THEO SITS UP
Yes! It was all of a piece with the fiascoes of the day that my little
watch gained ten minutes, hurrying me through my dressing and down,
before I’d any need for such haste, into the drawing-room.
Here, big and black-and-white against the giant pink roses of the chintz
couch, I found (as I needn’t have hoped not to find, on this day of
_contretemps_!) my employer alone.
He sprang to his feet, of course, and wheeled forward a chair for
me (looking as if he wished he could have pushed it and me through
the French windows and out of the house for ever!—Goodness knows I
reciprocated that wish!) and I sat down.
Then ensued what I’m beginning to call to myself “one of our pauses.”
But I felt that this evening my nerves wouldn’t stand silence—that
nothing could float me over these quicksands of awkwardness but an
unceasing ripple of small-talk. If _he_ wouldn’t, I must say something;
anything! The first thing that came into my head!
“H—how close it is! Do you think there will be thunder to-night?”
There was suppressed thunder enough on his face as he answered politely:
“It is getting rather stifling. Perhaps you would like the window open?”
and he rose and walked across to it.
Then, from under the chintz valance of the couch where he’d been sitting,
there emerged at small and cringing form with an enormous white satin bow
tied to his collar.
“Poor Cariad!” I went on, patting the unusually subdued little dog, “you
_have_ got a smart new tie! Don’t you like it?”
A one-sided conversation didn’t meet the case, so the “dumb animal” (as
they call it) gave me the cue for my next remark to the almost equally
dumb human being.
“I’ve always wanted to know where he got his rather curious name,” I
said. “What _does_ it mean?”
“It’s Welsh,” explained my employer abruptly, still standing by the open
window. “It means ‘Sweetheart’”—if you must know, his tone concluded.
“Oh.... Is he a Welsh terrier?”
“We got him from Wales. From a little place in Anglesey where my people
sometimes go for the summer holidays,” my employer vouchsafed, with an
effort. “Porth Cariad the name of it is—‘Port Sweetheart.’”
“Fancy calling a _place_ that!” I took up, with the one idea of keeping
this conversation from coming to a dead stop. “But some people call
_anything_ that!” (I was wondering inwardly what this last remark could
possibly mean even as I went on.) “Is it by the sea?”
“Er—I think so.”
“Oh, yes; ports generally are, of course.... Is it—is it a _pretty_ place
at all?”
“Quite. It hasn’t been spoilt yet. Charming little bay. The usual sort of
thing.” (Pause.)
“Yes—? _Do_ tell me about it!”
“Oh! I don’t know—There are about two cottages. No end of gorse—heather.”
“How lovely!” Then, scenting another pause, I hurried on—“Isn’t there
anything _else_ there?”
“Well—There’s a sort of woman.”
“A woman? Really? How interesting! What sort of a woman?”
“Oh, a _wooden_ one,” returned the Governor, who was too obviously
thinking about something else. A wooden woman! What _could_ he mean
by it? But before I could begin my next question the door opened; the
Governor turned quickly, then, seeing who came in, he exclaimed in
accents of concentrated disgust:
“Theo! Isn’t it time you were in bed?”
“No! Because I’m not going! I’m going to sit up for dinner, just for this
once!” announced the child, triumphantly advancing upon us in a Prize-Day
“effect” of let-down white skirts and long, cream-silk-stockinged legs.
“I asked Mother, and that nice old man” (Poor Major Montresor!) “begged
her to let me, and I may! So there! Nancy, _don’t_ you like the way I’ve
done my hair for it?”
She had tied a fillet of white satin—a bit of the same ribbon which was
disconcerting Cariad—about her short curls.
“What’s that for? To keep your brains from bursting through?” demanded
her brother crossly. But Theodora only tossed that yellow posy of a head
of hers, retorting that Major Montresor thought she was sixteen, and was
going to sit next her, and that there would be a _surprise_ at dinner!
* * * * *
The surprise—or the series of surprises—didn’t dawn upon me in its full
hideousness all at once.
In the dim-shaded dining-room, where the tall maids flitted noiselessly
to and from the hatch at one end, the round table about which the
seven of us sat down seemed, with its many candles in the curving arms
of Sheffield candlesticks, its gleaming white porcelain, and its
winking, patterned array of silver and cut glass, like some great oasis
of softly-radiant light. Upon it, as table-centre, there was set the
silver-bordered pool of an oval mirror, reflecting a large silver goblet,
round which I could read part of the inscription:
1896
FIFTY YARDS SWIM——
SECS. 6——
W. WAT——
that upheld a pyramid of creamy, perfumed blossom, softened with sprays
of feathery white. Budding spikes of the same blossom were massed about
the pedestals of four little winged Loves, offering baskets that held
tiny bouquets of the white sprays, mingled with chocolates wrapped up
in silver-foil. Gradually but surely I realized the effect of all this
decoration; it was indescribably, unmistakably, blatantly—_bridal_!
And then I realized who was responsible for it. That gift of Heaven,
Theodora, was beaming upon her handiwork.
It must have been her innocent hands, too, that had tied up each
table-napkin with a white bow and a spray of buds; had cut silver-paper
out of a chocolate-box into the miniature horseshoes that lay strewn
negligently but broadcast all over the tablecloth; and had encircled the
place where I sat with a wreath of crystallized rose-leaves in the shape
of a heart.
With one frantic sweep of my hand I brushed these last into the
table-napkin on my lap. I must pretend I’d noticed nothing, and then
(though I knew that thunder-cloud was deepening every moment on the
Governor’s brow) perhaps the others really _wouldn’t_ notice!
Vain hope!
It was dashed even before the two usually so sedate maids, who seemed,
this evening, to emanate some subtle atmosphere of sympathy and giggle,
had finished handing round the soup.
“Dear me! Who arranged the flowers like this?” murmured Mrs. Waters, with
a mildly bewildered glance at this white-and-silver display. “I thought
Blanche was going to have just the little crystal tubs with the pink
Maman Cochets and some maidenhair fern?”
“Yes, Mumsie, I was. But Theo _would_ put white heather and syringa!”
“Because—Oh, can’t you see _why?_” broke in the cornet voice of the
youngest of the family, who sat between me and the Major.
And before anyone could answer or check her, this appalling child went on
to give chapter and verse for each of her enormities.
“It’s because, you see, syringa’s so awfully like orange-blossoms!—They
call it ‘mock orange!’ And I meant it for Billy and Nancy!”
She paused for breath (so did everybody else), then she hurried on.
“Yes! I did the table, because I wanted it to be appropriate! So I took
away those everyday bon-bon dishes and fetched out these little china
Cupids to hold the choc’lates instead! _Aren’t_ they ducky?”
No one responded, but every eye was upon Theo, who took it all for
approval and beamed again, enlarging upon her arrangements.
“And that’s why I got Nancy to put on her white satin”—
(_Ah!_)
—“with those lace lilies round her front, so’s she could look more like a
_bride_!”
(What I did look like at that moment I don’t know. But the Governor
couldn’t have looked more like the executioner in a cloak-and-dagger film
drama.)
“And _do_ you see the confetti, of those teeny silver horseshoes, and the
pink rose-leaves strewn over—Oh, Nancy!”—reproachfully—“_Look_ what’s
happened to the Heart! And that was supposed to be Billy’s!”
Here I saw the mouth of Uncle Albert, who was sitting facing me at Mrs.
Waters’ right hand, open in readiness for that approving bellow of his.
“Never mind, I’ll make another. I _wanted_ to do it all like this the
first evening she came down,” explained Theo further. “Only, of course,
we weren’t quite sure then whether she’d like it—”
(_Like_ it!)
—“but it _was_ all my idea!”
_Then_ came the bellow of laughter, and—“A jolly good idea too, Kiddie!”
from the other of my employer’s “loud relations,” his odious uncle. “Very
pretty, Theo!”
“Yes, I thought it would be rather sweet! Doesn’t _Billy_?” said the
child, with a half-defiant look towards the Head of the House, who
looked—there is no denying it—as if he were longing to kick someone.
He _did_ kick—a smothered yelp from under the table told me what. He
had vented some of his feelings upon the little dog whose name meant
“Sweetheart” in Welsh—who came from that port—one of those by the sea!
where there are two cottages and a wooden woman—whatever that meant! The
taller of the parlour-maids, handing lobster _soufflé_ to her master,
wasn’t wooden enough, nor quick enough in repressing her smile.
A glare of reproof was her portion as he refused the dish, and a
peremptory, “Move that—er—thing. It’s in the way!” with a jerk towards
the silver pot that held the spraying conservatory plant.
“_Oh_, what a shame!” protested Theo loudly, as this emblem was borne
away. “And I’d specially _put_ it so that it _shouldn’t_ be in his way
when he wanted to look at Nancy!”
“‘_Comes there much more of it?_’” I quoted to myself, but I caught
Major Montresor’s eye; he was looking puzzled, almost sorry for me! And
that nerved me up to laughing (I flatter myself, quite naturally!) as I
murmured to Theo that she was a sentimental little goose!
“Sentimental? A good thing if she is!” took up Theo’s irrepressible
uncle. “I like it. In these highly-educated days it’s a good sign! Yes,
I like to see the young folks still taking an interest in watching a
real Romance, instead of stuffing up their heads with nothing but mixed
hockey and hunger-strikes and rubbish of that sort! That never brought a
girl a sweetheart yet, _did_ it, Mary? _Does_ it, Nancy? And that’s all a
girl’s there for, when you get down to bedrock. I may be a bit behind the
times——”
As he was the only person talking at the table, he was considerably
“behind” with his dinner. Unheeding, he discoursed on all through the
_entrée_ and the saddle of mutton.
“Yes! I may be hackneyed and old-fashioned, but that’s what I feel. What
do you say, Major?”
What chance had the Major of saying anything? The whole conversation had
been pretty equally divided between the two _enfants terribles_—the girl
of thirteen and the man of sixty.
“Plenty of Romance in our young days! All over for us now! Still, we
enjoy seeing the rising generation keep it up! Good luck to ’em. White
heather for luck, eh? Yes, yes! Must have one of those little sprigs in
my button-hole—memento of a very happy occasion!—Bless my soul, everybody
finished except me? I talk too much, ha-ha!—must get on.”
He went on eating very quickly, talking between mouthfuls.
“‘Mock-orange,’ eh? Capital! Hope it won’t be long before we all see
_real_ orange-blossom, a wreath of it, round the pretty head of a certain
young lady in white! Yes! dash it all, Mary, I must drink that in
champagne.”
He took champagne.
So did I. I felt I was going to need it!
Mrs. Waters let it foam and sizzle into her glass; Blanche, though
murmuring that the horrid stuff always reminded her of seltzer-water
that the knives had been washed in, sipped at it for the sake of
the “occasion.” Major Montresor took it—reverting afterwards to his
invariable whisky and soda.
The only “grown-up” who didn’t take it was my employer. Still Waters
refused his usual peg and drank plain water.
Every now and then he seemed to be making spasmodic efforts to remember
that he had guests under his roof; but they weren’t successful! This
added to my discomfort! I saw his mother glance at him, but only once,
and with a half-humorous little smile! Didn’t she _mind_ the fact of
the host remaining well over the verge of unmitigated sulks? Apparently
not! Possibly she’s seen him in his tantrums before now—even though she
didn’t know the reason of these! I was feeling almost thankful that one
of the guests was such a host in himself; thankful, up to a point, for
Theo’s gusto! For the child who was “sitting-up” grew more excited as
each course was handed round. With her rose-flushed cheeks, her tossed
curls from which the white fillet had slipped crookedly down over one
eyebrow, her roving brown gaze, and her giggling spirits that raced
higher and higher with the bubbles in the glasses (of the others), she
was the model of an infant Bacchante. “Sitting-up!” It was her wretched
brother whom she was causing to sit up, and his still more wretched
official _fiancée_! The only thing to do was for both of us to rise to
the situation. Only he wouldn’t—or couldn’t. So, once more _I_ had to.
There is after all a certain relief in feeling you’ve reached the climax
of all things, and that Fate _cannot_ have anything worse in store!
And this I _did_ feel when Uncle Albert, having tossed off his toast,
expressed a wish to know what sort of place the young folks fancied for
their honeymoon.
“Oh, the Riviera!” was what I rushed into the breach with here. “It
would be so glorious to see palms and flowering oleanders, and casinos,
and scent all growing wild!—I mean the Parma violets for it—against a
brilliant blue sea—such a treat to see a really bright blue bay and
golden sunshine in the middle of winter——”
“Winter?” put in Uncle Albert quite indignantly. “But my dear, we’re well
on into June now; you aren’t going to keep this poor Billy of yours”—with
a wave of the hand towards the head of the table—“waiting for his wedding
till November or December, _surely_?”
“Oh—er—why not?—we thought so.”
“We thought—that is, Miss—er—_she_ said,” blurted out the Governor
desperately, “that a year’s engagement was——”
“Far too long, my boy!” interrupted his uncle peremptorily, “far too
long! Don’t you give in to her about that! Why wait, Billy? What the
dickens is there to wait _for_? (What’s this—ice? No, thanks.) Why, when
I was a fine young fellow of your age, if I’d got a bonnie girl like that
to look kindly at me, and enough money to keep her in style, I’d not have
rested until I’d clapped a plain gold ring on the top of those diamonds
on her finger. Nothing like settling down happily as soon as you’ve got
the chance. Like that picture—what is it—oh, you know! Finest picture
that ever was painted, I consider—in the Royal Academy years ago—prints
of it in every shop-window—what’s the name of the thing?”
“‘_My friend Mr. White_’?” suggested the Major.
“No, no; _what_ the dickens is it? A really beautiful thing, now, if I
could only remember——”
“‘_Hope_,’ by G. F. Watts?” put in the Governor’s mother softly.
“No!”
“‘_Harmony_’?” suggested Blanche.
“‘_Simple Aveu_’—no—‘_The Soul’s Awakening_,’ Uncle Albert?” fortissimo
from Theo.
“No—none o’ those. You all know it, though. I shall think of the name in
a minute. Anyhow, I shall give these two young people the best print to
be got of it, to hang up in their hall.”
And his prominent grey eyes seemed to be staring over my head at some
imaginary plan of this entrance!
“Only, they must hurry up, mind! No more of this nonsense about their
waiting a twelve-month and courting all the love away! Happy’s the
wooing that’s not long a-doing: isn’t that right, Major?”
“Quite, quite!” Major Montresor got his word in edge-ways at last. “To my
sorrow” (old humbug!) “be it spoken! You see, Waters, the longer you play
your fish, the more likely he—that is, _she_—is to get away! You’ve got
to put on all the strain your tackle will bear at _once_!”
“Hear that, Bill?” (The Governor was looking as if _he_ would not be able
to stand much more strain of this kind.) “Put it all on at once—excellent
advice! And where are you going to have the wedding, Mary? Here, I
daresay?”
“_I_ had hoped so,” said Mrs. Waters, with her pretty smile at me.
“Oh, yes; _here_, Uncle Albert!” cried Blanche, who, I know, would regard
this wedding as a dress-rehearsal of her own. And then she and Theo began
to enlarge, in a kind of two-part pæon, on this function that will never
be.
“A big tent on the lawn——”
“Red carpet across the gravel——”
“A _huge_ wedding-cake just in that very place”—with a bacchanalian
gesture towards the mirrored table-centre. “All the lovely presents put
out in the den——”
“Too small, Blanche! I know Uncle Albert will want to give them _all_ his
furniture.”
“In mother’s bedroom, then! We could easily get it to look like not that
at all!”
“Yes, and Billy and Nancy standing up in the drawing-room together for
all the people to look at and shake hands with, and kiss——”
(Here a sound as of the word “Pup-chick!” from the other parlourmaid, who
was disposing the finger-glasses.)
“Yes, and showers of confetti dropping out of everybody’s hat for weeks
afterwards——”
“And the band playing like anything all the time—_all_ the
wedding-marches and glides and rag time and all the waltzes that make you
feel you _must_ dance——”
“And a white satin slipper tied on to the back of the motor when they go
away——”
“Yes! One of mine, so’s you can see it! Oh, won’t it be a gorgeous day!”
trumpeted Theo, bounding up and down as if wire springs only held her
to her chair. “Oh, _why_ isn’t it going to be next week? Still, even
this evening is _almost_ as good as a sort of wedding-breakfast! Don’t
you think so, everybody? With Nancy looking so sweet in that dress, and
the way I’ve done the table, and the champagne, and everything? Only,
in one way”—crescendo—“it’s _better_! Because, if it were the _real_
wedding, the bride and bridegroom would be leaving us to-night! And as it
is, they’re staying on,” concluded Theodora, with a peal of rapturous
laughter, “and there’ll be _no_ horrid good-byes to say, and _no_ crying!”
“_Won’t_ there!” came from the straight lips of her brother, in a grimmer
and more deadly tone than even I had ever heard. “_You’ll_ be crying,
miss, before the evening’s over.”
And, to anticipate a little, she _was_.
In half an hour or so, the easily-wounded heart of thirteen was being
sobbed out on her pillow. For when, after the gratifications of a “quite
grown-up bow” from Major Montresor and a prophecy from Uncle Albert that
it wouldn’t be many years now before Theo had a wedding-breakfast-table
of her own to decorate, the child had turned a glowing face up to her
brother’s, she had received only the curtest of “good nights” dropped
over his shoulder.
* * * * *
To me the thought of that farewell glimpse of him was nothing less than a
reprieve.
“Thank goodness that, as he’s got two men-guests to attend to, it’ll be
the last of him that I shall be obliged to put up with this evening!”
thought I, as I rose to follow Mrs. Waters. “He’ll have to disappear
into the den or the billiard-room with _them_. _I_ shall have an evening
off. Yes! a regular ‘evening off,’ like the maids! Only, I suppose, a
housemaid uses those evenings to _see_ her young man. With me, it’s
just the other way round. ‘No followers allowed’ indeed! ‘Nothing BUT
following’ has been my trouble. So hurray for a nice peaceful evening in
the drawing-room with his mother and Blanche. After that _ghastly_ meal,
how I shall enjoy the rest!”
Even as I was congratulating myself upon it, my hopes were again dashed
to the ground—this time, of course, by the hand of Uncle Albert.
“No, no, Billy. The Major and I are too old not to let you have your bit
of time to yourselves now, aren’t we, Montresor?”
“_Rather!_” with hollow geniality from the Major.
Apparently it’s one thing for a man to mention his “declining years” and
add about fifteen of them to his age. It’s quite another to find himself
claimed as a contemporary by a man who’s ten years older than he is!
“We two old fogies can look after ourselves, my boy. We’re not going
to keep you in here, away from your girl. Not a word!—that’s quite all
right—quite understood! Been young ourselves once, though you may not
believe it—off with you!”
And, to my unspeakable fury, he closed the dining-room door upon what
he’s pleased to call “these young people.” The door of the drawing-room
had already been shut upon Mrs. Waters and Blanche!
Was there to be _no_ respite, then, after the awful meal I had just sat
through? A nice evening it had been—this dinner which I suppose had been
meant to be so jolly for all of us, as well as for the two guests! Well!
at the end of it all here was Major Montresor piqued; Theo in tears; the
parlour-maids glared at, and Cariad kicked! Even Uncle Albert hadn’t been
able to remember the name of the horrible picture, whatever it was, that
he meant to give “us.”
And now here was I, left stranded once more face to face with my fuming
employer; only, this time, with the memory of that child’s light-hearted
mockery of stage-management between us!