband has his wine, for instance, and his
men; he had a great number of old friends when we first married, whom I
must say, I thought extremely uninteresting. They talked by the hour
about foxes; not in connection with all the beautiful country life that
you have, for he never hunted except when he was asked to stay with
people, but they were always talking about that kind of thing. Some of
them were purely politicians and some very much worse. Not the old
intellectual type like Disraeli, who really cared for beautiful things,
but the sort who run away from a drawing-room and hide themselves
somewhere with decanters and laugh and roar and sing half the night. I
can’t tell you how much I used to feel the want of something else. Then
the children came, and of course it was all right, and I had friends who
were very kind, so that I could go now and then and hear music and talk
about the things I cared for. That is why I have taken up the work I do
here. It is not an intellectual place, as you see; and those concerts!
Have you ever been to them?”
“Yes, sometimes,” said David. “I thought they were supposed to be rather
good.”
“The performers are often very good,” she agreed, “but there is an
atmosphere about the place that I don’t like; a want of appreciation.
Have you noticed that there is often quite a fog in the hall? I have
wondered sometimes whether it was anything like what Professor Bole was
describing the other day. I forget how he put it, but I thought of those
concerts and wondered whether people’s tastes—their love of rich dinners
and wine and all that, had been chased out of them by the music and was
wanting to get back and preventing them from hearing it fully. Dear
little Dicky used to find the fog in the town so depressing when we
first came, and I expect she felt the same as I do. Now Evangeline is
different altogether, more like her father. She will throw off anything
of that sort in a minute and be all ready for a gallop or a dance or
party. Haven’t you noticed that? And yet I always think any art is such
a happy thing. One has no real need of other people——” Her knitting had
gone down on to her lap long ago.
“No, perhaps not,” said David.
“I am so glad you think so,” she continued in her purry voice. “For of
course, you will be a great deal cut off in the country. What is that
Mrs. Lake like whom I used to meet now and then? She seemed to have
quite taken up the Prices. She is very typical of the society round
there, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know much about her,” said David. “But I believe she is all
right.”
“Dicky will find friends, of course,” said Susie. “One can always find
some good in everybody if one is prepared to look for it.”
“Yes, I don’t think there will be any difficulty,” said David.
“What do you think about Evan going into this business of Mr. Price’s?”
she asked.
“It ought to be quite easy I think,” he answered. “It is what he likes.”
“Yes, but Evan does like such curious things,” said Susie. “His is a
most interesting nature; so upright; but I often wonder how Evangeline,
with her very sunny disposition, chose anyone with such very strong
religious views. Religion always seems to me to be a thing that should
be so helpful in making it easier to stand up against things that go
wrong. One sees so much suffering in a place like this that unless one
can be sure that it is all intended and for the best, one would be
inclined to dwell too much on it. Now Evan, it seems to me, instead of
seeing it like that, often makes it sadder by supposing things to be
worse than they are. He used to take the gloomiest view of poor little
Ivor in his childish naughtiness, though he is really a good little boy
and very obedient if one just smooths over difficulties with a little
tact. Nurse is not always very wise with him. She goes on persisting at
the time, instead of waiting until he has forgotten and letting him do
whatever it is of his own accord, when he is interested in something
else. That is Evan’s mistake I am sure. He is always on the look out for
sad things and it makes him so difficult to interest. Now my husband is
all the other way. He won’t believe that anything matters, and I think
that Evangeline is rather like him. They have no sympathy for any aims
beyond the present. Do you know Mrs. Vachell well?”
“Not very,” David replied.
“Do you like her?”
“I don’t think she wants people to either like or dislike her, so I
haven’t got so far,” he said. He would have been candid with Teresa or
Evangeline or many other people, but he had a deep-rooted distrust of
Susie as a receptacle for words. They meant so little to her that she
was liable to pass them on as coinage in conversation and give no goods
of her own in exchange, so there was no bargain that she was likely to
respect between her and whoever she talked to. He felt this
instinctively and had no dealings with her, not being willing, like
Cyril, to declare himself bankrupt for the joy of riotous living.
“She believes very much in women,” Susie went on. “Her idea is that some
day all those things that I was talking about, the love of finer tastes
and of children, and all the confidence and dislike of harshness and
ugliness that woman feels so much will come more to the front and have
more influence. There may be something in it, for although I dislike the
idea of women going into the world, still, if they can do any good I am
sure it is right for them not to hold back; for the sake of the
unmarried ones who have to earn a living. It does seem terrible, don’t
you think, that there should be no way for those who are not
intellectual to live except by pleasing men in the wrong way; because
that is what it comes to, whether they are married or not. And if they
are not good looking it is even worse. They ought to be as well paid for
cultivating the higher side of life as for pandering to the lower. A
loving nature is of as much value to the world as a brain that invents
war material; and, as it is, men only use it as a toy for every sort of
coarser instinct.”
“But does Mrs. Vachell suggest a sort of spiritual—market?” David asked,
hesitatingly, roused at last out of his burrow by the logical
enticements that Susie had been aiming at him. “Aren’t there enough
people who sell themselves in that way already?”
“I don’t think you have quite understood my point, dear David,” she
replied, and at that moment Teresa came in and found them.