DAVID VAVASOUR WILLIAMS
It is in the spring of 1901. A fine warm evening, but at eight
o'clock the dusk is already on the verge of darkness as Honoria
emerges from the lift at her Chancery Lane Office (near the corner
of Carey Street), puts her latch-key into the door of the partners'
room, and finds herself confronting the silhouette of a young man
against the western glow of the big window.
_Norie_ (inwardly rather frightened): "Hullo! Who are _you_ and what
are you doing here?"
_Vivie_ (mimicking a considerate, cringing burglar): "Sorry to
startle you, lidy, but I don't mean no 'arm. I'll go quiet. Me
name's D.V. Williams..."
_Norie_: "You absurd creature! But you shouldn't play such pranks on
these respectable premises. You gave me a _horrid_ start, and I
realized for the first time that I've got a heart. I really must sit
down and pant."
_Vivie_: "I am sorry, dearest. I had not the slightest notion
you would be letting yourself into the office at this hour--8
o'clock--and I was just returning from my crammers..."
_Norie_: "I came for those Cranston papers. Mother is ill. I may
have to sit up with her after Violet Hunt goes, so I thought I would
come here, fetch the bundle of papers and plans, and go through them
in the silent watches of the night, _if_ mother sleeps. But do you
mean to say you have already started this masquerade?"
_Vivie_: "I do. You see Christabel Pankhurst has been turned down
as a barrister. They won't let her qualify for the Bar, because
she's a woman, so they certainly won't let _me_ with my pedigree;
just as, merely because we are women, they won't let us become
Chartered Actuaries or Incorporated Accountants. After we had that
long talk last June I got a set of men's clothes together, a regular
man's outfit. The suit doesn't fit over well but I am rectifying
that by degrees. I went to a general outfitter in Cornhill and told
a cock-and-bull story--as it was an affair of ready cash they didn't
stop to question me about it. I said something about a sea-faring
brother, just my height, a trifle stouter in build--lost all his kit
at sea--been in hospital--now in convalescent home--how I wanted to
save him all the fatigue possible--wouldn't want more than
reach-me-downs at present, etc., etc. They rather flummoxed me at
first by offering a merchant service uniform, but somehow I got over
that, though this serge suit has rather a sea-faring cut. I got so
unnecessarily explanatory with the shopman that he began to pay me
compliments, said my brother must be a good-looking young chap if he
was at all like me. However, I got away with the things in a cab,
and told the cab to drive to St. Paul's station, and on the way
re-directed him here.
"Last autumn I began practising at night-time after all our
familiars had left these premises. Purposely I did not tell you
because I feared your greater caution and instinctive respectability
might discourage me. Otherwise, nobody's spotted me, so far. I'd
intended breaking it to you any day now, because I've gone too far
to draw back, for weal or woe. But either we have been rushed with
business, or you've been anxious about Lady Fraser--How is she?"
(Norie interpolates "Very poorly.") "So truly sorry!--I was
generally just about to tell you when Rose or Lilian--tiresome
things!--would begin most assiduously passing in and out with
papers. Even now I mustn't keep you, with your mother so ill..."
_Norie_ (looking at her wrist-watch): "Violet has very kindly
promised to stay with mother till ten.... I can give you an hour,
though I must take a few minutes off that for the firm's business as
I haven't been here much for three days..." (They talk business for
twenty minutes, during which Norie says: "It's really _rather_ odd,
how those clothes change you! I feel vaguely compromised with a
handsome young man bending over me, his cheek almost touching
mine!"--and Vivie retorts "Oh, _don't_ be an ass!")
_Norie_: "So you really _are_ going to take the plunge?"
_Vivie_: "I really _am_. As soon as it suits your convenience, Vivie
Warren will retire from your firm and go abroad. You must either
replace her by Beryl Clarges or allow Mr. Vavasour Williams"
(Honoria interpolates: "_Ridiculous_ name! How did you think of
it?") "to come and assist in the day-time or after office hours. You
can say to the winds that he is Vivie's first cousin, remarkably
like her in some respects.... Rose Mullet is engaged to be married
and is only--she told me yesterday with many blushes--staying on to
oblige us. Lilian Steynes said the other day that if we were making
any changes in the office, much as she liked her work here, her
mother having died she thought it was her duty to go and live with
her maternal aunt in the country. The aunt thinks she can get her a
post as a brewery clerk at Aylesbury, and she is longing to breed
Aylesbury ducks in her spare time.--There is Bertie Adams, it's
true. There's something so staunch about him and he is so useful
that he and Praed and Stead are the three exceptions I make in my
general hatred of mankind..."
_Norie_: "He will be very much cut up at your going--or seeming to
go."
_Vivie_: "Just so. I think I shall write him a farewell note,
saying it's only for a time: I mean, that I may return later
on--dormant partnership--nothing really changed, don't you know? But
that as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs.--what does she call herself,
Claridge?"--(Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she
doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free
Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much
of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the
Hotel")--"Mrs. Claridge, then, is coming in my stead--He's to help
her all he can--and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also
look in when you are very busy. I shall, of course, see about
rooms in one of the Inns of Court--the Temple perhaps. I have
been stealthily watching Fig Tree Court. I _think_ I can get
chambers there--a man is turning out next month--got a Colonial
appointment--I've put my new name down at the lodge and I shall have
to rack my brains for references--you will do for one--or perhaps
not--however that I can work out later. Of course I won't take the
final plunge till I have secured the rooms. Meantime I will use my
bedroom here but promise you I will be awfully prudent..."
_Norie_: "I couldn't possibly have Beryl 'living in,' with a child
hanging about the place; so I think if you _do_ go I shall turn your
bedroom into an apartment which Beryl and I can use for toilet
purposes but where we can range out on book-shelves a whole lot of
our books. Just now they are most inconveniently stored away in
boxes. It's rather tiresome about Beryl. I believe she's going to
have _another_ child. At any rate she says it may be four months
before she can come to work here regularly. I asked her about it the
other day, because if mother gets worse I may be hindered about
coming to the office, and I didn't want you to get overworked,--so I
said to Beryl.... That reminds me, she referred to the coming child
and added that its father was a policeman. Quite a nice creature in
his private life. Of course she's only kidding. I expect it's the
architect all the time. You know how she delighted in shocking us at
Newnham. I wish she hadn't this kink about her. P'raps I'm getting
old-fashioned already--You used to call me 'the Girondist.' But if
the New Woman _is_ to go on the loose and be unmoral like the
rabbits, won't the cause suffer from middle-class opposition?"
_Vivie_: "Perhaps. But it may gain instead the sympathies of the
lower and the upper classes. Why do you bother about Beryl? I agree
with you in disliking all this sexuality..."
_Norie_: "Does one _ever_ quite know why one likes people? There is
_something_ about Beryl that gets over me; and she _is_ a worker.
You know how she grappled with that Norfolk estate business?"
_Vivie_: "Well, it's fortunate she and I have not met since Newnham
days. You must tip her the story that I am going away for a
time--abroad--and that a young--young, because I look a mere boy,
dressed up in men's clothes--a young cousin of mine, learned in the
law, is going to drop in occasionally and do some of the work..."
_Norie_: "I'm afraid I'm rather weak-willed. I _ought_ to stop this
prank before it has gone too far, just as I ought to discourage
Beryl's babies. Your schemes sound so stagey. Off the stage
you never take people in with such flimsy stories and weak
disguises--you'll tie yourself up into knots and finally get sent to
prison.... However.... I can't help being rather tickled by your
idea. It's vilely unjust, men closing two-thirds of the respectable
careers to women, to bachelor women above all..." (A pause, and the
two women look out on a blue London dotted with lemon-coloured,
straw-coloured, mauve-tinted lights, with one cold white radiance
hanging over the invisible Piccadilly Circus)--"Well, go ahead!
Follow your star! I can be confident of one thing, you won't do
anything mean or disgraceful. Deceiving Man while his vile laws and
restrictions remain in force is no crime. Be prudent, so far as
compromising our poor little firm here is concerned, because if you
bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave we shall lose a
valuable source of income. Besides: any public scandal just now in
which I was mixed up might kill my mother. Want any money?"
_Vivie_: "You generous darling! _Never, never_ shall I forget your
kindness and your trust in me. You have at any rate saved one soul
alive." (Honoria deprecates gratitude.) "No, I don't want
money--yet. You made me take and bank £700 last January over that
Rio de Palmas coup--heaps more than my share. Altogether I've got
about £1,000 on deposit at the C. and C. bank, the Temple Bar
branch. I've many gruesome faults, but I _am_ thrifty. I think I can
win through to the Bar on that. Of course, if afterwards briefs
don't come in--"
_Norie_: "Well, there'll always be the partnership which will go on
unaltered. I shall pretend you are only away for a time and your
share shall be regularly paid in to your bank. Of course I shall
meet Mr. Vavasour Williams now and again and I can tell him things
and consult with him. If we think Beryl, after she is installed here
as head clerk--of course I shan't make her a partner for _years_ and
_years_--not at all if she remains flighty--if we think she is
unsuspicious, and Bertie Adams likewise, and the new clerks and the
housekeeper and her husband, there is no reason why you should not
come here fairly often and put in as much work as you can on our
business."
_Vivie_: "Yes. Of course I must be careful of one predicament. I
have studied the regulations about being admitted to the English
Bar. They are very quaint and medieval or early Georgian. You
mayn't be a Chartered Accountant or Actuary--the Lord alone knows
why! I suppose some Lord Chancellor was done in the eye in
Elizabeth's reign by an actuary and laid down that law. Equally you
mayn't be a clergyman. As to that we needn't distress ourselves.
It's rather piteous about the prohibiting Accountants, because as
women we are not allowed to qualify in _any_ capacity as Accountants
or Actuaries; and work here is only permissible by our not
pretending to belong to any recognized body like the Institute of
Actuaries. So that in coming to work for you I must not seem to be
in any way doing the business of Accountants or Actuaries. Indeed it
might be awkward for my scheme if I was too openly associated with
Fraser and Warren.
"I already think of myself as Williams--I shall pose of course as a
Welshman. My appearance _is_ rather Welsh, don't you think? It's the
Irish blood that makes me look Keltic--I'm sure my father was an
Irish student for the priesthood at Louvain, and certain scraps of
information I got out of mother make me believe that _her_ mother
was a pretty Welsh girl from Cardiff, brought over to London Town by
some ship's captain and stranded there, on Tower Hill.
"However, I have still the whole scheme to work out and when I'm
ready to start on it--which will be very soon--I'll let you know.
Now, though I'd love to discuss all the other details, I mustn't
forget your mother will be wanting you--I wish _I_ had a mother to
tend--I wonder" (wistfully) "whether I was too hard on mine?
"D'you mind posting these letters as you go out? I shall change back
to Vivie Warren in a dressing gown, give myself a light supper, and
then put in two hours studying Latin and Norman French. Good night,
dearest!"
Two months after this conversation Vivie decided to pay a call on
an old friend of her mother's, Lewis Maitland Praed, if you want his
full name, a well-known architect, and one of the few male friends
of Catherine Warren who had not also been her lover. Why, he never
quite knew himself. When he first met her she was the boon
companion, the mistress--more or less, and unattached--of a young
barrister, a college friend of Praed's. Kate Warren at that time
called herself Kitty Vavasour; and on the strength of having done a
turn or two on the music halls considered herself an actress with a
right to a professional name. It was in this guise that the "Revd."
Samuel Gardner met her and had that six months' infatuation for her
which afterwards caused him so much disquietude; though it preceded
the taking of his ordination vows by quite a year, and his marriage
to his wife--much too good for him--in 1874. [The Revd. Sam, you may
remember, was the father of the scapegrace Frank who nearly captured
Vivie's young affections and had written from South Africa proposing
marriage at the opening of this story.]
Kate Vavasour in 1872 was an exceedingly pretty girl of nineteen or
twenty; showily dressed, and quick with her tongue. She was
good-natured and jolly, and though Praed himself was the essence of
refinement there was something about her reckless mirth and joy in
life--the immense relief of having passed from the sordid life of a
barmaid to this quasi-ladyhood--that enlisted his sympathies. Though
she was always somebody else's mistress until she developed
her special talent as a manageress of high-class houses of
accommodation, "private hotels" on the Continent, chiefly frequented
by English and American _roués_--Praed kept an eye on her career,
and occasionally rendered her, with some cynicism, unobtrusive
friendly services in disentangling her affairs when complications
threatened. He was an art student in those days of the 'seventies,
possessed of about four hundred a year, beginning to go through the
aesthetic phase, and not decided whether he would emerge a painter
of pictures or an architect of grandiose or fantastic buildings. To
his studio Miss Kitty Vavasour or Miss Kate Warren would often come
and pose for the head and shoulders, or for some draped caryatid
wanted for an ambitious porch in an imaginary millionaire's house in
Kensington Palace Gardens. When in 1897, Vivie had learnt about her
mother's "profession," she had flung off violently from all her
mother's "friends," except "Praddy." She even continued to call him
by this nickname, long ago bestowed on him by her mother. At distant
intervals she would pay him a visit at his house and studio near
Hans Place; when Honoria's advice and assistance did not meet the
case of some grave perplexity.
So one afternoon in June, 1901, she came to his little dwelling with
its large studio, and asked to have a long talk to him, whilst his
parlour-maid--he was still a bachelor--denied him to other callers.
They had tea together and Vivie plunged as quickly as possible into
her problem.
"You know, Praddy dear, I want to be a Barrister. But as a female
they will never call me to the Bar. So I'm going to send Vivien
Warren off for a long absence abroad--the few who think about me
will probably conclude that money has carried the day and that I've
gone to help my mother in her business--and in her absence Mr.
Vavasour Williams will take up the running. David V. Williams--don't
interrupt me--will study for the Bar, eat through his terms--six
dinners a year, isn't it?--pass his examinations, and be called to
the English Bar in about three years from now. Didn't you once have
a pupil called Vavasour Williams?"
_Praed_: "What, David, the Welsh boy? Yes. His name reminded me of
your mother in one of her stages. David Vavasour Williams. I took
him on in--let me see? I think it was in 1895 or early 1896. But how
did you hear about him?"
_Vivie_: "Never mind, or never mind for the moment. Tell me some
more about him."
_Praed_: "Well to sum him up briefly he was what school boys and
subalterns would call 'a rotter.' Not without an almost mordid
cleverness; but the Welsh strain in him which in the father turned
to emotional religion--the father was Vicar or Rector of
Pontystrad--came out in the boy in unhealthy fancies. He had almost
the talent of Aubrey Beardsley. But I didn't think he had a good
influence over my other pupils, so before I planned that Italian
journey--on which you refused to accompany me--I advised him to
leave my tuition--I wasn't modern enough, I said. I also advised him
to make up his mind whether he wanted to be a sane architect--he
despised questions of housemaids' closets and sanitation and lifts
and hot-water supply--or a scene painter. I think he might have had
a great career at Drury Lane over fairy palaces or millionaire
dwellings. But I turned him out of my studio, though I put the fact
less brutally before his father--said I should be absent a long
while in Italy and that I feared the boy was too undisciplined.
Afterwards I think he went into some South African police force..."
_Vivie_: "He did, and died last year in a South African hospital.
Had he--er--er--many relations, I mean did he come of well-known
people?"
_Praed_: "I fancy not. His father was just a dreamy old Welsh
clergyman always seeing visions and believing himself a descendant
of the Druids, Sam Gardner told me; and his mother had either died
long ago or had run away from her husband, I forget which. In a way,
I'm sorry David's dead. He had a sort of weird talent and wild good
looks. By the way, he wasn't altogether unlike _you_."
_Vivie_: "Thank you for the double-edged compliment. However what
you say is very interesting. Well now, my idea is that David
Vavasour Williams did _not_ die in a military hospital; he recovered
and returned, firmly resolved to lead a new life.--Is his father
living by the bye? Did he believe his son was dead?"
_Praed_: "Couldn't tell you, I'm sure. I never took any further
interest in him, and until you mentioned it--I don't know on whose
authority--I didn't know he was dead. On the whole a good riddance
for his people, I should say, especially if he died on the field of
honour. But what lunatic idea has entered your mind with regard to
this poor waster?"
_Vivie_: "Why my idea, as I say, is that D.V.W. got cured of his
necrosis of the jaw--I suppose it is not invariably deadly?--came
home with a much improved morale, studied hard, and became a
barrister, thinking it morally a superior calling to architecture
and scene painting. In short, I shall be from this day forth
Vavasour Williams, law-student! Would it be safe, d'you think, in
that capacity to go down and see his old father?"
_Praed_: "_Vivie_! I _did_ think you were a sober-minded young
woman who would steer clear of--of--crime: for this impersonation
would be a punishable offence..."
_Vivie_: "_Crime_? _What_ nonsense! I should consider I was
justified in a Court of Equity if I burnt down or blew up the Law
Courts or one of the Inns or broke the windows of the Chartered
Institute of Actuaries or the Incorporated Law Society. All these
institutions and many others bar the way to honourable and lucrative
careers for educated women, and a male parliament gives us no
redress, and a male press laughs at us for our feeble attempts to
claim common rights with men. Instead of proceeding to such violence
I am merely resorting to a very harmless guile in getting round the
absurd restrictions imposed by the benchers of the Inns of Court,
namely that all who claim a call to the Bar should not be
_accountants_, _actuaries_, _clergymen_ or _women_. I am going to
give up the accountancy business--or rather, the law has never
allowed either Honoria or me to become chartered accountants, so
there is nothing to give up. To avoid any misapprehension she is
going to change the title on our note paper and brass plate to
'General Inquiry Agents.' That will be sufficiently non-committal.
Well then, as to sex disqualification, a few weeks hence I shall
become David Vavasour Williams, and I presume he was a male? You
don't have to pass a medical examination for the Bar, do you?"
_Praed_: "Really, Vivie, you are _unnecessarily_ coarse..."
_Vivie_: "I don't care if I am, poor outlaw that I am! Every avenue
to an honest and ambitious career seems closed to me, either because
I am a woman or--in women's careers--the few that there are--because
I am Kate Warren's daughter. _I_ am not to blame for my mother's
misdeeds, yet I am being punished for them. That beast of a friend
of yours--that filthy swine, George Crofts--set it about after I
refused to marry him that I was 'Mrs. Warren's Daughter,' and the
few nice people I knew from Cambridge days dropped me, all except
Honoria and her mother."
_Praed_: "Well, _I_ haven't dropped you. _I'll_ always stick by
you" (observes that Vivie is trying to keep back her tears).
"Vivie--_darling_--what do you want me to do? Why not marry me and
spend half my income, take the shelter of my name--I'm an A.R.A.
now--You needn't do more than keep house for me.... I'm rather
a valetudinarian--dare say I shan't trouble you long--we
could have a jolly good time before I went off with a heart
attack--travel--study--write books together--"
_Vivie_ (recovering herself): "Thanks, dear Praddy; you are a brick
and I really--in a way--have quite got to love you. Except an office
boy in Chancery Lane and W.T. Stead, I don't know any other decent
man. But I'm not going to marry any one. I'm going to become
Vavasour Williams--the name is rotten, but you must take what you
can get. Williams is a quiet young man who only desires to be left
alone to earn his living respectably at the Bar, and see there if he
cannot redress the balance in the favour of women. But there is
something you _could_ do for me, and it is for that I came to see
you to-day--by the bye, we have both let our tea grow cold, but _for
goodness' sake_ don't order any more on my account, or else your
parlour-maid will be coming in and out and will see that I've been
crying and you look flushed. What I wanted to ask was this--it's
really very simple--_If Mr. Vavasour Williams, aged twenty-four,
late in South Africa, once your pupil in architecture_ or scene
painting or whatever it was--_gives you as a reference to character,
you are to say the best you can of him_. And, by the bye, he will be
calling to see you very shortly and you could lend further
verisimilitude to your story by renewing acquaintance with him. You
will find him very much improved. In every way he will do you
credit. And what is more, if you don't repel him, he will come and
see you much oftener than his cousin--I'm not ashamed to adopt her
as a cousin--Vivie Warren could have done. Because Vivie, with her
deplorable parentage, had your good name to think of, and visited
you very seldom; whereas there could be raised _no_ objection from
your parlour-maid if Mr. D.V. Williams came rather often to chat
with you and ask your advice. Think it over, dear friend--Good-bye."
Early in July, Norie and Vivie were standing at the open west
window in their partners' room at the office, trying to get a little
fresh air. The staff had just gone its several ways to the suburbs,
glad to have three hours of daylight before it for cricket and
tennis. Confident therefore of not being overheard, Vivie began:
"I've got those rooms in Fig Tree Court. I shall soon be ready to
move my things in. I'll leave some of poor Vivie Warren's effects
behind if you don't mind, in case she comes back some day. Do you
think you can rub along if I take my departure next week? I want to
give myself a fortnight's bicycle holiday in Wales--as D.V.
Williams--a kind of honeymoon with Fate, before I settle down as a
law student. After I come back I can devote much of the summer
recess to our affairs, either openly or after office hours. You
could then take a holiday, in August. You badly need one. What about
Beryl?"
_Norie_: "Beryl is well over her accouchement and is confident of
being able to start work here on August 1.... It's a boy this time.
I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether it resembles a policeman
more than an architect. Besides babies up till the age of six months
only resemble macrocephalic idiots.... I shall be _wary_ with
Beryl--haven't committed myself--ourselves to any engagement beyond
six months. She's amazingly clever, but I should say quite
heartless. Two babies in three years, and both illegitimate--the
real Mrs. Architect very much upset, no doubt, Mr. Architect getting
wilder and wilder in his work through trying to maintain two
establishments--they say he left out all the sanitation in Sir Peter
Robinson's new house and let the builders rush up the walls without
damp courses--and it's killing her father, the Dean. It's not as
though she hid herself away, but she goes out so much! They are
talking of turning her out of her club because of the things she
says before the waitresses..."
_Vivie_: "What things?"
_Norie_: "Why, about its being very healthy to have babies when
you're between the ages of twenty and thirty; and how with this
twilight sleep business she doesn't mind how often; that it's fifty
times more interesting than breeding dogs and cats or guinea-pigs;
and she's surprised more single women don't take it up. I think she
must be détraquée.... I have a faint hope that by taking her in hand
and interesting her in our work--which _entre nous deux_--is turning
out to be very profitable--I may sober her and regularize her. No
doubt in 1950 most women will talk as she does to-day, but the
advance is too abrupt. It not only robs _her_ parents of all
happiness, but it upsets _my_ mother. She now wrings her hands over
her own past and fears that by working so strenuously for the
emancipation of women she has assisted to breach the dam--Can't you
imagine the way the old cats of both sexes go on at her?--the dam
which held up female virtue, and that Society now will be drowned in
a flood of Free Love..."
_Vivie_: "Well! We'll give her a six months' trial here, and see if
our mix-up of advice in Law, Banking, Estate management,
Stock-and-share dealing, Divorce, Private Enquiries, probate, etc.,
does not prove _much_ more interesting than an illicit connection
with a hare-brained architect.... If she proves impossible you'll
pack her off and Vivie shall return and D.V. Williams go abroad....
Don't you think there is something that ought to win over Providence
in that happily chosen name? _D.V._ Williams? And my mother once
actually called herself 'Vavasour.'
"Well, then, barring accidents and the unforeseen, it's agreed I go
on my holiday next Saturday, to return never no more--perhaps--?--"
_Norie_ (with a sigh): "Yes!"
_Vivie_: "How's your mother?"
_Norie_: "Oh, as to her, I'm glad to say '_much_ better.' When I
can get away, after the new clerks and Beryl are installed and
everything is going smoothly, I shall take her to Switzerland, to a
deliciously quiet spot I know and nobody else knows up the
Göschenenthal. The Continent won't be so hot for travelling if we
don't start till the end of August..."
_Vivie:_ "_Then_, dearest ... in case you don't come to the office
any more this week, I'll say good-bye--for--for some time..."
(They grip hands, they hesitate, then kiss each other on the cheek,
a very rare gesture on either's part--and separate with tears in
their eyes.)
The following Monday morning, Bertie Adams, combining in his
adolescent person the functions of office boy, junior clerk, and
general factotum, entered the outer office of Fraser and Warren and
found this letter on his desk:--
Fraser and Warren Midland Insurance Chambers,
General Inquiry Agents 88-90, Chancery Lane, W.C.
July 12, 1901.
DEAR BERTIE--
I want to prepare you for something. If you had been an
ordinary Office boy, I should not have bothered about you or
confided to you anything concerning the Firm. But you are by
now almost a clerk, and from the day I joined Miss Fraser in
this business, you have helped me more than you know--helped
me not only in my work, but to understand that there _can_
be good, true, decent-minded, trustworthy ... you won't like
it if I say "boys" ... young men.
I am going away for a considerable time, I cannot say how
long--probably abroad. But Miss Fraser thinks I can still
help in the work of her firm, so I remain a partner. A
cousin of mine, Mr. D.V. Williams, may come in occasionally
to help Miss Fraser. I shall ask him to keep an eye on you.
Miss Rose Mullet and Miss Steynes are likewise leaving the
service of the firm. I dare say you know Miss Mullet is
getting married and how Miss Steynes is going to live at
Aylesbury. Two other ladies are coming in their place, and
much of my own work will be undertaken by a Mrs. Claridge,
whom you will shortly see.
It is rather sad this change in what has been such a happy
association of busy people, nobody treading on any one
else's toes; but there it is! "The old order changeth,
giving place to the new ... lest one good custom should
corrupt the world"--you will read in the Tennyson I gave you
last Christmas. Let's hope it won't be when I return:
"Change and Decay in all around I see" ... as the rather
dismal hymn has it.
Sometimes change is a good thing. You serve a noble mistress
in Miss Fraser and I am sure you realize the importance of
her work. It may mean so much for women's careers in the
next generation. I shan't quite lose touch with you. I dare
say Miss Fraser, even if I am far away, will write to me
from time to time and give me news of the office and tell me
how you get on. Don't be ashamed of being ambitious: keep up
your studies. Why don't you--but perhaps you do?--join
evening classes at the Polytechnic?--or at this new London
School of Economics which is close at hand? Make up your
mind to be Lord Chancellor some day ... even if it only
carries you as far as the silk gown of a Q.C. I suppose I
ought now to write "K.C." A few years ago we all thought the
State would go to pieces when Victoria died. Yet you see we
are jogging along pretty well under King Edward. In the same
way, you will soon get so used to the new Head Clerk, Mrs.
Claridge, that you will wonder what on earth you saw to
admire in
VIVIEN WARREN.
This letter came like a cricket ball between the eyes to Bertie
Adams. His adored Miss Warren going away and no clear prospect of
her return--her farewell almost like the last words on a death-bed....
He bowed his head over his folded arms on his office desk, and
gave way to gruff sobs and the brimming over of tear and nose glands
which is the grotesque accompaniment of human sorrow.
He forgot for a while that he was a young man of nineteen with an
unmistakable moustache and the status of a cricket eleven captain.
He was quite the boy again and his feeling for Vivien Warren, which
earlier he had hardly dared to characterize, out of his intense
respect for her, became once more just filial affection.
His good mother was a washerwoman-widow, in whom Honoria Fraser had
interested herself in her Harley Street girlhood. Bertie was the
eldest of six, and his father had been a coal porter who broke his
back tumbling down a cellar when a little "on." Bertie--he now
figured as Mr. Albert Adams in the cricket lists--was a well-grown
youth, rather blunt-featured, but with honest hazel eyes,
fresh-coloured, shock-haired. Vivie had once derided him for trying
to woo his frontal hair into a flattened curl with much pomade ...
he now only sleeked his curly hair with water. You might even have
called him "common." He was of the type that went out to the War
from 1914 to 1918, and won it, despite the many mistakes of our
flurried strategicians: the type that so long as it lasts unspoilt
will make England the predominant partner, and Great Britain the
predominant nation; the type out of which are made the bluejacket
and petty officer, the police sergeant, the engine driver, the
railway guard, solicitor's clerk, merchant service mate, engineer,
air-pilot, chauffeur, army non-commissioned officer, head gardener,
head game-keeper, farm-bailiff, head printer; the trustworthy
manservant, the commissionaire of a City Office; and which in other
avatars ran the British World on an average annual income of £150
before the War. When women of a similar educated lower middle class
come into full equality with men in opportunity, they should marry
the Bertie Adamses of their acquaintance and not the stockbrokers,
butchers, drapers, bookies, professional cricketers or pugilists.
They would then become the mothers of the salvation-generation of
the British people which will found and rule Utopia.
However, Bertie Adams was quite unconscious of all these
possibilities, and thought of himself modestly, rather cheaply.
Swallowing the fourth or fifth sob, he rose from his crouching over
the desk, wiped his face with a wet towel, smoothed his hair, put
straight his turn-over collar and smart tie, and went to his work
with glowing eyes and cheeks; resolved to show Miss Warren that she
had not thought too highly of him.
Nevertheless, when Miss Mullet arrived and giggled over the details
of her trousseau and Lily Steynes discussed the advertisements of
Aylesbury ducks in the current _Exchange and Mart_, he was reserved
and rather sarcastic with them both. He intimated later that he had
long been aware of the coming displacements; but he said not a word
of Vivie's letter.