DEAREST MARJORIE,--It is really quite time you gave me some more of your
valuable advice. Thanks to you, I was not such an utter failure in my
first season as I expected. After a month at home (my people _loathe_
the new way I do my hair, and it seemed, I am ashamed to say, a _little_
dull there), I have come to stay again with the LYON TAYMERS at their
country house.
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You remember I refused the man who did conjuring tricks? He has written
to me since to say he sees now how right I was--rather crushing! I also
fully _intended_ to refuse Captain MASHINGTON. But he went to Dinard
without giving me the opportunity, and I hear he has been playing tennis
there the _whole_ day with Mrs. LORNE HOPPER. I am sure I hope he
enjoyed it. She is what you or I would consider rather old, but is said
to be perfectly charming, and of course looks fifteen years younger than
her youngest daughter.
It seems rather strange, doesn't it, MARJORIE, that after being so
wonderfully sensible all the season, I should suddenly do something
quite idiotic in September? However, I _have_; and I want you to help me
out of it. I'll tell you _all_, if you'll promise not to laugh. When I
first came, I was "thrown," as people say, a good deal with the TAYMER'S
nephew--ORIEL CRAMPTON who has just left Oxford. I was told he was very
serious, rather shy, philanthropic, and has "views"; also that he had
done a great deal of good in the West End. This interested me, and I
tried to draw him out. They had omitted to mention that he was
dreadfully susceptible. We talked for _hours_ in the garden, nearly all
the time--at first--about the housing of the rich and horrible cases of
over-crowding--at London parties. He was very earnest and ascetic (he
never drinks anything but hot water, and doesn't smoke); he lent me
books--he is rather handsome--and--gradually--somehow I found I had
drifted into an absurd sort of private half-engagement! Yes--I have
actually a bangle _rivetted on_--with a date inside--the date I was
insane enough to agree----Isn't it dreadful?
ORIEL will be well off, but he intends to spend all his money on
founding model slums, where the people are to be teetotallers and do
bootmaking or something, and be a happy little colony. ORIEL'S views may
necessitate his doing a little cobbling himself--just to set an example.
I was enormously impressed by this at first; but I am afraid I have
become frivolous again. Some other people have come here, including a
nice boy they call BABY BEAUMONT. He is really almost nineteen, but
wonderfully well preserved, very clever, and so cynical that he is quite
an optimist. Almost directly, he asked me how long I had known ORIEL
CRAMPTON. I said about a fortnight. "Ah! then you must be engaged to
him. Poor old ORIEL! He's really quite extraordinarily old-fashioned."
"How old is he?" I asked, in faltering tones.
"He has rather a way of pretending to be young, I fancy. But he must be
four-and-twenty if he is a day. You need not say I told you."
It's evidently the fashion to be _very young_--for men, at least.
Sometimes I wish it were the fashion to be old enough to know better. If
ORIEL really _has_ been engaged before, and may be again, and if getting
engaged to people is only a sort of habit of his, perhaps he would not
mind so very much if I were to break it off.
BABY BEAUMONT is (he says himself) "frankly Pagan." He thinks ORIEL too
serious for me, and advises me to marry at leisure, as I am quite sure,
anyhow, to repent in haste. He wanted to send a paragraph to the _Post_
to say "A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly be broken off,
between Mr. ORIEL CRAMPTON and Miss GLADYS MAYFIELD, younger daughter,"
and so on.
Last night, when we were playing games, ORIEL went out while we thought
of a word, and he got quite angry with me because I had said the moon
was "vegetable" and _he_ said it was "mineral." He may be right, or he
may not--I daresay he is--but still he need not be touchy, and refuse to
play any more, and sulk all the evening.
I am afraid I should not be happy with him. He collects postage stamps,
too, which depresses me dreadfully.
_Please_ write and tell me what to do--or rather, how to do it. Can one
get a bangle _rivetted off_?... I have just heard that the LORNE HOPPERS
and Captain MASHINGTON are coming to play tennis on Sunday! Of course, I
shall show absolute indifference. I wired at once to town for my new
dress. Mrs. HOPPER may as well see it.
BABY BEAUMONT is always changing his clothes, and has two button-holes
sent down from London daily. He says he "intends to revive the
gardenia."... ORIEL has just gone out for a "_brisk walk before
dinner_." Aren't we _utterly_ unsuited to each other?
Your loving friend,