CONCERNING A CERTAIN CHINA VASE
At this point Trix Trevalla's fortunes impose on us a timid advance into
the highest regions, where she herself trod with an unaccustomed foot.
Her reception was on the whole gratifying. The Barmouths could not
indeed be entirely pleased when their only son proposed to make a match
so far from brilliant; but after all the Trevallas were gentlefolk, and
(a more important point) the Barmouths had such a reverence for Mervyn
that he might have imitated the rashness of King Cophetua without
encountering serious opposition. His parents felt that he ennobled what
he touched, and were willing to consider Trix as ennobled accordingly.
They were very exclusive people, excluding among other things, as it
sometimes seemed, a good deal of what chanced to be entertaining and
amusing. It does not, however, do to quarrel with anybody's ideal of
life; it is simpler not to share it.
Roguish nature had created Lord Barmouth very short, stout, and
remarkably unimposing; he made these disadvantages vanish by a manner of
high dignity not surpassed even by his tall and majestic wife. They had
a very big house in Kent, within easy reach of London, and gave
Saturday-to-Monday parties, where you might meet the people you had met
in London during the week. There was a large hall with marble pillars
round it, excellently adapted for lying in state, rather chilly perhaps
if it were considered as a family hearth; Lord Barmouth was fond of
walking his guests up and down this hall, and telling them what was
going to happen to the country--at least, what would, if it were not for
Mortimer.
'On the whole I'd sooner go to the dogs and not have Mortimer,' Lady
Blixworth had declared after one of these promenades.
The Glentorlys, Lady Blixworth and Audrey Pollington, three or four
men--Constantine Blair among them--Mrs. Bonfill, Trix herself, and
Mervyn, all came down in a bunch on Saturday evening--a few days after
Trix had promised to marry Mervyn, but before any formal announcement
had been made. The talk ran much on Beaufort Chance: he was pitied and
condemned; he was also congratulated on his resignation--that was the
proper thing to do. When this was said, glances turned to Mrs. Bonfill.
She was discreet, but did not discourage the tacit assumption that she
had been somehow concerned, and somehow deserved credit.
'It is vital--vital--to make an example in such cases,' said Barmouth at
dinner. He had a notion that the force of an idea was increased by
reiterating the words which expressed it.
'We naturally feel great relief,' said Mervyn. (By 'We' he meant the
Ministry.)
'It's straining a point to let him stay in the House,' declared
Glentorly.
'The seat's shaky,' murmured Constantine Blair. Mervyn's eye accused him
of saying the wrong thing.
Trix, from conscience or good-nature, began to feel sorry for Beaufort
Chance.
'Resist the beginnings--the beginnings,' said Lord Barmouth. 'The habit
of speculation is invading all classes.'
'Public men, at least, must make a stand,' Mervyn declared.
The corners of Lady Blixworth's mouth were drooping in despair. 'What I
go through for that girl Audrey!' she was thinking, for she had refused
a most pleasant little dinner- and theatre party in town. She was not in
a good temper with Trix Trevalla, but all the same she shot her a
glance of understanding and sympathy.
'Now persons like this Fricker are pests--pests,' pursued Barmouth.
'Oh, Mr. Fricker's really a very good-natured man,' protested Trix, who
was on her host's left hand.
'You know him, Mrs. Trevalla?' Lord Barmouth did not conceal his
surprise.
'Oh, yes!'
'Mrs. Trevalla knows him just slightly, father,' said Mervyn.
Lord Barmouth attained a frigid amiability as he said with a smile:
'Used to know him, perhaps you'll say now?'
'That's better, Trix, isn't it?' smiled Mrs. Bonfill.
Lady Blixworth's satirical smile met Trix across the table. Trix felt
mean when she did no more than laugh weakly in response to Barmouth's
imperious suggestion. She understood what Lady Blixworth meant.
'If we cut everybody who's disreputable,' observed that lady sweetly,
'we can all live in small houses and save up for the Death Duties.'
'You're joking, Viola!' Lady Barmouth complained; she was almost sure of
it.
'For my part, if Mr. Fricker will put me on to a good thing--isn't that
the phrase, Mortimer?--I shall be very grateful and ask him to
dinner--no, lunch; he can come to that without Mrs. Fricker. Why, you
used to stand up for them, Sarah!'
'Things are different now,' said Mrs. Bonfill, with a touch of severity.
'Mrs. Bonfill means that circumstances have changed--changed
completely,' Lord Barmouth explained.
'I thought she must mean that,' murmured Lady Blixworth, gratefully.
'You can't touch pitch without being defiled--defiled,' remarked Lord
Barmouth, with an unpleasantly direct look at Trix. Everybody nodded
with a convinced air.
'That's right, Barmouth,' said Sir Stapleton Stapleton-Staines, a
gentleman with a good estate in that part of the country. 'In my opinion
that's right.'
That being settled, Lady Barmouth rose.
Next morning, after church (everybody went except Lady Blixworth, who
had announced on going to bed that she would have a headache until
lunch), Mervyn took Trix for a walk round the place. It was then, for
the first time, her fright wearing off, that the truth of the position
flashed on her in all its brilliance. She was no mere Saturday-to-Monday
visitor; she had come to see what was to be her home; she was to be
mistress of it all some day. Mervyn's words, and his manner still more,
asserted this and reminded her of it every moment: the long stately
façade of the house, the elaborate gardens, the stretches of immemorial
turf, all the spacious luxury of the pleasure-grounds, every fountain,
every statue, he pointed out, if not exactly for her approval, yet as if
she had a right to an account of them, and was to be congratulated on
their excellence. 'I have a great deal to give--look at it all. I give
it all to you!' Some such words summarise roughly Mervyn's tone and
demeanour. Trix grew eager and excited as the fumes of greatness mounted
to her head; she hugged the anticipation of her splendour. What a
victory it was! Think of the lodging-houses, the four years with Vesey
Trevalla, the _pensions_, think even of the flat--the flat and the
debts--and then look round on this! Was not this the revenge indeed?
And the price? She had learnt enough of the world now to be getting into
the way of expecting a price. But it seemed very light here. She liked
Mervyn, and not much more than that degree of feeling seemed to be
expected of her. He was fond of kissing her hand in a rather formal
fashion; when he kissed her cheek there was a hint of something that she
decided to call avuncular. No display of passion was asked from her. All
she had to do was to be a particularly good girl; in view of the manner
of the whole family towards her, she could not resist that way of
putting it. So long as she was a good girl they would be very kind to
her. 'But we can't have pranks--pranks,' she seemed to hear her future
father-in-law declaring. Against pranks they would be very firm. Like
speculation, like the Frickers, pranks might invade every class of
society, but they would find no countenance from the house of Barmouth.
Well, pranks are a small part of life, after all. One may like to think
of a few as possible, but they are surely of no great moment. Trix
thoroughly understood the gently congratulatory manner which the company
assumed towards her. Audrey Pollington was wistfully and almost openly
envious; she sat between two fountains, looking at the house and
announcing that she would ask no more than to sit there always. Mrs.
Bonfill, who could never be in a big house without seeming to own it,
showed Trix all over this one, and kissed her twice during the process.
Lord Barmouth himself walked her round and round the hall after lunch,
and told her a family reminiscence for each several pillar that they
passed. Only in Lady Blixworth's eyes did Trix find an expression that
might be malice, or, on the other hand, conceivably might be pity. A
remark she made to Trix as they sat together in the garden favoured the
latter view, although, of course, the position of affairs tended to
support the former.
'I suppose you haven't had enough of it yet to feel anything of the
kind,' she said, 'but, for my part, sometimes I feel as if I should like
to get drunk, run out into the road in my petticoat, and scream!'
'I don't think Lord Barmouth would let you come back again,' laughed
Trix.
'I suppose Sarah's trained you too well. Look at Sarah! It wasn't forced
on her; she needn't have had it! She would have it, and she loves it.'
'There's a great deal to love in it,' said Trix, looking round her.
'Everything, my dear, except one single fandango! Now I love a
fandango. So I go about looking as if I'd never heard of one.' She
turned to Trix. 'I shouldn't wonder if you loved a fandango too?'
'I haven't had many,' said Trix, it must be owned with regret.
'No, and you won't now,' remarked Lady Blixworth.
There was no use in keeping up the fiction of a secret.
'I shall have to be very good indeed,' smiled Trix.
'Oh, it's just splendid for you, of course!' The natural woman and the
trained one were at issue in Lady Blixworth's heart. 'And I daresay one
might love Mortimer. Don't be hurt--I'm only speculating.'
'He's everything that's good, and distinguished, and kind.'
Lady Blixworth looked round cautiously, smiled at Trix, and remarked
with the utmost apparent irrelevance, 'Fol-de-rol!'
Then they both laughed.
'Hush! here comes Sarah! Don't look thoughtful, or she'll kiss you.
Kisses are a remedy for thought sometimes, but not Sarah's.'
Trix did not regard the absence of pranks and fandangoes as an
inseparable accident of high degree--there facts might have confuted
her--but it certainly seemed the most striking characteristic of the
particular exalted family to which she was to belong. The guests left on
Monday; Trix remained for the week, alone with her prospective
relations. Mervyn ran up to his office two or three times, but he was
not wanted in the House, and was most of the time at Barslett, as the
place was called. Everything was arranged; the engagement was to be
announced immediately; Trix was in the house on the footing of a
daughter. For some reason or another she was treated--she could not deny
it--rather like a prodigal daughter; even her lover evidently thought
that she had a good deal to learn and quite as much to forget. All the
three were industrious people, all wanted her to understand their work,
all performed it with an unconcealed sense of merit. Lord Barmouth was
a churchman and a farmer; Lady Barmouth was a politician and a
housekeeper; Mervyn, besides going to be Prime Minister, was meditating
a Life of Burke. 'One never need be idle in the country,' Barmouth used
to say. To Trix's mind he went far to rob the country of its main
attraction. She felt that she would have bartered a little splendour
against a little more liveliness. Was this to repent of her bargain? No,
in truth! She was always giving thanks that she had done so
magnificently, got out of all her troubles, sailed prosperously into a
haven so ample and so sure. Yet Lady Blixworth's untutored impulse
recurred to her now and then, and met with a welcoming smile of
sympathy. Airey Newton and Peggy Ryle came into her mind too, on
occasion; their images were dismissed with a passing sigh.
What annoyed her most was that she found her courage failing. The high
spirit that had defied Beaufort Chance, braved Fricker, and treated
almost on equal terms with Mrs. Bonfill, seemed cowed by the portentous
order, decorum, usefulness, industry, and piety that now encircled her
in a ring-fence of virtue. Day by day she became more afraid of this
august couple and their even more august son, her lover and chosen
husband. She had said that she must be a good girl in fun at first, as a
burlesque on their bearing towards her. Really truth threatened to
overtake the burlesque and make it rather fall short of than exaggerate
or caricature her feelings. She would never dare to rebel, to disregard,
or to question. She would be good--and she would be good because she
would be afraid to be anything else. Of course the world would know
nothing of that--it would see only the splendour--but she would know it
always. Under the fine robes there would be golden chains about her
feet. If her ideal of life had demanded freedom besides everything else,
it was like to share the fate of most ideals.
'Oh, if I had the courage to defy them! Perhaps I shall when I'm
married!'
No, she feared that she never would--not thoroughly, nor without a
quaking heart at least. Not because they were particularly wise or
clever, or even supernaturally good. Rather because they were so
established, so buttressed by habit, so entrenched by the tradition of
their state. Defiance would seem rebellion and sacrilege in one. Trix
had no difficulty in imagining any one of the three ordering her to bed;
and (oh, worst humiliation!) she knew that in such a case she would go,
and go in frightened tears. Such an absurd state of mind as this was
intolerably vexatious.
'When you were a boy, were you afraid of your father and mother?' she
asked Mervyn once.
'Afraid!' He laughed. 'I never remember having the least difference with
either of them.'
That was it; nobody ever would have any differences in that family.
'I'm rather afraid of them,' she confessed. When he smiled again she
added, 'And of you too.'
'How silly!' he said gently. It was, however, tolerably plain that he
was neither surprised nor displeased. He took the fear to which she
owned as a natural tribute to the superiority of the family, a playful
feminine way which she chose to express her admiration and respect. He
kissed her affectionately--as if she had been very good. No doubt, if
there were bed when necessary, there would, on suitable occasions, be
sugar-plums too. To Trix Trevalla, erstwhile rebel, gaoler, wanderer,
free-lance, the whole thing seemed curiously like a second childhood,
very different from her first, and destined to continue through her
life.
'It'll make a slave or a liar of me, I know,' she thought. But she
thought also that, if she spoke to Lady Blixworth in that vein, she
would be asked on what grounds she expected to escape the common lot. It
would probably make her both a liar and a slave, Lady Blixworth would
say with her languid smile; but then the compensations! Even Lady
Blixworth's wild impulse was admittedly only occasional, whereas she had
a standing reputation for refinement and elegance.
An example of what was going to happen all her life occurred on the
last day of her visit, the last day, too, before the world was to hail
her as the future Lady Mervyn. She was sitting by Mervyn, reading a book
while he wrote. The post came in, and there was a letter for her. While
he attacked his pile, she began on her one. It was from Fricker. A quick
glance assured her that Mervyn's attention was fully occupied.
Mr. Fricker's letter opened very cordially and ran to a considerable
length. It was concerned with Dramoffskys, and told her that he had sold
her holding, considering that step on the whole the wisest thing in her
interest. Owing, however, to a great variety of unforeseen events--more
rumours, new complications, further anxiety as to what the Tsar meant to
do--he regretted to inform her that he had for once miscalculated the
course of the market. Dramoffskys had fallen rather severely; he would
not take the responsibility of saying whether or when they would be
likely to rise to the price at which she had bought--much less go
higher. They would be worse before they were better--long before--was
the conclusion at which he arrived with regret. So that in fine, and
omitting many expressions of sorrow, it came to this: out of her five
thousand pounds he was in a position to hand back only a sum of 2,301l.
5s. 11d., which amount he had had the pleasure of paying to her account
at her bank. 'I will advise you subsequently as to Glowing Stars,' he
ended, but Trix had no thoughts to spare for Glowing Stars.
The blow was very severe. She had counted on a big profit, she was faced
with a heavy loss. She did not suspect Fricker's good faith, but was
aghast at her own bad luck.
'How horrible!' she exclaimed aloud, letting the letter fall in her lap.
Even for a moment more she forgot that she was sitting by Mervyn.
'What's the matter, dear?' he asked, turning round. 'No bad news in your
letter, I hope?'
'No, nothing serious, nothing serious,' she stammered, making a hasty
clutch at the two big type-written sheets of paper.
'Are you sure? Tell me about it. You must tell me all your troubles.'
He stretched out his hand and pressed hers. She crumpled up the letter.
'It's nothing, really nothing, Mortimer.'
'Do you cry out "How horrible!" about nothing?' His smile was playful;
such a course of conduct would be plainly unreasonable. 'Whom is it
from?' he asked.
'It's from my servant, to tell me she's broken a china vase I'm very
fond of,' said Trix in a smooth voice, quite fluently, her eyes fixed on
Mervyn in innocent grief and consternation.
Fortunately he was not an observant man. He had noticed neither the
typewriting nor Trix's initial confusion. He patted her hand, then drew
it to him and kissed it, saying with a laugh:--
'I'm glad it's no worse. You looked so frightened.' Then he turned back
to his letters.
Presently Trix escaped into the garden in a tempest of rage at herself.
She was thinking no more of the treacherous conduct of Dramoffskys, but
of herself.
'That's what I shall always do!' she exclaimed to the trim lawns and the
sparkling fountains, to the stately façade that was some day to salute
her as its mistress. 'How easily I did it, how naturally!' She came to a
pause. 'I'll go in and tell him.' She took a step or two towards the
house, but stopped again. 'No, I can't now.' She turned away, saying
aloud, 'I daren't!'
The thought flashed into her mind that he would be very easy to deceive.
It brought no comfort. And if he ever found out! She must end all
connection with Fricker, anyhow. She could not have such an inevitable
source of lies about her as that business meant.
'How easily I did it!' she reflected to herself again in a sort of
horror.
Mervyn told the story at dinner, rallying Trix on her exaggerated
consternation over the news. Lady Barmouth took up the cudgels for her,
maintaining a housewife's view of the importance and preciousness of
household possessions. Lord Barmouth suggested that perhaps the vase
was an heirloom, and asked Trix how she became possessed of it, what was
it like, what ware, what colour, what size, and so forth. Thence they
passed, under Lady Barmouth's guidance, to the character of the servant,
to her previous record in the matter of breakages, comparing her
incidentally in this and other respects with a succession of servants
who had been at Barslett. Steadily and unfalteringly, really with great
resource and dexterity, Trix equipped both servant and vase with
elaborate histories and descriptions, and agreed with the suggestion
that the vase might perhaps be mended, and that the servant must be at
least seriously warned as to what would happen in the event of such a
thing ever occurring again. The topic with its ramifications lasted
pretty well through the meal, Trix imagining all the time every sort of
unlikely catastrophe which might possibly result in her dressing-case
falling into the hands of the family and Mr. Fricker's letter being
discovered therein.
Well, there was nothing for it; she must be good. If she would not go on
lying, she must obey. There was some of the old hardness about her eyes
and her lips as she came to this conclusion. She was not, after all,
accustomed to having everything just as she liked. That had been only a
dream, inspired by Airey Newton's words at Paris; when put to the test
of experience, it had not borne the strain. She was to belong to the
Barmouths, to be admitted to that great family; she would pay her dues.
She was very sweet to Mervyn that evening; there was a new submission in
her manner, a strong flavour of the dutiful wife. From afar Lord
Barmouth marked it with complacency and called his wife's attention to
it.
'Yes, and I liked her for thinking so much about her vase, poor child,'
said Lady Barmouth.
'In my opinion she will be a success--a success,' said he. 'After all,
we might have been sure that Mortimer would make a suitable choice.'
'Yes, and Sarah Bonfill thoroughly approves.'
Lord Barmouth's expression implied that Mrs. Bonfill's approval might
be satisfactory, but could not be considered essential. In such matters
the family was a sufficient law unto itself.
The next day Trix went up to town. At the station Mervyn gave her a copy
of the 'Times' containing the announcement that a marriage had been
arranged between them. His manner left nothing to be desired--by any
reasonable person at least; and he promised to come and see her on his
way to the House next day. Trix steamed off with the 'Times' in her
hand, and the hum of congratulation already sounding in her expectant
ears.
She lay back in the railway carriage, feeling tired but content--too
tired, perhaps, to ask whence came her content. The hum of
congratulation, of course, had something to do with it. Had escaping
from Barslett something to do with it too? Lazily she gave up the
problem, threw the 'Times' aside, and went to sleep.
When the train was nearing London, she awoke with a start. She had been
having visions again; they had come while she slept--strange mixtures of
the gay restaurant and of dingy Danes Inn; a room where Airey Newton
smoked his pipe, where the only sound was of Peggy Ryle's heart-whole
laughter; a dream of irresponsibility and freedom. She laughed at
herself as she awoke, caught up the paper again, and re-read that
important announcement. There lay reality; have done with figments! And
what a magnificent reality it was! She stepped out on to the platform at
Charing Cross with conscious dignity.
At the flat it rained telegrams; from everybody they came--from the
Bonfills, the Glentorlys--yes, and the Farringhams; from crowds of
less-known people. There was one from Viola Blixworth, and there was one
from Peggy Ryle. She accorded this last the recognition of a little
sigh. Then she went to dress for a dinner party. Her entry into the
drawing-room that evening would be the first-fruits of her triumph. She
thought no more about the china vase.